Dr. Scott Lynn Interview: The importance of understanding your golf swing and best leveraging ground force power

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
It's episode forty five Off Course with Claude Harmon. You know,
the Drill comes to you every Wednesday. This week's guest
Dr Scotland, director of Research and Education for Swing Catalysts,
which is a it's basically a ground force kind of measuring. Um,
we're gonna talk about a lot of cool things, and
I think you're starting to hear kind of how players

(00:33):
work with their feet, how they're using the ground. You're
starting to hear it more in the broadcast. Um, it's
something that the long drive guys have been trying to
work on for a long time. I've been lucky enough
to work along time alongside Scott and this guy is really,
really smart, and I think he does a really good
job of taking a complex um subject like golf biomechanics
like groundforce reaction and trying to dump it down to

(00:56):
help all golfers. And there's definitely going to be some
stuff that is going to help you play better. But
first wanted to talk to you about a new partner
of the podcast, Elijah Craig Bourbon. Every golfer us their
own unique style. That's what we love about the game,
and it's also what we love about Bourbon. Every bottle
of their award winning small Batch carries a signature warm

(01:20):
spice and subtle smoke flavor, and that's what you'll taste
when you mix an old Fashioned with Elijah Craig small Batch. So,
whether you're watching golf, whether you're at home, whether you're
playing a few holes, make Elijah Craig your signature sip.
Discover the greatness within at Elijah craig dot com. Slash

(01:40):
Golf mag of course with Claude Harmon is brought to
you by Elijah Craig. Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey, Bardstown, Kentucky,
Alcohol by Volume. Elijah Craig reminds you to think wisely,
drink wisely. So now let's get to the interview with
Dr Scott Lynn. My guest today is Dr Scotland, head

(02:07):
of Research and Education at Swing Catalyst. For our listeners
that don't know what Swing Catalyst is, you know, can
you kind of explain to them what it is? Um,
I think there's a lot of confusion kind of about
what it is. I mean, I think a lot of
people associated us with measuring the ground reaction forces, so
the pressures and forces between the feet and the ground

(02:29):
but um our our CEO and a bunch of people. UM,
we're basically a software company. UM. We really pride ourselves
on our software that we use to do basic analysis
of golf swings, whether you just do video analysis. We
have a lot of people who just use the software
to analyze videos and draw lines and do stuff that
we've done for a really long time in analyzing golf
swings UM. But then you can also sync your software

(02:54):
with our ground reaction force plates UM. And that's where
my work with Swingcaus has really come and is making
sense of how the golfer interacts with the ground UM,
and how we can then use that in golf instruction
because you know, force plates pressure plates have been in
academic labs for a really long time UM. But being
able to take that information and apply it, you know,

(03:14):
in a very practical setting in a golf lesson or
UM with a golf instructor who obviously doesn't have background
in physics and biomechanics and all that kind of stuff
is has been kind of my task with swim Calis.
So it's taking that kind of complex information and breaking
it down in a simple way that we can use
it to help somebody hit the ball better. Yeah, you're
currently a professor of kinesiology and biomechanics at cal State Fullerton.

(03:38):
I mean we're starting to hear Scott. I think we're
starting now ground force reactions, the way players used the
ground are. We're hearing it more on the broadcast now
players talking about it. I think obviously, Um Bryson, the
work that bryceon d Shambo has done to try and
gain speed, He's looked at that. Um. I've always thoughts
as an instructor, people ask me, what is one of

(04:00):
the differences between people that you're watching play golfer living
on television, elite ball strikers, great players versus the rest
of us, right, the the average recreational golfer. And I
always say that I think the best players in the
world use the ground in ways that the rest of
us just aren't able to use. And you know, am

(04:21):
I am I right in saying that? Yeah, I mean
we see some things obviously on elite players that we
don't see in regular golfers in using the ground. Um,
but is that being said, you do we will find
some recreational golfers who put a whole bunch of force
into the ground. They just put it into the ground
in ways that don't match their body or their way

(04:44):
of delivering the club. And so I think more often
than not, you can you'll see people everybody because we
have our little tour average graphs, and it's rare that
I get somebody on the plate, even if they're a
terrible golfer that doesn't at least get one of those
graphs into the tour average, which means you know, they're
they're putting some force into the ground, it's just they're
putting it in the ground into the way that's not
relaying into the club and creating speed. So I always

(05:06):
talked about ground reaction forces as really tuning them to
the individual or tuning them to the player. UM. And
I find bad players generally have them completely mismatched, so
they don't have it optimal for them. UM. But it
is possible to be a really bad player and still
put a lot of force into the ground. What we're
what what swing catalysts and what a lot of these
pressure plates um. But specifically, the three things that swing

(05:29):
catalyst is looking at that a player does is how
they're moving from side to side, right from their right
handed golfer, how they're moving to the right, and how
they're moving to the left, and then it's looking at
their rotational how much they're able torque rotation, and then
the vertical component of its their ability to push off

(05:50):
of the ground. Um. Why are those three things so
important for golfers at all levels? Um? Basically because that's
and and the force plates do provide a lot more
information than that. We we have a bunch of information
in the background that we kind of hide from our users,
or I mean, we don't hide it. You can go
and get it if you want to. But to me,
that that just simplifies things in a way for the

(06:12):
users because if we think about how humans move, we
can basically move in three planes. Right, we can move
in the frontal plane, which is the first one, like
a side to side motion. Right, That would be a
face on kind of if you film me from face on,
you can kind of see how I'm moving in the
frontal plane or side to side. Right, So the frontal
plane would be a right handed golfer, how they're moving
and how and how much they're moving into the right leg,

(06:33):
and then how much they're moving into the left leg.
So that's that kind of lateral side to side motion.
Actually we call that kind of sway or glide or
whatever you want to call it. UM, And that would
be kind of ye watching their prolis or their belt
buckle move away and towards the target as they swing UM.
And the other one, the second force we measure is
the rotational force or how much they're moving in the
transverse plane. That would be something like to really see

(06:55):
it properly with the two D camera, you would need
one A B from above right to see how much
the rotation and so UM so the transverse So we
have frontal plane motions, which is kind of that side
to side or that glide or that sway. Then we
have the transverse plane motions, which is the rotational force UM.
And this would be you know, we see this a lot.
And I mean one of your guys DJ, I would imagine,
you know, we've never had him on the plate, but

(07:15):
I would imagine he produces a ton of that rotational force.
You know, guys where you see that belt buckle almost
pointing at the target or even past the target sometimes
that impact are the guys that are creating tons of
that rotational force UM. And then the third force would
be in the sagital plane. UM, and the sagital plane
would be if you looked from the side or down
the line kind of at the person and how much
uh they're moving. And most of our movements general movements

(07:36):
are in the sagital plane, if we walk, if we run,
their mainly sagital plane movements. And and guys that use
a lot of that, or players that use a lot
of that in U in golf or be the ones
you'd actually see like jumping off the ground. So you know,
justin Thomas Lexi Thompson, UM, they're the ones that use
a ton of that. And all the long drive guys
now have really kind of focused in on that sag
on that ability to kind of push off the ground.

