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
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that are no longer available in anypodcast app. I want you to really
get inside your body and as you'reswinging and hitting a ball, there might
be a sensation. There might bea pinching fund, there might be a
tight feeling, or there might bepain. At certain points. You can
start narrowing down what's causing that painin your golf swing, even without having
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a teaching pro. Think of yourbody for a second. So when you
hit that ball, are you experiencingpain at impact? If it's that impact,
is it a risk? Is ita knee, a hip, lower
back? And then from there,take a look at the position your body's
at, you know, kind ofslow down a little bit and say,
wow, you my hips they seemwhat will kind of jammed up. And
then boy, that back right thereon that lower right side, Well,
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your hips aren't clearing, your hipsaren't rotating. But I would say if
you're getting back into the swing ofthings. You truly have to go to
the range at least one time andjust casually leisurely hit some balls just to
kind of see what you got andsee how your body responds to it.
And then typically the next day you'llknow from a conditioning standpoint if you got
something wrong with Another interview from thearchives of Golf Smarter, here's your host,
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Fred Green. Welcome to Golf Smarterfor members only, Mike, and
welcome back to Golf Smarter. Thankyou, Fred, I appreciate it.
It's been a long long time sinceyou've been on this show. I think
years. Yeah, I think youwere like the first six months or something
of Golf Smarter back in early twothousand and six. Oh my god,
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that's six years. Well, I'msorry, that's mine. So what is
Give me an update? What isgoing on with your golf life? Oh?
Thanks, everything's great. I meaneven the personal golf life's good.
Played about a six handicap now,trying to get down to a scratch.
That's that's good. Working on lotsof different things and helping golfers improve their
game and their swing. So notonly fitness now, but working on golf
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swing biomechanics, which is that's mypassion anyway, So it's it's it's it's
about time that I start talking aboutbiomechanics and the golf swing. So lots
of fun stuff, excellent, SoI know, I'm absolutely fascinating. Are
you a certified PGA instructor? No? No, no, no no no,
I'm I'm the I don't want tocall it the backyard pro, but
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no, I'm you know I was. I'm a fitness guy by trade,
so I'm a certified golf fitness professional. But now with the golf swing biomechanics,
that's something that I mean. I'vegot a degree in exercise physiology and
biomechanics from Oregon State University back ineighty seven, so that that is my
background and that's what my degree isin. So why I kind of swayed
off into just fitness, I don'tknow, although fitness, but now I'm
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kind of coming full circle and doingwhat I should have. Did you know
when I graduated college, which isworking on the biomechanics of the golf swing,
Well maybe you should have taken Englishclasses. But so I'm curious when
you said you were down to asix handicap. First of all, congratulations,
thank you, very awesome. Butsecondly, how long I've been playing
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and where did you start with that? I picked up golf late in life.
You know, I was doing trackand field and almost made the Olympic
Games in eighty eight for the decathlon. Yeah, so I took it to
the highest level you could take it. So there was no room for golf
my life then. And so Iwould say I picked up in probably nineteen
ninety, so I was like thirtyyears old something like that. So you
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know, it's a mere puppy andoh yeah, puppy, Yeah right now.
I started when I was forty,so shut up. Oh well,
you know these kids nowadays, youknow, they're born with a club in
their hand. I mean, they'rethey're playing from age three on up.
So I've had a lot of ingrain, bad habits. When I first started,
you, I was a big slicerof the golf ball. I you
know, I swung at it waytoo hard. I didn't have a good
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grip. Nothing was good about mygame. But I just became enamored with
this dang game. And and andyou know, for the last fifteen,
sixteen, seventeen years, I've studiedthe golf swing. I mean I literally
know every movement of every joint inthe human body throughout the entire swing,
and I can swear by that.Oh that's really interesting because a lot of
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instructors will come on and talk aboutevery movement of every swing of the club
head. But I like the ideaof talking about what the body is doing
as well, because I think thatthat is an element that is I don't
know if it's not discussed, butit's really not focused on. And I
think that a lot of golfers don'treally care. I mean I remember asking
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a friend of mine if he stretchesor does any exercise before golf, and
he goes, yeah, I walkedto the car. Yeah, oh yeah,
I've heard all lines. Yeah.But but you know what's interesting is
that that golfers need to realize thebody swing is a club, right,
So I mean, that's the thingyou need to work on first, is
and the body could be anything fromstretching, strengthening and biomechanics trying to understand
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what's the right way my body movesthrough the golf swing. And obviously for
most high handicappers who are really strugglingto hit a solid golf shot. Their
you know, their body is notmoving properly. So the minute it starts
moving out of whack, compensations kickin. And then and then timing kicks
in, and then all of asudden, you've got a swing that you
might, you know, you know, once or twice around you might you
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know, hit a solid shot andjust it feels just beautiful. And then
the other eighty eight shots ninety shotsare horrible. So and that and that
goes back to learning how the bodymoves throughout the golf swing. If you
if people backtrack just a little bitand and figured this out, you know,
well, the right risk should dothis, you know. And I
don't want to say that that everybodyneeds to become super super analytical like I
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am, which is that's a faultof mine. But at the same time,
there are some constants in the golfswing and the joints have to move
a certain way. Now, whatI like to say is that there's lots
of swing methods out there. Obviously, go on the internet and you'll find
a hundred of them. Yeah,right, there's lots of ways to swing
a golf club, but there arecertain constants in there that have to be
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intact with through impact, the jointshave to be moving a certain way to
square the club face and hit asolid golf shot. And that has nothing
to do with swing method. Thathas everything to do with biomechanics. Interesting,
So let's let's touch on that fora little bit. And actually,
I just want to say that yourwebsite, perform Better golf dot com.
