January 8, 2025 • 31 mins
Join us as we sit down with Skip Guss, a seasoned golf professional whose journey spans from PGA Pro to highly sought-after coach. In this episode, Skip shares his unique path to golf instruction, the pivotal lessons he's learned along the way, and how his experiences as a player influence his approach to teaching. Whether you're a beginner or a seasoned golfer, this episode is packed with insights to elevate your game. Connect with Skip: https://golfrite.com/ skipguss@golfrite.com
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
Welcome to the Golf Fitness Bomb Spot. My name is
Chris Finn.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
I'm your host and I am honored today to have
with me one of the top instructors in the world.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
He is the If you.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Don't know him, well you will have to end of
this episode. But Skip Guss is with me today. He's
a pg professional. He's the owner of Golf Right Performance Studio.
He played on the PGA Tour. He's a titlist instructional
staff member, one of only eighteen. He's a Teacher of
the Year for the New England PGA in twenty fourteen.
And this might this is a very impressive stat He's
(00:41):
been one of the top three teachers in the state
rated by golf DIY just since twenty thirteen. So I
in a way feel like I'm with a little bit
of a legend here. So I'm humbled to have you
on the show. Skip, thanks so much for joining me today.
Speaker 3 (00:52):
Well, thank you, christ and happy New Year. And don't
don't feel that way. I've made too many bogies to
work those kind of accolades, I gotta.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
Tell you, Scip I think one of the cool things,
you know. Obviously, when we get guests to come on
the show. I love diving in and kind of learn
a little bit about you know, kind of history you
know before you guys come on. And I always joked
that selfishly, this is the show is for me because
I get to talk to really cool people and learn
some really cool stuff. But I think one of my
favorite things, particularly with you know, a guy of your
kind of just experience and just in life on tour teaching.
(01:24):
I would love for you to just share. I'd love
to hear. And I know our listeners always love this too.
Just kind of like the genesis, you know, you know
of skip like and you said before we before we
started recording you, since you were nine, you knew you
were going to play a tour, Like like, how did
you know? How did you get to where you are
at this point? Is that that's a pretty pretty cool
accomplishment you've had.
Speaker 3 (01:42):
Chris, I grew up in northern New Jersey. My dad
was a pilot for twa and it just so happened
our backyard was a golf course, Lake Mohawk Golf Club,
and when most kids went to the lake or did
stuff like that, we had a seven mile lake and swam.
I was always tall for my age, so I caddied
and played golf, and the golf course was my back
(02:03):
back was my backyard, so we did everything on the
golf course, and I took a liking to golf. I
could do it by myself. I could go all day long.
So it was a great introduction at the age of nine.
Because my dad was a pilot. We took a spring
vacation or winter racas I guess, and we went to
a Phoenix and I went to the Phoenix Open that
(02:23):
was in nineteen sixty three, and I met this rookie
by the name of Jack Nicholas.
Speaker 1 (02:28):
And I got it here he had an ok career.
I think, yeah, that's too read, and.
Speaker 3 (02:32):
He got it. I got his autograph four times at
nine holes.
Speaker 1 (02:36):
That's uwesome.
Speaker 3 (02:37):
And I knew at nine said this is what I
want to do. I want to play the PGA Tour.
So all the ups and downs and everything that everyone's
gone through, and that was always in the back of
my mind, and I really truly believed that that was
my destiny I had. I never doubted it. Obviously, it's
(02:57):
up and down, we have all kinds of things. But
that's what I knew I was going to do and
that was always my quest, just to play in the
PGA Tour.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
Well, yeah, and you absolutely had a very successful Yeah
you play, you actually made you made that dream come true.
Speaker 1 (03:12):
You played on tour.
Speaker 3 (03:13):
I did, matter of fact, I had. I had a
nine foot putt on nine at Pine Nurse number four
on Aging.
Speaker 1 (03:19):
I know the course.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
I know the course, oh too, Well, it's forty five
minutes from me.
Speaker 3 (03:23):
But it's the old go it's the old course, the
old four.
Speaker 1 (03:25):
Yeah, before they get it.
Speaker 3 (03:26):
Yeah. And I had a nine foot putt that broke
downhill two and a half inches left or right, and
it was for my card and I knew it. And
to make a long story short, I knocked that son
of a gun right dead, sent and old, and that
putt changed my life. I was good enough to get out.
Unfortunately I wasn't good enough to stay out. Yeah, but
(03:47):
I'm proud of the fact that I earned my way
on the tour.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
And I know in some of the pre showos we
were talking about Taylor said, you're talking about pressure, and
I think this is something that is not always I
think firsthand able to be talked about, you know, But
I mean to you know everybody we have on the show,
not everyone I have on the shows has actually played
in the on tour made putts like that for your
literally for your livelihood, like for an opportunity to make
(04:12):
you know, to make a dream come true.
Speaker 3 (04:14):
I'm sure.
Speaker 2 (04:14):
I'm sure that's bled over into your teaching, Like how
has that influenced you?
Speaker 3 (04:18):
So let me this is an interesting story. When I
had that putt, we'll stay with that for a little bit.
I knew I had to make it. Yeah, and I
was so nervous I couldn't see straight. It was just
I came in fathom on nervous I was. And then
why I'm waiting to put out? I thought about Deer
Creek Country Club in Florida on Deerfield Beach. Yeah, where
(04:40):
after every practice and pretty much until I was a senior,
I was self taught. I made one hundred three footers
in a row, and if I missed number ninety seven,
I was late for dinner. So as I still with
a putt. Now, those that's a those are three foot putts,
so there's a ninth foot putt. But I thought to myself,
you know, I've made thousands of the putts in my life.
(05:01):
This is just another one and my and my nervousness
went from a thousand percent to zero, and I knew
that was going to go in. So guys like Nicholas
and Tiger and all the Scottie these guys, these guys
feel this all the time and I experienced it a
few times a few times, and it's it was amazing.
(05:22):
It's just amazing. So those are the kinds of things
I try to bring to a student who's trying to
get to college, who's trying to trying to play at
the state level, trying to trying to get to the
US Amateur try to get on tour. Those are kinds
of things I use to to let them know personal
experience that when you work with a player who turned
(05:44):
a teacher, you can't recreate that if you've never done that.
You can't teach someone what it's like to play in
the NFL if you've never been mind center and play
playing a game that that's fast. So those are the guys,
matter of fact, you sell from my background. Tom Creevy,
who won the PGA in nineteen thirty one, played the
first Masters, Jack Rout, Jack Nicholas, a teacher, Bob Tosky
(06:08):
and Sam Snead. Those are the gentlemen that why they
did this, I have no idea, but for some reason
they took interest in my silly old golf game and
want to help me. And notice I sought them out,
and I went to players players that learned to teach. Yeah,
(06:29):
and I wanted I wanted both. So I think that's
that's a pretty unique experience. I'm certainly glad that I
had that in my back pocket when I get in
front of a student at golfer for sure.
Speaker 2 (06:40):
And so I would have to imagine that's like significantly
influenced as you've transitioned. You transitioned obviously into teaching, and
obviously you've had a lot of success there.
Speaker 3 (06:48):
I have to.
Speaker 2 (06:49):
Imagine that that background as a player has significantly influenced
how you approached teaching and kind of your philosophy and
helping you know, students question.
Speaker 3 (07:00):
It depends certainly depends on the player. Someone is just
getting going, obviously, that's that's not a factor. Yeah, Oh,
when kids are trying to play in a high school team,
they're trying to get trying to get to college. To know,
some of them say they have tour aspirations, which is terrific.
