July 10, 2024 • 39 mins
Special Guest Chris Ryan joins our host, Chris Finn, to share his journey in becoming an instructor, how to determine what you should work on, and the importance on maintenance over quick fixes.
Check out Chris Ryan: www.chrisryangolf.com http://www.youtube.com/@ChrisRyanGolf @ChrisRyanGolf
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
Welcome to the Golf Fitness Bomb Squad. My name is
Chris Finn I'm your host and today I'm excited to
have another Chris with me. Uh And for those of
you who maybe haven't discovered this really cool platform called YouTube,
maybe you don't know who he is, but he is
an amazing instructor. It's an honor to have him on
(00:30):
here with us. I want to welcome Chris Ryan to
the show. Chris, how are you doing? Man?
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Oh, I am really really good. Thanks Chris. Good to
be here, and thank you for having me on to
talk about golf.
Speaker 1 (00:42):
Yeah. Man, No, it's always a this is we were
sitting talking a little bit before we jumps on it.
This is always for me Selfishly, I'm a nut. I
love the game of golf. I've obviously gotten in on
the physical side of things, and uh so get to
get to talk to great instructors like yourself and the
you know, the experience you've had, you know the cup
I saw like you were involved back in O two.
(01:03):
The amount of teaching you've done at some of the
facilities you've done it at is incredible. So selfishly, for me,
I've been looking forward to this all week so, but
for the listener who doesn't know who you are, I
would love to hear kind of the backstory and share
that with the listeners because as an entrepreneur myself and
having built something from the ground up, I just I
(01:24):
love hearing about that and the listeners love that too.
So please you know, how did you get into this
and how did we end up here today on a
beautiful morning.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
Well, well expends I guess how far you want to
go back? Really in terms of my kind of introduction
to I guess the world of kind of working in golf,
I was quite fortunate, which I guess. You know, if
you find a lot of people in the industry, there's
always gonna be that points where they got a little
bit of luck. I was trying to become a better golfer,
(01:56):
you know, trying to become the best golf that I
could be, and I was having lessons with the head
pro at the time at the Belfry. Now, back then,
the Belfy was, you know, pretty famous. It had hosted
a lot of rider cups, I had a lot of
European tour events. It was a kind of real kind
of hub for golf in Europe, and I was kind
of going there for my lessons, and I was probably
(02:17):
hold as I was seventeen eighteen at the time, and
the guy who was giving me my lessons kind of
said to me one day said, look, we're having a
big sort of change in the way we do things
at the Belfry, and we are looking to take on
twelve amateur golfers who we're looking to put through their
PJ training, but we're looking to do it a little differently.
(02:39):
We're looking to give them this kind of over all
experience of what it's like to work at a golf venue.
So you would work in the golf shop and learn
how the gold shop works. You would then work on
the academy, work how they look at how the academy works,
you'd look at how to run a golf course. You
had all these different aspects, and he said, look, you know,
if coaching for a couple of years, I love his
(03:00):
to apply. So that was really when I was kind
of playing the game, trying to become a great player,
and then suddenly had this opportunity to actually kind of
go in and work in the industry, and the Belfry
were kind of paying half of my PJA fees.
Speaker 1 (03:16):
It was.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
It was a brain. I was actually at university at
the time, and I quit Unie did quit the university force,
and then went to work at the Belfry and started
there as an amateur golfer and then kind of that
led to where I am today.
Speaker 1 (03:28):
The rest its history. Wow, that's so cool. I just
I mean, so what was So how have you seen
is that? Know? How have you seen that type of
program evolve? You know, obviously you were kind of like
sounds like the guinea pigs, right, and then how how
did that evolve? Maybe even just in the time you
were there too, you know what we see today.
Speaker 2 (03:49):
I mean that was two thousand and one, so a
number of years ago now and to this day that
experience that going through my PGA, which you know to
three years, I still look back at that experience and
take so much from that because, like I said, there
was I think there was like twelve of us that
they took on, all amateur golfers and put through their
pg training. And the way that was run at the Belfry.
(04:14):
The guy who was overseeing it was a guy called Simon,
and he was phenomenal. Like the way he structured it,
the way that we got an experience of, like I said,
how the shop works, how your stock and how you
christ stock, and then how to run a golf course
and how to organize a golf day and all these
kind of different aspects. And at the end of that
three years when we qualified from our PGA training, I
(04:36):
think of those twelve people, I think there was like
six or seven who qualified in the top ten of
Europe and a lot of those people are in the
industry now doing great things. He got people like that
people might know of like Chris Trott who works ever
in the States, the good or the guy doing work
really well. It just really opened my eyes to how
(04:58):
if you put the right structure in play. We all
flourished into that system. As we left. Simon also left
the Belpery to go and see things, and yeah, things
maybe changed a little bit now, but it kind of
showed me that, you know, putting yourself with good people
having a structure, there was just such an incredible experience.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
That's amazing. And I think, speaking of structure, I want
to dive into uh. We are a fitness podcast, so
I always love to understand from an instructor side of things,
and obviously you know, if anybody has not seen your
YouTube channel, I would strongly encourage all of you guys
to go see it. Chris Rangolf YouTube. The the amount
(05:42):
of instruction I was. I always like to do research
before I get on a pot of somebody, and I'm
not gonna lie. I kind of got distracted for a
couple hours different videos and and and it was it
was just it was so good. And I think the
interesting thing for me as a on the physical side
is I always want to understand and when you have
a golfer come to you, right, how do you approach
(06:05):
that first time you meet somebody and looking at assessing
what you're going to work on with them and what
they need, and how does that their body and what
it does or doesn't do, How does that potentially influence
kind of how you go about that.
Speaker 2 (06:18):
Yeah, I mean, I think that's a really interesting topic
and debate. And I would say in my experience that's
changed over the years of coaching, and that probably comes
down to a little bit of me evolving as a
coach and also maybe just the clients that I work
with has potentially changed a little bit. Certainly. I remember,
(06:41):
you know, I qualify from the PGA, and you know
the PJA, you do a little bit of the kind
of physical side of things. You learn the basics, you know,
the real basics. And I remember kind of coming out
of the PGA, thinking, right, how am I going to
make golfers better? Well, I've got to get them to
move better. I've got to kind of learn how to
screen them so I can steal what they limit are.
I've got to be able to put them in touch
(07:02):
with someone who can maybe work on those physical limitations
that companied with you know, the swing stuff that I'm doing,
and you create this kind of team around the golfer.
And I think when you look at the elite level,
you know, the tour players, that's one hundred percent the.
Speaker 1 (07:18):
Case works very well at that level, very well.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
I was kind of tending to see more of Dave,
who's got a job and he's got a family. He
plays Saturday mornings. He slices it, and he would love
to just stop slicing it.
Speaker 1 (07:35):
I mean, he doesn't have forty hours a week to
do everything else to be better at golf.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
But no, and you know at the Belfry, we did,
you know a lot of corporate days, So I would
be working with clients who have got a tea time
in an hour's time. Yeah, you know, And it sort
of got me to the point where I'm saying, Okay,
I probably need to tailor my coaching to actually, yes,
(08:00):
have that knowledge that if somebody comes to me and says,
can you test where I'm maybe got some limitations, I
can do that, but also develop a coaching style that
allows me to speak to someone who's got a tea
time in an hour and say, right, i'd like you
to do this. We need a little work around for that.
But I think I'm sort of more in the case
now with I tend to work with people who are
(08:22):
kind of coming to me to say, look, I would
just want to hit it better on a plan on Saturday.
And it's nice for me to have a little bit
of background knowledge to say, look, if you do want
to take it further, then this is probably what you
need to do. And I think I've just seen that
in my coaching. It's just the clients that I coach
tend to be well.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
I think that's honestly, that's refreshing for a lot of
people to hear, because I think, particularly in my space, everybody,
oh we need to change this. Do you need to
commit and you need to do And the reality is
most golfers don't want to do that. They don't either
they don't have time, they don't have the interest. Like
to your point, like, dude, I get to play once,
you know, maybe twice on a really good week, Like
(09:03):
just help me enjoy the game. And so for you
as a coach, having the background on the physical side,
if somebody, if that guy comes to you and he's
slicing it and he teased off in an hour, how
do you approach that, You know that guy if you
have an hour to hopefully help him get out and
enjoy the round a little bit better? Like what does
that process look for? You know? For you, as you're
(09:25):
looking at that player and I having talked to enough
good coaches, you probably just see it and you're like, boom,
I know what it is. But if you had to
break it down for all of our stummer amateurs who
don't understand it at the level that you do, how
would you kind of talk through that or explain that
at kind of a you know, a second grade level
for all the rest of us.