(07:57):
We hear a lot now that when we're looking king
at UM force plate data the long drive people, it
blacks out because they're pushing off the ground and effectively
jumping into the air. Yeah, and that's something that you'll
see a lot of kids do that as well. UM,
Like younger golfers. I see a ton of younger golfers

(08:18):
that are in the air when they're hitting the ball.
UM and it is the simplest plane to create forces
in the sagital plane. It's the simplest plane. Like we
don't see little kids when they first start to move around,
you know, get up and start twisting and shuffling side
to side, right that sagital plane motion or simple it's
the simplest plane to move in. And that's why I
think a lot of young kids when they first take
up the game, UM use that force primarily as one

(08:42):
of their main ground reaction forces and hitting the golf ball. Um.
And I think you know, when I was a kid,
I remember going to little junior clinics where the teachers
would be on their hands and knees holding people's feet
on the ground and trying to keep them from jumping.
I remember, you know when instructors saying, this isn't basketball,
you don't jump, like how to keep your feet on
the ground. And you know, had we done that to
Justin Thomas when he was a little kid. Um, none

(09:02):
of us may know who Justin Thomas is right now,
because he uses that as one of his dominant power sources.
So I think it's really important that we start to
really understand what is what is our golfers dominant power
source and and don't do anything to take that away
from them, just match it up to make it work
for them. So for someone that doesn't have the availability
or has never been on something like swing catalysts or

(09:23):
any sort of like you know, motion capture, where we're
seeing how they interact in the ground, when they're looking
at their own golf swing stock, when they're looking at
how they're moving into their right leg, moving into their
left leg, how they're rotating. And then the footwork, because
I see a lot of players um that I've worked
with that one of the easiest ways to clean up

(09:44):
contact is to have their footwork be more stable. Whereas
when we look at a guy like Justin Thomas, when
we look at guys like Bubba Watson and the long drivers,
they're actively trying to have that jump mechanic part of
their golf and they're trying to push off the ground
and jump. I think there are a lot of higher
handicap golfers that aren't actively trying to do that. They're

(10:07):
in the air with both feet and they're getting absolutely
no benefit out of it. So how do you kind
of balance the footwork Because when I look at golf swings,
historically and it's changing a little bit. But one of
the things I always look at is footwork. What is
the player's footwork look like? And I know that we
have the availability now to measure and we know that

(10:30):
some of that can be really, really good, But it
just seems like the average fifteen to twenty handicapper, their
legs and their feet are all over the place and
they struggle to get the good contact, the good quality
of strike that we're looking at. So for all the
recreational golfers that are listening, what are some of the

(10:53):
things when we're looking at, Let's go through them, the
side to side, the rotation, and then the article. Because
I was we we we've spent some time together, and
we were looking at a player that I worked with
who plays on the LPGA Tour, girl named Marina Alex
who when we looked at what she was doing on
swing catalysts and we were measuring her with her driver,

(11:14):
she had almost of her weight on her right leg
she's right handed, to her right leg or her trail
leg at the top of the back swing. Now, I
think most golfers historically have been told the more turn
and the more load you can get the better. But
one of the things that I'm starting to see and
that you've helped me kind of come to terms within,

(11:35):
is if you get way over on your right side,
you can get so far over there that you just
can't really get back. And there's a gentleman and older
gentleman who's a member at my club who's a you know,
it's a big lesson taker. He doesn't have a lot
of great body movement, but he's always trying to get

(11:56):
big onto that right leg. And it was after you
and I spoke, it made me really realize he gets
all his weight on his right like almost makes this
big turn, but then he gets lost and stuck back
there and never really gets through the ball efficiently and
just basically throws it casts it. The impact position is bad.

(12:18):
So that balance of how much is too much in
the turning part, in the moving from right to left. Yeah,
So that's something that I've found in really good players,
they really dial in um. So if we talk about
like how much pressure we get maximally into the right
side during the backswing, out of the couple PJ Tour players,

(12:39):
I've measured the averages around eighty, which kind of corresponds
with you know, I think Hogan's book way back in
the day said you want to be in the back swing,
which so it was a really good guess that by
Hogan in you know, way back when we didn't have
access to any of this technology. Um, but that is
the average, But the standard deviation is a massive because
we see guys ranging from about where they hardly get

(13:00):
any pressure to the right at all more than that
set up to all the way up into the nineties.
And so dialing that in for your particular player is
really important. And what we find is that has to
kind of how much you get into your right side
has to kind of correspond with your ability to produce
the proper ground reaction force. So if I get nine
percent into my right side, I better have a lot
of that horizontal force where I need to push into

(13:20):
the ground with my right foot and get myself moving
back to the left, because if I get nine percent
and I get stuck back there because I can't push
off my right leg, Um, you know, I'm kind of um,
that's not going to be very good for me. So
that's not going to be an optimal matchup. Um. Whereas
I've seen a lot of players where it can work.
You can get into your right side and you can
push off that right foot effectively get moving back to

(13:41):
the left, and you can hit some good shots there
on the other side of the equation. If I kind
of like stack on my left leg and so I
don't get a whole lot of pressure ship to the right,
that can still work too, But then I got to
produce vertical forces from there right because if you right down,
I got to come back up. And one of the
things that I think that I've seen a lot with
the higher handicap golfer is they make what what is
the big sway move off the golf ball, get a

(14:03):
lot of that weight on the right leg, and then
they come over the top of the golf ball. So
they're actually creating a lot of rotation. But because they've
put so much weight on that trail leg on their
right leg, they rotate, but they don't get any sort
of power because like you said, you have it's it's
about trying to do one of the things that when

(14:23):
you and I first spent some time together, you said, listen,
if you look at the way players are moving side
to side, if you look at the way they're moving rotationally,
and then if you look at how they're working vertically,
that jump part you said, basically all we're trying to
do it's a little bit like a radio. We're just
trying to dial in how much is enough of each?
So for that player that makes that big move that's

(14:44):
being told get into your right side, get into your
right side, makes that big shoulder turn, if they don't
have that corresponding move back to the left, it doesn't
really matter that they've made this big turn and they
have a lot of rotation. And I think a lot
of times, you know, players are getting information from magazines,
from YouTube, and you know, my dad used to always

(15:08):
say that being a golf instructor is like being a doctor.
You've got someone and they come in and they've got
a cast on their arm, and you say to that person,
as a doctor, how did you break your arm? And
they say, well, I don't have a broken arm, but
I heard that if you had a broken arm, putting
it in a cast would be a great thing. When
we see that a lot, right, So as a as
just a regular golfer who's just trying to hit the

(15:30):
golf ball more solid um, is there an optimal that
you've seen in all the data that you've looked at.
What would be the ideal mix or is there an
ideal mix of all of these components. Yeah, I think
there's an ideal mix for each individual. And so for me,
I think Golf Digest and Golf Magazine and stuff like

(15:51):
that needs to start doing and kind of choose your
own adventure golf tips where you have a little assessment
you put your body through, and I think we can
come up with some these simple ones and and and
the one test that I you know, I think I
did with a bunch of your players when I was there,
and and it's a super simple test and it's not ideal.
There is no perfect test to determine what's optimal for
each human. But I get you to hit with your
feet together, really close together, and you just evaluate, like

(16:14):
how far are the ball is going. If you have
a launch mon and you can look at club at
speed and ball speed, that's great. If you don't have
a launch monitor, you can just kind of evaluate how
solidly am I hitting it? How far is the ball going,
like is it curving a lot? And you could pick
a target out, you could pick out, you know, a
flag measure, you know, you know, measure how far away
from the flag you are, laser it and then say, okay,

(16:34):
I'm gonna hit a nine iron. Is there an optimal
club that you would choose for this task with the
feet together? I like to use a mid iron, So
like a seven eight six somewhere in that range I
think is fine. Um I, you know, obviously you're not
going to use a driver. It's just because teeing it
up gets into some different strategies. Um. So yeah, So
generally a seven eight sick seven eight and mid iron

(16:56):
is probably the best one. So you hit with your
feet together, and what will notice with your feet together
is obviously you can't move side to side very much
with your feet together, right, because if you do, you'd
fall over, And so that kind of limits the amount
that you can go side to side. And often when
you put your feet really close together, you're not going
to see people jump off the ground because there's no
real base of support. Yeah, and so what do they do?

