December 8, 2023 • 34 mins
240: Have you ever noticed the direction of your divot? Are you getting a divot? You may not be a pro, but you can strike like one and be amazed at the results. Martin Chuck returns to update us on Tour Striker, talk about hitting down on the ball and answer a listener's question. This conversation was originally published on May 15, 2012 as Golf Smarter episode #333
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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. The average LPGA Tour player
swings at about eighty eight miles anhour. There's a lot of you out
there that can swing at one hundredmiles an hour, or one hundred and
two miles an hour, or someof you that can swing at one hundred
and ten miles an hour, andthat's really fast. But the average LPGA
Tour player, if I put themon the tee with average club golfer guy
who swings at the same speed,LPGA Tour player is going to hit it
(00:43):
way farther than you. Well wait, why If you're both swinging eighty eight
miles an hour, you have tohave the right launch conditions to maximize on
that strike, and clumb golfer outthere doesn't. The average LPGA Tour player
does because they've got the club facepath relationship that gives gives them optimized distance
for that base and path club Golferhas some kind of a wipe being glancing
(01:06):
blow that takes away the compression.With another interview from the archives of golf
Smarter, here's your host, FredGreen. Welcome back to golf Smarter Martin.
Hey, buddy, how are yousee. I'm doing wonderful. Thank
you for having me back. Oh. I had so much fun with you
the first time. I was hopingthat you would agree to do this again,
so this is not an issue forme. Plus, I got to
(01:27):
tell you there's been a really niceresponse from the golf Smarter community who sent
in questions and wanted to know moreabout your products. So I'm really happy
to bring you back on because itseems like there's a demand for it.
Thank you. Well, it's youknow, I've had a lot of questions
from your listeners and I really appreciatethat. And you know, times are
(01:48):
busy, but I try to getback to everybody as promptly as I can,
and I love those questions, sokeep them coming. Yeah. Well,
and there's an incentive also for theGolf Smarter audience, and we'll remind
them right now that if they andwe're making it easier for you. If
you go to golf smarter dot comand click on the Tour Striker ad at
the bottom, you get ten percentoff. Yes you do, that's you
(02:09):
know. I mean, you cango buy it locally if you want,
but you're not going to get tenpercent off and you're going to have to
pay the full retail price. Butif you go through golf smarter dot com
click on the Tour Striker ad atthe bottom of our page home page,
you'll get ten percent off your purchaseand remind them of put in golf Smarter
when the coupon code presents itself,and I'll remind you to put in golf
(02:30):
Smarter coupon code presents itself so thatMartin knows that you came from us.
But that's right anyway, it doesn'tmatter, but still take advantage of because
Tour Striker is. I'm going togo on and on about what a great
training tool this is compared to allthe things that I've seen out there.
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I've got one guy who's been askingme again and again. I'm like,
Hey, don't get it. I'msorry. I'm sure you think it's brilliant
in it maybe, but I don'tget it. But tour striker. As
soon as I took it out tothe range, I got it. Well,
and that's just it. They youknow, we we reshot the infomercial
two days ago with McCord and that'sa that's a separate We could do an
(03:13):
hour discussion on that fella alone.He's such a bizarre and fun guy.
But you know, he it's justhe just gets so excited about the darn
thing. And and then here's thetruth about it. I've had he was
my he's my pitch man. He'sa paid professional to do that sort of
thing. However, the second youknow, that was me not even knowing
the guy, presenting him an opportunityto hey, you want to pitch this,
(03:34):
and he liked it anyway, andso he's like yeah, and the
second show, I mean, histime, his not He didn't charge me
a nickel to come do the reshoot, really, not a nickel. You
know. I bought him lunch andwe had a lot of fun, and
he was out there for about sixhours with me in the hot sun,
getting not only getting videotape, butalso they flashed more son on you with
those reflective cards, right exactly.But no, he's a. He's such
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a fan of the thing, andand he's seen the how it has changed
intent, you know, and howhow the club works. They no longer
and you know, and I gotto say, Fred, it doesn't fix
them all. I mean, there'syou know, some people are just so
strong in their ways that they'll eventake the spoon and try to use it
like a knife. And you know, but in a lot of cases they
(04:17):
look at the different club and theygo, WHOA, Okay, I see
what this crazy guy is doing herewith this silly thing, and I can
I can make my body behave differentlyand hit better golf shots. So they've
in court so so excited about it. And this show wasn't so much to
say, hey, we're introducing thisnew thing. It was to say,
hey, we've had this thing outthere for a couple of years now.
(04:38):
We've had so many success stories.We want to share some of those with
you, show you some of thesome I do some coaching in this.
One of a couple guys that thatcame out to Phoenix that we're ones a
fire captain and one was a softwareengineer guy. And these are just your
average Joe golfer guys like eighteen handicaps, and we did some before and afters
that were great. I mean,they don't look like Sergio Garcia after,
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but they look like the club isdoing the right thing in your basic,
everyday Joe's body, you know.And that's what and that's what the you
know, the golfing nation is.They want to just get the club behaving
properly with their you know, theirbody. So we had some fun with
that and the court was great,and then you know, had some few
more testimonials for some coaches that useit and that sort of thing. So
(05:21):
good, fun, great And whendo you think this is going to be
launched? What are you going toput this on the Golf channel on Sunday
mornings type of thing? Yeah,you know we will the Golf channel.
The rate card and the Golf Channelis getting super expensive, so it's tough,
tough. Aren't they owned by NBCnow they are? And yeah,
well that'll change the right card rightthere, that changed the right card.
And of course the viagrads then peopleare you know those those those go on
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there first for the millions of dollarsthey pay. But yeah, it'll be
on the Golf channel and it's Ithink the editors say three weeks that that
means in real time six six weeks, so you'll see a new a new
show out there in the next monthor so. So it's funny, know,
we record this at one spot andthen we publish it the podcast at
another time, and then by thetime some people listen to it, you
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know, here we are recording thisin the middle of middle of April.
Some people maybe not be listening tothis until you know, mid to late
June, which is fine because that'sthe kind of content that we deliver here
on the podcast that you can listento at anytime. But so you're saying
that this thing should be up onwe'll be able to see it regularly starting
(06:31):
probably in June, you think,yeah, yeah, no. And it's
more instruction based. I mean,there's there's a pitch obviously, because you're
trying to sell tour strikers and introduceyou to the other other products. But
there's some there's a bit more contentthat will be of hey, that's me,
that's what I do, and Martin'sworking with a couple of guys,
and you know, here's a differentmessage on the success of it. And
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then you know, if you wantto you want to get better, you
know, here's a way to helpshortcut. There are no shortcuts, but
here's a way to help you understandand more clearly what you need to do.
And that's what it was for me, as I've talked about multiple times,
is the one bucket of balls,and I understood a lot more about
my swing than before. And there'sa couple of things that you do.
(07:15):
Very subtle, buddy, but veryeffective. I love the change your intent,
right sure. I have talked toso many solopreneurs, entrepreneurs on this
program who come out with a productthat they are absolutely convinced it is going
to change, not just your game, it's going to change your life,
(07:35):
right right. But here you comealong and I just think it enhances your
credibility when you say something like itdoesn't work for everybody, No, it
doesn't. That's pretty powerful stuff.I mean, you may not recognize that,
but from where I'm sitting, that'svery impressive that you would say that,
because of course you want to sellmore touris strikers, but you don't
(07:56):
want to sell them the people whoare going to get upset that it didn't
help. Well, here's the realfacts of it. Okay. In a
direct response campaign, like when you'reselling stuff, if you're gonna we budget
and this isn't me knowing this stuff. This is just the marketing guys say,
hey, this is what you canexpect. You can expect to get
five percent of these things back.Okay, well we've only got two percent
back. Now that is a miraclebecause people on a whim go, oh
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my god, they're late night watchinga show and they go, here's a
guy pitching this thing, and theymarket they budget for five percent back,
other training aids to remain nameless,you know, they'll get seven or ten
percent returns. So only get twopercent returns is amazing. Now, what
that really means is probably ten orfifteen percent of the people it doesn't help.