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I think it even addresses more ofthe physical than than the swing mechanics,
you know, just by saying performbetter, I like that a lot.
Yeah, well, yeah, youknow, that site's evolving a lot,
and now we've gotten into really thebio mechanics of it. So we've got
we've got some training, we've gotfitness, and now we've got Now I'm
putting out a lot of free videos. So for you listeners over there,
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I'm popping out a lot of freevideos really discussing certain parts of the body
biomechanically. And the feedback I'm getting. I've got forty five thousand subscribers,
and the feedback I get after launchinga video or a blog post is just
outstanding. So I know, Iknow we're on the right track getting golfers
you know, there's a there's alot of frustrated golfers out there. I'm
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telling you, Oh you know,I don't think a lot truly describes,
oh my god, how extensive frustrationis. So let's talk about biomechanics a
golf swing. Biomechanics explain that inlayman terms for us and how we can
incorporate that into our lives. Well, when you think about the golf swing,
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and you know, you address theball, you got your hand on
the club, you're in golf posture. All of a sudden, when that
club starts moving, it's joints,muscles and bones that are moving that club.
Correct. Correct. Okay, Soif even from and I had a
couple of faults that happened rate inmy takeaway where I cocked my wrist too
early, lifted the club and itcreated havoc and my golf swing. And
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that's a perfect example of biomechanics,which is you need to simplify the golf
swing. There's so many moving partsin the golf swing, especially from a
joint standpoint, that we need toactually cut a lot of that wasted movement
and motion out of the golf swing. And that's the fun part about it
is is actually the word simple,and everybody wants a simple golf swing.
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They're tired of the sixty two pointchecklist, you know. So the whole
idea is to realize, yes,certain joints bend throughout the golf swing,
but they don't. They don't overlymove, they don't they don't manipulate,
you know. So anything that thatyou consciously do to manipulate that golf club
at any point in the golf swingis not going to ever allow you to
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hit a solid golf shot period period? Is there way? You know,
with the people that you have workedwith, is there one thing that kind
of jumps out of you as beingkind of repetitive that people more and more
people that you see, it's constantthat that's the big issue in their movement.
Well, well, I'll tell youit's the one that I had.
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It's too it's too active of hands. The hands. You know, the
hands are the only thing that gripthe club that hit that golf ball.
