November 10, 2023 • 30 mins
Legendary PGA Teacher of the Year Jim Hardy, father of the 1-plane, 2-plane concept discusses his impressive list of PGA, Nationwide, and Champions Tour students. This is #1 of 2 episodes. His book Solid Contact is available on Amazon.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Welcome to golf Smarter mulligans, yoursecond chance to gain insight and advice from
the best instructors featured on the GolfSmarter podcast. Great Golf Instruction Never gets
Old. Our interview library features hundredsof hours of game improvement conversations like this
(00:21):
that are no longer available in anypodcast app. I would talk to Tiger
about what shops are natural for hisswing to play that would also be repetitive,
what shots are not natural for hisswing to play that aren't repetitive,
and if he were desirous of adifferent kind of ballflight or more repetitive kind
(00:45):
of ballflight, what he would needto do in his choices he would have
in his golf swing to produce thosebecause there's not only one path that you
take, and that's one of thingsabout the book. Offer a lot of
solutions for any problem he has ingolf. Because one solution might work for
(01:08):
Tom Watson is a totally different solutionthat might work for Anthony gam which is
a different solution that might work forJim Perray. Because we build our swings
a little differently. With another interviewfrom the archives of Golf Smarter, here's
your host, Fred Green. Welcometo the Golf Smarter Podcast. Jim,
(01:30):
thank you for ed. I'm goodto be on. Well, thank you
so much for Green to come on. But I think there's a great reason
for you to be on. Althoughwe've been referred to each other, Katherine
Roberts has said that you should comeon the show, and we've tried to
get together. But now that youhave a book, it's time to get
into some really interesting conversation. Becausethe new book Solid Contact, a top
(01:56):
golf instructor's guide to learning your swingDNA and in instantly striking the ball better
than ever. You have a reallyinteresting approach on this. It seemed incredibly
unique for a golf instructor. I'venever seen anyone talk about this. I
may be wrong, but you talkabout ballflight as opposed to just contact.
(02:23):
Well, that's true. My firsttwo books Fred were really in although certainly
controversial. In the first book whichwas explaining that I believe that all golf
swings fall under two major categories,either one plane or two plane. And
(02:45):
therefore those books were even though somewhatcontroversial, because I said there are two
sets fundamentals, not one. Theywere swing shaped books and that's really where
golf instruction has always hung it hatis on swing shape. And I think
that's where we've always had a multitudeof arguments and fist fights, it seems,
(03:09):
because everybody has a certain prejudice onwhat swing shape they like. You
know, you have your camps thatyou know say well, golly, I'm
a Ben Hoakan Camp all the waythrough, and somebody else says, no,
I'm a Tom Watson or so onand so on, And you have
Stack and Hilton, you have JimmyBallard. I mean, you have every
(03:32):
kind of swing model in the world. And this is really the first book
that's ever said, can we lookat golf in a different way? Because
if we look at golf just inswing shape, which prejudice? Are we
going to go down the path onwhich one is going to say you have
(03:57):
to swing like Gary player to Renoneeds to give all the money back.
And certainly Jack Nicholas was wrong,and that's kind of been the traditional way
to look at it. I thinkthat has gotten us as we have more
deeply explored swing shape, has gottenus more and more into trouble because golf
(04:19):
is not that hard a game,and it shouldn't be that hard a game.
If children can learn how to playgolf fairly quickly, why is it
adults struggle so much with learning howto play good golf? And that's because
children look at the game from apurely athletic standpoint, standing to the side
(04:45):
of the ball and the ball ison the ground. How do I get
the club into the back of theball and hit a good one? And
what happens is children will come upwith the dog on this fixes for their
golf swings. I say, childrenlike that. You can look at adults
that learned how to play golfers childreneverybody from back in the older days,
(05:09):
from a Miller Barber to an ArnoldPalmer, Doug Sanders to a Lee Trevino
and today's modern guys, how inthe world you explain to Jim Hurry crib
or Bubba Watson very different kinds ofgolf swings, Yet they hit the ball
wonderfully. And the really the onlyway you can explain how did they become
(05:31):
such expert golfers is they were concernedabout the flight of their golf ball.
That's what concerned them, whether theywere slicing or hooking, or topping or
shanking or fatting or thinning or choppingor junking or pulling or pushing what hitting
on the cow, hitting on theheel, And they were simply trying to
(05:55):
stop doing those things. They weretrying to get rid of their banana slice
or their highballer, whatever the mistakesI talked about, and start hitting goodlines.
Because if you can reduce golf downto understanding the sole purpose of a
golf swing is to produce a correctand repetitive impact, that's what we're after.