They're just too darn lazy to putit back in the box and ship
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it back. Okay. But whenyou get ten percent returns, that means
like thirty or forty percent of thepeople have no interest in the darn thing
and they're really too lazy to putit back in the box and send it
back. Okay. So for me, that's that says a lot. When
people are keeping the darn thing andenjoying it. And then oh and by
the way, I get floods ofemails and you know, personal phone calls
and people come out coming out totake lessons and hang out and understand you
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know, the strike better and andyou know, and during the lessons in
the schools we do you know,we'll do some tour striker time, and
we and a lot of the drillswe'll use the tour striker just because there's
there's been there's certain benefits of notbeing able to lay the sod over the
ball, and you know, andwithout going down the coaching road right now,
so people are afraid to take it, or they're afraid to touch on
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the ground on the wrong place.We can all agree on that, right
yep, that they don't want tolay this sod over the ball. Well,
well, with the tour striker,you cannot. You can smear the
grass, you can hit the ground. So part of the learning curve is
touch the ground, Touch the ground, Touch the ground, even though you
might be doing it. You know, all over that square yard you're looking
at down there, least you're notlaying the sod over the ball in that
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square yard you're looking at near theball and then your low point control gets
better the and then the key tograde strikers is that they have Now I'm
on a low point control. Andfor the listeners out there, what I'm
talking about, please, if youcan the listeners, what about me?
What are you talking there? Yougo? So if you imagine, let's
just say we took a white stripe. And when I'm doing my schools,
I do this. I just takea white stripe. It's two yards long,
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and there it is, and thatwhite stripe is perpendicular to where we're
hitting. Right, So you've gota white stripe and we call that the
ball line. And I put abunch of balls on that. And if
you watched Hainey's episode with Barkley,you've seen a bunch of balls and the
lines, and well, that's whatwe do at the golf school. And
so a good striker can go downthat line and his club touches the line
and takes a divot at and afterthe line, after he touches the ball,
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and that's a commonality among all goodball strikers. And it's a clean
looking event. And you're like,wow, that's surgical. Almost Okay,
Well, when you get fair away. Frank out there who doesn't play a
lot of golf that that is notsurgical. The low point is a random
it's behind the line, it's afterthe line, it's chunky, chunky,
chucky, you name it. Youget all kinds of different low points.
(11:00):
Well, it's hard to practice lowpoint control when you're swinging something that is
going to you know, lay thesod. And by the way, it
hurts when you don't, when youhit way behind the line because your your
hands get rattled. It's just notpleasurable. So you know, with a
tour striker, it you know,you've got that really blunt leading edge.
It doesn't dig in, so thereforeit just kind of hits and glides and
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it's not painful. So then you'llgo, oh, well that wasn't good.
Well I can do better. Well, well that's better, or that
wasn't good. I can do better. And then pretty soon, instead of
these really random landings of the golfclub on the ground, your landing gets
a little bit more sequence, abit more effective, and next thing you
know, you have a tighter pattern, closer to a better ball striker,
so you know, to strike Icall them whitey the golf ball to strike
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Whitey more effectively. You know,obviously you need to touch the ball,
then touch the ground right little ballbefore big ball. But it's hard to
train that when you've got this sharpseven iron, like a you know,
just a typical OEM manufacturer seven ironwith it leading edge, and you're working
on your forward chaplin and you're prettyafraid that. You know, if you
swing this thing at seventy miles anhour and run it into the ground and
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inch bind the ball, it doesn'tfeel great. So what a lot of
people train themselves to do is createroom, you know, aka lift your
head, you know, change yourspine angle and become fantastic pickers of the
golf ball. Yep, you know. And that's why that's why I invented
the darn thing, just to youknow, I use the word inspire change
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and change maybe have somebody's intent change. But if you if it's training wheels
for your golf swing, because you'renot going to run, if you run
into the ground behind the ball,you don't have the same pain, you
know, you don't have the sameembarrassment of this thing laying a big old
sod piece over top of the ballbecause you can't you know. So there's
there's the elements of Okay, thisinspires Ford shopping because I have an elevated
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leading edge. That makes sense.Wailah, do that ball will go okay?
Part two training low point. Letthe club land own by the way.
You can't lay the over okay,So if you do hit it sort
of fat, the thing skids doesn'thurt. So, I mean that's how
a learning curve gets better and betterwith you know, using this particular goofy
training club. Curious to know whenyou talk about the divot and hitting the
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big the little ball, then thebig ball, right, so you're you
hit the ball, then you hitthe ground, You're gonna leave a nice
divot, right, you know,big chunk of a two pay of sods
is going to be flying out infront of you. It's going to be
in slow motion on television. It'sa beautiful thing, right, It's it
really is. And it's great.I mean when you when you hit one
of those and you get this nicedivot just kind of floating out in front
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of you, and then someone picksit up and and it's just this nice,
little clean two pay worth. Youknow, it's a mohawk there.
It looks like mister t was chasingit, you know. But and like
guy lays it down front of hegoes, wow, nice divot, you
know, and your friends start pickingup your divits. That's great, But
I'm curious to know about the directionof the divot. I've noticed. I've
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noticed that, you know, whenI hit the ball really well, the
nice the divot is just going directlytowards the target. But I've also noticed
divots that are like on an angle. And then when I look at the
bottom of my club, you know, I'm seeing that the it's not the
lines underneath or not straight, youknow, from whether I'm hitting the tee
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or or just the dirt lines themselves, they're going on an angle. Sure,
so everybody has a well everybody hasa shot shaped preference. Okay,
and I'll step back, so youryour best strikers have a shot shaped preference.
Your warst strikers really don't know whatthey're going to get, right,
But the best strikers, like,let's say I'm going to play a little
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cut and my ball is going togo pretty straight and fall a little to
the right. Okay, that's usuallythe shot I hit My divts do not
go straight. My divts go alittle left. I'm a right hand and
golfer. Let's say I've got onehundred and sixty yards seven iron and i
hit a really crisp one, andthere's a nice little two pay divot.
If you come back and you lookat that from behind the line, you're
going to see that divots got ateeny bit of a left orientation to it.
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Not much, you know, afew degrees to the left. Now,
if you have a guy who hitspush draws, a guy that hits,
you know, a draw that goesa little right of the target line
and just kind of falls back ontothe target line, really sexy shot.
Those divts tend to go pretty straightnow, because you need there's a path
face relationship that creates that, youknow, preferred ballflight. So my little
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fades, I'm hitting the ball,my club is going a little bit left.
Ball starts where the face is aimingand then works away from the path.
That's a great one for your listeners. So listeners out there, okay,
turn off all the extra sound rightnow. Walko. If your kids
are talking, leave the room.Listen to this. Okay, the ball
starts where the face is aiming atimpact and then goes away from the path.
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Now that is not one accurate,but it's it's accurate enough for you
to take to the bank in thatno matter where the path is going,
the path has very little to dowith where the ball starts. Okay,
the path can be going wickedly insideout, and if the face is aiming
right of the path, the ballis going to start right and go farther
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right. If the face is aimingleft, the ball is going to start
left. If the path is goinginside out, and then go farther left
because your path is going to theright. I don't want to confuse anybody
out there, but the face isking that. The path is what directs
the curvature. The face is whatdirects the starting line. So really really
important. If you hit that perfectshot for you, Fred, where that
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divot is going straight, that meansat the point of contact your path was
going inside out. Then touch theground you have a straightish divot. My
divots are going left, not muchleft, but a little left, which
means my you know, I'm hittingdown and cross the ball a bit.