Like Sam Snead won eighty two golf tournaments. Darren Wright,
(07:20):
I was a listen to mister Sneid if he stood
if he's said to staying on my head to get better?
The question was was how long? How long?
Speaker 1 (07:28):
Exactly correct?
Speaker 3 (07:30):
So you know, I think I think learning from someone
who's been there, has experienced that, like I said in
an NFL quarterback to be able, if you want to
learn to play quarterback, you learn from being from New England.
You want to learn from Tom.
Speaker 2 (07:42):
Brady, and I would love to get a sense and
for listeners too, just when you have that student who
comes to you maybe for the first time, right is
maybe not somebody's been working with for years and it's
but you know the student comes to you for the
first time, how do you figure out what the heck
to do with them? What you what does that process
like for you? And you know, helping people listening to
(08:03):
kind of understand what they should be looking for.
Speaker 3 (08:06):
Well, I think the first thing is just like in
regular classroom, the teacher has to set the classroom. And
there's two things that I've noticed. People are negative, they're
they're interested in telling you what they do wrong, and
they're uncomfortable about their game, So I think the first
thing you got to do is get them comfortable. I
(08:29):
think the golf swings easy as heck. I don't understand
why everyone can't be a good player. Playing the game
is extremely difficult, but swinging a silly golf club as
easy as heck. And I truly mean that. I thought
that from day one. So you have to get a
student to understand that this is fun. Most of the
students I work with, I remember I was at a
(08:51):
seminar with or a meeting with golf magazine folks, and
the whole bunch of golf instructions around, and we all
kind of knew each other, and some days that are
pretty strong. And when they got the may we introduce
our selves? Is my name is Skip Gus some and
golf right in Massachusetts, and I don't teach golf. So
they looked at me and they said, what, No, I
don't teach golf. That's not my job. So finally one
(09:13):
of guys says, well, what the heck is your job?
I said, simple, my job is to help people enjoy
their leisure time better. They work really hard, their doctors,
their lawyers, their accountants, their plumbers, they have nurses, their
every walk of life. They bust themselves. They've got kids,
they got mortgages, they've got payments, they've got to pay
(09:35):
for groceries. They have all this pressure, all this stress,
like all of us do. And they get an opportunity
to spend some of their leisure time in the golf course.
My job is to help them enjoy that time a
little bit better. So once you, once you ease the
temperature a little bit, you realize you can do this.
And like one of the questions, I asked, what do
(09:56):
you do well? And they'll say I do this and
this and this, and immediately they they go to, well,
I'm really bad at this. I said, no, that's not
the next question. The next question is what could you
do better? And that changes the mindset, And I think
what you change the mindset. One of the rules is
I have three words. You're not allowed to say no, can't,
(10:16):
and yeah, But you're not allowed to say that when
I teach, everybody can do this, So we don't ever
use the word no and yeah. But no, there's none
of that. And my job is to is to guide
them in a way that they can be successful. Because
of the successful they enjoy their leisure time, then all
(10:38):
the money they devoted to this game, and to me
they feel so good about that investment, that feels so
good about themselves. Then I know I've done my job.
Speaker 2 (10:48):
And I think one of the things that I see
on the physical side, absolutely we do the fitness and
the therapy and all that is the importance of not
just having people understand what we're doing, but really the why.
I know that's something that you seem Yet, how do
you kind of see that, you know as impactful or
there's certain ways that you try to do that with people.
Speaker 1 (11:11):
Kind of how have you seen that impact?
Speaker 3 (11:12):
Well, I think all the good teachers I've gone to
and I've been very very blessed. As we said earlier,
it's not what you're doing, it's why, it's why it's happening.
So your golf club, so right now everyone's talking about
two things. You getting out of sequence, coming over the top,
and we wait to change of pressure. That seems to
be all the things that everyone's talking about. Now. Well,
(11:33):
if the golf club is taking back goofy and the
club is in a goofy position, you got to you
got to come over the top. You've got to get
the club back in position, which gets you out of sequence.
Plus the other thing people are, they're they're intimidated by
the golf ball they try to hit. And as you
as you know good players. The players I was able
(11:53):
to work with on helping my game, they swung in
the golf club, so the golf ball was in material,
it was just gotten away of the golf club. And
once you get the golf ball out of their their
head a little bit. Being in New England during the winter,
we teach a lot indoors, so if you take ballflight out,
the only thing that the student can really focus on
(12:14):
is the motion of the golf swing. And like I
tell a lot of students, say go home and tell you,
tell your wife the one thing I learned about today,
I'm a swinger, so correct. And then I used to
get a laugh like yours, and I said, well, no, no, no,
you can. I'm not talking about that kind of swinger.
But if you get them to think right, if you
get to think correctly, like you don't keep your head down,
(12:36):
you don't keep your eye on the ball, you don't
keep your lead arms straight. All these things good players
don't do. So if you change their understanding of what
to do, son of a gun, they can all do it.
And that's what's fun to say, Oh, I can't do this,
So there's that word can't and I'm not able to.
So we knock that off. Change your thinking, change your understanding,
(12:59):
let them. Let them think of what a good player thinks,
how good player goal goes about it. Join that group,
be what a good player thinks, and it's it's amazing,
it's so much fun.
Speaker 1 (13:09):
What do you know?
Speaker 2 (13:10):
What do you kind of tend to see in terms
of the mindset of those better players versus I guess
for being binary the not good players in terms of
you know, how they approach the game, how they you know,
how they how they play the game.
Speaker 3 (13:23):
What's what? I think? The two things I learned is
that one is who I am and the glass is
always ninety percent full. The other one is expectations. I
think the reason I didn't have a career on the
PGA Tour is because my goal is to play the tour,
and I met my goal right. Tiger's goal was to
(13:46):
win more majors than anyone in golf, so had he
gone to tour school, that would have been just something
on his calendar. I learned that when I when I'm
off the tour and I played against club professionals here
in the South Florida area, I thought that anyone who's
had the experience and has worked hard enough to play
(14:06):
on the PGA Tour, certainly they could be competitive against
club professionals and section professionals. So that was the expectation, Yeah,
I can do this at this level. So you never
get you never got excited about it. You never got
excited about a birdie or you have a bunch of birdies
because you thought you knew you're gonna do well, and
(14:27):
if you make a bogie, you said, well, not just delazy, inevitable,
I'm still gonna do well. So you never had the
emotional thing like you did on tour. You shoot seventy
one and you're in Texas and you know you got
to shoot sixty seven the next day just to make
the cut. So you come out and you shoot sixty nine,
you shoot one forty, and they say see you later,
you know, So then you just scramble your hand and go,
(14:50):
what the heck do I have to do? So any
of the guys that, Oh, here's a good one. I
met Jerry Pate. Jerry Peate got through tour school, I
guess about a year before I did. And he won
the US Amateur. He was and he won as a
rookie of the US Open. And I've met him at
the PJ Show and We're going down the escalator and
I'm right I'm right right behind him. And I get
(15:11):
off the escalator and I said, you know, Jerry, I
can't believe that any rookie can win, let alone win
the US Open. He said, why not, Nicholas did it?
I think that was it. That's the thing about expectations.
He didn't hesitate. He didn't know me for he didn't.
He didn't remember me because he was he played in
the good groups. I played in the groups, so he
(15:32):
didn't remember at all. But that was his attitude. And
this is forty years later and it's still his attitude. Wow.
