Jamie McConnell

in Dubai. Was paying him a visit last week, as I do every year, and this guy is easily one of the smartest people that I know in golf instruction, and it was really really good to get an opportunity to UM sit down and talk to him and kind of get his views on on how he got into instruction, how he works and the stuff that he's doing, because as I say in the podcast, UM, he's a huge,

huge part of of I team. But he's also been a huge mentor for me UM because I learned so much from other instructors and and that's the cool thing I think about UM. What I get to do is UM, I get to spend time with so many great people that are giving lessons around the world. UM, and get their ideas and get their views, and UM a lot of those ideas UM I take and and and using my own teaching. And and Jamie is somebody that UM he's a friend, he's a confidante, but he's also someone

that I bounce ideas off of. UM a couple of times, you know, to three times a year, I'll be working with a player. UM. I've done this before with him, with with DJ, I've done this before with Brooks, with Pat Perez, with all the players see who Kim that I've worked with in the past. And sometimes I'll just send Jamie video and say, listen, UM, give me a fresh set of eyes on this. UM, we're trying to

get this player to do X. And UM. You know, when you are working and engulfing as a as a player, when you're working with a player and you're a coach, sometimes you can't see the forest for the trees because you're so involved in it. And and Jamie is somebody that I will send video too of a player and say, listen, give me your two cents on this, UM, tell me

what you think about this. And he always has kind of a different approach and and a lot of times it'll it'll send me down a path that I didn't really even think that I was going to go down and hadn't even thought of. So I'm really excited. Um, if you don't know, a lot of people don't know who Jamie is. I'm really excited for everybody to get to know his story and listen to him talk. So let's get straight to the interview. Jamie. How long I can't even think of how long you've been here in

Dubai that the academy would have been. It's going into my tenth year at Schmidt or you knew my visa for the fourth time here, so almost a decade. It's amazing, Um, your journey to golf instruction. I mean, obviously for everyone listening to the podcast, I mean everybody knows, you know, who people like my dad are and and people who you know, David led Better, Sean Foley. But I always you know, they do these instructor lists every year in America.

Top Golf Digest does Top fifty, Golf Magazine does the Top hundred and stuff. And you know, those of us that have been lucky enough I've been lucky enough to be on those lists. UM. Largely, I think a lot of that's popularity contest, UM largely. I think a lot of that sometimes is is people's work with tour players. UM. There are so many great instructors around the world. I'm biased, obviously because you run our academy here in Dubai, But UM, I think you're one of the best golf instructors in

the world. I mean I learned is much from you, UM, and have learned as much from you in the last say ten years as as I've learned from anybody, but your your journey to golf instruction, UM. I always think it's interesting to find out why and how people become and choose instruction as their profession as their career. You played, you tried to play. I did a very bad job of plan. I did attempt to play for three years. I turned pro on my eighteenth birthday. Up to that point,

I had a fairly average amateur career. Would say, I think I very much underestimated how many good players was out there, probably because of exposure. I hadn't really played the level that really a Rory McIlroy or somebody would have as an amateur. So I didn't because the difference in the US versus you know, a country like you grew up in in Ireland is in the US, if you're if you're playing, you're gonna play junior golf. Then

you're going to play high school golf. If you want to keep going there, then you're going to try and play some level of of college golf, whether it's a D one, D two, whatever level junior college and then um, you try and then play Um. I don't think a lot of people in the US will realize that the avenue if you want to try and do that. In the in the UK and Ireland and Scotland, places like that,

there was no high school golf for you. You're either in a county team then hopefully one day you get into the national team, but there's no real kind of organized team way to do it as as we see in the US. Right, So you just basically is an eighteen year old, you're playing a bunch of golf and you say, all right, I'm gonna turn pro. So you turn pro to eight team? Was that me? Yeah? Well that you know, up to that point, I suppose that the biggest thing I had won was actually your dad's tournament,

the Red Bull Master Class. I had coaching off him and your three uncles at that point. Um Um was that Druid's heat drus he was rud he did. I think Marnock was the first year and then ruth Heath was the second, and then one year I was living in Scotland and we went down to um He and he and the brothers did one in um a Celtic man, yeah, and they went down and did that one. Yeah. But

it was funny. My my dad, my dad and his brothers used to go over and do those um classes to where they would get a bunch of kids like yourself. And you know, obviously if you're going to places in Wales, if you're going to places in Scotland, if you're going anywhere in the UK. You know, my uncle Billy, my dad's youngest brother, who we've I've had on the podcast before, he loved it because he said, listen, it's ray inside ways. But the kids they don't know any different. They've got

to hit golf balls. We didn't have any inside stuff, so they're hitting balls in the rain, they're hitting balls where it's raining sideways, there's no song and stuff. So you go to the Red Bull, you go to a red bulls it red Bull red Bull master Class. What's called. Yeah, So we had a couple of days of instruction and then a tournament and like from winning that, I thought, however, I was probably sixties and it was a strong feel

like there's some really good players. There was a couple of guys who played Walker Cup and I was like, I was over the moon. And I remember they always picked one person from the guys and the girls at the end, and I had won the tournament and I was like, great, I'm gonna get picked, going to go to Vegas, going to get the working budget, like all happy, and did it picked me? And I could never understand. I had such a grudge for so long until I

started working here. And then I remember they picked Craig Drew and Craig bombed around this golf course. He had it all over the place, bombed around the course. But I like one ironed my way to win. And until I kind of started working for you guys, I then realized, like what they've seen from me, it was probably I was squeezing every last bit of score out of whatever limited talent they had, and then they see someone like Craig who just had so much speed and power and

they're like, okay, I can make him better. I can't make that way back. I think that was That's what from working for you guys, I'm like, okay, I can see now why you would pick somebody else, because like when I see the standard now with the kids coming through, you can see like raw materials are all good, but like the worst thing you can have is an absolute

polished seventeen year old who's just shooting under park. Whereas if you get a guy who's shooting like sixty two and then eighty two, you're like, okay, I can make that tidier, but you can't get the other guy. You can't give him a Ferrari engine if he's if he's

got to be in the back of it. So yeah, I think that was the That was the thing that did it and pro you play for a little while, but like a lot of you know, people that have aspirations to play, you quickly realize how good the standard is, how good you actually really have to be, And so it's then that you decide to become a golf instructor. Yeah, well I ran out of cash. I had gone three years. UM in my third year at the debt starting to clock up quite heavily. In in the age of UM.

Not just trying to turn this into talking about live because that's all anybody wants to talk about, but there's you know, when we look at people that are trying to play golf, and and and Pat Perez and I talked about this is, for some reason in golf, running out of money and trying to play and realizing that, okay, in order for me to keep playing and keep chasing my dream, I have to find money. I have to find backing, And for some reason in golf that's become normalized.