My path is to the left.My face was fairly square so it starts
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pretty much down my target line andthen falls a little bit to the right.
So you got to be able tokind of read the divots and have
a little understanding of face to path. And a lot of times people think
that, well, I'm hitting itto the right because I'm swinging inside out.
Not necessarily the case. And moreso I hear this one, Oh,
I hit it left because I cameover the top. If I had
(17:29):
a dollar free time i've heard thatwhich was incorrect, I'd have a lot
of dollars. Because when you hitit left or you hit it right,
you know, face is the culpritfirst, the path second. Now I'm
not going to say that you can'thit a pole or you know, a
path that's going left for a righthanded golfer, and then the face and
path match up and it's a perfectpull. I'm not going to argue with
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that. But most people, thepath isn't that bad. The path is
somewhat target oriented. With most golfersthat play a little bit of golf,
it's the face it gets, youknow, out of control. It can
be you know, four or fivedegrees closed or four or five degrees open,
and then they'll they'll misdiagnose the issue. I get it all the time
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with better players that are saying Icame over the top of that. We'll
look at we'll look at it ona you know, on a launch monitor,
and their path has been inside outeven though the ball has gone long
left, their face was closed.They had some face deviation that was bad.
And then the ball starts on thetarget line and goes way to the
left when they normally play some kindof a push draw where the face is
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more open and the ball starts offto the right, but the face isn't
as open as the path, soyou get a little spin deviation there and
the ball draws back. So Ihope I didn't like go away over anybody's
head out there. But to simplifyit, face is king and then path
is where what really controls the curve. Well, I wish this was a
(18:51):
video podcast at that very moment,because then we can then we could have
had you draw, you know,visuals for us and do it. But
you're absolutely right. Can people comeout of the room, Yeah they can't
think it okay, so you cango back to the noise. But but
the beautiful thing about an audio podcastis that you can pause, you can
rewind, and you can listen tothis section and over and over again until
(19:15):
you get a complete And I willbe doing this until I have a complete
grasp of exactly what you're saying,because I I really suspect that I just
learned a lot that's gonna help fromall you just said, you know,
And there's there's a I mean,there's a ton of content out there nowadays
with with Doppler radar like track Manand fight Scope and these these new launch
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monitors that have really made teaching prosa lot better because you know, before
we were we kind of knew,but we were just guessing, and now
there's no guessing, you know,And there's and it's when you get a
really stubborn student. Those stubborn onesare the best because man, they're they're
usually make the best offers. Butwhen they're going bad and they want to
change and you suggest something they don'tbelieve you don't have to believe you.
(20:00):
They can just look at the numbersnow, and those ones are the best.
And a tour player to remain namelessbecause you get really mad at me
if I mentioned his name, buthe'll come on, well, I can't
do it, but he he isso stubborn that if you can't show him
the numbers, he doesn't even wantto hear what words come out of your
mouth because it's it's not even about. That's why they're so good, because
(20:22):
they believe so strongly in themselves thatif you can't show them that the data,
they don't they don't believe you.So you have to show them the
data for them to even be mildlyimpressed to make the change. So that's
what's nice about you know, trackman in flight Scobe nowadays, because you
know the random golfer will will willlisten to a teaching pro by and large
(20:45):
and and trust and work on stuff. The better they get them, the
way more they they're full of contempt. I mean, they don't believe you
unless you can really show facts.And that's what's nice about these new launch
moners that you can say, hey, listen to your path. Isn't that
out your face is doing this?You're hearting this these many degrees down.
This is why this is the issue. And here's the random one off that
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really creates a problem for you.So let's work toward eliminating this one off
and this is why you have theone off that goes out of bounds or
it goes in the right rough everytime. And in that way, it's
not just you saying what you wouldsay anyway, it's you backed up with
data that go. Look, I'mnot telling you a fib. Here,
here's the numbers. This, thisDoppler radar machine does not lie. This
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is what the club's doing. Thisis what the ball is doing. This
is why we have to fix it, just like every business is going today,
including you know, advertising agencies.Show me the metrics. Yeah,
show me the metrics. Show that'sright. What happened to your gut?
Man? How important do you think? You mentioned shot shape? Yeah?
(21:56):
How important? I'll and I'll I'lllet you answer for a while and I'll
tell you why I'm asking. Butshot shape in helping you learn about becoming
a better ball striker. You know, if you shot shape. I'm going
to say that when I'm coaching clubgolfers, Okay, and I club golfers
(22:17):
are you know, non professionals.Let's just leave with that. Amters.
I just think it's a nicer wordand say, oh, you amter's out
there. But the club golfer outthere. Shot shape, I'm going to
say that nine out of ten ofyou have a driver path that is down
and across the ball. And thatdown and across the ball, and when
I mean down, you're hitting downon the driver and you are hitting from
(22:40):
outside to end to some degree onyour driver, and that is robbing you
of massive distance. And that shotshape is typically a fade, or it
could be a pull draw. It'sit's not the correct draw, which is
a push draw, and it's inthe fade that you're hitting is the wrong
kind of fade. And that isthat shot shape right there when you look
(23:03):
at your driver and this thing kindof comes off and it starts left of
where the target line works across thetarget line to the right. That awareness
is when you need to find aguy that can help you fix that.
Because every guy out there and whoever'slistening to this, there's a good chance
(23:23):
that you are what the average LPGATour player swings at. The average LPGA
Tour player swings at about eighty eightmiles an hour, so that's average club
golfer. Now there's a lot ofyou out there that can swing at one
hundred miles an hour or one hundredand two miles an hour or some of
you that can swing at one hundredand ten miles an hour, and that's
really fast. But the average LPGAtour player, if I put them on
(23:45):
the tee with average club golfer guywho swings at the same speed, LPGA
tour player is going to hit itway farther than you. And you're like,
well, wait, why if you'reboth swinging eighty eight miles an hour,
Fred, you have to have theright launch conditions to maximize on that
strike, and club golfer out theredoesn't. The average LPGA tour player does
(24:07):
because they've got the club face pathrelationship that gives them amazing distance optimized distant
for that face and path. Clubgolfer has some kind of a white being
glancing blow that takes away the compression. So they might, you know,
club golfer at eighty eight miles anhour for example. The math is,
you know, a multiply that bytwo point four. Okay, So let's
(24:30):
just say that they can, atbest case scenario, fly it, you
know, two twenty five and thenwhatever the ground gives them. Okay,
So at two twenty five in theair, that's long, man, because
if the faraoays are sort of firm, you can bumble it out there.
Two fifty that's a long drive forsome person that hasn't been swinging a club
their entire life. And that's whatthe average bear should do all the time.
(24:52):
Now, if that face path relationshipisn't correct, you know that what
should be two twenty five is morelike two oho five or you know,
two o seven or one ninety eight. So they have to, with hopefully
the help of teaching pro or somereally you know, you know, some
intense self study, figure out howto take away the obliqueness of the strike,
get the club working correctly into thegolf ball less down, less across,
(25:18):
a little bit more inside out anda little bit more up. Now,
you can always have too much.Too much salm pepper ruins the meal.
A little bit of it helps alot. So with some awarenesses and
maybe the right coach, you canfigure out how to have that right amount
of you know, optimized face topath relationship for your speed, and you
can be Yannie saying I'm I'm sayingI'm talking to the men out there,
(25:41):
not the ladies, you know,For that guy out there that can swing
at ninety nine miles an hour,you can you can fly at two fifty
with that club. Speed fly it, and then whatever the ground gives you
might give you three hundred. AndI'm not talking about the guy who says,
well I hit it three hundred yards, Well, that might be down
a down wind and he landed onthe brown spot in the fairway. I'm
(26:03):
talking about all the time because that'swhat the right face path relationship can give
you all the time. And thatthree hundred yard one that you hit in
June last year on the right dayand down wind on the right course where
they forgot to water the night before, Now that one off can be three
point fifty. So that's that's Waita minute, you mean it? It
doesn't count when it hits the cardpath on your distance, No, come
(26:26):
on, makes feel better. Sureit does. It counts because you got
to go play it with that ballto get in a rough spot on it.