Speaker 2 (09:44):
I think I think the eyes putting to you know
a lot of coaches over the years and work with
a lot of coaches, and I think the way coach
looks at a golfer is possibly the complete opposite to
the way that golfers look themselves. If we could just
if I could just get golfers to look at it
in a different order, I think they'd be a little
bit better. So what I mean by that would be
(10:04):
if I see a client and they say, hey, look,
I'm suggaringe driver, I'm playing an hour. What do we
need to do? The first thing I'm looking at is
what is the ball doing. I'm going to stand there
and I'm going to watch the hit some shots, and
I'm going to say, right, the ball is starting, let's
say pretty straight, it's drifting a little bit off to
the right. Wats a few shots and I'll establish what
their pattern is. And every golfer's got a pattern. Most
(10:27):
golfers saying I'm too inconsistent, but everyone's got a pattern.
So once I can see that pattern, I'm then going, Okay,
what's happening at impact that's creating that ball flop? So
what is the likely contact point, what is the likely path,
what is the likely face alignment, what is the likely
attack angle, what is the likely speed that's giving me
(10:49):
all the information now where possible, I'm going to measure
that with full swing kit, But essentially I'm looking at
what is the ball doing, what is the club doing.
Once I know what the club is doing, I then
look at the goal swing and say, okay, well what
is in their goal swing which is creating that impact
that we don't necessarily like. Then my question to myself
is what's the kind of quote unquote smallest thing that
(11:12):
I can do that's going to have the biggest effect
on that impact.
Speaker 1 (11:17):
The more effective.
Speaker 2 (11:19):
So I'm always going ball flight first, impact, second, swing third.
Golf has come to me with swing first, it's like, oh,
I want to fix my inside takeaway and I'm.
Speaker 1 (11:30):
Like, right, why, Like what you know it's all about?
Speaker 2 (11:35):
They look at it on camera, they don't see what
they like, and they kind of go straight to that,
whereas I'd want people to go through the way, And
the number of times I've given lessons and I've said
things like, look, yes, your takeaways on the outside or
it's on the inside, but changing that will not change
what the ball is doing.
Speaker 1 (11:53):
Right, And I'd.
Speaker 2 (11:54):
Always say Look, we've got a list of things that
you might want to change. That inside takeaway is quite
possibly on that list, but it's not at the top, right,
And it's trying to prioritize, Okay, if we actually change this,
that's going to change the impact, that's going to change
the ball flight. And I think as a coach, you're
always trying to say, if I do this to the swing,
(12:16):
what will that do to the impact and what will
that do to ball flights? And there has to be
that kind of always those three touch points that you're
kind of aware of.
Speaker 1 (12:25):
I love that logic tree that's so simple to understand,
but definitely not what the average eritor thinks about.
Speaker 2 (12:32):
No, and then just just going to what you were
saying earlier, that might be when I and I would
always say to a client, look, and one of the
things that I've done I do differently now is I'm
led by the clients. I think that's the big difference.
When I came out as a new coach, it was like, right,
I'm going to change the world, and I want to
do it this way and this way and this way
this way, and almost trying to force my opinions on
(12:52):
the golfer. I'm very much more down to like listening
to them now. So once I've maybe analyzed their ball flight,
impact and swing, that's what I might say to them, Hey, look,
if you do this today, that's going to help. But
then I might say, but I think you've got maybe
a few limitations in your trail shoulder. Might do it
a little test for them and say, right, you have
(13:13):
got some notations. So if you do this, it will
help it. But if you want to get better, you
might want to address that. I just give them information
and it's up to them then what they what they
kind of do with it.
Speaker 1 (13:23):
Yeah, that's so. So let's just to put this in
context for everybody listening. And let's say theoretically, there is
a late thirties golfer who and by no means anybody
on this podcast, and when they're hitting it, well, you know,
it starts out right target line comes back down, you know,
to target. So what I'm hearing is if my miss
(13:46):
not me, you know, just theoretical me right right is ill,
it'll start left and go a little left. Then what
you're saying is the way you're going to look at
that and say, Okay, that's what the ball is doing,
then I'm going to look at impact and see what
could be potentially influencing that. And then I'm going to
look at swing and see what in the swing would
be potentially causing that. Is that accurate? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (14:07):
So so based on that, you know, if if if
as I say, you're there's not your is it?
Speaker 1 (14:15):
This is just this is just a theoretical thing.
Speaker 2 (14:19):
If the if the good shot starts right and turns
back and the bad shot starts a little closer to
target and finishes left, you're probably looking at that and
being saying, well, that's club face and impact. So then
you'd say, okay, so how do we kind of eliminate
the left miss. We'd need to deliver a club face
which is potentially trending to a little bit more open.
(14:40):
So then you'd say, okay, alright, without even seeing your
goal swing, I could potentially list four or five things
that could influence the club face to be more right right,
you know, so even without looking at a goals and
you could say, well, if you push the ball a
little bit further back in his stancey hitting it's like
it earlier in the arc, that might help you know,
you can try and shift laterally a little bit more towards
the target. So you know, what I always say to
(15:05):
clients is that whatever you do in your golfing, whether
it be a little grip change, whether it be a
set of change, whatever you do is likely to influence
the impact. And there's theory there. We never know and
saw the golfer does it. But if you kind of
said to me, I'm going to push the ball a
little bit further back already, I'm thinking path is likely
(15:26):
to be more right, face is likely to be more open,
attack angles likely to be more down. These are all
likely is because the golfer is complex and they can
react differently. But you can already start to think about
what you could put in place to change that ball
flight before you even look to the golfing.
Speaker 1 (15:43):
That's so cool. That's why I love these conversations because
when we that is why I love working with guys
like yourself, because we have somebody maybe comes in because
they maybe they're backers, right, so they come into us
when they can't swing anymore. That's when people are real
motivated to see us. So they'll come in and they'll
say yeah. Inevitably, we start talking about the golf swinger.
(16:04):
You know, they tell us you know about their game
or you know, depending how bad it is, we may
actually hook them up on the force plates and the
three D and just see what their body's doing and
what maybe is we're looking at it obviously, is what
potentially is contributing to the back overworking and causing the
back issues. Right, And so that's where we look at it,
and we'll find, hey, there, I don't know, their trail
(16:24):
shoulder doesn't externally rotate, they have no lead hip rotation
into their lead side, so and they're coming real steep
and going hard left all upper body. And then so
it's it's always fun for us to say, I have
the conversations. I literally was just having this conversation with
the guy down at the open one of the coaches saying, hey, physically,
(16:46):
these are all the things that could be influencing. Here's
four things we could address. What are you looking at
performance wise that you want to address because I don't
want to address something that screws up something over here.
And to me that those are like the most fun
conversations when you have a player who wants to work
at it and who wants to kind of improve you
(17:06):
know what they're doing, and so I guess I always
love to to kind of lead into I guess my
next question for you then is, let's say, let's we've
kind of talked about that guy who's got the tea
time in the hour, right when you do have a
player maybe who's coming back to you wanting to get
better and progress and maybe it's even something you did
as you were, you know, continuing trying to play well.
(17:26):
How do you like recommend tracking progress over time or
how do you go about that with students to like
to know that they're improving. And you know, you said, hey,
I'm going to have four or five different things we
could address that inside swing, but maybe I'm going to
address three things first. How do you kind of organize
that in your mind and track it and know when
to do what?
Speaker 2 (17:48):
Great question, it's it comes down to ultimately, what is
going to make the golfer better? And hating it better
swinging it better will be part of that, but I
think it comes down to a little bit more of saying,
you know, what is going to give this golfer the
(18:09):
tools that they need to shoot lower score. So for
lots of golfers, it will be a case of hitting
it further. You know, if their drivers maxing out at
one hundred and eight hundred and ninety yards. You have
to other conversations and say, look, a lot of the
courses that you play, you know you probably need a
little bit more distance. It might be just looking at
their you know right miss with a driver and saying
we need to bring that a little bit more to
the censor. So I would One thing I would ask
(18:32):
golfers is yeah, I always push the word how, and
golfers get unstuck on that, and I think got to
be clear on that. So they'll say to me, I
want to lower my handicap. I get how, and they
often don't don't have an answer.
Speaker 1 (18:49):
They just look at you with the blank stare.
Speaker 2 (18:51):
Yeah, but I want them initially to have the answer.
So if I imagine a conversation that I have with
an eighteen handicap golfer, how easy is my job? If
they come to me and say I'm off eighteen, I
want to be off fifteen, And I go how, and
they go, well, currently i'm hitting fifteen percent of fairways.
I'd love that to be close to fifty. Okay, Well,
(19:11):
currently I'm missing it off to the right. My tendencies
are fades. I want to work it more to a
draw that you're starting to get. Then I can go okay, well,
I can network on the things that can give you
the results when it's just a I want to be better,
Like where do you start? So I think part of
our job as the coach is to try and you know,
pull back the curtains to find out, actually, what does
(19:33):
his goalf want? You know what? You know, yes, they
want to get better, but what does that look like?
You know, it's no good someone coming to me and
saying I want to be off eighteen. I'm currently off
twenty four. Can you have a look at my driver?
If they're taking forty five puts around?
