Ralph Bauer

The putting coach created the Tour Read Golf app which was first tested and used by RBC Canadian Open winner Nick Taylor. Ralph discusses the important aspects of reading greens, why visualization is so important and how it's imperative to see the ball go in the hole prior to your putt.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
It's the Son of a Butch podcast. I'm your host,
Claud Harmon. We come to every Wednesday. I figured this week,
with all of the craziness going on in the world
of golf, in the world of professional golf, and all
of this talk of the PGA Tour, the PIF and live,
we own Son of a Butch would get back to
helping you improve your game. Ralph Bauer, Canadian teaching pro

(00:29):
short game putting guru, works on the PGA Tour. He's
worked with a number of different players. He has a
new Green reading app. You find it in the app store.
I think it's fantastic. I helped beta test it and
I'm a huge fan of ralphs. I think he does
really great work. But I'm always trying to find ways
that all of you listening can get better and improve
your game. Technology is a huge part of that.

Speaker 2 (00:51):
Now.

Speaker 1 (00:51):
I think everybody that's got a smartphone iPhone you can
really use this. We talk about how the app works,
how he got started with the app, why he came
up with it. But if you want to get better
at your golf, if you want your scores to improve,
one of the easiest low hanging fruits that you can
have is to learn how to read greens better. If

(01:13):
you can read greens better, it will help you put better,
It'll help your distance control, it'll help your speed control.
So I been trying to get Ralph on the pod
for a couple of months now. Our schedules finally merged
and I figured with Nick Taylor winning the RBC Canadian
Open on the PGA Tour, hooped a sixty five footer
in a dramatic playoff against Tommy Fleetwood, big day for

(01:35):
Canadian golf. So I figured we'd get Ralph on because
Nick uses his app. So you will get a lot
out of this. If you're struggling with green reading, you're
going to want to listen to this one. Sit back
and enjoy listening to Ralph Bauer. So my guest today
is somebody that I've been trying to get on the
pod for a while. We've been juggling schedules, Ralph Bower,

(02:00):
Short Game Hutting Guru and Canadian So coming off of
Nick Taylor's historic win, Ralph, I figured you've done some
work with Nick Taylor.

Speaker 3 (02:09):
He uses the product. We're going to talk about your
tour Red Green app. But just a quick one.

Speaker 1 (02:15):
I mean, what a day for Canadian golf, right, I mean,
really since Mike Weir won the Masters in a playoff
with Tommy Fleetwood he hoops it from sixty five?

Speaker 3 (02:26):
Was I sixty five seventy.

Speaker 1 (02:28):
Feet and fourth hole of a playoff hometown, you know,
crowd everything.

Speaker 3 (02:32):
I mean, a really special day for Canadian golf.

Speaker 2 (02:34):
Yesterday, Yeah, it was. It was amazing. I mean, storybook ending.
First of all, Tommy fleet was super popular up here.
But you know, Keane has a won in seventy four years.
I mean, Mike Weir his childhood. You know, Idols is
sitting there having a beer watching the playoff, like you know,
his buddy's Corey and and Adam were there watching and

(02:55):
it was unbelievable.

Speaker 1 (02:57):
And then in the celebration, I mean, in two thousand
and eight, Jim Weathers he's worked with Chess Reevey. He
runs out of the green and one of the Canadian
Mounted policemen, one of the Mounties, knocks him down and
actually really kind of injured Jim and it really had
a huge effect on his life. And then you know
Adam Hadwin's running on the green, you know, yeah, one
of his fellow tour players Canadian and then Terry Tait

(03:18):
office linebacker comes around the corner and some security guard
takes him down.

Speaker 3 (03:22):
I mean the video, I mean so.

Speaker 1 (03:24):
Many different angles of that video, but I saw one
today that was kind of white behind Adam's running up
in slow motion, and all of a sudden, this security
guard like drops that does the swim.

Speaker 3 (03:34):
Move from the NFL and takes Adam down. I thought.

Speaker 1 (03:38):
Adam's wife her tweet this morning epitomizes what a Canadian is.
She said, you know, I just want to let everybody
know that Adam's still alive.

Speaker 3 (03:47):
And in true Canadian.

Speaker 1 (03:48):
Fashion, he apologized to the security officer for running out
on the green.

Speaker 3 (03:53):
You Canadians are the nicest people on the planet Earth.

Speaker 2 (03:56):
Yeah, I appreciate that he actually did apologize, and yeah,
the whole thing was crazy. And you know, the two
of them, Nick and Adam played like I played the
same golf club growing up, so you know, for them
to be you know, I liveing Mike, We're growing up
and then you know, getting tackled and when it, you know,
Caane opens on the eighteenth gree to front of Mike.
It is unbelievable.

Speaker 1 (04:17):
So let's talk about so the Tour Read Green app
which everybody can get, they can download and everything.

Speaker 3 (04:22):
Talk to me.

Speaker 1 (04:23):
About We'll talk about the app, but what was the
impetus in trying to it? Because one of the things
I've had some of the putting gurus on here, I
mean phill Ken, you who I have a tremendous amount
of respect for, you know, I think he's one of
the best in the world talking about putting. But I've
always said Ralph that I think we as instructors have
taught putting in reverse. We teach mechanics first, and then

(04:46):
we teach speed and green reading, and if I'm honest,
we never.

Speaker 3 (04:51):
Really teach speed or green reading, right.

Speaker 1 (04:54):
I mean, it's it's something that the average golfer really
really struggles with. First, before we get into why do
you think golfers struggles so much with green reading?

Speaker 2 (05:05):
I think the main problem with that, The main thing
people struggle with it is because they when they miss
a pott. Let's say they're right hand player, they left
the right pott, they miss it low, They're gonna blame
their stroke cutcent the time, so they're not looking at
the problem the right way, basically saying, hey, chances are
is a misread right, and then they're learning how the

(05:26):
green breaks. But we've been conditioned to think, oh, I
pushed it, I pulled that one, and that's our two options,
not I underread that, I overread that right. So I
feel like if we could kind of flip that around
and get people to think, hey, you know what, it
was probably an under or overread. You know. I always
tell people, let's get really good straight putts and then

(05:48):
get let's get really good at reading greens right. So
I feel like that's why we tend to not become
great green readers.

Speaker 1 (05:55):
Do you think also the television plays a role in this,
because every six or five or someone has for par
that they miss. The announcers are so conditioned to say, okay,
so if it's a left to right, if it's a
left to right putt and the player misses it left,
it's it's just part of I mean, I'm guilty of
doing it right. I've done TV for Sky Sports in
the UK for a number of years and stuffing. Your

(06:15):
first reaction is okay, you're not down there right, you're
watching it on TV. Yes, you kind of have an
idea even if the en course reporter because okay, it's
a little bit left to right, but as soon as
he hits it, the announcers will say, he pulled it.
If he missed it to right, he pushed it. Sometimes,
like you said, it's just a it's it's nothing to

(06:36):
do with the stroke. It's to do with green reading.
And I think green reading and lack of green reading,
wouldn't you agree ralph has such a massive effect on
a player's speed and distance control undred percent.

Speaker 2 (06:51):
Like if you underread a putt, you always get it
hard right, And if you overread a putt, you know
you tend to have soft. So green reading and speed
control all ties in, you know, you know, big time. Right. So,
and I agree that the announcers, you know, tend to
tend to say, you know, God blessing, they a tough job.
Do you have to talk, you know, NonStop for quite
a while, right they it's it's kind of black or white.

(07:14):
You pushed it, you pulled it right. And there's a
lot of nuances in putting. But but green readings, uh,
you know, causes way more myth puts on the PGA tour.
I've got stats, but you know it caused way more
myth pots than PG Tour obviously from inside eight feet
than a push or a pull.