No. I brought that up becauserecently had a conversation with Jim Hardy.
I'm sure you're familiar with Jim Hardy. Phenomenal, sure, amazing.
We did two conversations with him becausehe just had a new book come out
called solid contact. Okay, Andhe was saying that we don't pay enough
(26:48):
attention to the ball flight. Theballflight is so critically important to teach you
what is going right and what isgoing wrong. And he even has this
very simple plus minus checklist. Yeah, you're doing this, ye, then
you're not doing that. If you'renot doing that, then you're not doing
this, you know. I meanit's like plus minus plus minus, and
just find the correct balance of everythingthat you're doing. And you know,
(27:10):
he says, you have a swingin your your DNA, your swing path
DNA, and it's just don't tryto change it, just try to use
it. But here's ways to correctit. So he talked a lot about
ballflight and it made a lot ofsense to me. I thought it was
very very fascinating. Oh he's agenius. He's a great Yeah. Yeah,
it was really remarkable, remarkable conversation. So, you know, in
(27:33):
looking at the questions, some ofthe questions that have come into you,
and we've been asking people a lotto please send in the questions and then
you would write back to them andand you know, you'd give the coupon
code, which we're now giving thecoupon code of course golf Smarter, but
click on the link at the Golfsmarterdot com to get all the information you
need to get from Touristriker dot comand your discount. But there's one question
(27:59):
that came in seems to represent everybody, and basically Andrew Military says, I
want to get my swing in bettershape. I think that's where everybody's starting.
And he says, so right now, I own a club. My
current set of clubs is a pineMeadow Command Q Irons, which I'd never
(28:22):
heard of. But he says,now when I'm ordering the Tourist Triker,
I'm not certain about the lie typefor both the Touristriker eight iron and the
fifty six degree wedge that you know. Of course, I want to get
my swing in better shape. I'mnot going to go out and get custom
made clubs or get fitted for clubsuntil I get my swing into a place
where I'm comfortable. Which may bea backwards way of looking at that,
(28:42):
but they are fascinated by Touristriker.They want the Touristriker. They think it's
going to help, and it probablywill, but not for everybody. As
you say, So how do youanswer that two part question or the statement
I want to get in better shapebut also about the lie type. Okay,
so I see, and here's anamazing thing too. You know,
(29:03):
coach a lot of people, andI see a lot of really bad clubs,
a lot of bad fits, andthese are clubs that are fitted,
which, because here's a fitter,will look at somebody and want to make
them better in the moment. Okay, So I'm going to get back to
Andrew's question. So I'm going tokind of come around the corner on this.
You'll go get a fitting, andyou might be broken at the time
of the fitting. A fitter isgoing to make you better in the moment,
(29:26):
no doubt about it. They'll makeyou better by making the lional for
what you're presenting to the ball moreeffective. And in most cases what that's
going to be is if somebody comesin steep, that means the shaft is
more vertical toward the sky and horizontaltoward the ground, So the listeners can
understand that when a person's not swingingwell, they present the shaft steeply to
(29:48):
the ball. That means the handleis higher away from the earth than it
should be. So what that doeswhen you take the handle and make it
a higher away from the earth,the face tilts to the right. Forgive
me, I'm talking about right handedgolfers here that will always hit a shot
to the right and usually always fadethe ball. So the fitter says,
Okay, I'm gonna help this guyin the moment. I'm gonna make this
(30:11):
li angle more upright so that whenhe presents the shaft incorrectly, at least
the face has a better opportunity ofmaking the ball go kind of toward the
target. Well, that's all fine. If you're gonna play golf four times
a year and you really don't reallycare about golf, you're gonna go play
in your scrambles, and you wantthe ball to go for me to be
a little bit more effectively. SoI get those people. Okay, I
(30:32):
get those people, but they aregonna play more golf. And those people
now come to me and I lookat their clubs and I go, wow,
okay, these were fitted. You'refive foot ten, luck just like
me, and yet you're playing golfclubs that are fit completely differently than a
guy that looks just like me.Hmm. The fitter fixed them for the
malady at the time. Okay,when and I fit a lot of golf
(30:53):
clubs in my day, I'll talkto the student and say, are you
gonna play four times a year orare you going to try to get better
at this game? And if theysend to me and I'm gonna work on
my game, I've got to coach. We're going to work on stuff.
Because if you're going to get yourswing in better shape, like Andrew suggests,
and you want to swing more onplane relative to you know kind of
how we're all built. You know, even the tallest of tall people,
(31:15):
they're not eight degrees upright, andthe shortest of short people aren't eight degrees
flat. Our hands all kind ofhanging a certain way, and we're all
they all kind of hang about thesame distance from the ground here. Because
if you're really tall, you gotlong arms. Really short you got short
arms. That's why standard clubs fitthe majority of people. Not everybody.
There's a bell curve there, butthe standard equipment fits a great majority of
(31:38):
people. So if you're going toget into the game like Andrew is,
and he and I went and lookedup that website that he you know posed
in the question, and they sell, you know, just a nice starter
set of golf clubs that I'll getyou going and be fine. So he
said he bought a standard set ofgolf clubs. So I said, go
ahead, and if you're going toget tour strikers, get the standard li
angle. Now for me, I'mJoe standard. My clubs are standard,
(32:01):
standard, standard, They're not adjustedany which, and I can get whatever
I want from manufacturers their standard.Now. Granted I ordered a slightly different
shaft, a little bit stronger,but other than that, they're standard Lize
standard loft. Maybe a little bit. My shafts are a little bit extra
stiff, that's it. But they'renot tweaked any other difference in the shafts
being maybe a little bit stiffer thanwhat the average guy would use. So
(32:23):
I didn't tell Andrew to go aheadand customize, as tour strikers get the
stock tour strikers. Now, alot of people will customize their tour striker
because they've played a ton of golf. They know through years and years that
they prefer a one degree up ora two degrees up, and that's a
bend from the hozzle to the shaftvariation and they go ahead and they do
that, or they maybe like prefera little shorter or a little flatter lie
(32:46):
angle. Jeff rit Or, mypartner at the Raven, his clubs are
I think one and a half ortwo degrees flatter, so he would go
ahead and he has send me thetour striker and bend him flatter. But
unless you really really know, thenjust get the standard ones because you can
always adjust them later. Oh andby the way, you'll save a couple
of bucks because adjustments do cost youmoney because we have to pay somebody to
(33:08):
adjust them. So you know,to kind of answer Andrew's question was like,
you don't need to adjust them,you know, get the standard unless
you're nine feet tall, get thestandard ones, and then after the fact
you can go ahead and say,well, you know what I think,
I am going to adjust this spindyour grip on, have it, you
know, added to it to makeit a match club or we can do
(33:29):
that for you. Do you needto do that? No, you don't
need to do that. Fascinating,Well, again, I encourage everybody go
ahead and click on the Heyfred buttonat golfsmarter dot com. If you have
a question for Martin that you'd liketo have him addressed directly to you.
He will do that. Also,we encourage you click on that tour striker
(33:50):
ad at the bottom of Golfsmarter dotcom at the bottom of our home page
and go learn more about this productthat you can get ten percent off when
you use the coupon code smarter andyou go through golf smarter dot com.