And for some reason in golf it's it's romantic. Evidently it's romantic to to have to go and work fifteen jobs and all this stuff. And there are so many stories like that. Sue John Singh, who who works for us here in in in Dubai at the Academy, Sujohn played the Asian Tour. UM had some success. He said, you listen, he came over and walked around some practice rounds with me. UM at the Saudi International a couple

of weeks ago. He's over there with Hunter bon Lahary and he's like, man, I just missed this so much. I miss being in competitive tournament golf so much in pat Perez, you know. And DJ said to him, all, why aren't you still playing? And he said, well, I just ran out of money. Yeah, you know. Now there is the argument to be made that Okay, the better

you play, the more money you're gonna make. But when you're first starting out, it's expensive, and you get to a point where you say, listen, I just financialists your wealthy parents. Unless you have a backer, you just can't afford to keep playing. And I'm sure in Ireland and Scotland, in the UK and all over the world there are loads of young kids that had aspirations they wanted to play, they just they couldn't afford to continue to try and

be a competitive golfer. And literally, that's that's what it was. There was four of us, you know, traveling around and playing together, and we all basically had the same kind of time that we all kind of rent at Casher ran into too much debt the same time, and yeah, we all had to go and do something to maintain it for another year. And that's pretty much what I've done, so it turned to doing my p GA so I could teach a bit and I can work in a

golf club and I can do all that. And that was kind of the start of, you know, me moving on from playing. You know, after one year of that, you quickly realize like I'm not good enough, Like there is a point where You've got to call equit. And for me, I was looking around at some of the guys that was playing against and I was just like, I'm nowhere near Then what year was would this have been? Um? So, that would have been oh god, probably about fourteen years ago.

So yeah, but two eight, which is when we started the Justin Parsons and I JP and I we started the academy here. JP came to work for me. UM. I lived in Dubai here for three years two thousand and eight to two thousand eleven. I left in May of of two thousand eleven. Um you got hired by Justin Parsons. And I remember JP, who I've had on

the podcast before. He now works at CEA Island and he's doing an unbelievable job working with Harris English, Brian Harmon, Brandon Grace Lew You who says, and any Justin has become one of the elite tour coaches on the planet. But you're talking about how you ran out of money. You had no money. One of the reasons when when JP said he was going to hire you, he called me and I was in the States. I said, you know, what do you like about this kid, Jamie? And he goes, well,

he bought his own track Man. So you buy a track Man in what year I bought it? It was not long after that, so I actually bought. The only way I could get it was that to take out a bank Loung. But I couldn't get any bank Kong. It's the only one I could get with a caroline. JP told me, the kid's broke. He literally has no money. And in two thousand nine eight, you buy a track Man for those for when for those of you listening, we see track Man's, we see launch monitors on the road,

but track Man really the orange box. It's the first real track Man to come out. For those of you that don't know, track Man's called thirty grand. It's basically like buying a car. So we see these on the range. Now now we see everybody have these these launch monitors and stuff. It seems cost thirty thousand U S. Dollars. It's it's the equivalent of buying a car. You're broke, Why did you say to yourself, Aca, I'm gonna take

out a bank loan and buy a track Man. I'd started teaching a lot and I was really enjoying it, but wanted to know more about it. And there was some kind of social media guys starting to use it and started to see it, and I was like, there's nobody using this, and I looked at I actually did a Google at the time, looked in Ireland and I'm like, there's eight track Man in Ireland, all track Man two units.

Track Man three had just come out, so at that point, really the only people that are using them on a regular basis or the club manufacturers and fitters and professional golfers here even at that point not all professionals, and it was very few Clary Anni professional golfer units. It was mainly fitters. So out of all the track Men in Ireland, they were all fitters. So I thought, well, I could get this. It will help me figure out

a bit more helping my students. I thought there was some cool thing that you could do in terms of like performance stuff as well. And yeah, I just decided I get a and you're a Caroline and I spent twenty one You wasn a track man in a thousand. You wasn't care, which the bank didn't find. So just to add to that, it was it was an interesting way. So let me make sure I've got the story right, because I've never really asked you this, but JP told

me so. Then you decide, all right, I'm gonna take this track man because nobody's got one in Ireland really from an instruction standpoint, and I'm going to basically become a mobile track man service that travels around Ireland two golf courses to clubs and try and use that technology from instruction and offer your services. You've paid the twenty one euros for it, and so you're charging what to use it? Well, what we start? Let me tell you. I can tell you right now this does not sound

like a money making venture. No it was not. It was it was enough to survive. Like all I knew at the time was I did not want to work in a proa show. I wanted to teach, So anything that got me closer to teaching and doing more errors on instruction and I could live off was enough. So I think at the time, I think we were charging of it two hundred fifty euros a day. And I said to the guy, I basically said, because again people

didn't know that much about it. So I said to him, look you can if you have a shop, you can fit with this. If you want to teach with it, I'll be there as an either consultant or I'll help you teach it, or I'll happily just go and have a coffee and you can use whatever whatever when you wanted to do. And I've done the track my Master certificate very early, so I think it was the first in the U kN are the tabin and yeah, I

just basically started mentioning pros that in you. I set up a Facebook page called the track Man road Show, the tracks shock Man road Show, and I just started asking guys and like, look, do you want to try it? I'm like filled the day or do it half day? And I just started with like a little bit here and there, and by the time we had had left for here, We're up to twenty six days a month um,

just traveling around. And that was in the space of its seven eight months, and then you make the decision to right fund and publish your own book on how to use the track Man. And again we're in two This information now for all the instructors and all the people that are golf nerds listening, this is all readily available. Now you can go online. There's you know, thousands you can find. I mean, if you searched you know, track Man usage or anything in YouTube right now, you can

find tons of videos. It's part launch motor technology now is part of what we do as instructors. It's part of golf to you write a book, right, Yeah, Well what I wanted to do is write track Man for dummies, but I got copied right on that, so that's changed. So I just called it track Man Understanding the numbers, and it's very sure. It's like but again this is in two thousand and yeah, probably tens and nine does

and tents and we're in that um and yeah. Started with just what I wanted to do is put like simple application aaans to it, so like you could get the descriptions of what like face angle and pap war, but it was just like how to actually use them in instruction and how to just the basics of understanding, like if you said it to a fifteen year old kid, could they understand it? And could they understand how to work it? And yeah, I thought it was a good

way of getting publicity. It was at the time again you said it wasn't. I wasn't making a lot of money, so like, even if I'm getting fifty hundred dollars a month, it's like, okay, there's another dollars a month to help me survive and live and pay bills and travel around the country with a little orange box. And it was funny because in the did you did you have track men road show on the car for everyone listening that

lives in the UK? I did not. Did you get the sponsored car and put the thing on the side? Jamie McConnell I did the money. I wish I had the money to do that at the stage, I was just trying to get around. But yeah, we've done that for seven seven months and it was fine. It was doing really well. And I remember track Matt hated me because they couldn't sell any units because when when I was going around the country, people are like, why would have spends on the TrackMan? I can get this day,

get the road day. And I was at that point looking at buying a second one. I was very close to get in a second one and being able to just hand one to certain people who knew how to use it. Let then have two three days, and then I was going to go with the other one to the people who didn't and start to kind of leverage it a little bit. But yeah, that was just before I had come out here. So let's take a quick break to think our partner for wellness. You guys have

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them with me on the golf course. UM A lot of times when I'm out on tour, I don't have a lot of time to sit it and eat. So these energy bites, a little coffee hit, a little bit of energy, um, all the good stuff, all natural and UM. If you haven't given those to try, check those out. They've given me a special code to share with some

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back to the interview. You know the thing I find interesting now. You know we cut to almost a you know, over a decade later. Um, when I watch you teach, when I come over here, and when we talk, I mean you and I talk. You know, you're running the academy here. I mean there's there's there's weeks where you and I talk daily there you know we deaf there isn't you know? It doesn't go longer than maybe two or three days where you and I don't talk on the phone. Um when we talk about instruction and we

talk about that. I find it interesting when I watch you teach now, you would think, after that background, after all the stuff that you went through to kind of be an early adopter of the technology of teaching and using launch monitors for something other than instruction. Right, I only ever see you pull out a launch monitor for something very very specific, to look at something specific, and it's never for you right at this point, you know,

when I watch you teach now, the launch monitor data. Yeah, every now and again you say, hey, let me see what this player does and and and get an idea of what they do. Right, But you and I have talked, and I say this in seminars that I give all the time. If you're an instructor listening to this podcast and you need a launch monitor to tell you what a player is doing, you need to get a new job.

