In this episode of The Golf Intervention, we dive deep into how to know where you currently stand in your golf journey—and how that knowledge shapes your path to improvement. Whether you're a high handicapper or a competitive player, understanding your current skill level helps you filter out the noise and focus only on what truly matters for your game.
Next, we reveal a game-changing finger technique to visualize and aim your shot dispersion pattern. This simple but powerful method can help you build a more confident, consistent strategy for every shot—and eliminate costly errors on the course.
Finally, we share real stories and insights from our own lessons, offering relatable experiences and breakthroughs you can apply to your own golf practice and play.
In this episode, you’ll learn:
✅ How to assess your current stage in the game and what to work on next
✅ A revolutionary finger-based method for targeting your shot pattern
✅ Real lesson takeaways from players just like you
✅ Why understanding your miss pattern leads to lower scores
✅ What most players focus on too soon—and how to avoid that trap
📬 For more insights, bonus content, and golf improvement strategies:
Subscribe to our newsletter on Substack – The Golf Intervention
🔔 Don't forget to subscribe, leave a review, and share this episode with your golf buddies. Every swing starts with the right info.
#GolfImprovement #ShotDispersion #GolfPodcast #GolfLessons #GolfTips #GolfStrategy #GolfSubstack #TheGolfIntervention
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Eric (00:01):
And welcome back to the Golf Intervention Podcast.
On today's episode, we're gonnadiscuss where you stand with
your game currently.
to know what to work on.
And what you should do now thatit's in the middle of the season
where you put your energy andyou know, coach Rufas.
(00:22):
I was thinking about thatbecause I've had a bunch of
lessons actually today, which iskind of strange for me, where it
was actually first time studentsback to back, to back,
Rob Failes (00:31):
Oh, nice.
Yeah.
That's fun.
Eric (00:32):
I just got my 19 year pin at the Country Club of Virginia.
So I've been
Rob Failes (00:36):
Nice.
Eric (00:38):
Although it's a big membership.
Um, we're not like one of thesememberships that's, uh.
people are moving around a lot,joining,
Rob Failes (00:45):
Yeah.
Eric (00:45):
joining, leaving.
It doesn't happen at the countryclub.
This is like a, a legacymembership type place.
But, so it's kind of strangewhen I get a bunch of lessons in
a row where I've never taughtsomebody before
Rob Failes (00:55):
Yeah.
Eric (00:56):
here in 19 years.
And so that just happened tohappen today.
And so kind of like through thislens, I was like seeing and
having these conversationsabout.
Hey, let's talk about who youare as a player.
Tell me what to, you know, asI'm on this journey, as they're
trying to, trying to hop ontheir train, so to speak.
Like you're
Rob Failes (01:14):
Yeah.
Eric (01:14):
journey.
You might not know where thetrain's going, but I'm supposed
to be the conductor and I'mjumping on the, I'm jumping on a
Rob Failes (01:20):
Nice.
Eric (01:20):
with you.
That's kind of like what it is.
Rob Failes (01:23):
That's pretty much, yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Absolutely.
That's a great analogy.
Eric (01:28):
oh, hey, tell me, like, I always say this.
I'm like, Hey.
What's the scoop?
You know, like, just tell me,tell me what's the deal?
You know, what, why are youhere?
What are we doing?
um, and so I had these differenttypes of situations and I think
today on the show, I want tokind of go through and I know
you and I both wanna go throughthis, is like I.
Rob Failes (01:48):
Yeah.
Eric (01:49):
How do we know where that moving train is
Rob Failes (01:52):
Mm-hmm.
Eric (01:53):
what, what city am I in on my golf journey?
Rob Failes (01:56):
Yeah.
Eric (01:56):
like what's relevant to me getting to the next stop on the
on the route?
can the conductor help you getthere and what makes that
process smoother?
Being that we're traveling at acertain time of season here, and
so it was really interestingtoday.