(06:19):
One of the greatest players in thegame never did receive his due credit,
which was a guy named Billy Casper, for several reasons. Number one,
he didn't have a powerful swing.Number two, it didn't have a
pretty swing. Number three is ballflightwasn't pretty, it was low, and
it usually hooked. Everybody said,well, he was just a great putter
(06:41):
that you can't explain. I thinkhe's fifth on the all time victory list
by just saying he was a goodbutter. He controlled his ballflight. Golf
is predicting the outcome before the event. If you can hit a low draw,
and now you can hit that lowdraw every time, which is what
(07:02):
Billy Casper did. He didn't tryand hit a high fad. I'm sure
he played with Jack Nicholas. Iwatch Necklace hit a big high two iron
the one iron and said, guyshall wish I could do that, And
then one about a business of alowcook. And so great players became great
players. I'm convinced because they learnedhow to control a repetitive ball flight,
(07:29):
and they learned how to do that, and that was the nature of how
their swing evolved and golf. Iftoday, if we could go back to
that same old secret of golf,which was understanding what our ballflight misses is
how that relates to our own swing, if you will swing DNA, and
(07:50):
how do we learn how to changethat ball flight miss into something that's not
a miss, but it's a playableballflight, and we can do it repetitively.
Now we've learned the secret golf.I'm sorry to give you such a
long winded starting answer here, Fred, but it's really why I chose to
(08:11):
go back to understanding ballflight and understandingimpact as the basis for our improvement.
If we can learn that, learnour golf swing's DNA that produces certain ball
flight misses, then we can bethat we can go back to being a
child again and learning how to playgolf naturally and athletically the way we were
(08:37):
meant to, whether our golf swingends up pretty or not. I'm sure
that Lee Chavino a lot of peopledidn't think his golf swing was pretty.
It wasn't, but it produced fantasticresults. And someone asked Lee one time,
He said, Lee, have youever taken a lesson? He laughed
and said, I never found aninstructor that could beat me. No,
(09:01):
he had never taken a lesson,but he did do something that Sowed did
Bubba Watson, and Sow did ArnoldPalmer, and so did every great golf
whatever layout. He learned how tocontrol a playable ballflight. I don't mind
you having long answers. This isyour soapbox, my friend. That's not
(09:22):
a problem at all. I'm inthe classroom and I'm not going to raise
my hand because I'm too fascinated.Actually, you said a couple of things
in there that I'm taking notes on, and I'll get to a couple of
them later, but I want togo right to one of your comments made
me think about when you said itwas Palmer who had hit a high one
iron high two iron Nicholas. I'msorry it was Nicholas who had that high
(09:46):
flight on a one iron or andtwo iron. I never saw him play
live, okay, and so Ididn't know that. I didn't know that
you can hit a high ball flightwith a one iron or two iron.
And it made me think that whenI'm watching on television, and this really
(10:07):
is my only association with these greatplayers that you're talking about, even the
great players today, is seeing whatthey do on television when the analysts are
breaking down their swing, when they'retalking about beautiful, this beautiful, that
amazing great shot. All I getto see on any replay ninety percent of
the time now it's starting to change, is how they made contact, what
(10:30):
the bottom of their swing look like, or what their swing path look like,
their swing plane. Right, Rarelyhave I ever gotten to hear about
or see what the flight of theball is because when the cameraman is focused
on the golf ball, you haveno idea where it's going, You have
no idea the path. It lookslike it's just coming straight at you.
(10:54):
That you don't know that he's gota fade or that he's got a nice
draw to the ball. So thisconcept of correcting your swing, correcting your
game through the flight path really isradical. I would think, I stand
(11:15):
it's radical, Yet it's as oldfashioned as golf itself. You have to
realize we were playing golf long beforemotion picture, before video or software analyzing
tools, before really a lot ofteachers. We were playing golf by just
(11:37):
trying to figure out how what wehad to do to hit the golf ball
better. Now, A better,a more predictable ball flight was okay,
But you're not saying the golf wasbetter than We can't go backwards on technology.
(11:58):
We can't go back on the advancementsof the equipment and grass and all
those things. What you're saying isballflight today versus yesterday is really the critical
element that part of your DNA.Yes, And I'm saying that that golf
(12:20):
was more easily learned because we leftgolfers free to develop their own unique solutions.
Certainly, you have to look atif I name if I were to
name ten great golfers, Hall ofFame golfers, you could all of a
(12:43):
sudden see the tremendously unique solutions eachone of them came up with Lee Trevino
swing didn't look like Gary Player whocertainly didn't look like Arnold Palmer and didn't
look like Tom Watson, or didn'tlook like Jack Nicholas, or didn't look
like Doug Sanders, didn't look likeBubba Watson, and Jim Ferricks in a
class all of his own. VanHogan didn't look like Sam Sneave. You
(13:09):
see, each one of those guysfound a different way to solve a ball
flight problem, and that's how theydeveloped their own, if you will,
go to shot. Their ballflight andthe go to shots weren't even the same.
(13:31):
Jack Nicholas was a hugely high ballhitter played left to right primarily.
Tom Watson was a pretty high ballhitter, played right to left. Arnold
Palmer was a medium ball flight hitter, played right to left. Lee Trevino,
a low ballflight hitter, played allthe time left right, and Gary
(13:52):
Klayer, a low ball flight hitter, played right to left, as did
Billy Casper Kiger Woods in his headshoot go to shot was a low merely
a slice right. That's right.I contend, and I'm not saying that
Tiger won't become a great player again. But Tiger would have beaten Jack Nicholas's
(14:16):
all time record a long time ago, if he hadn't have been so frustrated
because he didn't like the low slice. He didn't like his go to shot.