(17:17):
They have to learn how to spin or rotate. And
so if you're really good at rotating and you're a
centered player, kind of we call that a non long uh,
a non leg dominant player, So we don't have one
that's one leg that's super more dominant than the other. UM.
So if you're if you hit the ball best in
that situation, then you'd say, Okay, I'm probably a centered player,
and I gotta learn how to rotate better and keep
my pressure shipt kind of in that mid range. And

(17:38):
then what you do is you drop one foot back
and so you kind of hit like I've seen people
do drills like this forever right where they're standing on
one foot, the other foot's kind of back with their
toe into the ground. UM. And you do that on
your right foot and hit a few balls, and you
do that on your left foot and hit a few balls,
and you used to evaluate which of those conditions is
the best for you. UM. And you'll see it often
where people get, you know, on the right foot. So

(18:00):
I'll measure them on the force plate and they'll be
getting their pressure into the right side. And then I'll
try to have them hit only on their right foot,
and they'll be all wobbly and they like can hardly
even stand on that foot, and they hit the ball
all over the face and and are swinging much slower.
And I'm like, and it's a really good eye opener
for most players. It's like, Okay, well I can hardly
even stand on my right foot and let alone hit
a ball off it. Why am I getting of my

(18:21):
pressure into that leg? That's that's not so good, not
so strong, not so stable. UM. And you're like, whoa
that that doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Maybe
I shouldn't do that. UM. And so I think that's
a really good eye opener for a lot of people. UM.
It's not a perfect test, but it's one that's very simple.
You can do it on any driving range. UM. Even
if you just have a cheap little launch monitors, swing
speed measuring device. UM. It can give you a lot

(18:42):
of good information. So if you have a player that
hits it really good with their feet together right and
their feet are really really close together, and they catch
it really solid, they hit the golf ball a pretty
good distance, and then they go and they test off
of the you know, having all their weight on their
left foot with the with the right foot kind of toe,

(19:05):
you know, resting on the toe, and that kind of
goes not as good, not as solid, and then you
have the right foot test and it dozen goes up.
It's you're able then to think, okay, rotation is probably
the thing that I'm really good at, because I'm not
really good at being able to balance and hit off
my back foot or hit on my front foot right.

(19:26):
And then you will have players that don't hit it
solid with their feet together right, No, for sure, then
you'll have players that stripe it off their right foot.
I was in UH. I think it's a little bit
more rare that you get people, especially UM in the US,
I don't know why, or in North America, I think
you'll find less people that hit it really well off
their right foot. But I did a seminar once in um.

(19:47):
Where were are we Thailand? I believe in Bangkok, And
I think of a room of twenty or thirty people,
what like fifteen or like a good percentage fifty or
six of them hit it better up their right foot.
So so these people were try and to get more
pressure ships off the ball, get them more into the
right side so they could use their strongest, kind of
the most dominant leg um. So yeah, that's that's a
good um starting point. And and what we find is

(20:10):
too when people hit it really well. I've had it
in the past where I get a you know, a
baseline of their normal golf swing, and I have their
club speed and ball speed and all that kind of stuff,
and then I do the test and they put their
feet together and their club speed goes up, and their
ball speed goes up, and they actually hit it further
with their feet together. And sometimes they look at you
and like, should I play it this way? And I
was like, well, maybe not this way, But that tells
me we should probably narrow your stands, um because what

(20:32):
you'll find is, I mean, if you look at a
figure skater, right, no figure skater is going to get
their arms and legs really wide to try to rotate.
It makes it a lot harder. And so if you yeah,
so if you are a rotationally dominant player, let's make
it a little easier on ourselves and and there our
feet a little bit, because that can allow us to
rotate a lot better. So let's take a quick break
from the interview to talk about our friends at Cobra Golf.

(20:54):
I've been a part of the Cobra Golf team for
a number of years now, and they have three new
drivers out for the l T D X, The l
T D x l S and the l T d
X max lt D longest total distance. It's a great
combination in these drivers of speed, distance and forgiveness. They've

(21:17):
got an l S model which is low spins. If
you're trying to get that spin down, you can bring
it down with that driver l T d X Max.
That's got to weight in the heel. So if you're
looking for a little bit more of a draw bias driver,
that's going to be the one that you want to
try out. But I put it straight in my bag
when I got it. I like the way it feels.
It's got a lot of forgiveness on the face, it

(21:38):
comes out hot, it looks cool, and I think Cobra
is really onto something with these three new drivers. If
you want to learn more about them, you can go
to Cobra golf dot com backslash l T d X.
I don't think you'll be disappointed. If you're looking for
more speed, more distance, and more forgiveness, give these drivers
from Cobra try in your bag. Now let's get back

(22:02):
to the interview with Dr Scott Lynn. Do you think, um,
we're at a stage now with all of the technology
that's available that for all of the negative things that
you know, I think there is a much negative out
there about what Bryson D. Shambo is trying to do

(22:23):
with hitting the golf ball further all the long drive. Obviously,
he's currently injured right now, so he's an easy target
of everyone saying, Okay, yeah, it was never gonna last.
It wasn't sustainable what it does to your body. But
do you think that the information that we're able to
pull out of what these guys are trying to do

(22:43):
is long term going to change the way that people
teach golf. You know, ten years from now you play
this out, we're gonna have more and more data. Um,
what do you see golf swings looking like ten years
from now versus the way that they've looked today, or
that the way that they've looked in the past. Because

(23:06):
so much of of golf, I think golf, more than
any other sport, spends an enormous amount of time in
the past, We're always looking backwards, and we just don't
seem to do that. I mean, maybe we do that
a little bit in basketball, where we look at players
like Michael Jordan and we look at him being the benchmark.

(23:28):
But you know, in tennis right now. You you look
at the great tennis players. Yes, you know John McEnroe
is a great servant, voluer, Stefan Edburg and stuff like.
But the way the modern tennis game is played today,
you watch old, you even watch old, you know, Bjorn
borg Um, John McEnroe, you know, the Great Finals, it
looks like they're playing in slow motion right relative to

(23:50):
the way the game is played today. And I just
think so much of golf, and so much of golf
history is tied up in looking backwards, and we look
at these old swings, and we look at this, and
there's this segment of the population. You know, I think
from a journalistic standpoint this as well. You know, back
in the day, they didn't need track man and they

(24:11):
didn't need force plates. You know. Brandle is big on that,
you know, anti this, anti that, But I think the
gains that are being made not only at the elite level,
but it can help us so much with regular golfers
who are just trying to hit the golf ball more suld.
I mean once that that gentleman I told you was
probably in his late sixties, early seventies. He doesn't have

(24:33):
a lot of flexibility He's not in great shape, but
he loves golf. He's trying to get better, and he
reads all these articles that says, I've got to make
this massive, massive shoulder turn. I've got to get behind
the ball to get power. And in that way, the
information that we're able to have now can help him
by saying, listen, let's cut down how much you're moving

(24:55):
off the golf ball. Let's maybe keep you a little
bit more centered, keep you almost feeling like you're over
the bowl, which is going to make it easy. I
just think that the role of technology, the benefits long
term are going to four outweigh the negatives in what
we're able to look at and measure and help players with.

(25:16):
I agree. I mean, I think if you think about,
you know, ten years ago, I mean I started at
Call State Fullertons in two thousand eight, and I believe
it was shortly after that I flew to Orlando to
hang out with Sean Foley and he pulled this little
orange box out of a bag and put it behind me,
and I was hitting some shots, and like, in two
thousand eight, how many people had tracked man, I mean
it was a rare number. Now in two thousand twenty two,

(25:38):
I don't know a golf teacher that doesn't have some
form of launch monitor. UM. And if you walk down
the range at I mean in two thousand and eight,
if you walk down the range and put the players,
you would have thought you would have seen zero launch monitors.
Now there's there's not a player that doesn't have one
behind them. It's it's cheating, I mean, it's it's giving
you information that you can't get in another way. UM.
And So I think fourth plates are going to be
the same way. I mean, I think right now they're

(25:59):
in the hands a lot of high end golf instructors. So,
you know, really high end places have them because they're
expensive and they're you know, they're not easy to get
your hands on. But I think, you know, ten years
down the road, they're going to be in every golf
instructors because the price, I mean, we're already seeing the
launch monitors now launch monitors. The price of the launch
monitors are coming down and and and they keep every year.

