Episode 59: Science Friction

Shane and Marty tackle a big topic in wedge performance — spin. They discuss how spin is created, the factors that alter it, and how to control it in various scenarios.

 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The guys from paying They've kind of shown me how
much the equipment matters.

Speaker 2 (00:04):
I just love that I can hit any shot.

Speaker 3 (00:05):
I kind of want we're gonna be able to tell
some fun stories about what goes on here to help
golfers play better golf.

Speaker 1 (00:11):
Hey, everybody, welcome back to the Ping Proven Grounds Podcast.
I'm Shane Bacon, joined as always by Marty Jerts and Marty.
I want to discuss something with you today that is
mentioned probably one hundred times around from everybody that plays
golf and maybe isn't quite understood to the level that
maybe would help golfers out there. Let's talk a little
bit about spin today. Spin in friction, specifically with wedges,

(00:34):
and I want to start here, Marty. We talk about spin.
We see spin on videos, like there's some shots that
we saw this year on the PGA Tour, you know,
balls hitting a couple of times in stopping, you know,
some of the great shots we've seen some of the
best players in the world hit all kind of created
with spin, spin back, things that average golfers want to
do more often. But I want to just start with, like,

(00:55):
where does spin come from? How is spin created for
any golfer, whether it be Victor Hovelin or me or
a twenty five handicap.

Speaker 3 (01:05):
Yeah, Shane, I think that's the that's a great place
to start. Like what creates spin? Right, So if you
have an impact or a club with zero loft on it,
and you don't hit up or down on the ball,
so club's coming in perfectly straight, no loft on it,
all of the energy transfer, the momentum transfer between the

(01:28):
ball and the face will be what's called kind of
normal to the golf ball, or just make the golf
ball translate only so just linearly so it'll come off
with no spin. So anytime you start introducing an angle there,
which the golf kind of teaching community technical community is
kind of calling spin loft. Now, right, anytime you have

(01:50):
this angle and you have the club moving forward, you're
going to generate kind OF's what's called a tangential force.
So you got to force acting on the golf ball
that's gonna impart ball speed, and then you have a
force that's gonna act on the ball that's gonna kind
of flick it and put in part rotation onto the

(02:14):
golf ball, and that's what causes spin. So there's ways
to influence how much that tangential force, how big that
tangential force is, And the bigger you can get that
tangential force, the more spin you're gonna put on the
golf ball. And there's some things that can influence that

(02:35):
tangential force. Those are gonna be the club head speed.
So the faster you have the club going, the bigger
that potential you have to get that tangential force, the
more backspin you can put on the golf ball. The
other big one is the coefficient of friction, So the
more friction you can get between the ball and the

(02:57):
club face, the more potential you have to impart backspin
on the golf ball. And then the angle. There's kind
of this sweet spot here on the angle how much
you open the face, And this is where things get
a little nuanced and a little complicated, because you can
have a higher friction at some angles doesn't change the
spin as much. There's a reason why nobody's playing eighty

(03:19):
degree lob wedges out there, because you actually start to
lose spin over a certain threshold on that angle. So
there's a lot kind of going on in the impact
physics and the microphysics but that's kind of the general
principle of how spin is created, which is really fun
to think about, really fun to think about.

Speaker 1 (03:37):
All right, So let's take a high level player. Let's
take somebody that's, you know, tour level or a really
high level amateur player. They're always trying to control spin.
You know, there were so many times I'm calling corn
faery golf and you get a feeling, right, guys in
the middle of fairway, you know, pins in the back
of the green. They've got a short wedge in hand,
but it's a full shot and a lot of the

(03:58):
time you'll hear me say you got to watch the spin, right,
I mean, they can rip that back to the middle
of the green, front of the green, even spin it
off the green. And then on the other side of things,
you've got a high handicap player that's just trying to
spin the golf ball.

Speaker 2 (04:09):
Right, they're trying to create spin.

Speaker 1 (04:11):
Why does that happen between Why are high level players
that hit the ball a decent amount and can hit
it pretty far can try to control spin while maybe
a shorter hit or higher handicap player is trying to
find spin when they can't get it.

Speaker 3 (04:26):
Great question and yes, absolutely, the high level player those
backpins good greens. Okay, so you got good players have
higher club ed speed, so you got that one ingredient
we talked about that have high speed. High speed generally
will generate more spin you have.

Speaker 1 (04:42):
Is that just simply is that just just from the
club at speed, Like if you're just breaking it down,
that's simply because you swing a wedge and non iron,
a seven iron faster than the person that does it.

Speaker 2 (04:52):
That's just basic it.

Speaker 3 (04:53):
Okay, yes, yeah, so that's gonna apply a bigger what's
called a force vector. So you get a bigger force vector,
you got not only more ball speed, but also more
potential for that tangential forcea to generate more spin on
the ball. So more speed, more spin. It's one of
the benefits of gaining speed is that you can spin
your irons more. Right, if we talk about the the

(05:14):
high handicapped player that needs to spin it more in
a lot of scenarios to stop that ball in the green.
So let's go back to that high elite level tournament player.
They're in that that condition. They got high club ed speed,
so they're trying to either reduce their club ed speed
to reduce the spin. They're playing a high quality golf ball, right,
They're playing a eurothane cover, high quality golf ball. They're

(05:34):
on a well manicured golf course. So they got yes,
you have a tight lie. So when you have a tight,
clean lie, let's assume it's not raining or fuzzy fairways.
You got tight fairways, You're going to have very clean
friction between the ball and the face, the clean contact,
so that's going to help increase the spin. And then

(05:55):
you have you know, maybe fast greens and a pitch green,
and then these players know how to deliver the club
with their wedges to hit kind of that sweet spot
spin loft that's going to maximize spin as well. So
you have a lot of these core ingredients where the
better player, oftentimes especially to those backpins, greens, pitch back

(06:16):
to front, they're trying to figure out how to reduce
their spin. So they can do that by reducing their
club speed a little bit, swing a little slower, right,
they can reduce it by changing their spin loft, maybe
playing a wedge with a little bit less loft on it.
They can change kind of their handle delivery. How much
shaffling there is going into impact, and so players do

(06:39):
this very differently. Some combination of those ingredients are going
to change, you know, help them reduce their spin. Also,
they can hit a club with less loft and reduce
their launch angle, which ultimately what they're trying to do
is change their descent angle. They want that ball coming
in and laying on a shallower angle, and that's going

(07:03):
to help the ball skip a little bit more on
that first bouncer get.