You need to find another profession. Because if you need a thirty dollar piece of technology to tell you that the path is left and the face is right or the path is right and the face is left. If someone's got a giant slice the numbers I think you use now and the data that you use now is to make your not make your case, but to say to the player, listen, this is what you're doing. It's not me guessing. This is what you're doing, and this is how to fix it. But I'm always taken aback

by you. You probably are one of the best that I've ever met from an instructor. You adopt all the technology, you know how to use SAM, you know how to use captive, you know how to use all of this technology. But I don't really see you use it as much as I would think. Right, It's not like every single lesson you give is from a full swing standpoint is looking at data. Not every single putting lesson you give

is using technology. So there is this constant, I think for the instructors and for the golf junkies out there listening, this balance of data versus real world. You know Carl Morris, the sports psychologists called you know, I've been on his podcast. You've done a lot of work with him. He does great work in the UK working with players. He looks works with a lot of tour players. Um it was Phil Kenyon. We were in Saudi a couple of weeks

ago and we were talking about the subject. Phil and I are just sitting having breakfast, and you know, Phil said, you know, we're talking about data and information. And Phil said something and it just blew me away. He said, yeah, you know, that's that's an example of information rich data I mean information rich, knowledge poor. And I said, feel that's Unbelievable'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna give you full credit when I use that. And he said, I didn't

say that. Dr Carl Moore said that, And I think we are at a stage in instruction now to where we are data rich, information rich, but knowledge poor and how to apply that? So, how have you over the last decade said, Okay, we have all of this technology that can tell us all of the stuff about what players are doing. We no longer have to guess, we no longer have to do any of this stuff. But how do we use this information and use the technology

to help players get better? I think I've I've kind of had a habit to use it and reverse remember doing the presentation of the track Man and I call it track man without the numbers. So like I love like the picture of the range, then the line and just having the dead straight ball the target line, because I gotta tell people to stand up and right you have to start right of that and curve left and like if they're slicing it to begin, and then they start to do that and I'll go, well, here's your

path to begin, here's your path at the end. So it's stead of going numbers to picture, you're gonna picture and then on hiding the numbers. And it means that like they actually start to get something they can feel use and understand, and like, to me, that's the way it should be used. It shouldn't be just like point out the data. It should be like change it and then go okay, it was here and now it's here.

Here's the understanding. But they immediately have the feel of what to do rather than the information because the information

to useless. And I think it always goes back to like Justin used to hammer me on this and he committed the officent and I think it was your dad saying it was like, don't teach what you can't use on the back then and someday and it's like you don't have a track on the back round and something you don't have a sound, and like they're huge, the great pieces of technology, but if you're if you're standing there, you know on the last team, you've got to hit

a draw. It doesn't matter what information you've got, You've got to be able to hit a draw, you know what I mean. And that was the one thing that always stood out. And he used to just absolutely obliterate this and this all the time, and even watching you and your dad teach, like there's never anything complicated. Like Tom who's working for a snare or fitness trainer. You know, he and said, watching you in a lesson, he just came in with this shock look in his face. I'm like,

he okay, He's like, it's just so easy. What do you mean It's so easy? He goes. He just makes it look so easy. It was so simple. And you know I always say to you, like the best lesson I've ever seen you give was so maybe five year old guy, and through it in and you had liked big the biggest chicken wing you've ever seen. You had

video them not showing them. You put spin, Yeah, you put dynamic loft on the screen and it was like fifty five degrees and you were like, get that down to thirty, and you just kept saying yeah, no, yeah, And by the end of it, he's got the straightest left art And you've ever seen the impact change and you're not changed and the numbers changed. And that was six years ago, and that lesson to me always stands out and like you changed it by saying very very little,

but you changed it in a huge way. And he understood it. He's like, oh, if the loft does this, my arm does it. And he felt it. Yeah, in your in you before he had even seen the change. He could see the ball flight and he could feel it, and he knew what he was doing. It didn't matter about the picture looked like. But then goes out and the picture, like you say, have some buy into it, helps them go okay right now, you know, I mean, there's never a day it's like that was eating. It's like,

I'm just gonna get it. Deliferent this one based on where you started, you know, your instruction journey, and where you are now, how do you feel like you've evolved and changed? You know, if you could go back and

look at the lessons. I say this all the time. Um, if I could go back and find the people that I gave lessons to when I was working at my my dad's golf school in Vegas and tigers there and all the best players in the world are there, I'd give them their money back because I didn't I didn't know ship. I didn't know anything. I just kind of knew what my dad said, I knew what some other people said. I had no real world kind of practical application. I was under my dad's umbrella. You know, I didn't

You know, I didn't know anything. How is your journey from when you've started, When you look at what you were teaching and and trying to help players with ten years ago, five years ago, how has that evolved? And I think for the instructors and the golf chunkies listening there, there has to be an evolution. You shouldn't know everything when you start, right, But how is your joursey? You can't know everything right, Um, how is your jour How do you How do you teach differently now than you

taught maybe ten twelve years ago. I think I'm comfortable with saying less and if, like if Justin's listened to this, he'll have a chuckle at this. Like literally almost every lesson. He used to tell me, if Jamie could just quit talking, right, if Jamie could just learn how to quit talking, because he's trying so hard to give all of this information that that he's got in his head, which is all amazing,

fantastic information, but it's too much. But it's too much, and it's it's I think the other thing as you as you give more lessons and you just keep going back to the simple stuff. Like we had a kid in yesterday, really good kid, shot a decent score at the weekend, super strong, grip way behind it, and I you know, I said to him when it was the last time you're worked in your grip. He's like like a year and a half on five knuckles, left hand grip, And I said, week in your left hand and knock

left hand, right hand super under the club. And I think the big difference with that is now I'm comfortable. I know from from doing two thousand golf asens a year for the last ten years. I know if it fixes grip and getting the punchet, he's going to deliver perfectly, Whereas ten years ago it's like, Okay, you're not even given to yourself that this will have such a big effect. So you you kind of almost compensate by talking, and you're trying to convince them you're smart, and like people

look at it now and go, is that it? And I'm like yeah, and I'm like look and oh, that's all I have to do. Yeah, And it's getting comfortable with giving less. I think that's the biggest difference for me. But I look back where I was like, I knew a lot of the information. I thought I knew everything. I thought I had ten percent to learn. Now I'm like, I think I've got ninety percent to learn. But it's funny like in ten years, you're just getting used to

giving less and a lot of lessons become repetitive. But that's not a bad thing. You know, if if if you had everybody in a good grip post set up takeaway chances, they're going to hit it better. There's not many people that walk in with a perfect grip. There's so many of the average golfers. And when I say I say this all the time, you know, I'm lucky to live in two worlds. I live on I live