He thought it was beneath him.He should be able to play any
shot he wanted to hit at anytime during the round. Well, that's
(14:37):
not going to happen. It's nota go to, trustworthy shot. Were
none of us that good. BenHogan, who had more control of a
golf ball than anybody that ever lived, could never play a high shot.
Isn't that interesting? If he triedto play a high shot, he couldn't
hit it solid. And if youcan't hit it solid, you're not predictable.
(14:58):
Now, Ben Hogan could hit athree quarter sho, He could hit
a full shot. He could havehit a shot with a lot of spin.
He could shot hit a shot witha little spin. He could draw
it, he could cut it.He could do all those things. But
he couldn't hit a high ball.You see, because of his particular golf
swing style. You know, Ididn't see Hogan try and hit high balls.
(15:22):
I didn't see player try and hithigh balls. I didn't see Lee
cherno try and hit high balls.And if Tiger Woods had stuck with his
stinger when he really needed a shotwhich which held him true for so long,
you know he'd killed him. Hewould have killed him right there.
(15:46):
So what were really about as playersas golfers is, first of all,
the sooner we can hit a playablegolf shot. Now, big slice is
not a playable shot, A bighook isn't a playable shot. A chunk
isn't a playable shot. A wedgethat goes straight up in the air isn't
a playable shot. The fat andfins, pushes and hooks aren't playable.
(16:10):
Bad hooks aren't playable shots. Butplayable shots can be high fhades, high
draws, low fades, low draws. They can be pushes. Lee Chabino
played to push Faide. He justaained way left. Sam Sneed played a
slight paul hook. He just aimedto the right. A playable shot is
(16:33):
one that doesn't have wild curvature toit. But most importantly, it is
hit debt solid and it's repetitive.Now, if you can hit a playable
shot dead solid and repetitive, ifyou're not a really good golfer, you
must be a terrible better or shipcord short game, because that's what golf
(16:57):
is about, is hitting a solidshot repetitively, a playable shot solid and
doing it repetitively. That's what golfis. And we have gotten so far
away from that realization of what golfis everything from our telecast to our announcers,
(17:21):
to our teaching, to our tryingto play. And there's a secret
to how you do that. Thereis an absolute secret of how do you
hint a playable shot dead, solidand predictably repetitively. There's a secret to
(17:41):
that, and that's why I guesswe call the book Solid Contact. That's
right. If you had the chance, or maybe you have to sit down
with Tiger Woods and as an instructor, what would you talk to him about
(18:03):
right now? Well, Tiger,I have not had the chance to said
down with Tiger. I know Tiger. Tiger knows me. I would talk
to Tiger about what shots are naturalfor his swing to play that would also
(18:25):
be repetitive, What shots are notnatural for his swing to play that aren't
simply because they're not repetitive. Andif he were desirous of a different kind
of ballflight or more repetitive kind ofballflight, what he would need to do
(18:45):
in his what choices he would havein his golf swing to produce those because
it's not there's not only one paththat you take. And that's one of
the things about the book is weoffer the reader a lot of solutions for
(19:06):
any problem he has in golf.Because what one solution might work for Tom
Watson is a totally different solution thatmight work for Anthony gimm which is a
different solution that might work certainly forSaint Jim Purry. Because we build our
swings a little differently. No twoof us have exactly the same grips and
(19:33):
exactly the same address positions in bostureand aim and ball positions and backswings and
so on and so on, andso to try and copy the exact positions
of somebody else, go if weleave one or two items outwork with some
And so the book is a veryliberating book in that it says that you
(20:00):
have I might make certain recommendations.I might make seven or eight recommendations for
how to cure a given ball flightmiss, but you actually have more of
the match, probably have about twentythat would be reasonable things, all of
which would cure, cure of thatparticular mistake and get rid of what I
(20:23):
call a non playable shot, becauseit's the ballflight that allows you to read
your swing DNA. Now, onceyou can meet now, once you can
read your swing DNA, then youhave all these different opportunities that you can
(20:47):
select from to what I call neutralizeyour swing DNA. Bring if for nothing
else, bring it back, bringyour DNA back under control, back where
it needs to be. Which namesthat we that we have heard of,
(21:08):
PGA players have you worked with?Oh golly, oh, that's a great
answer right there. So now it'sI mean, I got a work work
dolly, maybe one hundred my longmy longest time student. I'm the one
that actually, for Hans sakes,got me really back into teaching. I
(21:33):
had retired from teaching. Was inthe golf course development and construction design for
yours. But uh, Peter Jacobson, I mean Peter Jacobson has been my
longtime student for a long time.I have several still that have been with
me for you know, a longtime. Scott McCarran his entire career,
Tom Panice, Uh uh Peter,Jacobson, Olan Brown, who's the current
(21:59):
you US Open champion, Scott Simpson, a former US Open champion, Bob
Play. Other guys that I havetaught caught Paul Aisinger, I've taught,
Dave Stockton, taught Frank Beard,I've taught Uh Delson, Chris Tidland still
(22:22):
teach Chris Tidland. One of mymy associate who has been my assistant for
years and years and years is ChrisChris O'Connell, and together we teach a
number of players. We teach JJColleen. We teach Stuart Sink right now.