So I think that's the biggest difference of everyone we
see has the physical everyone has the physical skills, and
they don't have they don't haven't acquired the mental skills.
And a lot of my students that are advanced, they
(15:53):
always think it's physical and it's not.
Speaker 1 (15:57):
I can attest to that one hundred percent.
Speaker 2 (15:58):
I mean, we've had some of the best athletes like
tested that have come in. You can tell right off
the bat if they have it between the ears, and
when they in versus you can have You know, there
was a girl, Brittany Marshawn that we had from Canada.
She ended up playing on tour for a couple of years.
And I say this with all love. If she's listening,
it's nothing I haven't said to her. She's probably the
(16:21):
worst athlete, but she was the best thinker, like mentally
between she worked her butt off like between her like
if you just looked at her physical metrics, there's no
way she should like the ship like you'd be like,
no way she.
Speaker 1 (16:34):
Could plan tour. But her mental game was so strong.
She worked so hard.
Speaker 2 (16:38):
She got every ounce she got, you know, every every
drop of juice she could get out of she squeezed
it out of herself. And that was She's probably one
of the players I'm most proud of, you know, in
terms of what she was able to accomplish. You know,
you compare that to some you know, some athletes have
come in and you're like wow, this this was this
person's a stud like no way, and then yeah, we'll
do some drills like in the in the gym. I
(17:00):
like to always, you know, kind of test to see
when they give up. And there's only been, you know,
a couple that have you know, basically not stopped until
they you know, they were like pushing, like moving on their.
Speaker 1 (17:12):
Knees and it's good, you can stop now. Until I
was like, hey, it's good, it's good.
Speaker 3 (17:15):
Good.
Speaker 2 (17:16):
Every one of those people that had I had to
tell to stop made it. Everyone that stopped on their own,
no matter how good they physically tested or but they
didn't make it. And to your point, we get a
lot of people in here because they're like this is
the missing link, and then you start looking at them
and you're like, are you sure this is the only one.
Speaker 3 (17:34):
My mom and dad were great. They supported everything I did,
but they didn't help me in one. I owe to
get my tour card. I earned it.
Speaker 1 (17:42):
Yeah I had to go get it.
Speaker 3 (17:44):
I hadn't. They didn't have to tell me go practice.
They don't have to when I'm out till nine o'clock.
They didn't have to worry why I was somewhere on
the golf course. I wasn't doing goofy stuff. They knew
what I was doing, and I was determined to do that.
And those rare ones are the ones that make it.
You know, like a few years ago, who works hard
(18:05):
on the PGA Tour than anyone? VJ saying, so, okay,
he's already there. If he works that hard, you gotta
work hard, and he does to replace him. Yeah, and
and so if we're talking about players on that level
and they have to it's fine. Just just get out
of my way. I'm gonna make this thing. And those
are the things I think I've learned. And I try
(18:26):
to relate. Some kids don't want to hear it. They
don't they don't want to hear it. They don't want
to hear the truth.
Speaker 2 (18:32):
At a lot of kids don't really know what hard
work is. No, they I showed up, I did my
hour workout.
Speaker 1 (18:37):
I'm good right right, I.
Speaker 3 (18:38):
Hit my bucket of balls, I played. One of the
things I have students do is that especially get you
got to get comfortable shooting low. So I have them
play from the from the forward tis yeah, so you
can shoot thirty on the front nine and you can
shoot sixty two, you can shoot sixty three, And I
tell him ahead of time you're not going to do it,
(18:59):
and then you're not gonna do it. You're gonna be
embarrassed because someone at the club is going to see
you on the fronties and they're gonna jab you, and
you're gonna succumb to that rather than put put your
put your hat down, put the brim down, and go
do it. So it's a self determination. And if I
can guide them in the right in the right way,
(19:20):
just some some of the things that I've learned and
I've had, I've learned from the best players and the
best teachers in the history of golf. I'm so blessed.
And if they can share a little bit of those
insights and they have the determination to do it well,
then they'll succeed to whatever level they're capable of reaching.
Speaker 2 (19:38):
Yeah, And obviously you know with your coming up, you know,
talking to Sneed, I mean, these are legends of the game.
What are what were some of the you know, I
guess you know the top things that that you took
away from them, whether specifically or just generally as a whole.
Speaker 3 (19:54):
The ball doesn't move, Yeah, with mister stead as a
senior high school and hit ball and the ball went
dead straight. When it hit the ground, it bounced left.
He drew it, he hit it straight, it bounced right,
he faded it correct. It's the most And Miller Barber
when I was in Milwaukee. You can't pull a string
(20:15):
straighter than Miller Barber could hit a driver. They're just
so talented. And again I'm dating myself because I'm seventy
one and I've not had an opportunity to watch all
the younger generations players, but they've all taken advantage of
that and they've grown on this influence and they're all
so good. I mean, look at this week. My gosh,
(20:36):
I shoot thirty under par and I lose by four
or whatever like that.
Speaker 1 (20:41):
I think that was one of my favorite quotes. Was
it Irish or Scottish guy?
Speaker 3 (20:46):
So?
Speaker 2 (20:46):
Why the heck am I gonna fly all the way
there just to have to He's like, I've been partying
New Year's and I got to fly over there to
shoot thirty just to barely make the cut.
Speaker 3 (20:54):
That's correct. Opin Ario. Dustin Johnson at TPC Boston shot
thirty one under par. Wow, And at one time on Friday,
he was eleven under after eleven, I mean, that's just crazy.
So but if you want to go after it, if
that's what you truly want to do, and the equipment
and the talent and the physical everything is so so
(21:16):
much better, and we are growing as a human race,
it should be better. And the money is better so
you can afford it. You can. You can play multiple
different avenues and still make a living if you want
to try it. It's it's hard as heck, it's so hard,
but if you make it, son of a gun, you
deserve everything you get. So it's really cool.
Speaker 2 (21:36):
Yeah, and yeah, I think obviously i'd be remiss as
a as a fitness podcast. Yeah, how have you seen
the Obviously, you know, in particular the last ten years,
the physical side has become much more popular and talked about,
and you know, the science of ground forces and sequencing,
you know, all the stuff we have mentioned as.
Speaker 3 (21:56):
Far as well as as far as the physical thing.
I was at the this morning and I was seven
years old, and I've been to gym six of the
last seven days and I'm still not in any kind
of shape. But that's been the influence. When we played
working out, you didn't do. That's the thing you didn't
do to hurt the game. I think that. I think
the revelation of ground forces is really, really, really exciting.
(22:22):
I need to do a better understanding of vertical forces,
so I'm trying to work on that a little bit better.
I think I've got a pretty good understand or a
better understanding of rotational and lateral forces. I'm I've been
kind of a later teacher a little bit, you know,
you move laterally before you rotate, kind of teacher. But
(22:42):
I need to understand vertical forces better. So that's an
area that I Again, I'm seventy one years old and
I learned this from Sam Stee. People ask me all
the time, well you remember, I said, heck, I don't.
I don't remember too much of what he taught me
because it was such a long time ago. Unfortunately, mister
he passed away quite a while ago. But the thing
I remember the most he said, son ow, he's got
(23:04):
to get better. And I think of that every day.
So I do two or three hours of work before
he started my first lesson. So I need to get
better with technology like sports box and track Man, and
I understand I need to understand vertical forces better and
no one will apply it when no one will apply
it when it's apropos. If you're working with someone who's
(23:27):
just getting going, you need to back off that a
little bit and quite trying to impress the student of
what you know, rather than think about what you're trying
to help them and let them get let them do
it in stages, and then if it's appropriate, then you
then you mention things like that. But those are some
of the things I know I've got to do better.
