The guys from Ping.
They've kind of showed me how much the equipment matters. I just love that I can hit any shot I kind of want.
We're gonna be able to tell some fun stories about what goes on here to help golfers play better golf.
Welcome back to the Pink Proving Grounds podcast, Marty. It is one of the great parts of the year, I'd say, in both of the areas we live at in the Northeast. Just wrapping up fall golf, which has been epic obviously. Now I'm just wreaking leaves all the time. But we roll into Halloween week, you get the weather to break.
Now.
I know you're dealing with a bit of oversea right now, but golf courses are about to be epic for the next four or five months in Arizona. Is this the best time of the year, I'd say, just as a universal truth in the United States.
I Shane, I talked to my wife about that all the time. I love the fall. She loves the spring, her birthdays in the spring Easter, you know, flowers are blooming, but it's always windy in the spring. Is a golfer I love those perfectly calm no win quiet fall days. That's my favorite.
Marty.
Are you an adult dresser upper for Halloween or I know your kids are a little older than mine. I'm assuming if you did that at one point it might you might be out of it.
Yeah, we stopped that a while back. We phased out the adult dresser Reppert. It's all about the kids nowadays.
Yeah, I'm I'm the reason I have the beard, by the way, is I'm Luigi to my son's Mario this year. So this will all be shaved for the actual day and it'll just be the Luigi mustache. So I've been letting it grow a little baby, a little more than I like for this time of year. But we're gonna be the Mario Luigi family. The wife's dressing up, my mom's flying in. I did want to ask you, did you have an epic golf costume at any point in your life for Halloween?
Man?
I think one year, I like a couple of us on the golf team here in town. We dressed up like Payne Stewart, So we had the knickers and anything nice, you know, Payne Stewart cap and so that was kind of like our style. And then I think We actually wore that like on the last round of the state
championship thing. But that was my That was probably my favorite golf but non golf, my dad and I made like it was when the Ghostbusters were huge, So I had this cool like paper mache Ghostbusters thing and that was probably my favorite.
And Marty, can we just say this now, this wasn't like you went down the street and there was a Spirit Halloween store when we were growing up, Like if you wanted a sweet Ghostbusters outfit, Mom and dad and you were like getting on the ground and cutting this stuff up and building a Ghostbuster's outfit.
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, that was like a month we were working on that thing. I remember, Yeah, building the backpack and the tubes and the hoses and taping up, going buying the silver spray paint and all that stuff. One year we did a paper mache Spuds Mackenzie hat we threw on there and that that was my number two favorite. That took forever to build that thing.
Yeah, my favorite outfit I ever had as a kid.
My mom, who is extremely artistic, you know, she would like make coloring books and things like that. She I wanted to be a baseball card, so she made me a baseball card is like a sandwich board outfit. It was a Nolan Ryan baseball card and it was huge, like all the way down to the ground, and the back was like the stats you'd have on the back of a baseball card and his career stats and all the things you need to know about Nolan Ryan. And that was easily my favorite as a kid Halloween outfit.
I had, I think, as parents do. I think it still might be hanging in my closet. By the way, I don't think she's never thrown around. It's whatever, thirty years old. We are doing a Halloween episode for one specific reason. I know you guys would love to hear us talk about our favorite costumes over the years.
But I wanted to dive into the scariest.
Golf shots for players, because golf, for whatever reason, we voluntarily play golf, Marty, you know we do it. People out there that are listening do it. Millions of people around the country play golf voluntarily.
Yet every round.
Of golf, maybe every hole of golf, there are shots that scare the heck out of us. So I wanted to dive into maybe five scare golf shots and I wanted you to kind of debunk how they aren't actually scary. And I thought maybe an easy one to start with, maybe a softball one. Shout out to our friends at the fried.
Egg, Andy and the crew.
I wanted to start with the fried egg because what happens is you see pro golfers and tour players have a fried egg lie and they pop it out to eight feet and make par.
And when average player amateur players show up and they see a fright egg, it's like, I might as well move out of the next hole.
The fried egg is one for me, Shane. I don't know about you, but it gives me zero anxiety.
Is a great player.
There's a technique to it, and then there's a speed component, and so I think those are the two big things. I think your everyday golfer, you get the fried egg. Number one, you got to go in there with a massive amount of speed because so much of the energy of that swing is gonna get eaten up by all that sand that you got to go through. So the advantage that the better player has is number one. You know, just way more club ed speed shows you the value
of speed. And then number two is the technique so you know, I think the main way that myself and the better players hit the fried egg shot is you're gonna that you're gonna kind of stick the club into the sand, right. And I was even taught a technique. I think you saw Sevy do this, you saw Norman do it back in the day when they have this Friday egg where you recoil. You're gonna go in there and swing as hard as you can, uh go into
the sand, and then you recoil it back, right. So you want all that sand to be building up and putting pressure on the ball from below the ball, and that's what's kind of popping it up. So and then a lot of the Frida egg shot depends on how much green you have to work with and whether you kind of need to get it to pop up soft.