He just came aboard. Chris isa longtime teacher that turned around Matt
(22:48):
Coocher's career. A new student we'vehad for about a year and a half
who just won his first PGA tournamentto a tournament last ball, Scott Pearcy,
Joe Ogilby. I teach. Sowhy did you come out of retirement
(23:08):
to go back into teaching, Imean retiring from teaching. Why did you
come back into teaching? Uh,Peter, you know I was I taught.
I started teaching Peter in nineteen eightythree. When I say a long
time student Peter was very successful.I had a nice career from eighty three
(23:30):
until about ninety eighty three, andhis body started getting out on him.
And I taught him as what Icall a two plane teacher, a two
plaine students, because that's what hewas naturally and two playing golf swings,
which are very upright golf swings tendto be a little more injury prone,
the more rounded golf swings, whichI call one plane, and certain two
(23:55):
plane students teaching. You know,Jack Nicholas has had a lot of left
and back problems, and Fred Couple'shad a lot of back problems, and
Peter Jacobson started having a lot ofback problems, a lot of left hips
and left shoulder problems, as didanother two pointer who came to me and
is so a long time student,Don Pooley. And Peter went to do
(24:18):
television in nineteen ninety three. Innineteen ninety four and a quick golf he
did television and his body had givenout on him, his left shoulder,
left hip, and lower back.To give you an idea how it's given
out on him in the last fewyears, that's finally caught up. Peter
(24:40):
has an artificial left hip, artificialright knees, had nine back surgeries,
and left shoulder rotator cuff surgery,so Peter had some pretty severe injuries.
In ninety four, Peter asked me, said, I want to go back
out and play again. Do youthink I could good? I said,
well, not the way you didbecause you had an injured twinning And he
(25:07):
said, we do you think Icould change to one play what you changed
to? And I said, well, Peter, I said, I don't
know. I said, we'd haveto see whether he did or not.
Well. To make a long storyshort, we started in July of ninety
four, while he was still doingtelevision, to change his golf swing totally.
In November of ninety four, hewent out and played his first PGA
(25:30):
Tour tournament in quite a while,the capitol Are International, and he won
it. And in January of ninetyfive he won two tournaments back to back,
the at and T and San Diego, and took a couple of weeks
off and then finished second at garralSo his second at Greensboro. With the
(25:51):
months ago in the year he wasleading money winner. He didn't finish leading
money winner, but he was madethe Ryder Cup team and had a better
career than he ever had after that, and kept saying to me, I
had quit teaching except for Peter andanother student, a long time student,
(26:11):
Duffy Waldorf, And I kept teachingthose two even though I'd stopped teaching.
And he said, if you usedto call his time to get me teach
his friends and guys on the tourto started. I said, no,
I'm never going to get back intothat again, never going to get back
into that again, and wasn't goingto. And finally one of his friends
(26:36):
had fallen off the wagon badly,Scott m Karen, and I said,
okay, I'll help him a sidemet Scott like Scott, and we put
Scott's wheelback on off he got.And then Tom Pernice had never really even
had a good career and was reallystruggling, and I had lost all his
privily just to play and everything wasin a lot of bad problems. I
(26:57):
took over for and got him going, And then it happened with Olan Brown
and all lost his card and Allen'scareer was over, and Allan at that
time was forty five years old,and and turned him around. In the
process, three of the players Icoach had won PGA Tour Comeback Player of
(27:18):
the Year awards, and so Peterkept saying, you got to write a
book. You got to write abook. You got to write a book.
And I said, might read thebook. Nobody knows who I am,
and I don't want anybody know whoI am. Well, I mean
I really didn't. I'm not I'mnot a center stage kind of guy.
And like yeah, because of Peter, I wrote the first book, Playing
(27:42):
Truth for Golfers in two thousand,came out in two thousand and five mcgrahill's
publisher, and that's Playing Truth plAn E po Ai n right, And
it became the number one selling golfbook in America, became the number two
book in America and the category ofsports and recreation, and it was a
(28:06):
number one golf book in the worldin the category of sports and recreation.
And I was pretty shock. GolfDigest had certainly helped because of the controversial
nature of the book. They haddone the largest instruction piece in the history
of the magazine when the book cameout, fourteen page excerpt of the book.
(28:29):
And then all that spawned a secondbook and now third book and so
that's kind of how it happened.But this was all Peter's fault. Peter
and I had a design golf coursedesign company that was just doing nice and
they were designing golf courses, andI owned a construction and development company and
I was out of golf instruction.Really fascinating, and that's how I kind
(28:55):
of got back into it. Amazing. That's an amazing story. And I
want to ask you more about howmuch fun it is to work with Peter
Jacobson if you've even got anything done, because you may have been laughing too
hard, but we've seen a goodthat tells me a story right there.
So but we've already reached our magicalthirty minute point. We've actually surpassed it.
But I can't stop you because it'sfar too fascinating for me. Would
(29:18):
you mind if you could come backfor a second episode. No, I'd
like to do that because I'd liketo just kind of give a little hint
about what the what is the secretto finding a playable ballflight and what is
the secret to finding that to solidcontact? If you will, well,
actually you beat me to the punchhere, because the reason I want to
(29:40):
have you back for our second episode. Is to talk to you about your
plus minus system and how to workon that and how to recognize it yourself,
which is what the book is about. Again. The book is called
Solid Contact by Jim Hardy. It'savailable on Amazon and it's also available as
a kindle book, so you canget that right away. Jim, thank
(30:02):
you so much for spending this timeand for agreeing to come back through a
Golf Smarter for members only episode.Thank you, You're back.
