October 27, 2023 • 45 mins
In part 2 of our conversation with Wall Street Journal golf columnist John Paul Newport, we go into depth about his Feb 26, 2012 weekend article “Golf’s Biggest Delusions - Nine things people say about the game that aren’t true -- and one that is.” This was originally a Members Only episode that has never been shared publicly for free.
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Welcome to Golf Smarter Mulligans, yoursecond chance to gain insight and advice from
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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. This tea at forward movement,
which is out there now that theUSGA and the PGA of America are
pushing, is absolutely brilliant. Theidea is, you want to play from
the tees that create the approach shotsinto the greens that are the most fun
to have, which would be theapproach shots where you're using the same club
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that maybe the pros would be usinginto their greens. On a long part
four, most of the pros areusing pitching wedges to eight irons into the
greens to have the maximum amount offun. The greens are created to accept
shot with a wedge or a nineiron or a seven iron at the most,
and so you're going to have alot more fun. You'd be a
lot less frustrating if you're hitting shotsinto greens with the appropriate clubs those greens
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were designed for. You're going tobe more likely to get on the green,
have birdie putts, you have reasonablepars, so you figure out where
the tease you should be playing areto give you those type of shots,
and for most people that it's wayfurther forward than where they tend to play.
With another interview from the archives ofGolf Smarter, here's your host,
Fred Green. Welcome back to GolfSmarter for members only, John Paul Yep.
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Great to be here, and thankyou for sticking around for part two
of this conversation about your article,and We've just covered numbers one in three,
so I'm just going to skip aroundon these. But before we get
there, I'm curious when you writea column like this, what is the
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assignment for you? How much timedo you get or do you say,
oh, I'm going to do anarticle like this. They're all my ideas,
and that's the that's the hardest partor the key part. Maybe not
the hardest part, the most fun, but so I just come up with
these ideas. That's that's the biggestpart of my job. Assignment is to
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come up with interesting topics, right, So they don't have an assignment editor
on on on these columns. Sinceyou're not a reporter you have. I
am a reporter. I mean I'ma technical I'm a reporter, but this
is my job is to come upwith and so how much research time do
you spend before you sit down andstart typing, because clearly on each of
these points that you write, you'vetalked to somebody, Like we just finished
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on the last episode when're talking aboutScotland, you talk to somebody over there,
Hamish Gray, chief executive of theScottish Golf Union about you know,
pace of play there, mm hmm. How much research do you do?
Well, it depends on the article. I travel a good bit, so
you know, when I'm interviewing peopleat different places, that's the research.
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Usually, if I have all myinformation in place, it would take a
full day to write the thing,as hard as that might be for people
to understand, and then usually apolished the next morning. So if I
have to do one a week,that leaves the rest of the week to
come up with the ideas to arrangetravel, to do travel, to do
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calls on the phone, report readbooks, read the web, whatever whatever
I need to do for that particularplay golf. Well that's ideal, but
do you get to play very often. I do play a lot in the
spring. I like to play.I like to play in like amateur competitions,
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and I have to arrangement with mywife where I'm allowed to spend a
lot of time on golf. April, May June kind of get everything together,
and that's when my enthusiasm the greatestfor playing too, you know,
after a winter of pent up demand, and I usually put my clubs up
completely for six months a year.Do you really yeah, I could,
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well, I see, living inCalifornia, I don't have to worry about
that. But I did it oneseason a couple of years ago. I
ended the season with some elbow issuesand I thought, you know, I'm
just going to try to do whatthey do in these and just get forced
myself to not play. I wasgoing crazy. Actually, nobody wanted me
to be around the house. Wellthat's uh. I enjoy it for some
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reason. I like the the vacationfrom playing. I guess because I'm always
writing about golf anyway. Yeah,and then that boy, but about this
time of year, there's a lotof pent up demand. Yeah, we're
about to have the clocks change lightduring later in the day and the best
time. I can't wait to getback out there. Yeah. Did you
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play competitively when you were young?No, So this competitive thing is is
as an adult. Yeah, Iplayed. I played just a little bit
when I was a kid, likeseventh and eighth grade. I grew up
in fourth Texas and there were reallyonly two sports in Texas when I was
growing up, and that was footballand spring football. M Yeah, in
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Texas, That's where I put allmy emphasis on playing football. But seventh
and eighth grade summers, you know, some moms would take us out through
four or five. I was immuniat the edge of town and we played,
so I had a little bit ofa feel for the game, but
I didn't know take it up untilmy thirties. I probably hadn't played twenty
rounds of my life before I wasstruck dead by it. Yeah, thirty
three or something, right, Andhere I am doing a podcast for the
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same basic reasons like I got struckdead. It was like I need to
ask people questions. I have somany questions. Wait, I'm a recording
guy. I can interview them.Ended up with a podcast. Seven years
later, I'm still doing the podcast. Yeah, I was. I just
sort of drifted into golf writing becauseI was so enthused by playing it a
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freelance writer and I hadn't written sportsat all, but it was a great
subject too to write about because there'sso many different elements to it, the
emotional, the mental, the Ithink that's why, like golf books,
golf movies, Yeah, golf movies. There's certain sports that do work,
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you know, that translate well tothe written word or visual. You know,
Baseball seems to golf seems to football, not so much, basketball not
so much, you know, likeboxing does m You know, there's certain
things that work and certain that doesn't. Golf works great in a written word.
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I think it's not as successful inmovies because it's hard to portray the
mental maschinations that are going on ina movie. Yeah, Golf in the
Kingdom there's a good example for that. They finally, after thirty years,
they finally produced a movie came outthis year, and from what I understand,
I didn't get to see it,but I did not hear good things
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about it. You have to it'sit's uh. I talked to the producer
about that and the director, andit's it's an art movie. You have
to you have to understand that it'san art movie, and if you go
in with that expectation, it's Ithink it's it's a fun movie to watch,
but it's it's not intended to bea Hollywood mass produced you know,
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like Bulderham or tin Cup or tinCup or something. It's it's the greatest
along in the little little art moviein the bohemian section of your town,
along with French cinema, right right, that's the kind of movie it is.
Did you read the book The Matchby Mark Frost? Yes? I
hope that's a movie sometime. Yeah, I thought that was it. Yeah,
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he actually came on the show,and after I read the book,
I was so blown away by thebook. When he came when I said,
okay, tell the story, I'llI won't ask any questions, just
talk. And he's got such abeautiful voice, and it was what a
great story that was. I wonderif Cyprus Point will allow them to shoot
the movie there means doubtful, doubtfulvery much. So what's your index about
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A? Four? Wow? Goodfor you? Yep, I love it.
Well, that's one reason I gotinvolved in it and took it up.
This because I sort of had aknack for it. It makes anything
more enjoyable when you kind of havea knack for it. Well, that
pings me too, point number threeof your article. I do come back
to these things. Add is severe, but I do come back to these
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things. You're saying that a tenhandicapper should shoot ten over par. Now
handicap rating slope. I know thatwe we look at these things, but
I don't know if anybody really knowswhat they mean. It's hard to explain.
Yeah, it's true most people thataren't golfers, if or have a
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vague awareness of golf, if youtell them you're a ten handicap or four.
If they say, oh, soyou shoot ten over par. If
it's a par seventy two course,you're going to shoot an eighty two on
average. But that's not what handicapsare meant to capture. They're meant to
capture your potential to shoot a goodround. So in a competition with other
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people, they know they predict whereif you shoot your best round, how
well you might score. They're onlybased as most golfers who have handicaps know
on the ten best of your mosttwenty recent rounds. So already the averages
they predict is is just your bestscores. Then that's tweaked according to certain
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formulas incorporating the difficulty of the coursethat you happen to be playing in both
the slope fashion and a course ratingfashion, and it produces an average that
you should shoot on average once everyfive rounds that that score better. So
it's an aspirational score more than it'sa interest average score. Yeah, And
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I think that's another issue that peoplearen't really don't really understand about golf that,
you know, especially people who whoare starting the game, think they're
going to get better every time theycome out and play. And you've got
to accept the fact that, asyou said, you know, every five
rounds, just every round, youcan go ten twelve strokes either direction on
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any given day. And I thinkthat's why they play four rounds in a
row in a tournament. Although youknow, if you have an accurate handicap
based on you know, your realrecent scores, you don't really vary as
much as you'd think. I don'tthink you really do go twelve strokes in
either directions from your average score,not your handicaps. Sco Okay, my
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average okay, yeah, so whatdo you think five or six strokes?
Yeah, more more like three tofive strokes in need the direction depending on
your handicap, right, depending onyour handicap, right, you can you
can't go beyond that, But there'sa bell curve where very few of your
scores are really going to be beyondthree to five strokes. In need the
direction from your average score, notyour handicap, but your average score.