And if those hands start getting looseygoosey and wobbling all over the place and
not, you know, your gripshould not be firm. So let's get
that straight. But your risks haveto be in a certain position throughout the
whole entire golf swing. The riskcock is very basic, but a lot
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of people, you know, rollthe risks in the takeaway. They cock
it the wrong way, and allof a sudden, now the club's sticking
straight up in the air instead ofon plane. So I would say,
over active hands is a real commonI see that, you know, when
the amateur starts sending me videos toanalyze, which that we do that on
the side as well. Now theysaid they send me videos that one of
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the first things I see is thefirst foot of the takeaway, we got
problems, which is their hands aregetting too active too early. I'm sitting
here working on my swing, andwell, no, I mean, like
now, I'm fascinating. I havea friend who I know his hands are
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way too active in the beginning becausehe's yeah, but you know, I've
had It's really interesting. I've hadthis one consistent problem with my wrists my
entire life. And I'm not justtalking about golf. When I was a
little kid taking piano lessons, right, and I would lay my hands down
on the thinking my piano teacher wouldlift my wrists up and says, you
know, level them out, letthem out, don't don't hyber extend right
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with my fingers up in the airand my wrists down below. And then
then I became a desk jockey andwas sitting at my desk and my computer
all day long typing, and Istarted getting really bad elbow problems. Brought
in what's that person called ergonomic specialist, okay, and they said, well,
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look at the way your hands areon your keyboard. You need to
change, you know, change theposition of your keyboard. And again it
was my hands where my wrists werecocked back. Yep. And then one
day I was working with a golfinstructor, I did an interview or something,
and I realized that at the topof my back swing, my wrist
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is again bent back instead of think. So that seems to be a constant
issue with me my whole life.Yeah, yeah, you know, you
know, the risks are they shouldonly move a certain way. And really
there's not a lot of mobility inthe risks anyways, but they have to
move in a certain way, especiallycoming down through impact. Man, I'm
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telling you, you know, atimpact to square that face, there's a
certain move and you know, Itook a lot of lessons in my day,
and no disrespect to golf teachers thatare listening, but I always never
shown the proper way that hands movethrough impact. Ever, and so even
at a six handicap, I wasnot compressing the golf ball. I was
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not really and I wasn't taking areal nice divot square divot after the ball.
And then I started I started studyingsome video of you know, you
know, the better ball strikers ontour. Now you've got the Hunter May
hands, You've got these guys thatare really solid ball strikers. And I
started doing video analysis, studying theirswing in high speed, and I started
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looking at the right hand when itdoes it impact, the left hand turns
down and I started seeing a commonthread here, and I thought, I
don't do that. And then Istarted going to the range and filming myself,
and all of a sudden, Iman, I compressed a crap by
that poor golf ball. Now,so it's and again, after you know,
fifteen twenty years of playing golf,I never knew what my hands biomechanically
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should do through impact. And Iknow for a fact ninety percent of high
handicap golfers do not come through impactwith the proper hand motion. It seems
to be a repeated theme recently onthe podcast I know that we talked with
doctor Joe Parent and he gave thisamazing tip of where you know, when
we're talking about a compression, aboutwhere the bottom of your swing is,
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and that most high handicapped golfers thinkthat it's supposed to be about the bottom
of your swing is about two inchesbehind the ball or at the ball,
as opposed to an inch or twoin front of the ball, right,
so that way you're coming down onthe ball, hitting the ball, then
the ground, and then of course, Martin Chuck Tour Striker, which you
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have on your you you promote TourStriker on your site, don't you?
Sure? Do you better? AndI to me that more than any other
training aid I've ever training tool I'veever used, really magnified how I'm not
coming down on the ball. Sure, yeah, yeah, yeah. If
you if you don't hit, ifyou don't hit the ball with your hands
ahead and that forward shaffleing with thatTours striker, it's not going to be
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a pretty golf shot, that's forsure. Yeah. Well, I know
that you have it on your eysite, but we also have it on
golf smarter dot com. I'm gonnapromote mine. Okay, there you go.
Good for you, for you rightfully, so thank you very much.
What about Okay, so the handsand the wrists, Okay, big issue
for a lot of golfers. Okay, so what can they do to correct
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that? How can they recognize what'swrong with it? And what can they
do to correct it? Well,well, I'll give you kind of a
feeling, and I think any golferout there listening can be able to picture
this. But if you're a righthanded golfer, your right hand with you've
heard a lot of golf plots saycovering the ball. So if you picture
your right hand in that cock positionand then as you come through impact that
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the palm of your right hand isgoing to rotate down and cover that ball,
and if your left hand was onthe grip as well, the left
hand is going to turn down withit. What that's going to feel like,
is it? It's it feels likeyou're gonna shut the face big time
and you're gonna hit a big shotto the left. But it's not.
If your hands are ahead, likewhat you know Martin talks about if your
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hands are ahead and that right handturns down on that on the golf ball,
covers the golf ball. I'm notsure what you mean by cover.
Okay, cover okay, So pictureokay, like a high handicapper, he
flips at the ball. Okay,he or she flips at the ball.
So it's a premature release of yourright wrisk too early and you flip at
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the ball. Okay, So thatwould be hitting behind the ball. And
first of all, let me justthrow into those people who recognize that they
flip at the ball. You know, there's different degrees on the club faces
for a reason. Let the clubdo the work. Don't try to lift
the ball up right. Well yeah, yeah, it's a loft on the
club face. I mean you've gotthe loft, and the loft takes care
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of how high the ball goes,how far the ball goes. No,
so there's no there should be nomanipulation of trying to get it up in
the air. If anything, Idon't like the term hit down because then
golfers they can all of a suddenstart plowing the club into the ground.