Because I had a whole mix ofdifferent things.
I had one guy that likeliterally plays kind of recently
(02:19):
retired.
He goes to Florida and he's hereand he just plays constantly,
right?
Like all year round all thetime.
was struggling with a fewthings.
15 handicap.
Then I had like a really goodathlete, younger guy, back
problems, big time from golf.
Rob Failes (02:34):
Hmm.
Eric (02:35):
why he's been doing pt.
He took lessons from other golfpros.
I had never met him before.
And nobody, not the other golfpros, not the PTs, not the
doctors.
No one discussed his golf swingwith him and what could
Rob Failes (02:51):
Hmm.
Eric (02:51):
the back pain.
Okay?
So that was another one.
and then there was another onewhere Avid golfer member of
incredibly good clubs has playedgood golf in his life and
self-admittedly.
Got trapped in the YouTuberabbit hole and feels like his
brain is so screwed up.
He literally can't stand overthe ball and hit the shot
(03:13):
anymore.
So
Rob Failes (03:14):
Mm-hmm.
Eric (03:14):
are some of the things that I was seeing today, and I'm
like, and then another one was acollege student.
Super nice.
Was a wrestler in high school,so didn't do sports that, you
know, he hit balls with sticksand he just trying to like,
loves the game.
Super fun kid.
And um, yeah, had a good swing,had no skill.
And
Rob Failes (03:32):
Mm-hmm.
Eric (03:32):
we kinda like had to learn that.
So we worked on, I kind of hadto explain that to'em.
Rob Failes (03:37):
Yeah,
Eric (03:37):
so all these folks were on different places on the journey,
so to speak,
Rob Failes (03:43):
for sure.
Eric (03:44):
they were either struggling.
Maybe didn't struggle, didn'tknow what they needed to work
on, and that's what the coachcomes in and tries to help.
But what we try to do on thisshow and we're gonna do today is
try to provide you that contextso you on your own, can figure
out where you are on thatjourney.
Is
Rob Failes (04:01):
Yep.
Eric (04:01):
Rob?
Rob Failes (04:02):
A hundred percent.
Yep.
We just, uh, we just posted a,uh, a little, what, what I'm
calling like the, the TGIblueprint, right to our
substack.
And I think, um, if you want to,uh, spot us a cup of coffee
every month, I.
Then you can have access tothat, right?
So what it does is it kind ofbreaks down, um, score,
(04:23):
strategy, skill and swing.
Uh, like we've talked about adnauseum on the podcast, but it
gives you some very, very simpledata points.
Like literally, uh, just keeptrack of your score and your
total puts, right?
And that can get you at least inthe ballpark and kind of
figuring out, Hey, do I need towork on my shots to green or do
(04:43):
I need to work on my putting?
Um, and then depending on, wecan obviously peel the onion
away of from that.
Um, but then within that youhave your strategy, which has a
combination of your dispersion,your decision tree, as well as
kind of your shot process.
Uh, it breaks down the threeskills and how you can train
them, uh, and then a couplelittle tidbits on swing, kind of
(05:07):
what needs to be consistentthere.
So, uh, we can definitely talkabout that today and kind of.
How to navigate that.
I think that could be a good useof time, uh, especially,
especially for our subscribers,I think, uh, would be nice.
But it's really what we do onevery lesson.
It's like, alright, are youlevel one, two, or three?
Right?
Where are you at?
Shots to green versus totalputs?
And then how much of it is skillversus how much of it is swing,
(05:30):
um, versus how much of it isstrategy, right?
Eric (05:33):
Yeah, so Robbie's reference in the Substack, which
we haven't brought up in awhile, um.
But we really do appreciate thefolks that subscribe to the
Substack.
We have a free kind of version,and then we have the paid
version, which,
Rob Failes (05:48):
Yep.
Eric (05:48):
it's not a, a, a super huge investment, but we do
appreciate that because it doescover the cost that we have for
this
Rob Failes (05:56):
Yes.