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When you go to a new golfcourse, well, I guess if you're
a four, you're going to playfrom the from the back teas no matter
what. But oh no, there'sno reason to play from the back teas.
Okay, so no, it's notwell unless you use it to your
advantage. Because if you you know, would normally play, say the the
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white teas if it's you know,uh, blue gold white. Let's just
say it's that way, and youusually play the white, and you're going
to hit yourself into the bunker,into the water. But if you move
all the way back, you're notgoing to reach that trouble. Yeah,
well you should play I mean thist at forward movement which is out there
now that the USGA and the PGAof America are pushing is absolutely brilliant.
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And the idea is that what youwant to do, you want to play
from the tees that create the approachshots into the green that are the most
fun to have. Which would bewhich would see which would be the approach
shots where you're using sort of thesame club that maybe the pros would be
using into their greens. So ona long part, four four eighty yards
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on the PGA, too, arethe most of the pros are using pitching
wedges to eight irons into the greens. Now they hit those pitching wedges and
eight irons farther than we hit ourpitching wedges and eight irons. But so
to have the maximum amount of fun, the greens are created to accept shots,
you know, with the risk rewardswith with you know, a wedge
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or a nine iron or a seveniron at the most, and so you're
going to have a lot more funyou're going to have. It's a lot
less frustrating it if you're hitting shotsinto greens with the appropriate clubs those greens
were designed for, you're going tobe more likely to get on the green,
have birdie putts, you have reasonablepars, so you figure out you
know, where the teas you shouldbe playing or to give you those type
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of shots. And for most people, it's way far further forward than where
they tend to play because they wantto see the whole course. So then
they're hitting three woods into those,you know, or getting into the or
two irons or getting there in three, and it's it's not nearly as much
fun. It's too much at There'ssomething in the in the mentality that golfers
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are used to playing as far backas they can, and they're really cheating
themselves. They are from not havingSo when you get to a course that
you've not played before, what factorsdo you review to help you determine which
tea you're going to play from.Well, I am a four handicap and
I'm actually I am sixty four,and I just happen to be pretty long
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hitter for me, you know.So it's not like I find I enjoy
courses around sixty five sixty six hundredyards. I can. I can hit
a pretty decent, you know,two thirty two fifty yard to sixty yard
t shot if I hit it prettywell, I mean I really can do
that. Yeah, sure you can. Well, we're going to lead into
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that one we're going to get tonext. But I mean that's I think
I really am a little bit unusualbecause most people don't hit it that far.
Uh, And I'm not bragging,it's just the way I am.
So I look for tees generally thatare around sixty five hundred yards. Most
people, in reality, most meneighteen handicappers, should be playing courses that
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are much closer to six thousand yardsto have the maximum amount of fun and
competition, and you know that they'dbe enjoy golful lot more from those distances.
See now, for me, Ilike to what I think is compare
apples to apples. So I willlook at the rating slope of a golf
course, especially the slope, andthat helps me determine what teas I'm going
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to be playing from because yardage.I have two courses that I play regularly
here in Marin County. One ismuch longer than the other, but the
shorter one. If you don't havea good short game, you're going to
be on a green that's going torequire three maybe four putts. You know,
if you can't get close enough tothe hole on your short game,
and it's a shorter course, butit's all about having a very strong short
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game in metal. Yeah, sothat's very smart. That's exactly how you
should think about it. Yeah,I don't look at the yardage. I
just don't get there for it becausethose greens were designed to be the challenge
of that course. It sounds likeit's in the greens, and so you
really want to be hitting into thosegreens with clubs that you can control enough
to put it in the right partof those greens rather than just reach the
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greens. I've not heard of you. Yeah, I've not heard about t
at forward. Who's who's doing Iwant to I want to do a whole
thing on that. Well, well, yeah, it's great. Well the
guy you should have on is BarneyAdams, who's the started Adams Golf.
He's retired, although now that AdamsGolf was recently purchase by purchased, he's
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now in the interim CEO. Butit was his idea basically, it's sort
of like I explained it just now. Yeah, and he's put out a
white paper last year and called aroundadvocated. I wrote a column about it,
among other people. You know,he's wanted one publicity for it.
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He's a sort of a statesman ofthe game. Doesn't have a vested financial
interest in this at all. It'she's retired as Adam's CEO. But the
PGA of America and the USGA bothagreed with him and teamed up. They
don't usually team up on things,and they're they're supporting it. There's a
week every summer from where they areasking courses to to emphasize it and put
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up posters and just put teas inthe ground where people you know, could
be playing from. And it's evenBarney said it's going to take five years
at least for the attitudes to changeand people to understand they really will have
more fun playing golf from these appropriateteas. But it's just hard people you
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know that you pay your money,you want to see the full course.
Or there's just the male usually it'sthe male ego that just wants to stupidly
long teas that they just it justit makes golf not as much fun,
it makes makes it last longer,it makes people quit. Yep, yep.
Well, as he said that there'sa white paper that he wrote,
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is that can I google out andfind it? Yeah, you should be
able to find that I will definitelydo that, and it laid leads me.
Now part of your conversation leads meinto one of your other uh huge
delusions, huge delusions, and thatis cool. You write quote, I
hit my drives about two hundred andseventy yards. I love your first comment.
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Ha, all right, it's reallytrue. I mean that's people people
probably have hit a two hundred andseventy yard drive in their lifetime downhill with
the wind. A lot of people. Yeah, I think I wrote it
downhill with the wind behind you ona bone dry, yeah, rock hard
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fairway when the ball bounced off acard path and on his and a squirrel
advanced at an extra ten yard right. So that's what people remember, you
know, and they say, oh, that's how far I hit my drive
or two fifty. I mean alot of people think, you know,
I hit two fifty. That's Icarry it too, fifty, you know.
But Dave Pelt, the short GameGuru, borrowed the full PGA Tours
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shot Link equipment system and software andhas camped out. I think it's the
four years now at the Myrtle BeachWorld Amateur Pro Tournament, where they have
three thousand amateurs competing every remember whatmonth it is. And the good thing
about that is they flight people accordingto their handicaps, so they had,
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you know, a course. Thereare many courses that are used, but
like this course on this day isonly ten handicappers and twenty handicappers on another
day and another course thirty handicappers andscratch players. They have them all and
over four or five years, he'saccumulated date on thousands of amateurs playing in
these tournaments. And it's it's thesame realistic to the inch measurements that the
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PGA Tour uses in its shot linksystem for the pros determining how long they
hit their drives and their accuracy onapproach shots. And he has compiled the
numbers and this, and he foundout how far various handicap golfers actually do
hit their drives and it's brutal.People are people are going to be already
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disappointed when they hear it. AndI assume you and your listeners would like
to hear yoh, yes, theuh oh, absolutely, this is great
conversation for the golf course. Theaverage thirty handicap capper hits his drives or
her drives one hundred and sixty sixyards. Oh my, twenty handicappers average,
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and those are the ones that willtell you that that's what they hit
their five iron, right, Probablytwenty handicappers average one hundred and eighty three
yards, ten handicappers average two hundredand fourteen yards, and scratch amateurs,
these are your club champions average twohundred and thirty five yards off the tee.
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And using that same methodology, thePGA Tour pros averaged last year two
hundred and ninety one yards just byyou know, the same system of data
collection. So the brutal truth ofthe matter. Yeah, well thanks a
lot, buddy, Like we neededthat. There are a couple of a
couple of caveats. One is,in all the years that he's been measuring,
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there was one thirty handicapper that hada recorded drive of two hundred and
seventy two yards, So that provesthe point. You know, it can
be done. He maybe in akid that didn't know how to play very
well, but you know, waslong and it can be done. So
it's not like you won't hit that. And I think the one sixty six
yard average for thirty handicappers may beskewed by just awful. You know,
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top to drive that goes thirty yards, that's probably in the database. So
it's it's it's you know, themedian would probably be a more interesting number,
which he didn't. Right, Arethose drives that go one hundred and
fifty yards this way and seventy yardsthat way? Well, isn't this isn't
compared to accuracy if they go inhundred and sixty six years dead left that
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records that. But anyway, it'sit's, uh, it's it's the truth
that people just don't hit the ballas long as they think they do.
You actually, in that point thatyou were making, you threw one in
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under your breath, which I thoughtcould have been a whole different point.
I want to make sure that Iwas reading this correctly. And you said,
on no subject are golfers, especiallymale golfers, more deluded than on
distance They hit their drives with thepossible exception of their attractiveness to beverage cart
personnel. So you're saying that they, ye oh, she's she likes me.