(26:22):
There seems to be one that isn't you know, financially
unattainable for someone that really wants to dive into this. UM.
Your background in biomechanics. Um, what made you try and
get into that type of field and what made you
want to try and look at that because I read
somewhere that you were in two thousand and eight, you

(26:43):
were doing your PhD in biomechanics and you played golf
with an insurance salesman and it really kind of changed
your life. Can you tell that story? Although I think
it's a fascinating story. Yeah. So I was doing my
PhD in a place called Kingston, Ontario, Canada, So that's
just worth of Syracuse basically, Um, And I was doing
it an orthopedic biob mechanics. I was looking at how

(27:05):
people with knee ar threatis walk and all the forces
and torques they put on their knees and how that
could be related to, you know, wearing a way of cartilage.
And Um, doing a PhD as a grind. I mean,
it's four years of just grinding away. I always kind
of equated to a marathon, like the process of running
in a marathon is not inherently enjoyable, right, the process
of running twenty six miles there are points, I'm sure

(27:26):
when you run a marathon you're like, oh, that's a
nice view or whatever. But it's a physical grind to
run twenty six miles, but then when you finished, there's
that sense of accomplishment, right. I think that's kind of
the greatest analogy I could relate to people in doing
a PhD. But um and so I was doing this
PhD in orthopedic bob mechanics, and I was studying the
knee arthreatis and the gate patterns. And um, I was
a member at a golf course called Weston Western Country

(27:49):
Club in Toronto, Canada. Um it's known for, or it's
kind of famous for it hosted the Nadian Open, where
Arnold Palmer won for the very first time profession So
there's a big statue of Arnold Palmer by the first team.
And so I had this membership in Toronto, and I
was two and a half hours away doing my PhD.
And so in the summertimes, I would work till about

(28:10):
Thursday afternoon at around noon, and then I would get
in my car and drive back to play golf weekend.
And I would show up at this course around three
pm every Thursday to just get a get a game in.
And all my buddies were working in their jobs. You know,
they're nine to five jobs, so they couldn't join me
at three o'clock on a on a Thursday, UM. And
so I would just show up and try to get
a game. And there was this older guy who would
show up every Thursday around the same time, and so

(28:31):
we played together a bunch, um. And he was a
retired insurance guy. UM. And I remember, you know, we
chatted a bunch coming around the golf course and at
one point, you know, he had made a lot of money.
He was remember at a night's private course. You know,
he'd he'd had a really good lifestyle in insurance. But
we're playing golf and he looked at me, said, you
know what, when I look back at my career, I
hated every minute of working. Um, the actual working part

(28:53):
I couldn't stand. He's like, it gave me the lifestyle
and allowed me to do the things that, um, that
I wanted to do. But if I could look back
on it now, he is like, you got to find
a way to make work less like work. UM. And
he hit his shot and he walked up and I
was like, m And I went back and worked the
next week on my PhD, and I was like, this
is way too much like work this this knee arthritis stuff.
And so after I finished, when I finished your PhD,

(29:15):
you have to turn in your keys to the lab
and all that stuff that they can graduate you. And
and so I snuck into the lab at night to
do a covert mission UH, golf by mechanics study. So
I was I was playing on the golf team at
the university at the time. So I brought all my
buddies in and I put markers on them and I
quantified the knee loads during the golf swing. UM. And
I presented this at the World Scientific Congress of Golf UM,

(29:37):
and I published it in a journal article. UM. But
it was actually Bob Weeks, who is the editor of
Squore Golf Canada magazine. It's like the Golf Digestive Canada. UM.
I was playing golf with him one day at Weston actually,
and I told him about my study and he got
super interested in it. UM or actually wasn't that interested
at the start, because you know, I told him, but
and he's like, yeah, that's science nerds stuff. I don't
really understand it. And then it was like a week

(29:59):
later the tiger blew out his knee at Torrey Pines, um.
And then he became super interested in it. So he's like, oh,
we gotta talk about this, you know, knee loads and
golf stuff. And and I remember when I started working
on that project, I was like, Wow, this doesn't feel
like work, this is like fun. Um. And so I
decided I wanted to do golf biomechanics as my you know,
profession um. And so I wrote up all my job

(30:19):
applications and submitted them to a bunch of universities saying
I wanted to do golf byo mechanics. And it wasn't
a thing at the time, like nobody in the world
was doing golf biomechanics. So and I read every you
got turned down everywhere, everywhere, well everywhere in Canada, my
own country, didn't want any part of me. Uh. Then
I came down to the States and I interviewed at
a couple of places, and I came to cal State

(30:40):
Fullers and they have an unbelievable lab facility here that's
a big, massive facility where you can hit golf balls
and um. And luckily they were open to that type
of research. UM. So I came down here in uh
two thousand and eight and through Bob Weeks. I got
introduced to Shaan Foley, um, because you know the Canadian connection,
and Shan had just moved to Orlando and had just
started to work with Steven Names and a couple of

(31:01):
those guys. So um, that's kind of how I got
into the Golf by Mechanics. And it was Sean who
connected me with Swing cattlest actually back in I think
it was because he's worked with the company for a
long time. So um yeah, so I think that was
that was a big moment where you know, and I
think it's it's true we spend how much of our
lives working, and if you can be doing something you

(31:23):
find enjoyable, um makes the work less like work and
and it is fun. I mean I love even the
little consulting I do with guys like you and Tony
Riggeriro and Sean Foley. And you know when you see
you get to work with some really good players, and
you know, I work at a bunch of college kids
and I'm following their scores on golf stat all the
time and seeing how are things going, and I'm talking
to them afterwards. So um, yeah, I'm inherently a scientist,

(31:47):
but um, you know the the I don't know, the
motivation to publish research articles that sit in academic journals
that nerds like me read and barely anybody else has
kind of waning a little bit. I much enjoy much,
or enjoy solving these practical problems UM. And so taking
complex biomechanics and putting in the hands of people that
can actually use it, I think is a is a

(32:08):
worthwhile use of science for sure. So for for everyone
that's listening that that you know that aren't in the
world that you and I are in biomechanics, to dumb
that down for a golf for what is golf biomechanics
and why is that important for golfers? UM. I kind

(32:28):
of break it down to my students as being the
physics of the human body. UM. So there are these
physical laws that govern our world. UM. And most of
this was developed by Isaac Newton a really long time ago. UM.
And so it's applying all of the same you know,
theories and principles and formulas that an engineer would use
to build a bridge and make sure it doesn't fall down,
and all of those things are you know, build engines

(32:49):
and cars, and all of these physical laws that governor
universe and applied them to the human body and allow
it to one. And biomechanics generally looks at the structure
and function of the human body. So you know, I
was looking at cartilage structure and how it's changed with
forces and torques, and how we can apply different forces
and torques to our knees. UM, whereas you know, you're
mainly worried about the function of the human body. How

(33:10):
can we use physics to allow this body to function better?
And UM. I had a really interesting experience as well
with UM. I sat down with a bunch of the
Club engineers from paying at a conference several years ago,
and I was talking about all the little assessments I
like to do on people to figure out what's optimal
for them in terms of UM. You know, they're swing
biomechanics and UM. Club engineers are UM. You know, they're

(33:34):
working with steel and graphite and you know, titanium. They're
working with things that aren't human beings, and human beings
have nervous systems they have. There's so much as I
was talking about all these assessments I like to do
on people to figure out what the optimal golf My
mechanics and one of the the ping engineers looked at me.
He's like, oh, it's like I hate working with humans.
They're so messy. And I was like, that's brilliant, um,

(33:56):
because human beings are messy, right, we have we have
think about Like I was just working with a girl
yesterday who's on my my girlfriend's golf team. She's a
college golfer and she had hit a couple of shanks
in competition, and she was deathly afraid of the shank,
like she hit one and it looked like her world
was ending, and she was just in my garage hitting

(34:17):
into a net. I was like, dude, whatever, it doesn't matter.
But you think how much emotional investment people have, even
people that play for just a recreational way, in the
outcome of their golf shot. And how afraid we get
when we get over that shot and there's a right
to left wind and there's water on the right or
out of bounds, or there's a couple of people watching. Um,
it's amazing how much you know. And people talk about
mental issues and golf. I think mental issues and golf

(34:38):
come from a bunch of bad shots that we don't
know how to fix them right. Um. And if we
do know how to fix them, then you know a
lot of those things can almost take care of themselves.
But um, yeah, So that Um, it's basically the physics
of the human body. And it's complicated because I don't
think we can treat the human body as a machine
because we're so different. All of the are so different,