Speaker 1 (07:31):
And I also think that every every now and again,
someone on social will will post make percentages on the
PGA Tour. And I always find that fascinating because most
of the students that I teach and I work with
that aren't. You know, tour players aren't competitive golfers. They're
just recreational golfers. They're just trying to improve their game.
They just want to get better. I think everybody is

(07:55):
surprised when you actually give them the data of make person.
I mean they look at a player, a PG Tour player,
and he hits it to ten feet on a par three,
and everybody thinks, oh, yeah, the PJ Tour make percentage
from ten feet's got to be like eighty ninety percent
and it's not even close to that.

Speaker 2 (08:13):
Yeah, it's crazy. Like the fifty I was playing people,
the fifty fifty it would break even for PG Tour
player is seven ft ten inches.

Speaker 1 (08:19):
It's seven feet.

Speaker 2 (08:20):
You know, it hasn't really changed in decades. And you know,
people think, like, if you took the average play from
seven ft ten inches, how often is the PJ Tour
a going to make this and the answers vary from
seventy to ninety percent, right.

Speaker 1 (08:32):
Oh, without a doubt.

Speaker 2 (08:34):
I mean good for people that they're confident enough to
think they're going to make that higher percentage, right, But
you know, it's it's shocking how but then again, if
if you look at that, it's also shocking how many times,
like if you take a tour player, any good player
in a controlled environment, they're going to start out well
over ninety percent of their potts online with a proper

(08:56):
speed where that's seven foot ten foot, you know that
that eight footer should go in, right. So the difference
really there is the green reading.

Speaker 1 (09:04):
So the idea was to come up with a way
and use modern technology to come up with, you know,
a way to read greens. Now I probably say, wouldn't
you agree? In the last five to seven years, aim
point has been has become part of everyday vernacular with
players of all you know, skill levels, but specifically on

(09:27):
the PGA's tour we see a lot of players. Adam
Scott was one of the first early adopters for a
really really good elite player, a global superstar to start
doing kind of aim point and aim point express, but
you decided to take that one step further and use
technology to help train. Talk to me about the Tour

(09:49):
Read Green app and what it is and how you
think Ralph it can help players get better. I mean,
you've had some some fantastic success this year, Tom Hogy,
who's really over the last couple of years, Ralph has
really kind of broken out. And Tom not necessarily a superstar,
he's certainly not one of the elite bombers on the
PGA tour, but in using the Green Reading app on

(10:11):
his phone and through your help, he's really become one
of the best players in the world. And he's being
talked about having an opportunity, you know, to get on
this US Ryder Cup team going to Rome.

Speaker 2 (10:23):
Yeah, that's been fun. And you know, Nick Taylor was
one of the first people to use the app. Nick
Taylor and matc Hugh's were the first two people that
we baita tested it with and Nick uses it, you
know every week, right, he loves it helps him with
his green reads. I've got a lot of tour players
using it. But you know, I'm gonna go back to
something that that you taught me a few years ago.
If I can klatte. So you taught me that, Hey,

(10:45):
you know what you're talking to me about launch monitors
and you said, Ralph, you got to get every person
on lunchmar like launch matters are gold with beginners. Like
really You're like yeah, yeah, Like and you talked about
your daughter and you know members of the club who
you know could instantly grasp things. You know, So you're
using technology to help steep in the learning curve, right,
And that's what we're trying to do do with this

(11:07):
with this system. So it's it's super easy to use
in the app store. Basically, what you do you it
uses the internal clinometer like there's in your phone as
a you know, a three sixty level. You put it
on the ground, you input the length and the speed
of the putt, and it tells you where to aim
it right, And it's crazy how accurate it is. I mean,

(11:28):
Forestights endorsed it. I mean I've I've had a bunch
of companies and endorse it. You know, it's in the
TPI store now it's it's it's awesome, right, So that's
been fun. And now we've got a whole green reading
training system built into it. So you can give this
phone to a beginner or this app to a beginner,
and they're gonna with the videos, with the training system

(11:50):
that sets built into it, they're going to know how
to in a very short order how to read greens,
you know, very well in the golf course. So it's
been a lot of fun for that. Like and then
you know, you mentioned as an instructor the biggest challenge.
Somebody comes for a lesson, half hour lesson, an hour
lesson and they're like, okay, I need to pop better.
So you work on their stroke for the first little bit,
get their stroke dialed in right, and then with five

(12:14):
minutes left they're like, oh, you know what, I don't
know how to read greens either, right, And you're like
and then you're like, I mean the old day if
we would just tell people to trial and there, or
we talk about water or you know, you know, race
creek or you know, whatever we think we want we
want to throw in there. But now we've got to
just crazy easy system to you know, so people can

(12:36):
recognize how how the slope and the speed affects it
and then train that so you can use it on
the golf course. Can awesome.

Speaker 1 (12:44):
I one of the things that I always say to player.
I mean, I think it's a generalization, Ralph, And would
you agree the majority of players, regardless of their level.
I think golfers across the board, in my opinion, can
consistently underread potts. Do we have an understanding as someone

(13:05):
you know you're in depth in the putting world, do
you have an idea or an understanding as to why
that is?

Speaker 2 (13:12):
Why?

Speaker 1 (13:12):
Because I see it, Ralph, day in and day out,
at the elite Tour level, at the elite amateur level,
at the elite junior level, and then for all us
regular golfers, why do you think we all tend to
underread potts. You've got a fifteen foot pot and most players,

(13:32):
if it's left to right or right to left, will
tend to underread the pot.

Speaker 2 (13:39):
Yeah, so the elite players, PG tour players and very
lead players I've tested on a left to right pott
are going to be able to recognize seventy pen the slope.
So if it's breaking ten inches, theren't think it's seven right.
And on a right to lefter if it's gonna break
ten inches, there and see it as eight and a
half inches. So they're underreading or left righters by thirty percent,
which is obviously you know a lot rights lefters by

(14:01):
fifteen percent, which is again kind of crazy. I just
don't think there's been effective way of training people on greenery.
It's essentially trial and error, right, Like, probably the most
effective way up to this right now was going up
first thing in the morning and putting on dude, you know,
greens with do on them.

Speaker 1 (14:17):
So you could see what the putt was doing. Yeah,
like a shot tracer for putting.

Speaker 2 (14:22):
Yeah like, and probably that was the most effective way
of doing this up till now. But you know, that's
not for everybody, and it doesn't work for two or
players because they cut the greens by you know, by
the time I got it there. So that's it's just
been a real challenge. I know. I can't tell you
how many times I've been frustrated as a coach, you know,

(14:43):
where I just felt like I couldn't help a player
really get much better at green Like it was just
such an archers task, right And I've had coaches say, well,
I've got a system. Takes four years. I've got a system.
It takes no No, nobody had four years like you know,
we live in a society like if we can, you know,
and I've had we can, we can train people. You know,
it'd be great greeners now under a month. Right, So

(15:04):
I've got a system. I've got this like eighty five
plot system. If you go through this, if you had
eighty five putts with my app, I guarantee you'll be
a much better green rear.

Speaker 1 (15:14):
So the player puts the phone down. Okay, So is
there a way I mean, one of the things that
I do, you know, with all of my lessons is
I went to home depot. I've got a measuring wheel
that you can rock, that you can buy, so I
can know how long a ten foot putt is a
fifteen foot putt. So most people aren't going to have that.
So is there a way that the listeners can say, okay,

(15:37):
with my steps, how can I figure out what five
feet is with what ten feet is, with what fifteen
feet is, so that they have an idea of how
far the putt is.