Speaker 1 (07:06):
Not get that rip effect like that high and then
it's just ripping back twenty five feet.

Speaker 3 (07:11):
Not get that initial rip. So a lot of times
some of those shots shine will will still have very
high spin and us we're kind of calling it and
golf slang. Hey, they're going to reduce their spin. Technically,
they might hit a shot that still has ten eleven
thousand RPMs of spin. They're just controlling their land angle.
Interesting quite a bit, right so, and it's okay to

(07:32):
kind of call it spin. A lot of times they
are actually reducing their spin a little bit. But the
big thing I think that the better players doing in
those scenarios when they're quote unquote controlling their spin is
also just as much reducing the land angle and having
the ball land shallower.

Speaker 1 (07:48):
Marty, you're somebody that spends a lot of time on
on not just your own golf game, but understanding golf.
Let's say you've got one hundred and fifteen yards, Like,
what's your sand wedge stock ten, one fifteen?

Speaker 3 (08:00):
What my sam my fifty six bent to fifty five
is right at one fifteen in Phoenix, Arizona gol All right.

Speaker 1 (08:05):
Yeap, So so we've we've got one hundred and fifteen yard
backpen for you, Marty.

Speaker 3 (08:09):
Yep.

Speaker 1 (08:09):
How are you hitting that shot and getting it close?
Obviously factoring and all the things we've already talked about.
I mean, you know your spin, how it's going to
come in. What do you do specifically that maybe somebody
at home could try to work on or put into
their own game.

Speaker 3 (08:23):
Yeah. Yeah, So in that scenario, I would usually hit
a gap wedge, which is full out, like one your club.
I'm a club, I'm gonna club up. I'm gonna go
to my one thirty club, which is my gap wedge.
I'm gonna grip down a little bit. I kind of
vary that maybe an inch two inches at the most.
I think some of the better players actually grip down
a little bit more. I need an experiment with that,
but I'm gonna grip down a little bit. Gripping down

(08:45):
a little bit helps me get more shaffling and more handling.
And I also stand closer to the golf ball, so
that also helps me get more shaffling. Right, So those
variables help me get more shaffling while also uh slowing
my clubhead speed. So so grip down on it, you're
going to deliver less clubhead speed, so less clubheed speed.

(09:08):
We talked about, it's going to reduce your spin. Gripping down,
I can get more shaftling, so I can reduce my
spin lof launch it lower, and that in turn will
reduce the land agle the golf ball. I'm also shamed.
What I do is I narrow my stance. I will
narrow my stance. That will take out This gets into
kind of how you power the golf swing a little bit.

(09:29):
But by narrowing the stance, I reduce how much lateral
force I'm generating in the in the swing. So that's
kind of the step right, step step left powering that
you can use, you know, power the golf swing and
get more club at speed by narrowing your stance, you
reduce that and in part a bigger percentage of your
swing just the twisting force. And so that's a way

(09:54):
that I have found through experimentation and Derek Dominski Golf
better twos on it we've had on the pod is
help at the spin doctor. He also knows how to
take off spin okay, and you know how to generate spin.
He's good at helping that with so a distance control,
stand with the narrow stance, so stand closer, narrow stance,
grip down. Then you know, I kind of as an

(10:15):
experiment a little bit with a little clock system if
you want to from one fifteen. I think if I
do all those things and standing with the very narrow stance,
I actually have a hard time hitting my gap page
past that one fifteen number. So I can go ahead
and swing relatively what I feel like is full, but
I won't have the up and down going. I won't
have the left right. It'll be all twisting force, twisting power,

(10:40):
a rotational power and hit that one fifteen number.

Speaker 1 (10:43):
Yeah, you know what's interesting you say that, Marty, I
mean something I find myself struggling with when I do
what you're talking about because I do a lot of
what you said, and I think I might even do
it when I don't know i'm doing it. I think
I do the narrow stance. I mean I take more
club a lot when I'm trying to hit kind of
the driving wedge into the back pin or whatever. One
thing I do find is a lot of the time
I'll hit the shot, it'll land short of where I
wanted it to, and I'll think to myself, you know, at.

Speaker 2 (11:06):
Least hit it.

Speaker 1 (11:06):
But to your point, it makes sense if you're you know,
if you're narrow in the stance and you know you're
doing certain things that are going to take distance off
a full shot anyway, reminding yourself that now all of
a sudden, a full golf shot is going to go
to that pen versus if you're trying to hit the
thing full out one third.

