September 1, 2023 • 39 mins
Chris Fry returns to provide us with off-season drills to keep our swings sharp and our putting distance toned. He also has great advice on how to avoid Back 9 blowups. All while I try to finish the interview without completely losing my voice, sorry.
This was originally published as a Members Only episode in January 2012 and has never been shared to the general public.
This was originally published as a Members Only episode in January 2012 and has never been shared to the general public.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Welcome to Golf Smarter Mulligans, yoursecond chance to gain insight and advice from
the best instructors featured on the GolfSmarter podcast. Great Golf Instruction Never gets
old. Our interview library features hundredsof hours of game improvement conversations like this
(00:20):
that are no longer available in anypodcast app. I want my students to
do an equal balance of technique fundamentals, but also practice like you play.
And what that means is pick atarget in the distance, hit a driver
to it, Grab your next club, maybe it's an eight iron. Pick
another target, go at it,and be constantly challenging yourself to switch clubs,
(00:41):
never letting yourself get into a groove, because we all know you can't
get really into that groove of hittingsix drivers in a row on the golf
course. Then once you start toget the hang of that, then challenge
yourself to curb shots. I tella lot of my students, hey,
let's just curve this one left toright. I want to see you fade
one into the pin in the middleof the range. And they look at
me like I'm crazy. You know, they might be a fifteen handicapper,
And they tell me I just wantto hit it straight. How often do
(01:03):
you hit a straight ball? Prettymuch never. That's the hardest shot in
golf. So if you teach yourselfto aim left of a pin and visualize
the fade and really just work onfading that ball left to right into the
pin, you surprise yourself more oftenthan not. With another interview from the
archives of Golf Smarter, here's yourhost, Fred Green. Welcome back to
(01:23):
Golf Smarter for members only. Chris, Hello, Fred, thanks for having
me. Absolutely and in the fiveminutes that it's been since our last recording,
I've completely lost my voice. Iwish it was to say because I
was rooting for football, but I'mnot going to do that. I want
to continue on our conversation, whichI really enjoyed speaking with you and got
(01:46):
some great tips about pitching and evenlearned a lot about golf balls. But
I want to talk today start withan article that you wrote about winter tricks
to keep your game hot. Herewe are clearly in the depths of winter
now as we record this. Idon't know when somebody is listening to it,
but it could be a time,unless, of course, you're in
(02:08):
Australia're in the middle of summer andscrew you, and I'm gonna come down
and play with you. But herewe are, storms are hitting, the
rain is finally hit the West Coast, and it's gonna be tough to get
out, And I just would liketo be able to keep my game in
(02:29):
shape for the upcoming season because italways takes two or three months to get
back on track. You have someways of making it so once I hit
the golf course in the spring thatI'm just hot. Oh of course,
there's there's a lot of things thatyou can do to make sure that when
you get back on the golf coursethat you will have a have a have
(02:52):
a head lead against your friends.The main one that I talk about is
sequencing in your golf swing. Thefirst thing that you will lose is your
sequencing if you don't play enough orpractice enough. And what I mean by
that is your muscles and your bodyaren't going to fire in the ways that
they used to in terms of groundup. So I like to see my
(03:13):
players firing from the knees. Thenthat reacts to the hips and then shoulders
and then out towards the club head. The first thing that you will lose
is that sequence. So what Ilike to do is give my students some
drills that they can do inside theirhouse to keep their sequence top notch during
the off season. Okay, soI am now standing, I yes,
(03:38):
sir, and I am ready forthose drills. Okay. So the main
one is I think a mirror isvery effective in terms of golf improvements.
So if you can get in frontof a mirror or something reflective that you
can see yourself in, I wantyou to set up just like you're going
to hit a five iron. Youdon't need a club, but you do
set up as if you're holding one. And what I want you to do
(03:59):
is a full back swing. Tryto get a full shoulder turn and pause
at the top. Hold this forabout twenty seconds. This we'll get a
good stretch going and it'll get agood setup for that downswing sequence. So
from here, what I want youto feel is we're gonna take about thirty
seconds to make this downswing. Sotake your time, take it very slowly.
We're gonna work on that sequence,like I said, So when you
(04:20):
get to the top, hold itand we're ready to start the downswing.
You want to push off with yourtrail leg which for me, I'm a
right hand of golf. For mytrail legs my right leg. So we're
starting from the ground that right foot'sgoing to push for We're going really slow.
The knees should start to slift towardsor shift towards the target. From
(04:40):
there, you should feel your hipsreacting to this move. By now we've
only gone about five seconds. We'regoing really slow. The hips have started
to move. Now from here,what I want you to feel as those
hips starting to rotate open to yourtarget. As soon as those hips start
to rotate, you're going to feelthe upper body and the clubs start to
move. So the goal of thisfirst sequence motion is to make them club
(05:02):
move very last on the downswing.So starting from the right foot pushing off,
then the knees, then the hipsstarting to shift and turn. Now
the club can start to move onthe downswing. From there, you want
to continue that sequence really slow andmake all the way through to the finish
last about twenty more seconds, soit's going to be about a thirty second
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down swing. Really focusing on theorder of the muscles firing on the downswing,
Lynn Marriott called, and again myvoice I just I hear it and
I'm like, oh boy, Isound terrible. Lynn Marriott called this a
tai Chi swing, which I've alwaysloved, you know, doing this as
slow as you possibly can, andso I'm curious. It's obviously it's always
(05:49):
been incredibly hard to fake a golfswing without something in your hands. I
mean, because your hands just don'tstay together. So that's the hardest part.
So I don't have a club,but I do have a walking stick
with me right here, so Ican grab that and that's fine. Yes,
So what I want to know is, so my hands are all the
(06:10):
way back now right, yes,and my hips start first before my hands
start coming down. Yes. Youwant the hips to start the start the
downswing the lower body, and thenthe club reacts to that, so your
hands will follow the lower body moving. I see. Yes. One of
one of the guys that one ofthe guys that I've learned a lot from
(06:31):
is Brian Heckler, who teaches quitea bit of tour pros. He's a
really good instructor, but he's reallybig on, I want to say,
the function way of golf. Whathe talks about is that he's the sense
and the student is learning with asword almost in a in a dojo.
So that's kind of a picture Ihave when we're doing this. Is it
(06:54):
really slow movements, trying to justfeel how your body's supposed to move.
I want to go back into becauseI see a lot of people and I've
been guilty of this myself. Iwhat I don't do and I've gotten out
of it is I see a lotof people on their back swing their front
leg. And I'm right handed aswell, so this would be my left
(07:15):
leg. When their backswing is allthe way back, they tend to lift
their left heel, yes, right, and that also forces your left knee
to point behind you point to pointat your u at the goal, at
the cart. If you're if you'reteeing off you know, I mean it's
(07:38):
you. It's pointing at the wrongdirection. You're saying, keep keep your
feet down and your knee pointing atWhen you say the target, you're talking
about the ball that's teed up,the ball that's there, or you're talking
about when I when I say pointingout the target, when I I'm talking
down swing sequence. Okay, soas you as you start the downswing,
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I firmly believe there's a strong shifttowards your target, which is the golf
hole or the tree you're aiming forin the through the fairway, things like
that. And what it is isit's a lateral slide or shift towards the
target with your knees and your hips, and that's that's what kicks off that
sequence on the downswing. And I'llhelp you hit more draws. Whoa wait,
time out? Time out? Didyou just tell me to slide to
(08:24):
shift my hips? But I've beenyelled at for such well, I really,
I gotta stop talking. I've beenyelled at forever to you. My
hips are moving, My I'm sliding. Oh they're slide? Is good?
Now? What? Yes? Yes, believe me. The sway is is
lateral movement going back. So Idon't like sway one bit because if you
(08:48):
sway going back, it's going tobe hard to get that shift and that
slide on the downswing to find.So sway is the lateral motion. So
it's not a turning. It's whenyou're hips slide or sway to the right
kind of outside your back leg.That's bad. I like to keep my
weight centered on the back swing.So you'll you'll stay rotary. As you
(09:09):
go back, you stay turning.The weight should stay inside of your trail
leg, which is my right leg. And then from there, since the
weights inside and I've made a goodrotation, I can then push off and
it's and it's a sliding motion towardsthe target to start the down swing.