Speaker 2 (15:48):
Yeah, that's a good one. So what what I normally
do is I'll take a putter. Most putters are thirty
five inches right, roll it over three times, right, So
that's going to be your ninth fotter pay set off
a few times, and then you get good at pacing
off a nine footer, if you know, and then DA
looks drapt light out to a twelve or fifteen footer, right,
So it's pretty easy to do. Takes no time. I

(16:09):
feel like if somebody, you know, if you want to
open up the health app in your iPhone, right, it'll
tell you what your average pace of your length of
your pace is. Right. That'll give you a good idea too.
For most kind of you know, adults over five seven,
it's kind of like a brisk walk, right, So it's
kind of like, hey, I'm late for a meeting. I'm
going to walk a little faster than normal, and that's

(16:31):
gonna be about three feet, right, So that takes a
little bit of time. The other challenge is is in
the you know, because the system will tell you, hey,
this is the twelve inches. Pups can break twelve inches,
if pups can break six inches, broad can break eighteen inches.
You know, people don't have a nun of yo's got
a great idea of what you know eighteen inches looks like.
So I always tell people, hey, like let's measure your

(16:52):
foot and your head, head of your putter. You know,
you're always gonna have your your golf shoot with you.
And so if your shoes afoot and your potter, the
head of your potter's four inches, you got some good
guides to kind of go on, so you don't need
to bring a ruler out there. Like I applied the
fact you've got a wheel with you. That's a great dee.
I'm mean to go in tomorrow. I use a yard staff.

Speaker 1 (17:14):
But believe it or not, one of the reasons why
I did that is, I think again, we're so conditioned
as golfers off of television. Right. We watch golf on TV.
And when you watch golf on TV, the TV distorts
your vision. Right when it's really really dark, they can
turn the irises up, so if somebody's playing and they're

(17:36):
trying to get it in before darkness on TV, it'll
look really really bright. But they're always saying on television, hey,
it's much darker out there. We've just trying to brighten
it up. But when a player hits it to ten
fifteen feet, that distance on TV is very different than
the distance it looks in person. Right, So the reason

(17:57):
why I got the measuring wheel, especially with junior golfers
and high school golfers trying to play. I said, listen,
I just I'm going to roll this out. You tell
me how far you think this is. And I have
been really surprised at how people struggle to know what
a ten footer is, what a fifteen footer is. They
think the distance is different than what the actual distance is.

Speaker 2 (18:20):
Yeah, one hundred percent. And you know, not to date myself,
but you know, when I grew up, we had to
pace off all of our yardages. So we would start
the two hundred practice from the two hundred one fifty,
you know, would get good, really really good at it.
So we had an awareness of it. So so now
you know, if you do want to know what a
three what a nine footer is compared to a twelve footer,
it does take five minutes of practice. You know, take

(18:42):
your putter, your part of thirty five inches, roll it
over a few times, practice that once in a while
for a few minutes, and you know you'll be fine.
If you've got a laser, you could conceivably laser, you know,
see how far a putt is and then paste it off.
But that seems like overkill.

Speaker 1 (18:58):
Wanted to take a moment and think our partner at
rap Sodo. If you've been listening to the pod, you
know that I'm a big fan of their launch monitors,
and I really like the MLM. It utilizes Doppler radar,
so you can use it with your iPhone or your iPad.
And the thing I like about this it's under three
hundred dollars, right, So a lot of the launch monitor
technology out there a little bit more expensive, and I

(19:19):
think launch monitor technology is getting cheaper and cheaper because
different companies like Rhapsoda are saying, Okay, how can we
help the regular golfers. Yes, if you've got thousands upon
thousands of dollars, there are different models you can buy.
You see them on tour. But for the everyday golfer
that's just trying to get better, you're gonna get remarkable accuracy.
You can use this indoor or outdoor. It's portable. And

(19:42):
the cool thing is so the shot traso that we're
used to seeing on TV behind all the players shows
you the shape of the shot. The MLM has that
has performance combines, and again, as I mentioned earlier, under
three hundred dollars, I just think, if you're trying to
get better at your golf, having this type of technology
for this price allows you to look at a lot

(20:02):
of the same numbers that the best players in the
world are looking at. So obviously I work with players
that are winning majors, winning tournaments, play all over the world.
But when I'm not on tour, I work with regular
everyday golfers and I'm always trying to figure out ways
that they can get better. And I think for under
three hundred dollars, you can use it with your iPhone.
It doesn't really take that much to set up. It's

(20:24):
simple to use, and you're going to get really really
good feedback and you're going to understand your numbers better.
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(20:48):
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you with your game. So the app uses the phones

(21:12):
internal kind of workings and GPS and everything. And then
so how does the player then start to match the
speed with the line?

Speaker 2 (21:23):
Yeah, so that's a great question. So what what what
the The app uses the clinomb like like the the
the like the clinometer you know in the in the
in the phone you have to put on the ground.
It gives you the information and then there's a whole
trains that built in there that the next step is
it'll give you the read like the role. It'll give

(21:44):
you the like two percent right to left, one percent uphill,
and then you have to guess you know how much
you're gonna break. Click on the button and it'll give
you the answer. And then the system is based on
twelve inches past speed. Right. So I've had some tour
players like, oh I look at it, you know six
I hit it? You know two feet pass. I've had
two players I like, hit two f pass. I'm not

(22:05):
going to change the app for you because it's not
gonna work like hitting two feet pass A great idea
on a six footter, like I don't think you actually
do that well.

Speaker 1 (22:12):
Then then then Brooks kept has got no chance to
use this because if it's six feet and Brooks isn't
making it, he's probably got four or five feet coming back.

Speaker 2 (22:23):
Brooks is just a good putter.

Speaker 1 (22:25):
Yeah, But I also think Ralph, it's important for the
listeners to realize that, I think everybody thinks they're supposed
to be a Ben Crenshaw diet in the hole on
the Last Revolution type putter. So two players that I
work with, Dustin Johnson. DJ is like that. DJ likes
to see the ball just die in. So if I

(22:47):
was going to make a criticism in AJ, his brother,
his caddy and I always do it. If we were
to criticize DJ from a putting standpoint, DJ tends to
leave putts short. If I was going to criticize Brooks,
Brooks sometimes is so aggressive that if he's got ten feet,
he might have five feet coming back if he misses it.
And it's funny they hate playing with each other in

(23:10):
the Ryder Cup when it's alternate shot because we'll be
in practice rounds Ralph and at some of the Ryder
Cups before and DJ will have like a fifteen footer
and he'll leave it short, and or Brooks will have
a fifteen footer and he'll run it past five feet.
So we were in France and DJ had like fifteen
feet and he hit one. Or Brooks hit one from

(23:31):
fifteen feet and ran it like five feet past, and
DJ said, yo, don't be doing that on Friday, and
Brooks said, hey, don't be laving at short when you
have a chance to make it. So, how do you
think is a good way that everyone listening can figure out?
What type of But because there's nothing wrong with being

(23:52):
an aggressive putter, right, you can be successful with being
an aggressive putter, and then you can be accessible with
having unbelievable die in the whole speed control.