Speaker 1 (19:48):
Noird point.
Speaker 2 (19:49):
It has to start with some basic stats. Now, you know,
you start talking stats to your average golfer and they
get a bit like, oh, I don't need to do that.
Just basic stats, you know, just something look at and say, right,
I appreciate that this golfer has not got five days
a week to practice. So when they have got an hour,
we need to make sure that we're doing in that
hour the things that will actually benefit them. So we
(20:11):
have to have some goals, whether it's you know, we
want to increase our driver distance by twenty yards, we
want to take our driver dispersion and bring it a
little bit closer to the center. We want to work
on our ball striking because it's inconsistent. Once you've got
those goals, then you can start to work towards improving those.
Then things like you know, my full swing kit that
have got helps me sort of measure those and we
(20:32):
can start to track progress. And that's really powerful because
if you can say to a golfer, I'd like you
to do this, this, this, I think you will see
a change in the numbers and a change in the
ball flight. And if they make those changes and see
those results, it's kind of a real confidence boost for
them to say, Okay, I'm on the right track here.
And I think the other thing I would say in
(20:54):
terms of progress is just getting a golfer to appreciate
what journey might look like and sort of appreciate there's
some steps in there. So for example, they might leave
a lesson and hit it a lot better and then
(21:14):
come back two weeks later and go, do you know
it is awful on the course? And I hit it
great in a lesson, I'll say, well, did you do
any drills that would transfer your new skills to the course,
And they look at you a bit like, nope, I
just kind of hit it better on the range and
expected it, and.
Speaker 1 (21:31):
It doesn't just stay in my golf bag and come
back out when I open it next frankly.
Speaker 2 (21:36):
So it's all about just having these conversations to say, look,
when you can hit it better on the range and
your swing is where it wants to be in the
ball flight's behaving like you want it to mean to do,
that's not your goal. Thing fixed. You've now got to
do some transferrance drills. You've got to make your practice
more like the course. You've got to build pressure, you've
got to space your shots out, you've got to change
your target, you've got to just a lie. You're going
(21:57):
to do all these kind of exercises. So I think
tracking progress if the golfer is just saying I'm here,
I want to lower my scores, that's tough. I think
you've got to put things in place to say, okay, well,
let's our first goal is let's see the numbers change.
That's going to change the ball flights, then we need
to go on the course and transfer their skills, you know,
(22:18):
And it's all about these little steps that they can
sort of every few weeks they can hit a market
which gives them a bit of a confidence boost rather
than just focus on the end goal, which might be
six six months to a year awad and it's hard
to get there.
Speaker 1 (22:30):
Do you find along that way, like let's use that
eighteen handicap right and moving to a fifteen and maybe
they move to a ten, like whatever their journey is
that you know that we're taking as amateurs trying to
get better, do you find there are maybe you are
addressing ball flight at eighteen and then do you have
to like go back and readdress it in order to
(22:51):
get them from a ten to an ey? Like is
there another point at which like, hey, that ball flight
was good enough to get you to hear, but now
you're saying you want to go here, so now we
have to go I can do some more like is
it I'm assuming it's not a linear is at least
mine has not been linear journey? What what do you
tend to see, you know, along that pathway for somebody
(23:11):
who's you know, over the course of their life right, thirty,
forty fifty, whatever, how many years, trying to continue to
play the game and improve.
Speaker 2 (23:20):
I think that's a great point because again, that's something
that I will try and speak to my clients about,
and it's just about making them have realistic expectations. You
know that I will look at a client and you know,
I'll use my golfing as an example for this, because
I think potentially some golfers getting a little surprised that
I've got a couple of faults in my swing. And
(23:42):
if you said to me, hey, Chris, going practice for
an hour, I would have I'd be working on probably
two drills that would help my goalsing in certainly they
are the two drills that I was doing twenty years ago. Really,
because my goalsing is never going to be quote unquote fixed,
always going to have my tendencies, and I'm always going
(24:02):
to want to fall into those tendencies. So what I
will tell my clients is they're very good chance that
if we pull out the kind of two things that
are in their swing, potentially three that are almost like
the big faults, I'll give them some drills to work
on those, and those drills should start to see a
positive change in their swing. But let's say six months time,
(24:26):
they get to a point where we look at it,
we go, do you know what, those faults aren't really
there anymore. Those drills that they did, You've got to
keep doing those. Yeah, those are your drills forever, because
those are the drills that will maintain your position. So
many golfers make a positive change, look at their swing
and go, great, it's fixed, and then six months later
(24:47):
they look at the video and go, go, they're all
those faults have come back, because they're always going to
come back. And you know, it's a case of saying, okay,
it's a constant battle to either get your swing to
the point where you want it, which many golfs are doing,
or to keep it there. You know. And the analogy
I always use would be, I mean, we have motorways here.
(25:10):
I'm guessing highways more there. But if I'm on a
big road and there's five lanes and we want the
middle lane to be where you're playing your best golf,
my job is to get that golf into that middle lane. Okay,
whatever that whatever laying there in you know, turn the
wheel whenever get in that middle lane. If I'm in
that middle lane and I take my hands off the wheel,
(25:33):
three miles down the road, drive from that middle lane
into a hard shoulder into the central reservation. Whereas what
you're actually doing a car is you constantly hold a
wheel and you're making tiny, tiny little adjustments, and they're
more just to keep you where you are. That's what
your goalsing should be. So you should be doing drills, exercises,
(25:54):
practice sessions which maintain where you are, so you never
leave that lane. What often happens is people drift and
drift and drift and drift and drift. Six months later,
it then requires a bigger change to get them kind
of back to where they were. It feels strange, it
feels different. Whereas one of the phrases I always use
is maintenance is easier than the fix.
Speaker 1 (26:15):
Unfortunate. This is ringing, very very true for me, Chris id.
So some of our listeners have been listening. So I've
been trying to play competitively for the last couple of
years or plus. This is the year two, I guess,
so I finally qualified for the State AM. I had
gone like four or five weeks, hadn't shot above a
seventy three. I had had historically a very long swing,
(26:35):
very steep left rit. So I get to the State
Am and the game, I forgot to pack it in
the bag. It didn't show up, but I'd been playing
so well. To your point, I was in the middle
lane and I just took my hands off and I
was like, hey, you know, I'm just gonna play, and
I stopped doing those couple of basic drills and I,
you know, I I think I was DFL after round one.
(26:56):
So it was not a good feel. But so I'm
in panic mode. Take videos, I said. I send it
to my coach here in the States, and he looks
at me. He like, text me back. He goes, he
sends me back my first video, like from like a
year and a half ago. He goes, uh, look, anything
looked familiar. But that was all he said. Ten four.
I should have been doing those couple of basic ones.
(27:17):
And so go right back to it. And then but
it's such a it's such a to me, it's such
a weird sport where to like, it's we have and
and I should know better. That's the funny part, right,
And we see it physically too, where if somebody tends
to if they're playing a lot, they're on a buddy's trip,
or we see it in our tour players or law
drive guys, like they all have physical tendencies as well,
(27:39):
right the first thing their hip gets tired or their
trunk gets tired or and I think it's it rings
really true that in the golf swing that we have
those tendencies as well. So that's that's such a cool
point and a powerful point that I hope everybody listening
like rewind this, you know, just scan back like two
minutes and re listen to that, because yeah, it literally
I was like I thought I was done at the game.
(28:00):
I was like, I don't know what the heck's get
I don't know where the ball is going. Literally it
was the same stuff I don't when I started. It
was wild, Yeah, crazy, crazy.
Speaker 2 (28:11):
I remember doing this going back a long time now.
We did a conference and there was a golf coach
worked with some tour players. He's probably not on the
scene anymore so anyway, he was teaching a tour player
and we had a Q and A afterwards, and one
of the people putlands and said, just curious, how many
lessons you've given to that tour player, and he thought
for a while. He said, well, how many lessons have
(28:32):
I given him? And bearing in mind he'd been working
with him for a good five six years, he said,
how many lessons I've given him? He said, I've given
him one lesson. I'll just give him that lesson every
three weeks. I remember sitting there thinking, that's so true,
because you know the amounts for a lesson, and then
next week it's all what we're doing this week, same
(28:52):
was last week.
Speaker 1 (28:53):
That's brilliant. So so Chris. The the amount of content
that you have is is unreal. I watched all of
your trying to break thirty videos like those were Those
were a lot of fun to watch. But you know,
then obviously there's tons of content on your YouTube page.
You've got some other exciting stuff coming up that I
(29:13):
want to ask you about too. But when people go
to Chris Ryan Golf on YouTube, what is the best
way for them to interact or get the most out
of the page. Obviously, definitely they should subscribe to get
updates and those sorts of things, But what's the best way,
you know, you for them to navigate and figure out
where they should go?