(35:00):
We're all built differently. All of us have different anatomical structures.
And that's something that I'm getting into some research with
a doctor orthopedic surgeon in Little Rock, Arkansas, UH named
Lowry Barnes. We're working together to start to start to
quantify the anatomical structure of humans because I think there's
certain things about our structure that could dictate, Hey, you're
better able to rotate, and you're better able to move

(35:22):
side to side, and you're better able to to produce
vertical forces. Because my little test, you know, on one foot,
other foot and be together. I mean you might have
just practiced the one with your on your right foot
for a while or you know whatever. There could be
so many reasons why one could be better than any other.
So um, and that's ultimately my goal for my career
is to become to be able for you to walk

(35:42):
into a facility and I can say, Okay, I know
exactly what the optimal combination of these forces are for you,
and I know the optimal um way that you need
to deliver the club. UM. And I think a lot
of this stuff, a lot of the work that I started,
I would have never gone down this route if it
weren't from my atoms. UM. Doing some work with him
is where I kind of really started, because he was
the first golf and teacher that that really started to

(36:03):
put golfers in little groups and and try to quantify,
you know, what, what makes your swing need to be
different from somebody else's which um, And so that's kind
of our goal. Um. But there's so many things that
you need to think about. So UM. That's why I
think you know that if you just read Golf Magazine
or Golf Golf Digest and you pick up a tip
that might be based in science, but it's not for you, right,

(36:25):
it's not applical for you. As That's why I think, UM,
And I've tried to do a couple of articles for
Golf Magazine and Golf Digest that or like a choose
your own adventure. Um. I don't remember if you remember
those books when you was when I was a kid, right,
you'd get to you know, you'd read along and it'd
be like, if you want to go down this hallway,
go to page nine or whatever. So, UM, do this
little test and if if if this, then go to

(36:46):
this drill and if that, and then go to that
drill and um and eventually I think, you know we're
talking about three swing cattle is coming up with almost
an AI golf teacher that could put you through drills
and you know, get the data back from the fourth
plates and from the launch model and say, Okay, that
was pretty good. You know where that wasn't so good.
That's gonna be great. They're not gonna need people like me. Thanks, Scott.
I really appreciate that you. They will never get rid

(37:10):
of the coach. You'll never ever get rid of that
part of it. Um. But I think you can kind
of direct people along just so they're not going completely
down the wrong path right where. I think it does
happen often and that that probably creates some business for
for a lot of golf teachers for sure. But yeah,
we were just walking around the Players Championship together down
it's up at sall grass and when you look at

(37:30):
golfers and when you go to golf tournaments, when you
watch golf on TV. As someone that lives in that
kind of research biomechanics, but is there anything that you've
kind of seen that you could put your finger on
that great players or great ball strikers do. There really isn't.
There's so many different ways to do it. I mean, obviously,

(37:52):
if you look at impact factors, there are some things
that I mean, I don't you don't see too many
great ball strikers with low points, not in front of
the all like obviously that if we talk about that
pure interaction with the club in the ball, I think
you can definitely come up with things that are that
good ball strikers do. Um. But when it talks about
the feet in the ground, it it's it's so different.
Everybody's completely different. And and I try to guess, um,

(38:14):
you know, if I'll watch a player on TV and
I'll like, like I did earlier, I guess that DJ
is a big rotational guy, probably has tons of torque
on the plate. But multiple times I've been wrong, whence
I when I've actually able been able to measure that player. Um.
And one example of Jordan's speek. So, Jordan's speef, you
know how he rolls on the outside of his ankle
kind of through impact, and and that to me looked
like a horizontal pattern. Right, if I'm going to roll

(38:36):
on the outside of my ankle, it looks like a
majority horizontal pattern. But all his forces are vertical. Um.
So once I saw his forces, UM on the plate.
You know, Camera McCormick has one of our plates at
at Trinity Forest, and I was like, I couldn't believe
it. It It was all vertical. And it's so that's the
thing about force plates is um. I know I've heard
some people claim to be human launch monitors, Like I
don't need a launch monitor. I can tell from UM.

(38:58):
I don't think you'll ever be you'll ever find somebody
who's a human ground reaction for his plate because it's
it's just impossible to see those things with your eye. Yeah.
And I think the ability now to measure what players
are doing is so so important. This matchup. I'm fascinated
by the matchup of you know, as as a player,
you know how much because I think golfers are so

(39:21):
deathly afraid of a swaying right. I mean, if there's
one thing that I hear golfers when you know, sometimes
you need a player to say, listen, you know you
you don't have any power. You're kind of reverse pivoting.
You've got all this weight on your left side. Let's
try and get some more weight into that right leg

(39:42):
if you're a right handed golfer, that trail leg. And
you'll hear players say no, no, I don't want to sway,
I don't want to swear, I don't want my head
to move around and stuff like that. I think golfers
over the over the years have read so much. It's
not misinformation, but it's just all of these terms that
they've kind of come to know. And that's why I

(40:02):
was asking earlier. Do you think that we have an
opportunity with all of the technology and our ability to
measure what players are actually really doing that in the
future the terminology will change, right you know? Uh? I lift?
You know forever everybody thinks they top twive. I mean

(40:23):
I still to this day, Doc lifted my head and
I'm like, that's got absolutely nothing to do with anything.
Oh I I swung too fast at that one. I'm like, actually,
if we could measure what you were doing, you're swinging
slower on that one than you do when you hit
a good one. Do you think that there is an

(40:44):
opportunity for the future of of golf terminology and golf
instruction to change through being able to measure what all
these players are doing. Yeah, I think that's a huge opportunity,
and I think that is a big issue. I feel
like the pendulum and golf instruction always kind of sways
back and forth, so you know, swaying was the worst

(41:04):
thing ever. And then stack un tilt came along and
a lot of people jumped on that because there was
no swing involved with that. That must be good, right,
And so some players got better with that, some players
got worse with that because it doesn't match everyone. Um.
And then the cardinal sin and golf became an early extension,
right TP I made early extension kind of like the
cardinal sin or you gotta keep your butt on the wall,
you gotta. And I saw somebody post something about Scottie

(41:25):
Scheffler after you one last week, and he's got a
significant amount of butt off the wall, and yeah, right,
and so that works for him. I don't think there's
anything that is. And that's why you know your question
is there's something that all good players do or is
there something that all bad players do? There really isn't
an answer. I mean, early extension could be that could
be awful for me, and it could be actually good
for you. You might need some because to get a

(41:47):
vertical force you've got to extend through your joints and
extend through your hips and so um. Yeah, so there.
I don't think there is anything that's that's really death
move for golf in general. Um, but there could be
for each person. So I would more to have people
start talking about, well, you know, I'm kind of a
glider so I need this, and I'm kind of a
spinner so I need this. And I'm kind of a

(42:07):
launcher so I need this. So if we start anything
that people do to put golfers in little categories or
little groups, which we call in in science, that's cluster analysis, right.
So if we got a graph and there's dots all
over the place, what we have to do is put
a little circle around these dots and say, Okay, what's
similar about these people? Why does this work for these
people and not for these people or those people, and
so anybody who's doing any kind of cluster analysis and

(42:29):
trying to put golfers in little groups and and identify
what differences they need, I think that's where we need
to start going. I mean, I think the three terms
that you use just now are really really accurate and powerful.
So people that have a lot of right, if the
right handed golfer that kind of right to left, that lateral,

(42:49):
that would you call that more of a glider glider
horizontal player shure, And I think, you know, we talked
about Pat Perez, I would say he's he's a pretty
horizontal player. And and if you took away his way,
so I've watched some of his wings in his belt
buckle moves a good distance away into wards the target.
If you took that away from him, you know, he
starts spinning out of it, hitting wheat cuts, and and
he hates that right where you get him gliding into it,

(43:11):
he starts trapping those draws in there, and he loves it.
And he loves that game. So guys like him, guys
like Lucas Glover are guys that produce some side to
side motion and or side to side forces and they're
generally the drawers of the golf ball because generally that
side to side drops the and that's a big generalization too,
but I generally think those are the guys that are
going to drop the climpity inside more and create a
little more drop pattern, right. And so then the other