Speaker 2 (24:06):
Yeah, and those two are obviously, I mean, I mean,
Brooks just want a fifth major, like it's you obviously
can't criticize that if you're building a player from the
ground up, though, you'd probably tell them twelve inch past
speed is a good you know, is a good way?
The safe zone passage, Yeah, you know, because then like it,
you know, statistically, if we're leaving pots inside ten feet

(24:29):
short very often, I mean, obviously we're though those are
all missed opportunities to make the put right, and if
a pretty him too hard the cap with that capture speed,
the hole gets so small that it's it's aggressive, but
the hole gets so small that it's hard to make
a lot of them too, right, So twelve inches past
is it's kind of a nice number. We we did

(24:50):
a bunch of studies on and that's pretty close to
what you'd want Sebby to do, you know, starting from scratch.
And then you know, I even dust and sometimes sometimes
I feel like we do get were we see those
one pots that they dying in to win something, and
you know, and we think that's how they hit hit

(25:10):
them all the time. And I know you've watched Dustin
play great on Sundays and you know the greens tend
to get faster on Sundays, right, And being a die
putter on a Sunday is probably a better idea than
being a die putter at your club, you know, on
a Tuesday, right, or or even for for Dustin on
a Thursday, he's got eight foot or up hill, right,

(25:31):
it's probably gonna be different than than it would be
on a Sunday. Right. So those guys are great, They've
got so much experience, are great A recognizing it, and
we have had some good success with players tweaking small
things at that level. Right. But the system really we
designed kind of like you you mentioned for beginners and
for average people, you know, to get to steep in

(25:52):
the learning curve and uh and and do it that way.
I have had a bunch of tour players who will
use it to they'll say, rough, I like to use it.
Andrew Putnam told me this because I just like to
use it because I get I get to speed the
greens down much quicker, and I can see the lines.
I know where the break is, and I can see
the lines on different speeds because every week's different speed.
And it's helped him with with with that. Just I

(26:14):
like the fact that different coaches, different players use it
for different reasons. Right. So that's been been a lot
of fun having I had so many great coaches who
are using it now and it's been fun to tell
them tell me how how they even using it.

Speaker 1 (26:27):
And you just had two of the universities that that
that have bought in and use your app. We just
had him on the podcast, J C. Deacon, the head
coach at the University of Florida. They just won the
men's National championship former, I mean fellow Canuck just like you.
So obviously, if a Canadian is going to invent something,
you know, from a golf standpoint, I mean J. C. Deacon,

(26:48):
I mean he doesn't have a choice but to support
the homeland and use it. And then the women's team
at Wake Forest. So two national championship teams both using
the app. Tell me how that relationship started and what
gains you've seen with those two programs, both on the
men's and the women's side.

Speaker 2 (27:10):
It's been fun working with some of the colleges. I
was lucky enough to be able to spend a day
with JC kind of going over it, and you know Jac,
you know, they both won Coach of the Year. Jac
did a obviously great job. And you know we went
over green reading with Jac, like not just not just
the app, but like where to stand, Like where did

(27:32):
best ascertain the slope? Like some people like to straddle
the line. I find the problem with straddling the line is,
you know, you might feel the slope one way, but
you're looking straight down. Anytime we're looking straight down something
that's gonna look flat, So our eyes are giving us
a different message and our feed are, you know, as
I talked to JC about, because Jac, you have to
think about he's reading, you know, a lot of the

(27:54):
pots for his team, right like, he's out there reading potts.
Him and Dudley are out there, you know, and Dudley's got,
you know, obviously tremendous experience and played for Florida, And
you know, I feel like Jac actually has got a
bit of advantage we talking about grain because JAC grew
up in a non grainy, you know, part of the world,
and then has been working in a grainy part of
the world. So he's kind of got got both of

(28:16):
those and he had to learn how to adapt, whereas
I feel like some people that grow up on grany
green that's just their vibe and then they learn how
to how to do that. But yeah, so j C,
you know, and I learned some stuff from some tricks
from JC about about reading grain too. But Jac, like
you said, we're Canadian the universe Tannessee coach, you know,

(28:37):
good friend of mine, Branda Webb. He jumped on board.
His guys start putting better. Jac's like, well, well, well
we can't have this. I wou't mean my guy's putting
better right, I'll be honest with the way Forest coach
ever really reached out to her. We've got like an
online but she's she's one coach here twice. I feel
like she's in when coach year again with the app
or without the app. You know, she's just obviously a

(28:57):
great coach, you know, with with a great team. She
signed up for online program, took the online program, and uh,
you know which which is which is cool too? I've
I think I've got about twenty colleges now who's signed
up which which has been fun? Like? And that kind
of goes back to Brooks Dustin thing. If it's kind
of easier to get a seventeen year old eighteen year olds,

(29:18):
you know, to buy into something that's something that's already won. Uh,
you know a lot of stuff you.

Speaker 1 (29:25):
Mentioned Grain and that is something that obviously at the
elite tour level, both on the men's and the women's side,
plays an enormous role in in putting and speed control
and making pots or missing potts. For everyone listening, Ralph,
what's the easiest way give us the grain for dummies

(29:46):
kind of spiel on on how players listening can say, Okay,
is there grain? In this pot. What are they should
what should they be looking for? And how is that
going to affect the putt?

Speaker 2 (29:58):
I think I think grain first of all. I think
grain effect affects the pot for sure. Right, So if
if you're looking at the at the color of the green,
you know, if you're in Bermuda greens. Uh So, if
you're you know, anywhere south of Tennessee and the United States,
you know in the summertime, you're gonna be on Bermuda greens.

(30:19):
You're gonna look for the color of the green. If
the green seems darker, it's gonna be into you. If
it's lighter, it's gonna be down grain. Right. And JC
did a good job of showing me where he reads
grain from. So he reads grain from above the like
in between the ball and the hole. Yeah, you know,

(30:40):
looking down at it so you can see he feels
like he can see the color better that way. And
I've been doing that actually makes a lot of sense.
So you know, you look at the grain on a
on the testing I've I've done on a ten foot pot,
if you're a cross grain, it's gonna about add about
another inch to your putt. Right, So that if you say, like, hey,
do you want to real a quick rule of thumb? Yeah,

(31:03):
you know, you know what I don't like. I don't
like when people say, oh, it's cross grain, I need
to add a little bit more. Our brain doesn't really
work that way, Like you know, our brain wants an
actual target to hit to right. So if it's cross grain,
another inch for every ten feet, if you got a
thirty foot air its can go three inches right. It's
got twenty first three two inches. So that's kind of
an easy way of doing it. Quick sales pitch on

(31:25):
the app. The app gives you like normalized data, so
it tells exactly what you can do without the grain.
But if it breaks more than that, that's how much
the grain effect of it.

Speaker 1 (31:34):
So again I think a lot of people don't understand
or aren't really kind of you know, thinking about it.
If it's down grain, it's going to be faster if
it's into the grain. So it's a little bit like
a carpet. So if you brush the carpet one way,
it's going to look shiny, and if you rub it
the other way, it's going to look duller.

Speaker 2 (31:53):
Yeah, you just debscribed it better than I did, so
let's go with the carpet analogy. For sure. I'm gonna
use that one too.

Speaker 1 (32:00):
Hey, you know these aren't free, So I mean, I've
got venmo if you want me to keep doing this
speed control. I mean, there are a lot of things
in golf that I think people don't practice because it's boring, right,
And it's easier to go If you go out and
you have thirty five potts and you have a bunch
of three pots, it's easier to go try and work

(32:20):
mechanics from five feet than it is to go putt
one ball and put thirty footers, twenty footers, fifteen footers,
all that in my instruction, Ralph, I think stroke mechanics
are always the control. All delete right, you have a
putting day, it's got to be stroke mechanics, distance control.

(32:47):
What are some ways that everybody listening can get better,
even if they're green. Reading is a work in progress.
But what are some drills and some things that you've
come up with that will help players with speed and
with distance control?