Yes, yes, that slide willalso give you a proper shoulder tilt,
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which means as I push forward towardsthe target on the downswing, my right
shoulder will then start to go lowerthan my left shoulder, causing the club
to drop to the inside plane,and then you'll be able to swing more
inside out from there. Someone pointedout to me recently than on the on
the top of my back swing,my right elbow was looking like a baseball
(09:54):
player. It was way out.Where should I talk talk to me about
my arm positions on my backswing?Right elbow, I know, left elbow
straight, but as I'm coming down, where's that headed? Where am I
positioning that? It's all relative interms of what misses you have and what
(10:15):
you're trying to accomplish in your golfswing. But typically someone who has a
flying right elbow at the top oftheir backswing will start the downswing with the
wrong sequence, meaning they'll use theirupper body to start the downswing, causing
the right shoulder and right elbow tofly above the swing plane and over the
top. I have some really goodplayers though, that play with the flying
(10:37):
right elbow at the top. Theycan still draw the ball because they have
the downswing sequence correct, meaning theyshift from the lower body to start the
downswing, which then drops that elbowinto their right hip, bringing the club
from the inside. Where do wego from here? So now now I'm
(11:00):
doing my very slow swing, yes, and so let's work on the follow
through there at my contact position.Okay, So coming into impact, if
we have done that, that slideforward where the weight is starting to shift
to the front foot on the downswing, the I like to use the left
knee the lead leg as a checkpoint. When you are about waist high on
(11:24):
your downswing, your hands are waisthigh on your downswing, that left knee
should be outside of your left foot, and then you know you've shifted your
weight correctly, and then the sequenceis getting there. Now as the club
comes into the ball, you wantto start to rotate your hips, which
will slow your hands down on.What I mean by that is there's a
lot of flippers and casters and guysthat scoop under the ball that lose distance
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and slice it. And what happensis they get jammed up at impact oftentimes
because the sequence on the downswing isincorrect. Well, we're starting to fix
that sequence by this drill. Butonce you come into the ball, to
slow your hands down and get forwardshafflin which means lag in the club,
we have to rotate our hips allthe way until the club squares up into
(12:09):
the ball. When you get toimpact, you'll know you did it right,
is it? If your hands areoff your left thigh and your clubhead
is right at the golf ball andyour left hip has opened up towards the
target? Do you follow that?Fred? Yeah? Yeah, I don't
have a mirror. I wish Idid. I don't have a ballet studio
(12:30):
here, but dance studio. I'msorry, but yeah, I think I
think I'm there. Okay, Socoming to the ball, your left hip
has opened up, your left kneeis in front of your left foot,
so we have a good lateral movetowards the target, and the hands have
slowed down because we've started to rotate, squaring up the club face. From
there, I like you just tofollow through all the way as slow as
(12:52):
you can. But once you getadvanced, once you get to this impact
position, you can start to learnto add speed and whosh the club through,
or if you don't have a club, just whosh your arms through to
the finish and you'll feel how thatrotation and that shift towards the target really
helps you get the clubhead speed inthe right spot, which is just after
impact, and then it should carryyou onto the finish where your weights on
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your front foot, your body's facingthe target, and you're balanced. I've
always had a problem with my lefthand and wrist breaking, not literally breaking,
but you know, like instead ofstaying flat the back of my hands
things I bend. I bend myout my hand back, so on my
(13:37):
back swing it's it's not straight,it's you know, bent, So that
means my clubhead is just straight up. And then also I've found recently,
mostly because of practicing with a tourstriker club, that the back of my
left hand is now facing not thetarget, but it's friding, you know,
(14:00):
like at the ball straight in frontof me right and so on on
the swing here is my hands arecoming over? Is it just a rotation?
Or am I pushing my right handover the top? So I call
that turned down. And when turndownhappens, it's from your waist to the
(14:24):
golf ball on the downswing. AndI once read I think a quote from
Tiger saying that it felt like hewas dragging his left hand knuckles through the
dirt. And what that does isit allows you to square the club face
up without a big flip or abig roll of the hands. It's more
of like a turndown, a verypowerful move that steepens out your down swing
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into the golf ball. And whatI mean by steep is the sharpest angle
into the golf ball, which we'llget you that pinch into the ball.
So to me, the turndown shouldhappen from your waist to the golf ball
on the downswing. And like Tigersaid, the best dragging those left hand
knuckles into the ground or it's almostpointing the patch of your glove on your
(15:07):
left hand towards the golf ball onthat down swing. Mmm. Good,
okay, good, excellent. Okay. So now we've been practicing this swing
very slowly. Yes, all right, more winter tricks. Okay, So
(15:28):
the you know, I love Ilove when you you know, you you're
in office buildings and you see guysstanding waiting for the elevator and they're practicing
this. I taught. I taughta security guard, the head of security
for this big, this big bank, and he said he was the guy
that watched the video cameras, andhe said he would always see guys in
the elevator when they were alone,they were practicing their golf swing and the
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elevator. My son started playing golflast year and he was getting all excited
about it. But he tries anew sport like four times a year.
It's very funny. And so Isaid, you know that golf's gonna be
deep in your brains when you arewaiting for elevators and you see yourself practicing
your golf's when you said, I'malready there. That's official. That's officially
(16:15):
catching the golf bug. When youstart to do that. Yeah, absolutely
absolutely. But it's so interesting becausepeople do it without any instruction at all.
So they're just doing the wrong habits. Oh yes, and they're just
thinking that they've got it, youknow, and they go out, Gee,
why why do I suck? Becauseyou're not listening to golf Smarter?
Damn it? Exactly all right,more tricks, more tips for this one.
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I this one's a lot of funfor me. I do it with
my juniors all the way up tothe seniors that I teach. You can
move this drill indoors for your shortgame. And what I'm talking about is
putting. I'm gonna try to describethis so you can visualize it. But
what you want to do is it'sa ladder drill and you're going for score
here, and it helps you controlyour speed. So you want to set
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the starting line about I want tosay a yard in front of you,
and I usually put like a bookor a sock something on the ground that
I know that's the starting line.It's not in my path though, it's
just a starting line off to theside of my putting path. Then you
put a finish line maybe three orfour yards ahead of the starting line.
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Again, you can use a book, a sock something to mark that finish
line. But now the web you'renot you're not aiming for a cup here,
No, you're not. You areputting. You are just putting straight
out into the living room, thebedroom wherever you have a good you know,
five ten yards of space, andthen you just use something to mark
the start and the finish. Soyou set up behind the starting line,
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and you want the goal of thisfirst put is to put it just past
the starting line, so as closeas you can get, but not in
front of it. So once you'vedone that, you successfully started the game.
The next put has to go pastthat one, but not past the
finish line. Then the next onethe same thing, goes past the previous
(18:06):
one, but not past the finishline. So as you can see,
you're making a ladder of golf ballsall the way from start to finish,
and the goal is to get asmany points or as many golf balls in
that ladder until you go past thatfinish line or shorter than your previous put.
So it's tough to picture, butonce you get the gist of it,
it's an easy game. But ithelps you control your speed and helps
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you maintain a consistent stroke, becausein order to control speed, you have
to be consistent. Yeah, Ilike that idea a lot because I think
that you know, when people sayI haven't played in a month. I
haven't played in two months type ofthing. The thing that's the most obvious
about their lack of play is theirtouch around short shots and putting, you
(18:52):
know, losing the feel. Andwhat I like about this is that it's
not about your direction. It's aboutyour distance, and that's so much more
important. Love, And I loveasking people who I'm playing with because I
play a nine hole course that arenew players, and I love saying,
so, let me ask you what'smore important in putting? Distance or direction?