in the tour world. I've been lucky enough to work with, you know, some amazing players who I've learned a tremendous amount from, and and that's you know, I think largely. You know, probably one of the differences between you know, the people listening to this podcast is they know who I am because of the players I've worked with, and they don't know who you are because they haven't heard your name on TV. They haven't seen you on a driving range or anything like that. But very rarely for

the average golfer. To me, average golfers are people that you're not seeing on TV the amount day in and day out that we see a fifteen handicapper come in, who has got a good grip, who sets up to the golf ball well properly, who has good ball position, right, the basic fundamentals grip, stance, posture, alignment, the stuff in that is so not the norm, right, It's so not the rage right now. It's not sexy, it's not cool, it's not the new thing. It's not to lay it

down and all that bullshit. Right, Um, so many golfers, like you said, could improve so much by just spending six months on having a consistent, good grip a A. I wouldn't say neutral, but I always say when I look at golf swings and setups, I think so many golfers and so many people listening to the podcast, they have something in their set up from ball position, alignment, posture, or grip that is extreme. It is out of the norm, right, It is not normal for what a good player does.

Obviously there have been great players David Duval, four knuckles in an elbow, Um Jose, Muriel thobl weak grip. There are outliers, right, But I think it's interesting that you say that if if that, if everyone listening would just improve the obvious things that you do before you hit a golf ball. You know, we always talk about you and I have talked about this a lot a long time. Um, the grip, the posture, the set up, the alignment is the same thing that players that play golf on a

regular basis don't do well. And then that domino effect. They have something extreme in their grip, they have something extreme in their posture, they have something extreme in the ball position that from there it's almost an accident or just dumb lock. If they somehow match it up and hit a good shot and that's why so many players, Jamie come to us and say, listen, I'm hitting it

so bad. And we've talked about this. The average person listening to the podcast that plays golf on a regular basis, they're more surprised by the good shots than they are by the bad shots, right, and they can't repeat the good shot. And so it's interesting that you said that having the basics done makes the rest of what you're trying to do more attainable. And I always use the example of like, if you look at the top ten players in the world, they've all got very different swings,

very different characteristics based on how their bodies moving. You know, you see things that you have the stories like John ram at his foot as a child, and obviously you're not going to get everybody to swing it the same. JT. Justin Thomas is a bit of a throwback. You know. We see a lot of players with that backswing being super super vertical, that left arm plane, the high hands. The modern golf swing is much, i would say, more more rounded and flatter than the way JT swings the

golf club. Um, you know Jordan's speace grip. You know when Jordan's speech came on the scene and and started to play, you know, professionally. I think a lot of people in golf instruction watched him, you know, tour players to our coaches were like, yeah, I mean, the kids got to change that grip to be able to compete. And he hasn't changed any of them. And I think the thing is, you know, don't look for those nuances that they have. Look for the common out of these

they all stand too good. They all set the ball position good. The posture is generally all good. You know. I don't think there's many of the modern players now as I think as the modern golfer has become taller. Um, you know, I think most of the players that were starting to see you see this in players that are starting to play, that that want to play competitively, they're bigger then. They're bigger than they were ten fifteen years ago.

They're taller. You know a lot of the juniors that we're seeing now that are that are choosing golf as the pathway. Um, they're over six ft tall, right, and so um the posture changes now you just like you said, the top ten players in the world, their postures are pretty good. You know, everybody sees on Instagram these positions to where you know every year, you know, every so often they cycle through all the different positions that players

get into at the top. But like you said, at address ball, position wise and set up wise, the things that they do before they hit the golf ball tend to be they don't look the same, very very very common. And I think that's what not only like players, but I think coaches need to do that for longer too, because like coaches tend to jump around a lot. We we get people into the academy and you know, if I know they've had lessons with somebody else, a's else.

The theme been of your lessons, as in, assuming they've worked on one thing for a period of time, and they go, well, I de gripped and then it de posture, and then it did release, and then I did this, and then it was reversed fine, and then I was trying to get one and I'm like, how many lessons in that? I got like six? And you're kind of like, how are you meant to get any of that? And then they set up to it poorly and you're like,

all right, grip post yourself. If you start from there, you have a better chance of doing everything else right. But you're not going to do this in a day or a week, like this should be your plan for the next month, two months, three months, depending on what it is. And you'll see people want to move a certain way because of their body, so like if their body is always moving that way, they will have to

constantly work at that. Like you look at Tiger, he's always you know, a little cross the line at the top. You know, that never really changed through the years, except maybe that two thousand to two thousand and two where it was pretty much your you know, ideal or model swing. But even when you see him injured or he'd come back, it would always go a little bit that way because that's the way his body wanted to move. And you think, like everybody's got that, and you think Tiger never can

completely mastered it. Nobody's made the perfect game. Yet you know, you've got to swing within your own limitations and find your swing. I think, as you said it a couple of years ago, you had to remember you had a little like cube but you I think it was your granddad swing in it, and I remember there was a quote on it. It was like there's only one. It was something like, there's only one swing for you, but that swings not for everybody. Yeah, I mean you know.

Arnold Palmer famously said, swing your swing right, Um, do you feel like people? You know? For everyone listening, I always say, and I said that a lot this week here in Dubai to the team. Um, you know, not only from an instruction standpoint, but from what we're trying to get players to do is do the obvious things. Well. The obvious thing that you can control as a golfer, whether you're fifteen, ten, five scratch handicapped, is the way you set up to the golf ball. Because all that

happens before the golf swing starts. It's hard if you feel the golf swing a little stuck and under coming in on the inside to let go of the golf club mid down swing and stop. If you feel yourself start to come over it, in two seconds, your golf swings over, it's hard to let go of the golf club and say, listen, I didn't hit the ball because I felt myself coming off, so I just stopped right time. Tiger was famous for being able to stop his golf swing right. The average person has got no chance to

do that. So if you do the obvious things well in your grip, your posture, your set up, your alignment, and like you said, just work on that for five six months. Just work on the grip being consistent, work on the posture, work on the alignment, the ball position. Then you've got a good chance to address some of the other things, definitely, And it's it's sticking to your plan, you know, sticking to the things that you know we're

going to make you better. And if everybody walked in here with a grip posture set up that was good and probably have a lot less gold lessons, So you know what I mean. Like that, that to me is and I hammer the guy who's on it. Like if if the grip posture has set up a good they've got a chance. If any of those are off, it's a domino effect. It's going to throw other things off later on in the swing and then you're just firefighting. You're just hoping that they find a way to get

the club back. And that's the thing that's within your control. So do that really well and get really good at that. And you know, it's the one thing I noticed what our junior is like just looking at them over and over and over again, especially the slightly older ones that

we've had for a few years. There's very few of them to set up badly, you know, they all they might get a little off of alignments and things like that, but generally speaking, they all grip a good they all set up to a good and it's something that the guys have done a really good job, Like across all of our instructors, you can see. That's why you're getting

so many good kids. It's not that we're really good at teaching the swing and that we're really good at just get the basics right and they can kind of figure it out after that. You know, they all, they all have enough time and enough skill to figure out the golf swing. But the biggest thing is just making sure that they're in a position from the get go that they can allow their talent to kind of take over, as opposed to us having to manufacture swings all the time.