Speaker 2 (33:02):
So I'm glad you asked that. So you know what,
when we built the app, my initial idea was to
do the get you know, put the phone down, get
all the physics and then find out where the ball
is going to enter the hole. Right, So if we've
got a fifteen footer, we want to know the break,
but then we have to we need to speed right,
So the line's useless without the proper speed, so we
have to match line speed. So if we could think

(33:24):
certain thinks about where the ball is going to enter
the hole, So that should be our last thought. You know,
before we step into the pot, we know where it
started and we know where it's going to enter the hole.
So if you've got a right to left here, you're thinking, okay,
it can enter six thirty seven o'clock, seven thirty eight o'clock,
so you know, eight o'clock be pretty severe breaking pot.
You know, six thirty be you know, very very minimal break. Right,

(33:47):
And if we could think more about how the balls
entering the hole, our speed control will get better, right
because it now if we're thinking about where it's entering
the hole, we're visualizing it, you know, entering there, and
you know, then then our body is gonna you know, know,
how hard to hit it based on what our brain
is seeing before we before we hit it. Like, I know,

(34:08):
there's speed drills that all hit a ten foliot plot
at fifteen foot putt of twenty foot plot hit a
thirty foot But I don't find those super helpful. I
find it way more helpful to get people to see,
like whenever somebody plays well. And Nick Taylor said it
the other said in his interview, he said, you know,
I saw some putts going. You're always talking about, you know,
seeing things right, So like you always hear whatever good

(34:31):
player puts, well, it's because they're seeing seeing the line,
seeing the speed, seeing the ball into the hole, you know.
And and if that's what we're doing when we're putting, well,
why don't we just do that all the time.

Speaker 1 (34:42):
Yeah, I mean it's interesting that you mentioned that that
I think golfers are visual. Maybe about ten years ago,
I think the TPI guys were the first ones to
kind of talk about linear versus non linear putters, right,
people that see straight lines and then people that see
curve lines. Right, people that see the curving into the holes.
When they stand behind a twenty footer that's breaking left

(35:03):
to right, they kind of see this curve in this arc.
Those would be nonlinear, and then linear putters would be Okay,
I see a straight line to where the putt is
going to break. Do you see a correlation between one
of those in terms of how would you have a
person identify that, like if they are like okay, because

(35:26):
I asked that question and I hear a lot of
players say to me, listen, I don't see you know,
Ben Crenshaw, Brad Faxon, they see curve right. I would
imagine Cam Smith is more visual, kind of like an artist.
Cam is doing a lot of what I would think
that you were talking about. He's seeing the ball go
in in a specific way. And then there are other

(35:48):
putters that say, listen, okay, I know this thing breaks
left to right. I know this thing breaks right to left.
I'm just gonna put it straight to that spot and
then let gravity take over.

Speaker 2 (35:59):
Yeah. And I find it's pretty easy to tell what
they are if they're linear and not linear by by
what they're aiming at right. So they're saying I'm aiming
twelve inches out to the right, then guess what they're linear.
Like Zach Johnson, I don't understand every punch straight pot.
You just have to pick a spot right or left
and hit it. I don't know what you keep are
talking about curve lines everything straight. I'm like, well, okay,
well guess what, you're linear. That's great, you know, and

(36:22):
you know, keep keep doing that. You can't, I find
you can't turn one into the other, like you can't
turn uh, you know, an artist into a scientist and
vice vice versa. Right, So I feel like, you know,
it's different things for different people. The non linear people though,
they're still a new idea where it's started right, and

(36:45):
you know, getting a you know, a better visual for
them is going to be important. They did a great
job to talk about linear not linear, because it's important
because you can legit put people and there's not really
people that are in the middle. But I do think
if we could pick a spot, okay, twelve inches outside
right edge, and then even if you're linear, you can
still think about where that ball is can be entering

(37:05):
the hole, because that's gonna be how you have to
match up match the speed to that.

Speaker 1 (37:09):
Line touch and speed control. And one of the things
that I do with a lot of players is I
take the hole out right the actual ball going in
the hole, So we'll go putt to an old hole
right that we can see. And I've found that that's

(37:29):
a really interesting way to have players see how the
ball is going, what the speed is going to be
with the ball after it would go through where the
hole is. Right, so you're putting to an old hole.
Let's say you've got a right to left putt from
ten to fifteen feet, So the ball can't actually go

(37:50):
in the hole because there's no hole in the ground,
but you can still see where the old hole is
you're putting too that if it rolls into the middle
of that on a right to left putt, you would
have made that, but then you can see how the
pott is going to roll out after that. Do you
think that that's a beneficial way for people to have
an understanding as to what their speed is.

Speaker 2 (38:14):
Yeah, one hundred percent. That's a great drill, and you
know a good part.

Speaker 1 (38:17):
Of Venmo Another Venmo. Come on, just these are.

Speaker 2 (38:23):
No this is great. So uh because I've used the
fake Okay, so this is dumb. I've used a fake hole.

Speaker 1 (38:30):
No, no, the fake But not everybody has a fake hole, right,
I mean on tour everybody has. Everybody has one with
their manufacturer's logo on it. If you're a titleist guy,
you've got the titleist one. If you're a tailor made guy,
if you're a cobra whatever. That's my point. Not everybody
has a plastic disc that they're given out on tour, right,
you could go buy those, but you know players have too. Yeah.

(38:51):
So Ben Creunchall told me once that if your ball
always has the right speed, how far away from the
hole is it ever going to be? I found that
a fascinating statement because obviously Ben very much nonlinear. Yeah,
I mean he's an artist, right. Do you think that

(39:14):
players obsess about the read and then at times can
fall in love so much with the line that they
just forget to hit it. I mean, you've got a
fifteen footer, it's breaking right to left, You've got the
perfect read, and you leave it to roll short and
you're like, you got the read part right, but the
ball never got to the hole.

Speaker 2 (39:36):
It's funny whenever you fall in love with the line
and hit the wrong speed, you always had the right line.
You do, it's the right line, but you're so happy
with that that you got to figure it out. You
completely forget to forget the distance part. Yeah. Absolutely, it
happens to everybody. But if we could think about worth
entering the hole as our last thoughts. That's gonna nullify that.

(39:57):
Like if you see somebody had a terrible put for
me feet, there's no way they were thinking about where
that ball is entering the hole. They were thinking about
the line. They were thinking about stroke mechanics. Stroke mechanics. Good, yeah,
really good one. You know, maybe they alter their pre
shot and it's making them feel uncomfortable and they're still
thinking about Hell un comfortable are from the pre shot routine,
you know, But you're right. So if we could visualize

(40:21):
I'm really big too. My favorite thing to do with
players is to visual have them visualize the pot at
some point their routine. It's gonna be different for everybody,
but it's going to be have them visualized the pot
in real time. So if they can, if they could,
maybe it's behind the ball and you know, when when
they're bending down looking at it, but if they could
visualize the pot in real time from where the ball

(40:44):
is to the hole, you know, it slows down as
enters a hole and then let's say dust and would
see it just toppling over, you know, and Brooks would
see it, you know, hammering into the back way. Great
they're still gonna have their desired speed. But if we
could visualize it, and not everybody can, but if you can, great,
And if you can't, just walk your eyes along that

(41:05):
path in real time. And I've taken stop watches, I'm like, okay,
this potts can take three seconds, we'll hit it. Okay,
I stopped time to three seconds. Now take three seconds
to visualize this pot Like, oh okay, that's real time right,
So that's super helpful for speed. I think the visualizing
in real time and the entry point of where it's
getting in to the hole are huge to match up

(41:27):
the line of speed.

Speaker 1 (41:29):
What are some drills? Give me a couple of drills
for speed that you think are really really helpful.