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Yeah, she thinks I'm hot.Yeah, And you start those hot
young college girls are attracted to overweight, middle aged man you just know it.
Who are smell like you know,old cigar smoking beer, right,
crusty fear, very funny, veryfunny piece. So then you you get
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into a couple of no, actuallyI want to go to this one first.
That business people play golf so thatthey can make deals on the course,
and I uh, we talked aboutthis a long time ago on the
show, and that is really false. You don't do deals on a golf
course, yeah you you. Businessgolf is designed or serves its best function
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when you you get to know somebody. It's it's built. It's about building
relationships. That's what it's about.Yep. And it's great you in this
hairy world. Very seldom you getfour or five relaxed fun hours outdoors with
somebody, uh that you can getto know is on a golf course,
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and there's usually a meal involved beforeafterwards you it's it's a friendship, or
even if it's not a friendship,it's as a relationship and you learn a
lot about them, for better forworse. Can work both ways, certainly,
And then once you have a relationship, you understand each other, you
know who each other is. Thenyou can pick up the phone later and
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you know, you have a basisto your calls get returned. And well,
it's so true that nothing exposes charactermore than a round of golf.
And the way as a self employedperson, the way I take advantage of
business on the golf course is I'mgoing to go out and play with this
person and decide if I want todo business with this person and watch the
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way they play and and you know, watch their attitude, watch their their
language, you know there, howshort their fuse is, all these things.
It's like, dude, I reallywant to do business with this guy
because I'm not liking the way he'shandling himself here today. Mm hmm.
Or if you're already doing business withthem, then you know what maybe to
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watch out for, yeah, tobe a little wary of or and it
works the other way. This isa guy I can really trust. Yeah,
yep, So yeah, that wasThat's a great point again, another
delusion that no, I think nongolfers have about about golf. I think
that I would think that most golfersunderstand the just there's no time to talk
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about business when you're on the golfcourse, right right, You're talking about
your last shot and your next shot, And rarely are you listening to the
other guy talk about his last shotor his next shot. You was talking
about your own. Yeah. That'sone of the other truisms is that you
should never be embarrassed about a shotyou hit because nobody really was paying any
Like if you hit this one hundredand eighty yard shot that you know,
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carried the sand in the water andlanded softly on the green, rolled and
is six feet away, and you'reyou're totally stoked, and this guy you
know, chunked it and it rolledeighteen feet to the left, and that's
all he wants to talk about.You go, yeah, but I had
that. I don't care. Therewas a famous story about Ben Hogan.
I can't remember who he was playingwith, but he played the number twelve
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at Augussa in the master's round andI think the other guy maybe he hit
a hole in one or hit itto like one inch, or I think
he hit a hole in one andHogan said nothing about it. And I
can't remember the story. But asthey were walking off, the other guy
said something and Ben Hogan's an interestinghole han Hogan said, yeah, I've
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never never. Yeah, I don'ttoo put that hole very often just about
him. He hadn't even noticed thehole in one right exactly what about me?
Well, I told that story reallybad. I'm not going to edit
it though. And then you talkabout Ben Hogan and one of the things
that seems to be talked about,especially on this show. It's so interesting.
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One of the things that I doabout this show is when I bring
golf instructors on. I found thatmost golf instructors feel that they have found
the secret, that they know thekey that's going to make every golfer better,
and they're absolutely convinced they are right. So what I try to do
is say, look, I'm goingto give you the soapbox. You climb
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on board, and you scream outas loud as you want, saying what
your method is. I'm not goingto judge you. I'm going to ask
you some questions. I'm let theaudience decide for themselves if they think you're
full of crapper, that you're forreal. And so many times have we
heard people say that I have discoveredBen Hogan's secret. Yeah, well they
(27:48):
may have, because there were alot of Ben Hogan's secrets. He had
secrets. If you want to callit that, but they weren't really that
secret because he let them out overthe years, different ways, in different
places. And the other main factor, though, is that those are the
secrets that work for Ben Hogan,and they may work for you. But
(28:11):
the final word, as far asI'm concerned about Ben Hogan's secrets, what
he set himself in which you've hearda thousand times, it is just the
secrets in the dirt, and hemeant he found it by hitting, you
know, learning what he needed.How he started off with an awful hook,
he figured out how to solve thathook, hit a control flight that
didn't really even fade, just kindof moved a little bit left to right.
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But by in the dirt, hehit thousands and thousands, millions of
balls and he found out what workedfor him. And that's the secret,
really is what works for you?What works for you? Yeah, that
is the secret, and it's goingand you've got it, and there's no
way to get there without working hardto find it. And it can can
(28:55):
include some instructions, some work withthe tea. But actually what I wrote
my column about last week was abouthow hard it is that a thirty minute
lesson where they tell you what worksis not really going to be effective at
all, because it's all of learninga new thing, is all about taking
(29:21):
it from this concept and making itpart of your of your being. And
the pros, you hear them say, well, I'm making a swing change.
It's going to take a year towork it into my into my system.
That's the way it works. Sothe pros they understand themselves better and
how knowledge has passed along and they'replaying all day long, every single day,
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right, and it takes them atleast a year. I mean,
we've watched Tiger go through swing changesand how long it's taken for it to
succeed, if it even has.What does happen on in a lesson is
if you're, say, slicing,an instructor, a good instructor, even
not so good instructor can it's prettyobvious to them why you're slicing. They
can tell you a thing that willhelp you slice sless you know, might
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reduce a twenty five yard slice toa twelve yard slice, or and at
the end of that lesson, you'reprobably going to be slicing twelve yards instead
of twenty five yards. They canmake that change. They can fix something,
but it and I've taught I talkedto some people for this article and
experts on neuroscience and the way peoplelearn and and bring these things into themselves.
(30:36):
And that's just there's no chance that'syou don't understand anything, you haven't
gotten anything. It's all about bringingthat into your game. And it takes
lots of lots of different types ofpractice. Smart practice practice is not really
fun, not just hitting balls,but hitting balls in different circumstances, hitting
balls and different lies, hitting youknow, coming at it many many different
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days, from different perspectives, hittingit in ways like on one leg,
or things where you're failing, butyou're beginning to understand the move, you
know. So there are many manypathways that your brain can attached to it
and bring it forward rather than justa memory of one range session, and
then over time it becomes second nature. But it's a long it's necessarily an
(31:26):
absolutely a long process, and peopleunderestimate that and they think that if they
fix it on the range after alesson, they're going to get that they've
got it, and they don't haveit. And then we're deluged by training
aids products golf channel, golf digests, write magazines, newspapers. There's just
(31:49):
so much YouTube. There is somuch content bombarding us on how to improve,
and yet it may not be relevantto what we do at all.
It's distracting, Totally distracting. That'sthe word I'm looking for you. You
if you get a good lesson,a good good tip, I mean a
(32:13):
tip can be useful, yep,but you have to integrate it, and
you've got you're going to get madlyfrustrated before it becomes second nature. And
then you're going to see another tipand you're going to substitute that tip for
this tip, and you know you'renever going to get better. And that's
part of the problem that I havewith this show is that I'm getting I'm
doing interviews every week and I'm I'mgetting all these great little tidbits and TIMPs,
(32:36):
and I'm like, oh, Ishould own I don't do that.
Just stop. They're not wrong.No, most advice you get is not
wrong. It's just that it's likestep one of one hundred in order to
get better. It's like it's likeit's just the first step. What you
need is one of the terms forit is is deliberate practice where you're working
(32:59):
on one aspect of something or thein the total look of your game.
You know, the thing that you'reworst at, not the thing your best
at. When people go to therange, they often you know, had
one hundred balls of the thing theirbest at and which doesn't really help,
doesn't help you learn it. Myfavorite is when they pull out the driver
first thing. It's like, really, it's just not you look at the
(33:22):
way the best coaches have their whatpeople one of this guy named is It's
a wonderful book I could recommend please. This guy named Rick Jensen wrote a
book called It's j E N SE N. And it's called uh,
(33:50):
I'm sorry, Easier said than done, Okay, And basically what he's saying
is that the whole paradigm of howpeople learn is just wrong, and it's
what people need is not instructors.They need coaches the way they have coaches
and other sports you have to getlike in other sports football, basketball,
(34:12):
very little is on how to dosomething. It's all about sending them out
to scrimmage, watching them in practice, you know, in the heat of
the moment, you know, givingdrills that you can make these things work.
You know, it's not like theactual technique of shooting a basketball.