Inside right there, you go, go play, go enjoy it. You know, a good start point and you can figure it out and play place. Guildfoot off on that. Let's take a quick break and we are back. I think a lot of people I think most people listening to the pod, they know what Dubai is, right, I mean, Dubai is kind of this iconic you know, skyscraper or place in the desert. Um, it's very much an international destination. I mean, we've all been, we've all marveled over the

last twenty five years. Um, how much Dubai has grown and changed. And for for a lot of people that have never been here, they come here for the first time and it's it's literally like they're in a science fiction movie. I mean, and they've just never seen anything like it. So it is a it is a global place. It is a global destination. But from a golf standpoint, this is still a very very very small Gulf region. Um. You know, there's probably you know, anywhere between two to three,

maybe even four million people living here in Dubai. And how many golf courses are there? Probably at six the sixteen in the UA. And for those people that don't know the U as the United Arab Emirates, it's made up of different emirates. Dubai is an emerate very similar to a state in the US. Within Dubai, just Dubai itself. How many golf courses on a ten can't be more than ten and the majority of the people in the

UA live in Dubai, so it's a small golf market. UM. I'm really proud of the fact that, Um, what we've done is helped develop players. There's a wall as you go into our our gym facility here at the academy, here at the Els Club. UM that it's really cool that you did this. You put our logo in the middle of it and then put the names and the colleges that all the people we went to. How many names are on that? Would you say there's all there's a bit twenty or so on it. Probably another seven

or eight to go on it. Ye, so you know, close to thirty kids that have gone and played some form of college golf in America. UM. Rayhan Thomas is at Oklahoma. Stay right now, Toby Bishop just went to the University of Florida. You're really, I think have been at the forefront. In my opinion, UM, I think you're one of the best junior golf developers in the in

the world. Really. UM, you've put together this program kind of like a high school golf program here in Dubai, here in the U A which again outside the United States just doesn't exist. You know, if you if you played college golf in America, most likely you played high school golf on some team. Talk me through why you

wanted to kind of. So we've created this elite junior program, this elite junior team, um you know, across the board currently our junior program here um in in Dubai, how many kids from start from early ages to the late stages? I mean, for a four, we've got kids in our junior program here at start early as oh three years old, three years old, so we go from three to elite

juniors who were in their late late teens. How many kids do we currently have enrolled in our junior program from the young to the old hundred hundred nine and the junior program and then give or take there's probably thirty in the various differently, So with that many juniors coming through our you know, our doors here, was that the reason why you said, okay, we've got to find a way to create a different or another pathway for

the elite player. Yes, you know, it's developed. It was an idea that Justin had, and Justin had begun it just before he had left, and it was just quite difficult to get off the ground, mainly because of the schooling side of things. It was trying to get the right skill to attached then and Jem's first point came along and it was a perfect fit. But to me, it was just it's trying to give them the next

little target. So like as kids, we found that when our junior program, initially they would get to tournament ready, which is our top one. They could reach that by fourteen, but then they would just go into individual and we kind of wanted to keep that team aspect to We wanted them to feel like they could be, as you said the other day, like a part of something bigger.

And we also seen the value at group stuff because we get a lot of those kids when they reached that that like, right, we want to come for individual instruction four times a week, And I would say a comparentcy no, and they're shocked by it because they're like, but we want to. I'm like, yeah, but it's useless for your child. It would be much better off if he came once a week to me any practice and

played with his friends. And obviously with the limited golf courses here, you also have limited access for the juniors, it's quite difficult sometimes for them to get on a play. So the idea behind the kind of elite programs were basically to bring together players of similar levels, because we noticed a lot with like Josh Hill, Toby Argan, they were they were almost like a little mini team at three,

and as they grew up they pushed each other. So off the back of that we were like, Okay, there's definitely something in having groups of kids similar level create friendships and also push each other and push them in

the right way. Like I always remember watching them play the Ballot series when Year and I think combined there was something like thirty five under power miles ahead of everybody, but like they'll be playing against each other and one of the balls to be going towards the water, the other two be showing to sit because they didn't want to win by them messing up. They wanted to win by them making birdies and big the other guy, and like that always just that memory of them stood out,

and to me that was the driving force. Was like trying to finish a project that JP had started, trying to give get more of those groups together that would really bring each other on, because like Okay, coaches can help, but actually it's much more about the environment that that helps them develop, because really, if we weren't here and they created that environment themselves, the chances are they would still get really good. So all we're doing is trying

to basically ramp that up and go right. Well, if we can give good coaching plus that environment, they're going to get better quicker, and we're gonna get more. And for me, like last week, I said to the team last Sunday, it was just when you were arrived. I was like to me, this is the must predit day I've had a nine years. And the reason why I was at fifty four juniors. You posted that on on your Instagram account. Fifty four juniors competing across three different events.

It's a Part three event, a Junior Open and Events Open, and there's fifty four kids from the academy. I'm like, that is a huge number from an academy to be competing in three events across the v The other thing I think for people listening is is is in the developing in the outside the United States, maybe outside UK and stuff. A market like Dubai is is a a developing golf market right, There isn't the A J G

A right. There is some US, but you know, for the majority of people you know listen to this podcast that come from the US, it's normal for your kids to you know, in Florida where I live, there's the Hurricane Tour, there's I j G T, there's you know a j G there's there's a there's five different junior tours that your kids can play on here in in in a in a region like Dubai, there's none of that.

There's no organized junior golf development tour like the A A G A like there are all around the United States. So the kids have to play in a lot of tournaments where they're playing not against their peers, not against kids their own age, they're playing against in tournaments at country clubs, at golf courses with adults. And and so I think what I love when I come here and I get so many different ideas and ways of thinking about things, is I see you developing so many more

real world type drills and skills and stuff. UM, talk to me about how you come up and give me some examples of, you know, for the for the people listening, UM of an example of Okay, so you've got a junior class and this is our elite program here. These are all good players. These players all say they want to try and play competitively at some level. They all want to hopefully go play Division one college golf in America.

Some of them have aspirations to play professional golf. But typical class, what are you trying to get the groups to do, because in the group lessons, they're not doing instruction, they're doing playing and testing. Talk me through that. I think, yeah, well, what we're trying to do is just recreate playing scenarios.

We're also trying to challenge them mentally, like we're trying to create situations where they're going to fail because at the end of the day, like I think, it's very easy to just be that kind of parent who wraps them and bubble wrap and never lets them fail, and then all of a sudden, they end up, you know, at some point in their life or in their golfing career, and they fail and they don't know what to do.