And they're always about oh, direction, gotta get it right. It's
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like, yeah, let's talk aboutthat for a minute, you know,
because if your direction is right onand the ball goes seven yards past the
hall, is that is that agood idea? Or do you want to
be one foot off to the rightand pin high exactly? So your distance
is always going to be more important. So that's what I like about this
drill is that the one thing thatreally happens during off season and time down
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is that your distance control is wayoff right exactly. And how often do
you see those guys on those ninehole courses and even the eighteen old just
reading a put forever walking around itand then they go to strike it and
it's you know, half the distanceor it goes ten feet by. It's
truly about your your speed control andknowing how how hard and how long of
(20:02):
a stroke to make to get theball at least pin higher or a tap
in range. Yeah, that's mygame there. You got not the tap
in range. It's missing advising.Okay, So now we got a swing
tip, we got a putting tip. You got any more winner things for
us or we Is that enough forthis assignment? I think that's enough for
the winner tips. I mean you'remaster those and then and then we'll go
(20:26):
from there. But the swing sequenceone is enough to keep you busy for
a long time. Yeah. Absolutely. Here's where I want to go next
because it's a different article that youwrote that I was very interested in.
And that's the back nine blow up. Whereas you you have a nice front
nine, you're feeling good about yourgame, you're feeling confident. You go
(20:49):
to the back nine, all ofa sudden, it's a different day and
nothing's working and you start just beatingyourself up or you're playing well, and
all of a sudden, at fifteen, everything starts to fall apart and you
feel like you're getting lightheaded and you'rejust not concentrating anymore. There's just so
(21:11):
many ways to that. Back ninewill just kill your your day right right
the first thing. And I getphone calls all the time from my clients
that are out on fourteen or atext message that hey, what's going on,
I'm starting to slice all of asudden, or I can't, I'm
topping it. What's going on?I think a lot of it has to
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do with your preparation. And whatI mean by that is the way you
practice golf. You you can practiceswing, but you can practice it too
much. I want my students todo an equal balance of technique fundamentals,
but also practice like you play.And what that means is pick a target
in the distance, hit a driverto it, Grab your next club,
(21:56):
maybe it's an eight iron, Pickanother target, go at it, and
be constantly challenging yourself to switch clubs, never letting yourself get into a groove,
because we all know you can't getreally into that groove of hitting six
drivers in a row on the golfcourse. Then once you start to get
the hang of that, then challengeyourself to curve shots. I tell a
lot of my students, hey,let's just curve this one left to right.
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I want to see you fade oneinto the into the pin in the
middle of the range. And theylook at me like I'm crazy. You
know, they might be a fifteenhandicapper and they tell me, I just
want to hit it straight. Howoften do you hit a straight ball?
Pretty much never. That's the hardestshot in golf. So if you teach
yourself to aim left of a pinand visualize the fade and really just work
on fading that ball left to rightinto the pin, you surprise yourself more
(22:41):
often than not. So practicing likeyou play is key. The other one
is developing a solid routine. Mostpeople who blow up on the back nine
do not have a routine. Youmean a pre shot routine. Yes,
a pre shot routine from the timethat you pull your club out of your
bag until you walk up to thegolf ball and strike it. You need
(23:03):
to have a solid routine, andit's it's personal. It's something that you
want to do differently for everybody,based on if you're a visual learner,
if you like to hear things,if you like to feel things. So
it's personal, but you need todevelop a routine with your coach for that
pre shot. And I always say, there's a there's a time frame that
(23:26):
you want to hit with this routinethat I keep consistent. When you pull
that club out of the bag,you make your last practice swing. I
like to do a shot clock sevento ten seconds before you're you have to
hit the ball within seven to tenseconds of your last practice swing, So
you stand behind the golf ball onetwo practice swings, you have that seven
(23:48):
to ten second gap that I wantyou to be able to walk up to
the ball and make contact. Ifyou're longer than that, you're going to
start to overthink. If you're shorterthan that, you're going to be going
too fascinating. Most likely get twotents. So the one constant in a
pre shot routine is having that sevento ten second shot clock, But everything
else you can develop personally with yourgolf coach. Are there elements of the
(24:18):
pre shot routine that and of courseeverybody's is going to be unique, But
are there elements to the pre shotroutine that are like on the checklist that
you have to do? Yes,I think using your peripheral and what I
mean by this is when you setup, if you look up at your
(24:40):
target right before you swing, that'susing your peripheral you're not going to be
very accurate. I want you touse a spot in front of your golf
ball when you're setting up to makeyour full swing. That's you know,
within one to five feet based onhow comfortable you are. That way,
you're using both eyes to look atthis spot and align your body. A
lot of times I'll see my studentswalk up to the ball and then they'll
(25:02):
get their feet set, get readyto go, and then they'll look up
with their whole body, their rightshoulder comes up, their chest faces the
target, they go, Okay,I know where I'm going to hit it.
And then they come back down andwhat they've done is they've misaligned their
knees, their hips, their shoulders. And for those slicers, this is
killer. This is what's going tomake them slice even more because opening your
body to the target to see whereyou want to hit it creates a misalignment
(25:25):
that's going to cause more of aslice. So yes, I do like
to pick a spot in front ofthe golf ball that you can align yourself
to and not picking a huge targetout in the distance that you can get
distracted by picking that spot. Areyou doing that from a dress or are
you doing that before that? Ilike to do it right in front of
(25:48):
the ball. During those two practiceswings, I like to have my student
look at the target and zero inon the target that they want to hit
too, as they do those twopractice and then they use their their site
to draw a line from the targetto their golf ball. As you're walking
up to the ball, use thatline that you've drawn to find something that
(26:11):
stands out maybe two or three feetin front of you, but you do
pick that spot. I like topick that spot as I'm walking to the
golf ball from my last practice swing, and if you are, I'm working
on this because I'm visualizing my ownpreshot routine, which is pretty consistent.
(26:33):
But if and I think I'm withinthat seven to ten seconds. I have
even had people comment to me it'slike, boy, once you address the
ball, you just get up thereand hit it. You don't stand around
very much. And I have friendsthat we laugh because it's like we can
go to the bathroom, buy ahot dog, and come back and he
still hasn't made a swing. Butif you find yourself all of a sudden
(26:55):
you're starting to think and all theseswing thoughts, and you've been there longer
than you want to be, it'sso hard to step away from that.
Yes, it is. And whatI do you force yourself to. What
I like to say is take thatmental mulligan, walk away and start it
again. Yes, when when wepractice on the range, a lot of
my clients, when we're working onthis preshot routine, we'll put a timer.
(27:19):
Once that timer goes off, theyhave to they have to back off
the ball. The common fear Ithink with most students is, oh,
my gosh, my group's gonna bemad that I backed off. They're gonna
think that I'm taking forever. They'regonna think that I I'm trying to be
on the PGA Tour by backing offthis golf ball, when really the fact
is, if you strike that ballwhen you're feeling uncomfortable, you're gonna take
(27:42):
more time anyway because you're not goingto hit it very well. So take
that time, back off the ball, don't worry about what others are thinking,
stay in the moment, take thatmental Mulligan, Like you said,
walk back up and hit it.I just think too many golfers are playing
scared of affecting the group and thingslike that. So yes, yeah,
(28:03):
they are all right. Practice likeyou play a solid preshot routine. I
still don't see how this is goingto help me prevent a back nine blow
up. So I'm letting in themidst of my black back nine blow up.
I'm trying to do the same thingevery time. I'm pissed at myself.
I practiced well this morning, right, But here I am, I'm
(28:25):
on twelve, and all of asudden, those last the last two holes,
it just did not go the waythe first nine did. Then we've
got to look at your health andthe way you've prepared your body for eighteen
holes of golf, because it isI mean four to five hours, especially
wintertime in Arizona, We're looking atfive hours of work, and each swing
(28:48):
does take a toll on your body. Each time you walk from the cart
to your golf ball, you areburning calories. So what you want to
do is prepare yourself from the firsttee on. And what I mean by
that is I like to drink whatI call b c AA's and those are
branched chain amino acids. And whathappened was I worked out with the personal
(29:08):
trainer, a TPI guy, andI was having the same issues and he
suggested this maybe I want to say, six years ago, and I swear
by it ever since, that youcan buy them in any flavor, any
health store. But what you dois you just take a water bottle,
dump them in there, shake itup, and then you want to sip
it throughout your round of golf.And really what they do is they help
(29:30):
keep your muscles full of those vitaminsand they keep the keep your energy up
throughout the entire round. Because ifyou're doing everything like routine, you've practiced
well, and you still can't avoidthose back nine blow ups, then we've
got to start to look at yournutrition and your health. Today's not a
day to be talking about my health. That's not fair, okay. And
(29:51):
what they call b rs C Cclose close b B branched chain amino acids,
chain amino acids, and working buythis stuff. I get mine at
a high health but any hell storehas them, and like I said,
any flavor as well, so doesit flavor the water because it does.