I think one of the advantages of the Frida egg is normally you get it when you're on the up on the face of a riker, right, so you're already kind of kind of got that, you know, helping you get it out. That's usually when you get the fried egg. But there's a technique where you actually if it's super fried, like really deep, you'll actually close the face and hit it with the super closed face. Again, the loft that you have on the club isn't really what's doing the
work per se when there's that much sand. So a lot of it is how do you get the sand to kind of build up and and and get it out. So, yeah, the Frida Egg for the better player, Shane is definitely one of those where we go in there, we don't have that anxiety your everyday golfers like, oh no, I want to take an unplayable right right.
Down seven exactly. It's interesting, Marty.
I was taught initially as a kid to do the what you were talking about on the back part of that where you'd close the face. Yea, you'd almost hit it like I always kind of equated it to a shovel, like you're basically shoveling the ball out, Like that's the idea you said it.
The sand in theory is pushing.
The ball up and creating you know, height and arc and getting even a little softness out of that shot. But I think something you said is interesting about bunker shots in general, because I think bunker shots in general are scary golf shots or high handicapped players.
And one of the issues is speed. One of the issues for.
Every day golfers.
Point they're hitting those shots decelerated or they're not going at it fully. And what I'll tell my friends that struggle out of the bunkers. Hit a bunker shot as hard as you possibly can first, and let's see where the ball ends up.
Yes, so you want to I that's my de facto advice for the high handicapper. Swing as hard as possible out of the bunker, and if it goes too far, open the face and then to change how much you open the face. But that scares people. That's a scary thing for a lot of golfers because they're they're used to, Hey, I'm around the green. If I open the face, I'm gonna scull this thing. So that's scary. So I think
you gotta get over that. A swing as hard as you can for that for if you're a high handicapped player, and then keep and then open the face to hit it shorter and hit it higher.
All right.
So a cousin of the fried egg Marty, and I would say, this is a shot that does give me anxiety, and I would like your advice on it. The thirty to forty yard bunker shot because you have a cross bunker, you have a bunker short of a green. I mean, these designers are smart. They know where they're placing these bunkers to create a bit of havoc, at least.
In the brain of a layup on a par five.
Where am I hitting this golf shot?
You get a little too cute, or maybe you don't quite catch that three wood the way you want it, and all of a sudden you're in this disaster big X on the yardage book for a lot of tour players. Do not hit it here. Tour players struggle with this shot as well. What's the advice you have to golfers about that scary thirty to forty yard bunker shot where they can get it up around the green and maybe say par and a par five or avoid the double bogie.
Yeah, no, it is a scary one. Yeah, and even you, Shane, you said it better. Players get anxiety about this shot. I actually have some really cool stats on this and well, we'll put a little overlay of this in the YouTube version for those of you that are listening on the
audio version. We'll put this chart up there. But we ran some numbers from shot Link Shane that showed tour players when they get in the bunker, they actually have a lower probability to hit the green in regulation from like sixty yards than they do from one hundred and twenty yards. Your odds of hitting the green are lower out of a bunker from sixty yards than from one to twenty.
What, Marty, why is that?
Like?
Why do you feel like that's the case?
I think it's twofold. One, the SHOT's really hard. We'll talk about maybe a technique to be able to handle that. And then two, I think when you get in those bunkers they're super penalizing there. They're the cross bunkers that you got to carry to get to maybe chase it up to the green on the part five or a driveable part four. I remember I played that PGA Championship
Harding Park. There's a drivable part four on the back nine there that if you didn't get it up by the green, you have that forty to sixty yard kind of awkward shot, and a lot of times those bunkers have big lips on them. So I think it's kind of twofold, but there's definitely data to back that up that this shot is really hard. So from a technique standpoint, Shane, I learned a technique from a coach that's kind of like I think it's for me. It's like cheating. I
should film a little video on this thing. You get in there and we'll talk to Derek Dominski, a golf better Tucson about this shot too, because he's amazing at it as well. But you get in there from say fifty to sixty seventy yards and I will literally use a six, seven or eight iron wow from those from those spots, grip down to the handle, open the face a ton, and literally use my same exact technique that I'm gonna I'm gonna hit a bunker shot that I
gotta hit like ten yards with a lob wedge. But the thing that you're gonna do is you're gonna cut it a lot, so you're gonna put a lot of side spin on it. So most of the time, if you're in that scenario, your goal so that the tour player has a less than fifty percent chance from that yard or to hit the green in regulation sixty yard
bunker shot, sixty yard bunker shot. So my goal, anyone's goal is trying to get that ball on the green or get up near the green right, and so you don't need to try to go for the pin or do anything like that. Like anytime you're in that scenario, I'm trying to hit the green, but Shane, I have no anxiety. I will pop into a bunker from fifty sixty, seventy,
even eighty yards. There's this transition point where you try to hit a splash shot with you know, six seven, eight iron, nine iron, or do you transition to try to pick it clean with your lobwage or sandwich. For me, that's probably like eighty yards is where I transition to try to pick it clean. Otherwise I'm hitting a very low lofted club that's gonna give it the energy that
needs to get to the hole. Set up with the hands low, face way open, it's gonna have cut spin and then then you don't need to try to hit it clean. I think the advantage of a bunker shots the only shot in golf besides if you hit one out of the water where you don't need to hit the ball. Okay, so you want to give yourself a little window there, you know, behind the ball and that splash shot with a low lofted club gives you that capability, Marty.