But but that would be an extrememeaning that if somebody's really trying to pick
it up and they're coming up atimpact and they're flipping at it, then
that that person it wouldn't be abad thing to have that mindset for a
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little while of hit down on thatball. And then then after a while
they might start overcooking it and hittingit kind of fat and they all then
then they might even you know,God forbid, they might start feel a
little bit of pain in their leftelbow their wrists when that starts happening,
you've overcooked it. But with theright hand covering the ball. Gosh,
I'm just trying to think if youcan even picture it. But it's it's
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a turning It's a turning over ofthe right I'm doing it right now as
I'm talking. It's a turning overof the right hand where picture bending down
over the ball and you're gonna putyour your your right hand right over the
top of the ball. You're gonnayou're gonna you're gonna cover cover that ball
with your right hand. That exactposition is what it should look like at
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impact holding a golf club. Okay, I got it, And that is
an excellent, excellent visual because ison my swing. And again the tourist
striker help. But what I realizeis that actually my right hand would be
facing the ball, yeah, fromfrom my body, going straight out from
my body. As opposed to whatyou're saying, is the you when you're
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covering your hand, the palm ofyour hand should be down the facing down
the target line. The palm ofyour hand is on top of the golf
ball. It is facing down tothe ground, on top of not facing
the target line, down on topof that golf ball. And that's called
covering or compressing the golf ball.And it really is. It's it's it's
it's kind of like a turndown move. It's it's a that's all I here's
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another way to think about it too. I've done a video. I've done
a video. I mean, I'mtrying to I'm trying again. I'm trying
to do this. And now mywrist when I'm doing it in the way
you're saying, my wrist seems tobe cocked dramatically. Your right wrists should
be cocked back on itself. Okay, okay, okay, it's cock back
on itself. But here's one thingI want you to think about. There's
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a video on my side. Ifpeople go to my site and sign up
from my list, they'll get avideo on via email. You'll see exactly
what it is. But picture thisis kind of a neat what it's the
name of the video because I'm goingto put a link to it on our
show notes. Oh gosh, itall right, we should we be looking
for. Uh, it's how thehands release it in the golf swing,
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I think is what it is.Something like that. You send me the
link, you email the link,and I'll make sure that it gets on
the to our Uh that's a YouTubevideo. But but here, here's what
I want you to think about.Okay, so picture screwing your This is
kind of interesting. Screwing your righthand in the ground counter clockwise and when
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you and when you and when youdo that, look at the motion of
your forearm. Watch watch how youryour elbow starts, your right elbow starts
extending and straightening. But you're screwingyour hands counterclockwise through the golf It's a
really interesting concept. But what thatdoes is, man, it compresses that
golf ball. And it's a movethat I am telling you ninety nine percent
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of high handicapped amateur golfers have neverdone in their life. It's counterintuitive because
you think, no, I wantthe ball to go that way out to
the target, and he's saying,turn my hand into the ball. But
remember you and I just spoke aboutthe loft on the club takes care of
all that. We want to makesure that we come down and compress the
golf ball to where the ball rollsup the face of the club and whatever
loft we have, that's how farthat ball is going to go. Right.
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So our motion is this counterclockwise screwinginto the ground with our right arm,
and the left hand just turns downon itself, where the pomp's facing
up on the left hand and theback of the left hand's turning down.
When you watch any professional golfer,that is their hand motion. Again,
it's a little bit odd to thinkof screwing into the ground. I want
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the ball to go, you know, to my left towards the target.
But that's feeling that that you needto get to know that your hand motion
is correct biomechanically through impact. Iam totally baffled about the screwing down you're
taking from the back top of theback swing down through No no, no,
no, no no no no,no, no, no no,
this is right ed impact. Thisis coming down on plane. The right
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elbow gets in front of the righthip. You've basically completed your downswing.
Your your hands are going past yourright thigh, and just as your hands
are passing the right thigh, youryour your right hand, your top hand
on the club. If your righthanded golfer is just counterclockwise rotating into the
ground towards that golf ball, andat the same time, your your right
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elbow is going to start extending aswell. Now, your right arm doesn't
fully extend until after impact. Butthat that whole motion, that whole kind
of from the right elbow down throughthe wrist, that whole kind of counterclockwise
screwing is happening just pass the rightthigh before impact. I got it.