Eric (05:56):
which you'd be surprised.
Um, we
Rob Failes (05:58):
Oh yeah,
Eric (05:59):
for the love of the game in a lot of ways.
That's
Rob Failes (06:01):
we do.
Yes.
Eric (06:03):
has been to help.
People understand the process ofplaying better.
Um,
Rob Failes (06:07):
Yep.
Eric (06:08):
we don't push the Substack a ton.
But we do really appreciate thefolks that subscribe and if you
would like to subscribe, thereis some really good stuff on
there.
And I think in the, in thecoming weeks and months, we're
definitely gonna embellish thateven more.
Um,
Rob Failes (06:21):
For sure.
Eric (06:21):
Robbie, like he and I were just discussing, I've had life
happening a lot recently.
It's kind of held us.
Back a little bit, I would say.
And we, we have an episode thatrecorded a little bit funny,
that hasn't gone out.
I haven't figured out how toclean it up yet.
So hopefully that episode willcome out too.
So we'll start putting some ofthe on the main feed here.
So
Rob Failes (06:38):
Yes,
Eric (06:39):
like we haven't been out in a while.
So life is lifeing, as they say,but I
Rob Failes (06:44):
yes.
Eric (06:44):
get back into the groove here.
And, um, and so if you want tocheck out the substack, it's the
golf intervention.substack.com.
You can check that, check outthe link in the show notes, and
that'll take you right there.
And we appreciate each and everyperson that subscribes, whether
it's the free or the paidversion, but that does kind of
keep us, keeps the, uh, lightson, as they say
Rob Failes (07:04):
Yep.
Yeah, absolutely.
Eric (07:06):
So, thank you.
Thank you.
And.
You know, I think that we couldgo through this, it kind of like
the, I like the moving trainanalogy that we were just
talking about.
So, um, when, when a studentcomes in, I, I've gotta figure
out where, where they are onthis journey.
I've gotta help them with that.
And with the new student afternew student, after new student
(07:27):
today, it was like the same kindof conversation happening over
and over again.
And I will say today was 111 onthe heat index in Richmond,
Virginia.
Did you have a, did you have aday like that in
Rob Failes (07:37):
It was a hundred here.
Yeah,
Eric (07:39):
it was outrageous.
Probably the hottest day I couldever remember.
Rob Failes (07:44):
it was insane.
Eric (07:45):
actually, I don't wanna say luckily, but, I took my wife
to physical therapy thismorning.
She had some surgery.
I.
Last week, um, I wouldn't saymajor, but kind of like medium
size surgery
Rob Failes (07:58):
Mm-hmm.
Eric (07:58):
has to get some PT on.
So I had to take her today.
She's not allowed to drive yet,so I only taught from 12 to six,
but, most of my days are seven30 to six with maybe a half an
hour break.
So 110 on the heat indexwould've been crazy, brother.
um, that's what gonna be my daytomorrow, so wish me luck.
(08:19):
So anyhow,
Rob Failes (08:20):
have big, y'all have big fans in there, right?
Or do you have, is it AC or doy'all have like actual fans?
Eric (08:25):
that's the hard part
Rob Failes (08:27):
Oh, they blow under the suit.
Yeah.
Eric (08:29):
And so I gotta be smart about just getting something to
blow on me.
Like I have a little one at
Rob Failes (08:34):
Yeah.
Eric (08:34):
which is fine.
Rob Failes (08:35):
Yeah.
Eric (08:36):
Um, but I'm usually not at the desk, so I just kind of
Rob Failes (08:38):
Right.
Eric (08:39):
I had a, I was fine today.
It was all good.
So anyway, like as people arecoming in.
We're trying to hop on that.
We're trying to hop on thattrain out where they are.
If it's a reoccurring student,we have a good sense of where
they are.
Rob Failes (08:52):
for sure.