When you're hitting these types of shots, even around the green out of a bunker, are you looking at a spot when you're hitting these shots? Are you looking at the ball? Like, where is impact in your mind being made?
I mean, are you?
Because I mean, I know it's different for what's the shot being asked. You have to hit it high and have it spin quickly, or you're trying to kind of hit the chunk and run. But how are you deciding in theory where to hit the sand behind the ball?
Yeah? How far behind? If it's a totally let's call it stock shot. I still love that idea. I don't know if I saw it in a golf magazine or whatever back in the day, where you put the ball on the middle of a dollar bill, yep, and you're trying to enter on the front side and exit on the other side the same thing, Marty. It's so funny you say that. I just did that with my kids. I'm like, Okay, here we go, and you'll put that
little line there now. Granted if you need it, If I need to spin it more in the sand, is firmer The firmer the sand, you got to have more risk and hit closer to the ball right and get a little more V shape on the swing. So I have a little more V shape, steeper in, steeper out, the fluffier the sand, you can you kind of have a little more margin for it's gonna come out maybe with a little bit less spin. And I try to have a little bit more U shape kind of to
my swing in the bunker. So very bunker shot dependent. But if the stock one dollar bill approach can't beat.
It, Marty, I was playing golf yesterday on seventeen at my home club. I hit it in the left ferry bunker. I had about one hundred and five yards or something. Yeah, and they just added sand, you know, I mean it's new sand.
Yeah.
And I was looking at the shot and I was, you know, how you go through your whole routine of like a right, am I gonna maybe I hit fifty degree here and just kind of like use more hands, just try to kind of clip it and take a little off, or do I go hard at a sand wedge out of this which might be my one hundred and twenty yard shot, But obviously, you know, it doesn't go as far normally out of a fairway bunker shot,
and there was so much sand in there. All I could think in my head was, I don't think either of these are gonna work.
Like whatever.
The line wasn't great, but I was like, whatever the decision I make here, it's likely gonna end up being chunked, you know, because it was just.
So much thick sand.
Then it was it was it was pretty tightly packed, but it was thick, and it was just like the disaster scary scenario for that type of shot, and it's not gonna shock you.
I hit it a little chunk and it came up short.
But I will say to Marty, I was I guess smart enough to aim right of the flag, knowing if I pull the shot off, it'll be on the green. But if I don't pull the shot off, my angle with my third shot is more beneficial for me getting the wall up and down.
Yeah, Shane, that's tour level thinking. I mean, we saw it at the Ryder cup Man. The caddy comes in there and take the unplayable.
You know what I mean? I mean not how good was that?
That was unbelievable And the fact that you gave him credit for it was sweet too, you know, but it's just I think that's the thing. When you get in these scary scenarios you get you gotta have a plan B. And I guarantee you the tour players are thinking that they are them and their caddies they're thinking it. So smart move right there, Shane.
Marty, I've got a list of scary shots on our Halloween episode. Is there any that you want to pull out of kind of the list that we put together that you think would be beneficial to the listener?
Yeah, I think, well, I'll kind of talk about maybe one that wasn't on there, but that I find scary is is an elevated tee if you're kind of scared of heights and you're hitting driver.
Okay, okay, okay.
So the one that comes to mind for me, like Castle Pines in Colorado, very elevated tea. You're not quite on the cliff, but there's a few other courses up there in Colorado where you're hitting driver and you're going at it hard and you're on a super elevated tea. For those people that are scared of heights. Maybe I'm like a little scared. I'm gonna, like, you know, go a little crazy after this t shot. Jordan's at Pebble Beach, right, Oh, exactly,
you have the Jordan speed at Pebble exactly. But I think the mudball one could be an interesting one, Shaine.