(30:15):
I just drink water. I don'tI don't want anything sweet or you know
in my mouth at that time.I'm just that's a distraction. I just
want water. But it does injust a couple of teaspoons or something and
just shake it up and then it'sjust there the whole time, and exactly.
And what I like to do isafter the first few holes, I
like to have about half of mywater gone, and then what I do
(30:40):
is I refill it up, soit kind of dilutes the flavor for the
rest of the round, but italso gives you a boost start to your
round by drinking a little bit moreat the beginning than at the end.
And what about food consumption? Doyou eat at the turn, do you
graze throughout the round or do youjust avoid food altogether? No, I
graze. I like to get getthose bars that are that have the right
(31:03):
amount of carbs. A little bitmore carbs is good at this point.
But I just graze on one ortwo of those. Uh. I like
the back nine bars that that aresold at the golf courses, or protein
bars. But I just graze onone of those or two of those throughout
the entire round. Okay, definitelydefinitely don't suggest stopping for those monster hot
(31:25):
dogs and the and the big coke. Uh if you are one of those
guys who need to avoid the backnine blow ups, yeah, I'll tell
you. I learned that that stoppingfor something to eat at the turn always
had a negative impact on my game, and that once I started doing what
I do is just to either peanutbutter pretzels or just a bag of nuts,
(31:47):
a three ounce bag of nuts thatI can take. It can take
me eighteen holes to go through athree ounce bag of nuts, and it's
sometimes it's kind of embarrassing because peopleare looking at me, like, you
know, eating nuts, and they'relike, you're not gonna You're not gonna
for me any Like, no,no, I'm on a strict routine I
I can't like and bless if youoffer it, they'll just take the whole
bag, dump in their hand,wolf it down. Once it's like hey,
(32:09):
thanks, like no, no,no, you don't know, you
can't have anymore. But yeah,I like to just graze through a bag
of nuts and some water and itseems to really help keep my blood sugar
level throughout all eighteen holes, especiallywhen you get into those last couple of
ones. Right, but the brancheddon't do it. No, no,
(32:30):
I'm gonna do it. I can'teven remember writing amino acids branched. What
did I write? Here? Arebrand I have no idea what I wrote
branched? Do you help? Yes? Branched chain chain, Yeah, that's
what I wrote. I wouldn't knowthat chain amino acids. I will definitely
(32:52):
check that out online. First.Well, let me tell you one thing
that I teach a lot of highlevel golfers, and they swear by those
uh, peanut butter pretzels. Soyou hit you hit one right on the
head there, fred Is. Thosepeanut butter pretzels are are a hit down
here in Arizona with the competitive golfers. Yeah. Yeah, they're awesome.
They're awesome because they have the salty, crunchy protein everything in it, and
(33:15):
then you can then you buy abig one at Costco, fill up a
bag, and then you can sharethem with everybody. There you go.
You mentioned TPI that you've been workingwith TPI instructors. You are not a
TPI instructor. I am not,And we've had TPI instructors on the show.
I just think that the It's theTitlest Performance Institute is phenomenal program.
(33:37):
I've never been personally involved. I'vejust heard great things about it and talked
to various instructors. But tell meabout why you started as an instructor started
taking advantage of TPI and what it'sdone for your game. So I've I
found that I was hitting walls witha lot of my students that were playing
(33:57):
at their highest level. We worktogether for two years, made huge strides,
and then all of a sudden,it's bam, what's going on.
We're not getting as good as wewant to get. We're not hitting the
positions as good as we should.So I started, you know, taking
a look at their flexibility, injuries, things like that, and that led
me to one of my partners,which is a TPI instructor. Uh he's
(34:23):
not a golf instructor, but TPIfitness guy. It's his name's Andrew,
and I sent some of my studentsto him and he did this screening on
them and found out that there wasa lot of things going on inside their
body that was hindering them in theirgolf swing. Once we started working on
those things. We blasted through thatwall that we had hit, and we
(34:43):
just went back on improving and improvingtogether with Andrew and myself, those students
were able to reach levels that theynever have reached before. We got to
get Andrew on the show we do. I agree, he's a good guy.
Awesome. Yeah, I want tohear more about how TPI you know.
To me, I think that forthe average recreational golfer, which I
(35:08):
consider myself, I think that theydon't give flexibility and conditioning as much credit
or dedication as they could when theyjust they hit walls on their progress and
just you know, don't know whythat they can't get any further. And
I think that that would be youknow, it takes it takes discipline.
(35:30):
You know, every everything takes discipline, and that's not the easiest thing to
do when you're trying to live yourlife right exactly. The problem with all
that stuff, well, a lotof guys are looking for the quick fix,
and hey, uh, I needa thirty minute lesson I got I'm
playing in a tournament tomorrow, right, keep me going. But it's really
it takes more than that. Ifyou want to if you want to play
(35:52):
better, golf and be happier withthou comes. Is that true? Is
that you have people calling you likeI need a lesson because I'm playing in
a tournament next week. Oh justthis was the charity tournament coming up.
Just this weekend, I had thehusband of one of my students called me
and Chris, I need something quick, I need it, and I said,
I'm sorry, I'm full this weekend. Well ten minutes, ten minutes
(36:15):
is all I need. Told himthere's nothing we can do in ten minutes,
but if you want to, ifyou want to come and hit balls,
if it's going to help get yourmental preparation ready, just to know
that I've seen your swing come ondown and sure enough showed up for ten
minutes, changed one slight thing thatprobably isn't gonna make a huge difference.
But then he calls me and says, oh it worked, It worked.
(36:37):
It was a great change. Butit really all I did was just set
him mentally straight ready for the tournament. Yeah. I talked to him who
said that he gets more calls whenpeople are about to either play in a
charity tournament or go on vacation thenany other time, and then they take
one lesson maybe two in preparation forthat, and they don't see him again
for another year. Yeah, gottalove it. Yeah, God, that's
(37:00):
great. Hey Chris, thanks againfor coming back and doing this member's only
episode. I appreciate you spend anextra time with me. I know you
got to you got lessons to getto today and I'm gonna go take a
nap. I can't believe I've madeit this far, but we hope to
be able to speak to you again. And if anybody has any questions for
(37:22):
Chris, of course, just goand click on the Hey Fred button golf
smarter dot com and all forward italong to Chris and then he'll get back
to you. But if anybody wantsto visit your website or see your YouTube
videos, how can they do that? The website is www dot expert golfazy
dot com and there's a calendar,there's links all over that homepage there.
(37:45):
But the YouTube channel is YouTube dotcom forward slash Chris fry c h R
s f r Y golf dot dotcom, so that's where all the YouTube
videos are. But the website canlink you to anything. Do you really
have to put www? You don'thave to I don't think on anything.
(38:05):
I don't think you need well,that's true, that's true. Yeah,
I don't tell people that. It'sconfusing. Now you get too much to
think about. All right, Soit's Chris frygolf dot com right. Wrong,
wrong, it's x No, it'sright because on YouTube it's Chris Chris
frygolf dot com. Right, YouTubedot com slash Chris fregolf dot com.
Ah, but you spell but youspell out Chris freygolf dot com dot DT.