Now, that makes a lot moresense to me. Yeah. Yeah,
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And again it's counterintuitive because what I'mtrying to explain for the listeners is that
it feels like it's this motion that'sgoing into the ground, But as we
spoke a little earlier, it's thegolf club compresses the golf ball, the
golf bar runs up the face ofthe club, and depending on the loft
of the club, it does whatit does. Pitching wedge goes you know,
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one hundred and twenty yard whatever itis. So the motion is compressing
down on the ball so that theball runs up the club face. Got
it all right? No, thatmakes a lot more sense to me.
Thank you very much for clean forexplaining it as best you can, because
I think you succeeded. There's someother things I wanted to get into with
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you here, and that would beyou talk about longer drives. You're the
biomechanics is going to lead to longerdrives, Is that true? Or I
mean, well yeah, I meanhonestly, the more e fish you can
be biomechanically, or even if youcan just use the word mechanically, which
again is what technique, the moreefficient you can be in any athletic movement,
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the more power you're going to produce. Of course, so the same
thing in golf, and it's justlike what we're talking about, that key
area of impact that really is thegolf swing, and that is the power
in the golf swing. Now,granted you've got core torque, you know,
from a bigger backswing. You've gotclub ed speed, and you've got
all those other elements that going tocome into play with the result in longer
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drives. But if you're not compressingthe golf ball in the middle of your
club face, you're losing, youknow, Miles Prower on the ball,
you're the smash factor. They callit a smash factor, which is,
you know, the compression of theball in the middle of the club face
is much less ineffective. So youknow, the bio mechanics in regards to
(22:52):
longer drives, no question comes intoplay. And obviously you know the higher
handicap has many many swing falls happeningthroughout one all slang and the end result
is admit an off center glancing blowon the golf ball. When when you're
talking about the the the hand movementwhere they are where it is resulting in
(23:14):
more efficiency in your mechanics. Howis it that a I've I've realized over
time as I play golf that thethings that I heard talked about didn't become
clear to me until I really startedfeeling the nuance of swinging a golf club.
(23:36):
And the more time I spend playinggolf, the more time A lot
of these things become clear to me. Mm hm. You know, it's
like I always heard yeah about youknow about hit it getting a divot,
you know, and and it tookme not not just years of playing golf,
it took me years of the podcastbefore I realized what how to do
(23:57):
that and how to do that whileI'm hitting the ball, and where to
hit the ball, and how tohit the you know. So the turning
of the unscrewing, I'm just goingto call it that, the unscrewing of
the hands, that part getting moreefficient. How can I think about that
stuff? How can I get tothat point as a recreational golfer who doesn't
(24:21):
get a lot of time to practiceonly and not enough time to play,
so I play more than I practice. Well, well, I can tell
you firsthand. Doing things in yourhome, I'll tell you Ask my wife.
I mean, we've got a coupleof mirrors in the house. I've
got golf club stationed by every mirror. So, you know, so as
I'm walking, I'm telling you true. I'm telling you the truth. As
(24:42):
I'm walking. As I'm walking bya mirror, there happens to be a
golf club right there, and I'llstop, grab the club, get a
side view or front view or whateverI'm thinking about for that moment. I'll
do a few little motions that I'mtrying to work on, and then i
continue walking through the house. Sothat's truly, I mean, it's you
know, it sounds a little obsessive, but uh a little yeah, right,
(25:06):
But you can do things. Soundslike a golfer. Yeah, yeah,
So you can do things in yourhome, and that doesn't require going
to a range. It doesn't requireeven hitting a golf ball. And that's
why even I've got you know,a select few, not very many,
but a select few training it's onmy site that I've personally reviewed and used,
and most of those I use inmy home. I don't even hit
a golf ball with them. Sowhat happens is they say that you have
(25:29):
to repeat a movement two to threethousand times to ingrain it. Okay,
two to three thousand, okay,Well, honestly, to hit two or
three thousand golf balls would be youknow, going to the range for the
next six months for the average golferbecause they don't have the time. But
two to three thousand if you're inyour home, and you know several times
in the evening you do twenty twentyrepetitions each time. Now that's sixty times
(25:53):
in the evening, well, sixtytimes, you know, thirty days in
a month. You know, ifyou really need to have a club in
your hand to do this, well, it's not really hard to ingrain something
like that without a club in yourhand. Well, I disagree with that,
I mean really, uh yeah,I mean, well, well,
some of the training is I havea real small they're they're they're they're you
know, one to two feet long, so that you can do a lot
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of You're not going to break alamp. You're not gonna hit the ceiling,
because we've all been there right breaking, putting holes in the wall,
breaking mirrors. But uh, butno, I agree that, you know,
most of the time the club,you can see where the club faces,
you can see that if the shaftis on plane. So I would
say that a lot of drills youdo in your home should be with a
golf club. But if there's certainthings you're working on, certain aspects of
(26:37):
your swing, and there's maybe atraining or a device you can use that
isn't a club, but that ingrainsa certain feeling. Then oh my gosh.