Eric (08:53):
in that first lesson, and what you should do as a listener
is try to think
Rob Failes (08:55):
I.
Eric (08:56):
you stand on that right now.
And so we go through this kindof.
Uh, on the golf intervention, wesit, we kind of put you into
three groups of players.
Level one player, which is kindof like beginner golfer, you
know, someone that's not keepingscore yet, all the way to maybe
like bogey, golfer, 20 ishhandicap kind of
Rob Failes (09:13):
Yep.
Eric (09:13):
in the, in the nineties kind of score.
Rob Failes (09:16):
Yes.
Eric (09:17):
and then level two is like where we turn this corner.
And we start seeing somedifferent things in our game.
And that takes us all the waydown to like, kind of like
scoring 76, like scratch golferish.
And then that turns a corner inthe data set as well for scratch
or better.
And then tour players live ontheir own island.
We don't even really count
Rob Failes (09:36):
Yes.
Eric (09:37):
like level
Rob Failes (09:37):
They're, they're level four.
Yeah.
Eric (09:39):
Yeah.
They're just not human as wesay.
So we call it we, these thingsmatter.
And I think putting the contextaround who you are as a player.
Is what helps us learn and grow.
'cause we gotta know where weneed to start, We just need to
know when I'm jumping on, whenI'm jumping on that train with
them, I gotta know where we are,where are we right now?
(10:01):
And so.
Rob, what are the things thatyou kind of, what can the, what
can the listener learn from howwe assess the student, um, to
kind of say like, okay, like,here's my scoring.
That's fine, but what does thattell me?
What does that tell me about whoI am and what I'm kind of
currently dealing with in mygame?
Because.
(10:22):
One of the guys today, like Iwas telling you, he plays all
year round and he's like gettingbetter.
He was a 25 a couple years ago,handicap, now he's down to like
a 15 and he's telling me thesethings and I'm like, no, no, no.
Like I know exactly what youneed to work on and here's why.
And he's like, you know, kind oflike.
I would say he's kind of a typeA, but he's like very excited.
He's excited to learn and grab.
(10:42):
I'm like, listen, we alreadyknow what you need to work on.
And he's like, really?
I said, let me ask you thesequestions about your game.
And as soon as I starteddescribing his game, he is like,
how did you know that?
I'm like, it's in the
Rob Failes (10:53):
Yeah.
Eric (10:54):
It's in the
Rob Failes (10:54):
Yeah.
Eric (10:55):
So you just fit, you fit in the bell curve.
That's why.
Okay.
So what are you, what can thelistener learn about that sort
of data set?
Where I stand?
they can say, okay, here's whereI am and these are the things.
This is kind of generally what Iknow I need to do in the moment.
Not big, not every littledetail.
'cause we're not going throughthat today.
(11:15):
If you want to know
Rob Failes (11:16):
Yeah.
Eric (11:17):
you could go back to our early episodes.
What I'm saying is like from thescores and then putting into the
context of we're in the seasonright now too.
Rob Failes (11:26):
Yes.
Yeah,
Eric (11:26):
little chart maybe that you made, help us understand
like where I am and what I needto.
What I need to work on in themoment.
I guess if they're there for
Rob Failes (11:34):
for,
Eric (11:34):
decide they need to work on
Rob Failes (11:35):
for sure.
Yeah.
And I, I think the, the firstthing that we would like to.
To discuss with golfers is thatwe make decisions based off of
trends or like a, not just a, aone-off occurrence.
Right?
So I think the biggest errorgolfers make is they play around
in golf, they don't really trackmuch, uh, but they remember
(11:57):
maybe like three putting thelast hole or something like
that.
And they say, gosh, you know,if, if I could only get better
at putting Right.
Where it's like, hold on asecond, like.
Do you know how many putts foryour level you need to be per
round and over the last three tofour or five?
I, I mean, Brian Bailey sayseight rounds.