I mean again, I again, what I find fascinated about mudball and the forty to sixty yard bunker shot is these aren't just scary shots for average players. This is a scary shot across the I mean tour players, as you mentioned, struggle with that bunker shot and we see it happen all the time. I mean, the Bubble Watson mudball clip has gone viral one hundred times over because it's brought up every time we see a player struggle with a mudball.
Yeah, and I think, quite frankly, anytime you know, any of us good players hit a bad shot, you just kind of say mudball, and you just blame it on that.
It all right, So breakdown maybe the mystery of the mudball. We've all heard if the MUD's on the left or the buds on the ball, and the MUD's on the right, it's gonna go left. Do you have data that can actually explain what happens with certain mudballs.
Oh do we have a Shane. So this all started back when I went to second stage of Q school about ten years ago. I got exempt in the second stage and I played at Bear Creek and Myriada, California, and it was wet. It was in November. It was wet. I went there and it was a Nicholas course with all these creeks that ran in front and I, me and everyone else, like, we just had a lot of mudballs, and it was very challenging to figure out what the strategy is. Of course, you know things are going to
be more uncertain, that's number one. Like your ball could go way right or it could go straight ish, so you have to plan for way bigger dispersion and more factor of safety. But I came back from that event going, man, we need to have some rules or some science around this thing. So we actually did a ping man test, okay, and we have a really cool article shame. We'll link
to it. That's on our Proving Grounds blog on our website where you can go see all the data, and we even have some really cool high speed video we'll show here with this as well. But we actually went on the ping man and we purposely like caked on mud to the right side of the ball, And we
did that with a bunch of balls. We put on the left side of the bawl, we put on the top, the bottom, we caked the whole thing, and we ran all kinds of testing and so we do have some great rules on that, like if you're hitting a four iron. We did a lot of this with like a four iron, so can kind of transfer to the mid iron long iron type of thing. But that what everyone's heard is correct. If there's a lot, a lot of mud on the right, the ball is gonna have a bias to the left.
A lot of mud on the left, ball is gonna have a bias to the right. Now, what I think a lot of people don't know this has helped me a lot, is that when you have mud on the ball, it's gonna fly shorter. Okay, Right, that's the really big thing that I think. Oh, you think.
Most of the reasoning for that, Marty, Well.
It's a couple things. One and when we look at this high speed video, the mud lot most of the mud comes off right at impact, but there's energy loss. Right, there's mud on the ball. You got extra mass on the ball a lot of extra mass or a little bitound how much, and so there's more mass on the ball, and then there's energy loss through that mud coming off of the golf ball. So it's kind of slowing down the initial ball speed. That's number one and number two.
Any mud that stays on there is changing some of the aerodynamic properties. Right, So that airflow stand attached is gonna it's gonna change that a little bit. It's gonna make it act a little bit like a ball with no dimples. Right, We've all heard a ball dimples kind of falls out there seeing some cool testing there. It's kind of from that aerodynamic effect. That's the other reason that's compounding that the ball is gonna go shorter or
then the ball that went the shortest. I think it's kind of obvious had mud on the back of the ball. So if you have any mud between where your club head is gonna hit the ball, between the ball and the face, you're gonna lose a lot of energy. Right, So I think one thing fun about the mudball, it's something you can test. You can go to the range, make a little do a little experiment yourself and see
what happens. But That's the big thing is that the mud on the left and right, they're gonna impact from the opposite direction of how that ball is gonna fly left and right. But regardless of where that mud was, you need a plan for that golf ball flying shorter. So in this four iron test we did, I mean, the balls with mud on them went. If they had a little bit of mud left and right, they'd go
like twenty yards shorter, so ten percent right. So if you're two twenty, you're like, oh, it was good, foreign got some mud on it. I just need to change the aim. No, it's gonna go like twenty yard shorter if you got mud on the back or the front or the top, it's gonna go like forty yard shorter, right if you have a lot of mud on there. So that's the big one. And then and then there's just gonna be more variation, right, And I think that's
kind of obvious. You got a plan for way more safety in your aim.
I feel like the mudball, at least for me personally, when I've been playing, you know something that matters. So I'm playing a money game with my buddies, or I'm playing a tournament, what I've learned. And I remember Max Homa told a great story on my Get a Grip podcast when we were doing it together about playing with fred Couples at the Masters and Freddy laid up. If you remember, this was the November Masters in twenty twenty and it was saturated and they split teed that Masters,
if you remember, on Thursday Friday. So they started on ten and they got to thirteen. Couples was laying up on thirteen and Max said he hit it about two feet off the ground.