(43:32):
one you talked about were spinners, people that have a
lot of rotational move with that lower body. For for
everyone listening, so you you just mentioned guys that that
would kind of be your kind of you know, you
can maybe classify them as as gliders, guys that have
a lot of that kind of the knee kind of

(43:53):
that left knee looks like it's going a little bit
for then you have the rotational guys, the guys that
you spind if if if you had to plassify someone
that you kind of visually look out and go, yeah.
I mean you mentioned DJ who has a lot of
that rotation. Tiger was probably very much in that pattern
as well, someone that had the ability to rotate. Yeah, yeah,

(44:13):
those are those are two I would say very centered golfers.
You know, Tiger in his day and and DJ and
I mean there's a couple of things that I look
at to kind of determine um the um what the
pattern is. So one is like the belt buckle right,
does the belt buckle go side to side? Does it
spin and kind of point towards the target? So like
an impact, if your belt buckles pointing at the ball,

(44:35):
you're probably not a spinner, right. And if your belt
buckles pointing at the target, then okay, that that gives
us a bigger indication UM. And then I look a
lot at actually the flex in the right knee or
in the trail side knee. Um. And so if you're
a very right side dominant player like a Pat Perez,
you gotta keep a little more flex in that knee
because you need flexing, the need to push off that

(44:55):
leg right. So if I straightened my right leg and
I get a whole bunch of pray, you're into that leg,
then I'm not gonna be able to get off of it.
So the flex in the right knee is another thing
that can kind of queue you off. So a lot
of flex would be a right right dominant golfer or
a glider. A little less flex would be kind of
more of a centered player. And if I'm a left
sided golfer or or kind of a vertical golfer. I
might straighten that that trail side legum because that tilts

(45:18):
me towards that left side and gets me kind of
more stacked on top of my left leg. So those
are a couple of things that I look at. Their
not perfect cues because again every time I try to guess,
like I have guessed that DJ is a torque dominant golfer,
but I don't know. We haven't measured him yet, so
we'll see. And then you said, um, what was the
last term that use a glider um spinner and launch art.

(45:40):
So a guy that springs to mind, you mentioned a
guy like Justin Thomas. Justin Thomas has a lot of
that force. Do you think that that was something? I mean,
it's interesting when we look at golfers, probably more than
other sports, I think, because you know what Tom Brady does.
Every buddy that watches Tom Brady that isn't currently playing

(46:03):
high school football, college football, or professional football has no
ability to try and match that. Right, if they look
at what Lebron's doing, if they looked at what Michael
Jordan's doing, if they're looking at what Novak or Roufa
or anybody in these other sports unless they're currently playing
competitively in that sport, you have no ability to match that.

(46:28):
And I think so much of what harms golfers is
one I think everyone in golf tends to find the
outlier that can match what they do right, So the
pure one outlier, guys like Justin I have so many
duck have so many parents come to me and their
their their son, their daughter. Their feet are all over

(46:50):
the place, the contacts bad. And I said, listen, if
we can just clean up the footwork, make them a
little bit more stable through impact. And they always say, well,
Justin Thomas foots off the ground. And I was said, well, yeah,
but your daughter or son is not Justin Thomas, right,
he's an outlier. Bubba Watson, the way Bubba's feet work
very much of kind of an outlier kind of I think,

(47:13):
do you think that we can have golfers start to say, Okay,
what is it that I do right? What is part
of because I think golfers are really inherently bad at
kind of looking at what they do. They tend to
focus on what other people are doing and then try

(47:34):
and match that, as opposed to say, okay, what do
I do? I remember going back in the early days
of launch monitors when I was when I was with Titlists.
We were out at at t p I and I
was watching a guy, um get fitted for a driver,
you know, fifteen handicapper, he'd never been on a launch
monitor before, and he hit five drives and they gave

(47:54):
him what the average clubhet speed was in ball speed.
But the ball speed wasn't really that big of a
deal as it is now, but they just gave him
the club at speed and the guy, the player immediately said, okay,
how can I get faster? And the fitter said, rather
than try and get faster, why don't you just try
and hit the same club head speed number all the

(48:16):
time over and over. So if whatever your club head
speed is a hundred and ten miles an hour, he said,
on the bad shots you hit, the bottom basically drops
out right. You go from a hundred and ten to
you know, maybe at ten fifteen, twenty mile per hour
club head speed loss and you hit it all over
the place. So that kind of baseline to where you know,

(48:39):
having players with I guess the question is without the technology,
how do players Because obviously, as a golf instructor, I'm
lucky enough to have, you know, a lot of technology.
I use a lot of technology. It's it's it's it's
a it's a massive luxury for someone like me. But

(48:59):
for the average golfer who doesn't have a track man,
who doesn't have force plays, who doesn't have you know,
a biomechanics k vest, any of these things that are
out there, how can the average golfer look at what
they're doing from a biomechanics standpoint? Because everybody now has
a camera, right, you've got a camera, how can the

(49:21):
average golfer film themselves? And what are some things that
the average golfer could look out in their own golf
swings and say, okay, I'm doing this, which probably means
I'm going to be doing that. Yeah, So I think less.
I mean I think mostly. You know, I think a
big problem in golf is we all try to to
please the one eyed monster right the camera. We want
to make our swing look better, but does that then

(49:43):
equal better golf shots? I mean, the point of the
golf swing is not to for it to look pretty right,
It for it to get the ball where you wanted
to go. And so, um, I heard you had Mark
Blackburn on recently and he talked a bit about a
good friend of mine, Will Woo, who's a motor learning expert.
And I think one of the best things that amateur
golfer can do is something I learned from Will, which

(50:03):
he calls the Goldilocks drill. So what's the Goldilocks drill?
Is like too hot, too cold, and then in between.
So if you're not sure, um, what works for you.
Let's say you're not sure if this vertical thing is
for you, Well hit one and try to keep your
feet glued to the ground and just evaluate the contact,
evaluate speed, evaluate where the ball goes, Evaluate how comfortable
you were. Now hit one and try to be justin

(50:24):
Thomas and jump right off the ground. Evaluate the contact,
evaluate speed. So you've gone to the two ends of
the spectrum, and that which one was better? Okay? I
kind of hit a little better with my feet on
the ground a little bit more. Okay, cool, So now
we we decided. Now we try to do in the
middle and see is that was that good? Was that better?
And so I think one that's a great way to
evaluate what works best for you, and too it's a
great way to practice. UM. I give that drill to

(50:47):
a bunch of my really good players, Because what you
find really good players do is if we get them
on the forth plates and on the launch monitors, and
we identify what's optimal for them, and they go and
practice it over and over and over again, and then
they get on the golf course and it goes over here,
they're like, Holy, what happened? I don't Oh my god,
and they freak out right. Whereas if you've practiced over
and over again like this, and then you've done some
of these and some of these on the range when

(51:07):
it didn't matter, then you get on the golf course
and the ball does a little bit of that, You're like, Okay,
no problem. I can think that I just gotta bring
it back a little bit. Iever it goes over here,
No problem, I can just bring it back a little bit.
So to me, that's one of the most powerful tools
to one identify what your optimal mechanics are. UM is
is a and this is you know, Will Woo and
John Dunnigan have this. Uh it's an education program for

(51:28):
golf instructors on UM motor learning principles. It's called the
Skilled Coaching Alliance, and I highly recommend that every golf
teacher I've sent to them has said that's been one
of the most valuable kind of educational tools they've done.
And I've learned a ton from them too, and so
use it. But even if you don't want to go
through all that, just using the Goldilocks principle to dial
in your mechanics. So if you if you want to

(51:48):
see if you're Pat Perezer, not do one where you're
like way way off it and sway way into it,
and then do one where you kind of stack over
it and evaluate which one was better, Which one did
I make more solid contact, maybe hit two or three
of each one, and then try to do one in
the middle and say, Okay, which one of those was
the best. If I'm gonna make a mistake, I'm gonna
go more towards Pat Pereza. I'm going to go more
towards I don't like Henrik Stenson, who's kind of more
of a stack stack on top of the type player. Um.