(23:47):
And some of the guys they're just great at it.
So I my guys like Jake Thurm and he Jake
does such a good job with that. So he's even
though he's a lot young, he's young enough to be
my son. He's my kind of my hero. I like Jason.
Speaker 2 (24:01):
Yeah, And what about the I think for the you know,
a lot of our listeners are probably you know in
their you know, forty five plus single digit you know,
club golfer, you know, good player, but you know they
have jobs. What would you know, how what should they
expect that if they're going to a golf lesson, and
like what does a good golf lesson look like? And
(24:22):
you know, I guess better way if they were to
come see you, like, how would you approach you know what?
To give them an idea of what they should expect.
I think fortunately a lot of people that I meet
have had not great experiences, so giving them some context
of what what is good?
Speaker 3 (24:35):
You know, I always give an assessment first. It's a
it's a ninety minute session before you even agree to anything.
I want to see what they do, where they've been,
and why they do it. Unfortunately, christ a lot of
my teachers corrective teachings. Yeah, and that's that's the hard part,
because someone's paid and they've they've devoted time and effort
(24:56):
to some things that are quite quite right. Not then
they expert, but to go no, I don't think you
want to do that. But anyway, you want to find
out what they know, where they've been, where they're trying
to go, what they can do, and then you want
to look at Then I want to look at them,
see how if I can help them, and how I
can help them, and then share those thoughts and they
(25:18):
let them know that here's what I think. And again
it's all positive. It's not you don't do this, you
don't do this you don't do that. See, I think
if you turn a little bit better, if you hold
the golf club a little better, if we get your
golf swing on plane a little bit better, if you
rotate more and hold your finish, I think it is
a little something will help you. Or if we go
through a short game session and just go just have
(25:38):
you understand what you should be doing and understand what
the art of the short game is and you'll get better.
So once you once you go through that, then you
come to an agreement on what that plan might look like.
And then they're dedicated to it and they're devoted to it,
and once you lock them in, then I think it's simple.
So it's like triage. The first thing, I look at
(26:00):
what's the most what's the immediate what's your immediate need,
and what's the immediate thing that keeps them away from
doing that. Everyone wants to draw the golf ball and
they slice the golf ball and they're convinced they can't.
They can't, it can't draw. And you can get someone
hit draw in five minutes. Amazing. Oh no, it's not amazing. No,
it's not amazing. You can get ahead and drawn five
(26:21):
minutes yeah, happened.
Speaker 1 (26:23):
And what do you find is the like the key
to that?
Speaker 3 (26:26):
For forgo, that's real simple. If the for for a
right handed golfer, if the path is to the right
and the face is closed to the path, the ball
is going to draw. It's it's that's It's that simple.
Speaker 1 (26:37):
And so what what do most people struggle to do that?
They feel like, hey, that's impossible to do.
Speaker 3 (26:42):
They're hitters, not swimmers.
Speaker 1 (26:44):
So what does that mean? Explain by that?
Speaker 3 (26:46):
First, when you, for instance, a good carpenter swings a
hammer one two, well now they use nomadic, but one
two three, maybe be in a thunderhead. I try to
hit the nail and I break the name, and I
hit my finger and I hit the wood. It's a disaster.
So I'm focused too much. I'm focused too much on
the result and not on the process. Got it? And
(27:10):
if you get, if you get students of focus on
the process, the process is just accumulation of good, solid fundamentals.
There are no secrets to golf. There are no tricks.
There's none of that marketing words, there's none of that.
There's none of that. If you hold it right, If
you hold it right, you set up right, you take
it back, right, you go to some athletic motion that
(27:31):
you've done as a kid throwing a ball and you're
rotating balance. It can't go that bad. No, it can't.
Speaker 1 (27:38):
I can't confirm. Yeah, yeah, I agree.
Speaker 3 (27:40):
It just can't go that bad. And I get that
all the time. I give reaction like you do, and
then forty minutes later, oh yeah.
Speaker 1 (27:47):
Right, yeah, yeah, that's amazing.
Speaker 3 (27:49):
Now again, to play the game and to score, that's
a whole different that's a whole different thing. But if
you're going to if I told you that the hardest
let's say you wanted to ski, and say the hardest
thing in skiing is getting your equipment on and you're
going to fail and you might kill yourself. You're not
gonna skate. So if you set yourself up mentally that
(28:13):
that I am no good and I'm gonna fail at this,
they have no shot.
Speaker 2 (28:17):
Yeah that's with any sport or anything in life that's good.
Speaker 3 (28:22):
That's that's absolutely correct. So it goes back to the
it goes back to great players. They're ninety percent there,
they're glasses ninety percent full. Anybody could do this. And
I'm not saying it because we're on this podcast. I've
been I started teaching no, I don't know, forty million
years ago. And the first comment said, oh, this is
easy as hell. Play it is difficult.
Speaker 1 (28:45):
Yeah, it's it's yes.
Speaker 2 (28:47):
I think I see too many people, like to your point,
they're trying to swing as instead of play. They're they're
they're playing golf swing instead of the actual sport.
Speaker 3 (28:55):
Well, there's time to do that on the range. You're
working on certain things on the golf course. Someone, I
go out with my wife, I make a determination and
what do I want to do today? Do I want
to practice on the course or do I want to play?
If I decide to practice, I'm not thinking of score.
(29:16):
I'll pick the ball up. I won't put out on
ninety percent holes. But if I'm gonna play, I don't
think of my gospel.
Speaker 1 (29:24):
Yeah, then you're playing.
Speaker 3 (29:25):
I think target and how do I get from me
to bab?
Speaker 1 (29:28):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (29:29):
So you can't you can't do both. You can't practice
on the golf course. I expect to score.
Speaker 2 (29:34):
I think that's that's great insight for everyone. Listen, and
you know, Skip, I appreciate you all your time today,
and you know what's absolutely people need to come, you know,
come see it at golf Right. And what's the best
way for them to follow you, connect with you. I know,
you get the website. What's the best way for them
to get get in touch with you?
Speaker 3 (29:49):
Well, the best way is golf Right, g O l
f R I, ten Words with Right, g O l
f R I T golf right dot com and Central Massachusetts.
I teach from May first to October thirty first, and
I work at a great faciliti Southbrook Golf. It's a
phenomenal driving range. I've got all the equipment that I
(30:12):
got to learn how to use, like all this stuff,
and the range is great, and the balls are terrific
and you can hit off turf. And matter of fact,
we just add thirty five yards and we probably added
two thousand square feet of grass area for us to
teach out. We're gonna to put another pudding green in
next fall so we can cover all the elements of
(30:32):
the game. And if you want to have some fun,
you want to laugh and hopefully get a little bit better,
go to golf Right. My email address is Skip Gusts
guss at at golf right dot com and just drop
me a note. We'll try to figure something.
Speaker 2 (30:45):
Out fantastic, and we'll put all that contact information in
the show notes for everybody listening, so that way you
don't have to If.
Speaker 1 (30:51):
Anyone's driving right now, they don't have to write it down.
We'll just go check out the show notes.
Speaker 3 (30:55):
We'll get it for you and if any has one
as any kind of question, they could drive me an email.
I'll be happy to answer it the best I can.
Speaker 1 (31:00):
In fantastic awesome.
Speaker 2 (31:02):
Well as always, guys, thanks so much for hanging out
with me here on the Golf Finish Palm Squad Skip.