I mean you can speed up thelearning process tenfold by doing it,
you know, repeatedly in your homeevery day. Yeah, I don't know.
I'm sorry, I don't know ifI necessarily I mean, I I
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really think that I see the twoto three thousand swings and hitting something,
you know, to get that feedback, to know that if it's if it's
working or not. Because just swingingwithout any feedback at all, and even
slow motion swinging, even though theTai cheese swing is really an awesome effective
tool it you know, I guessthat's how to ingrain it. Well,
(27:26):
well, well, you know,I mean when you think of when you
think of any athlete. I didthis when I was training for the Olympic
Games. In the decathlon. Imean, you do what they call drills.
That's not the full thing. That'snot you know, if I'm throwing
the shot put, which is oneof the events in the decathlon, I'm
not throwing that thing. Every timeI'm doing certain I'm getting in certain positions
across the ring, you know thatthe shot put ring, I'm doing certain
(27:48):
motions with left arm the right thosethat's called doing drills. And every athlete
doesn't mean that doesn't mean you haveto complete the whole motion. And if
anything to ingrain a certain phase orelement of an athletic motion, including the
golf swing, you've got to doit repeatedly. So let's say the dawn
swing. You got a golfer that'scoming down steep, His shaft is real
steep. Okay, Well, goingout and pounding balls is not going to
(28:12):
improve that no way, because he'snot going to know where he's at in
the golf swing. But if hegets in front of a mirror and starts
feeling it, like you know,watching that mirror, feeling his hands,
feeling his arms, feeling the jointsmove to be on plane, and he
can see it in that mirror.So that's instant feedback. That's going to
give him a heck of a lotmore feedback than going pounding balls not knowing
(28:34):
where that club's at. Yeah,okay, I buy it. I buy
it because I think it was aguy named was a Jerome Bettis. He
played for the Pittsburgh Steelers, right, and he's an avid golfer. And
I remember seeing something with him onceand he said something that made so much
sense. To me, and you'rejust bringing it up in my mind because
(28:57):
you are clearly you are an athleteat a high level. I mean,
if you got to a point whereyou were training for the Olympics, forget
about even thinking about it, butyou were training for the Olympics. In
multiple sports, you really have tounderstand how to practice. And one of
(29:18):
the things that Bettis said the differencebetween his golf game and the average golfer
is he said, the average golferdoesn't understand the importance and how to practice.
They just go out there and everygame is the game of their life.
But they don't, you know,like this guy Will He's now a
retired athlete who had, you know, enough money to retire at a reasonable
(29:41):
age, and so he's able togo out and play three four rounds of
golf a week as practice and thenon Sunday it's play day. Then he
does it. So as somebody whohas never been involved, I mean I
really, other than Little League whenI was nine years ol, I never
really was involved in organized sports.So I don't get that I go out
(30:03):
in every game that I'm every everyround of golf for me is I'm trying
to shoot my best. I'm notworking on anything. I'm working on everything.
Now. I'm not going to speakfor listeners here because I know that
sometimes I'll say things and listeners willgo, oh, come on, Fred.
You know it's like if we foundyour show. We're really into this
(30:25):
stuff, don't down't play it.But there's also this element of I want
to learn as much as I canabout golf without having to be you know,
practice as much as I can becauseI've got a busy life and I've
got children, i got a job, and I got to commute, and
I got you know, all theseother things life getting in the way of
golf. But you know, onething I'll say to that is that that,
you know the definition in sandy doingthe same thing over and over getting
(30:48):
expecting different results. So with thatbeing said, I understand that most people
are super super busy and they can'tget But you know if you asked,
if you lined up one hundred golfersand you asked, all hundred golfs would
like to play better, They're allgoing to raise their hands. Okay,
well okay, So now that weknow that's a common thread, the second
step would be how much are youwilling to put into it to play better,
because golf, you know, it'sbrutal to understand. I mean even
(31:12):
you know, quote at my athleticlevel, oh my gosh, I had
so many swing palls that I couldnot fix. I still battle with them
a little bit. And that's aguy that I know. My body is
good or better than anybody out thereas far as how it moves. I've
studied tens of thousands of golf swings, so I know what it looks like.
But if you're not willing to puta little bit of time in,
(31:33):
then I got to tell you,folks, you cannot expect a better result.