Speaker 2 (29:31):
For them I think that's probably the one flaw in
the in the platform that you are almost faced with
just a barrage of content. And YouTube is and I
guess this works for every industry. On YouTube, you know,
the algorithm and YouTube follows the viewers, So if the
(29:55):
viewers watch a certain type of video, it's going to
get promoted more and more and more. So the videos
that get promoted and get shown are the videos that
people are watching and interacting with.
Speaker 1 (30:06):
Yeah, so the platform is almost.
Speaker 2 (30:09):
Saying, is the average golfer, we're going to take what
you think is correctors being correct. That's not worth the case,
you know. So as a coach, I would potentially look at,
you know, a golfriend and say those videos that are
getting shown to you actually aren't the best for you.
That's where YouTube is potentially flawed. What I would say
(30:30):
is that I'm trying to connect with people and build
a community rather than just put content out there. So
if you're watching anything on YouTube one of my videos,
comments get in the comments because I will desperately try
to respond to everybody, and I don't try and respond
with a yes, thanks appreciate it. You know, if you
ask me a question, I will try and give you
(30:50):
the right answer. I might direct you to another video
which is more specific. The problem is if I do
a video now which is hey, this secret downcing move
allout forty yards, that will get loads of views. Great title,
but we both know that's not really gonna long ter
be the best. So that's where the platform does fall down.
(31:13):
But try and interrupt with me, because that's how you're
going to get the most from it.
Speaker 1 (31:16):
That's awesome. Yeah, that's funny. We joke we're looking at
titles and you know, our YouTube page or our podcasts,
and I was like, oh, people like the word proven.
So it's like, all right, well what's three proven ways to?
So that's ask Chris, and I think, you know, thank
you so much for offering that to interact with people,
because I think we need more of that in the
(31:37):
golf space. I always Joe. Golf is an interesting sport
where there's you know, you can get into the improvement
space and so many different You can go to the
store down the street, you can go to the magazine,
you go to the website, you go to YouTube, you
go to Instagram. There's so many different entry points that
I've kind of if I'd call it my mission, but
(31:58):
really my goal is always whenever we talk with somebody
like yourself and good, like knowledgeable instruct because there's a
lot of stuff out there that it's not very good,
but like to help people understand like how to use
the information because it's definitely a new.
Speaker 2 (32:12):
You know.
Speaker 1 (32:12):
And the last question I love to wrap on is like,
what's the as the industry has evolved? We now no
longer it used to be like you couldn't get any
information unless you went to see Butch Harmon or unless
and now there's information everywhere and there's too much information.
So I mean, is that kind of what you have
seen as the as it's evolved?
Speaker 2 (32:36):
Definitely, definitely, you know. I think the information that's out
there is becoming a lot better across the board because
there's more good coaches delivering good information. But there's still
the information out there which is good but potentially not
for the person's that's watching it. And I think from
(33:00):
my point of view, I will try and put out
good content that I believe in, but it's not going
to be applicable to everyone. That the advice that I
would try and give to people. If we think about
what we spoke about the start about how I would
analyze someone's goal swing. The viewer on YouTube has got
to do a little bit of that. So, for example, Chris,
if you said to me, you know, jump on YouTube
(33:23):
to help my golf game, I'm sort of going, okay,
So I know what my tendency is. My tendency is
to get a bit hookey asim as to yours. I
know that's because my path gets out of the right,
my face gets open on the way down, I flip
at it, I get a little bit cooked at the top.
So if I'm going on YouTube, I'm looking specifically for, okay,
(33:44):
how to flatter my.
Speaker 1 (33:46):
I mean, this sounds maybe familiar, you know, but that
was just a theoretical example exactly.
Speaker 2 (33:54):
So I would be using YouTube to find drills that
help my fault.
Speaker 1 (34:02):
You know.
Speaker 2 (34:02):
I joke with a couple of friends that you know,
we'll we'll all get comments on YouTube videos. You know,
We'll put a YouTube video out on Monday, and then
on Tuesday there'll be a comment saying, I tried this
didn't work. You don't try it. It's like it's not like,
you know, I wouldn't see a video on you know,
how to take apart my car engine, just go I'm
going to go try that to see.
Speaker 1 (34:21):
Yeah, let's just take it apparent, see what happening apart.
Speaker 2 (34:23):
And see if it works, you know. And so it's
like number one, it's like, well, don't try it. And
then number two is if you do try it, maybe
give it more than a day.
Speaker 1 (34:32):
Yeah exactly. Yeah, mosted it twelve hours ago. You train
it that well, exactly.
Speaker 2 (34:36):
So I just think it'll go to YouTube with first
of all, and understanding of what you're looking for, because
you'll get to the right videos that way, and there
is great information out there, but not all that information
is he's going to be suitable for everybody. And I
think that's the key on YouTube. He's trying to find
out the content the videos that actually apply to you.
(34:56):
And that's that's kind of I guess the difficulty. You know,
it's god don't know their tendency, they don't know their
patterns that are their swinging, and so they are out
there looking to try that see if that works, and
sometimes it doesn't. Does it doesn't, but you can end
up getting all tangled up in your own in your
own way, really for sure.
Speaker 1 (35:14):
Yeah. So definitely check out Chris Ryan Golf on YouTube. Guys,
go to his playlist. It's all organized there for you.
As Chris said, please do some level of assessment on yourself.
Always talking about this on the physical side, assessed, don't
guess you know, the same thing applies on the on
the technical side. Now you also have a website, Chris
ryangolf dot com. I'm looking at it literally right now
(35:36):
as we're talking all these digital courses like fall striking,
short game toolbox.
Speaker 2 (35:42):
Ye.
Speaker 1 (35:43):
Now, talk to me a little bit about the kind
of idea behind those, and I'm assertingly just kind of
ways to help people a little bits and specific areas.
What's the best way for people to interact with with
those courses?
Speaker 2 (35:54):
So I I created those for a different approach. So
let's say someone is struggling with their chipping okay, and
they hit it thin on YouTube thin chip shots. There
be a load of content that comes up, yeah, ok,
and he might be a try this, try that, and
(36:16):
you know something kind of might work. Whereas on my website,
I'm almost saying to that golfer, rather than trying to
fix that fault that you have, why don't you just
learn the correct way to hit all the shots around
the green?
Speaker 1 (36:30):
Wait, what learn the right way to do something.
Speaker 2 (36:35):
Rather than trying to fix it, you know, like so
every fixes for special faults, whereas that, for example, that
short game course is more a case of right, I'm
going to teach you how to hit all these shots.
You're not always trying to fix this, fix that, fix this,
fix that. You're just going to you know what, I
need to learn how to play the short game correct
(36:56):
And sometimes you don't need to be focusing on what
you do wrong. You just need to I can step
back and go, well, let's just work on how to
do it correctly for sure. And then so they're more
kind of in depth. They talk you through things like
what is the right setup, when you might change that setup,
when you might change the club, how you might change
the flight, and actually sort of giving the goal for
(37:17):
the tools to become their best golfer. You still have
to put the work in, but it's it's the tools.
Speaker 1 (37:22):
Are there, so there's no magic pixie dust. But but
if they do the work, they have the right information
in there. And I always think so. One of the
first time I went and saw my coach here, I
was a scratch at that point. But I just kind
of figured out had never taken a lesson, and I walked.
He just kind of said, so, what do you think
we need to do? I said, honestly, can you just
teach me how to like chip? I don't like I
(37:43):
would love to just know like how I'm supposed to
do it, because I just kind of figure it out.
But and it was eye opening. So I think for
all of you that are actually looking at trying to
get better at the game, these I mean these courses,
there's tons of them here, guys, go like, definitely go
into that. Check it out. You know, I can vouch
for Chris, you know, the stuff I watched more than
a few hours. But Chris, obviously you got you YouTube channel,
(38:07):
he got Chris ryangolf dot com. Uh, social channels where
where can people find you to follow an interact with you?
Speaker 2 (38:13):
There? Yeah, all into my name. So everything's Chris ran Golf.
So Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, Twitter or not. Don't really do
a lot on Twitter though not really something of just
taken to really, so we have everything's under my name, Chris.
Speaker 1 (38:27):
Rank, Chris ron Golf, fantastic cool. Well, Chris, I can't
thank you enough for coming on today. It's been an
absolute blast. It's been an honor to have you on
and for everyone listen, please go check this out. I
don't bring people on here who are idiots. I only
bring people on here who know what they're talking. We
bet people, so this Chris is one of the good ones. Guys.
(38:47):
He so Chris ryand Golf YouTube. Check out the website
Chris ruang golf dot com. Lots of great uh you know,
tools and basically educational stuff guys, like actual stuff that
will help you if you know you do have to
put in the work. Just like the fitness You can't
look at the weights and hope they get you stronger.
You can't look at the look at the lacrosse ball
and hope it makes your hip move better. You actually
(39:07):
got to do it. But but Chris, thanks so much
for hanging out with me today. Man, thanks to the child.
It's really awesome.
Speaker 2 (39:13):
Guys.