(38:30):
Okay, that's on YouTube. Butyour website is expert Golf a Z
because you're Arizona, right, yes, okay, expert Golf Arizon Azy,
expert golfazy dot com. Sorry,you're driving that out. My brain's not
working either. It's time for meto check out. Chris Fry. Thanks
so much for living for being agolf smarter. Thanks Fred,
Welcome to Golf Smarter Mulligans, yoursecond chance to gain insight and advice from
the best instructors featured on the GolfSmarter podcast. Great Golf Instruction Never gets
old. Our interview library features hundredsof hours of game improvement conversations like this
(00:20):
that are no longer available in anypodcast app. I want my students to
do an equal balance of technique fundamentals, but also practice like you play.
And what that means is pick atarget in the distance, hit a driver
to it, Grab your next club, maybe it's an eight iron. Pick
another target, go at it,and be constantly challenging yourself to switch clubs,
(00:41):
never letting yourself get into a groove, because we all know you can't
get really into that groove of hittingsix drivers in a row on the golf
course. Then once you start toget the hang of that, then challenge
yourself to curb shots. I tella lot of my students, hey,
let's just curve this one left toright. I want to see you fade
one into the pin in the middleof the range. And they look at
me like I'm crazy. You know, they might be a fifteen handicapper,
And they tell me I just wantto hit it straight. How often do
(01:03):
you hit a straight ball? Prettymuch never. That's the hardest shot in
golf. So if you teach yourselfto aim left of a pin and visualize
the fade and really just work onfading that ball left to right into the
pin, you surprise yourself more oftenthan not. With another interview from the
archives of Golf Smarter, here's yourhost, Fred Green. Welcome back to
(01:23):
Golf Smarter for members only. Chris, Hello, Fred, thanks for having
me. Absolutely and in the fiveminutes that it's been since our last recording,
I've completely lost my voice. Iwish it was to say because I
was rooting for football, but I'mnot going to do that. I want
to continue on our conversation, whichI really enjoyed speaking with you and got
(01:46):
some great tips about pitching and evenlearned a lot about golf balls. But
I want to talk today start withan article that you wrote about winter tricks
to keep your game hot. Herewe are clearly in the depths of winter
now as we record this. Idon't know when somebody is listening to it,
but it could be a time,unless, of course, you're in
(02:08):
Australia're in the middle of summer andscrew you, and I'm gonna come down
and play with you. But herewe are, storms are hitting, the
rain is finally hit the West Coast, and it's gonna be tough to get
out, And I just would liketo be able to keep my game in
(02:29):
shape for the upcoming season because italways takes two or three months to get
back on track. You have someways of making it so once I hit
the golf course in the spring thatI'm just hot. Oh of course,
there's there's a lot of things thatyou can do to make sure that when
you get back on the golf coursethat you will have a have a have
(02:52):
a head lead against your friends.The main one that I talk about is
sequencing in your golf swing. Thefirst thing that you will lose is your
sequencing if you don't play enough orpractice enough. And what I mean by
that is your muscles and your bodyaren't going to fire in the ways that
they used to in terms of groundup. So I like to see my
(03:13):
players firing from the knees. Thenthat reacts to the hips and then shoulders
and then out towards the club head. The first thing that you will lose
is that sequence. So what Ilike to do is give my students some
drills that they can do inside theirhouse to keep their sequence top notch during
the off season. Okay, soI am now standing, I yes,
(03:38):
sir, and I am ready forthose drills. Okay. So the main
one is I think a mirror isvery effective in terms of golf improvements.
So if you can get in frontof a mirror or something reflective that you
can see yourself in, I wantyou to set up just like you're going
to hit a five iron. Youdon't need a club, but you do
set up as if you're holding one. And what I want you to do
(03:59):
is a full back swing. Tryto get a full shoulder turn and pause
at the top. Hold this forabout twenty seconds. This we'll get a
good stretch going and it'll get agood setup for that downswing sequence. So
from here, what I want youto feel is we're gonna take about thirty
seconds to make this downswing. Sotake your time, take it very slowly.
We're gonna work on that sequence,like I said, So when you
(04:20):
get to the top, hold itand we're ready to start the downswing.
You want to push off with yourtrail leg which for me, I'm a
right hand of golf. For mytrail legs my right leg. So we're
starting from the ground that right foot'sgoing to push for We're going really slow.
The knees should start to slift towardsor shift towards the target. From
(04:40):
there, you should feel your hipsreacting to this move. By now we've
only gone about five seconds. We'regoing really slow. The hips have started
to move. Now from here,what I want you to feel as those
hips starting to rotate open to yourtarget. As soon as those hips start
to rotate, you're going to feelthe upper body and the clubs start to
move. So the goal of thisfirst sequence motion is to make them club
(05:02):
move very last on the downswing.So starting from the right foot pushing off,
then the knees, then the hipsstarting to shift and turn. Now
the club can start to move onthe downswing. From there, you want
to continue that sequence really slow andmake all the way through to the finish
last about twenty more seconds, soit's going to be about a thirty second
(05:23):
down swing. Really focusing on theorder of the muscles firing on the downswing,
Lynn Marriott called, and again myvoice I just I hear it and
I'm like, oh boy, Isound terrible. Lynn Marriott called this a
tai Chi swing, which I've alwaysloved, you know, doing this as
slow as you possibly can, andso I'm curious. It's obviously it's always
(05:49):
been incredibly hard to fake a golfswing without something in your hands. I
mean, because your hands just don'tstay together. So that's the hardest part.
So I don't have a club,but I do have a walking stick
with me right here, so Ican grab that and that's fine. Yes,
So what I want to know is, so my hands are all the
(06:10):
way back now right, yes,and my hips start first before my hands
start coming down. Yes. Youwant the hips to start the start the
downswing the lower body, and thenthe club reacts to that, so your
hands will follow the lower body moving. I see. Yes. One of
one of the guys that one ofthe guys that I've learned a lot from
(06:31):
is Brian Heckler, who teaches quitea bit of tour pros. He's a
really good instructor, but he's reallybig on, I want to say,
the function way of golf. Whathe talks about is that he's the sense
and the student is learning with asword almost in a in a dojo.
So that's kind of a picture Ihave when we're doing this. Is it
(06:54):
really slow movements, trying to justfeel how your body's supposed to move.
I want to go back into becauseI see a lot of people and I've
been guilty of this myself. Iwhat I don't do and I've gotten out
of it is I see a lotof people on their back swing their front
leg. And I'm right handed aswell, so this would be my left
(07:15):
leg. When their backswing is allthe way back, they tend to lift
their left heel, yes, right, and that also forces your left knee
to point behind you point to pointat your u at the goal, at
the cart. If you're if you'reteeing off you know, I mean it's
(07:38):
you. It's pointing at the wrongdirection. You're saying, keep keep your
feet down and your knee pointing atWhen you say the target, you're talking
about the ball that's teed up,the ball that's there, or you're talking
about when I when I say pointingout the target, when I I'm talking
down swing sequence. Okay, soas you as you start the downswing,
(08:01):
I firmly believe there's a strong shifttowards your target, which is the golf
hole or the tree you're aiming forin the through the fairway, things like
that. And what it is isit's a lateral slide or shift towards the
target with your knees and your hips, and that's that's what kicks off that
sequence on the downswing. And I'llhelp you hit more draws. Whoa wait,
time out? Time out? Didyou just tell me to slide to
(08:24):
shift my hips? But I've beenyelled at for such well, I really,
I gotta stop talking. I've beenyelled at forever to you. My
hips are moving, My I'm sliding. Oh they're slide? Is good?
Now? What? Yes? Yes, believe me. The sway is is
lateral movement going back. So Idon't like sway one bit because if you
(08:48):
sway going back, it's going tobe hard to get that shift and that
slide on the downswing to find.So sway is the lateral motion. So
it's not a turning. It's whenyou're hips slide or sway to the right
kind of outside your back leg.That's bad. I like to keep my
weight centered on the back swing.So you'll you'll stay rotary. As you
(09:09):
go back, you stay turning.The weight should stay inside of your trail
leg, which is my right leg. And then from there, since the
weights inside and I've made a goodrotation, I can then push off and
it's and it's a sliding motion towardsthe target to start the down swing.