(52:11):
And so I think that's one of the best ways
that and I think that's where we we do make
a lot of mistakes in golf, is trying to please
the camera, right, trying to make the camera or the
swing look prettier, um, rather than evaluating, you know, with
the bald, because that's been way more important in my mind.
You know, my uncle Billy, my dad's youngest brother, who's
a fantastic teacher. He's been on the podcast before, you know,
when my dad was working with Tiger and he was

(52:33):
working with Adam Scott, and you know Tiger and Adam
in the early two thousand's. You know, Scotty still has
that beautiful kind of textbook. To me, Adam Scott has
the most aesthetically pleasing golf swing, you know, just the
way that his body moves heat. To me, he's very
much like Roger Federer, and it looks like the motion

(52:53):
is very very pretty, whereas someone like rough and adult,
the motion doesn't look pretty right. And I remember my
uncle Billy saying that, you know, right now, everybody's trying
to have a golf swing that looks like Tiger or
Adam Scott. And he said, the interesting thing is, he said,
if you look at two the greatest ball strikers of
all time, guy like Hailer. When Hale played a little bit, closed,

(53:14):
took it inside, came over it and hit fades, and
then you had a guy like Lee Trevino who hit
draws very open stance, took it outside, dropped it under
and hit draws from there. And he said, it's funny.
You have two of the greatest ball strikers who could
repeat their movement all the time, and we don't teach
anyone to swing like that. We try and teach everyone

(53:37):
to have these beautifully picture perfect golf swings. And it's
like what you were saying, I think everybody wants to
have their golf swing look pretty. One of the positives
that I think that all of the technology that we
currently have in golf instruction today is the function test.
We have the availability to look at what players do

(53:58):
and say, Okay, it doesn't matter what it looks like,
you are one hundred percent functional. You can repeat what
you do. You know, when my dad started working with
Dustin Johnson, it was at a time in the you know,
mid two thousand's, like maybe two th seven eight, everybody
said club face, left wrist, you've got to change that.
There's no way he can play from that position, right.

(54:21):
And I think now because we're able to measure and
look at what players are doing, and I mean this
for the high handicap golfer as well for not the
tour player, for someone that's a fifteen or twenty. I
think they're always looking when you say dark for that
big giant overhaul as opposed to dialing in and saying, listen,

(54:42):
if I can just get this part of my golf
swing better, I can hit the golf ball more solid
and I can maybe hit a little bit straighter. The
curve is going to be less and I have the
availability to to hit better shots. Yeah, And I think
it's being able to bring it back when it goes
awry because the best golfers in the world. That why
you have a job. That's why you're out on tour
every week, because it goes awry even for the best

(55:03):
players in the world. And that's why I think that
that Goldie lobsterrill is so good, because if it goes
awry in one direction and you have the ability to say, Okay,
that's no problem. I know when the ball does that,
I'm doing a little too much of this or maybe
not enough of that, and I, you know, dial it
back in again. I think that's that's super important. And
I think ultimately my goal for my research is to

(55:23):
have that be a much less trial and error process
for you to figure out what works for you, because
I remember, was it several years ago before Arnie died,
there was that commercial where it's like swing ears swing,
don't swing anyone else's swing? Swing ears swing, and everybody
is like, the hell is my swing? I don't know? Right?
How do I figure out what my swing is? Um?
And so I think and and that I agree that
is one of the biggest mistakes. I remember going to

(55:45):
lessons in the you know, early or late nineties and
having Tiger next to me and they're saying, no, you're here,
you need to be there, and I'm like, well, and
I just hit it like crap for a while after
that lesson, right, and so, and I'm sure many people
will be able to relate to that. So um so yeah,
I think that that's kind of my goal is to
come up with kind of chooser, own adventure golf lessons

(56:05):
where you can go through a series of tests and
figure out what's optimal for you and and and then
dial that in because that's, uh, it's not easy. It's
not simple. Everybody's been looking for the magic bullet and
golf instruction forever. You know, if DJ wins, it's this.
If somebody else wins, is that right? Like it's Um,
everybody's always looking for that magic bullet, and there's so
many smart people that have been looking at this game
for so long. If there was a magic bullet, we

(56:27):
would have found it now. Um there isn't. There's a
magic bullet for you and for me and for everybody,
and figuring out what that is and getting them closer
to it is is ultimately my goal. Lastly, you live
in the in the research kind of that kind of
world where you're trying to figure things out from a
biomechanics standpoint. All of this stuff in two in golf instruction,

(56:50):
but also in golf um currently today, doc, how how
do we as instructors but also for everyone listening as
a player, how do you balance this this this information
versus the art of playing. Because John Graham, who's a
big putting guy who I think does some fantastic right

(57:11):
have I on the podcast recently and he talked a
lot about the art of putting right, And there is
an art to the golf swing. There is an art
to playing the game. And I think a lot of
players who are trying to play competitively can go down
the rabbit hole of technique, technique, biomechanics, numbers, all of

(57:33):
these things, and it doesn't really help them get any better.
So you see them bounce around from coaches to where
they'll push all in on going to see someone whoever
it is. But they're all in. They're pushing all in
on it. They're trying all the stuff, and then they go, Okay,
that's not working, so now I'm gonna find somebody else,
and now I'm just gonna push all in on that.

(57:55):
So it's this constant battle, and it's someone that that
lives in the research world. But you are a golfer.
You said earlier that that that golfers are humans, and
humans are not perfect. How is how do we use
golfers and as instructors find that balance between the data
component and also the going out and playing golf and

(58:17):
just feel Yeah, So I think technology is great, Like,
I mean, I live in a technology world where I'm
using force plates and lunch monitors all the time. But
as a player, you want to use those minimally um
because they're not there, right, They're not there on the
golf course. They're not there when it actually matters. So, UM,
using the launch monitors minimally. I have some kids that
I've worked with where literally they've hit the shot and

(58:39):
before the balls even landed looking at the lunch right,
and so they become dependent on the technology, which is
not a good way to do it. So I've had
people on the quad where I put a towel over
the quad just to get rid of that, or I
turn off the TV so they can't see the ground
reaction forces. So I think using technology minimally, the people
who use the technology the best are the ones who
use it almost the least. It's it's cheating. I get

(59:00):
on it and I hit three shots if my game's
gone off, and I'm like, oh, I'm not getting enough
into my right side and that okay, I know how
Okay cool? And then I'm off and I and I
go to the golf course and and I think that's
where optimizing the use of it and the so and
the or minimizing the dependence on it, I think becomes
really important. Um, we just had Matt wolf into the
bay at at Sawgrass and and he's been struggling obviously

(59:23):
with this game recently and he said something to me
about that was really interesting. He's like, you know, when
I was at Oklahoma State, I hardly hit any balls
I go out on the golf person, I'd curve it
around trees and I'd like, I get out there and
throw it in the woods and play with my buddies
and and and now I'm working on all these positions
and like and uh and you know, so I think
there's some there's some brilliance in that, right. And and

(59:43):
I remember Sean Foley telling me he was working on
some something with Tiger when he worked with him, and
it wasn't working on the range, so he took him
into the woods and hit put him behind a tree
and said just curve it around this tree, and then
he did it automatically. Right. So, um, yeah, I mean,
ultimately the technology is a great tool, but I think
used optimally, it's it's used very minimally. Um, you get

(01:00:03):
your feels, you get what you need from it, and
then you move off and you you learn how to
apply that on the golf course. And I think the
best people. So I was just working with a player
at at wake Forest, um and that we he needs
to get more rotational we think. So we've come up
with exercise he can do in the drift in the gym,
and we've come up with some little warm ups he
can do before he hits balls to to get that

(01:00:24):
rotational pattern down. And I think if we do enough
of those and that bleeds over into your golf wing,
you're not thinking, Okay, I gotta do this, this and this.
When you're on the golf course, you're thinking, Okay, I'm
gonna cut it into this pen. I'm gonna start at
that line. Um. And so you're playing golf, you're not
playing golf swing, but with all the mechanics that's kind
of led over into your swing from what you're doing
you know, in the gym or in practice and all
those types of things. So yeah, it's a difficult it's