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. I would talk to Tiger
about what shops are natural for hisswing to play that would also be repetitive,
what shots are not natural for hisswing to play that aren't repetitive,
and if he were desirous of adifferent kind of ballflight or more repetitive kind
(00:45):
of ballflight, what he would needto do in his choices he would have
in his golf swing to produce thosebecause there's not only one path that you
take, and that's one of thingsabout the book. Offer a lot of
solutions for any problem he has ingolf. Because one solution might work for
(01:08):
Tom Watson is a totally different solutionthat might work for Anthony gam which is
a different solution that might work forJim Perray. Because we build our swings
a little differently. With another interviewfrom the archives of Golf Smarter, here's
your host, Fred Green. Welcometo the Golf Smarter Podcast. Jim,
(01:30):
thank you for ed. I'm goodto be on. Well, thank you
so much for Green to come on. But I think there's a great reason
for you to be on. Althoughwe've been referred to each other, Katherine
Roberts has said that you should comeon the show, and we've tried to
get together. But now that youhave a book, it's time to get
into some really interesting conversation. Becausethe new book Solid Contact, a top
(01:56):
golf instructor's guide to learning your swingDNA and in instantly striking the ball better
than ever. You have a reallyinteresting approach on this. It seemed incredibly
unique for a golf instructor. I'venever seen anyone talk about this. I
may be wrong, but you talkabout ballflight as opposed to just contact.
(02:23):
Well, that's true. My firsttwo books Fred were really in although certainly
controversial. In the first book whichwas explaining that I believe that all golf
swings fall under two major categories,either one plane or two plane. And
(02:45):
therefore those books were even though somewhatcontroversial, because I said there are two
sets fundamentals, not one. Theywere swing shaped books and that's really where
golf instruction has always hung it hatis on swing shape. And I think
that's where we've always had a multitudeof arguments and fist fights, it seems,
(03:09):
because everybody has a certain prejudice onwhat swing shape they like. You
know, you have your camps thatyou know say well, golly, I'm
a Ben Hoakan Camp all the waythrough, and somebody else says, no,
I'm a Tom Watson or so onand so on, And you have
Stack and Hilton, you have JimmyBallard. I mean, you have every
(03:32):
kind of swing model in the world. And this is really the first book
that's ever said, can we lookat golf in a different way? Because
if we look at golf just inswing shape, which prejudice? Are we
going to go down the path onwhich one is going to say you have
(03:57):
to swing like Gary player to Renoneeds to give all the money back.
And certainly Jack Nicholas was wrong,and that's kind of been the traditional way
to look at it. I thinkthat has gotten us as we have more
deeply explored swing shape, has gottenus more and more into trouble because golf
(04:19):
is not that hard a game,and it shouldn't be that hard a game.
If children can learn how to playgolf fairly quickly, why is it
adults struggle so much with learning howto play good golf? And that's because
children look at the game from apurely athletic standpoint, standing to the side
(04:45):
of the ball and the ball ison the ground. How do I get
the club into the back of theball and hit a good one? And
what happens is children will come upwith the dog on this fixes for their
golf swings. I say, childrenlike that. You can look at adults
that learned how to play golfers childreneverybody from back in the older days,
(05:09):
from a Miller Barber to an ArnoldPalmer, Doug Sanders to a Lee Trevino
and today's modern guys, how inthe world you explain to Jim Hurry crib
or Bubba Watson very different kinds ofgolf swings, Yet they hit the ball
wonderfully. And the really the onlyway you can explain how did they become
(05:31):
such expert golfers is they were concernedabout the flight of their golf ball.
That's what concerned them, whether theywere slicing or hooking, or topping or
shanking or fatting or thinning or choppingor junking or pulling or pushing what hitting
on the cow, hitting on theheel, And they were simply trying to
(05:55):
stop doing those things. They weretrying to get rid of their banana slice
or their highballer, whatever the mistakesI talked about, and start hitting goodlines.
Because if you can reduce golf downto understanding the sole purpose of a
golf swing is to produce a correctand repetitive impact, that's what we're after.
(06:19):
One of the greatest players in thegame never did receive his due credit,
which was a guy named Billy Casper, for several reasons. Number one,
he didn't have a powerful swing.Number two, it didn't have a
pretty swing. Number three is ballflightwasn't pretty, it was low, and
it usually hooked. Everybody said,well, he was just a great putter
(06:41):
that you can't explain. I thinkhe's fifth on the all time victory list
by just saying he was a goodbutter. He controlled his ballflight. Golf
is predicting the outcome before the event. If you can hit a low draw,
and now you can hit that lowdraw every time, which is what
(07:02):
Billy Casper did. He didn't tryand hit a high fad. I'm sure
he played with Jack Nicholas. Iwatch Necklace hit a big high two iron
the one iron and said, guyshall wish I could do that, And
then one about a business of alowcook. And so great players became great
players. I'm convinced because they learnedhow to control a repetitive ball flight,
(07:29):
and they learned how to do that, and that was the nature of how
their swing evolved and golf. Iftoday, if we could go back to
that same old secret of golf,which was understanding what our ballflight misses is
how that relates to our own swing, if you will swing DNA, and
(07:50):
how do we learn how to changethat ball flight miss into something that's not
a miss, but it's a playableballflight, and we can do it repetitively.