It's it's it's the it's coaching.And he says that's the paradigm that the
golf needs to switch to if peopleare really going to improve, and it's
(34:36):
and it's possible. The idea wouldbe maybe you'd get your local pro,
you get a lesson, but youyou and they would be happy to do
this, but golfers don't ask forit, generally speaking. And you maybe
have one or two less you know, a month, But then they give
you drills. They they interview youafter you've played and where you failed,
they give you lots of en coursepractice if you can find ways to hit
(34:59):
from rough and you know, lotsof things, lots of drills of the
of the types that aren't much funto do. But if you really want
to get better, that's what it'sgoing to take. And it's not learning
you know, more than one newthing every month. It's it's learning one
new thing and then and then practiceget it in lots of different ways until
it becomes second nature to you.And the book is called Easier Said than
(35:21):
Done, The Undeniable Tour Tested Truthsyou must know and apply to finally play
to your potential on the golf course. By doctor Rick Jensen. Mm hmm,
there you go. Very good,very good books. Yeah, all
right, well, thank you forthe recommendation. You had nine things that
(35:43):
people say about the game that aren'ttrue and one that is. We've covered
six of them. I want toI'm going to skip a couple of those
tour related myths and go right tonumber ten, the one that you feel
is the truth. Pride for show, putt for dough. Yep, yeah,
that really seems to be the case. Yeah, really enough set huh.
(36:06):
But no, you had to dosome research on that, Yeah,
I did. I actually had theTour shot link people run some data for
me specifically how cool is that?And they found that they've there's a new
putting statistic called putts gained putting strokesgained putting, which is a terrific statistic.
(36:29):
They just started it last year officially, and it's basically compared to the
field playing in any tournament that dayat that tournament, and because they have
these shot links, they record,you know, from every inch, how
how far people are putting, andthe results of each putt. It's an
(36:49):
amazing data set, but they cantell who actually buy their putting prowess,
gained strokes on the field or loststrokes on the field. So the winner
of a tournament might I think RoryMcElroy last week gained three points three strokes
per round on the field, whichis just purely based on his putting ability
(37:10):
that week. That's fascinating. Yeah, it's a great statistic. They only
started last year, but they havethe data for it going back to two
thousand and four because they've been recordingshot link data that long. They just
hadn't calculated, and they found thatamong the there were three hundred and twenty
three tour winners in that time tournamentsthat were won, and only eleven of
(37:34):
those winners led the field in drivingdistance compared with forty seven who led the
field in strokes gained putting. Butthe winner is one thing. Even among
the top ten, it was Ithink it was thirty seven percent were in
the top ten in putts game inputting this putting statistic over that time,
(38:01):
and only I think three percent we'rein driving distance of the winner of the
top ten finishers. So it's muchmore predictive of winning now and on the
negative side too, the in termsof people who finished outside the top thirty
(38:22):
in driving distance the winners third ofthe winners didn't even finish in the top
thirty in driving distance, whereas onlythirteen percent of the winners finished outside the
top thirty. And putting, Soit's statistical proof that putting is really where
it's at. And how does so? Now you have all that statistics about
(38:42):
the tour, how does that translateor is it that obvious how it translates
to us the recreational golfer? Well, or what's the lesson we need to
learn? Well, the lesson whichI don't think anybody really doubts or is
that, in terms of just improvingyour score, working on your your short
(39:06):
game in general and your putting inparticular is the fastest surest way to improve
your score. And I and Ifeel and really the thesis behind this entire
program is that if you have astrong mental game and you understand strategy,
you can also have a better opportunityin a faster path to lowering your score
(39:30):
and just working on your h Now, I say, I think I qualified
that as thing if if you reallyare interested in improving your score, because
I mean, there is an undeniablepleasure in just hitting the ball a long
way or no question, you know, so that's that's a legitimate goal and
desire in golf that you can't overcome, I think, even not just hitting
(39:53):
the ball a long way, butthere's this feeling of compression on the ball,
that the feeling where you you know, with an iron that you you
hit down, you compress it andthe ball just goes in that just delicious
way that every golfer knows. Justconsistently having that feeling of compression and hitting
solid shots, I mean, thatis an exquisite pleasure in playing golf that
(40:19):
really doesn't necessarily have to have anythingto do with score, right, well
and right. And as a recordingengineer by trade, the sound of a
great golf shot is you know,you know it when you hear it,
you're like, oh, that soundedgreat, and you also like, oh
(40:40):
you hit that thin, didn't you? You know, right, the sounds
of the club hitting the ball,they're definitely translatable. It's it's part of
the pleasure, there's no question aboutit. Yeah. Yeah, But in
terms of score, if you wantto if you want to just really beat
your buddies and lower your handicap.But game, the very worst thing that
(41:01):
amateurs do putting wise is long lagputts, and that's the thing where you
can probably get the most improvement doingyou know, drills where you you try
to hit it five yards five feetpast and then five feet short, and
then even with the whole from twentyfeet and then thirty feet and forty.
(41:22):
People don't really practice that very much, but you can avoid three putts.
That's that's sort of the worst putting. That's the most improvable putting aspect for
most amateurs, according to Dave Pelt, Yeah, sure, I find it
fascinating when they're getting ready or whena tournament has started on television and you
see guys who are warming up becausethere are tea times coming up, and
(41:43):
they're on the practice putting green.Where when I watch people on the practice
putting green amateurs, they'll do athree footer, then they'll go back and
do a twenty footer, and thenthey'll do you know, another three footer
and a five footer, and thenyou know they're all over the place.
Where when you're watching these guys practicingon tour, preparing for their round,
they'll stand at six or seven feetwith twenty balls over and over over.
(42:07):
It's the same length, over andover and over. Then they'll move to
another length. I'm fascinating. It'slike, just work on the one thing,
don't you know, because you're notreally learning anything by going all over
the place, nor are you gettinga sense about the speed of the greens.
(42:28):
You know, you think you mightbe. But doctor Joseph Parent of
Zen golf Is said to me onceon the show that and I've taken,
I use it forever is your ownpersonal stimt meter, right, And so
what I do is, I'll goout to a practice putt and green.
(42:49):
First I'll ask, are your practiceputting greens pretty similar to your greens out
there? Yeah, there generally are, because they're maintained by the same people
and they're cut the same way,so generally they're close. So what I'll
do is I'll find a flat spoton the green, I'll take three balls.
I won't pick up my head,i won't look at the balls,
i won't even pick a target.I'll just take three of my most natural
strokes in a row and see ifall three balls end up around the same
(43:12):
spot. And then I'll step themoff. And if I step it off
and it's only four paces, thisis a pretty slow green. If there
are nine paces, this is apretty fast green. So you know,
someone tell me, yeah, wellwe got thirteen on the Stimman is like,
I have no idea what that meansto me. So I have to
set my own stimp meter, likefrom course to course, Like, Okay,
(43:34):
I know these are pretty fast,so I'm gonna have to hit a
little be a little more aggressive inthe way I hit today, or really
pull back, which is terrifying whenyou you know, you know you try
to do that. But that helpsme. Yeah, I like that.
I'd never never heard of that conceptof creating your own personal stump meter,
but that sounds like a very goodidea. Well there's your next column.
(43:58):
It reminds me. I know.Ben Crenshaw, who was one of the
greatest putters ever on the PGA Tour, used to didn't practice a lot of
putting before around. But what hedid was he didn't usually put to holes.
He would just swing, get afeel for his stroke without a ball,
and then just start stroking balls,sometimes with his eyes closed, sometimes
with his eyes open, but justto get the feel and then watch them
(44:22):
roll out to get a feel ofthe greens and his stroke and the smoothness.
It was very zen like his way. Interesting. Interesting. Well.
I highly advise everyone to track downthe article if you want to hear more
about what John Paul had to sayabout these myths. But even more so,
I recommend that you check them outweekly on the Wall Street Journal.
(44:45):
And you're online with the Wall StreetJournal as well. Right, yes,
that's right. There is a paywallat the Wall Street Journal, but most
of my columns are available outside thepaywall. Oh congratulations. Good for that.
If not, If not, youcan follow me on Twitter JP at
JP Newport. I don't really tweetvery much. I'm not like an avid
(45:05):
Twitter, but I do put alink up to my column every week so
that people that don't have the paywallwhen they're behind it can get to it.
Yeah. Tweeting, I uh yeah, it's a whole other topic.