Speaker 2 (41:36):
Here's here's kind of a tough one. This would be
like an elite player one. But get get a chalk
line or a string, find out where the uh the
perfect spots hit it from. Let's say you got an
eight footer, you hit the pot goes right in the middle,
then go up a foot from seven feet, you know,
dye that one in and then go back a foot

(41:58):
on the same line and hit it harder. And they
have to hit that one firmer so it kind of
be to use your analogy, like the eight footer would
be a normal putt, you know, the seven footer would
be DJ speed, and the nine foot would be more
brooks of speed. So that's kind of a good way
to get players thinking about speed because you're using the
same line. So you're not just I'm not I don't

(42:19):
think mindless speed drills. We're just hitting twenty twenty five,
thirty thirty forty five, you know, just like like a
ladder drill tends to work. I think we need to
visualize it more because because that's going to carry over
into any situation where the ladder type drills I find,
you know don't don't you know have less carryover for sure.

Speaker 1 (42:41):
In your opinion, Name me some of the great green
readers that you've seen and been exposed to in your
work on on the PGA tour.

Speaker 2 (42:53):
I mean it's hard to quantify that for sure. I
can I can tell you a couple of my guys
that are great green readers, right, But.

Speaker 1 (43:02):
Because they're using the app, right, I mean it helps.

Speaker 2 (43:06):
I mean Adam Hadwarms a great I feel like Adam
Hadams a great Green reader. But we've done a lot,
Like we shouldn't say a lot of work. I just
very early on the relationship. I just got to start
visualizing in real time, right, and that's super helpful. Right,
there's a there's definitely some good Green Readers, but I
feel like it's it's something that can come and go,

(43:29):
and they might be great at certain courses where they've
got a great feel for that course and it and
it doesn't translate well into into different courses. That's a
good question. Brooks is good. I'm sorry, I mean, I mean,
I'm sorry. He's good. Obviously, Bryson's good.

Speaker 1 (43:50):
Yeah, Bryson's good because Bryson actually will go and spend
hours upon hours upon hours on trying to pick apart
every part of his game. He does it with his
short game, he does it with his long game, he
does it with his driving, and then he does it
with his pudding. I mean, he's got the launch monitor
out there putting to no hole trying to figure out

(44:14):
how forward to hit everything.

Speaker 2 (44:18):
Yeah, if you look at I feel like, if if
you look at somebody like Maverick McNeely is obviously very good,
very good Green Reader. I feel like it's one of
those things too, where if you put more effort into
reading green, like into training your green reading, you're gonna
get better at it, right. And I feel like some

(44:38):
people just throw their hands and say, oh no, it's
just feel, you know. And when somebody tells me, oh,
it's just feel, you know, in my head, I'm thinking, oh,
you're kind of lazy, right, Like, Like you know, let's
say you talk about like Dustin, like he's got his
tear drop out there and he's putting along the lines
and and that's training your green reading too, right because

(44:59):
he seeing you putting in different spots, different different days
like that, that's you know that that's working. You see
a big difference. You don't go to many smaller PG
tour events. You see a big difference from the elite
players preparation to the average PG tour players preparation. Right,
so you know it's like anything else, we prepare better,

(45:20):
we were gonna play better. And you know, if I
can make a quick pitch on my phone from my
from my app, rather go for it. I've got this
this cool little seventy five pot drill they can spread
out over you know, one, two, three, four sessions that legit,
everybody gets much better reading greens from and then I

(45:40):
would think too, it's funner if if we're playing golf
and every pot we hit we don't go down a
rabbit hole I pushed or pulled it. I'm gonna change
my stroke because you if you missed two left and
you automatically think you pulled it, well, now you're you're
gonna be on the third green taking a bunch of
practice strokes over the flag stick, trying to fix your
stroke when and now you're probably gonna push the next

(46:01):
one and the only way it's going to go in
is if it's a you know, a right to left
her and you underret, you know, you under red and
you push and it went in. Then you think you
fix your stroke. That's why I feel like people don't
get better better, like people get better at everything else,
Like people get much better at driving the golf ball,
people get much better at hitting bunker shots. You know,
the slowest skill to acchoire and golf by far up

(46:25):
till now has been green reading.

Speaker 1 (46:28):
Yeah, and it's it's it is this skill, and I
think a lot of people think that. I mean, there's
I teach Marina Alex on the Ladies Tour and she played.
She had a chance to win a tournament early last year,
she was in the final group she played with Leona Maguire,
didn't get it done. Leona basically putted her off the

(46:50):
golf course and she said to me afterwards, she's like, listen,
I've been on tour for ten fifteen years now. She's like,
I have never seen anybody be able to read greens
like that. So I think what every but he thinks
is it's a skill that's instinctive that you were born with.
And I think the cool thing about the app that
you've created is you're like, Okay, if you weren't blessed

(47:10):
with just instinctive, incredible green reading skills, there is a
way to practice it. And I think it's interesting that
you've You've said that you listen and I've seen it,
and I've seen players get better drive in the golf ball,
have their iron game, have their short game improve. But historically,
you know, green reading has been probably the least trained

(47:36):
worked on thing possible, and I think it was a
lot of I mean, obviously, Ralph, if you're not good
at something and you don't have any positive feedback from
it as a player, you're not going to do it
right if you if you're bad at reading greens and
you go over and you say to it yourself, okay.
And that's why I think it's so important and why
you know, you and I have been talking for you know,

(47:57):
two or three months now to get you on not
only to pitch the app, but also you and I
are in the same business, right. We want golfers to
get better, right, we want golfers to improve, and it's
so frustrating fun, Yeah, it's so frustrating to see players
consistently struggle. So I think historically people don't practice green

(48:19):
reading because I don't think they have any idea what
the hell they're supposed to be doing to read greens. Anyway,
They plumb bob it, they do the line stuff. And again,
I think golfers, a lot of golfers listening just do
what they see elite tour players do on television and
it works for them. But if it doesn't work for
you on Saturday afternoon when you're out there, it's not

(48:40):
like you're going to go practice that some more. You're
just gonna go, Okay, I'm gonna go worry about the stuff.
I'm good at right.

Speaker 2 (48:46):
Yeah, yeah, you know, we like to practice or we're
good at it. Like I said, there's just a super
easy way to practice your green reading. If you think
about getting if you think about lowering your score, like
if we want to hit it further, like do we
really want to wake up earlier and go to yoga?
You know, do do we really want to you know,
like yeah, yeah, it's better, but wow, you can get

(49:07):
better at reading greens. You can knock you know, we've
done studies and like people can knock off you know,
lots of strokes in a hurry, like like the average
PG tour player I've worked with, you know, has picked
up point five strokes that gained with his putting right,
which means.

Speaker 1 (49:24):
A lot, which is massive massive.

Speaker 2 (49:28):
I mean, yes, it's it's big. And also I mean
statistically they'll you know, driving the ball is better, you know,
it's more important rather than putting. But you know, you
don't see people higher. You don't see people you know,
fifth pumping after drive very often right there, they're typically
fifth pumping after after a plot. And you know, I
still want to do to study. I haven't done you Unfortunately,
if you make a seven foot ten inch pot. How

(49:48):
do you think you hit your drive on a pole
compared to if you miss that seven foot ten? In sure,
you've watched a lot of golf, you know, aren't people
in a better mood? Aren't they more confident, you know,
when they after they made a put rather when they missed.