It's just the fact of life.And what you said is where most
golfers are at. They two differentissues. They don't have the time,
and truth be told, Fred,I've dealt with a lot of golfers in
the last fifteen years online. Theydon't want to put the time in.
So either they don't have it orthey don't want to put the time in.
(31:56):
If those two things are there,then and truly, you cannot expect
to get better. So if you'rea ninety shooter, accept it, you
know. And if you if youdrive the ball to thirty two forty accept
it and that it is what itis. But if in fact you want
to improve, you got to dosomething. You have to do something to
improve. I mean, I mean, tell any athlete, Tell any athlete,
(32:20):
Okay, you don't have to practiceanymore, and your goal is we're
going to get you better. Imean, that doesn't I mean, that
makes no sense whatsoever. Right.It's so interesting because so frequently I'll get
people sending me emails saying, Oh, I'm new to the game and I'm
just so excited and I'm determined tobe scratched by the end of next year.
(32:44):
It's like, OK, and Ihave to remind people that golf is
even though I'd ever played in organizedsports. I played all sports as a
kid, but it's the one.It's so frustrating because it is the not
only the hardest sport I've ever played, but it's also it's like, don't
expect that you're gonna get better everytime you go out. It just doesn't
(33:04):
work that way. And personally,I have broken eighty three times in my
golf career. Yeah, I mean, I'm very excited, nice, but
I haven't done it in about fouror five years. And I'm like,
come on, I've gotten to eightythree or four times. Oh yeah,
but I've not broken that barrier ina long time. And with all this
(33:24):
talking that I do all the timeand all these things that I learned in
the nuances, and I'm still like, come on, well, you know,
in any given we'll look at theprowls, right, I mean,
some look at Tiger Woods not makingthe cuts. I mean, you got
the best athlete, slash best golfer, you know, not anymore, but
in the world who's missing cuts now? I mean, and look what he's
(33:46):
doing with the swing and I meanthe priss preshot routine before every shot.
It's over the top to swing tothe left, move all the stuff he's
doing. And so I mean itgoes to show you that on any given
day, you don't know what golferis going to show up to the course.
That's number one for sure. Andthen number two, you've got conditions.
Is it windy, is it rainy, is it cold, is it
(34:07):
whatever? So you throw all thatinto play that's going to affect your outcome,
and then you know your mental right, I mean, did you rush
to the course, did something stressfulhappen before you, you know, I
mean it just goes on the listgets forever. So I mean, you
know, golf is oh my gosh, that's a frustrating thing. Ever,
I'm laughing because that's why I havea very difficult time and rarely play for
(34:32):
money because to me, I'm competingagainst so many things as it is.
I'm competing against the weather, I'mcompeting against the terrain, I'm competing against
the lie, I'm competing against eachclub. I'm competing against my brain.
And now you want to put moneyin it? Are you kidding me?
Now, I'm really going to freakout. You know, being self employed,
(34:55):
as you know, every morning youwake up you're gambling. Oh yeah,
yeah, and you don't have thatroom to do that. Yeah,
I play for money is not no, that's not it. That's not a
healthy thing. If you've done it, you know, for years, and
you've got a group of guys thatyou're used to doing it with, that's
fun, that's one thing. ButI know I get invited to money games
all the time, and I'll tellyou of the time I say no,
(35:16):
I said, he I'll take apass. You guys have fun, right
right, My club maker. Hehad me fill out on a long form
before I started working with him.He had like one hundred and one questions
I had to answer before he wouldstart working with me to make clubs,
and one of them was do youplay for money? And so he was
he was reviewing my questions, zippingthrough him, and all of a sudden,
(35:37):
he goes, you don't play formoney. No, no, you're
the minority. And he said,then why do you play? Like,
Okay, we won't talk about that. So I do want to uh not,
well, I want to get thiswrapped up here, and I appreciate
all your time here and especially recordingthis over two days. I recently received
(35:59):
a question from a listener who giveshis name as Botello, and he's in
Denver, Colorado, And the timingof it was perfect because I knew that
you and I were going to speak. And he said, I've been away
from the game of golf for quitesome time and wanted to know how a
golfer should quote get back into theswing of things now. He says,
(36:20):
his golf buddies keep telling him technology, technology, buy new sticks, technology,
but he likes his his old pingset and you know, graphied chefs.
You know, at Bottello, youmay want to get new chefs depending
on how old they are. Youdefinitely want to get new grips depending on
how long they've been sitting in yourgarage. And they're also saying that his
spike tool is his wrench is eventoo old, so he hasn't there's a
(36:45):
lot of dust and cobwebs on histhings, but I think that more cobwebs
are probably going to be in hisbody and he should really concentrate on getting
that in condition before he's even worryingabout the ball dropping into the hole.