Speaker 1 (31:05):
Thank you so much for your time today.
Speaker 3 (31:07):
Thank you Christen again. Happy New Year to everybody in
the Gold Pats
Welcome to the Golf Fitness Bomb Spot. My name is
Chris Finn.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
I'm your host and I am honored today to have
with me one of the top instructors in the world.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
He is the If you.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Don't know him, well you will have to end of
this episode. But Skip Guss is with me today. He's
a pg professional. He's the owner of Golf Right Performance Studio.
He played on the PGA Tour. He's a titlist instructional
staff member, one of only eighteen. He's a Teacher of
the Year for the New England PGA in twenty fourteen.
And this might this is a very impressive stat He's
(00:41):
been one of the top three teachers in the state
rated by golf DIY just since twenty thirteen. So I
in a way feel like I'm with a little bit
of a legend here. So I'm humbled to have you
on the show. Skip, thanks so much for joining me today.
Speaker 3 (00:52):
Well, thank you, christ and happy New Year. And don't
don't feel that way. I've made too many bogies to
work those kind of accolades, I gotta.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
Tell you, Scip I think one of the cool things,
you know. Obviously, when we get guests to come on
the show. I love diving in and kind of learn
a little bit about you know, kind of history you
know before you guys come on. And I always joked
that selfishly, this is the show is for me because
I get to talk to really cool people and learn
some really cool stuff. But I think one of my
favorite things, particularly with you know, a guy of your
kind of just experience and just in life on tour teaching.
(01:24):
I would love for you to just share. I'd love
to hear. And I know our listeners always love this too.
Just kind of like the genesis, you know, you know
of skip like and you said before we before we
started recording you, since you were nine, you knew you
were going to play a tour, Like like, how did
you know? How did you get to where you are
at this point? Is that that's a pretty pretty cool
accomplishment you've had.
Speaker 3 (01:42):
Chris, I grew up in northern New Jersey. My dad
was a pilot for twa and it just so happened
our backyard was a golf course, Lake Mohawk Golf Club,
and when most kids went to the lake or did
stuff like that, we had a seven mile lake and swam.
I was always tall for my age, so I caddied
and played golf, and the golf course was my back
(02:03):
back was my backyard, so we did everything on the
golf course, and I took a liking to golf. I
could do it by myself. I could go all day long.
So it was a great introduction at the age of nine.
Because my dad was a pilot. We took a spring
vacation or winter racas I guess, and we went to
a Phoenix and I went to the Phoenix Open that
(02:23):
was in nineteen sixty three, and I met this rookie
by the name of Jack Nicholas.
Speaker 1 (02:28):
And I got it here he had an ok career.
I think, yeah, that's too read, and.
Speaker 3 (02:32):
He got it. I got his autograph four times at
nine holes.
Speaker 1 (02:36):
That's uwesome.
Speaker 3 (02:37):
And I knew at nine said this is what I
want to do. I want to play the PGA Tour.
So all the ups and downs and everything that everyone's
gone through, and that was always in the back of
my mind, and I really truly believed that that was
my destiny I had. I never doubted it. Obviously, it's
(02:57):
up and down, we have all kinds of things. But
that's what I knew I was going to do and
that was always my quest, just to play in the
PGA Tour.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
Well, yeah, and you absolutely had a very successful Yeah
you play, you actually made you made that dream come true.
Speaker 1 (03:12):
You played on tour.
Speaker 3 (03:13):
I did, matter of fact, I had. I had a
nine foot putt on nine at Pine Nurse number four
on Aging.
Speaker 1 (03:19):
I know the course.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
I know the course, oh too, Well, it's forty five
minutes from me.
Speaker 3 (03:23):
But it's the old go it's the old course, the
old four.
Speaker 1 (03:25):
Yeah, before they get it.
Speaker 3 (03:26):
Yeah. And I had a nine foot putt that broke
downhill two and a half inches left or right, and
it was for my card and I knew it. And
to make a long story short, I knocked that son
of a gun right dead, sent and old, and that
putt changed my life. I was good enough to get out.
Unfortunately I wasn't good enough to stay out. Yeah, but
(03:47):
I'm proud of the fact that I earned my way
on the tour.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
And I know in some of the pre showos we
were talking about Taylor said, you're talking about pressure, and
I think this is something that is not always I
think firsthand able to be talked about, you know, But
I mean to you know everybody we have on the show,
not everyone I have on the shows has actually played
in the on tour made putts like that for your
literally for your livelihood, like for an opportunity to make
(04:12):
you know, to make a dream come true.
Speaker 3 (04:14):
I'm sure.
Speaker 2 (04:14):
I'm sure that's bled over into your teaching, Like how
has that influenced you?
Speaker 3 (04:18):
So let me this is an interesting story. When I
had that putt, we'll stay with that for a little bit.
I knew I had to make it. Yeah, and I
was so nervous I couldn't see straight. It was just
I came in fathom on nervous I was. And then
why I'm waiting to put out? I thought about Deer
Creek Country Club in Florida on Deerfield Beach. Yeah, where
(04:40):
after every practice and pretty much until I was a senior,
I was self taught. I made one hundred three footers
in a row, and if I missed number ninety seven,
I was late for dinner. So as I still with
a putt. Now, those that's a those are three foot putts,
so there's a ninth foot putt. But I thought to myself,
you know, I've made thousands of the putts in my life.
(05:01):
This is just another one and my and my nervousness
went from a thousand percent to zero, and I knew
that was going to go in. So guys like Nicholas
and Tiger and all the Scottie these guys, these guys
feel this all the time and I experienced it a
few times a few times, and it's it was amazing.
(05:22):
It's just amazing. So those are the kinds of things
I try to bring to a student who's trying to
get to college, who's trying to trying to play at
the state level, trying to trying to get to the
US Amateur try to get on tour. Those are kinds
of things I use to to let them know personal
experience that when you work with a player who turned
(05:44):
a teacher, you can't recreate that if you've never done that.
You can't teach someone what it's like to play in
the NFL if you've never been mind center and play
playing a game that that's fast. So those are the guys,
matter of fact, you sell from my background. Tom Creevy,
who won the PGA in nineteen thirty one, played the
first Masters, Jack Rout, Jack Nicholas, a teacher, Bob Tosky
(06:08):
and Sam Snead. Those are the gentlemen that why they
did this, I have no idea, but for some reason
they took interest in my silly old golf game and
want to help me. And notice I sought them out,
and I went to players players that learned to teach. Yeah,
(06:29):
and I wanted I wanted both. So I think that's
that's a pretty unique experience. I'm certainly glad that I
had that in my back pocket when I get in
front of a student at golfer for sure.
Speaker 2 (06:40):
And so I would have to imagine that's like significantly
influenced as you've transitioned. You transitioned obviously into teaching, and
obviously you've had a lot of success there.
Speaker 3 (06:48):
I have to.
Speaker 2 (06:49):
Imagine that that background as a player has significantly influenced
how you approached teaching and kind of your philosophy and
helping you know, students question.
Speaker 3 (07:00):
It depends certainly depends on the player. Someone is just
getting going, obviously, that's that's not a factor. Yeah, Oh,
when kids are trying to play in a high school team,
they're trying to get trying to get to college. To know,
some of them say they have tour aspirations, which is terrific.
Like Sam Snead won eighty two golf tournaments. Darren Wright,
(07:20):
I was a listen to mister Sneid if he stood
if he's said to staying on my head to get better?