Speaker 1 (39:13):
We'll catch you on the next episode. Thanks so much
hanging out with those guys.
Welcome to the Golf Fitness Bomb Squad. My name is
Chris Finn I'm your host and today I'm excited to
have another Chris with me. Uh And for those of
you who maybe haven't discovered this really cool platform called YouTube,
maybe you don't know who he is, but he is
an amazing instructor. It's an honor to have him on
(00:30):
here with us. I want to welcome Chris Ryan to
the show. Chris, how are you doing? Man?
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Oh, I am really really good. Thanks Chris. Good to
be here, and thank you for having me on to
talk about golf.
Speaker 1 (00:42):
Yeah. Man, No, it's always a this is we were
sitting talking a little bit before we jumps on it.
This is always for me Selfishly, I'm a nut. I
love the game of golf. I've obviously gotten in on
the physical side of things, and uh so get to
get to talk to great instructors like yourself and the
you know, the experience you've had, you know the cup
I saw like you were involved back in O two.
(01:03):
The amount of teaching you've done at some of the
facilities you've done it at is incredible. So selfishly, for me,
I've been looking forward to this all week so, but
for the listener who doesn't know who you are, I
would love to hear kind of the backstory and share
that with the listeners because as an entrepreneur myself and
having built something from the ground up, I just I
(01:24):
love hearing about that and the listeners love that too.
So please you know, how did you get into this
and how did we end up here today on a
beautiful morning.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
Well, well expends I guess how far you want to
go back? Really in terms of my kind of introduction
to I guess the world of kind of working in golf,
I was quite fortunate, which I guess. You know, if
you find a lot of people in the industry, there's
always gonna be that points where they got a little
bit of luck. I was trying to become a better golfer,
(01:56):
you know, trying to become the best golf that I
could be, and I was having lessons with the head
pro at the time at the Belfry. Now, back then,
the Belfy was, you know, pretty famous. It had hosted
a lot of rider cups, I had a lot of
European tour events. It was a kind of real kind
of hub for golf in Europe, and I was kind
of going there for my lessons, and I was probably
(02:17):
hold as I was seventeen eighteen at the time, and
the guy who was giving me my lessons kind of
said to me one day said, look, we're having a
big sort of change in the way we do things
at the Belfry, and we are looking to take on
twelve amateur golfers who we're looking to put through their
PJ training, but we're looking to do it a little differently.
(02:39):
We're looking to give them this kind of over all
experience of what it's like to work at a golf venue.
So you would work in the golf shop and learn
how the gold shop works. You would then work on
the academy, work how they look at how the academy works,
you'd look at how to run a golf course. You
had all these different aspects, and he said, look, you know,
if coaching for a couple of years, I love his
(03:00):
to apply. So that was really when I was kind
of playing the game, trying to become a great player,
and then suddenly had this opportunity to actually kind of
go in and work in the industry, and the Belfry
were kind of paying half of my PJA fees.
Speaker 1 (03:16):
It was.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
It was a brain. I was actually at university at
the time, and I quit Unie did quit the university force,
and then went to work at the Belfry and started
there as an amateur golfer and then kind of that
led to where I am today.
Speaker 1 (03:28):
The rest its history. Wow, that's so cool. I just
I mean, so what was So how have you seen
is that? Know? How have you seen that type of
program evolve? You know, obviously you were kind of like
sounds like the guinea pigs, right, and then how how
did that evolve? Maybe even just in the time you
were there too, you know what we see today.
Speaker 2 (03:49):
I mean that was two thousand and one, so a
number of years ago now and to this day that
experience that going through my PGA, which you know to
three years, I still look back at that experience and
take so much from that because, like I said, there
was I think there was like twelve of us that
they took on, all amateur golfers and put through their
pg training. And the way that was run at the Belfry.
(04:14):
The guy who was overseeing it was a guy called Simon,
and he was phenomenal. Like the way he structured it,
the way that we got an experience of, like I said,
how the shop works, how your stock and how you
christ stock, and then how to run a golf course
and how to organize a golf day and all these
kind of different aspects. And at the end of that
three years when we qualified from our PGA training, I
(04:36):
think of those twelve people, I think there was like
six or seven who qualified in the top ten of
Europe and a lot of those people are in the
industry now doing great things. He got people like that
people might know of like Chris Trott who works ever
in the States, the good or the guy doing work
really well. It just really opened my eyes to how
(04:58):
if you put the right structure in play. We all
flourished into that system. As we left. Simon also left
the Belpery to go and see things, and yeah, things
maybe changed a little bit now, but it kind of
showed me that, you know, putting yourself with good people
having a structure, there was just such an incredible experience.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
That's amazing. And I think, speaking of structure, I want
to dive into uh. We are a fitness podcast, so
I always love to understand from an instructor side of things,
and obviously you know, if anybody has not seen your
YouTube channel, I would strongly encourage all of you guys
to go see it. Chris Rangolf YouTube. The the amount
(05:42):
of instruction I was. I always like to do research
before I get on a pot of somebody, and I'm
not gonna lie. I kind of got distracted for a
couple hours different videos and and and it was it
was just it was so good. And I think the
interesting thing for me as a on the physical side
is I always want to understand and when you have
a golfer come to you, right, how do you approach
(06:05):
that first time you meet somebody and looking at assessing
what you're going to work on with them and what
they need, and how does that their body and what
it does or doesn't do, How does that potentially influence
kind of how you go about that.
Speaker 2 (06:18):
Yeah, I mean, I think that's a really interesting topic
and debate. And I would say in my experience that's
changed over the years of coaching, and that probably comes
down to a little bit of me evolving as a
coach and also maybe just the clients that I work
with has potentially changed a little bit. Certainly. I remember,
(06:41):
you know, I qualify from the PGA, and you know
the PJA, you do a little bit of the kind
of physical side of things. You learn the basics, you know,
the real basics. And I remember kind of coming out
of the PGA, thinking, right, how am I going to
make golfers better? Well, I've got to get them to
move better. I've got to kind of learn how to
screen them so I can steal what they limit are.
I've got to be able to put them in touch
(07:02):
with someone who can maybe work on those physical limitations
that companied with you know, the swing stuff that I'm doing,
and you create this kind of team around the golfer.
And I think when you look at the elite level,
you know, the tour players, that's one hundred percent the.
Speaker 1 (07:18):
Case works very well at that level, very well.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
I was kind of tending to see more of Dave,
who's got a job and he's got a family. He
plays Saturday mornings. He slices it, and he would love
to just stop slicing it.
Speaker 1 (07:35):
I mean, he doesn't have forty hours a week to
do everything else to be better at golf.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
But no, and you know at the Belfry, we did,
you know a lot of corporate days, So I would
be working with clients who have got a tea time
in an hour's time. Yeah, you know, And it sort
of got me to the point where I'm saying, Okay,
I probably need to tailor my coaching to actually, yes,
(08:00):
have that knowledge that if somebody comes to me and says,
can you test where I'm maybe got some limitations, I
can do that, but also develop a coaching style that
allows me to speak to someone who's got a tea
time in an hour and say, right, i'd like you
to do this. We need a little work around for that.
But I think I'm sort of more in the case
now with I tend to work with people who are
(08:22):
kind of coming to me to say, look, I would
just want to hit it better on a plan on Saturday.
And it's nice for me to have a little bit
of background knowledge to say, look, if you do want
to take it further, then this is probably what you
need to do. And I think I've just seen that
in my coaching. It's just the clients that I coach
tend to be well.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
I think that's honestly, that's refreshing for a lot of
people to hear, because I think, particularly in my space, everybody,
oh we need to change this. Do you need to
commit and you need to do And the reality is
most golfers don't want to do that. They don't either
they don't have time, they don't have the interest. Like
to your point, like, dude, I get to play once,
you know, maybe twice on a really good week, Like
(09:03):
just help me enjoy the game. And so for you
as a coach, having the background on the physical side,
if somebody, if that guy comes to you and he's
slicing it and he teased off in an hour, how
do you approach that, You know that guy if you
have an hour to hopefully help him get out and
enjoy the round a little bit better? Like what does
that process look for? You know? For you, as you're
(09:25):
looking at that player and I having talked to enough
good coaches, you probably just see it and you're like, boom,
I know what it is. But if you had to
break it down for all of our stummer amateurs who
don't understand it at the level that you do, how
would you kind of talk through that or explain that
at kind of a you know, a second grade level
for all the rest of us.
Speaker 2 (09:44):
I think I think the eyes putting to you know
a lot of coaches over the years and work with
a lot of coaches, and I think the way coach
looks at a golfer is possibly the complete opposite to
the way that golfers look themselves. If we could just
if I could just get golfers to look at it
in a different order, I think they'd be a little
bit better. So what I mean by that would be
(10:04):
if I see a client and they say, hey, look,
I'm suggaringe driver, I'm playing an hour. What do we
need to do? The first thing I'm looking at is
what is the ball doing. I'm going to stand there
and I'm going to watch the hit some shots, and
I'm going to say, right, the ball is starting, let's
say pretty straight, it's drifting a little bit off to
the right. Wats a few shots and I'll establish what
their pattern is. And every golfer's got a pattern. Most
(10:27):
golfers saying I'm too inconsistent, but everyone's got a pattern.