Yea.
And he said they walked up and he said he asked him, like, what were you doing? And he goes, A, I was avoiding a mudball, and b I knew if there was mud on the ball, it would take it off by basically hitting a knockdown layup down the fairway. And I mean, that's obviously advanced thinking, and that's a veteran knowing how to play certain golf shots. But one thing I've told people about mudballs is try not to
get too aggressive. You know you have mud on the ball if it's between shots, lay up, or also if there's a lot of trouble around the green, even if it's a par four, maybe consider hitting a punch nine iron or a iron down the fairway and then hit the wedge on the green and try to make par that way. Because there's so much deviation with the ball. You can even hit a good golf You can make a good swing, hit a good shot, and it could
find itself in the pitdal of the area. So maybe take the foot off the pedal a bit.
When there's a mudball makes sense.
Yeah, you gotta take your medicine. You know, you gotta take your medicine. And I think what Freddy did is really good advice. He did it to the nth degree there. But try to flight that ball down because you can minimize the amount of time that ball is in the air, and if it starts to go sideways, it's gonna be in It's just gonna be in the air not as long, right, So kind of keep that ball down. As another great piece of advice there. My ball can be scary, man,
especially as a tournament golfer. Who you got that mud on the left and you got water on the right and the wind blowing and a mid iron. That's a scary shot. Chain' not gonna lie, Marty.
I have a scary shot. At least for me that I went insight from you on in terms of execution. So this maybe is less technology base and a little bit more execution base. And I was doing the corn Ferry Tour Championship at the start of the month and the eighteenth hole at Victoria National is a dog leg right with water on the right. Now, I'm a lefty that cuts the ball, That's not a real scary tea shot for me. But if it went the other way,
now you're talking about a scary shot. So what I wrote down was a t shot with trouble in your shot shape landing zone. So for me, a lefty that cuts the ball, that would be water or out of bounds left, how do you eliminate the either the shot going that way towards the trouble or at least maybe the mindset of that being a scary golf shot with trouble, maybe in the direction of the path your golf ball typically goes.
I've struggled, like a lot of golfers, Shane, with the wind, the wind off your back and trouble to the right, it's okay, and that ball could begin pealing. It's just that, yes, Snario right and I've tried to think about this, like why is that? And and as i've done more force plate stuff and things of that nature. I think one thing that's happened that's that's helped me personally is if the wind's blowing off your back. We actually do this at the range because in the summer we have those
big big fans and air conditioners. Yeah, you see on the side of the NFL sideline. I'll actually set up and put those right behind me. There'll be no wind down range. It just feels it's like it's blowing at your back, right. And one thing I think that happens is if the wind's blowing at your back, let's say twenty miles an hour, that's pretty significant. Fifteen miles an hour, it's going to force you to kind of want to
get your pressure or your weight towards your toes. So I think what a lot of golfers do is they'll kind of quote unquote early extend. They'll come out of
their posture, so to speak. Okay, So one thing that's helped me, because that's a counterbalancing move, right, is to kind of get your weight further back on your heels, and maybe you do that because your hips go forward and your chest comes up and that tips the shaft and you get your swing direction more left and you hit a you know, a shot that gets you into real trouble. So one thing that's helped me is to really try to stay in my posture or flextion with
my upper body. That's number one. Number two could be changing like we talked about, we recently had a conversation with Kent notes about driver versus three with three wood might be easier to draw. So I think maybe considering going to a three wood in that scenario could be super helpful where you have a little bit more spin, maybe easier to draw. If you have the skill and capability, it might not be a bad idea to try to
bias your impact location slightly to the toe. Certainly that's a little bit more advanced technique for maybe a player that they could do that, and then changing your tea height. I think teeing it low with your driver will generally impart more slice spin. Okay, so if you're comfortable with that, trying to bias your impact location slightly high and slightly toe side can kind of hedge that. So I've tried to implement, you know, the combination of all those three things.
At the end of the day, shanees these scary shots, the most important thing is to commit. You gotta commit. Even if you happen to get it in there and get it into trouble, you want to be happy with your commitment to that shot.
So we've brought up i'd say shots that you might face once around or maybe once a month, right, a mudball, a forty fifty yard bunker shot like these don't happen every round. This happens multiple times around. And it's as much as you guys have done in terms of trying to simplify gapping for players. There's we don't have thirty clubs in the back, right, We've got fourteen clubs in the back, and that is it. What about awkward yardage
or in between club golf shots with an iron? What do you tell people when their seven iron goes one forty they're six iron goes one fifty five, and they're at one forty five and they're going, do I try to step on the seven iron? Do I try to hit an easy six?
Like? What do you feel like is the best case scenario or the best practice for the player that deals with the in between shot that they have three, four, five times.