The question was was how long? How long?
Speaker 1 (07:28):
Exactly correct?
Speaker 3 (07:30):
So you know, I think I think learning from someone
who's been there, has experienced that, like I said in
an NFL quarterback to be able, if you want to
learn to play quarterback, you learn from being from New England.
You want to learn from Tom.
Speaker 2 (07:42):
Brady, and I would love to get a sense and
for listeners too, just when you have that student who
comes to you maybe for the first time, right is
maybe not somebody's been working with for years and it's
but you know the student comes to you for the
first time, how do you figure out what the heck
to do with them? What you what does that process
like for you? And you know, helping people listening to
(08:03):
kind of understand what they should be looking for.
Speaker 3 (08:06):
Well, I think the first thing is just like in
regular classroom, the teacher has to set the classroom. And
there's two things that I've noticed. People are negative, they're
they're interested in telling you what they do wrong, and
they're uncomfortable about their game, So I think the first
thing you got to do is get them comfortable. I
(08:29):
think the golf swings easy as heck. I don't understand
why everyone can't be a good player. Playing the game
is extremely difficult, but swinging a silly golf club as
easy as heck. And I truly mean that. I thought
that from day one. So you have to get a
student to understand that this is fun. Most of the
students I work with, I remember I was at a
(08:51):
seminar with or a meeting with golf magazine folks, and
the whole bunch of golf instructions around, and we all
kind of knew each other, and some days that are
pretty strong. And when they got the may we introduce
our selves? Is my name is Skip Gus some and
golf right in Massachusetts, and I don't teach golf. So
they looked at me and they said, what, No, I
don't teach golf. That's not my job. So finally one
(09:13):
of guys says, well, what the heck is your job?
I said, simple, my job is to help people enjoy
their leisure time better. They work really hard, their doctors,
their lawyers, their accountants, their plumbers, they have nurses, their
every walk of life. They bust themselves. They've got kids,
they got mortgages, they've got payments, they've got to pay
(09:35):
for groceries. They have all this pressure, all this stress,
like all of us do. And they get an opportunity
to spend some of their leisure time in the golf course.
My job is to help them enjoy that time a
little bit better. So once you, once you ease the
temperature a little bit, you realize you can do this.
And like one of the questions, I asked, what do
(09:56):
you do well? And they'll say I do this and
this and this, and immediately they they go to, well,
I'm really bad at this. I said, no, that's not
the next question. The next question is what could you
do better? And that changes the mindset, And I think
what you change the mindset. One of the rules is
I have three words. You're not allowed to say no, can't,
(10:16):
and yeah, But you're not allowed to say that when
I teach, everybody can do this, So we don't ever
use the word no and yeah. But no, there's none
of that. And my job is to is to guide
them in a way that they can be successful. Because
of the successful they enjoy their leisure time, then all
(10:38):
the money they devoted to this game, and to me
they feel so good about that investment, that feels so
good about themselves. Then I know I've done my job.
Speaker 2 (10:48):
And I think one of the things that I see
on the physical side, absolutely we do the fitness and
the therapy and all that is the importance of not
just having people understand what we're doing, but really the why.
I know that's something that you seem Yet, how do
you kind of see that, you know as impactful or
there's certain ways that you try to do that with people.
Speaker 1 (11:11):
Kind of how have you seen that impact?
Speaker 3 (11:12):
Well, I think all the good teachers I've gone to
and I've been very very blessed. As we said earlier,
it's not what you're doing, it's why, it's why it's happening.
So your golf club, so right now everyone's talking about
two things. You getting out of sequence, coming over the top,
and we wait to change of pressure. That seems to
be all the things that everyone's talking about. Now. Well,
(11:33):
if the golf club is taking back goofy and the
club is in a goofy position, you got to you
got to come over the top. You've got to get
the club back in position, which gets you out of sequence.
Plus the other thing people are, they're they're intimidated by
the golf ball they try to hit. And as you
as you know good players. The players I was able
(11:53):
to work with on helping my game, they swung in
the golf club, so the golf ball was in material,
it was just gotten away of the golf club. And
once you get the golf ball out of their their
head a little bit. Being in New England during the winter,
we teach a lot indoors, so if you take ballflight out,
the only thing that the student can really focus on
(12:14):
is the motion of the golf swing. And like I
tell a lot of students, say go home and tell you,
tell your wife the one thing I learned about today,
I'm a swinger, so correct. And then I used to
get a laugh like yours, and I said, well, no, no, no,
you can. I'm not talking about that kind of swinger.
But if you get them to think right, if you
get to think correctly, like you don't keep your head down,
(12:36):
you don't keep your eye on the ball, you don't
keep your lead arms straight. All these things good players
don't do. So if you change their understanding of what
to do, son of a gun, they can all do it.
And that's what's fun to say, Oh, I can't do this,
So there's that word can't and I'm not able to.
So we knock that off. Change your thinking, change your understanding,
(12:59):
let them. Let them think of what a good player thinks,
how good player goal goes about it. Join that group,
be what a good player thinks, and it's it's amazing,
it's so much fun.
Speaker 1 (13:09):
What do you know?
Speaker 2 (13:10):
What do you kind of tend to see in terms
of the mindset of those better players versus I guess
for being binary the not good players in terms of
you know, how they approach the game, how they you know,
how they how they play the game.
Speaker 3 (13:23):
What's what? I think? The two things I learned is
that one is who I am and the glass is
always ninety percent full. The other one is expectations. I
think the reason I didn't have a career on the
PGA Tour is because my goal is to play the tour,
and I met my goal right. Tiger's goal was to
(13:46):
win more majors than anyone in golf, so had he
gone to tour school, that would have been just something
on his calendar. I learned that when I when I'm
off the tour and I played against club professionals here
in the South Florida area, I thought that anyone who's
had the experience and has worked hard enough to play
(14:06):
on the PGA Tour, certainly they could be competitive against
club professionals and section professionals. So that was the expectation, Yeah,
I can do this at this level. So you never
get you never got excited about it. You never got
excited about a birdie or you have a bunch of birdies
because you thought you knew you're gonna do well, and
(14:27):
if you make a bogie, you said, well, not just delazy, inevitable,
I'm still gonna do well. So you never had the
emotional thing like you did on tour. You shoot seventy
one and you're in Texas and you know you got
to shoot sixty seven the next day just to make
the cut. So you come out and you shoot sixty nine,
you shoot one forty, and they say see you later,
you know, So then you just scramble your hand and go,
(14:50):
what the heck do I have to do? So any
of the guys that, Oh, here's a good one. I
met Jerry Pate. Jerry Peate got through tour school, I
guess about a year before I did. And he won
the US Amateur. He was and he won as a
rookie of the US Open. And I've met him at
the PJ Show and We're going down the escalator and
I'm right I'm right right behind him. And I get
(15:11):
off the escalator and I said, you know, Jerry, I
can't believe that any rookie can win, let alone win
the US Open. He said, why not, Nicholas did it?
I think that was it. That's the thing about expectations.
He didn't hesitate. He didn't know me for he didn't.
He didn't remember me because he was he played in
the good groups. I played in the groups, so he
(15:32):
didn't remember at all. But that was his attitude. And
this is forty years later and it's still his attitude. Wow.
So I think that's the biggest difference of everyone we
see has the physical everyone has the physical skills, and
they don't have they don't haven't acquired the mental skills.
And a lot of my students that are advanced, they
(15:53):
always think it's physical and it's not.