So once I can see that pattern, I'm then going, Okay,
what's happening at impact that's creating that ball flop? So
what is the likely contact point, what is the likely path,
what is the likely face alignment, what is the likely
attack angle, what is the likely speed that's giving me
(10:49):
all the information now where possible, I'm going to measure
that with full swing kit, But essentially I'm looking at
what is the ball doing, what is the club doing.
Once I know what the club is doing, I then
look at the goal swing and say, okay, well what
is in their goal swing which is creating that impact
that we don't necessarily like. Then my question to myself
is what's the kind of quote unquote smallest thing that
(11:12):
I can do that's going to have the biggest effect
on that impact.
Speaker 1 (11:17):
The more effective.
Speaker 2 (11:19):
So I'm always going ball flight first, impact, second, swing third.
Golf has come to me with swing first, it's like, oh,
I want to fix my inside takeaway and I'm.
Speaker 1 (11:30):
Like, right, why, Like what you know it's all about?
Speaker 2 (11:35):
They look at it on camera, they don't see what
they like, and they kind of go straight to that,
whereas I'd want people to go through the way, And
the number of times I've given lessons and I've said
things like, look, yes, your takeaways on the outside or
it's on the inside, but changing that will not change
what the ball is doing.
Speaker 1 (11:53):
Right, And I'd.
Speaker 2 (11:54):
Always say Look, we've got a list of things that
you might want to change. That inside takeaway is quite
possibly on that list, but it's not at the top, right,
And it's trying to prioritize, Okay, if we actually change this,
that's going to change the impact, that's going to change
the ball flight. And I think as a coach, you're
always trying to say, if I do this to the swing,
(12:16):
what will that do to the impact and what will
that do to ball flights? And there has to be
that kind of always those three touch points that you're
kind of aware of.
Speaker 1 (12:25):
I love that logic tree that's so simple to understand,
but definitely not what the average eritor thinks about.
Speaker 2 (12:32):
No, and then just just going to what you were
saying earlier, that might be when I and I would
always say to a client, look, and one of the
things that I've done I do differently now is I'm
led by the clients. I think that's the big difference.
When I came out as a new coach, it was like, right,
I'm going to change the world, and I want to
do it this way and this way and this way
this way, and almost trying to force my opinions on
(12:52):
the golfer. I'm very much more down to like listening
to them now. So once I've maybe analyzed their ball flight,
impact and swing, that's what I might say to them, Hey, look,
if you do this today, that's going to help. But
then I might say, but I think you've got maybe
a few limitations in your trail shoulder. Might do it
a little test for them and say, right, you have
(13:13):
got some notations. So if you do this, it will
help it. But if you want to get better, you
might want to address that. I just give them information
and it's up to them then what they what they
kind of do with it.
Speaker 1 (13:23):
Yeah, that's so. So let's just to put this in
context for everybody listening. And let's say theoretically, there is
a late thirties golfer who and by no means anybody
on this podcast, and when they're hitting it, well, you know,
it starts out right target line comes back down, you know,
to target. So what I'm hearing is if my miss
(13:46):
not me, you know, just theoretical me right right is ill,
it'll start left and go a little left. Then what
you're saying is the way you're going to look at
that and say, Okay, that's what the ball is doing,
then I'm going to look at impact and see what
could be potentially influencing that. And then I'm going to
look at swing and see what in the swing would
be potentially causing that. Is that accurate? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (14:07):
So so based on that, you know, if if if
as I say, you're there's not your is it?
Speaker 1 (14:15):
This is just this is just a theoretical thing.
Speaker 2 (14:19):
If the if the good shot starts right and turns
back and the bad shot starts a little closer to
target and finishes left, you're probably looking at that and
being saying, well, that's club face and impact. So then
you'd say, okay, so how do we kind of eliminate
the left miss. We'd need to deliver a club face
which is potentially trending to a little bit more open.
(14:40):
So then you'd say, okay, alright, without even seeing your
goal swing, I could potentially list four or five things
that could influence the club face to be more right right,
you know, so even without looking at a goals and
you could say, well, if you push the ball a
little bit further back in his stancey hitting it's like
it earlier in the arc, that might help you know,
you can try and shift laterally a little bit more towards
the target. So you know, what I always say to
(15:05):
clients is that whatever you do in your golfing, whether
it be a little grip change, whether it be a
set of change, whatever you do is likely to influence
the impact. And there's theory there. We never know and
saw the golfer does it. But if you kind of
said to me, I'm going to push the ball a
little bit further back already, I'm thinking path is likely
(15:26):
to be more right, face is likely to be more open,
attack angles likely to be more down. These are all
likely is because the golfer is complex and they can
react differently. But you can already start to think about
what you could put in place to change that ball
flight before you even look to the golfing.
Speaker 1 (15:43):
That's so cool. That's why I love these conversations because
when we that is why I love working with guys
like yourself, because we have somebody maybe comes in because
they maybe they're backers, right, so they come into us
when they can't swing anymore. That's when people are real
motivated to see us. So they'll come in and they'll
say yeah. Inevitably, we start talking about the golf swinger.
(16:04):
You know, they tell us you know about their game
or you know, depending how bad it is, we may
actually hook them up on the force plates and the
three D and just see what their body's doing and
what maybe is we're looking at it obviously, is what
potentially is contributing to the back overworking and causing the
back issues. Right, And so that's where we look at it,
and we'll find, hey, there, I don't know, their trail
(16:24):
shoulder doesn't externally rotate, they have no lead hip rotation
into their lead side, so and they're coming real steep
and going hard left all upper body. And then so
it's it's always fun for us to say, I have
the conversations. I literally was just having this conversation with
the guy down at the open one of the coaches saying, hey, physically,
(16:46):
these are all the things that could be influencing. Here's
four things we could address. What are you looking at
performance wise that you want to address because I don't
want to address something that screws up something over here.
And to me that those are like the most fun
conversations when you have a player who wants to work
at it and who wants to kind of improve you
(17:06):
know what they're doing, and so I guess I always
love to to kind of lead into I guess my
next question for you then is, let's say, let's we've
kind of talked about that guy who's got the tea
time in the hour, right when you do have a
player maybe who's coming back to you wanting to get
better and progress and maybe it's even something you did
as you were, you know, continuing trying to play well.
(17:26):
How do you like recommend tracking progress over time or
how do you go about that with students to like
to know that they're improving. And you know, you said, hey,
I'm going to have four or five different things we
could address that inside swing, but maybe I'm going to
address three things first. How do you kind of organize
that in your mind and track it and know when
to do what?
Speaker 2 (17:48):
Great question, it's it comes down to ultimately, what is
going to make the golfer better? And hating it better
swinging it better will be part of that, but I
think it comes down to a little bit more of saying,
you know, what is going to give this golfer the
(18:09):
tools that they need to shoot lower score. So for
lots of golfers, it will be a case of hitting
it further. You know, if their drivers maxing out at
one hundred and eight hundred and ninety yards. You have
to other conversations and say, look, a lot of the
courses that you play, you know you probably need a
little bit more distance. It might be just looking at
their you know right miss with a driver and saying
we need to bring that a little bit more to
the censor. So I would One thing I would ask
(18:32):
golfers is yeah, I always push the word how, and
golfers get unstuck on that, and I think got to
be clear on that. So they'll say to me, I
want to lower my handicap. I get how, and they
often don't don't have an answer.
Speaker 1 (18:49):
They just look at you with the blank stare.
Speaker 2 (18:51):
Yeah, but I want them initially to have the answer.
So if I imagine a conversation that I have with
an eighteen handicap golfer, how easy is my job? If
they come to me and say I'm off eighteen, I
want to be off fifteen, And I go how, and
they go, well, currently i'm hitting fifteen percent of fairways.
I'd love that to be close to fifty. Okay, Well,
(19:11):
currently I'm missing it off to the right. My tendencies
are fades. I want to work it more to a
draw that you're starting to get. Then I can go okay, well,
I can network on the things that can give you
the results when it's just a I want to be better,
Like where do you start? So I think part of
our job as the coach is to try and you know,
pull back the curtains to find out, actually, what does
(19:33):
his goalf want? You know what? You know, yes, they
want to get better, but what does that look like?
You know, it's no good someone coming to me and
saying I want to be off eighteen. I'm currently off
twenty four. Can you have a look at my driver?
If they're taking forty five puts around?
Speaker 1 (19:48):
Noird point.
Speaker 2 (19:49):
It has to start with some basic stats. Now, you know,
you start talking stats to your average golfer and they
get a bit like, oh, I don't need to do that.