Yes, yes, that slide willalso give you a proper shoulder tilt,
(09:33):
which means as I push forward towardsthe target on the downswing, my right
shoulder will then start to go lowerthan my left shoulder, causing the club
to drop to the inside plane,and then you'll be able to swing more
inside out from there. Someone pointedout to me recently than on the on
the top of my back swing,my right elbow was looking like a baseball
(09:54):
player. It was way out.Where should I talk talk to me about
my arm positions on my backswing?Right elbow, I know, left elbow
straight, but as I'm coming down, where's that headed? Where am I
positioning that? It's all relative interms of what misses you have and what
(10:15):
you're trying to accomplish in your golfswing. But typically someone who has a
flying right elbow at the top oftheir backswing will start the downswing with the
wrong sequence, meaning they'll use theirupper body to start the downswing, causing
the right shoulder and right elbow tofly above the swing plane and over the
top. I have some really goodplayers though, that play with the flying
(10:37):
right elbow at the top. Theycan still draw the ball because they have
the downswing sequence correct, meaning theyshift from the lower body to start the
downswing, which then drops that elbowinto their right hip, bringing the club
from the inside. Where do wego from here? So now now I'm
(11:00):
doing my very slow swing, yes, and so let's work on the follow
through there at my contact position.Okay, So coming into impact, if
we have done that, that slideforward where the weight is starting to shift
to the front foot on the downswing, the I like to use the left
knee the lead leg as a checkpoint. When you are about waist high on
(11:24):
your downswing, your hands are waisthigh on your downswing, that left knee
should be outside of your left foot, and then you know you've shifted your
weight correctly, and then the sequenceis getting there. Now as the club
comes into the ball, you wantto start to rotate your hips, which
will slow your hands down on.What I mean by that is there's a
lot of flippers and casters and guysthat scoop under the ball that lose distance
(11:48):
and slice it. And what happensis they get jammed up at impact oftentimes
because the sequence on the downswing isincorrect. Well, we're starting to fix
that sequence by this drill. Butonce you come into the ball, to
slow your hands down and get forwardshafflin which means lag in the club,
we have to rotate our hips allthe way until the club squares up into
(12:09):
the ball. When you get toimpact, you'll know you did it right,
is it? If your hands areoff your left thigh and your clubhead
is right at the golf ball andyour left hip has opened up towards the
target? Do you follow that?Fred? Yeah? Yeah, I don't
have a mirror. I wish Idid. I don't have a ballet studio
(12:30):
here, but dance studio. I'msorry, but yeah, I think I
think I'm there. Okay, Socoming to the ball, your left hip
has opened up, your left kneeis in front of your left foot,
so we have a good lateral movetowards the target, and the hands have
slowed down because we've started to rotate, squaring up the club face. From
there, I like you just tofollow through all the way as slow as
(12:52):
you can. But once you getadvanced, once you get to this impact
position, you can start to learnto add speed and whosh the club through,
or if you don't have a club, just whosh your arms through to
the finish and you'll feel how thatrotation and that shift towards the target really
helps you get the clubhead speed inthe right spot, which is just after
impact, and then it should carryyou onto the finish where your weights on
(13:15):
your front foot, your body's facingthe target, and you're balanced. I've
always had a problem with my lefthand and wrist breaking, not literally breaking,
but you know, like instead ofstaying flat the back of my hands
things I bend. I bend myout my hand back, so on my
(13:37):
back swing it's it's not straight,it's you know, bent, So that
means my clubhead is just straight up. And then also I've found recently,
mostly because of practicing with a tourstriker club, that the back of my
left hand is now facing not thetarget, but it's friding, you know,
(14:00):
like at the ball straight in frontof me right and so on on
the swing here is my hands arecoming over? Is it just a rotation?
Or am I pushing my right handover the top? So I call
that turned down. And when turndownhappens, it's from your waist to the
(14:24):
golf ball on the downswing. AndI once read I think a quote from
Tiger saying that it felt like hewas dragging his left hand knuckles through the
dirt. And what that does isit allows you to square the club face
up without a big flip or abig roll of the hands. It's more
of like a turndown, a verypowerful move that steepens out your down swing
(14:46):
into the golf ball. And whatI mean by steep is the sharpest angle
into the golf ball, which we'llget you that pinch into the ball.
So to me, the turndown shouldhappen from your waist to the golf ball
on the downswing. And like Tigersaid, the best dragging those left hand
knuckles into the ground or it's almostpointing the patch of your glove on your
(15:07):
left hand towards the golf ball onthat down swing. Mmm. Good,
okay, good, excellent. Okay. So now we've been practicing this swing
very slowly. Yes, all right, more winter tricks. Okay, So
(15:28):
the you know, I love Ilove when you you know, you you're
in office buildings and you see guysstanding waiting for the elevator and they're practicing
this. I taught. I taughta security guard, the head of security
for this big, this big bank, and he said he was the guy
that watched the video cameras, andhe said he would always see guys in
the elevator when they were alone,they were practicing their golf swing and the
(15:50):
elevator. My son started playing golflast year and he was getting all excited
about it. But he tries anew sport like four times a year.
It's very funny. And so Isaid, you know that golf's gonna be
deep in your brains when you arewaiting for elevators and you see yourself practicing
your golf's when you said, I'malready there. That's official. That's officially
(16:15):
catching the golf bug. When youstart to do that. Yeah, absolutely
absolutely. But it's so interesting becausepeople do it without any instruction at all.
So they're just doing the wrong habits. Oh yes, and they're just
thinking that they've got it, youknow, and they go out, Gee,
why why do I suck? Becauseyou're not listening to golf Smarter?
Damn it? Exactly all right,more tricks, more tips for this one.
(16:38):
I this one's a lot of funfor me. I do it with
my juniors all the way up tothe seniors that I teach. You can
move this drill indoors for your shortgame. And what I'm talking about is
putting. I'm gonna try to describethis so you can visualize it. But
what you want to do is it'sa ladder drill and you're going for score
here, and it helps you controlyour speed. So you want to set
(17:00):
the starting line about I want tosay a yard in front of you,
and I usually put like a bookor a sock something on the ground that
I know that's the starting line.It's not in my path though, it's
just a starting line off to theside of my putting path. Then you
put a finish line maybe three orfour yards ahead of the starting line.
(17:22):
Again, you can use a book, a sock something to mark that finish
line. But now the web you'renot you're not aiming for a cup here,
No, you're not. You areputting. You are just putting straight
out into the living room, thebedroom wherever you have a good you know,
five ten yards of space, andthen you just use something to mark
the start and the finish. Soyou set up behind the starting line,
(17:44):
and you want the goal of thisfirst put is to put it just past
the starting line, so as closeas you can get, but not in
front of it. So once you'vedone that, you successfully started the game.
The next put has to go pastthat one, but not past the
finish line. Then the next onethe same thing, goes past the previous
(18:06):
one, but not past the finishline. So as you can see,
you're making a ladder of golf ballsall the way from start to finish,
and the goal is to get asmany points or as many golf balls in
that ladder until you go past thatfinish line or shorter than your previous put.
So it's tough to picture, butonce you get the gist of it,
it's an easy game. But ithelps you control your speed and helps
(18:29):
you maintain a consistent stroke, becausein order to control speed, you have
to be consistent. Yeah, Ilike that idea a lot because I think
that you know, when people sayI haven't played in a month. I
haven't played in two months type ofthing. The thing that's the most obvious
about their lack of play is theirtouch around short shots and putting, you
(18:52):
know, losing the feel. Andwhat I like about this is that it's
not about your direction. It's aboutyour distance, and that's so much more
important. Love, And I loveasking people who I'm playing with because I
play a nine hole course that arenew players, and I love saying,
so, let me ask you what'smore important in putting? Distance or direction?