Speaker 3 (11:21):
Yeah, Shane, If you have a home launch monitor, this
this is a great test and for the listener that
wants to do this. If you have a little home
launch monitor, next time you have access to get on
a launch monitor, do this test where you hit some
wedges with literally your feet together. Okay, so stand with
your feet literally touching or maybe one ball with the
part or something like that. I like to look and
judge my stance with by how far apart my heels

(11:43):
are with my golf shoes. So just stand one inch apart,
a couple of golf balls apart, and swing literally as
hard as you can and measure how far it goes.
Do that with your wedges and you can see everyone's
gonna be a little bit different. But you can kind
of have that as a little hacked control how far
you hit your wedges, and that way, Shane, you get
to you get to that environment where maybe you got

(12:06):
one twenty and you but you can't go long, Like
you're dead if you go long. But the same time,
you got a wedge in your hand, let's try to
make a birdie. I mean that is a great scenario.
I think the best wedge players and we're talking about
looking at stats from the tour players. I mean, we've
done really cool analysis that you know, Victor's a little

(12:27):
bit like this when he gets on he's very aggressive.
We saw him do this last year at the end
of the playoffs. Yep back pins. He got very aggressive
to those and he had the ability to control that distance.
We've seen this from the likes of Justin Thomas, very
aggressive wedge player. Maybe one out of ten shots he
will short sight himself, but he can lean on short

(12:49):
game to get that ball up and down. But you don't,
you know, I think in order to get better at
the game, it's okay to kind of have some skills
in there with your wedges where you can get more aggressive,
you know, and and get that ball close to the
whole if you can control the spin in the trajectory.

Speaker 1 (13:04):
Yeah, Marty, I remember, and you'll remember this moment. But
it was two thousand. Tiger ran down gogle, remember at
Pebble Beach and he was on that lone of winds.
And I remember I had an instructor in Shreveport, Louisiana
that i'd go see, you know, once in a month
or something. I was playing junior golf and trying to
play a jaga stuff like that.

Speaker 2 (13:20):
Tiger hold that wedge.

Speaker 1 (13:22):
Oh, and I remember I hit pitching wedge from I
think it was one hundred and eight yards. It was
a back a location and he hold the wedge. I
remember I went to Peter the next week and said,
how do you hit that shot?

Speaker 3 (13:32):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (13:32):
And so much Marty of what he told me at
that time, you know, twenty four years ago, is a
lot of what you said. It was weight on the
front foot, it was narrow in the stands. It wasn't
you know, turning as much. It was kind of like
allowing the arms to do a lot of the work
because you are taking distance off, but you're also taking
spin off. And that was obviously a shot. Tiger was
very comfortable hitting, and he knew that if you went
full boar at a sandwich from one o eight, the

(13:54):
likelihood that thing ripping all the way off those pebble
beach greens was going to happen. So it's just so
interesting that some of those is a characteristics still kind
of play. So now we talked about controlling the spin
for the you know, the high speed, low handicap player.
What about the players that come to you and say
I want to spin the golf ball more.

Speaker 3 (14:11):
Yes, So there's a couple ingredients here. Let's go back
to those fundamentals speed. So you know, it's okay to
kind of swing full, to spin your wedges. For the
every day player. You don't want to overswing, you want
to swing within control and things that nature on your wedges,
but don't be afraid to take a full swing at
it your equipment side. So we need you know, high
performance wedges, all the friction technology that we have in

(14:35):
ours one fifty nine. You need to be playing a
golf ball that gives you the potential to spin the ball.
I think that's one big thing that the high handicap
player is not playing a golf ball that spins a lot.
We have Balnamic and we can help out get you
in a golf ball that spins a lot around the greens.
We actually have that as a question in Balnamic, Right,
do you want to spin your wedges with your full
shots green side shots. We can help recommend a golf

(14:58):
ball club combination that it gives you potential for generating
a lot of friction. Then a big thing is being
able to uh get a little more dynamic uh shaftling.
So right again we talked about that.

Speaker 1 (15:12):
So that's your your hands are in front of your
your basically hands are well in front of and theory
well in front of impact.

Speaker 3 (15:18):
Yes, you want your hands leaning that shafter being in
front of it at impact, Shane. So there's a lot
of high handicap golfers out there that set up maybe
a little weaker grip and the hands on there on
when they set up to a wedge, the handle is back,
it's like pointed at their belly button. Right then you
see the really good wedge players have the hands a
little bit forward and the even at address. That would

(15:41):
be my advice for the high handicap golfer. Don't be
afraid to have, you know, have your hands forward, pressed
so to speak, a little bit and experiment with that.
Go one inch more, go two inch more, go three
inches more. Watch that launch window come down and your
spin should increase right along with it. What you're doing there,
from a physics standpoint, is getting more into the sweet

(16:02):
spot of that spin loft. So don't be afraid to
swing full. Get the right equipment. You gotta have wedges
that give you the potential for friction high spin. You
want to play a golf ball that has that potential,
and then get a little more shaft lean and that's
going to help you get more in that optimal window
to be able to generate some spin with your full

(16:23):
swing on your wedges. Obviously, you got to make clean contacts.
That's a skill you gotta work on. That's a skill
you gotta work on, and and and and try to perfect.
Is you want to put a little bite on your
wedges out there?

Speaker 1 (16:35):
Is there a part of the club you should be hitting,
like lower on the face of a wedge, middle of
the face, sweet spot, Like is there a part of
the golf club that creates more spin for players?

Speaker 3 (16:45):
Yeah? Oh, that's a fun topic because this is a
very hot topic in the teaching and coaching world. Okay, yeah,
maybe four or five six years ago, still is today.
But you know, we got a lot of times we
get asked these questions from the teachers. Let's go to
ping and and and they'll have the answers, and so
this is a really fun one, Shane. Everyone kind of thought,
and some other companies are talking about, oh, I'm going

(17:05):
to have high cg wedges and things of this nature
because we all rightly, so we know that when we
hit low on the face on our driver three would
we get that low launch, high spin, ballooning shot, right,
So it seems very logical to think that in wedges
you'd want to do the same thing. Let me hit
low on the face, because when I do that on

(17:25):
a driver launches low with high spin. That's what I'm
trying to do on my wedges, same thing will happen.

Speaker 2 (17:31):
Right.

Speaker 3 (17:32):
This is very interesting and very nuanced. Here is that
actually we do see and it is correct that when
you hit low on the face that's generally correlated with
higher spin. Right. So the question is why does that happen.
Is it from the same causal reason that you get
this gear effect on a driver and that somehow again

(17:54):
we're going back to what we first started with in part,
a bigger tangential force to get the ball spin. And
the answer is no, it's not from the gear effect.
But when golfers hit the ball lower on the face
with their wedges, you get less debris, You get less matter,
less water, less dirt that gets picked up in the incher.