Do you have any advice for someonelike this who's trying to get back into
(37:06):
the game and what they can dophysically to help well, well, first
and foremost, I mean, Imean, you got to go to the
range and you see what you got. That's that's step number one. I
mean, you know, outside ofconditioning and stretching and all that you got,
you gotta go, you know,to the range, see what you
got. You know, just kindof feel what your body's doing, sense
what it's doing, and uh,you know, one thing I tell a
(37:28):
lot of golfers is when they're hittinga golf ball, especially if I get
emails all day every day, youknow, pain here, pain their pain
everywhere. And I say, okay, well, next time you go hit,
I want you to really get in, get get inside your body,
and as you're swinging and hitting aball, try to there might be a
sensation, there might be a pinchingfuel, there might be a tight feeling,
(37:50):
or there might be pain at certainpoints, and you can start narrowing
down what's causing that pain in yourgolf swing, even without being a biomechanic,
without having a teaching pro. Ifyou get in your body and you
know, instead of thinking of it, you know, if you're at the
range, instead of thinking of theresult of hey hit that one straight long
where to go, think of yourbody for a second. So when you
hit that ball, are you experiencingpain? Are you experiencing pain at impact?
(38:15):
If it's that impact, is ita rist is it a knee,
a hip, lower back, whateverit may be. And then from there,
take a look at the position yourbody's at, you know, kind
of slow down a little bit andsay, wow, you know, my
hips they seem all kind of jammedup. And then boy, that back
hurts right there. On that lowerright side. Well, your hips aren't
clearing, your hips aren't rotate,so you can kind of do it.
But I would say if you're gettingback into the swing of things, I
(38:37):
mean you truly have to go tothe range at least one time and just
just casually, leisurely hit some ballsjust to kind of see what you got,
see how your body responds to it. And then typically the next day
you'll know from a conditioning standpoint,if you got something wrong, if the
hamstrings are really sore or tight,if you know if a certain joint is
(38:57):
really sore tight, and then fromthere then you can getting into more specific
things to do stretching and strength wise. But really, until you hit balls
and see how your body responds toit, it would be that would be
a hard question for me to answer, you know, unless I saw its
golf swing and all that good stuff. But hit balls first and then kind
of see how your body feels.And then the next day, the infamous
(39:20):
next day, how do you feelthat next day it's something tight, it's
something hurting, do you feel Thenyou'll know. Then you'll know kind of
where to proceed from there. Stretchbefore stretch afterwards, Oh, yeah,
dynamic, dynamic movement stretching where you'redoing some like toe touches before you hit
the balls. You're doing the clubbehind the back of your neck and just
(39:40):
doing some rotations that stretch out yourback and your core. And yeah,
you definitely don't want to ever goto a range and just start hacking balls.
No way. You got to doa few little movements like I just
mentioned that kind of at least getthe bodies somewhat prepared to hit a golf
ball. You mean you shouldn't startwith your driver. You've been away from
the game, Fred, and I'msure you've seen it, and I've seen
(40:00):
it. I can't count how manytimes I've seen some guy go pull pull
out the big stick, start hackingaway, and all of a sudden he's
reaching down, grabbing his lower back, he's grabbing a hip joint. Oh
boy, right, and then hegoes, okay, I'm ready, let's
go, guys. Oh yeah,i'nbelievable. I know, it's kind of
funny. It's kind of funny.Golfers are crazy, guys, I'm telling
(40:22):
you. Yep, yep, yep, yep. Oh wow, So Mike,
please share with us one more timeyour YouTube channel. Ah, yes,
YouTube dot com slash Mike Peterson GolfTips and it's Peterson' spelled p e
d e r s e n onif you want to, just put a
link on your website as well,but it's so it's YouTube ww do YouTube
(40:42):
dot com slash Mike Peterson Golf Tipsall strung together and the I will definitely
put the link to the YouTube videothat you have on our blog from today's
show. That would be really helpfulfor Oh, absolutely absolutely, And because
it is a member's only show,I will make sure that the people who
don't hear the whole podcast unless theybecome members, they will still be able
(41:06):
to see that YouTube video. I'llsee if I can even get that posted
on our side. I'm gonna try. I've never been able to figure out
how to do that, but anyway, so best of luck to you,
Mike. It's great to speak withyou again. I'm glad we've reconnected.
I wish you all the luck inthe world, and thanks again for being
on the Golf Smart podcast and thanksfor having me friend. You have a
great day.