John Paul Newport, thank you somuch for spending all this time with I
think that you and I can probablytalk for another two hours and maybe we'll
(45:28):
get a chance on the golf coursesomeday. Thanks a lot for coming on
to golf smarter you bet I enjoyedit very much. 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
(00:21):
that are no longer available in anypodcast app. This tea at forward movement,
which is out there now that theUSGA and the PGA of America are
pushing, is absolutely brilliant. Theidea is, you want to play from
the tees that create the approach shotsinto the greens that are the most fun
to have, which would be theapproach shots where you're using the same club
(00:42):
that maybe the pros would be usinginto their greens. On a long part
four, most of the pros areusing pitching wedges to eight irons into the
greens to have the maximum amount offun. The greens are created to accept
shot with a wedge or a nineiron or a seven iron at the most,
and so you're going to have alot more fun. You'd be a
lot less frustrating if you're hitting shotsinto greens with the appropriate clubs those greens
(01:06):
were designed for. You're going tobe more likely to get on the green,
have birdie putts, you have reasonablepars, so you figure out where
the tease you should be playing areto give you those type of shots,
and for most people that it's wayfurther forward than where they tend to play.
With another interview from the archives ofGolf Smarter, here's your host,
Fred Green. Welcome back to GolfSmarter for members only, John Paul Yep.
(01:30):
Great to be here, and thankyou for sticking around for part two
of this conversation about your article,and We've just covered numbers one in three,
so I'm just going to skip aroundon these. But before we get
there, I'm curious when you writea column like this, what is the
(01:51):
assignment for you? How much timedo you get or do you say,
oh, I'm going to do anarticle like this. They're all my ideas,
and that's the that's the hardest partor the key part. Maybe not
the hardest part, the most fun, but so I just come up with
these ideas. That's that's the biggestpart of my job. Assignment is to
(02:12):
come up with interesting topics, right, So they don't have an assignment editor
on on on these columns. Sinceyou're not a reporter you have. I
am a reporter. I mean I'ma technical I'm a reporter, but this
is my job is to come upwith and so how much research time do
you spend before you sit down andstart typing, because clearly on each of
these points that you write, you'vetalked to somebody, Like we just finished
(02:35):
on the last episode when're talking aboutScotland, you talk to somebody over there,
Hamish Gray, chief executive of theScottish Golf Union about you know,
pace of play there, mm hmm. How much research do you do?
Well, it depends on the article. I travel a good bit, so
you know, when I'm interviewing peopleat different places, that's the research.
(03:01):
Usually, if I have all myinformation in place, it would take a
full day to write the thing,as hard as that might be for people
to understand, and then usually apolished the next morning. So if I
have to do one a week,that leaves the rest of the week to
come up with the ideas to arrangetravel, to do travel, to do
(03:25):
calls on the phone, report readbooks, read the web, whatever whatever
I need to do for that particularplay golf. Well that's ideal, but
do you get to play very often. I do play a lot in the
spring. I like to play.I like to play in like amateur competitions,
(03:46):
and I have to arrangement with mywife where I'm allowed to spend a
lot of time on golf. April, May June kind of get everything together,
and that's when my enthusiasm the greatestfor playing too, you know,
after a winter of pent up demand, and I usually put my clubs up
completely for six months a year.Do you really yeah, I could,
(04:08):
well, I see, living inCalifornia, I don't have to worry about
that. But I did it oneseason a couple of years ago. I
ended the season with some elbow issuesand I thought, you know, I'm
just going to try to do whatthey do in these and just get forced
myself to not play. I wasgoing crazy. Actually, nobody wanted me
to be around the house. Wellthat's uh. I enjoy it for some
(04:30):
reason. I like the the vacationfrom playing. I guess because I'm always
writing about golf anyway. Yeah,and then that boy, but about this
time of year, there's a lotof pent up demand. Yeah, we're
about to have the clocks change lightduring later in the day and the best
time. I can't wait to getback out there. Yeah. Did you
(04:54):
play competitively when you were young?No, So this competitive thing is is
as an adult. Yeah, Iplayed. I played just a little bit
when I was a kid, likeseventh and eighth grade. I grew up
in fourth Texas and there were reallyonly two sports in Texas when I was
growing up, and that was footballand spring football. M Yeah, in
(05:16):
Texas, That's where I put allmy emphasis on playing football. But seventh
and eighth grade summers, you know, some moms would take us out through
four or five. I was immuniat the edge of town and we played,
so I had a little bit ofa feel for the game, but
I didn't know take it up untilmy thirties. I probably hadn't played twenty
rounds of my life before I wasstruck dead by it. Yeah, thirty
three or something, right, Andhere I am doing a podcast for the
(05:40):
same basic reasons like I got struckdead. It was like I need to
ask people questions. I have somany questions. Wait, I'm a recording
guy. I can interview them.Ended up with a podcast. Seven years
later, I'm still doing the podcast. Yeah, I was. I just
sort of drifted into golf writing becauseI was so enthused by playing it a
(06:01):
freelance writer and I hadn't written sportsat all, but it was a great
subject too to write about because there'sso many different elements to it, the
emotional, the mental, the Ithink that's why, like golf books,
golf movies, Yeah, golf movies. There's certain sports that do work,
(06:21):
you know, that translate well tothe written word or visual. You know,
Baseball seems to golf seems to football, not so much, basketball not
so much, you know, likeboxing does m You know, there's certain
things that work and certain that doesn't. Golf works great in a written word.
(06:44):
I think it's not as successful inmovies because it's hard to portray the
mental maschinations that are going on ina movie. Yeah, Golf in the
Kingdom there's a good example for that. They finally, after thirty years,
they finally produced a movie came outthis year, and from what I understand,
I didn't get to see it,but I did not hear good things
(07:04):
about it. You have to it'sit's uh. I talked to the producer
about that and the director, andit's it's an art movie. You have
to you have to understand that it'san art movie, and if you go
in with that expectation, it's Ithink it's it's a fun movie to watch,
but it's it's not intended to bea Hollywood mass produced you know,
(07:26):
like Bulderham or tin Cup or tinCup or something. It's it's the greatest
along in the little little art moviein the bohemian section of your town,
along with French cinema, right right, that's the kind of movie it is.
Did you read the book The Matchby Mark Frost? Yes? I
hope that's a movie sometime. Yeah, I thought that was it. Yeah,
(07:46):
he actually came on the show,and after I read the book,
I was so blown away by thebook. When he came when I said,
okay, tell the story, I'llI won't ask any questions, just
talk. And he's got such abeautiful voice, and it was what a
great story that was. I wonderif Cyprus Point will allow them to shoot
the movie there means doubtful, doubtfulvery much. So what's your index about
(08:13):
A? Four? Wow? Goodfor you? Yep, I love it.
Well, that's one reason I gotinvolved in it and took it up.
This because I sort of had aknack for it. It makes anything
more enjoyable when you kind of havea knack for it. Well, that
pings me too, point number threeof your article. I do come back
to these things. Add is severe, but I do come back to these
(08:35):
things. You're saying that a tenhandicapper should shoot ten over par. Now
handicap rating slope. I know thatwe we look at these things, but
I don't know if anybody really knowswhat they mean. It's hard to explain.
Yeah, it's true most people thataren't golfers, if or have a
(08:58):
vague awareness of golf, if youtell them you're a ten handicap or four.
If they say, oh, soyou shoot ten over par. If
it's a par seventy two course,you're going to shoot an eighty two on
average. But that's not what handicapsare meant to capture. They're meant to
capture your potential to shoot a goodround. So in a competition with other
(09:22):
people, they know they predict whereif you shoot your best round, how
well you might score. They're onlybased as most golfers who have handicaps know
on the ten best of your mosttwenty recent rounds. So already the averages
they predict is is just your bestscores. Then that's tweaked according to certain
(09:43):
formulas incorporating the difficulty of the coursethat you happen to be playing in both
the slope fashion and a course ratingfashion, and it produces an average that
you should shoot on average once everyfive rounds that that score better. So
it's an aspirational score more than it'sa interest average score. Yeah, And
(10:07):
I think that's another issue that peoplearen't really don't really understand about golf that,
you know, especially people who whoare starting the game, think they're
going to get better every time theycome out and play. And you've got
to accept the fact that, asyou said, you know, every five
rounds, just every round, youcan go ten twelve strokes either direction on
(10:31):
any given day. And I thinkthat's why they play four rounds in a
row in a tournament. Although youknow, if you have an accurate handicap
based on you know, your realrecent scores, you don't really vary as
much as you'd think. I don'tthink you really do go twelve strokes in
either directions from your average score,not your handicaps. Sco Okay, my
(10:56):
average okay, yeah, so whatdo you think five or six strokes?
Yeah, more more like three tofive strokes in need the direction depending on
your handicap, right, depending onyour handicap, right, you can you
can't go beyond that, But there'sa bell curve where very few of your
scores are really going to be beyondthree to five strokes. In need the
direction from your average score, notyour handicap, but your average score.
(11:24):
When you go to a new golfcourse, well, I guess if you're
a four, you're going to playfrom the from the back teas no matter
what. But oh no, there'sno reason to play from the back teas.