Now we've learned the secret golf.I'm sorry to give you such a
long winded starting answer here, Fred, but it's really why I chose to
(08:11):
go back to understanding ballflight and understandingimpact as the basis for our improvement.
If we can learn that, learnour golf swing's DNA that produces certain ball
flight misses, then we can bethat we can go back to being a
child again and learning how to playgolf naturally and athletically the way we were
(08:37):
meant to, whether our golf swingends up pretty or not. I'm sure
that Lee Chavino a lot of peopledidn't think his golf swing was pretty.
It wasn't, but it produced fantasticresults. And someone asked Lee one time,
He said, Lee, have youever taken a lesson? He laughed
and said, I never found aninstructor that could beat me. No,
(09:01):
he had never taken a lesson,but he did do something that Sowed did
Bubba Watson, and Sow did ArnoldPalmer, and so did every great golf
whatever layout. He learned how tocontrol a playable ballflight. I don't mind
you having long answers. This isyour soapbox, my friend. That's not
(09:22):
a problem at all. I'm inthe classroom and I'm not going to raise
my hand because I'm too fascinated.Actually, you said a couple of things
in there that I'm taking notes on, and I'll get to a couple of
them later, but I want togo right to one of your comments made
me think about when you said itwas Palmer who had hit a high one
iron high two iron Nicholas. I'msorry it was Nicholas who had that high
(09:46):
flight on a one iron or andtwo iron. I never saw him play
live, okay, and so Ididn't know that. I didn't know that
you can hit a high ball flightwith a one iron or two iron.
And it made me think that whenI'm watching on television, and this really
(10:07):
is my only association with these greatplayers that you're talking about, even the
great players today, is seeing whatthey do on television when the analysts are
breaking down their swing, when they'retalking about beautiful, this beautiful, that
amazing great shot. All I getto see on any replay ninety percent of
the time now it's starting to change, is how they made contact, what
(10:30):
the bottom of their swing look like, or what their swing path look like,
their swing plane. Right, Rarelyhave I ever gotten to hear about
or see what the flight of theball is because when the cameraman is focused
on the golf ball, you haveno idea where it's going, You have
no idea the path. It lookslike it's just coming straight at you.
(10:54):
That you don't know that he's gota fade or that he's got a nice
draw to the ball. So thisconcept of correcting your swing, correcting your
game through the flight path really isradical. I would think, I stand
(11:15):
it's radical, Yet it's as oldfashioned as golf itself. You have to
realize we were playing golf long beforemotion picture, before video or software analyzing
tools, before really a lot ofteachers. We were playing golf by just
(11:37):
trying to figure out how what wehad to do to hit the golf ball
better. Now, A better,a more predictable ball flight was okay,
But you're not saying the golf wasbetter than We can't go backwards on technology.
(11:58):
We can't go back on the advancementsof the equipment and grass and all
those things. What you're saying isballflight today versus yesterday is really the critical
element that part of your DNA.Yes, And I'm saying that that golf
(12:20):
was more easily learned because we leftgolfers free to develop their own unique solutions.
Certainly, you have to look atif I name if I were to
name ten great golfers, Hall ofFame golfers, you could all of a
(12:43):
sudden see the tremendously unique solutions eachone of them came up with Lee Trevino
swing didn't look like Gary Player whocertainly didn't look like Arnold Palmer and didn't
look like Tom Watson, or didn'tlook like Jack Nicholas, or didn't look
like Doug Sanders, didn't look likeBubba Watson, and Jim Ferricks in a
class all of his own. VanHogan didn't look like Sam Sneave. You
(13:09):
see, each one of those guysfound a different way to solve a ball
flight problem, and that's how theydeveloped their own, if you will,
go to shot. Their ballflight andthe go to shots weren't even the same.
(13:31):
Jack Nicholas was a hugely high ballhitter played left to right primarily.
Tom Watson was a pretty high ballhitter, played right to left. Arnold
Palmer was a medium ball flight hitter, played right to left. Lee Trevino,
a low ballflight hitter, played allthe time left right, and Gary
(13:52):
Klayer, a low ball flight hitter, played right to left, as did
Billy Casper Kiger Woods in his headshoot go to shot was a low merely
a slice right. That's right.I contend, and I'm not saying that
Tiger won't become a great player again. But Tiger would have beaten Jack Nicholas's
(14:16):
all time record a long time ago, if he hadn't have been so frustrated
because he didn't like the low slice. He didn't like his go to shot.
He thought it was beneath him.He should be able to play any
shot he wanted to hit at anytime during the round. Well, that's
(14:37):
not going to happen. It's nota go to, trustworthy shot. Were
none of us that good. BenHogan, who had more control of a
golf ball than anybody that ever lived, could never play a high shot.
Isn't that interesting? If he triedto play a high shot, he couldn't
hit it solid. And if youcan't hit it solid, you're not predictable.