Martin, as always, I reallyenjoy talking to you. I get so
much out of it, and Ihope we can continue doing this. Yeah,
(34:12):
it for for the long future.Yeah, it'd be great. I
mean, your your listener is theeducated golf nerd, and that's that's my
kind of person because I am theultimate golf nerd. So I appreciate being
on the show for it
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. The average LPGA Tour player
swings at about eighty eight miles anhour. There's a lot of you out
there that can swing at one hundredmiles an hour, or one hundred and
two miles an hour, or someof you that can swing at one hundred
and ten miles an hour, andthat's really fast. But the average LPGA
Tour player, if I put themon the tee with average club golfer guy
who swings at the same speed,LPGA Tour player is going to hit it
(00:43):
way farther than you. Well wait, why If you're both swinging eighty eight
miles an hour, you have tohave the right launch conditions to maximize on
that strike, and clumb golfer outthere doesn't. The average LPGA Tour player
does because they've got the club facepath relationship that gives gives them optimized distance
for that base and path club Golferhas some kind of a wipe being glancing
(01:06):
blow that takes away the compression.With another interview from the archives of golf
Smarter, here's your host, FredGreen. Welcome back to golf Smarter Martin.
Hey, buddy, how are yousee. I'm doing wonderful. Thank
you for having me back. Oh. I had so much fun with you
the first time. I was hopingthat you would agree to do this again,
so this is not an issue forme. Plus, I got to
(01:27):
tell you there's been a really niceresponse from the golf Smarter community who sent
in questions and wanted to know moreabout your products. So I'm really happy
to bring you back on because itseems like there's a demand for it.
Thank you. Well, it's youknow, I've had a lot of questions
from your listeners and I really appreciatethat. And you know, times are
(01:48):
busy, but I try to getback to everybody as promptly as I can,
and I love those questions, sokeep them coming. Yeah. Well,
and there's an incentive also for theGolf Smarter audience, and we'll remind
them right now that if they andwe're making it easier for you. If
you go to golf smarter dot comand click on the Tour Striker ad at
the bottom, you get ten percentoff. Yes you do, that's you
(02:09):
know. I mean, you cango buy it locally if you want,
but you're not going to get tenpercent off and you're going to have to
pay the full retail price. Butif you go through golf smarter dot com
click on the Tour Striker ad atthe bottom of our page home page,
you'll get ten percent off your purchaseand remind them of put in golf Smarter
when the coupon code presents itself,and I'll remind you to put in golf
(02:30):
Smarter coupon code presents itself so thatMartin knows that you came from us.
But that's right anyway, it doesn'tmatter, but still take advantage of because
Tour Striker is. I'm going togo on and on about what a great
training tool this is compared to allthe things that I've seen out there.
(02:52):
I've got one guy who's been askingme again and again. I'm like,
Hey, don't get it. I'msorry. I'm sure you think it's brilliant
in it maybe, but I don'tget it. But tour striker. As
soon as I took it out tothe range, I got it. Well,
and that's just it. They youknow, we we reshot the infomercial
two days ago with McCord and that'sa that's a separate We could do an
(03:13):
hour discussion on that fella alone.He's such a bizarre and fun guy.
But you know, he it's justhe just gets so excited about the darn
thing. And and then here's thetruth about it. I've had he was
my he's my pitch man. He'sa paid professional to do that sort of
thing. However, the second youknow, that was me not even knowing
the guy, presenting him an opportunityto hey, you want to pitch this,
(03:34):
and he liked it anyway, andso he's like yeah, and the
second show, I mean, histime, his not He didn't charge me
a nickel to come do the reshoot, really, not a nickel. You
know. I bought him lunch andwe had a lot of fun, and
he was out there for about sixhours with me in the hot sun,
getting not only getting videotape, butalso they flashed more son on you with
those reflective cards, right exactly.But no, he's a. He's such
(03:55):
a fan of the thing, andand he's seen the how it has changed
intent, you know, and howhow the club works. They no longer
and you know, and I gotto say, Fred, it doesn't fix
them all. I mean, there'syou know, some people are just so
strong in their ways that they'll eventake the spoon and try to use it
like a knife. And you know, but in a lot of cases they
(04:17):
look at the different club and theygo, WHOA, Okay, I see
what this crazy guy is doing herewith this silly thing, and I can
I can make my body behave differentlyand hit better golf shots. So they've
in court so so excited about it. And this show wasn't so much to
say, hey, we're introducing thisnew thing. It was to say,
hey, we've had this thing outthere for a couple of years now.
(04:38):
We've had so many success stories.We want to share some of those with
you, show you some of thesome I do some coaching in this.
One of a couple guys that thatcame out to Phoenix that we're ones a
fire captain and one was a softwareengineer guy. And these are just your
average Joe golfer guys like eighteen handicaps, and we did some before and afters
that were great. I mean,they don't look like Sergio Garcia after,
(05:00):
but they look like the club isdoing the right thing in your basic,
everyday Joe's body, you know.And that's what and that's what the you
know, the golfing nation is.They want to just get the club behaving
properly with their you know, theirbody. So we had some fun with
that and the court was great,and then you know, had some few
more testimonials for some coaches that useit and that sort of thing. So
(05:21):
good, fun, great And whendo you think this is going to be
launched? What are you going toput this on the Golf channel on Sunday
mornings type of thing? Yeah,you know we will the Golf channel.
The rate card and the Golf Channelis getting super expensive, so it's tough,
tough. Aren't they owned by NBCnow they are? And yeah,
well that'll change the right card rightthere, that changed the right card.
And of course the viagrads then peopleare you know those those those go on
(05:45):
there first for the millions of dollarsthey pay. But yeah, it'll be
on the Golf channel and it's Ithink the editors say three weeks that that
means in real time six six weeks, so you'll see a new a new
show out there in the next monthor so. So it's funny, know,
we record this at one spot andthen we publish it the podcast at
another time, and then by thetime some people listen to it, you
(06:09):
know, here we are recording thisin the middle of middle of April.
Some people maybe not be listening tothis until you know, mid to late
June, which is fine because that'sthe kind of content that we deliver here
on the podcast that you can listento at anytime. But so you're saying
that this thing should be up onwe'll be able to see it regularly starting
(06:31):
probably in June, you think,yeah, yeah, no. And it's
more instruction based. I mean,there's there's a pitch obviously, because you're
trying to sell tour strikers and introduceyou to the other other products. But
there's some there's a bit more contentthat will be of hey, that's me,
that's what I do, and Martin'sworking with a couple of guys,
and you know, here's a differentmessage on the success of it. And
(06:51):
then you know, if you wantto you want to get better, you
know, here's a way to helpshortcut. There are no shortcuts, but
here's a way to help you understandand more clearly what you need to do.
And that's what it was for me, as I've talked about multiple times,
is the one bucket of balls,and I understood a lot more about
my swing than before. And there'sa couple of things that you do.
(07:15):
Very subtle, buddy, but veryeffective. I love the change your intent,
right sure. I have talked toso many solopreneurs, entrepreneurs on this
program who come out with a productthat they are absolutely convinced it is going
to change, not just your game, it's going to change your life,
(07:35):
right right. But here you comealong and I just think it enhances your
credibility when you say something like itdoesn't work for everybody, No, it
doesn't. That's pretty powerful stuff.I mean, you may not recognize that,
but from where I'm sitting, that'svery impressive that you would say that,
because of course you want to sellmore touris strikers, but you don't
(07:56):
want to sell them the people whoare going to get upset that it didn't
help. Well, here's the realfacts of it. Okay. In a
direct response campaign, like when you'reselling stuff, if you're gonna we budget
and this isn't me knowing this stuff. This is just the marketing guys say,
hey, this is what you canexpect. You can expect to get
five percent of these things back.Okay, well we've only got two percent
back. Now that is a miraclebecause people on a whim go, oh
(08:22):
my god, they're late night watchinga show and they go, here's a
guy pitching this thing, and theymarket they budget for five percent back,
other training aids to remain nameless,you know, they'll get seven or ten
percent returns. So only get twopercent returns is amazing. Now, what
that really means is probably ten orfifteen percent of the people it doesn't help.