Speaker 1 (15:57):
I can attest to that one hundred percent.
Speaker 2 (15:58):
I mean, we've had some of the best athletes like
tested that have come in. You can tell right off
the bat if they have it between the ears, and
when they in versus you can have You know, there
was a girl, Brittany Marshawn that we had from Canada.
She ended up playing on tour for a couple of years.
And I say this with all love. If she's listening,
it's nothing I haven't said to her. She's probably the
(16:21):
worst athlete, but she was the best thinker, like mentally
between she worked her butt off like between her like
if you just looked at her physical metrics, there's no
way she should like the ship like you'd be like,
no way she.
Speaker 1 (16:34):
Could plan tour. But her mental game was so strong.
She worked so hard.
Speaker 2 (16:38):
She got every ounce she got, you know, every every
drop of juice she could get out of she squeezed
it out of herself. And that was She's probably one
of the players I'm most proud of, you know, in
terms of what she was able to accomplish. You know,
you compare that to some you know, some athletes have
come in and you're like wow, this this was this
person's a stud like no way, and then yeah, we'll
do some drills like in the in the gym. I
(17:00):
like to always, you know, kind of test to see
when they give up. And there's only been, you know,
a couple that have you know, basically not stopped until
they you know, they were like pushing, like moving on their.
Speaker 1 (17:12):
Knees and it's good, you can stop now. Until I
was like, hey, it's good, it's good.
Speaker 3 (17:15):
Good.
Speaker 2 (17:16):
Every one of those people that had I had to
tell to stop made it. Everyone that stopped on their own,
no matter how good they physically tested or but they
didn't make it. And to your point, we get a
lot of people in here because they're like this is
the missing link, and then you start looking at them
and you're like, are you sure this is the only one.
Speaker 3 (17:34):
My mom and dad were great. They supported everything I did,
but they didn't help me in one. I owe to
get my tour card. I earned it.
Speaker 1 (17:42):
Yeah I had to go get it.
Speaker 3 (17:44):
I hadn't. They didn't have to tell me go practice.
They don't have to when I'm out till nine o'clock.
They didn't have to worry why I was somewhere on
the golf course. I wasn't doing goofy stuff. They knew
what I was doing, and I was determined to do that.
And those rare ones are the ones that make it.
You know, like a few years ago, who works hard
(18:05):
on the PGA Tour than anyone? VJ saying, so, okay,
he's already there. If he works that hard, you gotta
work hard, and he does to replace him. Yeah, and
and so if we're talking about players on that level
and they have to it's fine. Just just get out
of my way. I'm gonna make this thing. And those
are the things I think I've learned. And I try
(18:26):
to relate. Some kids don't want to hear it. They
don't they don't want to hear it. They don't want
to hear the truth.
Speaker 2 (18:32):
At a lot of kids don't really know what hard
work is. No, they I showed up, I did my
hour workout.
Speaker 1 (18:37):
I'm good right right, I.
Speaker 3 (18:38):
Hit my bucket of balls, I played. One of the
things I have students do is that especially get you
got to get comfortable shooting low. So I have them
play from the from the forward tis yeah, so you
can shoot thirty on the front nine and you can
shoot sixty two, you can shoot sixty three, And I
tell him ahead of time you're not going to do it,
(18:59):
and then you're not gonna do it. You're gonna be
embarrassed because someone at the club is going to see
you on the fronties and they're gonna jab you, and
you're gonna succumb to that rather than put put your
put your hat down, put the brim down, and go
do it. So it's a self determination. And if I
can guide them in the right in the right way,
(19:20):
just some some of the things that I've learned and
I've had, I've learned from the best players and the
best teachers in the history of golf. I'm so blessed.
And if they can share a little bit of those
insights and they have the determination to do it well,
then they'll succeed to whatever level they're capable of reaching.
Speaker 2 (19:38):
Yeah, And obviously you know with your coming up, you know,
talking to Sneed, I mean, these are legends of the game.
What are what were some of the you know, I
guess you know the top things that that you took
away from them, whether specifically or just generally as a whole.
Speaker 3 (19:54):
The ball doesn't move, Yeah, with mister stead as a
senior high school and hit ball and the ball went
dead straight. When it hit the ground, it bounced left.
He drew it, he hit it straight, it bounced right,
he faded it correct. It's the most And Miller Barber
when I was in Milwaukee. You can't pull a string
(20:15):
straighter than Miller Barber could hit a driver. They're just
so talented. And again I'm dating myself because I'm seventy
one and I've not had an opportunity to watch all
the younger generations players, but they've all taken advantage of
that and they've grown on this influence and they're all
so good. I mean, look at this week. My gosh,
(20:36):
I shoot thirty under par and I lose by four
or whatever like that.
Speaker 1 (20:41):
I think that was one of my favorite quotes. Was
it Irish or Scottish guy?
Speaker 3 (20:46):
So?
Speaker 2 (20:46):
Why the heck am I gonna fly all the way
there just to have to He's like, I've been partying
New Year's and I got to fly over there to
shoot thirty just to barely make the cut.
Speaker 3 (20:54):
That's correct. Opin Ario. Dustin Johnson at TPC Boston shot
thirty one under par. Wow, And at one time on Friday,
he was eleven under after eleven, I mean, that's just crazy.
So but if you want to go after it, if
that's what you truly want to do, and the equipment
and the talent and the physical everything is so so
(21:16):
much better, and we are growing as a human race,
it should be better. And the money is better so
you can afford it. You can. You can play multiple
different avenues and still make a living if you want
to try it. It's it's hard as heck, it's so hard,
but if you make it, son of a gun, you
deserve everything you get. So it's really cool.
Speaker 2 (21:36):
Yeah, and yeah, I think obviously i'd be remiss as
a as a fitness podcast. Yeah, how have you seen
the Obviously, you know, in particular the last ten years,
the physical side has become much more popular and talked about,
and you know, the science of ground forces and sequencing,
you know, all the stuff we have mentioned as.
Speaker 3 (21:56):
Far as well as as far as the physical thing.
I was at the this morning and I was seven
years old, and I've been to gym six of the
last seven days and I'm still not in any kind
of shape. But that's been the influence. When we played
working out, you didn't do. That's the thing you didn't
do to hurt the game. I think that. I think
the revelation of ground forces is really, really, really exciting.
(22:22):
I need to do a better understanding of vertical forces,
so I'm trying to work on that a little bit better.
I think I've got a pretty good understand or a
better understanding of rotational and lateral forces. I'm I've been
kind of a later teacher a little bit, you know,
you move laterally before you rotate, kind of teacher. But
(22:42):
I need to understand vertical forces better. So that's an
area that I Again, I'm seventy one years old and
I learned this from Sam Stee. People ask me all
the time, well you remember, I said, heck, I don't.
I don't remember too much of what he taught me
because it was such a long time ago. Unfortunately, mister
he passed away quite a while ago. But the thing
I remember the most he said, son ow, he's got
(23:04):
to get better. And I think of that every day.
So I do two or three hours of work before
he started my first lesson. So I need to get
better with technology like sports box and track Man, and
I understand I need to understand vertical forces better and
no one will apply it when no one will apply
it when it's apropos. If you're working with someone who's
(23:27):
just getting going, you need to back off that a
little bit and quite trying to impress the student of
what you know, rather than think about what you're trying
to help them and let them get let them do
it in stages, and then if it's appropriate, then you
then you mention things like that. But those are some
of the things I know I've got to do better.
(23:47):
And some of the guys they're just great at it.