(14:58):
Now, Ben Hogan could hit athree quarter sho, He could hit
a full shot. He could havehit a shot with a lot of spin.
He could shot hit a shot witha little spin. He could draw
it, he could cut it.He could do all those things. But
he couldn't hit a high ball.You see, because of his particular golf
swing style. You know, Ididn't see Hogan try and hit high balls.
(15:22):
I didn't see player try and hithigh balls. I didn't see Lee
cherno try and hit high balls.And if Tiger Woods had stuck with his
stinger when he really needed a shotwhich which held him true for so long,
you know he'd killed him. Hewould have killed him right there.
(15:46):
So what were really about as playersas golfers is, first of all,
the sooner we can hit a playablegolf shot. Now, big slice is
not a playable shot, A bighook isn't a playable shot. A chunk
isn't a playable shot. A wedgethat goes straight up in the air isn't
a playable shot. The fat andfins, pushes and hooks aren't playable.
(16:10):
Bad hooks aren't playable shots. Butplayable shots can be high fhades, high
draws, low fades, low draws. They can be pushes. Lee Chabino
played to push Faide. He justaained way left. Sam Sneed played a
slight paul hook. He just aimedto the right. A playable shot is
(16:33):
one that doesn't have wild curvature toit. But most importantly, it is
hit debt solid and it's repetitive.Now, if you can hit a playable
shot dead solid and repetitive, ifyou're not a really good golfer, you
must be a terrible better or shipcord short game, because that's what golf
(16:57):
is about, is hitting a solidshot repetitively, a playable shot solid and
doing it repetitively. That's what golfis. And we have gotten so far
away from that realization of what golfis everything from our telecast to our announcers,
(17:21):
to our teaching, to our tryingto play. And there's a secret
to how you do that. Thereis an absolute secret of how do you
hint a playable shot dead, solidand predictably repetitively. There's a secret to
(17:41):
that, and that's why I guesswe call the book Solid Contact. That's
right. If you had the chance, or maybe you have to sit down
with Tiger Woods and as an instructor, what would you talk to him about
(18:03):
right now? Well, Tiger,I have not had the chance to said
down with Tiger. I know Tiger. Tiger knows me. I would talk
to Tiger about what shots are naturalfor his swing to play that would also
(18:25):
be repetitive, What shots are notnatural for his swing to play that aren't
simply because they're not repetitive. Andif he were desirous of a different kind
of ballflight or more repetitive kind ofballflight, what he would need to do
(18:45):
in his what choices he would havein his golf swing to produce those because
it's not there's not only one paththat you take. And that's one of
the things about the book is weoffer the reader a lot of solutions for
(19:06):
any problem he has in golf.Because what one solution might work for Tom
Watson is a totally different solution thatmight work for Anthony gimm which is a
different solution that might work certainly forSaint Jim Purry. Because we build our
swings a little differently. No twoof us have exactly the same grips and
(19:33):
exactly the same address positions in bostureand aim and ball positions and backswings and
so on and so on, andso to try and copy the exact positions
of somebody else, go if weleave one or two items outwork with some
And so the book is a veryliberating book in that it says that you
(20:00):
have I might make certain recommendations.I might make seven or eight recommendations for
how to cure a given ball flightmiss, but you actually have more of
the match, probably have about twentythat would be reasonable things, all of
which would cure, cure of thatparticular mistake and get rid of what I
(20:23):
call a non playable shot, becauseit's the ballflight that allows you to read
your swing DNA. Now, onceyou can meet now, once you can
read your swing DNA, then youhave all these different opportunities that you can
(20:47):
select from to what I call neutralizeyour swing DNA. Bring if for nothing
else, bring it back, bringyour DNA back under control, back where
it needs to be. Which namesthat we that we have heard of,
(21:08):
PGA players have you worked with?Oh golly, oh, that's a great
answer right there. So now it'sI mean, I got a work work
dolly, maybe one hundred my longmy longest time student. I'm the one
that actually, for Hans sakes,got me really back into teaching. I
(21:33):
had retired from teaching. Was inthe golf course development and construction design for
yours. But uh, Peter Jacobson, I mean Peter Jacobson has been my
longtime student for a long time.I have several still that have been with
me for you know, a longtime. Scott McCarran his entire career,
Tom Panice, Uh uh Peter,Jacobson, Olan Brown, who's the current
(21:59):
you US Open champion, Scott Simpson, a former US Open champion, Bob
Play. Other guys that I havetaught caught Paul Aisinger, I've taught,
Dave Stockton, taught Frank Beard,I've taught Uh Delson, Chris Tidland still
(22:22):
teach Chris Tidland. One of mymy associate who has been my assistant for
years and years and years is ChrisChris O'Connell, and together we teach a
number of players. We teach JJColleen. We teach Stuart Sink right now.
He just came aboard. Chris isa longtime teacher that turned around Matt
(22:48):
Coocher's career. A new student we'vehad for about a year and a half
who just won his first PGA tournamentto a tournament last ball, Scott Pearcy,
Joe Ogilby. I teach. Sowhy did you come out of retirement
(23:08):
to go back into teaching, Imean retiring from teaching. Why did you
come back into teaching? Uh,Peter, you know I was I taught.