They're just too darn lazy to putit back in the box and ship
(08:45):
it back. Okay. But whenyou get ten percent returns, that means
like thirty or forty percent of thepeople have no interest in the darn thing
and they're really too lazy to putit back in the box and send it
back. Okay. So for me, that's that says a lot. When
people are keeping the darn thing andenjoying it. And then oh and by
the way, I get floods ofemails and you know, personal phone calls
and people come out coming out totake lessons and hang out and understand you
(09:11):
know, the strike better and andyou know, and during the lessons in
the schools we do you know,we'll do some tour striker time, and
we and a lot of the drillswe'll use the tour striker just because there's
there's been there's certain benefits of notbeing able to lay the sod over the
ball, and you know, andwithout going down the coaching road right now,
so people are afraid to take it, or they're afraid to touch on
(09:31):
the ground on the wrong place.We can all agree on that, right
yep, that they don't want tolay this sod over the ball. Well,
well, with the tour striker,you cannot. You can smear the
grass, you can hit the ground. So part of the learning curve is
touch the ground, Touch the ground, Touch the ground, even though you
might be doing it. You know, all over that square yard you're looking
at down there, least you're notlaying the sod over the ball in that
(09:52):
square yard you're looking at near theball and then your low point control gets
better the and then the key tograde strikers is that they have Now I'm
on a low point control. Andfor the listeners out there, what I'm
talking about, please, if youcan the listeners, what about me?
What are you talking there? Yougo? So if you imagine, let's
just say we took a white stripe. And when I'm doing my schools,
I do this. I just takea white stripe. It's two yards long,
(10:13):
and there it is, and thatwhite stripe is perpendicular to where we're
hitting. Right, So you've gota white stripe and we call that the
ball line. And I put abunch of balls on that. And if
you watched Hainey's episode with Barkley,you've seen a bunch of balls and the
lines, and well, that's whatwe do at the golf school. And
so a good striker can go downthat line and his club touches the line
and takes a divot at and afterthe line, after he touches the ball,
(10:37):
and that's a commonality among all goodball strikers. And it's a clean
looking event. And you're like,wow, that's surgical. Almost Okay,
Well, when you get fair away. Frank out there who doesn't play a
lot of golf that that is notsurgical. The low point is a random
it's behind the line, it's afterthe line, it's chunky, chunky,
chucky, you name it. Youget all kinds of different low points.
(11:00):
Well, it's hard to practice lowpoint control when you're swinging something that is
going to you know, lay thesod. And by the way, it
hurts when you don't, when youhit way behind the line because your your
hands get rattled. It's just notpleasurable. So you know, with a
tour striker, it you know,you've got that really blunt leading edge.
It doesn't dig in, so thereforeit just kind of hits and glides and
(11:22):
it's not painful. So then you'llgo, oh, well that wasn't good.
Well I can do better. Well, well that's better, or that
wasn't good. I can do better. And then pretty soon, instead of
these really random landings of the golfclub on the ground, your landing gets
a little bit more sequence, abit more effective, and next thing you
know, you have a tighter pattern, closer to a better ball striker,
so you know, to strike Icall them whitey the golf ball to strike
(11:46):
Whitey more effectively. You know,obviously you need to touch the ball,
then touch the ground right little ballbefore big ball. But it's hard to
train that when you've got this sharpseven iron, like a you know,
just a typical OEM manufacturer seven ironwith it leading edge, and you're working
on your forward chaplin and you're prettyafraid that. You know, if you
swing this thing at seventy miles anhour and run it into the ground and
(12:07):
inch bind the ball, it doesn'tfeel great. So what a lot of
people train themselves to do is createroom, you know, aka lift your
head, you know, change yourspine angle and become fantastic pickers of the
golf ball. Yep, you know. And that's why that's why I invented
the darn thing, just to youknow, I use the word inspire change
(12:28):
and change maybe have somebody's intent change. But if you if it's training wheels
for your golf swing, because you'renot going to run, if you run
into the ground behind the ball,you don't have the same pain, you
know, you don't have the sameembarrassment of this thing laying a big old
sod piece over top of the ballbecause you can't you know. So there's
there's the elements of Okay, thisinspires Ford shopping because I have an elevated
(12:50):
leading edge. That makes sense.Wailah, do that ball will go okay?
Part two training low point. Letthe club land own by the way.
You can't lay the over okay,So if you do hit it sort
of fat, the thing skids doesn'thurt. So, I mean that's how
a learning curve gets better and betterwith you know, using this particular goofy
training club. Curious to know whenyou talk about the divot and hitting the
(13:20):
big the little ball, then thebig ball, right, so you're you
hit the ball, then you hitthe ground, You're gonna leave a nice
divot, right, you know,big chunk of a two pay of sods
is going to be flying out infront of you. It's going to be
in slow motion on television. It'sa beautiful thing, right, It's it
really is. And it's great.I mean when you when you hit one
of those and you get this nicedivot just kind of floating out in front
(13:41):
of you, and then someone picksit up and and it's just this nice,
little clean two pay worth. Youknow, it's a mohawk there.
It looks like mister t was chasingit, you know. But and like
guy lays it down front of hegoes, wow, nice divot, you
know, and your friends start pickingup your divits. That's great, But
I'm curious to know about the directionof the divot. I've noticed. I've
(14:05):
noticed that, you know, whenI hit the ball really well, the
nice the divot is just going directlytowards the target. But I've also noticed
divots that are like on an angle. And then when I look at the
bottom of my club, you know, I'm seeing that the it's not the
lines underneath or not straight, youknow, from whether I'm hitting the tee
(14:26):
or or just the dirt lines themselves, they're going on an angle. Sure,
so everybody has a well everybody hasa shot shaped preference. Okay,
and I'll step back, so youryour best strikers have a shot shaped preference.
Your warst strikers really don't know whatthey're going to get, right,
But the best strikers, like,let's say I'm going to play a little
(14:46):
cut and my ball is going togo pretty straight and fall a little to
the right. Okay, that's usuallythe shot I hit My divts do not
go straight. My divts go alittle left. I'm a right hand and
golfer. Let's say I've got onehundred and sixty yards seven iron and i
hit a really crisp one, andthere's a nice little two pay divot.
If you come back and you lookat that from behind the line, you're
going to see that divots got ateeny bit of a left orientation to it.
(15:11):
Not much, you know, afew degrees to the left. Now,
if you have a guy who hitspush draws, a guy that hits,
you know, a draw that goesa little right of the target line
and just kind of falls back ontothe target line, really sexy shot.
Those divts tend to go pretty straightnow, because you need there's a path
face relationship that creates that, youknow, preferred ballflight. So my little
(15:33):
fades, I'm hitting the ball,my club is going a little bit left.
Ball starts where the face is aimingand then works away from the path.
That's a great one for your listeners. So listeners out there, okay,
turn off all the extra sound rightnow. Walko. If your kids
are talking, leave the room.Listen to this. Okay, the ball
starts where the face is aiming atimpact and then goes away from the path.
(16:00):
Now that is not one accurate,but it's it's accurate enough for you
to take to the bank in thatno matter where the path is going,
the path has very little to dowith where the ball starts. Okay,
the path can be going wickedly insideout, and if the face is aiming
right of the path, the ballis going to start right and go farther
(16:21):
right. If the face is aimingleft, the ball is going to start
left. If the path is goinginside out, and then go farther left
because your path is going to theright. I don't want to confuse anybody
out there, but the face isking that. The path is what directs
the curvature. The face is whatdirects the starting line. So really really
important. If you hit that perfectshot for you, Fred, where that
(16:45):
divot is going straight, that meansat the point of contact your path was
going inside out. Then touch theground you have a straightish divot. My
divots are going left, not muchleft, but a little left, which
means my you know, I'm hittingdown and cross the ball a bit.
My path is to the left.My face was fairly square so it starts
(17:06):
pretty much down my target line andthen falls a little bit to the right.