(18:16):
Two of you coming in to hit the golf ball.
Let's say you're hitting the ball off the ground or
even a nice clean lie, You're going to pick up
little grass clippings, little pieces of moisture, debris, dust, dirt
are going to get between the ball and the club face.
The lower you can hit the ball in the face,
it means the less of that debris you're picking up.

(18:39):
The higher you're coefficient of friction, the more potential you
have to spin the golf ball. So it is true
that we generally see a correlation. The best teachers are
kind of teaching it, the best players are kind of practicing.
Hitting the ball lower on the face gives you potential
for more spin. The reason is not from the gear
effect like a driver would. The reason is actually because

(19:03):
you're getting better friction and having less debris and matter
between the ball and the club face. Now, that's a
very hard thing for the high to tell the high
handicapper to go do oh, just kind of thin and
pick your wedges.

Speaker 2 (19:14):
Fine, yeah, yeah, you'll love it. You're gonna love that feeling.

Speaker 3 (19:18):
Just pick them, you know, like Tiger. But but if
you do want to work on that, if you are
a pretty if you are kind of skilled golfer and
you are in that scenario where you do make pretty
good contact with your pitches and chips and you're looking
to figure out how to spin it more, yes, indeed,
try to kind of hit the ball lower on the face,
even at the risk of when you're practicing, maybe thinning

(19:40):
one now and again, and that will give you potential
for generating more spin absolutely.

Speaker 1 (19:44):
All right, So let's move around the golf course because
we're talking about spin, and obviously with spin, friction is
obviously an important part of this. Let's move around the
golf course. What happens? Why is it if I hit
it in the rough, you're getting jumpers, the ball's not
spinning as much. What causes that? And how do you
you yourself, Marty and what and you kind of dive
into this stuff. What do you see as is a

(20:05):
way to fix it, a way to play through it?

Speaker 3 (20:07):
Yeah, so I think the question when you hit it
in the rough is the fear of the flyer, you know?
And this is interesting one, Shane, it's it's and I
talked about, you know, spin being very nuanced in these rules.
Kind of it's hard to apply to general rule to
all scenarios. So I'll give a couple of case studies here,
a couple examples. The old timers, they always used to

(20:29):
say the eight iron gave you the biggest flyer. In
the modern day golfer tour player, they'll say the nine
iron might give you the biggest flyer. Maybe the pitching wedge, right, Well,
the reason why is because today's nine iron pitching wedge
has the loft of yesterday's eight iron. Yeah, so they
actually talk about the same kind of loft scenario. But
the place in the bag where you get a really

(20:49):
big jumper flyer where the spin is reduced, the ball
launches high low spin, especially in the Bermuda like like
lighter Bermuda scenarios where you get a super fly is
around that pitching wedge or nine iron, And that's because
you're gonna get a lot You're gonna get grass between
the ball and the face before you hit.

Speaker 2 (21:07):
The golf ball.

Speaker 3 (21:08):
Okay, So that grass gets and it has a little
moisture to it as well, so it's a grass water
combination is getting between the ball in the club face.
And if you know, we're doing everything we can in
the design of our grooves and our finishes to get
that to get that out of the way and get
better compliance between the ball and the face to reduce

(21:29):
your flyer. Now, you can't always get one hundred percent
of that out of there, depending on the lines and
the conditions, So depend on your golf ball, depend on
the type of lie, depend on how you deliver it.
That's going to give you a higher launch, lower spin
it's where that tangential force that generates the backspin actually
gets reduced and more of the It changes the force

(21:53):
vector acting on the ball to be more up and
that's why you launch it high.

Speaker 2 (21:57):
Okay.

Speaker 3 (21:57):
So anytime there's a reduction backspin, almost always for clubs
above like a seven iron, it'll be correlated with increased launch.
So you get that high launch, low spin and when
you get it with the pitching wedge of nine iron
can be very dangerous, right, So that's one thing to
be aware of of where that big flyer comes from. Now,
what I do to kind of negate that Shane is

(22:18):
I will a it's a course, it's a strategy thing.
So if you're in a nine iron pitching wedge scenario,
you got water penalty, something long, you gotta be careful.
So you gotta kind of know, Okay, I'm gonna hedge
it in this scenario, head to my bets on coming
up short. I will quite often open the face on
the nine iron or the wedge a lot so I

(22:39):
can add more loft to it. Don't be afraid to
steal swing hard club down in those scenarios and be
aware of what's gonna happen. I usually stand closer open
the face, make sure I deliver the face very open
to the path, and try to keep a plenty of
a kind of spin loft on that particular golf shot.
Right now. There's other scenario, Shane, where if you have

(23:01):
a lie in the rough, and maybe it's a four
iron or a five iron, that's a scenario where it's
actually on the other side of what's called spin loft mountain.
And that's a scenario where the timing of the forces
that impact are such that you can actually get an
increase in spin, lower launch, and an increase in spin
on those clubs. So you'll think a lot of golfers

(23:24):
are like, oh, there's a flyer lie with my five
iron here. They'll hit a shot, it'll launch kind of low,
you know, kind of balloon a little bit and come
up short, and they're like, I thought that was a flyer. Well,
actually it was. It was a flyer that manifests itself
in lower launch and increase in spin based on where
it was and kind of the friction impact physics part
of the of the curve here. So those are some

(23:46):
general things that can happen. I think a good rule
of thumb. For the everyday golfer, seven iron and above,
you're gonna get a lower spin, and the biggest impact
that could have for you is generally around nine iron
or pitching wedge seven iron in below you're gonna get
You're gonna your flyer a lot of times can respond
in a way that can increase your spin. It gets

(24:09):
a little more nuanced to that, even Shane, because your
golf ball needs to travel through grass as it gets
out into the air. So it's very depending on the
type of rough.