(12:20):
I, I'd say kind of five-ish,four to six-ish, somewhere in
that range.
If you can get about that many,of just knowing, okay, what was
my total score?
What was my total putts, right?
Am I in the ballpark?
Right?
Because if your total putts arein the ballpark and you're not.
To that level, you need to getthe ball from the D box to the
(12:42):
green faster.
Right?
And it's not, again, not justone round, but over the course
of, you know, four to sixrounds, understanding that data.
Right.
If your shots to greener in theballpark and you're just a
little bit off, a lot of timesimprovements in putting can come
quicker.
So again, if you're just likeonly maybe two shots off of your
scoring of where you're of yourkind of like your next level and
(13:05):
your shots to greener in theballpark, but you're always like
two to three putts higher.
Let's work on some puttingstuff.
I think a lot of timesunderstanding green reading,
understanding how that relatesto.
Distance predictability, howthat relates to your overall
process?
I think putting improvements canhappen much, much quicker and
easier than even short gameimprovements.
(13:28):
I mean, short game I think itcan be, can happen pretty
quickly, but, um, that's evenoftentimes, uh, quicker than
say, like full swingimprovements.
And that's the, that's thetrick.
It's understanding that for manygolfers, like where is your.
Lowest hanging fruit.
Right.
What's the, what's the greatestamount?
(13:48):
What's, what's the biggestdifference in between where
you're at and where you need tobe?
Either from shots to green orfrom total puts?
But then it's like, okay, wellwhat, what's gonna gimme the
highest likelihood of actuallygaining those strokes?
Right?
And that's why, you know, thedata says for most level one and
two golfers, it's gonna be shotsto green usually, but like maybe
(14:10):
some putting in some short gamestuff for an individual golfer
who doesn't have a bunch oftime.
And these are the questions thatwe ask, like, how much time do
you have?
What can you actually do?
Like there's so much that goesinto it.
Like for some golfers, yeah,like their shots to green aren't
where they need to be, but justto get them a couple shots
better based off the fact thatthey have like zero time to
(14:30):
practice.
I might just work on the shortgame or might work on their
putting.
'cause I know like, hey, theycan actually do this and I can
get some momentum going in theright direction.
They see some scores coming downand now it's like a.
I got'em.
Now they're hooked.
Like now they're like, okay,like let's, let's go, let's do
this.
And then maybe afterwards we canget into some of the, the tee
shots and the approach shotstuff.
Um, if I have somebody who'slike, yeah, I got a bunch of
(14:53):
time.
I'm super dedicated and my shotsof green is nowhere even close
to where I want, then you betterbelieve like we're, we're taking
a look at some, some swingfoundations, like things that
need to be pretty consistent,which is the way we hold it, the
way we stand, the generalpattern.
All right.
And the rhythm of how we'reswinging the golf club, we're
taking a look and kind ofchecking those boxes.
(15:15):
Um, but if like, a lot of thatstuff is pretty consistent and
we're, especially in season, alot of times we're just doing
some little bit of skill stuffasking, Hey, how did that feel
different?
And then just rolling with sometemporary feels, right?
Because again, we're in seasonwhere it's not like we're gonna
be making any sort of wholesalechanges to geometry swing wise
especially.
(15:35):
Um, I'm a big fan of always liketweaking.
Energy and time, right?
So the, the rhythm stuff, ifthat's off, you always have
permission, in my opinion to, toclean that stuff up.
'cause that goes into like thegeneral freedom in which you're
swinging the club like that,that we want to always kind of
be consistent with.
But like, if the club's in acertain position midway season,
right?
We call that geometry.
(15:56):
Like if you looked at just theshape of the swing or a position
of the golf club, that's a lotharder to change.
It's way, way more beneficial Ithink in season.
To just make little skilltweaks.
Right.
And that is, I think, Eric, yousent me a video from Lee
Trevino, didn't you?
And that's what Lee was talkingabout, is like, you have to
have, and I think what he wastalking about was skill training
there.