(01:00:46):
a difficult problem to solve because I know a ton
of people that they go get golf lessons and they
hit it so well on the golf less and they're like,
oh my god, I was hitting it so well, and
the next day they got no clue. Um. And so
to me that they haven't learned anything. Right, they'vementated very well,
but they haven't learned anything. And I think that's where
that motor learning science comes in. How do we then
get that to stick? You know, when you're on the

(01:01:07):
sixt t and that wins into your face and there's
water everywhere, and you know, how do we make that
that pattern stick? I think is is a is an
extra problem, even beyond the biod mechanics problem. And I
think being very smart about how you use technology is
super important. Well, I appreciate you talk to me. Um.
I will continue to pick your brain and call you
because obviously, uh, you're a hell of a lot smarter

(01:01:30):
than I am. And um, and and my brain definitely
doesn't work the way yours does. But I think you're
doing some fantastic work. And uh, you know, I think
it's a really really exciting time m in golf instruction,
and I think you're a huge part of it. So
thanks for talking to us. And uh, good luck with
all the uh the the education and the things that

(01:01:52):
because I mean I had no chance at doing a PhD.
So I'm glad you said it was hard, because um,
I barely made it out of college. Well, thanks so
much for having me. And I think that's the goal.
I mean, my goal is not to create a bunch
of stuff that only nerds like me can understand and use.
I mean, I want to make sure that you know
everybody can use it to. I love this game. I
mean I've played this game since I was I always

(01:02:13):
tell the story I was. I grew up in Toronto, Canada,
and I think I was three years old, I believe,
and my dad was a golf nut and he wanted
to get his sons into golf so he could start
playing somewhere. So he bought me a little three wood
for Christmas. My mom always says, worst gift ever because
I was running around the house for like four months
and before I could go outside smash and stuff with
my three wood. So I've been playing this forever. I
love it, um and uh yeah, that's kind of my

(01:02:34):
goal to make it easier to get better and uh
hopefully we can get closer and close to that every day.
Thanks do great to talk to you. Thank you man.
So that was Dr Scott Lynn, And as I said
in my opening, I think he did a great job
at making all of these complex things sound a little
bit more normal. Listen by a mechanics groundforce reactions. It's

(01:02:57):
not maybe something that you're thinking about every day as
a golfer, but the way that you swing the golf club,
how you're using the ground, how your body is moving
side to side, rotating, how you're pushing off the ground,
can really really help you improve your game. And um,
if you have the opportunity to get on a force
plate and take a look at how you're moving, I
really do think it can be something beneficial to you.

(01:03:19):
I use it in my instruction and uh it's helping
me make players um better and helping them improve their
golf and have more fun. Uh. So I want to
talk a little bit about the Players Championship. I was
up there, um last week. I mean, what an interesting week.
I mean, I think I got asked earlier in the week,
um by somebody who I thought were the favorites, who

(01:03:40):
I thought would do well, and given that we knew
what the wind and the weather conditions were going to be,
I said, Um, I think it was on maybe Tuesday
or Wednesday. I said, listen, a lot of what happens
this week is going to be dependent on which side
of the draw you are. And I think that we
saw that the guys that played early on Thursday and
laid on Friday, UM to get that round in on Thursday.

(01:04:04):
The majority of the guys got their rounds in on Thursday.
I think a couple had to come back and finished
on Friday, but then the rain came. And you know
a good example, I know everybody knows I worked with
Pat Perez. Pat finished in the dark on UM Thursday.
If you get a chance to go back and look
at it on social he was playing with um Ian Poulter.
They hit their shots in the seventeen. Pouls hit it's

(01:04:26):
about five ft and sprinted to the t and then
made his pot and sprinted the eight because they knew
they were gonna blow the horn. And if pols teas off,
regardless of of the fact that the other two guys
in the group hadn't finished, if Poulter ts off eighteen,
they can finish even if they blow the horn. So
they finished in the dark, and he saw if you

(01:04:46):
watched it on TV, you saw I think it was
Gary Woodland and Keith Mitchell were in the group in front.
There's a huge amount of camaraderie on the PGA Tour
every week, and those guys would have known that they
were gonna try and finish. Find them, so they had
just teed off and you could see it on the TV.
You know, Woodland and Keith Mitchell, they were telling but

(01:05:07):
walking scores to get out of the way. Ian Poulter
rushed to the tee teet off, so they got to
finish in the dark on Thursday, which means they didn't
have to come back and finish one or two holes
early Friday morning. So Pat Perez finished his Thursday round
on Thursday. He didn't hit a shot on Friday, he
didn't hit a shot on Saturday. The next time he

(01:05:29):
hit a golf ball was Sunday. So it was really
really He even wanted to come and try and practice
on the two days that he knew he wasn't gonna
be able to go out on the golf course and play.
But the wind conditions, the rain, it was just it
was really interesting and we haven't seen that. You know.
It's funny every I'd say every three or four years
there's a tournament to where you can just completely just

(01:05:53):
get crushed by whether you played early on Thursday or
whether you played late. Sometimes the wind conditions get up
and see players go you know to other players, Hey,
you know you get the better of the conditions yesterday
in the morning, but it was just I've never seen
it rain that much, and just kept raining and kept
raining and kept raining. And I think you saw some
of the players that that that had houses that we're staying,

(01:06:15):
you know, pretty close by. They left the golf course
on Friday, UM, probably with knowing that they weren't going
to come back. They were close enough to where if
they got called back, they give them pretty much a
little bit of notice they could have gotten back. But
it was a really really interesting tournament. And you know,
with the amount of money for the first time, I mean,

(01:06:35):
you know, almost lost like three and a half maybe
a little bit over for first place. I think second
places like over two million, I mean a twenty million
dollar purse. So to have this kind of event, with
this type of I mean there's five year exemption um,
one of, if not the biggest prizes in golf of
the FedEx Cup. UM. It was a really interesting week.

(01:06:58):
And you know, golf is about adversity. I mean, the
one thing that you can't control is the weather. UM.
And I thought seventeen was just unbelievable. Theater again this
week during the restart um, one of the first day
they restarted, I think four out of the first guys
that went through seventeen all hit in the water. I mean,

(01:07:19):
and some of the best players in the world. Um.
You know, you saw some of the talking heads on
Golf Channel talk about, you know, whether they like seventeen,
where they don't like seventeen. But it is an iconic
part of the game of golf, the iconic hole in
professional golf. Whether you like it, whether you don't like it,
whether you think it's an island, whether you you know
that guy that says it's not an island. And and

(01:07:42):
remember it's a wedge for tour players, a hundred and
forty yards and it causes players unbelievable problems. We saw
some shanks, we saw some people hitted fat, we saw
some people one bounce it over the green. But if
you're gonna win that golf tournament, you've got to stand
up there on seventeen and hit a really, really good shot.
And I think it it's fascinating to watch that whole. Um.

(01:08:05):
I like it. UM. I think it's a cool part
of the game. And the players championship, UM, the move
to March, they're going to get you know, every two
or three years, they're probably going to get some bad weather,
some cold weather, some rain like they they did this year. Um,
when it's in May, they have less of a chance
of doing that. But um, it's a cool golf course.
Um it's certainly one of my favorite events on the

(01:08:27):
PGA Tour. And um the golf course was in unbelievable shape.
Unfortunately the rain caused um some problems. But um it's
always I mean, I think it's the fifth Major. Um,
I know we've got four, but I don't have a
problem with their being the fifth major, the the unofficial
fifth Major. But it's it's a great golf course. It's
a great event, and uh it always provides a lot

(01:08:49):
of drama, of course with Claude Harmingtons always comes to
you every Wednesday. We will see you next week. These
dat king

All Episodes

Episode Transcript

Host

Josh Martin

Popular Podcasts

On Purpose with Jay Shetty

Stuff You Should Know

Dateline NBC

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Dr. Scott Lynn Interview: The importance of understanding your golf swing and best leveraging ground force power