So you got to be able tokind of read the divots and have
a little understanding of face to path. And a lot of times people think
that, well, I'm hitting itto the right because I'm swinging inside out.
Not necessarily the case. And moreso I hear this one, Oh,
I hit it left because I cameover the top. If I had
(17:29):
a dollar free time i've heard thatwhich was incorrect, I'd have a lot
of dollars. Because when you hitit left or you hit it right,
you know, face is the culpritfirst, the path second. Now I'm
not going to say that you can'thit a pole or you know, a
path that's going left for a righthanded golfer, and then the face and
path match up and it's a perfectpull. I'm not going to argue with
(17:49):
that. But most people, thepath isn't that bad. The path is
somewhat target oriented. With most golfersthat play a little bit of golf,
it's the face it gets, youknow, out of control. It can
be you know, four or fivedegrees closed or four or five degrees open,
and then they'll they'll misdiagnose the issue. I get it all the time
(18:10):
with better players that are saying Icame over the top of that. We'll
look at we'll look at it ona you know, on a launch monitor,
and their path has been inside outeven though the ball has gone long
left, their face was closed.They had some face deviation that was bad.
And then the ball starts on thetarget line and goes way to the
left when they normally play some kindof a push draw where the face is
(18:30):
more open and the ball starts offto the right, but the face isn't
as open as the path, soyou get a little spin deviation there and
the ball draws back. So Ihope I didn't like go away over anybody's
head out there. But to simplifyit, face is king and then path
is where what really controls the curve. Well, I wish this was a
(18:51):
video podcast at that very moment,because then we can then we could have
had you draw, you know,visuals for us and do it. But
you're absolutely right. Can people comeout of the room, Yeah they can't
think it okay, so you cango back to the noise. But but
the beautiful thing about an audio podcastis that you can pause, you can
rewind, and you can listen tothis section and over and over again until
(19:15):
you get a complete And I willbe doing this until I have a complete
grasp of exactly what you're saying,because I I really suspect that I just
learned a lot that's gonna help fromall you just said, you know,
And there's there's a I mean,there's a ton of content out there nowadays
with with Doppler radar like track Manand fight Scope and these these new launch
(19:37):
monitors that have really made teaching prosa lot better because you know, before
we were we kind of knew,but we were just guessing, and now
there's no guessing, you know,And there's and it's when you get a
really stubborn student. Those stubborn onesare the best because man, they're they're
usually make the best offers. Butwhen they're going bad and they want to
change and you suggest something they don'tbelieve you don't have to believe you.
(20:00):
They can just look at the numbersnow, and those ones are the best.
And a tour player to remain namelessbecause you get really mad at me
if I mentioned his name, buthe'll come on, well, I can't
do it, but he he isso stubborn that if you can't show him
the numbers, he doesn't even wantto hear what words come out of your
mouth because it's it's not even about. That's why they're so good, because
(20:22):
they believe so strongly in themselves thatif you can't show them that the data,
they don't they don't believe you.So you have to show them the
data for them to even be mildlyimpressed to make the change. So that's
what's nice about you know, trackman in flight Scobe nowadays, because you
know the random golfer will will willlisten to a teaching pro by and large
(20:45):
and and trust and work on stuff. The better they get them, the
way more they they're full of contempt. I mean, they don't believe you
unless you can really show facts.And that's what's nice about these new launch
moners that you can say, hey, listen to your path. Isn't that
out your face is doing this?You're hearting this these many degrees down.
This is why this is the issue. And here's the random one off that
(21:07):
really creates a problem for you.So let's work toward eliminating this one off
and this is why you have theone off that goes out of bounds or
it goes in the right rough everytime. And in that way, it's
not just you saying what you wouldsay anyway, it's you backed up with
data that go. Look, I'mnot telling you a fib. Here,
here's the numbers. This, thisDoppler radar machine does not lie. This
(21:29):
is what the club's doing. Thisis what the ball is doing. This
is why we have to fix it, just like every business is going today,
including you know, advertising agencies.Show me the metrics. Yeah,
show me the metrics. Show that'sright. What happened to your gut?
Man? How important do you think? You mentioned shot shape? Yeah?
(21:56):
How important? I'll and I'll I'lllet you answer for a while and I'll
tell you why I'm asking. Butshot shape in helping you learn about becoming
a better ball striker. You know, if you shot shape. I'm going
to say that when I'm coaching clubgolfers, Okay, and I club golfers
(22:17):
are you know, non professionals.Let's just leave with that. Amters.
I just think it's a nicer wordand say, oh, you amter's out
there. But the club golfer outthere. Shot shape, I'm going to
say that nine out of ten ofyou have a driver path that is down
and across the ball. And thatdown and across the ball, and when
I mean down, you're hitting downon the driver and you are hitting from
(22:40):
outside to end to some degree onyour driver, and that is robbing you
of massive distance. And that shotshape is typically a fade, or it
could be a pull draw. It'sit's not the correct draw, which is
a push draw, and it's inthe fade that you're hitting is the wrong
kind of fade. And that isthat shot shape right there when you look
(23:03):
at your driver and this thing kindof comes off and it starts left of
where the target line works across thetarget line to the right. That awareness
is when you need to find aguy that can help you fix that.
Because every guy out there and whoever'slistening to this, there's a good chance
(23:23):
that you are what the average LPGATour player swings at. The average LPGA
Tour player swings at about eighty eightmiles an hour, so that's average club
golfer. Now there's a lot ofyou out there that can swing at one
hundred miles an hour or one hundredand two miles an hour or some of
you that can swing at one hundredand ten miles an hour, and that's
really fast. But the average LPGAtour player, if I put them on
(23:45):
the tee with average club golfer guywho swings at the same speed, LPGA
tour player is going to hit itway farther than you. And you're like,
well, wait, why if you'reboth swinging eighty eight miles an hour,
Fred, you have to have theright launch conditions to maximize on that
strike, and club golfer out theredoesn't. The average LPGA tour player does
(24:07):
because they've got the club face pathrelationship that gives them amazing distance optimized distant
for that face and path. Clubgolfer has some kind of a white being
glancing blow that takes away the compression. So they might, you know,
club golfer at eighty eight miles anhour for example. The math is,
you know, a multiply that bytwo point four. Okay, So let's
(24:30):
just say that they can, atbest case scenario, fly it, you
know, two twenty five and thenwhatever the ground gives them. Okay,
So at two twenty five in theair, that's long, man, because
if the faraoays are sort of firm, you can bumble it out there.
Two fifty that's a long drive forsome person that hasn't been swinging a club
their entire life. And that's whatthe average bear should do all the time.
(24:52):
Now, if that face path relationshipisn't correct, you know that what
should be two twenty five is morelike two oho five or you know,
two o seven or one ninety eight. So they have to, with hopefully
the help of teaching pro or somereally you know, you know, some
intense self study, figure out howto take away the obliqueness of the strike,
get the club working correctly into thegolf ball less down, less across,
(25:18):
a little bit more inside out anda little bit more up. Now,
you can always have too much.Too much salm pepper ruins the meal.
A little bit of it helps alot. So with some awarenesses and
maybe the right coach, you canfigure out how to have that right amount
of you know, optimized face topath relationship for your speed, and you
can be Yannie saying I'm I'm sayingI'm talking to the men out there,
(25:41):
not the ladies, you know,For that guy out there that can swing
at ninety nine miles an hour,you can you can fly at two fifty
with that club. Speed fly it, and then whatever the ground gives you
might give you three hundred. AndI'm not talking about the guy who says,
well I hit it three hundred yards, Well, that might be down
a down wind and he landed onthe brown spot in the fairway. I'm
(26:03):
talking about all the time because that'swhat the right face path relationship can give
you all the time. And thatthree hundred yard one that you hit in
June last year on the right dayand down wind on the right course where
they forgot to water the night before, Now that one off can be three
point fifty. So that's that's Waita minute, you mean it? It
doesn't count when it hits the cardpath on your distance, No, come
(26:26):
on, makes feel better. Sureit does. It counts because you got
to go play it with that ballto get in a rough spot on it.