So I supposed for us, we're always trying to make them challenge and fail at different points in time, and we want them to kind of think of a lot of their sessions as play. You know, it's the opportunity to try things, the opper genity to compete. It's teaming

up at different people all the time. And like examples would be, you know, the other day, we had a really simple and we had every time they had to go back to a drive, so they would alternate drive and a short game shot and a pair of too so you'd have to hit one out of two on the fairway and then they would have to do And what I like about this is also you know here in in Dubai and the u A and I think all over the world, it's hard to get juniors on

the golf course. But that is a constant theme that everybody that is involved with junior golf, for all the parents listening, unless you are a very very wealthy person that lives in the United States and your child can go to a country club and they're gonna have access

to the golf to a golf course. But there are so many people listening to this podcast who have who are either a junior golfer a competitive golfer that can look back at their career and say, yeah, I didn't have access to a golf course and so I think one of the things that I love about what you do and what we're trying to do here is we're trying to create ate a competitive golf course situation, but unfortunately they're not on the golf yes exactly, So like

we we have to do the best for what we have. So if there's weeks where we can't get on the golf course, we will straight away go towards skill testing and having some fun with them doing that and again making them see practice as played. The worst thing for them is standing on a range for four and a half hours hitting golf ball after golf ball, and then they go on the golf course and they have no

idea how to actually hit shots. Um. So we're always trying to recreate the environment where we can't access the golf course, and then if we have any kind of time to get on the golf course, we'll just bring them straight out and we'll do different things, but on the golf course and wherever possible, because ultimately that's what

we have to do. It's play. It's actually how do you get involved from ah being the lowest of many structs, and it's interested in seeing the kids because you have certain ones who are really polished and look great in the range and the cant go and score, and then you have other ones who look very average, they don't look great in certain tests and things, but then they

really are good at putting it together. And I think that's the interesting thing, is how do you develop them to play better faster, not necessarily just swing the golf club really nice. And like all of our training sessions, like we'll sit in the office, the whole team, and we'll just throw around ideas and we'll try it, and you know, sometimes they're really hard on their way too hard,

and we'll have to make a lastminut adjustment. And sometimes they're way too easy, and again we'll have to adjust. But it's like, I suppose the thing that I love about our team as well, is that we're all willing to throw our two cents in and talk about it and debate it. And even the other day when you did the speed test, like you said, it's like, I wasn't sure that was gonna work, but it worked really well.

So let's do that more often. And it's it's that willingness for us to try things and also for the kids to try things, and sometimes they'll put their hands up and out terrible, and they'll go and work on that and you'll see them actually around the recreating those

games sometimes. So if they get one they really like, like, you'll see them and you'll you'll watch them from a fire just in their own practice time, and they'll be moving around the school and you're like, oh, they're actually they've just copy that game and that's where you put a big star. And I was like, okay, do this one again, you know, because they like that, We've we've

even tried to extend that into just normal clients. We started to do something called the train and Plan, So three times a week, anybody's single figure better, you can come along to this class and it's done exactly the same way. So it's done as a competitive practice, and it could include one part of the game, it could include every part of the game. You just don't know. And we'll come up with it on the on the morning off and we'll come up with some sort of

challenge and they've got to compete against each other. And again it's trying to introduce play to instruction rather than just teaching them heads fing golf. So let's take a short break and we will be back right after this. All right, let's get back to the interview. So this is the part of the podcast where where people are

going to get, you know, some stuff for free. Okay, So I want you to give everyone listening um a putting game that they could play, right, they could add a range at their one, a short game, one for irons, one for drivers. Come on, give me give me a good putting game that everybody listening could take out and say, okay, you could just this is this is kind of the blueprint.

Do this one. I think probably the most valuable one that I use is that you know, putting wise is actually stolen from your a friend Cameron McCormick, and really simply your market starting point. Inside of a fifteen feet you take two teas and you basically make a gate in the middle of the line just a bit bigger than a put her head apart, and then you make a semi circle of teas behind the whole about a foot and a half. That's safe. Yeah, So you've got

three points available. You've got a point if you get it through the gate. You've got a point if you get the speed right, and then the final points of ye hold. I mean, I think you have learned and and and I think it's also important to to say this, Um. This is something that my dad says all the time. And I think you've been a great adopter at this. My dad always says in seminars, you know, when he gives instruction. You know, I think my dad's the best

golf instructor in the world. Um, he's on the mountain Rushmore in my opinion of golf instruction. Um. But he always says in in in seminars, I have invented nothing in golf instruction. And there are golf instructors out there that love to try and act like they've created something and it's something new and it's there as a loan and they're really secretive about it and they're not going to tell you all about it. But you've been You're looking at all of these different things that you can

do from other instructors. And then you know Cam, who you and I have a tremendous amount of respect for Cam is big on um and I've had him on the podcast for Cam is big on testing and stuff like that. So you're trying to get them to feel these things. Yeah, absolutely, And you know, like I think it's always a balance, you know, You're always you know, in my head, I've always balanced probably between you know, things like that that I love to try and play with.

Like I've always loved skill development, always really enjoyed that, Like looking at Cam Corey and a friend of mine, Ed cockland back and I and you know that that side really interests me because like a lot of that is very applicable. But then also like when I look at justin teaching, like he's so good again the technical

side right quickly and in a very easy manner. It's it's always like it's a bit of a game, right and even with certain players, certain players are going to need more of one and work better with more of one, and certain players are more of another. And it's trying to get that balance between good technique, good method, but also getting into like, okay, well how applicable is this?

Can you hit that job? And I always remember you with Toby a couple of years ago, was the first time you had met him, and he had said he wanted to play college golf and he wanted to be a PGA Tour player, and you just said to him, write, hit ten shots in the same shape, and you stood for an hour and just said no to him. And I've never seen that boy is quiet in my life.

But like that hit a cord because every single day for the next month, he still there just doing that one drill and he just wanted to hit ten shots and wrote the same shape. And then he started coming up with his own way of doing it, and he'd like adding targets and add in tightness and had to be within a certain range. And like I love that

because that's really applicable. And all he kept doing was like one shape, one shape, one shape, and it's yeah, we steal everything, like and because people have figured out a better way to do it. Like I I can't actually think of anything anything really that I haven't stolen from somebody. And it's just this huge mixing pot of people that have met. Like obviously, I would say a lot of it comes from justin you and your dad,

because they're the three biggest influences I have had. And then like you branch off and you go, well, you know the people you've introduced me to, the guys like Cameron, you know, I love looking at his stuff and artists, and I love looking at what they do, and I'll take some of them and go, it's not really like that, And there's other stuff that will take and go it's

not I really don't like that. And you kind of have to filter it because there's just so much information, like to everybody, to instructors to players, like you have to be able to filter it, and some people will be better filter than than others. And it's trying to take, you know, new stuff and go, right, Can I take one thing from it? Don't need it all, just like it's the one thing there that could help do something

a little better. I think if you can do that, you get better as an instructor and you probably get better as a player. So the drill potting fifteen ft and where do you put the gate? So the gates halfway. It's just a bit bigger than a put a lens of the idea would be if you pictured like a pro tracer line that kind of goes along the ground, the goal is at the gate is in the middle of the line that you see, So the left or right pot and you read a foot a break, you're

a foot left of the whole. The ball should pass through the gate for a point at good speed for another point, and if it's both are perfect the ball and going the hole, you've got three. So you hit five pots from the tee through the gate into the hole hopefully, and then you move the pot, so there's fifteen points available each time. And it's great because it helps you identify is your speed good, is your read good? Or is your start line good? And hopefully it's all three.

But if you then see a problem at one, you have an area to focus on. And I think one of the things that a lot of players do is they practice their technique. It's something that that everybody who listens to the pod knows that I'm a big this balance of technique versus execution and executing what you're doing. I like what you do with all of these games. And just because it's you're working on something, you're working on the technical aspect of something. Then you're testing it.