And they're always about oh, direction, gotta get it right. It's
(19:15):
like, yeah, let's talk aboutthat for a minute, you know,
because if your direction is right onand the ball goes seven yards past the
hall, is that is that agood idea? Or do you want to
be one foot off to the rightand pin high exactly? So your distance
is always going to be more important. So that's what I like about this
drill is that the one thing thatreally happens during off season and time down
(19:40):
is that your distance control is wayoff right exactly. And how often do
you see those guys on those ninehole courses and even the eighteen old just
reading a put forever walking around itand then they go to strike it and
it's you know, half the distanceor it goes ten feet by. It's
truly about your your speed control andknowing how how hard and how long of
(20:02):
a stroke to make to get theball at least pin higher or a tap
in range. Yeah, that's mygame there. You got not the tap
in range. It's missing advising.Okay, So now we got a swing
tip, we got a putting tip. You got any more winner things for
us or we Is that enough forthis assignment? I think that's enough for
the winner tips. I mean you'remaster those and then and then we'll go
(20:26):
from there. But the swing sequenceone is enough to keep you busy for
a long time. Yeah. Absolutely. Here's where I want to go next
because it's a different article that youwrote that I was very interested in.
And that's the back nine blow up. Whereas you you have a nice front
nine, you're feeling good about yourgame, you're feeling confident. You go
(20:49):
to the back nine, all ofa sudden, it's a different day and
nothing's working and you start just beatingyourself up or you're playing well, and
all of a sudden, at fifteen, everything starts to fall apart and you
feel like you're getting lightheaded and you'rejust not concentrating anymore. There's just so
(21:11):
many ways to that. Back ninewill just kill your your day right right
the first thing. And I getphone calls all the time from my clients
that are out on fourteen or atext message that hey, what's going on,
I'm starting to slice all of asudden, or I can't, I'm
topping it. What's going on?I think a lot of it has to
(21:33):
do with your preparation. And whatI mean by that is the way you
practice golf. You you can practiceswing, but you can practice it too
much. I want my students todo an equal balance of technique fundamentals,
but also practice like you play.And what that means is pick a target
in the distance, hit a driverto it, Grab your next club,
(21:56):
maybe it's an eight iron, Pickanother target, go at it, and
be constantly challenging yourself to switch clubs, never letting yourself get into a groove,
because we all know you can't getreally into that groove of hitting six
drivers in a row on the golfcourse. Then once you start to get
the hang of that, then challengeyourself to curve shots. I tell a
lot of my students, hey,let's just curve this one left to right.
(22:18):
I want to see you fade oneinto the into the pin in the
middle of the range. And theylook at me like I'm crazy. You
know, they might be a fifteenhandicapper and they tell me, I just
want to hit it straight. Howoften do you hit a straight ball?
Pretty much never. That's the hardestshot in golf. So if you teach
yourself to aim left of a pinand visualize the fade and really just work
on fading that ball left to rightinto the pin, you surprise yourself more
(22:41):
often than not. So practicing likeyou play is key. The other one
is developing a solid routine. Mostpeople who blow up on the back nine
do not have a routine. Youmean a pre shot routine. Yes,
a pre shot routine from the timethat you pull your club out of your
bag until you walk up to thegolf ball and strike it. You need
(23:03):
to have a solid routine, andit's it's personal. It's something that you
want to do differently for everybody,based on if you're a visual learner,
if you like to hear things,if you like to feel things. So
it's personal, but you need todevelop a routine with your coach for that
pre shot. And I always say, there's a there's a time frame that
(23:26):
you want to hit with this routinethat I keep consistent. When you pull
that club out of the bag,you make your last practice swing. I
like to do a shot clock sevento ten seconds before you're you have to
hit the ball within seven to tenseconds of your last practice swing, So
you stand behind the golf ball onetwo practice swings, you have that seven
(23:48):
to ten second gap that I wantyou to be able to walk up to
the ball and make contact. Ifyou're longer than that, you're going to
start to overthink. If you're shorterthan that, you're going to be going
too fascinating. Most likely get twotents. So the one constant in a
pre shot routine is having that sevento ten second shot clock, But everything
else you can develop personally with yourgolf coach. Are there elements of the
(24:18):
pre shot routine that and of courseeverybody's is going to be unique, But
are there elements to the pre shotroutine that are like on the checklist that
you have to do? Yes,I think using your peripheral and what I
mean by this is when you setup, if you look up at your
(24:40):
target right before you swing, that'susing your peripheral you're not going to be
very accurate. I want you touse a spot in front of your golf
ball when you're setting up to makeyour full swing. That's you know,
within one to five feet based onhow comfortable you are. That way,
you're using both eyes to look atthis spot and align your body. A
lot of times I'll see my studentswalk up to the ball and then they'll
(25:02):
get their feet set, get readyto go, and then they'll look up
with their whole body, their rightshoulder comes up, their chest faces the
target, they go, Okay,I know where I'm going to hit it.
And then they come back down andwhat they've done is they've misaligned their
knees, their hips, their shoulders. And for those slicers, this is
killer. This is what's going tomake them slice even more because opening your
body to the target to see whereyou want to hit it creates a misalignment
(25:25):
that's going to cause more of aslice. So yes, I do like
to pick a spot in front ofthe golf ball that you can align yourself
to and not picking a huge targetout in the distance that you can get
distracted by picking that spot. Areyou doing that from a dress or are
you doing that before that? Ilike to do it right in front of
(25:48):
the ball. During those two practiceswings, I like to have my student
look at the target and zero inon the target that they want to hit
too, as they do those twopractice and then they use their their site
to draw a line from the targetto their golf ball. As you're walking
up to the ball, use thatline that you've drawn to find something that
(26:11):
stands out maybe two or three feetin front of you, but you do
pick that spot. I like topick that spot as I'm walking to the
golf ball from my last practice swing, and if you are, I'm working
on this because I'm visualizing my ownpreshot routine, which is pretty consistent.
(26:33):
But if and I think I'm withinthat seven to ten seconds. I have
even had people comment to me it'slike, boy, once you address the
ball, you just get up thereand hit it. You don't stand around
very much. And I have friendsthat we laugh because it's like we can
go to the bathroom, buy ahot dog, and come back and he
still hasn't made a swing. Butif you find yourself all of a sudden
(26:55):
you're starting to think and all theseswing thoughts, and you've been there longer
than you want to be, it'sso hard to step away from that.
Yes, it is. And whatI do you force yourself to. What
I like to say is take thatmental mulligan, walk away and start it
again. Yes, when when wepractice on the range, a lot of
my clients, when we're working onthis preshot routine, we'll put a timer.
(27:19):
Once that timer goes off, theyhave to they have to back off
the ball. The common fear Ithink with most students is, oh,
my gosh, my group's gonna bemad that I backed off. They're gonna
think that I'm taking forever. They'regonna think that I I'm trying to be
on the PGA Tour by backing offthis golf ball, when really the fact
is, if you strike that ballwhen you're feeling uncomfortable, you're gonna take
(27:42):
more time anyway because you're not goingto hit it very well. So take
that time, back off the ball, don't worry about what others are thinking,
stay in the moment, take thatmental Mulligan, Like you said,
walk back up and hit it.I just think too many golfers are playing
scared of affecting the group and thingslike that. So yes, yeah,
(28:03):
they are all right. Practice likeyou play a solid preshot routine. I
still don't see how this is goingto help me prevent a back nine blow
up. So I'm letting in themidst of my black back nine blow up.
I'm trying to do the same thingevery time. I'm pissed at myself.
I practiced well this morning, right, But here I am, I'm
(28:25):
on twelve, and all of asudden, those last the last two holes,
it just did not go the waythe first nine did. Then we've
got to look at your health andthe way you've prepared your body for eighteen
holes of golf, because it isI mean four to five hours, especially
wintertime in Arizona, We're looking atfive hours of work, and each swing
(28:48):
does take a toll on your body. Each time you walk from the cart
to your golf ball, you areburning calories. So what you want to
do is prepare yourself from the firsttee on. And what I mean by
that is I like to drink whatI call b c AA's and those are
branched chain amino acids. And whathappened was I worked out with the personal
(29:08):
trainer, a TPI guy, andI was having the same issues and he
suggested this maybe I want to say, six years ago, and I swear
by it ever since, that youcan buy them in any flavor, any
health store. But what you dois you just take a water bottle,
dump them in there, shake itup, and then you want to sip
it throughout your round of golf.And really what they do is they help
(29:30):
keep your muscles full of those vitaminsand they keep the keep your energy up
throughout the entire round. Because ifyou're doing everything like routine, you've practiced
well, and you still can't avoidthose back nine blow ups, then we've
got to start to look at yournutrition and your health. Today's not a
day to be talking about my health. That's not fair, okay. And
(29:51):
what they call b rs C Cclose close b B branched chain amino acids,
chain amino acids, and working buythis stuff. I get mine at
a high health but any hell storehas them, and like I said,
any flavor as well, so doesit flavor the water because it does.