No. I brought that up becauserecently had a conversation with Jim Hardy.
I'm sure you're familiar with Jim Hardy. Phenomenal, sure, amazing.
We did two conversations with him becausehe just had a new book come out
called solid contact. Okay, Andhe was saying that we don't pay enough
(26:48):
attention to the ball flight. Theballflight is so critically important to teach you
what is going right and what isgoing wrong. And he even has this
very simple plus minus checklist. Yeah, you're doing this, ye, then
you're not doing that. If you'renot doing that, then you're not doing
this, you know. I meanit's like plus minus plus minus, and
just find the correct balance of everythingthat you're doing. And you know,
(27:10):
he says, you have a swingin your your DNA, your swing path
DNA, and it's just don't tryto change it, just try to use
it. But here's ways to correctit. So he talked a lot about
ballflight and it made a lot ofsense to me. I thought it was
very very fascinating. Oh he's agenius. He's a great Yeah. Yeah,
it was really remarkable, remarkable conversation. So, you know, in
(27:33):
looking at the questions, some ofthe questions that have come into you,
and we've been asking people a lotto please send in the questions and then
you would write back to them andand you know, you'd give the coupon
code, which we're now giving thecoupon code of course golf Smarter, but
click on the link at the Golfsmarterdot com to get all the information you
need to get from Touristriker dot comand your discount. But there's one question
(27:59):
that came in seems to represent everybody, and basically Andrew Military says, I
want to get my swing in bettershape. I think that's where everybody's starting.
And he says, so right now, I own a club. My
current set of clubs is a pineMeadow Command Q Irons, which I'd never
(28:22):
heard of. But he says,now when I'm ordering the Tourist Triker,
I'm not certain about the lie typefor both the Touristriker eight iron and the
fifty six degree wedge that you know. Of course, I want to get
my swing in better shape. I'mnot going to go out and get custom
made clubs or get fitted for clubsuntil I get my swing into a place
where I'm comfortable. Which may bea backwards way of looking at that,
(28:42):
but they are fascinated by Touristriker.They want the Touristriker. They think it's
going to help, and it probablywill, but not for everybody. As
you say, So how do youanswer that two part question or the statement
I want to get in better shapebut also about the lie type. Okay,
so I see, and here's anamazing thing too. You know,
(29:03):
coach a lot of people, andI see a lot of really bad clubs,
a lot of bad fits, andthese are clubs that are fitted,
which, because here's a fitter,will look at somebody and want to make
them better in the moment. Okay, So I'm going to get back to
Andrew's question. So I'm going tokind of come around the corner on this.
You'll go get a fitting, andyou might be broken at the time
of the fitting. A fitter isgoing to make you better in the moment,
(29:26):
no doubt about it. They'll makeyou better by making the lional for
what you're presenting to the ball moreeffective. And in most cases what that's
going to be is if somebody comesin steep, that means the shaft is
more vertical toward the sky and horizontaltoward the ground, So the listeners can
understand that when a person's not swingingwell, they present the shaft steeply to
(29:48):
the ball. That means the handleis higher away from the earth than it
should be. So what that doeswhen you take the handle and make it
a higher away from the earth,the face tilts to the right. Forgive
me, I'm talking about right handedgolfers here that will always hit a shot
to the right and usually always fadethe ball. So the fitter says,
Okay, I'm gonna help this guyin the moment. I'm gonna make this
(30:11):
li angle more upright so that whenhe presents the shaft incorrectly, at least
the face has a better opportunity ofmaking the ball go kind of toward the
target. Well, that's all fine. If you're gonna play golf four times
a year and you really don't reallycare about golf, you're gonna go play
in your scrambles, and you wantthe ball to go for me to be
a little bit more effectively. SoI get those people. Okay, I
(30:32):
get those people, but they aregonna play more golf. And those people
now come to me and I lookat their clubs and I go, wow,
okay, these were fitted. You'refive foot ten, luck just like
me, and yet you're playing golfclubs that are fit completely differently than a
guy that looks just like me.Hmm. The fitter fixed them for the
malady at the time. Okay,when and I fit a lot of golf
(30:53):
clubs in my day, I'll talkto the student and say, are you
gonna play four times a year orare you going to try to get better
at this game? And if theysend to me and I'm gonna work on
my game, I've got to coach. We're going to work on stuff.
Because if you're going to get yourswing in better shape, like Andrew suggests,
and you want to swing more onplane relative to you know kind of
how we're all built. You know, even the tallest of tall people,
(31:15):
they're not eight degrees upright, andthe shortest of short people aren't eight degrees
flat. Our hands all kind ofhanging a certain way, and we're all
they all kind of hang about thesame distance from the ground here. Because
if you're really tall, you gotlong arms. Really short you got short
arms. That's why standard clubs fitthe majority of people. Not everybody.
There's a bell curve there, butthe standard equipment fits a great majority of
(31:38):
people. So if you're going toget into the game like Andrew is,
and he and I went and lookedup that website that he you know posed
in the question, and they sell, you know, just a nice starter
set of golf clubs that I'll getyou going and be fine. So he
said he bought a standard set ofgolf clubs. So I said, go
ahead, and if you're going toget tour strikers, get the standard li
angle. Now for me, I'mJoe standard. My clubs are standard,
(32:01):
standard, standard, They're not adjustedany which, and I can get whatever
I want from manufacturers their standard.Now. Granted I ordered a slightly different
shaft, a little bit stronger,but other than that, they're standard Lize
standard loft. Maybe a little bit. My shafts are a little bit extra
stiff, that's it. But they'renot tweaked any other difference in the shafts
being maybe a little bit stiffer thanwhat the average guy would use. So
(32:23):
I didn't tell Andrew to go aheadand customize, as tour strikers get the
stock tour strikers. Now, alot of people will customize their tour striker
because they've played a ton of golf. They know through years and years that
they prefer a one degree up ora two degrees up, and that's a
bend from the hozzle to the shaftvariation and they go ahead and they do
that, or they maybe like prefera little shorter or a little flatter lie
(32:46):
angle. Jeff rit Or, mypartner at the Raven, his clubs are
I think one and a half ortwo degrees flatter, so he would go
ahead and he has send me thetour striker and bend him flatter. But
unless you really really know, thenjust get the standard ones because you can
always adjust them later. Oh andby the way, you'll save a couple
of bucks because adjustments do cost youmoney because we have to pay somebody to
(33:08):
adjust them. So you know,to kind of answer Andrew's question was like,
you don't need to adjust them,you know, get the standard unless
you're nine feet tall, get thestandard ones, and then after the fact
you can go ahead and say,well, you know what I think,
I am going to adjust this spindyour grip on, have it, you
know, added to it to makeit a match club or we can do
(33:29):
that for you. Do you needto do that? No, you don't
need to do that. Fascinating,Well, again, I encourage everybody go
ahead and click on the Heyfred buttonat golfsmarter dot com. If you have
a question for Martin that you'd liketo have him addressed directly to you.
He will do that. Also,we encourage you click on that tour striker
(33:50):
ad at the bottom of Golfsmarter dotcom at the bottom of our home page
and go learn more about this productthat you can get ten percent off when
you use the coupon code smarter andyou go through golf smarter dot com.
Martin, as always, I reallyenjoy talking to you. I get so
much out of it, and Ihope we can continue doing this. Yeah,
(34:12):
it for for the long future.Yeah, it'd be great. I
mean, your your listener is theeducated golf nerd, and that's that's my
kind of person because I am theultimate golf nerd. So I appreciate being
on the show for it
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