Okay, so no, it's notwell unless you use it to your
advantage. Because if you you know, would normally play, say the the
(11:45):
white teas if it's you know,uh, blue gold white. Let's just
say it's that way, and youusually play the white, and you're going
to hit yourself into the bunker,into the water. But if you move
all the way back, you're notgoing to reach that trouble. Yeah,
well you should play I mean thist at forward movement which is out there
now that the USGA and the PGAof America are pushing is absolutely brilliant.
(12:11):
And the idea is that what youwant to do, you want to play
from the tees that create the approachshots into the green that are the most
fun to have. Which would bewhich would see which would be the approach
shots where you're using sort of thesame club that maybe the pros would be
using into their greens. So ona long part, four four eighty yards
(12:35):
on the PGA, too, arethe most of the pros are using pitching
wedges to eight irons into the greens. Now they hit those pitching wedges and
eight irons farther than we hit ourpitching wedges and eight irons. But so
to have the maximum amount of fun, the greens are created to accept shots,
you know, with the risk rewardswith with you know, a wedge
(12:56):
or a nine iron or a seveniron at the most, and so you're
going to have a lot more funyou're going to have. It's a lot
less frustrating it if you're hitting shotsinto greens with the appropriate clubs those greens
were designed for, you're going tobe more likely to get on the green,
have birdie putts, you have reasonablepars, so you figure out you
know, where the teas you shouldbe playing or to give you those type
(13:20):
of shots. And for most people, it's way far further forward than where
they tend to play because they wantto see the whole course. So then
they're hitting three woods into those,you know, or getting into the or
two irons or getting there in three, and it's it's not nearly as much
fun. It's too much at There'ssomething in the in the mentality that golfers
(13:43):
are used to playing as far backas they can, and they're really cheating
themselves. They are from not havingSo when you get to a course that
you've not played before, what factorsdo you review to help you determine which
tea you're going to play from.Well, I am a four handicap and
I'm actually I am sixty four,and I just happen to be pretty long
(14:05):
hitter for me, you know.So it's not like I find I enjoy
courses around sixty five sixty six hundredyards. I can. I can hit
a pretty decent, you know,two thirty two fifty yard to sixty yard
t shot if I hit it prettywell, I mean I really can do
that. Yeah, sure you can. Well, we're going to lead into
(14:26):
that one we're going to get tonext. But I mean that's I think
I really am a little bit unusualbecause most people don't hit it that far.
Uh, And I'm not bragging,it's just the way I am.
So I look for tees generally thatare around sixty five hundred yards. Most
people, in reality, most meneighteen handicappers, should be playing courses that
(14:50):
are much closer to six thousand yardsto have the maximum amount of fun and
competition, and you know that they'dbe enjoy golful lot more from those distances.
See now, for me, Ilike to what I think is compare
apples to apples. So I willlook at the rating slope of a golf
course, especially the slope, andthat helps me determine what teas I'm going
(15:13):
to be playing from because yardage.I have two courses that I play regularly
here in Marin County. One ismuch longer than the other, but the
shorter one. If you don't havea good short game, you're going to
be on a green that's going torequire three maybe four putts. You know,
if you can't get close enough tothe hole on your short game,
and it's a shorter course, butit's all about having a very strong short
(15:39):
game in metal. Yeah, sothat's very smart. That's exactly how you
should think about it. Yeah,I don't look at the yardage. I
just don't get there for it becausethose greens were designed to be the challenge
of that course. It sounds likeit's in the greens, and so you
really want to be hitting into thosegreens with clubs that you can control enough
to put it in the right partof those greens rather than just reach the
(16:00):
greens. I've not heard of you. Yeah, I've not heard about t
at forward. Who's who's doing Iwant to I want to do a whole
thing on that. Well, well, yeah, it's great. Well the
guy you should have on is BarneyAdams, who's the started Adams Golf.
He's retired, although now that AdamsGolf was recently purchase by purchased, he's
(16:21):
now in the interim CEO. Butit was his idea basically, it's sort
of like I explained it just now. Yeah, and he's put out a
white paper last year and called aroundadvocated. I wrote a column about it,
among other people. You know,he's wanted one publicity for it.
(16:41):
He's a sort of a statesman ofthe game. Doesn't have a vested financial
interest in this at all. It'she's retired as Adam's CEO. But the
PGA of America and the USGA bothagreed with him and teamed up. They
don't usually team up on things,and they're they're supporting it. There's a
week every summer from where they areasking courses to to emphasize it and put
(17:03):
up posters and just put teas inthe ground where people you know, could
be playing from. And it's evenBarney said it's going to take five years
at least for the attitudes to changeand people to understand they really will have
more fun playing golf from these appropriateteas. But it's just hard people you
(17:23):
know that you pay your money,you want to see the full course.
Or there's just the male usually it'sthe male ego that just wants to stupidly
long teas that they just it justit makes golf not as much fun,
it makes makes it last longer,it makes people quit. Yep, yep.
Well, as he said that there'sa white paper that he wrote,
(17:44):
is that can I google out andfind it? Yeah, you should be
able to find that I will definitelydo that, and it laid leads me.
Now part of your conversation leads meinto one of your other uh huge
delusions, huge delusions, and thatis cool. You write quote, I
hit my drives about two hundred andseventy yards. I love your first comment.
(18:04):
Ha, all right, it's reallytrue. I mean that's people people
probably have hit a two hundred andseventy yard drive in their lifetime downhill with
the wind. A lot of people. Yeah, I think I wrote it
downhill with the wind behind you ona bone dry, yeah, rock hard
(18:26):
fairway when the ball bounced off acard path and on his and a squirrel
advanced at an extra ten yard right. So that's what people remember, you
know, and they say, oh, that's how far I hit my drive
or two fifty. I mean alot of people think, you know,
I hit two fifty. That's Icarry it too, fifty, you know.
But Dave Pelt, the short GameGuru, borrowed the full PGA Tours
(18:52):
shot Link equipment system and software andhas camped out. I think it's the
four years now at the Myrtle BeachWorld Amateur Pro Tournament, where they have
three thousand amateurs competing every remember whatmonth it is. And the good thing
about that is they flight people accordingto their handicaps, so they had,
(19:14):
you know, a course. Thereare many courses that are used, but
like this course on this day isonly ten handicappers and twenty handicappers on another
day and another course thirty handicappers andscratch players. They have them all and
over four or five years, he'saccumulated date on thousands of amateurs playing in
these tournaments. And it's it's thesame realistic to the inch measurements that the
(19:36):
PGA Tour uses in its shot linksystem for the pros determining how long they
hit their drives and their accuracy onapproach shots. And he has compiled the
numbers and this, and he foundout how far various handicap golfers actually do
hit their drives and it's brutal.People are people are going to be already
(20:00):
disappointed when they hear it. AndI assume you and your listeners would like
to hear yoh, yes, theuh oh, absolutely, this is great
conversation for the golf course. Theaverage thirty handicap capper hits his drives or
her drives one hundred and sixty sixyards. Oh my, twenty handicappers average,
(20:25):
and those are the ones that willtell you that that's what they hit
their five iron, right, Probablytwenty handicappers average one hundred and eighty three
yards, ten handicappers average two hundredand fourteen yards, and scratch amateurs,
these are your club champions average twohundred and thirty five yards off the tee.
(20:48):
And using that same methodology, thePGA Tour pros averaged last year two
hundred and ninety one yards just byyou know, the same system of data
collection. So the brutal truth ofthe matter. Yeah, well thanks a
lot, buddy, Like we neededthat. There are a couple of a
couple of caveats. One is,in all the years that he's been measuring,
(21:11):
there was one thirty handicapper that hada recorded drive of two hundred and
seventy two yards, So that provesthe point. You know, it can
be done. He maybe in akid that didn't know how to play very
well, but you know, waslong and it can be done. So
it's not like you won't hit that. And I think the one sixty six
yard average for thirty handicappers may beskewed by just awful. You know,
(21:38):
top to drive that goes thirty yards, that's probably in the database. So
it's it's it's you know, themedian would probably be a more interesting number,
which he didn't. Right, Arethose drives that go one hundred and
fifty yards this way and seventy yardsthat way? Well, isn't this isn't
compared to accuracy if they go inhundred and sixty six years dead left that
(22:00):
records that. But anyway, it'sit's, uh, it's it's the truth
that people just don't hit the ballas long as they think they do.
You actually, in that point thatyou were making, you threw one in
(22:22):
under your breath, which I thoughtcould have been a whole different point.
I want to make sure that Iwas reading this correctly. And you said,
on no subject are golfers, especiallymale golfers, more deluded than on
distance They hit their drives with thepossible exception of their attractiveness to beverage cart
personnel. So you're saying that they, ye oh, she's she likes me.