(16:16):
Like, you have to have the, thefeel tweaks, right?
You have to be able to know howto do that without taking up,
you know, swing thoughts in yourbrain without trying to do a
bunch more stuff.
I, I said do in quotation marks,right.
Right.
We're not trying to add thingsto what you're doing.
A lot of times in season we're,if anything, trying to strip
stuff away and then just giveyou some feel, toolbox feels in
(16:39):
your toolbox to be able to use,um, if you notice, uh, a trend
one way than another.
So that was, that felt like along ramble, but hopefully I
kind of got to the, the gist ofyour question there.
Eric (16:50):
Well, the, the point was, um, well
Rob Failes (16:53):
Yeah.
What was the point?
You tell me?
Eric (16:55):
The po the point, well, the point
Rob Failes (16:56):
Yeah.
Eric (16:56):
well noted there, Rafael, which is, we were just saying
like, generally if people knowwhere they stand, they're gonna
Rob Failes (17:04):
Mm-hmm.
Eric (17:04):
up less.
Okay.
And this is, this was one of thelessons today, again, good
competent golfer.
Remember at Great Clubs comesin, tells me about a horrible
golf experience he just had.
I'm sitting there, I'm like,I've seen him hit balls.
I know him.
I say hi to him.
I, I mean.
I don't think I've ever givenhim a lesson before, but, so he
(17:25):
hits balls for a while and he'stelling me about how little he
is enjoying golf right now.
Like, that's what he's tellingme.
Like he's, he's a member at oneof the top, literally top golf
courses, the top five golfcourses in the world.
Okay.
obviously at CCV as well.
And he is like, just came backfrom a, from a trip that he
(17:47):
played a PGA tour venue, whichis very well known and very.
Good.
he played terrible and he wassaying, I really don't like golf
right now.
I really don't like to play it.
And I'm like, wow, Like, I'mjust taking it all in.
I just, I didn't know, you know,I'm just kind of listening to
him.
And so he hits a couple.
(18:08):
I said, let's do this.
Let's just like, he's like, Igot, I got, I just, I'm trying
to do too much.
I'm trying to do this.
I'm trying to, I'm like, okay.
I said, why don't we just hitsome seven irons and just hit
the ball?
Like, let's just hit some andlet me just see what's going.
Let me just watch you swing.
You know, to watch things likerhythm, right?
Or.
You know, whatever.
Just, just watch how he goesthrough his process.
So I'm just taking in the bigpicture.
(18:29):
just aim it straight out thereand just swing hit like 10
seminars.
And after he hit about five, hejust turns around and goes,
alright, I gotta be honest aboutsomething.
I'm like, what's that?
He goes, I watch way too manyYouTube videos on the swing.
I was like, oh no.
And so I said, I just kindastarted chuckling.
I didn't really think he wasgonna go there.
(18:50):
I wasn't expecting that.
And, um, and so he's like, Istand over the ball.
I think I should be doing this.
I think I should be doing that.
I, and I didn't, I didn't getinto any of that.
I did, I just sort of.
It was what it was.
What I said was, let's just letgo of all of it.
That's what I said.
Like he's like, okay.
I'm like, just let go of all ofit.
(19:10):
How doesn't that feel good?
Like just forget.
Just forget it.
But I listened to thesewell-known teachers and stuff.
I'm said, they're great.
are great.
They don't know what you need towork on.
And the fact of the matter wasafter we kind of just got
swinging, I kind of saw what hewas struggling with Right.
A little bit with his actualswing.
And the fact of the matter washe was so unaware of it.
(19:33):
That there's no chance hewould've ever found the answer
for it on YouTube.
Right?
'cause he didn't know what hewould, he didn't know the the
problem.
So the point that I'm trying tomake here, and I think that
Robbie's trying to make here, isthere's moments to that when
things aren't going well, thatmaybe you look for him, maybe
things are going well.