Just basic stats, you know, just something look at and say, right,
I appreciate that this golfer has not got five days
a week to practice. So when they have got an hour,
we need to make sure that we're doing in that
hour the things that will actually benefit them. So we
(20:11):
have to have some goals, whether it's you know, we
want to increase our driver distance by twenty yards, we
want to take our driver dispersion and bring it a
little bit closer to the center. We want to work
on our ball striking because it's inconsistent. Once you've got
those goals, then you can start to work towards improving those.
Then things like you know, my full swing kit that
have got helps me sort of measure those and we
(20:32):
can start to track progress. And that's really powerful because
if you can say to a golfer, I'd like you
to do this, this, this, I think you will see
a change in the numbers and a change in the
ball flight. And if they make those changes and see
those results, it's kind of a real confidence boost for
them to say, Okay, I'm on the right track here.
And I think the other thing I would say in
(20:54):
terms of progress is just getting a golfer to appreciate
what journey might look like and sort of appreciate there's
some steps in there. So for example, they might leave
a lesson and hit it a lot better and then
(21:14):
come back two weeks later and go, do you know
it is awful on the course? And I hit it
great in a lesson, I'll say, well, did you do
any drills that would transfer your new skills to the course,
And they look at you a bit like, nope, I
just kind of hit it better on the range and
expected it, and.
Speaker 1 (21:31):
It doesn't just stay in my golf bag and come
back out when I open it next frankly.
Speaker 2 (21:36):
So it's all about just having these conversations to say, look,
when you can hit it better on the range and
your swing is where it wants to be in the
ball flight's behaving like you want it to mean to do,
that's not your goal. Thing fixed. You've now got to
do some transferrance drills. You've got to make your practice
more like the course. You've got to build pressure, you've
got to space your shots out, you've got to change
your target, you've got to just a lie. You're going
(21:57):
to do all these kind of exercises. So I think
tracking progress if the golfer is just saying I'm here,
I want to lower my scores, that's tough. I think
you've got to put things in place to say, okay, well,
let's our first goal is let's see the numbers change.
That's going to change the ball flights, then we need
to go on the course and transfer their skills, you know,
(22:18):
And it's all about these little steps that they can
sort of every few weeks they can hit a market
which gives them a bit of a confidence boost rather
than just focus on the end goal, which might be
six six months to a year awad and it's hard
to get there.
Speaker 1 (22:30):
Do you find along that way, like let's use that
eighteen handicap right and moving to a fifteen and maybe
they move to a ten, like whatever their journey is
that you know that we're taking as amateurs trying to
get better, do you find there are maybe you are
addressing ball flight at eighteen and then do you have
to like go back and readdress it in order to
(22:51):
get them from a ten to an ey? Like is
there another point at which like, hey, that ball flight
was good enough to get you to hear, but now
you're saying you want to go here, so now we
have to go I can do some more like is
it I'm assuming it's not a linear is at least
mine has not been linear journey? What what do you
tend to see, you know, along that pathway for somebody
(23:11):
who's you know, over the course of their life right, thirty,
forty fifty, whatever, how many years, trying to continue to
play the game and improve.
Speaker 2 (23:20):
I think that's a great point because again, that's something
that I will try and speak to my clients about,
and it's just about making them have realistic expectations. You
know that I will look at a client and you know,
I'll use my golfing as an example for this, because
I think potentially some golfers getting a little surprised that
I've got a couple of faults in my swing. And
(23:42):
if you said to me, hey, Chris, going practice for
an hour, I would have I'd be working on probably
two drills that would help my goalsing in certainly they
are the two drills that I was doing twenty years ago. Really,
because my goalsing is never going to be quote unquote fixed,
always going to have my tendencies, and I'm always going
(24:02):
to want to fall into those tendencies. So what I
will tell my clients is they're very good chance that
if we pull out the kind of two things that
are in their swing, potentially three that are almost like
the big faults, I'll give them some drills to work
on those, and those drills should start to see a
positive change in their swing. But let's say six months time,
(24:26):
they get to a point where we look at it,
we go, do you know what, those faults aren't really
there anymore. Those drills that they did, You've got to
keep doing those. Yeah, those are your drills forever, because
those are the drills that will maintain your position. So
many golfers make a positive change, look at their swing
and go, great, it's fixed, and then six months later
(24:47):
they look at the video and go, go, they're all
those faults have come back, because they're always going to
come back. And you know, it's a case of saying, okay,
it's a constant battle to either get your swing to
the point where you want it, which many golfs are doing,
or to keep it there. You know. And the analogy
I always use would be, I mean, we have motorways here.
(25:10):
I'm guessing highways more there. But if I'm on a
big road and there's five lanes and we want the
middle lane to be where you're playing your best golf,
my job is to get that golf into that middle lane. Okay,
whatever that whatever laying there in you know, turn the
wheel whenever get in that middle lane. If I'm in
that middle lane and I take my hands off the wheel,
(25:33):
three miles down the road, drive from that middle lane
into a hard shoulder into the central reservation. Whereas what
you're actually doing a car is you constantly hold a
wheel and you're making tiny, tiny little adjustments, and they're
more just to keep you where you are. That's what
your goalsing should be. So you should be doing drills, exercises,
(25:54):
practice sessions which maintain where you are, so you never
leave that lane. What often happens is people drift and
drift and drift and drift and drift. Six months later,
it then requires a bigger change to get them kind
of back to where they were. It feels strange, it
feels different. Whereas one of the phrases I always use
is maintenance is easier than the fix.
Speaker 1 (26:15):
Unfortunate. This is ringing, very very true for me, Chris id.
So some of our listeners have been listening. So I've
been trying to play competitively for the last couple of
years or plus. This is the year two, I guess,
so I finally qualified for the State AM. I had
gone like four or five weeks, hadn't shot above a
seventy three. I had had historically a very long swing,
(26:35):
very steep left rit. So I get to the State
Am and the game, I forgot to pack it in
the bag. It didn't show up, but I'd been playing
so well. To your point, I was in the middle
lane and I just took my hands off and I
was like, hey, you know, I'm just gonna play, and
I stopped doing those couple of basic drills and I,
you know, I I think I was DFL after round one.
(26:56):
So it was not a good feel. But so I'm
in panic mode. Take videos, I said. I send it
to my coach here in the States, and he looks
at me. He like, text me back. He goes, he
sends me back my first video, like from like a
year and a half ago. He goes, uh, look, anything
looked familiar. But that was all he said. Ten four.
I should have been doing those couple of basic ones.
(27:17):
And so go right back to it. And then but
it's such a it's such a to me, it's such
a weird sport where to like, it's we have and
and I should know better. That's the funny part, right,
And we see it physically too, where if somebody tends
to if they're playing a lot, they're on a buddy's trip,
or we see it in our tour players or law
drive guys, like they all have physical tendencies as well,
(27:39):
right the first thing their hip gets tired or their
trunk gets tired or and I think it's it rings
really true that in the golf swing that we have
those tendencies as well. So that's that's such a cool
point and a powerful point that I hope everybody listening
like rewind this, you know, just scan back like two
minutes and re listen to that, because yeah, it literally
I was like I thought I was done at the game.
(28:00):
I was like, I don't know what the heck's get
I don't know where the ball is going. Literally it
was the same stuff I don't when I started. It
was wild, Yeah, crazy, crazy.
Speaker 2 (28:11):
I remember doing this going back a long time now.
We did a conference and there was a golf coach
worked with some tour players. He's probably not on the
scene anymore so anyway, he was teaching a tour player
and we had a Q and A afterwards, and one
of the people putlands and said, just curious, how many
lessons you've given to that tour player, and he thought
for a while. He said, well, how many lessons have
(28:32):
I given him? And bearing in mind he'd been working
with him for a good five six years, he said,
how many lessons I've given him? He said, I've given
him one lesson. I'll just give him that lesson every
three weeks. I remember sitting there thinking, that's so true,
because you know the amounts for a lesson, and then
next week it's all what we're doing this week, same
(28:52):
was last week.
Speaker 1 (28:53):
That's brilliant. So so Chris. The the amount of content
that you have is is unreal. I watched all of
your trying to break thirty videos like those were Those
were a lot of fun to watch. But you know,
then obviously there's tons of content on your YouTube page.
You've got some other exciting stuff coming up that I
(29:13):
want to ask you about too. But when people go
to Chris Ryan Golf on YouTube, what is the best
way for them to interact or get the most out
of the page. Obviously, definitely they should subscribe to get
updates and those sorts of things, But what's the best way,
you know, you for them to navigate and figure out
where they should go?
Speaker 2 (29:31):
For them I think that's probably the one flaw in
the in the platform that you are almost faced with
just a barrage of content. And YouTube is and I
guess this works for every industry. On YouTube, you know,
the algorithm and YouTube follows the viewers, So if the
(29:55):
viewers watch a certain type of video, it's going to
get promoted more and more and more. So the videos
that get promoted and get shown are the videos that
people are watching and interacting with.