Around, Shane.
I think it's highly dependent on the skill of the golfer, right, and so if it's let's say mid to high handicap player, they're probably not skilled enough to kind of maybe be practicing some tweeener techniques. I would say at that point, it's all about strategy, like is it better to be long of the pin? Is it better to be short? One thing we've seen glaring with our RCOs data mining is that mid to high handicap golfers come up short at a ratio of like five or ten to one,
then they go long. So give yourself permission, folks, to look at what happens here if I hit this thing past the hole. Okay, the better player is always looking at that they got that front pin, they're looking at the back, you know, they're looking at the yardage to hit it to the back of the green. That has been super helpful, Shane. So for me, let's say I get there, it's one sixty five water short triple bogue. If you come up short, give me the number to
the back of the green. If it's one eighty five and I know if I rip a seven iron, it's never going past one eighty five. I'm hitting that seven iron back there to one seventy eight all day long. Feet yep, get your two putt and get out of there. So strategy is number one. And then if you do that at you know, take that number to the pin out of your brain, give yourself another number that's ten yards past the pin and commit. That would be a choice number one if you do want to work on
kind of dialing it in. Uh. I think it's an experimentation between gripping down, see what that does for you. That doesn't work for everybody because a lot of people say, oh I grip down and actually hit the same distance just lower. So that's kind of something that happens for a lot of people. So gripping down, changing your tempo, swinging a little bit slower Shane Wan technique I've kind of used. I've talked about that's kind of a seeker.
One is changing golf ball that goes a little bit shorter. That's that's a little fun one to throw in the mix too, Marty.
Something that I have seen with my buddies about golf. In terms of this discussion, about you know you don't have a perfect number, right, because rarely do you have the perfect number. It doesn't happen a lot. Is we all have rangefinders now and we all shoot the flag, and I feel like in our brains what has happened is we've become obset with the number that is on the screen. Right I shoot the flag, it says one
forty three. And what you said earlier is exactly what I tell my buddies is, don't fall in love with just the pin number, because the greens are big. Greens are big, and you might have ten yards short and you might have fifteen yards long. And yeah, you don't get a pin sheet at most casual round golf courses you play, but you're smart enough as a golfer to look at where the pin is. Maybe they're colored flags. Maybe red is front and you've got a red flag,
blues back, whatever. Or you know your golf course because you play it often and you know where the flag is. Just at least if nothing else, I write it down. I'll write it down on a pin sheet. When I'm playing in tournament golf, I'll write the number down and then I'll do the math and figure out what front and back is what it has done for me, Marty,
is it frees the shot up. It makes the shot way less stressful because all of a sudden, I'm in an uncomfortable number and I know I don't necessarily have a stock shot to hit there. But I've now got twenty yards like you said, I've got twenty yards long. Oh yeah, well, I mean I can hit the longer club because even if I mash it to your point about the seven hour and on eighty five, even if I absolutely hit it in the screws, I know that
ball's not going to go over the green. And if you're on the green and you have thirty feet for birdie, make your par and move on to when you get a more comfortable number.
Yeah, Shane, that's great advice. And one of my friends who caddies on the PGA Tours caddy for me in a bunch of events. He said, Hey, you need a kind of caddy for yourself in these tournaments when I'm out there playing by myself. I've actually literally tried to do that like first person, third person, like oh, one eighty five, you're never going over with that. You can rip that all day long. And you will never go over.
So that's such important advice, and it has that compounding effects Chaine that it frees you up.
Now.
I think one interesting thing I was so curious about when we talked to Victor Hoblin about his winning the playoff event and in Chicago was when he shot twenty eight on the back nine. I think he actually did have the perfect number on a lot of those shots. Totally agree, And that's how that was. Part of how that happened is like, okay, he could he could literally go at every flag because he had the perfect number. Yeah, he took a little bit off here, look a little
bit off there. That's when the magic happens. But that is a rare thing to have that perfect number on a lot of shots.
Yeah.
I mean, we're talking a bit about scary shots, but we're also talking a bit about misconceptions in and around golf, shots and golf, and James Knitties has brought this up to me multiple times. I do a lot of the corn Ferry Tour covered with James. He's become a good buddy of mine, and he says that you hear so many people say it's tough to back up a really
low round with another great round. And one of his points about that is most really low rounds from pro golfers happen when you do have those great numbers.
So you have a round.