Most people think the test is going to play the golf course. You and I have talked for years. You've got to test it before you take it to the course to see if anything you're working on is actually working. And these games that you go through, actually this one where you've got three different checkpoints. You get a point for this, you get a point for this. You'll probably maybe be good at one, maybe two of them, but

you'll be bad at another. So it allows you as the player to say, Okay, I've just did this little game, this little test, this little um you know, skill development thing. Okay, I'm pretty good at this. I'm pretty good. I just need to go practice that part of it, all right. Give me a short game, one short game, one bad ball, two balls. Play the worst ball each time until you finish the ball off. You have two chips, but you everyone's further from the whole. You hit two pots from there.

If you hold both of them, job done. If you miss one, play two pots from there. Proper pressure that one. That's hard as well. Like you, you do that in any kind of difficult scenario. Just worst ball each time, and do that when it's it's good. Give me a full swing game test that everyone listening can do on their own driving range without any sort of other you know.

That's the great thing about this. If you have a if you have a putting green, if you have a short game area, um, if you have a driving range, even if you don't have a great short game area, you can go somewhere on the on the driving range and try and make one up yourself. But give me a full swing um game that you like to see players. I always like the cheapman's track man, which is an alignment stick on your balls target line just pointed straight up.

How how many steps out? So probably about four or five steps at So you have to basically hit a shape around it. So if you're fader, you've got to start at left, curve it right and can't miss over the right side of the balls target line drawer the opposite. So you hit ten balls or twenty balls, how many shots can you successfully hit with the correct starting line and the correct curve? Really simple, just start startling. Can you start it online? Can you hit the right shape?

And then if if you get really good at that and you start to get high number, you can add in a finish so you can say, okay, it's gotta finish within ten yards of the target. It's gonna finish on this side, and you can add levels that you can then start to say okay, every alternating shot, there's trouble more one side than another one, So one might be the trouble right, one might be their trouble left. But you can add levels, but to be honest, most

people don't get past stage one. Can you start the ball online? And can you curve it the right way?

And we talk all the time, you know, And that's one of the things that that I do when I come over and spend time with the team that I think the the instructors, the young instructors that we're lucky enough to have on our team here, Like you said, they're surprised that you know, if you're trying to play and if you say you want to play competitively, as as a junior golfer and as as an amateur golfer. Um to me, if you're telling me you're you're going

to want to hit a draw. If you're telling me you're gonna want to hit a fade, If you're telling me you want to hit a draw, the ball show as hell needs to start right of your target. If you're telling me you want to hit a fade, you sure as hell better be able to start the golf ball consistently left of your target. What it does after that is another that's another that's the next phase. But I think so many players are obsessed and you and

I have talked about this. Um, I think so many golfers are obsessed with where the golf ball is ending up from a full swing standpoint, as opposed to where the golf ball is starting relative to the shot they're trying to actively hit. Yeah, and I think, you know, it makes me even more when I get these random videos from students and they're like, oh, what do you think of the swing? And I'm like, where the ball? Because I have no information on this swing whatsoever other

than how pretty it looks. So it's like, you know, was it a push lights with a pull hook? Was it a a fade? Was it a draw? Because like the thing is, if they understood that, they'd probably be able to fix it most of the time themselves. But all I'm going to comment on is all the face look shot. But he might have hit you know, massive open face slice and impact. I can't tell anything other than seeing the first couple of pet of the ball.

So like understanding start line and you know the direction of the ball is moving, it helps you figure out your own swing, you know what I mean. And if you can practice that and understand that, it makes my job a hell of a lot easier because all of a sudden when I ask you, you know, how did you hit at the weekend? Well, do you know what? I started? Everything left and it just kind of stayed there. I'm like straightaway, Oh, it's a pull. I need to get the face a bit more of it, you know

what I mean? Like it. It helps me direct my coach in better. But if somebody comes in and go, I hit it, I hit it right? Okay, what it was it? Understand? Right? Was it curban? Right? Was it a push? Right? Like? Well, what was the shot? So it definitely gets people more zoned into hitting a shot and also being able to describe a shot back and understand those shots. And I think that's really you mentioned.

You know, when someone shows you a picture or a video of their golf swing, like you said, you don't know where the golf ball goes, right, And we see so many junior golfers who spend an enormous amount of time looking at their own golf swing and looking at other golf swings. Um, Tommy Fleetwood, Um yeah, we all love Tommy. Right, Tommy is the best, Right, we love him. He he's moved out here to Dubai. Um, this is where he's going to make his home his two his

two boys are in our junior program here. Um, and you've you've basically put them on notice that they're not allowed to video or look at their golf swings because that's all they tend to do, because that's the world they live in right there around a guy like Tommy. Um,

they're looking at it all the time. And you said, listen, enough, we're not looking at the golf swing now, Um, how important do you think that is in in twenty because everybody's got everybody's got a smartphone, everybody's got The majority of the junior golfers that we teach all have the alignment rod holder where they can put the phone up and they're looking at their golf swing. They're looking at

their golf swing. They're looking at their golf swing. And that's something I always say, Um, what are you looking for? Are you looking at your golf swing for something specific? Because if you are, fine, but if you're trying to look at your golf swing constantly, you've got to remember that there are so many body parts, all of these things happening in a dynamic movement pattern that's over in a second and a half to two seconds and trying to figure that puzzle out. Sometimes you can look at

videos so much that you just nothing actually changes. Well, I learned that Toby. It was I always remember it was November two thousand and seventeen, and it just that I'll never forget it. I remember looking at the video, was swing on camera, and it just looked perfect, like we had the left risk perfect base. It looked like like it was almost a copy of where Tiger would have that. And we were like, we were just we

were loving this swing. And he hit the ball everywhere, and I remember looking at it, and I remember you went to play the tournament and he had he had the worst stretch of tournaments I've ever seen him play. Ball was going everywhere. Swing looked amazing, and I was like, this is just wrong. It's just and I did at the time, I didn't know what it was. I didn't know why it was wrong, couldn't tell you. I said

to him, right, here's what we're gonna do. We're gonna not look at video for a month, said me, and you. We're not gonna look at it. We're not allowed to look at the swing at all. We're gonna look at the ball and we're only gonna look at the ball and we're gonna see what happens. After month, we're gonna try and make a shot. And I remember we took a month no video either of us. I wasn't on every chord of swing. He wasn't let to look at it, and we focused on ball play, ball flight, ball play.