So I my guys like Jake Thurm and he Jake
does such a good job with that. So he's even
though he's a lot young, he's young enough to be
my son. He's my kind of my hero. I like Jason.
Speaker 2 (24:01):
Yeah, And what about the I think for the you know,
a lot of our listeners are probably you know in
their you know, forty five plus single digit you know,
club golfer, you know, good player, but you know they
have jobs. What would you know, how what should they
expect that if they're going to a golf lesson, and
like what does a good golf lesson look like? And
(24:22):
you know, I guess better way if they were to
come see you, like, how would you approach you know what?
To give them an idea of what they should expect.
I think fortunately a lot of people that I meet
have had not great experiences, so giving them some context
of what what is good?
Speaker 3 (24:35):
You know, I always give an assessment first. It's a
it's a ninety minute session before you even agree to anything.
I want to see what they do, where they've been,
and why they do it. Unfortunately, christ a lot of
my teachers corrective teachings. Yeah, and that's that's the hard part,
because someone's paid and they've they've devoted time and effort
(24:56):
to some things that are quite quite right. Not then
they expert, but to go no, I don't think you
want to do that. But anyway, you want to find
out what they know, where they've been, where they're trying
to go, what they can do, and then you want
to look at Then I want to look at them,
see how if I can help them, and how I
can help them, and then share those thoughts and they
(25:18):
let them know that here's what I think. And again
it's all positive. It's not you don't do this, you
don't do this you don't do that. See, I think
if you turn a little bit better, if you hold
the golf club a little better, if we get your
golf swing on plane a little bit better, if you
rotate more and hold your finish, I think it is
a little something will help you. Or if we go
through a short game session and just go just have
(25:38):
you understand what you should be doing and understand what
the art of the short game is and you'll get better.
So once you once you go through that, then you
come to an agreement on what that plan might look like.
And then they're dedicated to it and they're devoted to it,
and once you lock them in, then I think it's simple.
So it's like triage. The first thing, I look at
(26:00):
what's the most what's the immediate what's your immediate need,
and what's the immediate thing that keeps them away from
doing that. Everyone wants to draw the golf ball and
they slice the golf ball and they're convinced they can't.
They can't, it can't draw. And you can get someone
hit draw in five minutes. Amazing. Oh no, it's not amazing. No,
it's not amazing. You can get ahead and drawn five
(26:21):
minutes yeah, happened.
Speaker 1 (26:23):
And what do you find is the like the key
to that?
Speaker 3 (26:26):
For forgo, that's real simple. If the for for a
right handed golfer, if the path is to the right
and the face is closed to the path, the ball
is going to draw. It's it's that's It's that simple.
Speaker 1 (26:37):
And so what what do most people struggle to do that?
They feel like, hey, that's impossible to do.
Speaker 3 (26:42):
They're hitters, not swimmers.
Speaker 1 (26:44):
So what does that mean? Explain by that?
Speaker 3 (26:46):
First, when you, for instance, a good carpenter swings a
hammer one two, well now they use nomadic, but one
two three, maybe be in a thunderhead. I try to
hit the nail and I break the name, and I
hit my finger and I hit the wood. It's a disaster.
So I'm focused too much. I'm focused too much on
the result and not on the process. Got it? And
(27:10):
if you get, if you get students of focus on
the process, the process is just accumulation of good, solid fundamentals.
There are no secrets to golf. There are no tricks.
There's none of that marketing words, there's none of that.
There's none of that. If you hold it right, If
you hold it right, you set up right, you take
it back, right, you go to some athletic motion that
(27:31):
you've done as a kid throwing a ball and you're
rotating balance. It can't go that bad. No, it can't.
Speaker 1 (27:38):
I can't confirm. Yeah, yeah, I agree.
Speaker 3 (27:40):
It just can't go that bad. And I get that
all the time. I give reaction like you do, and
then forty minutes later, oh yeah.
Speaker 1 (27:47):
Right, yeah, yeah, that's amazing.
Speaker 3 (27:49):
Now again, to play the game and to score, that's
a whole different that's a whole different thing. But if
you're going to if I told you that the hardest
let's say you wanted to ski, and say the hardest
thing in skiing is getting your equipment on and you're
going to fail and you might kill yourself. You're not
gonna skate. So if you set yourself up mentally that
(28:13):
that I am no good and I'm gonna fail at this,
they have no shot.
Speaker 2 (28:17):
Yeah that's with any sport or anything in life that's good.
Speaker 3 (28:22):
That's that's absolutely correct. So it goes back to the
it goes back to great players. They're ninety percent there,
they're glasses ninety percent full. Anybody could do this. And
I'm not saying it because we're on this podcast. I've
been I started teaching no, I don't know, forty million
years ago. And the first comment said, oh, this is
easy as hell. Play it is difficult.
Speaker 1 (28:45):
Yeah, it's it's yes.
Speaker 2 (28:47):
I think I see too many people, like to your point,
they're trying to swing as instead of play. They're they're
they're playing golf swing instead of the actual sport.
Speaker 3 (28:55):
Well, there's time to do that on the range. You're
working on certain things on the golf course. Someone, I
go out with my wife, I make a determination and
what do I want to do today? Do I want
to practice on the course or do I want to play?
If I decide to practice, I'm not thinking of score.
(29:16):
I'll pick the ball up. I won't put out on
ninety percent holes. But if I'm gonna play, I don't
think of my gospel.
Speaker 1 (29:24):
Yeah, then you're playing.
Speaker 3 (29:25):
I think target and how do I get from me
to bab?
Speaker 1 (29:28):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (29:29):
So you can't you can't do both. You can't practice
on the golf course. I expect to score.
Speaker 2 (29:34):
I think that's that's great insight for everyone. Listen, and
you know, Skip, I appreciate you all your time today,
and you know what's absolutely people need to come, you know,
come see it at golf Right. And what's the best
way for them to follow you, connect with you. I know,
you get the website. What's the best way for them
to get get in touch with you?
Speaker 3 (29:49):
Well, the best way is golf Right, g O l
f R I, ten Words with Right, g O l
f R I T golf right dot com and Central Massachusetts.
I teach from May first to October thirty first, and
I work at a great faciliti Southbrook Golf. It's a
phenomenal driving range. I've got all the equipment that I
(30:12):
got to learn how to use, like all this stuff,
and the range is great, and the balls are terrific
and you can hit off turf. And matter of fact,
we just add thirty five yards and we probably added
two thousand square feet of grass area for us to
teach out. We're gonna to put another pudding green in
next fall so we can cover all the elements of
(30:32):
the game. And if you want to have some fun,
you want to laugh and hopefully get a little bit better,
go to golf Right. My email address is Skip Gusts
guss at at golf right dot com and just drop
me a note. We'll try to figure something.
Speaker 2 (30:45):
Out fantastic, and we'll put all that contact information in
the show notes for everybody listening, so that way you
don't have to If.
Speaker 1 (30:51):
Anyone's driving right now, they don't have to write it down.
We'll just go check out the show notes.
Speaker 3 (30:55):
We'll get it for you and if any has one
as any kind of question, they could drive me an email.
I'll be happy to answer it the best I can.
Speaker 1 (31:00):
In fantastic awesome.
Speaker 2 (31:02):
Well as always, guys, thanks so much for hanging out
with me here on the Golf Finish Palm Squad Skip.
Speaker 1 (31:05):
Thank you so much for your time today.
Speaker 3 (31:07):
Thank you Christen again. Happy New Year to everybody in
the Gold Pats
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