(30:15):
I just drink water. I don'tI don't want anything sweet or you know
in my mouth at that time.I'm just that's a distraction. I just
want water. But it does injust a couple of teaspoons or something and
just shake it up and then it'sjust there the whole time, and exactly.
And what I like to do isafter the first few holes, I
like to have about half of mywater gone, and then what I do
(30:40):
is I refill it up, soit kind of dilutes the flavor for the
rest of the round, but italso gives you a boost start to your
round by drinking a little bit moreat the beginning than at the end.
And what about food consumption? Doyou eat at the turn, do you
graze throughout the round or do youjust avoid food altogether? No, I
graze. I like to get getthose bars that are that have the right
(31:03):
amount of carbs. A little bitmore carbs is good at this point.
But I just graze on one ortwo of those. Uh. I like
the back nine bars that that aresold at the golf courses, or protein
bars. But I just graze onone of those or two of those throughout
the entire round. Okay, definitelydefinitely don't suggest stopping for those monster hot
(31:25):
dogs and the and the big coke. Uh if you are one of those
guys who need to avoid the backnine blow ups, yeah, I'll tell
you. I learned that that stoppingfor something to eat at the turn always
had a negative impact on my game, and that once I started doing what
I do is just to either peanutbutter pretzels or just a bag of nuts,
(31:47):
a three ounce bag of nuts thatI can take. It can take
me eighteen holes to go through athree ounce bag of nuts, and it's
sometimes it's kind of embarrassing because peopleare looking at me, like, you
know, eating nuts, and they'relike, you're not gonna You're not gonna
for me any Like, no,no, I'm on a strict routine I
I can't like and bless if youoffer it, they'll just take the whole
bag, dump in their hand,wolf it down. Once it's like hey,
(32:09):
thanks, like no, no,no, you don't know, you
can't have anymore. But yeah,I like to just graze through a bag
of nuts and some water and itseems to really help keep my blood sugar
level throughout all eighteen holes, especiallywhen you get into those last couple of
ones. Right, but the brancheddon't do it. No, no,
(32:30):
I'm gonna do it. I can'teven remember writing amino acids branched. What
did I write? Here? Arebrand I have no idea what I wrote
branched? Do you help? Yes? Branched chain chain, Yeah, that's
what I wrote. I wouldn't knowthat chain amino acids. I will definitely
(32:52):
check that out online. First.Well, let me tell you one thing
that I teach a lot of highlevel golfers, and they swear by those
uh, peanut butter pretzels. Soyou hit you hit one right on the
head there, fred Is. Thosepeanut butter pretzels are are a hit down
here in Arizona with the competitive golfers. Yeah. Yeah, they're awesome.
They're awesome because they have the salty, crunchy protein everything in it, and
(33:15):
then you can then you buy abig one at Costco, fill up a
bag, and then you can sharethem with everybody. There you go.
You mentioned TPI that you've been workingwith TPI instructors. You are not a
TPI instructor. I am not,And we've had TPI instructors on the show.
I just think that the It's theTitlest Performance Institute is phenomenal program.
(33:37):
I've never been personally involved. I'vejust heard great things about it and talked
to various instructors. But tell meabout why you started as an instructor started
taking advantage of TPI and what it'sdone for your game. So I've I
found that I was hitting walls witha lot of my students that were playing
(33:57):
at their highest level. We worktogether for two years, made huge strides,
and then all of a sudden,it's bam, what's going on.
We're not getting as good as wewant to get. We're not hitting the
positions as good as we should.So I started, you know, taking
a look at their flexibility, injuries, things like that, and that led
me to one of my partners,which is a TPI instructor. Uh he's
(34:23):
not a golf instructor, but TPIfitness guy. It's his name's Andrew,
and I sent some of my studentsto him and he did this screening on
them and found out that there wasa lot of things going on inside their
body that was hindering them in theirgolf swing. Once we started working on
those things. We blasted through thatwall that we had hit, and we
(34:43):
just went back on improving and improvingtogether with Andrew and myself, those students
were able to reach levels that theynever have reached before. We got to
get Andrew on the show we do. I agree, he's a good guy.
Awesome. Yeah, I want tohear more about how TPI you know.
To me, I think that forthe average recreational golfer, which I
(35:08):
consider myself, I think that theydon't give flexibility and conditioning as much credit
or dedication as they could when theyjust they hit walls on their progress and
just you know, don't know whythat they can't get any further. And
I think that that would be youknow, it takes it takes discipline.
(35:30):
You know, every everything takes discipline, and that's not the easiest thing to
do when you're trying to live yourlife right exactly. The problem with all
that stuff, well, a lotof guys are looking for the quick fix,
and hey, uh, I needa thirty minute lesson I got I'm
playing in a tournament tomorrow, right, keep me going. But it's really
it takes more than that. Ifyou want to if you want to play
(35:52):
better, golf and be happier withthou comes. Is that true? Is
that you have people calling you likeI need a lesson because I'm playing in
a tournament next week. Oh justthis was the charity tournament coming up.
Just this weekend, I had thehusband of one of my students called me
and Chris, I need something quick, I need it, and I said,
I'm sorry, I'm full this weekend. Well ten minutes, ten minutes
(36:15):
is all I need. Told himthere's nothing we can do in ten minutes,
but if you want to, ifyou want to come and hit balls,
if it's going to help get yourmental preparation ready, just to know
that I've seen your swing come ondown and sure enough showed up for ten
minutes, changed one slight thing thatprobably isn't gonna make a huge difference.
But then he calls me and says, oh it worked, It worked.
(36:37):
It was a great change. Butit really all I did was just set
him mentally straight ready for the tournament. Yeah. I talked to him who
said that he gets more calls whenpeople are about to either play in a
charity tournament or go on vacation thenany other time, and then they take
one lesson maybe two in preparation forthat, and they don't see him again
for another year. Yeah, gottalove it. Yeah, God, that's
(37:00):
great. Hey Chris, thanks againfor coming back and doing this member's only
episode. I appreciate you spend anextra time with me. I know you
got to you got lessons to getto today and I'm gonna go take a
nap. I can't believe I've madeit this far, but we hope to
be able to speak to you again. And if anybody has any questions for
(37:22):
Chris, of course, just goand click on the Hey Fred button golf
smarter dot com and all forward italong to Chris and then he'll get back
to you. But if anybody wantsto visit your website or see your YouTube
videos, how can they do that? The website is www dot expert golfazy
dot com and there's a calendar,there's links all over that homepage there.
(37:45):
But the YouTube channel is YouTube dotcom forward slash Chris fry c h R
s f r Y golf dot dotcom, so that's where all the YouTube
videos are. But the website canlink you to anything. Do you really
have to put www? You don'thave to I don't think on anything.
(38:05):
I don't think you need well,that's true, that's true. Yeah,
I don't tell people that. It'sconfusing. Now you get too much to
think about. All right, Soit's Chris frygolf dot com right. Wrong,
wrong, it's x No, it'sright because on YouTube it's Chris Chris
frygolf dot com. Right, YouTubedot com slash Chris fregolf dot com.
Ah, but you spell but youspell out Chris freygolf dot com dot DT.
(38:30):
Okay, that's on YouTube. Butyour website is expert Golf a Z
because you're Arizona, right, yes, okay, expert Golf Arizon Azy,
expert golfazy dot com. Sorry,you're driving that out. My brain's not
working either. It's time for meto check out. Chris Fry. Thanks
so much for living for being agolf smarter. Thanks Fred,
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