(22:45):
Yeah, she thinks I'm hot.Yeah, And you start those hot
young college girls are attracted to overweight, middle aged man you just know it.
Who are smell like you know,old cigar smoking beer, right,
crusty fear, very funny, veryfunny piece. So then you you get
(23:07):
into a couple of no, actuallyI want to go to this one first.
That business people play golf so thatthey can make deals on the course,
and I uh, we talked aboutthis a long time ago on the
show, and that is really false. You don't do deals on a golf
course, yeah you you. Businessgolf is designed or serves its best function
(23:30):
when you you get to know somebody. It's it's built. It's about building
relationships. That's what it's about.Yep. And it's great you in this
hairy world. Very seldom you getfour or five relaxed fun hours outdoors with
somebody, uh that you can getto know is on a golf course,
(23:51):
and there's usually a meal involved beforeafterwards you it's it's a friendship, or
even if it's not a friendship,it's as a relationship and you learn a
lot about them, for better forworse. Can work both ways, certainly,
And then once you have a relationship, you understand each other, you
know who each other is. Thenyou can pick up the phone later and
(24:14):
you know, you have a basisto your calls get returned. And well,
it's so true that nothing exposes charactermore than a round of golf.
And the way as a self employedperson, the way I take advantage of
business on the golf course is I'mgoing to go out and play with this
person and decide if I want todo business with this person and watch the
(24:38):
way they play and and you know, watch their attitude, watch their their
language, you know there, howshort their fuse is, all these things.
It's like, dude, I reallywant to do business with this guy
because I'm not liking the way he'shandling himself here today. Mm hmm.
Or if you're already doing business withthem, then you know what maybe to
(24:59):
watch out for, yeah, tobe a little wary of or and it
works the other way. This isa guy I can really trust. Yeah,
yep, So yeah, that wasThat's a great point again, another
delusion that no, I think nongolfers have about about golf. I think
that I would think that most golfersunderstand the just there's no time to talk
(25:21):
about business when you're on the golfcourse, right right, You're talking about
your last shot and your next shot, And rarely are you listening to the
other guy talk about his last shotor his next shot. You was talking
about your own. Yeah. That'sone of the other truisms is that you
should never be embarrassed about a shotyou hit because nobody really was paying any
Like if you hit this one hundredand eighty yard shot that you know,
(25:45):
carried the sand in the water andlanded softly on the green, rolled and
is six feet away, and you'reyou're totally stoked, and this guy you
know, chunked it and it rolledeighteen feet to the left, and that's
all he wants to talk about.You go, yeah, but I had
that. I don't care. Therewas a famous story about Ben Hogan.
I can't remember who he was playingwith, but he played the number twelve
(26:07):
at Augussa in the master's round andI think the other guy maybe he hit
a hole in one or hit itto like one inch, or I think
he hit a hole in one andHogan said nothing about it. And I
can't remember the story. But asthey were walking off, the other guy
said something and Ben Hogan's an interestinghole han Hogan said, yeah, I've
(26:33):
never never. Yeah, I don'ttoo put that hole very often just about
him. He hadn't even noticed thehole in one right exactly what about me?
Well, I told that story reallybad. I'm not going to edit
it though. And then you talkabout Ben Hogan and one of the things
that seems to be talked about,especially on this show. It's so interesting.
(27:00):
One of the things that I doabout this show is when I bring
golf instructors on. I found thatmost golf instructors feel that they have found
the secret, that they know thekey that's going to make every golfer better,
and they're absolutely convinced they are right. So what I try to do
is say, look, I'm goingto give you the soapbox. You climb
(27:22):
on board, and you scream outas loud as you want, saying what
your method is. I'm not goingto judge you. I'm going to ask
you some questions. I'm let theaudience decide for themselves if they think you're
full of crapper, that you're forreal. And so many times have we
heard people say that I have discoveredBen Hogan's secret. Yeah, well they
(27:48):
may have, because there were alot of Ben Hogan's secrets. He had
secrets. If you want to callit that, but they weren't really that
secret because he let them out overthe years, different ways, in different
places. And the other main factor, though, is that those are the
secrets that work for Ben Hogan,and they may work for you. But
(28:11):
the final word, as far asI'm concerned about Ben Hogan's secrets, what
he set himself in which you've hearda thousand times, it is just the
secrets in the dirt, and hemeant he found it by hitting, you
know, learning what he needed.How he started off with an awful hook,
he figured out how to solve thathook, hit a control flight that
didn't really even fade, just kindof moved a little bit left to right.
(28:34):
But by in the dirt, hehit thousands and thousands, millions of
balls and he found out what workedfor him. And that's the secret,
really is what works for you?What works for you? Yeah, that
is the secret, and it's goingand you've got it, and there's no
way to get there without working hardto find it. And it can can
(28:55):
include some instructions, some work withthe tea. But actually what I wrote
my column about last week was abouthow hard it is that a thirty minute
lesson where they tell you what worksis not really going to be effective at
all, because it's all of learninga new thing, is all about taking
(29:21):
it from this concept and making itpart of your of your being. And
the pros, you hear them say, well, I'm making a swing change.
It's going to take a year towork it into my into my system.
That's the way it works. Sothe pros they understand themselves better and
how knowledge has passed along and they'replaying all day long, every single day,
(29:47):
right, and it takes them atleast a year. I mean,
we've watched Tiger go through swing changesand how long it's taken for it to
succeed, if it even has.What does happen on in a lesson is
if you're, say, slicing,an instructor, a good instructor, even
not so good instructor can it's prettyobvious to them why you're slicing. They
can tell you a thing that willhelp you slice sless you know, might
(30:12):
reduce a twenty five yard slice toa twelve yard slice, or and at
the end of that lesson, you'reprobably going to be slicing twelve yards instead
of twenty five yards. They canmake that change. They can fix something,
but it and I've taught I talkedto some people for this article and
experts on neuroscience and the way peoplelearn and and bring these things into themselves.
(30:36):
And that's just there's no chance that'syou don't understand anything, you haven't
gotten anything. It's all about bringingthat into your game. And it takes
lots of lots of different types ofpractice. Smart practice practice is not really
fun, not just hitting balls,but hitting balls in different circumstances, hitting
balls and different lies, hitting youknow, coming at it many many different
(31:00):
days, from different perspectives, hittingit in ways like on one leg,
or things where you're failing, butyou're beginning to understand the move, you
know. So there are many manypathways that your brain can attached to it
and bring it forward rather than justa memory of one range session, and
then over time it becomes second nature. But it's a long it's necessarily an
(31:26):
absolutely a long process, and peopleunderestimate that and they think that if they
fix it on the range after alesson, they're going to get that they've
got it, and they don't haveit. And then we're deluged by training
aids products golf channel, golf digests, write magazines, newspapers. There's just
(31:49):
so much YouTube. There is somuch content bombarding us on how to improve,
and yet it may not be relevantto what we do at all.
It's distracting, Totally distracting. That'sthe word I'm looking for you. You
if you get a good lesson,a good good tip, I mean a
(32:13):
tip can be useful, yep,but you have to integrate it, and
you've got you're going to get madlyfrustrated before it becomes second nature. And
then you're going to see another tipand you're going to substitute that tip for
this tip, and you know you'renever going to get better. And that's
part of the problem that I havewith this show is that I'm getting I'm
doing interviews every week and I'm I'mgetting all these great little tidbits and TIMPs,
(32:36):
and I'm like, oh, Ishould own I don't do that.
Just stop. They're not wrong.No, most advice you get is not
wrong. It's just that it's likestep one of one hundred in order to
get better. It's like it's likeit's just the first step. What you
need is one of the terms forit is is deliberate practice where you're working
(32:59):
on one aspect of something or thein the total look of your game.
You know, the thing that you'reworst at, not the thing your best
at. When people go to therange, they often you know, had
one hundred balls of the thing theirbest at and which doesn't really help,
doesn't help you learn it. Myfavorite is when they pull out the driver
first thing. It's like, really, it's just not you look at the
(33:22):
way the best coaches have their whatpeople one of this guy named is It's
a wonderful book I could recommend please. This guy named Rick Jensen wrote a
book called It's j E N SE N. And it's called uh,
(33:50):
I'm sorry, Easier said than done, Okay, And basically what he's saying
is that the whole paradigm of howpeople learn is just wrong, and it's
what people need is not instructors.They need coaches the way they have coaches
and other sports you have to getlike in other sports football, basketball,
(34:12):
very little is on how to dosomething. It's all about sending them out
to scrimmage, watching them in practice, you know, in the heat of
the moment, you know, givingdrills that you can make these things work.
You know, it's not like theactual technique of shooting a basketball.