Where three of the part three's are your stock clubs. Yeah, and then you've hit six or sevent t shots to stock numbers. And when you're really grooving and you're feeling good with the golf, swinging with your golf game, that's gonna be inside of an eight foot circle. You're gonna have a lot of birdie putts there. And then the next day, all of a sudden, the part threes aren't your stock numbers, and you aren't hit those shots with the stock numbers, and it's not as easy to hit
the ball to eight feet. So I find that really fascinating. Another scary shot before we get to one more, I did want to ask you. You're a great player, You've played in major championships. We know about your golf pedigree. What is your scary shot? What's the shot that scares Marty the most when you're playing competitive golf.
Shane, in those big events, It's the scariest thing for me is the first t shot. I gotta be honest, I am so nervous man that first major I played in at Atlanta Athletic Club, I just was so nervous and I had a lot of anxiety about getting off the first tee. It doesn't matter if it's like the easiest hole. Even when I played the Phoenix Open here and the first hole is like a nothing burger, Like.
You're probably not a hitting driver, right, yeah, you don't even hit driver.
I was so nervous. I like T driver super low and I chipped it down there. So that is that scares me more than it, you know whatever. I could be on the second green having to hit a flop shot into the grain over bunker and that will that is nothing compared to getting off that first tea. And I think that's for me because I only playing those event.
I'm not playing those events like all the time, right, But it's so strange after I hit that first t shot, walking down the tour walk with my caddy, Everything's like back to normal and I'm pumped, excited and feeling good.
Marty.
It's funny with with kind of some changes in technology. It to me, and I'm sure you feel the same way with the G four to thirty driver. I'm so in love with this driver that when I'm nervous, I want to hit the driver over every other club in my bag. I think if you go back twenty years, that would not have been the case for most golfers. They're gonna hit a long iron, They're gonna try to
get something in the fairway. I'm with you, I'd say, if you ask me the same question, always the first tea, I'll be thinking about it a day in advance, like, oh my goodness, this first hole and at the ameter, you know, I started at Colorado. The first hole is a par five and you have to bash driver, and you have to be a good driver. And it was actually nice for me because I remember I was so nervous about the tea shot trouble on both sides. If
you missed the fairway, you're basically gonna be retine. And I got on the tee and I said, aim right, and just try to hit it as hard as you can, because what that does is it kind of freese a bit of the nerves up, allowing you to swing driver. And like you said, in a nervy moment of yours, playing your first phoenix open the last thing you want to do is try to kind of crunch squeeze a hybrid.
You're like, man, I'll sit the driver again.
I need that big head. Yeah. So that's scary for me personally, like that first tea shot. But you know that's different for everybody, you know. But that's uh, that's given me some anxiety, and I've tried to be very aware of it, like, hey, this is gonna happen.
You are gonna be there.
Embrace your nerves, Embrace it. You know it's gonna be a part of.
It, all right.
Last one for you, left to right putts for righty, what do you do to avoid the scariness of having that slider that moves away from you? You know, I always go back to Torrey Pines and John Rahm and his ability to make those putts on the last two holes that were all sliding away from him. Those are scary puts for right handers. For me, obviously, it's moving the other way. But how do you commit to the putts that move away from a golfer that feel like they're hard to get online?
Yeah, I think the sensation that at least I've had Shane personally is it's almost like right when the ball is still on the face, it's starting to slide already, I agree with you. So that's pretty interesting. I think one thing that I've done is, you know, stand a little, you know, change how far you're standing from the ball, so I will actually scoot a little bit closer to
the to the ones. Okay, So I think that kind of hedges the face a little bit more closed, and it keeps my pressure and my weight more in my toes. Right again, kind of, I think that when the ball above and below your feet, there's a lot going on there because you're not used to practicing those things. And then I think the big thing this this might be sound like very simple advice, is try to turn that thing into a straight putt, so you know, work on
your green reading. Pick a really good target, pick a really good spot. That's that's helped me is try to
try to improve my green reading. And even if this putt, I mean those puts John Rommaine were breaking like twelve feet or fifteen feet or whatever, but try to almost visualize your You're you're watching TV with the with the putt viewed trace and the putt trace and saying, okay, this is where I need to start this thing right and be really committed to that and try to think about it like a visualize it like a straight putt, and just let it go. Don't worry about making it. Just commit to it.
Marty.
I'm not a I'm not a draw line on the golf ball guy.
I don't do that.
I did it for a while, and what I learned about myself was I'm more of a feel putter. And what happened was I became I'm obsessed with the line. I gotta start it on the line here, So it's never worked great for me. What I have learned is I will line up those putts so again, I'm a left handed golfer, so minor moving the other way from you, minor moving right to left, I'll line up like the prov one X line with the with the arrows on it. I don't have the I don't draw it on there
with the sharpie. But when I have this scary six footers that are moving that way that you need to make for par I'll actually line it up because to me, Marty, it does what you said. It makes it a straight putt right all of a sudden. As long as I can start it on that line, I know that it has a good chance of going in and it saves me that face push that's so easy to do.