Speaker 1 (50:01):
I mean absolutely, I mean for sure, and I do
think you know, it's the same thing, like it dovetails. Right,
if if you drive it pretty good, your iron game
gets better, right Like, even if your distance doesn't improve
off the tee, right, even if you don't drive it
three hundred yards off the tee, but if you hit
the ball in the fairway, your iron game is going

(50:24):
to get better because your confidence is going up. Because
you're hitting the ball from the middle of the fairway,
You've got a much better chance to have a flat
lie from the from the fairway than you do if
you're over in the trees, if you're over in the
rough and all of that. I think that you're right.
That is, if you hold more, if you hold a
seven foot for bar, you're dying to get to the
next tee to go put it in the ground and
hit a drive.

Speaker 2 (50:45):
Right. Yeah, you know, when you're pinting, Well, you just
can't wait to get to the next green, right, So
you're like, okay, let's get this ball in the greens.
Here's strokes as possible. I want a chance at Birdier,
you know, so it's super important. I think it's funner.
I think I think if if there are so many
people could take out of this. Though, from my point
would be like, hey, like, like, if you miss a putt,

(51:07):
let's assume it was a misread, right, because then you're
working on green reads something you can And by the way,
if I feel like if you misread a putt, it's
not going to hurt your confidence. If you think you
pulled it, what do you do in the next hole?
You intentionally push it? Like that's that's a real challenge
when people come to be like hey, Ralph, I feel
like I'm pulling every fifth putt, Like, well, we can't
start pushing them otherwise you're going to be missing four

(51:29):
of them right instead of one of them left. Right.
So it's just an easy way for people to get
better at any level. And it's been a lot of
fun for sure.

Speaker 1 (51:42):
Different speeds of greens, right, I mean, obviously the greens
I'm at the US Open this week. The green speeds
at the US Open historically versus what the majority of
golfers playing golf all over the world or going to
putt on, are going to be vastly different.

Speaker 2 (51:58):
Right.

Speaker 1 (51:59):
The greens that August National during the Masters are going
to be a speed at which the average golfer will
never put on greens like that. So when you are
a player, and you're a recreational golfer, right, and you're
just going from course to course, right, And how can
players adjust to slow greens? Some days? Because I mean,

(52:24):
there's a girl that I teach that's a very good player,
and she, you know, she's a member at a country
club where the greens are always great. When she comes
up to my place, the greens are running eleven twelve.
All the courses that she practices on are tour caliber greens, right.
And then she goes and plays in junior golf tournaments

(52:46):
and amateur golf tournaments and the greens are flat and
they're running at nine and they're not good. So how
can players adjust to speed of the greens because it's
never going to be the same.

Speaker 2 (53:00):
Yeah, that's a good way of doing it. Most people
are pretty comfort for saying it. Most people are pretty
comfortable with what they see on TV. They're used to watching.
You know, the PG tour. PG tour average about eleven.
You know stim stems about eleven. Uh, you know your place,
let's say eleven twelve. The average let's say golf course,
like municipal golf course, probably around nine. Right, So if

(53:23):
you think about we use ten as kind of a base,
because ten would probably be a decent average for most
golf courses. If you're on slow greens, nine, nine are
gonna break ten percent less than ten. Right. If you're
in eleven, they're gonna break ten percent more than than ten. Right.
If you're on twelve, it's gonna break twenty more than ten.

(53:45):
So I feel like if you could have get comfortble
whatever speed you're used to. Let's say she's used to eleven,
that's great. If she goes to a nine, she doesn't
have to take twenty percent break off her putts, which
is gonna seem unusual, but that's gonna be the way
to go. If I can throw a quick analogy about that,
I had a player was playing I think in New Orleans,

(54:07):
and it rained a lot Wednesday night, Right, so Thursday morning,
the other golf course, you know, greens were way slower,
and they'd practiced the whole time. You know, they were
missing their their punch high, right, So they threw the
app down with the new green speed, got there, started
getting you know, adjusted to the to the new green speeds, right,
and then they came in twelfth to thirteenth, had a

(54:28):
good putting week. Couldn't have been to Orleans because it
wasn't a partner one but one of those ones in
the South where it can rain a decent amount. So
green speed's important. It does affect it. And it's nice
to have a baseline from your home club though, to
go work off one way the.

Speaker 1 (54:44):
All right, So tell everybody how much it costs and
where they can get the app.

Speaker 2 (54:50):
Okay, I appreciate that. So the app is one hundred
dollars a year. It's a subscription model. What we've it's
in the app store. It's it's doing really well. What
what we're putting, uh, you know, videos into it. I've
coached on the PGA Tour. I first met you, I
think seventeen years ago out there. We've been doing this
for a while. So I've coached on the PGA Tour

(55:10):
for seventeen years. So what I'm doing with the videos
and stuff too, is trying to make it a turnkey
system to teach people how to put as well, you know,
because mechanics. Mechanics are important, right, So we're gonna talk
about ball. There'll be videos on ball, position, videos on
you know. I've got some cool drills that you know,
basically work for everybody. I'm gonna have about forty videos

(55:32):
in there, and you know it, it's got an amazing
way to train our green reading.

Speaker 3 (55:38):
Right.

Speaker 2 (55:38):
So it's one hundred dollars a year. It's it's in
the app store, and it's gonna teach out to putt
teach how to read greens. I'm, you know, obviously super
excited about it. This has basically been my life's work, right,
I've I've been a putting coach you know for the
last seventeen years and PGA Tour. I'm trying to take
everything I've learned in that time, you know, and and

(55:59):
and put it in this app.

Speaker 1 (56:01):
And for everybody that says, oh wow, one hundred dollars
a year, that's a lot of money. But if you
think about how many golf balls. You lose a year
if you're a fifteen to twenty handicapper. No, but seriously,
if you think about how much you're spending on lose
on golf balls because you're losing them and you want
your scores to improve. I mean the amount of people
that you know are spending on money on a new driver. Hey,

(56:23):
I'm not driving it good, Let me go drive get
a new driver. Hey, I'm not putting it putting it good,
I'm gonna go buy a new putter. Right, My iron
game's bad, I'm gonna get all new irons. My bunker
games bad. I'm gonna get a new wedge, right. So
to me to help you learn a skill, right, that
is really from a golf standpoint, you know, green reading
is a life lesson, right, it is a life lesson

(56:45):
that it is something that you can learn that will
help you throughout the course of your golfing career. And
you know I've tried it. You know, my guys out
of Dubai, at my academy in Dubai, I mean, Ralph,
they love it. I mean we're having all of our
juniors do and one of the things that we've started
to do is we use the app, and we we

(57:08):
have the player read the putt first okay, and say okay, one,
how far is this distance? Okay?

Speaker 2 (57:17):
Right?

Speaker 1 (57:18):
Two? What do you think the break, the speed and
all that is going to be? And then what we
do is we put the phone down, put the app down,
and we don't even putt right. We don't do any putting.
We just go around to various holes of various distances,
because I think that's really really powerful to get people
to if you are going to learn how to read greens,

(57:40):
part of that is not putting right. Part of that
is not not actually doing the task I actually want
to see. Okay, is this Do you know that this
is left to right or right to left? Do you
know that this is uphill and downhill? I always say
Ralph to players. I think it's important when you get
to a putt, before you mark it, ask yourself two questions.