And then at the end of the month we went back and looked to what the swing was because he started playing really really good. Him like right, whatever, it looked different, completely completely. I remember it got really short, his left frisk got very bold, the face was very shut. And remember saying him at that point, I'm like, right, the one thing we now know is what your swing. It's not gonna look traditional. It's always going to have to be shot at the top. And we used that

for the next five years. So any time his face started to get open, you would see the ball started to go over. As soon as he did that, the first thing we would change, regardless what the rest of the swing looked like, we'd start to get a bit more closed at the top. And it always worked. Now

took us fine in that model. It took us like going right, we've done something wrong here, and I had to put my hands up and go, I've done something wrong here, like I've I've told you to do all this and it clearly has not worked because he was shooting like eighty five and it looked, it looked perfect. I've still got the swing. I've kept that videos reminder, do not go for a model, and yeah, we just use that as like our theme for the next five years. And that was it. And now Toby Bishop. That was

five years ago. Toby's now a freshman at the University of Florida plan for coach j C. Deacon. J C has been on the podcast UM Jamie where UM if people want to see what you're doing social wise, see what the academy is doing, where can they check that out? And they can check out Probably Instagram is the best bet. Just see his three performance Golf is their Instagram and then jam Golf coaches mine and you'll find most of the stuff there. Really. Lastly, UM, I am absolutely shocked

at the UM even though it's a podcast. A lot of people can't see this the body transformation. UM, You've made from a pound standpoint. UM in pounds, I know you work in Kilo's UM. In the last two years. How much weight have you lost? If my mass is correct, it's about seventy pounds since I came to Dubai. So when you've got in Dubai from the from the day you arrived to today, you've lost in the last two years, you've lost close you've were lost well over fifty pounds. Yeah, yeah,

it's thirty key, it's about sixty to seventy pounds. You're doing triathlons. Now you're about to run a marror a thon um. What was the crazy one that you just did? I just did the half Iron Man in Greece, so that was the other one. Into the Dark we do this thing, well, our Jim does this thing every year called into the Dark fifty k by, fifty k run and fifty k bike. Can we go through the night? She started seven pm and then everybody tried to finish

it before light. So we did that this year as well. Which was what was the impetus? Because again we ask our as instructors, were asking our students to better themselves. What was the impetus for you to try and say listen, you know, I mean, you're you're half the person you used to be, right, what what was the catalyst um personally for you that said, Okay, something needs to change for me. I think I knew, you know, when I came to Thridian you you gave me some very very harsh,

but honest words. I think people can take it in two ways. They can take it either as an insult or they can take it as somebody trying to help you. And I took it as that and it took me a while to figure out how. But I was from that moment da On trying so hard to lose weight, and then I was lucky enough to come across and it wasn't so much, you know, from to where I'm trying to body shame you. But I think one of the things that I was trying to impress upon you

is listen. You're you're working with so many, you know, juniors, You're you're mentoring so many junior golfers and we're asking them to do so many things and and change things. And and I could see you, you know, we you said, hey, I want to come and work out. Listen for everybody listening.

I am I am by no means an athlete, right, but you know fitness, But I I feel like it's it's my job that if I'm gonna ask my my golfers and and the athletes that we work with to get in the gym bust their ass and getting better shape, that that that's on me too. I had to do that. And that that to me was like life changing, like in the best possible way, because as much as some people might tea it is harsh, it, to me it was you were the first person that was honest enough

to say it. You know, there other people and you I was heavy, but like nobody said it. And that was the moment that I could just see the you know, you were you do you struggle? You know all the time? Yeah, you were tired. And then you know, over over the course of a couple of years, I've lost a pounds

and then a two and a half. Three years ago, I came across a gym close to us, call in her fight and a really good coach called Jess, and she's just kind of stuck with me along the way and just help me kick on to some crazy things that I never thought would be possible. So yeah, to me, it's just I was lucky enough to have somebody willing to be honest and then somebody to help me out along the way. And it's been been a fun couple

of years. Well. As I said to you at the beginning of the podcast, UM, you are one of the instructors around the world and around the globe that largely go unnoticed. But in my opinion, UM, you're one of the best golf instructors in the world. And I'm very proud that you run the academy here and UM you know you and Justin um Parsons you know you guys are like brothers to me and and you're adopted members

of the Harmon family. And I'm incredibly proud of all the work that you've done and and not only the person you become, but the instructor you become. Because let me tell you, if I'm if I'm going into battle, if I've got an instruction team and somebody says listening, you can hire a couple of people to be on your instruction team. You know you and JP or at the at the top of my at the top of my list, because UM, I want you guys on my team, and I appreciate everything you do for us. Thank you

very much. So that was a deep dive into instruction with Jamie McConnell and UM, hopefully everybody will UM give him a follow and take a look at what he's doing, because he's doing something really really cool stuff. UM. And like I said, if if I've got to pick someone for UM to go to battle with from an instruction standpoint,

he is top of the list. So I spent last week UM at my academy out in Dubai, Go once a year and UM Jamie and I kind of talked a little bit about it, but UM, it is a really unique kind of h obviously one of the really great cities of the world. UM. I think it's becoming an iconic city with you know, the landscape of what they've done there. And but it is a very very small,

small golf market. So whenever I get a chance to go over and spend time there, UM, I'm always spending time with UM a lot of different UM people taking golf lessons. My schedule when I go to Dubai's pretty packed with giving golf lessons and it's it's interesting I get to give golf lessons from people from all over the world. And last week UM the Nationalies, I gave a lot of golf lessons to people from India, UM, Pakistan, UM Asia, UM, Russia, South Africa, UM, Northern Europeans, UM,

A lot of people from the UK. So it's always interesting to kind of work with people when you when you live in the US, the predominant amount of golf lessons you give are two people UM from the U. S they're they're Americans. And I always think it's interesting, UM, how people they very very much learn differently. I mean, I think the way that people from different countries approach instruction, UM, in approach getting a golf lesson is is very very different.

And and I think that's one of the cool things about what I get to do is is I get to meet a lot of different people and get to spend time with people from you know, different walks of life. But UM, last week I spent a lot of time with our juniors in our junior development program, and UM, you know, when you are dealing with with with a bunch of juniors and kids who are coming UM into golf, and they're not coming into it from kind of the way that I think a lot of people listening in

the US the traditional way. UM. I touched on that a little bit. UM the junior golf UM. One of the reasons why we we've leaned heavily into junior golf development at our academy in Dubai is to is to try and give kids a pathway in the U S. It's it's easy, right, there's junior tournaments everywhere. UM yeah, there isn't probably anyone listening in any state in the US UM that doesn't have a place where UM it. You could go and put your your children into a

junior development program. You could put them in junior tournaments, but UM out in Dubai, UM, it's very very limited on the amount of things that the juniors can play in together UM with their peers. They tend to play a lot of golf with adults, and so what we wanted to try and do was really kind of immerse UM. A lot of the kids that we have in our junior program UM into kind of this team concept to make them feel like they're part of UM like a high school team. I talked a little bit about that

with Jamie and um UH. When when we think about when I think about people ask me, you know, you know, the topic of growing the game to me UM as an instructor I feel like I am trying to grow the game by bringing in junior golfers. I think everybody that is a off instructor around the world. UM, it's a it's a huge opportunity. It's it's a responsibility, I think too, to to bring in junior golfers to UM get them introduced to golf and UM, you know, instill

all of the kind of the values. UM. You also have to remember that a lot of people from UM, developing countries that don't have a huge amount of history and golf, they don't know a lot of the traditions and the history of of the game. And UM, that's one of the things I really really like is is getting an opportunity to talk to people about you know, the history of golf and and you know, all the

things that came before them. And you'd be surprised, um because of just where a lot of of of of kids live that you know, aren't immersed in a lot of the history and the the the legacy of golf. They just don't know a lot of those things. So UM, I think it's always a unique opportunity for me to to get an opportunity to kind of fly the flag for for golf and golf instruction. So UM it was a really cool UM. It was really cool week and

it's a week that I always really look forward to. UM. I want to thank everyone for listening UM, and we will continue to do what the podcast does. UM bring you guests that that maybe give you hot takes, UM, maybe guests that you you didn't know. But UM just try and continue to get people on that that love golf and are passionate and golf is part of their life. Son of a which comes to you every Wednesday. We will see you all next week.