Yeah, And I think you see the tour players like this kind of gets into that concept of block practice versus random. But I think you've seen some tour players talk about they have a big putt under pressure and they just put themselves in the scenario of their block practice, like, oh, I'm just gonna treat this one like I just I just hit a bunch of these twelve footers with my or eight, with my mirrors and my alignments and all that stuff, and they just put themselves into that zone,
you know. I think it was Justin Rose talked about that at the Ryder Cup, right like, I'm just gonna hit this like I like, I like I do my block practice, and if you put that line on there or turn it into a straight putt, I think that is a way to kind of get out of this pressure scary moment and put yourself into Okay, I'm gonna I've hit them. I've just hit a million of these, uh you know, uh in practice.
Yeah, Marty, It's funny.
I one of the things that flipped for me in terms of putting in that five eight foot circle that obviously is kind of that scoring area is I would I would go through a lot of what ifs in my brain as I was either looking at a pot or reading a putt, or it's gonna break more than it is or whatever. And something that's helped me over the last couple of years is I've simplified it down to this. If it's a really nervy putt, I tell myself there are two scenarios. You can miss it or
you can make it, and that is it. And it doesn't matter if you've read it perfectly or if you hit the perfect putt. There's there's two outcomes and all you can do, and you said this earlier, all you can do is commit to what you think the putt does. And if you've committed to it, when it doesn't go in, then you read it wrong, or that it didn't roll perfect, it hits something, whatever.
The case may be.
But if you have committed to what you saw the putt do, that's all you can do. That's the only thing you can kind of control.
Yeah, I agree.
I mean what I do on my putting, Shane, is I do it based on my breath work, right, So I do these kind of a breathing technique that is intended to calm your nervous system. And when in my routine, I do four breaths and I released, I roll the putt after my last exhale in that fourth breath. But one thing I always think about, Shane, is that is Tiger making that putt. We've all seen the worm cam at Tory Pine. Yeah, we all to get in the playoff. Man, oh man, that ball is like I mean, it's it's
like plink O going down there. I mean how I mean, think about what was He couldn't force that thing in. He just could let it go. It's gonna hit all its little humps and bumps and then boom drop in there. I mean, I mean, look at how much that changed history. You can only control getting that ball started, you know, the rest of it is out of your control.
Yeah, I mean, it's it's you know, some guys complete the pass on fourth and six and some guys don't. And Tiger was obvious the guy that would always complete the path on fourth pass on fourth and six. Do you have any more scary golf shots you want to hit? On before we go, because I know like there's plenty. I mean there's a million out there. I mean off
a car path, out of a divot. Anything that you've kind of feel like you've perfected in terms of the scary Halloween shot that that you've got advice on.
I think the uh Man in the the other scary one for me, Shane is into the grain, super grainy Bermuda, Texas Florida grain.
Whatever. What you gotta getting nervous with you talking about it?
Mark, you got a bunker there that's soft and sandy, and you're gonna plug it. You gotta hit it high, the pins tucked your short side. Man, you have to commit. You gotta commit. I think the big thing on scary shots for everybody's take your medicine, Like, don't be afraid even if you're around the green or in a bunker forty fifty yards out, get the ball on the green, eliminate the double bogie.
Yeah.
It's so funny that I feel like most golfers you play with, you know somebody that's in that let's call it eight to fifteen handicap range. They've been struggling off to tea most of the day. They pipe a drive on a par five, they're kind of at their max carry or capacity with the three wood, and there's trouble around the green and they're trying to hit threewood on the green right, and you're sitting there going you did the hard part, you hit the drive, you pulled it off. Yeah,
make this easy on yourself. Hit a six iron down the fairway, give yourself one hundred yards, and even as a fifteen handicap from one hundred yards, you're likely gonna hit it in and around the green and give yourself that chance at part. And maybe you hit a great wedge and you make the birdie. But what's the likelihood that after the great t shot, when the swing hasn't been there all day, you're gonna produce that three wood that goes your best distance possible to get on the green.
You know, water short, water left.
It's just try it, like you said, try to take the scary out of it by giving yourself a little leeway. Exactly exactly, Shane Golfers. There are scary shots every time you tee it up. That's everything. That's the beauty and the pain of this game. I think I still think about golf shots that I've hit over the years that frightened me to the core and I wish I could have back, but we.
All have them for everybody. Have a happy, have a safe, have a great Halloween. Take some of the candy from the kids, keep it on the side, put it in.
Your golf bag.
That's for you, that's for all the walk and you're gonna be doing tonight, and we'll check back with you guys next week.
This is the Paining Proven Grounds podcast.