Then we start looking for like,what's the next better thing to
work on?
(19:53):
Well, if it's data driven, likeRobbie says, Hey, I'm two puts
around away from being a betterplayer.
Maybe I need to work on putting.
Okay, great.
So at least you know where youstand on the journey.
And that's what we, that's whatwe want you to do.
We want you to be able to say, Iknow who I am as a player.
I know what I need to work on.
(20:13):
And I will tell you, I currentlywork with a tour player who
knows exactly where she is allthe time and what she needs to
work on to make her score good.
And she's that level fourplayer.
But the point is like she's veryaware, always aware.
Sometimes it's just in theequipment, sometimes it's in
things like.
Making sure her green reading'sreally good.
Like sometimes it's just in theprocess of like how far her
(20:34):
ball's carrying in a certainlike, but she knows exactly what
she's working on all the time.
'cause she knows exactly whatshe needs out of her game to
play the ways that she wants to.
But I think that the averagegolfer really struggles to
figure that out.
Right, like really strugglestoday.
Like
Rob Failes (20:49):
I agree.
Eric (20:49):
I am I on the journey, and right now we're in the middle of
the golf season.
So if you're someone who's anavid golfer and you love playing
golf, what you don't need tofirst work on, probably,
especially without the guidanceof a coach, is your golf swing,
Rob Failes (21:05):
Geometry?
Yeah.
Eric (21:06):
The, what
Rob Failes (21:07):
totally.
Eric (21:08):
right?
Which I refer to my students asjust quote unquote the swing.
Right?
Rob Failes (21:13):
Yeah,
Eric (21:14):
what you probably need to do is, I love the little, I love
that Lee Trevino thing that Isent you because he, he didn't
say skill, he called it tweaks,which I
Rob Failes (21:23):
he was totally talking about skill though.
Eric (21:25):
He was totally talking about skill.
Wonder if I could figure out away to play it.
That'd be kind of fun if I coulddo that.
'cause it'd be so cool to listento it.
Rob Failes (21:32):
Mm-hmm.
Eric (21:33):
Tell people I said, you know.
You are what you are.
When you get a golf swing, youown it.
The only reason that that guy'splaying professional and your
swing is just like his, youcan't make it.
But he can is he knows how totweak.
(21:53):
You don't know how to tweak.
You are trying to hit shots andmake these shots with the same
grip, with the same stance, withthe same ball position, you
know, with the same weightdistribution.
Can't do that.
You have to learn that when thepins on the right, depends on
the left.
Pin is deep.
Pin is front.
(22:13):
You have gotta make someadjustments.
The adjustments might be in thegrip and the weight distribution
position of the ball swingdoesn't change.
Rob Failes (22:25):
Swing, don't change.
Eric (22:27):
So how cool is that?
Rob Failes (22:29):
Yeah.
Eric (22:30):
Like, I feel like he went through the entire thing.
We tried to tell, people justsaid it a little bit different
way,
Rob Failes (22:35):
No, but I think, I think when he is talking about
tweaks, I think that's when hesays that you don't know how to
tweak, skill doesn't, oh, sorry,swing doesn't change.
I think that's very muchconfirmation bias, obviously.
So.
Eric (22:50):
But the, the point is, um, I think the way he framed, like,
Hey, I could tell that's Maxhoa, or I could tell that's John
Rob Failes (22:57):
Mm-hmm.
Eric (22:57):
I could
Rob Failes (22:58):
Mm-hmm.
Eric (22:58):
He's making the right point there.
That's your, that's yourgeometry discussion.
Right?
Rob Failes (23:03):
Totally.
Eric (23:03):
see that is, that is Rob Fa swing.
That is Eric Layton swing.
That is John Rom swing.
Like that's Lee Trevino swing.
There's a blueprint to thatright now.
I had a kid today who.
His swing was totally good.
He had no skill, none, couldn'thit the ball in the face,
couldn't control the club face.