Speaker 1 (30:06):
Yeah, so the platform is almost.
Speaker 2 (30:09):
Saying, is the average golfer, we're going to take what
you think is correctors being correct. That's not worth the case,
you know. So as a coach, I would potentially look at,
you know, a golfriend and say those videos that are
getting shown to you actually aren't the best for you.
That's where YouTube is potentially flawed. What I would say
(30:30):
is that I'm trying to connect with people and build
a community rather than just put content out there. So
if you're watching anything on YouTube one of my videos,
comments get in the comments because I will desperately try
to respond to everybody, and I don't try and respond
with a yes, thanks appreciate it. You know, if you
ask me a question, I will try and give you
(30:50):
the right answer. I might direct you to another video
which is more specific. The problem is if I do
a video now which is hey, this secret downcing move
allout forty yards, that will get loads of views. Great title,
but we both know that's not really gonna long ter
be the best. So that's where the platform does fall down.
(31:13):
But try and interrupt with me, because that's how you're
going to get the most from it.
Speaker 1 (31:16):
That's awesome. Yeah, that's funny. We joke we're looking at
titles and you know, our YouTube page or our podcasts,
and I was like, oh, people like the word proven.
So it's like, all right, well what's three proven ways to?
So that's ask Chris, and I think, you know, thank
you so much for offering that to interact with people,
because I think we need more of that in the
(31:37):
golf space. I always Joe. Golf is an interesting sport
where there's you know, you can get into the improvement
space and so many different You can go to the
store down the street, you can go to the magazine,
you go to the website, you go to YouTube, you
go to Instagram. There's so many different entry points that
I've kind of if I'd call it my mission, but
(31:58):
really my goal is always whenever we talk with somebody
like yourself and good, like knowledgeable instruct because there's a
lot of stuff out there that it's not very good,
but like to help people understand like how to use
the information because it's definitely a new.
Speaker 2 (32:12):
You know.
Speaker 1 (32:12):
And the last question I love to wrap on is like,
what's the as the industry has evolved? We now no
longer it used to be like you couldn't get any
information unless you went to see Butch Harmon or unless
and now there's information everywhere and there's too much information.
So I mean, is that kind of what you have
seen as the as it's evolved?
Speaker 2 (32:36):
Definitely, definitely, you know. I think the information that's out
there is becoming a lot better across the board because
there's more good coaches delivering good information. But there's still
the information out there which is good but potentially not
for the person's that's watching it. And I think from
(33:00):
my point of view, I will try and put out
good content that I believe in, but it's not going
to be applicable to everyone. That the advice that I
would try and give to people. If we think about
what we spoke about the start about how I would
analyze someone's goal swing. The viewer on YouTube has got
to do a little bit of that. So, for example, Chris,
if you said to me, you know, jump on YouTube
(33:23):
to help my golf game, I'm sort of going, okay,
So I know what my tendency is. My tendency is
to get a bit hookey asim as to yours. I
know that's because my path gets out of the right,
my face gets open on the way down, I flip
at it, I get a little bit cooked at the top.
So if I'm going on YouTube, I'm looking specifically for, okay,
(33:44):
how to flatter my.
Speaker 1 (33:46):
I mean, this sounds maybe familiar, you know, but that
was just a theoretical example exactly.
Speaker 2 (33:54):
So I would be using YouTube to find drills that
help my fault.
Speaker 1 (34:02):
You know.
Speaker 2 (34:02):
I joke with a couple of friends that you know,
we'll we'll all get comments on YouTube videos. You know,
We'll put a YouTube video out on Monday, and then
on Tuesday there'll be a comment saying, I tried this
didn't work. You don't try it. It's like it's not like,
you know, I wouldn't see a video on you know,
how to take apart my car engine, just go I'm
going to go try that to see.
Speaker 1 (34:21):
Yeah, let's just take it apparent, see what happening apart.
Speaker 2 (34:23):
And see if it works, you know. And so it's
like number one, it's like, well, don't try it. And
then number two is if you do try it, maybe
give it more than a day.
Speaker 1 (34:32):
Yeah exactly. Yeah, mosted it twelve hours ago. You train
it that well, exactly.
Speaker 2 (34:36):
So I just think it'll go to YouTube with first
of all, and understanding of what you're looking for, because
you'll get to the right videos that way, and there
is great information out there, but not all that information
is he's going to be suitable for everybody. And I
think that's the key on YouTube. He's trying to find
out the content the videos that actually apply to you.
(34:56):
And that's that's kind of I guess the difficulty. You know,
it's god don't know their tendency, they don't know their
patterns that are their swinging, and so they are out
there looking to try that see if that works, and
sometimes it doesn't. Does it doesn't, but you can end
up getting all tangled up in your own in your
own way, really for sure.
Speaker 1 (35:14):
Yeah. So definitely check out Chris Ryan Golf on YouTube. Guys,
go to his playlist. It's all organized there for you.
As Chris said, please do some level of assessment on yourself.
Always talking about this on the physical side, assessed, don't
guess you know, the same thing applies on the on
the technical side. Now you also have a website, Chris
ryangolf dot com. I'm looking at it literally right now
(35:36):
as we're talking all these digital courses like fall striking,
short game toolbox.
Speaker 2 (35:42):
Ye.
Speaker 1 (35:43):
Now, talk to me a little bit about the kind
of idea behind those, and I'm assertingly just kind of
ways to help people a little bits and specific areas.
What's the best way for people to interact with with
those courses?
Speaker 2 (35:54):
So I I created those for a different approach. So
let's say someone is struggling with their chipping okay, and
they hit it thin on YouTube thin chip shots. There
be a load of content that comes up, yeah, ok,
and he might be a try this, try that, and
(36:16):
you know something kind of might work. Whereas on my website,
I'm almost saying to that golfer, rather than trying to
fix that fault that you have, why don't you just
learn the correct way to hit all the shots around
the green?
Speaker 1 (36:30):
Wait, what learn the right way to do something.
Speaker 2 (36:35):
Rather than trying to fix it, you know, like so
every fixes for special faults, whereas that, for example, that
short game course is more a case of right, I'm
going to teach you how to hit all these shots.
You're not always trying to fix this, fix that, fix this,
fix that. You're just going to you know what, I
need to learn how to play the short game correct
(36:56):
And sometimes you don't need to be focusing on what
you do wrong. You just need to I can step
back and go, well, let's just work on how to
do it correctly for sure. And then so they're more
kind of in depth. They talk you through things like
what is the right setup, when you might change that setup,
when you might change the club, how you might change
the flight, and actually sort of giving the goal for
(37:17):
the tools to become their best golfer. You still have
to put the work in, but it's it's the tools.
Speaker 1 (37:22):
Are there, so there's no magic pixie dust. But but
if they do the work, they have the right information
in there. And I always think so. One of the
first time I went and saw my coach here, I
was a scratch at that point. But I just kind
of figured out had never taken a lesson, and I walked.
He just kind of said, so, what do you think
we need to do? I said, honestly, can you just
teach me how to like chip? I don't like I
(37:43):
would love to just know like how I'm supposed to
do it, because I just kind of figure it out.
But and it was eye opening. So I think for
all of you that are actually looking at trying to
get better at the game, these I mean these courses,
there's tons of them here, guys, go like, definitely go
into that. Check it out. You know, I can vouch
for Chris, you know, the stuff I watched more than
a few hours. But Chris, obviously you got you YouTube channel,
(38:07):
he got Chris ryangolf dot com. Uh, social channels where
where can people find you to follow an interact with you?
Speaker 2 (38:13):
There? Yeah, all into my name. So everything's Chris ran Golf.
So Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, Twitter or not. Don't really do
a lot on Twitter though not really something of just
taken to really, so we have everything's under my name, Chris.
Speaker 1 (38:27):
Rank, Chris ron Golf, fantastic cool. Well, Chris, I can't
thank you enough for coming on today. It's been an
absolute blast. It's been an honor to have you on
and for everyone listen, please go check this out. I
don't bring people on here who are idiots. I only
bring people on here who know what they're talking. We
bet people, so this Chris is one of the good ones. Guys.
(38:47):
He so Chris ryand Golf YouTube. Check out the website
Chris ruang golf dot com. Lots of great uh you know,
tools and basically educational stuff guys, like actual stuff that
will help you if you know you do have to
put in the work. Just like the fitness You can't
look at the weights and hope they get you stronger.
You can't look at the look at the lacrosse ball
and hope it makes your hip move better. You actually
(39:07):
got to do it. But but Chris, thanks so much
for hanging out with me today. Man, thanks to the child.
It's really awesome.
Speaker 2 (39:13):
Guys.
Speaker 1 (39:13):
We'll catch you on the next episode. Thanks so much
hanging out with those guys.
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Special Summer Offer: Exclusively on Apple Podcasts, try our Dateline Premium subscription completely free for one month! With Dateline Premium, you get every episode ad-free plus exclusive bonus content.
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.