Speaker 1 (24:19):
All right, So here's a question for you, because we're
talking about rough and we're talking about contact, and a
lot of the time you're in rough and you're just
trying to kind of maybe get the ball out. You're
trying to get the ball back and play, trying to
get the ball around the green. You mentioned, you know,
you've got a backpin or you've got a flyer, and
there's trouble long you're basically okay with the fact that
the ball's gonna come up short.

Speaker 2 (24:36):
One thing I do see a lot.

Speaker 1 (24:38):
Of the the everyday golfer due that I'm not I
don't quite understand why it happens, but I see It
happen a lot is they'll be in trouble, There'll be trees, branches,
stuff in front of them, They'll be in rough, and
a lot of the time they'll hit it and it'll
hit the branch up in front of them.

Speaker 3 (24:53):
Yep.

Speaker 2 (24:53):
Why why is it that the ball's kind.

Speaker 1 (24:55):
Of sent up even with maybe a six iron, seven
iron something like that. And how can a everyday average
player combat that when they are in trouble, they are
out of position, they are in rough, trying to get
the ball under something. How do they combat that ball
kind of flipping up into the sky and hitting the
trouble that they're trying to avoid.

Speaker 3 (25:12):
Yeah, Shane, I mean not only this is that's not
a problem and only for the every day golfer. I
mean I think the tire you do it all the time.
You're like, oh man, that's.

Speaker 2 (25:23):
Marty.

Speaker 1 (25:24):
Last year, I was playing a qualifier in Connecticut First Hills,
a par five out of bounds literally both sides, like
five yards off the fairway, and it was maybe five
to eighty and it was kind of cold. I'm like,
all right, listen, I'm not hitting driver here. I'm gonna
hit like I'm gonna crossover in the fairway. I'm gonna
basically play for the layup. I pulled the layup a
little bit right, and you know the branches that you

(25:46):
don't even see in your train when you're when you're you're, you're,
you're taking a couple of practice wings.

Speaker 3 (25:50):
I've done this.

Speaker 2 (25:50):
Oh, ball crawls.

Speaker 1 (25:52):
The face of the wedge hits the branch right in
front of me, and I'm sitting there going, well, I
guess I'm making six to open the golf.

Speaker 2 (25:57):
Yeah, I mean it happens to us all the time.

Speaker 3 (25:59):
I've done it. There's a hole it of course I play.
It's a par three. If you miss it over to
the right, there's a tree, branches and you'll you'll have
you be like, I'm just gonna pitch it on with
my lob weedge, not a problem. And if but if
you launch it at like fifty degrees, you're gonna hit
this tree. It's usually, oh, there's no big deal. Hit
this pitch shot. You can feel it. You can feel
getting back to why this happens, grasp between the ball

(26:21):
and the face, and what happens in that scenario is
the ball has no stick. So when the ball impacts
the face what you want it to do, and what
feels really good is the golfer is that the ball
sticks on the face. Okay, right, So the ball's either
slipping so it's slipping up the face. So if you
had no friction and loft on the club, the ball

(26:44):
would slip all the way up right and it would
launch very very high with very little spin. If you
had maximum friction, tons of friction spikes on the face right,
the ball would stick instantly. And the ball is kind
of viscous a little bit, it's kind of wobbling on
the face, but that would that would take on more

(27:06):
of the of the angle of attack of the club,
less of the loft, so it launched lower and once
that ball left the face out tons of spins. Those
are the two extremes. So what you're feeling in those
scenarios when you're trying to pitch the ball out of
the trees, keep it under stuff and void embarrassment for
us better players is you don't want that ball slipping

(27:28):
up the face. And that's what's happening. Grass is getting
between there the balls slipping up the face and just
launching super high with very little spin. So Yeah, it's
it's it's it's practicing, it's shaffling, it's it's the right
club selection, uh, to be able to practice those scenarios.
This is this is where actually you're having your punch

(27:48):
out game is a legitimate skill.

Speaker 1 (27:51):
Shout out, Shout out a man that is retired from
the game. Shout out, my goodness. Okay, so we talked
rough in terms of spin and friction. I want to
go to bunker play because we watch professional golf on
a weekly basis on TV. These dudes, I think the
most impressive part of pro golf, in my opinion, is
how good they are out of bunkers. And we hear

(28:13):
announcer state it all the time. They'd rather be in
a bunker than in the rough. But these pro players
will hit the shots that'll hit and just stop. They'll
hit the bunker shots that hit.

Speaker 2 (28:22):
And rip back.

Speaker 1 (28:24):
They'll hit all sorts of different shots. How are they
creating that amount of spin in a short sided scenario
out of a greenside bunker? And how can players that
maybe strug out of the bunkers or just trying to
create spin out of bunkers, how can they mimic?

Speaker 2 (28:38):
At best?

Speaker 1 (28:38):
They can what a pro can do out of the
bunkers to create that level of spin in friction.

Speaker 3 (28:43):
Yeah, that's a great another fun to think about. So
let's kind of think about this theoretically, is like, what
is happening there when you hit a bunker shot? Is
the club actually hitting the ball or not? Right?

Speaker 2 (28:54):
I mean most of the time no, right, yeah, slapper,
they'll say it.

Speaker 3 (28:57):
Yeah, yeah, So what is the golf ball scene and
what forces are acting on the golf ball?

Speaker 2 (29:02):
Right?