I started teaching Peter in nineteen eightythree. When I say a long
time student Peter was very successful.I had a nice career from eighty three
(23:30):
until about ninety eighty three, andhis body started getting out on him.
And I taught him as what Icall a two plane teacher, a two
plaine students, because that's what hewas naturally and two playing golf swings,
which are very upright golf swings tendto be a little more injury prone,
the more rounded golf swings, whichI call one plane, and certain two
(23:55):
plane students teaching. You know,Jack Nicholas has had a lot of left
and back problems, and Fred Couple'shad a lot of back problems, and
Peter Jacobson started having a lot ofback problems, a lot of left hips
and left shoulder problems, as didanother two pointer who came to me and
is so a long time student,Don Pooley. And Peter went to do
(24:18):
television in nineteen ninety three. Innineteen ninety four and a quick golf he
did television and his body had givenout on him, his left shoulder,
left hip, and lower back.To give you an idea how it's given
out on him in the last fewyears, that's finally caught up. Peter
(24:40):
has an artificial left hip, artificialright knees, had nine back surgeries,
and left shoulder rotator cuff surgery,so Peter had some pretty severe injuries.
In ninety four, Peter asked me, said, I want to go back
out and play again. Do youthink I could good? I said,
well, not the way you didbecause you had an injured twinning And he
(25:07):
said, we do you think Icould change to one play what you changed
to? And I said, well, Peter, I said, I don't
know. I said, we'd haveto see whether he did or not.
Well. To make a long storyshort, we started in July of ninety
four, while he was still doingtelevision, to change his golf swing totally.
In November of ninety four, hewent out and played his first PGA
(25:30):
Tour tournament in quite a while,the capitol Are International, and he won
it. And in January of ninetyfive he won two tournaments back to back,
the at and T and San Diego, and took a couple of weeks
off and then finished second at garralSo his second at Greensboro. With the
(25:51):
months ago in the year he wasleading money winner. He didn't finish leading
money winner, but he was madethe Ryder Cup team and had a better
career than he ever had after that, and kept saying to me, I
had quit teaching except for Peter andanother student, a long time student,
(26:11):
Duffy Waldorf, And I kept teachingthose two even though I'd stopped teaching.
And he said, if you usedto call his time to get me teach
his friends and guys on the tourto started. I said, no,
I'm never going to get back intothat again, never going to get back
into that again, and wasn't goingto. And finally one of his friends
(26:36):
had fallen off the wagon badly,Scott m Karen, and I said,
okay, I'll help him a sidemet Scott like Scott, and we put
Scott's wheelback on off he got.And then Tom Pernice had never really even
had a good career and was reallystruggling, and I had lost all his
privily just to play and everything wasin a lot of bad problems. I
(26:57):
took over for and got him going, And then it happened with Olan Brown
and all lost his card and Allen'scareer was over, and Allan at that
time was forty five years old,and and turned him around. In the
process, three of the players Icoach had won PGA Tour Comeback Player of
(27:18):
the Year awards, and so Peterkept saying, you got to write a
book. You got to write abook. You got to write a book.
And I said, might read thebook. Nobody knows who I am,
and I don't want anybody know whoI am. Well, I mean
I really didn't. I'm not I'mnot a center stage kind of guy.
And like yeah, because of Peter, I wrote the first book, Playing
(27:42):
Truth for Golfers in two thousand,came out in two thousand and five mcgrahill's
publisher, and that's Playing Truth plAn E po Ai n right, And
it became the number one selling golfbook in America, became the number two
book in America and the category ofsports and recreation, and it was a
(28:06):
number one golf book in the worldin the category of sports and recreation.
And I was pretty shock. GolfDigest had certainly helped because of the controversial
nature of the book. They haddone the largest instruction piece in the history
of the magazine when the book cameout, fourteen page excerpt of the book.
(28:29):
And then all that spawned a secondbook and now third book and so
that's kind of how it happened.But this was all Peter's fault. Peter
and I had a design golf coursedesign company that was just doing nice and
they were designing golf courses, andI owned a construction and development company and
I was out of golf instruction.Really fascinating, and that's how I kind
(28:55):
of got back into it. Amazing. That's an amazing story. And I
want to ask you more about howmuch fun it is to work with Peter
Jacobson if you've even got anything done, because you may have been laughing too
hard, but we've seen a goodthat tells me a story right there.
So but we've already reached our magicalthirty minute point. We've actually surpassed it.
But I can't stop you because it'sfar too fascinating for me. Would
(29:18):
you mind if you could come backfor a second episode. No, I'd
like to do that because I'd liketo just kind of give a little hint
about what the what is the secretto finding a playable ballflight and what is
the secret to finding that to solidcontact? If you will, well,
actually you beat me to the punchhere, because the reason I want to
(29:40):
have you back for our second episode. Is to talk to you about your
plus minus system and how to workon that and how to recognize it yourself,
which is what the book is about. Again. The book is called
Solid Contact by Jim Hardy. It'savailable on Amazon and it's also available as
a kindle book, so you canget that right away. Jim, thank
(30:02):
you so much for spending this timeand for agreeing to come back through a
Golf Smarter for members only episode.Thank you, You're back.
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