(58:03):
Is it uphill or downhill? Is it left to right
or is it right to left? And get that initial
first read. Then go gather the data. Go gather the information,
and hopefully it's going to be downhill if you thought
it was downhill, and hopefully it's going to be right
to left if it's right to left. And I think
if the other thing that I think that helps players

(58:26):
do Ralph is it helps him build trust. Now, if
you think it's uphill and it's left to right, and
it's downhill and it's right to left, and that is
something that's consistent. Right, every time it's downhill, you think
it's uphill, and every time it's left to right it's
actually right to left. That's a completely different conversation, but
I do think similar to what you were talking about,

(58:46):
get that initial first read, then see if you're right,
and then use the app to go Okay, yeah, I'm
actually not that bad of a green reader. I thought
this was downhill. It's downhill. I thought it was left
to right. It's left to right. And then you start
to build that kind of trust with yourself as a player,

(59:08):
and then we can use through your app, we can
use technology to go okay, yeah you were right. Now
let's get into the real minute details of how much
it's downhill, how much it's breaking, and all of those things.
And I just think it's been such an easy way
in using your app to to help so many golfers
of all different levels to just have them go oh

(59:30):
wait a minute, I can become a better green reader
and hey, I'm actually not that bad of a green reader.

Speaker 2 (59:37):
Yeah, yeah, it's fun and take the frustration up because
app to now people are like, yeah, they miss the pot.
They don't know if they miss hit and misread it,
you know. So it's yeah, it's it's super helpful for
every person that I've tried it with.

Speaker 1 (59:50):
Well, I want to I want you to privately send
me how many total downloads you've had, and if the
number goes up, we're gonna have to talk. Ralph, We're
gonna have to talk. But no, honestly, everybody listening, I
think you've come up with something that is so unbelievably
simple because everybody has a smartphone. Now, does it work
with both with all different types of phone? Samsung, Android? Apple?

Speaker 3 (01:00:12):
No?

Speaker 2 (01:00:12):
No, right now, right now, it's iPhone only. We're in
the process of I know, I know, I know, we're
the problem is.

Speaker 1 (01:00:21):
I mean, like Steve, I mean such a Steve Jobs guy.

Speaker 2 (01:00:24):
Come on, man, Well, we've tested like the iPhone clinomors
are great, and we're going through the process of testing
the clinofers to the phone. But before I leave Claude.
I will say, you know, with all respect, it's it's
easy to see why why your students have had so
much success over the year. It's been fun to watch
you out and tour doing a great job covering all

(01:00:47):
the bases. You know, I'm doing a you know, fun
way and doing a great job. So it's been fun
to watch all these hours. I appreciate the support.

Speaker 1 (01:00:56):
I always thank you so much for saying that. I
always say that I learned a lot of what I
know from my father, and one of the things my
father said was pick good students. They make you look
a lot better. So I have I have been very
lucky to work with. But listen, you're doing great work.
And you know I figured it seeing as a Canada

(01:01:18):
I mean, big win for Canada. Nick Taylor, how good
do you think a guy like Nick Taylor can be?
Because I mean he's one of those guys that when
you watch him and I mean he's a very good
ball striker, right, I mean Nick, I mean he's a
good ball striker. And do you think this can be
a springboard for a guy like Nick to go? Okay,
now I've wanted I won a tournament against I mean
listen down the stretch. I mean Nick beat you know

(01:01:41):
some really good players, including you know, someone who I
think is one of the best, if at times not
the best player in the world, in Rory McElroy. Do
you think this is an opportunity for Nick to take
this type of a win on a big stage at home,
a win for Canadian golf, not only for himself. Do
you think this can be a board for a kid
like Nick?

Speaker 2 (01:02:02):
Yeah? Absolutely, Like like Nick was number one amateur in
the world, right he he He's always been good. He
keeps working, he's trying to get better every day. He's
nails under pressure, he's smart, he's just doing great. If
I could give another quick plug, you know it's Canadians.

(01:02:23):
We're nice people. But we do have five players now
in the top seven in the world, which has been fun. Right. So,
you know, I joined our national team program in two
thousand and one and been off and on with the program,
and boy, if they would told us in two thousand
and one when we started the national team program that
you know, came to when it came open and there'd
be five games in top seventy, you know, we would

(01:02:44):
have been, you know, pretty happy. We wouldn't have believed it,
but we would been pretty happy. So anyways, No, they're
all doing great, fun fun yo. Yes, it was an
unbelievable week though. For for the goal, for the key
and open and again appreciate your time here, buddy. Well
thanks for doing this.

Speaker 1 (01:03:04):
We've been trying to do it for a while and everybody,
honestly go check out the app. It will definitely help
you read greens better. Ralph, hope you get the visa
issue solved and hopefully we will get to see you
back in the US soon.

Speaker 2 (01:03:18):
Yeah, I'm back next week. Thanks brother.

Speaker 1 (01:03:24):
So that was Ralph Bauer talking about green reading. And
I think if you struggle with green reading, if you
aren't making the putts that you feel like you should
be making, I think everybody's control all delete is just
to go. Stroke mechanics got to be my stroke, got
to be my stroke. And I promise you one hundred
dollars to get this app. It's well worth it. It

(01:03:46):
will help you improve and green reading. It is a skill,
it is an art, but it is something that you
can practice and you can get better. And if you
follow this and you work with it, I think it
can help you lower your scores. So it's the US
Open La Country Club. I was out on the golf

(01:04:07):
course today. What man, this is a uh, this is
an interesting one. This is not your typical East Coast
old school kind of what you're used to seeing from
a US Open. There are some very very unique holes

(01:04:28):
out on this golf course. It's got a pretty unique
look to it. But I gotta be honest with you,
I I don't know what this golf course is going
to throw up. There are some incredibly long par threes.
There's there's a par three on the front nine. I
think it's the seventh hole, two hundred and eighty five yards.
I mean that's where they were playing it today in

(01:04:49):
the practice round. DJ it's to sixty five to the front,
by the way, so two sixty five to the front.
It was two eighty five to the whole. DJ smashed.
I'm I mean just hammered a three wood and hit
it in the middle of the green. Brooks had to
we're out in the practice round. Brooks had to kind
of hit a hammer drawl to get it into the

(01:05:10):
middle of the green. There's the eleventh hole. I think
a lot of people have been seeing that one on
Social two ninety five. Okay, it's downhill, but today it
was downhill, it was into the wind. So there are
some blind t shots, there are some blind approach shots.
I think a lot of people have seen on Social
that there are areas where the rough is really really thick,

(01:05:33):
and then there's some areas where it's not, and then
there's some holes around the green complexes where it's just
it's hey, I mean, it's just if you hit it
into these if you if you come up short and
you're in some of these areas with this really really
thick grass, or if you hit one over the green
and you're on a downslope, you're staring double or triple

(01:05:56):
in the face. So obviously I think if you drive
it well here, you're going to have an opportunity. But
I could see, I could honestly see a number of
different players winning this championship, and I could see a
number of different styles of golfers winning this championship. So yeah,

(01:06:18):
this is an interesting one. It's going to look great
on TV. If you've never been to La Country Club.
It's right in the middle of Beverly Hills. There's thirty
six holes one the course that the tournament's going to
be played on is on one side of Wiltshire Boulevard
and then the other eighteen is on the other side.
I mean, you couldn't find a more expensive piece of

(01:06:39):
real estate to have two golf courses. I mean Beverly
Hills real estate and to eighteen hole golf courses right
in the middle of Beverly Hills. The weather's going to
be great. We're in Los Angeles. For those of you listening,
if you're on the East coast of the United States,
this is going to be primetime. So I kind of
like it too. Anytime the US opened out west, uh

(01:07:01):
to Pebble Beach or to La or to San Diego
a couple of years ago where John ram won. I
think it's great and I'm excited. Uh so unique, unique
golf course, and I think a lot of people are
gonna be surprised by what they see. I think it's
wide open, and I'm excited to see who hoists the

(01:07:22):
trophy on Sunday and gets a major championship. Son of
a Butcher comes to you every Wednesday, and we will
see you all next week.