Speaker 3 (29:02):
So the tour player week in and week out, they're
playing in very good bunker conditions, nice pretty fine sand,
generally pretty firm, not to powdery unless it's a very
penalizing course or with jack doesn't memorial or something like that. Right,
They're playing in bunker conditions where you got nice sand
that if you if you have the right technique. And
again we'll talk about a lot of speed. Actually the

(29:25):
sand is what's acting on the golf ball, and that
sand has a has a level of abrasiveness that can
generate a lot take a lot of the the force
that you're that you're applying through the club traveling through
the sand and acting a little bit like sand paper
to be honest with you, Okay, So it's very abrasive.

(29:46):
It's like it's like sand instead of your club face.
It's a little bit like sand paper swiping across the
bottom of the golf ball. Right, So with the right technique,
which is getting the amount the face is open, controlling
your low point, your attack going through there combined Shane,
I'll go back to this again. A lot of club
eddspeed the tour players many do. They're almost swinging maximum

(30:09):
on a lot of green side shots right totally the
face wide open. Sometimes it's it's more than ninety degrees
open literally right when they set up to it. At
least not delivered to the golf ball, but they got
that face filaid open their swing, their swing speeds very high.
They're hitting relatively close to the golf ball, closer than
the average every day player be comfortable with. And then

(30:32):
effectively in good bunker conditions, it's like they're hitting the
golf ball with sandpaper, right, And that abrasive interaction is
what's taking putting a big tangential force. That force is
going to create a lot of spin on the golf ball.
So the everyday player to do that, you got to
get comfortable opening the face. You got to get comfortable

(30:53):
hitting a little closer to the golf ball, and you've
got to get comfortable swinging hard. Right, So those three
in radients are kind of fun to experiment with if
that's something you're interested in putting a little sizzle out
of the bunker.

Speaker 1 (31:06):
Yeah, you know, it's so interesting. You mentioned, you know,
the face being open. I mean, I open mind to
your point. I mean, I've got it as open as
it can be when I get into those bunkers. I'm
sure the exact same way. It's like just what you
have to do to create what you're trying to accomplish, right, Yeah,
And so often I see players, you know, ten twelve,
fifteen hindiccap players getting to a bunker. Their stance is
very square, like set up like a full golf shot.

(31:28):
I mean it's it's barely opened, if at all, the
face is barely open, very very square. And I will,
and I'm not I'm not very good at explaining like
instruction to players. I try at times, but it's not
something I find myself being very good at or accomplishing well.
But you know, I will try to talk people like
keep open in the face and they'll open it like

(31:49):
two degrees.

Speaker 3 (31:50):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (31:50):
I'm like, no, no, no, no, no, keep opening in that
thing to a point where you think you're not going
to hit the golf ball, you know what I mean.
That's where we're starting from. One thing I did want
to ask about in terms of the spin and technique
right now is I do feel like there was a
time where every pro like if the if the whole
locations at twelve o'clock on a clock, their feet are

(32:12):
shot at let's say two thirty and they're kind of
cutting across it and creating that level of spin. It
feels like they've changed and moved away from that. It's
a little more square for the players.

Speaker 2 (32:22):
Why is that?

Speaker 3 (32:23):
I Yeah, no, Shane, I kind of agree with that.
I think the classic old bunker technique was like, am
pretty good, laughed, open the face, swipe across it. There
you go. I think there's been a lot of instructors
that have been able to inform players kind of angle
of attack, their vertical vertical swing plane, and have some

(32:44):
ingredients for different type of short game shots, including you
see some tour players stand a little bit closed, right, they'll.

Speaker 2 (32:50):
Stay to see that.

Speaker 3 (32:52):
Yes, it is really crazy. But there's I think now
more than ever, there's a bigger variety in bunker techniques. Okay,
I think there's a bigger variety of bunker techniques. I
think some the study of of of Sevy by Asteros
Out of the Bunker, I think was a big part
of this and kind of informed some of the top teachers,
and then and then as they started working on this,

(33:13):
I think they found that there you can the ingredients
for good bunker players are are more broad than other
skills in the game. Right, There's different ways you can
get that that the club use the club loft, use
the angle of attack, uh, marry that with the type
of bunkers, in the type of sands you're playing with,

(33:33):
and have just more options for different type of shots
around the green, some of which give you a bigger
margin of error. Right. And I think that's the beauty
of bunker play is that I think if you can
dial in your technique, you actually because you're not actually
hitting the ball, it's the one place unless you're hitting
the ball out of the water, uh, that you're not

(33:55):
actually you don't actually have to hit the golf ball.
You actually can have a very decent margin margin vair. Right,
you have those bunker shots, Shane. We had one in
our match where I had a shot on the eleventh
hole there that is at Astancia, and I could have
chunk and runned it and just pretended like I meant
to do it. I could offend it would have flew
to the hole and spun and it would have made

(34:16):
me look good. Right. So I think a good bunker
technique gives you a lot of margin prayer, and I
think that's what the coaches and players are finding with
some of those techniques where you don't need to stand
thirty degrees open with the face so much open and
cut across it anymore.

Speaker 1 (34:30):
What's the biggest enemy to spin? I know you've done
so many studies on this. Is it grass on the face?
Is it water on the face? Is it sand?

Speaker 2 (34:37):
Like?

Speaker 1 (34:37):
What's the biggest enemy for golfers when they're just simply
trying to spin the golf ball?

Speaker 3 (34:42):
Yeah, it's it generally would be grass between the ball
and the club face. Because we've we've done some We
just did a recent study my colleague doctor Paul Wood.
It kind of was kicked off with with Joe Mayo
and Victor Hovelin and just think just understanding how much
does the golfer impact the ground even you know, on

(35:05):
pitch shots, right in eighty five percent of pitch shots
have some level across the sweep of all skill levels,
the club is interacting with the ground, the grass of
the debris before you hit the ball. Even if you
you hit it low on the face, it gets that
clippy sound, or you have high spin to some degree,
you've got some grass between the golf golf on the

(35:27):
club face. So so that is that's the main one
from you know, things you can't control, and then things
you can, Shane is is your golf ball selection and
your wedge selection, right those are going to give you
the potential to generate a lot of spin. Always clean
your grooves too, Like I even get lazy with that
a little bit.