It's it's it's the it's coaching.And he says that's the paradigm that the
golf needs to switch to if peopleare really going to improve, and it's
(34:36):
and it's possible. The idea wouldbe maybe you'd get your local pro,
you get a lesson, but youyou and they would be happy to do
this, but golfers don't ask forit, generally speaking. And you maybe
have one or two less you know, a month, But then they give
you drills. They they interview youafter you've played and where you failed,
they give you lots of en coursepractice if you can find ways to hit
(34:59):
from rough and you know, lotsof things, lots of drills of the
of the types that aren't much funto do. But if you really want
to get better, that's what it'sgoing to take. And it's not learning
you know, more than one newthing every month. It's it's learning one
new thing and then and then practiceget it in lots of different ways until
it becomes second nature to you.And the book is called Easier Said than
(35:21):
Done, The Undeniable Tour Tested Truthsyou must know and apply to finally play
to your potential on the golf course. By doctor Rick Jensen. Mm hmm,
there you go. Very good,very good books. Yeah, all
right, well, thank you forthe recommendation. You had nine things that
(35:43):
people say about the game that aren'ttrue and one that is. We've covered
six of them. I want toI'm going to skip a couple of those
tour related myths and go right tonumber ten, the one that you feel
is the truth. Pride for show, putt for dough. Yep, yeah,
that really seems to be the case. Yeah, really enough set huh.
(36:06):
But no, you had to dosome research on that, Yeah,
I did. I actually had theTour shot link people run some data for
me specifically how cool is that?And they found that they've there's a new
putting statistic called putts gained putting strokesgained putting, which is a terrific statistic.
(36:29):
They just started it last year officially, and it's basically compared to the
field playing in any tournament that dayat that tournament, and because they have
these shot links, they record,you know, from every inch, how
how far people are putting, andthe results of each putt. It's an
(36:49):
amazing data set, but they cantell who actually buy their putting prowess,
gained strokes on the field or loststrokes on the field. So the winner
of a tournament might I think RoryMcElroy last week gained three points three strokes
per round on the field, whichis just purely based on his putting ability
(37:10):
that week. That's fascinating. Yeah, it's a great statistic. They only
started last year, but they havethe data for it going back to two
thousand and four because they've been recordingshot link data that long. They just
hadn't calculated, and they found thatamong the there were three hundred and twenty
three tour winners in that time tournamentsthat were won, and only eleven of
(37:34):
those winners led the field in drivingdistance compared with forty seven who led the
field in strokes gained putting. Butthe winner is one thing. Even among
the top ten, it was Ithink it was thirty seven percent were in
the top ten in putts game inputting this putting statistic over that time,
(38:01):
and only I think three percent we'rein driving distance of the winner of the
top ten finishers. So it's muchmore predictive of winning now and on the
negative side too, the in termsof people who finished outside the top thirty
(38:22):
in driving distance the winners third ofthe winners didn't even finish in the top
thirty in driving distance, whereas onlythirteen percent of the winners finished outside the
top thirty. And putting, Soit's statistical proof that putting is really where
it's at. And how does so? Now you have all that statistics about
(38:42):
the tour, how does that translateor is it that obvious how it translates
to us the recreational golfer? Well, or what's the lesson we need to
learn? Well, the lesson whichI don't think anybody really doubts or is
that, in terms of just improvingyour score, working on your your short
(39:06):
game in general and your putting inparticular is the fastest surest way to improve
your score. And I and Ifeel and really the thesis behind this entire
program is that if you have astrong mental game and you understand strategy,
you can also have a better opportunityin a faster path to lowering your score
(39:30):
and just working on your h Now, I say, I think I qualified
that as thing if if you reallyare interested in improving your score, because
I mean, there is an undeniablepleasure in just hitting the ball a long
way or no question, you know, so that's that's a legitimate goal and
desire in golf that you can't overcome, I think, even not just hitting
(39:53):
the ball a long way, butthere's this feeling of compression on the ball,
that the feeling where you you know, with an iron that you you
hit down, you compress it andthe ball just goes in that just delicious
way that every golfer knows. Justconsistently having that feeling of compression and hitting
solid shots, I mean, thatis an exquisite pleasure in playing golf that
(40:19):
really doesn't necessarily have to have anythingto do with score, right, well
and right. And as a recordingengineer by trade, the sound of a
great golf shot is you know,you know it when you hear it,
you're like, oh, that soundedgreat, and you also like, oh
(40:40):
you hit that thin, didn't you? You know, right, the sounds
of the club hitting the ball,they're definitely translatable. It's it's part of
the pleasure, there's no question aboutit. Yeah. Yeah, But in
terms of score, if you wantto if you want to just really beat
your buddies and lower your handicap.But game, the very worst thing that
(41:01):
amateurs do putting wise is long lagputts, and that's the thing where you
can probably get the most improvement doingyou know, drills where you you try
to hit it five yards five feetpast and then five feet short, and
then even with the whole from twentyfeet and then thirty feet and forty.
(41:22):
People don't really practice that very much, but you can avoid three putts.
That's that's sort of the worst putting. That's the most improvable putting aspect for
most amateurs, according to Dave Pelt, Yeah, sure, I find it
fascinating when they're getting ready or whena tournament has started on television and you
see guys who are warming up becausethere are tea times coming up, and
(41:43):
they're on the practice putting green.Where when I watch people on the practice
putting green amateurs, they'll do athree footer, then they'll go back and
do a twenty footer, and thenthey'll do you know, another three footer
and a five footer, and thenyou know they're all over the place.
Where when you're watching these guys practicingon tour, preparing for their round,
they'll stand at six or seven feetwith twenty balls over and over over.
(42:07):
It's the same length, over andover and over. Then they'll move to
another length. I'm fascinating. It'slike, just work on the one thing,
don't you know, because you're notreally learning anything by going all over
the place, nor are you gettinga sense about the speed of the greens.
(42:28):
You know, you think you mightbe. But doctor Joseph Parent of
Zen golf Is said to me onceon the show that and I've taken,
I use it forever is your ownpersonal stimt meter, right, And so
what I do is, I'll goout to a practice putt and green.
(42:49):
First I'll ask, are your practiceputting greens pretty similar to your greens out
there? Yeah, there generally are, because they're maintained by the same people
and they're cut the same way,so generally they're close. So what I'll
do is I'll find a flat spoton the green, I'll take three balls.
I won't pick up my head,i won't look at the balls,
i won't even pick a target.I'll just take three of my most natural
strokes in a row and see ifall three balls end up around the same
(43:12):
spot. And then I'll step themoff. And if I step it off
and it's only four paces, thisis a pretty slow green. If there
are nine paces, this is apretty fast green. So you know,
someone tell me, yeah, wellwe got thirteen on the Stimman is like,
I have no idea what that meansto me. So I have to
set my own stimp meter, likefrom course to course, Like, Okay,
(43:34):
I know these are pretty fast,so I'm gonna have to hit a
little be a little more aggressive inthe way I hit today, or really
pull back, which is terrifying whenyou you know, you know you try
to do that. But that helpsme. Yeah, I like that.
I'd never never heard of that conceptof creating your own personal stump meter,
but that sounds like a very goodidea. Well there's your next column.
(43:58):
It reminds me. I know.Ben Crenshaw, who was one of the
greatest putters ever on the PGA Tour, used to didn't practice a lot of
putting before around. But what hedid was he didn't usually put to holes.
He would just swing, get afeel for his stroke without a ball,
and then just start stroking balls,sometimes with his eyes closed, sometimes
with his eyes open, but justto get the feel and then watch them
(44:22):
roll out to get a feel ofthe greens and his stroke and the smoothness.
It was very zen like his way. Interesting. Interesting. Well.
I highly advise everyone to track downthe article if you want to hear more
about what John Paul had to sayabout these myths. But even more so,
I recommend that you check them outweekly on the Wall Street Journal.
(44:45):
And you're online with the Wall StreetJournal as well. Right, yes,
that's right. There is a paywallat the Wall Street Journal, but most
of my columns are available outside thepaywall. Oh congratulations. Good for that.
If not, If not, youcan follow me on Twitter JP at
JP Newport. I don't really tweetvery much. I'm not like an avid
(45:05):
Twitter, but I do put alink up to my column every week so
that people that don't have the paywallwhen they're behind it can get to it.
Yeah. Tweeting, I uh yeah, it's a whole other topic.
John Paul Newport, thank you somuch for spending all this time with I
think that you and I can probablytalk for another two hours and maybe we'll
(45:28):
get a chance on the golf coursesomeday. Thanks a lot for coming on
to golf smarter you bet I enjoyedit very much. Thanks Fred,
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