Speaker 1 (35:48):
I mean, like like Marty, if you watch the tour
players videos now on you on like Instagram and stuff
like that, they all now have the belt clip with
the brush, They've all got the alignment stick stuck in
the ground and they're practice and batal And I mean
if you ever have a track man or foresight or
anything like that and you're hitting golf shots in front of.

Speaker 2 (36:05):
It to hit a shot.

Speaker 1 (36:06):
It's worth your time hitting a shot with a dirty
club face, Just so you understand a thirty yard pitch shot,
the difference of of like club interaction and what the
grooves can do to the golf ball versus what happens
when you have a clean golf club. It is astonishing.
You will never hit another shot in your life with
dirty grooves when you're playing. If it matters to you,
if you see those numbers in front of your face.

Speaker 3 (36:26):
Absolutely yeah, you're gonna you're gonna get that slip. You're
gonna get that slip. You're not gonna be leveraging the
technology that we put in there to use the grooves
like treads on a tire is a good way to
think about. It's like an all weather tire. You want
to get the debris, the grass, everything out of the way.
So that's that's great advice. I've I really like the
retractable club scrubber you can put on your pat Now.

Speaker 2 (36:47):
I do it.

Speaker 3 (36:48):
I do it at the range. I absolutely love it.

Speaker 1 (36:51):
All right, So when you're out playing golf and you're
playing in an outing or a pro am or something
like that, and you get a guy that you can
tell plays of golf. Yeah, and their wedges you can
tell have been in the back for two years? Does
it like kill you inside? Like how how many holes
are you playing? Until you go, hey, man, listen, you
gotta get some new wedges, Like what are we doing here?

(37:12):
I do feel like it's grips and wedges that golfers
refuse to replace when they are so important to the
way you're able to go about your business.

Speaker 3 (37:20):
Yeah, well, I love Shane. I got a technique I
use where I can I can hit kind of pretty
high launch. Uh not not quite as good as h
as Derek Dominski, but I got a high launch technique
where I can put a lot of spin on it.
So I just wait for that one time I missed
the green, or I'm on the par five and I
got a tuck pin and it hit my high saucy
one up there and I get that white mark on

(37:42):
the face. Yep, you know, and you just go over
to him and say, hey, you know this. Yeah, you
know that's how that works. You know. They think I
got some type of magic technique or something, but UT
new what's I like? But yeah, you can tell you
can tell where those players you get them in some
challenging in green side positions and their equipment won't allow

(38:03):
them to hit the shot. And I think that's going
back to one of your questions you started with is
how can the high handicap or do things that the
tour player wants to do. You have to have the equipment,
you know, so you have to have our latest technology
and our grooves friction design, all the engineering we put
in the face to help you you increase that tangential
force to get more spin on the golf ball, clean

(38:25):
your grooves before you hit your webshot or your pitch
shot or spin's going to be important. And play a
golf ball that gives you potential to marry with that
as well.

Speaker 1 (38:34):
I know this is a ping podcast, and I know
you and I both work alongside paying, but the S
one to fifty nine's, in my opinion, are some of
the best wedges that I've ever seen, ever played.

Speaker 2 (38:43):
I've been obsessed with them.

Speaker 1 (38:44):
Yeah, So if you're ever in the market, I mean,
you know, go give them a look, practice them, go
hit them on a driving range. I can guarantee you
that you'll fall in love with them as well, because
you know, I mean it's all the the idea of
any golf company is just trying to make people play
better golf, right. I mean that's when you think about
the ethost of everything. It's like, how can we get
you to be better at this sport? How can we
get you to intubate a little bit more? And these wedges,

(39:06):
you know, wedges are the forgotten part of the golf bag, right,
and having something that looks good, performs good, is good,
is a lot of fun to have in the bag,
and you know is going to be as good as
anything out there on the market. It's gonna, you know,
help the confidence and help you save a few extra
pars when you miss golf shots, because we all miss
golf shots.

Speaker 3 (39:25):
Right, absolutely, Shane. I think in wedges it's you know,
I think a lot of people, you know, they want
to get more spin. So we got high friction club phase,
we got hydro pearl, hydrophobic finish, we got optimized grooves
with tight edge radius. We've engineered the surface to get
more friction. So it's like, okay, our wedges give you

(39:46):
potential to generate tons of spin, which I absolutely love.
And then the two hardest parts about getting into the
right wedges are the gapping in the grinds right, and
so we made webfoit wedge. It's been used by over
one hundred and fifty thousand people at this point in
time since we launched it, so we're helping a lot
of golfers crazy launch it. Yeah, we launched that in

(40:07):
the spring, So in the springtime with the wedges.

Speaker 1 (40:10):
One hundred and fifty thousand golfers in a year, I
mean that, Yeah, in what in seven months?

Speaker 2 (40:15):
That's great.

Speaker 3 (40:15):
Yeah, that's in the US. I think internationally we've had
close to two hundred thousand people go.

Speaker 2 (40:20):
Through ac Man.

Speaker 3 (40:21):
It's an educational process that can help you understand a
how to gap your wedges and what your gap should
be right based on how far you hit your pitching wedge,
and then b understand which grind you should you should
play or you should get in. So definitely go through
that before you go out and demo or get a
fitting with the S one fifty nine wedges. It really

(40:44):
helps educate you on all of our amazing six different
grinds options there are in the S one fifty nine.

Speaker 1 (40:50):
And it helps you at your own golf course because
every golf course is different with different grasses and the
kind of shots and stuff that they ask throughout the
fitting and throughout the app. You know, you can answer
the questions that are specific to how you play golf
and where you play golf and the region that you
live in and things like that. So I would, I would,
I would. You know, just say what Marty said is

(41:10):
is spot on. Do exactly what he says, as I
tend to say to people all the time. Just kind
of follow Marty's lead and you'll be uh, you'll be Marty.
That was a lot of wedge and friction talk.

Speaker 2 (41:19):
Did we miss anything? Did we nail it all?

Speaker 3 (41:22):
Yeah? I mean, uh, friction. Friction is a in spin
generation is a is a fun thing, you know, I
think it's very fun to think about. Okay, what makes
wedges act differently than drivers in fairway woods. We've covered
that with differences in the gear effect. You know, folks
getting flyers in different conditions. Maybe that is helpful for
you when you're out there on the golf course. How

(41:42):
to avoid the embarrassment of you know, your punch out
slipping up the face, hitting the tree and make it double,
you know, on your first hole, the turn the worst.
The same thing though, Shane I was gonna say. The
thing about spin is in flyers, you can also apply
it to why it's hard to curve the ball out
of the rough.

Speaker 2 (42:03):
Rkay.

Speaker 3 (42:03):
So this is another thing. It's anytime you get in
the rough. For the same reason that it's hard to
hit it low with high spin, it's also hard to
curve the golf ball. So just be cognizant of that
if you're in the If you're in the rough and
you're like, oh, I'm gonna hit my normal twenty yard
draw with this pitching wedge around the corner, and you
the thing takes off straight, flies dead straight, even though

(42:24):
you definitely have the face very shut to your path.
You're like, what's going on here? It's the same reason, right,
It's hard to get the sideways spin generation force up,
so be careful with that as well when it comes
to shot making or curving the golf blo out of
the rough. And one other piece that's pretty interesting is

(42:45):
if you have a very short part three, we're hitting
a fifty eight or sixty degree and you put the
ball in the tee, that's when you have potential generate
tons of spin? Interesting, okay, So if you have a
you know, seventy eighty ninety one hundred yard par three
on your golf course, or you go play a course
with one of those really fun short part threes, be
careful in that scenario with watching your spin as well,

(43:06):
because you have that golf ball on his tea perfect friction.
If it's not raining, and you can, you can generate
tons of spin. So that's a scenario to kind of
watch out for it. Be careful with.

Speaker 1 (43:16):
Will you let's say it's a front pin and you've
got your stock sandwich one fifteen. Let's say it's a
front pin and it's one oh eight. Oh yeah, right, yep?
Will you not put it on a peg sometimes to
take some of the spin off.

Speaker 3 (43:31):
I will still always put it on a tee. I
think that variability. Anytime you put it on the ground,
you're gonna have variability. So it's a trade off of
maximizing spin or more variability, which is okay. Some you know,
my launching spin window might be more variable if I

(43:51):
put that golf on the ground, right, And I'm I'm
a believer anytime you can put it on a tee
with an iron shot. You'll want to do that.

Speaker 2 (44:00):
There you go, mart Marty, just throw an advice left
and right. I like this one. This is fun, I
will say.

Speaker 1 (44:06):
I mean, we think about golf, and we think about
viewing golf, Marty, and there's an obsession with distance as
there should be. I mean, watching guys like Cam Champ
hit drivers crazy, right. I mean he hits it three
forty three fifty and kind of hits this low bullet
and it goes forever and you're kind of amazed by
his ability to do that. I've always been more attracted
to the amazing shots around the greens that these players hit.

(44:27):
You know, the Rory shot at the Ryder Cup last year.
You know that he's talked. I think he told Kyle
Porter it's one of the best shots he's hit in
his life in terms of tournament golf. Like some of
those those kind of shots that the players pull off,
you know, they hit and they.

Speaker 2 (44:39):
Just stop on a dime. I remember more a Cawa
hit one.

Speaker 1 (44:42):
I think at the Travelers last year that I of
course went in scram and started to go a bit viral.
You know, when you think about those kind of shots,
they're just so cool to watch because you obviously understand
the player is in total connection with the club face,
the ball, the spin, everything to be able to pull
a shot like that off.

Speaker 3 (45:00):
I think the fun ones on tour that you get
to the courses to have zoija around the green oh
teet up and is literally teed up. It is like
hitting off a teeth quite literally right, and that's where
you can really melt it on the on the club face. Shane,
I'm really glad you brought up Tiger shot at Pebble
because that is I will envision that swing when I'm

(45:23):
on the range literally trying to hit you know, the
dead arms wedge, the take spin off pitching wedge. I
actually heard I don't know if you've heard this story. Tiger.
He would go to the range and one of his
drills was he would pick a He would pick a
post out there, maybe one sixty. He can start by
ripping pitching wedges at it right. Then he'd go to
that same post and go nine irons a little lower,

(45:46):
a little less spin than eight irons, land them right
at it. Then seven, then six, then five, then four.
He's just hitting four irons at that thing at one sixty.
There's no wonder he could pull that shot off.

Speaker 2 (45:57):
You know, he's done that before, and he's done it before.
He was he was good at golf. That was fun.
We'll uh well. If you have any other questions.

Speaker 1 (46:07):
By the way, if you ever have any questions after
these podcasts and you want to ask us one, you
can hit Marty and I on social and we'll do
our best answer them. We get messages a decent amount,
Marty from people that want to follow up, and we
love answering them. And if you send me a question
on Instagram or Twitter and I can't answer it because
I'm much dumber than Marty, I will pass it along
to Marty and he will he will relay that information

(46:28):
back to me. But we're we're here to try to help,
So if you ever have questions in that regard, feel
free to reach out to us and make sure, especially
specifically on this podcast, this one in particular, if you
watch us on YouTube, Marty was very good in terms
of explaining it with his hands and showing you what
he's talking about. So if you ever want visual help
in terms of what we're talking about, the podcasts are

(46:48):
always up on YouTube and you can find him there.
That's Marty Jertson. This is the Being Proven Grounds podcast