Why?
'cause he's, he's new to golf,
Rob Failes (23:23):
No.
Eric (23:24):
So,
Rob Failes (23:24):
absolutely.
Eric (23:26):
so he walks in and he goes, yeah, I need a lesson.
You know, I know you help mydad.
And he's such, such a good kid.
He's so much fun to work with.
Really open, open-minded, likereal energetic, and.
He needed to know where he wason the journey, which was, guess
what, bro, you can swing checkthis out.
I, I would just show him thevideo.
(23:46):
I'm like, watch this.
You like that turn.
Oh, it was cool.
You followed through you onbalance.
Yep.
How about that?
It's pretty awesome, right?
do, why can't I hit the ball?
Well,'cause you don't, youdon't, you haven't learned it
yet.
You haven't acquired the skillyet.
The squi skill is acquiredthrough practice.
Nobody practiced
Rob Failes (24:03):
Yes.
Eric (24:04):
That's what he, he dug it out of the dirt, right?
Like the point is, so what didwe work on?
He, he was shanking everythingessentially.
Heel or shank it, or he hit it.
Okay, what do we work on?
Golf intervention listeners knowwhat we worked on.
We worked on the skill ofhitting the ball on the club
face.
Like I said, Hey, I want you tohit in the middle of the club
face.
He's like, oh, okay, cool.
(24:25):
I didn't know, I was not hittingit on the, you know, I didn't
know what I was doing.
I'm like, yeah, you've playedgolf
Rob Failes (24:30):
Nice.
Eric (24:31):
in your life.
How would you know?
Right?
Rob Failes (24:32):
That's awesome.
Eric (24:33):
we track man's showing him.
I put impact tape on his club,gave him a whole bunch of it.
I said, your swing is fine.
You're hitting it off the heel.
I said, maybe try to hit it offthe toe and see what happens.
Well, how would I do that, Eric?
Right.
So he opened up theconversation, right?
And guess what?
He got way better at golf.
Like he was fired up at the endof the thing.
Now
Rob Failes (24:53):
Yep,
Eric (24:54):
the ball solidly.
Still couldn't control the faceangle.
That's step two.
That's what we talk
Rob Failes (24:58):
that's right.
Eric (24:59):
right?
I.
Skill number two is gonna be theface path relationship.
So now he could hit it on theface, but he couldn't.
He had no idea where the facewas gonna be pointed.
So I told him,'cause he knewthat's what he needs to work on.
I gave him a way to work on it.
He's gonna come back in a coupleweeks, we're gonna see where he
is.
We're gonna keep working on it.
Right.
And.
He didn't need to work on aswing.
(25:20):
Now the other guy that came inand told me, I've herniated a
disc playing golf.
I could play right now, but I'vetaken two big times off with
physical therapy and all thisstuff in between.
And I said, well, what aboutyour swing?
Have you, have you worked onlike figuring out why it's
hurting your back?
No.
What about the physicaltherapist?
Did they talk to you about that?
(25:41):
No.
How about who you were takinglessons to, from, from?
Did they talk to you about that?
No.
I said, well, okay, I'm, I'msorry you're not playing as well
right now as you'd like to, butwe have one goal and that's to
get you to understand how toswing with less pain and maybe
in a way that's not gonna hurtyou.
He's like, cool, let's do it.
And guess what?
We figured out in about fourminutes.
(26:02):
I mean, it was crazy.
He was like,
Rob Failes (26:04):
Hmm.
Eric (26:05):
little posture change.
Little, I mean, it wasn't thatbig of a deal.
All of a sudden he could.
And he was six feet.
Six.
So there he had someconsiderations set up, at the
end of the day, he's like, man,I'll just hit for an hour.
I have no back pain.
He's like, that hasn't happenedin a long time.
Rob Failes (26:19):
That's awesome.
Eric (26:20):
we worked on that in four minutes.
You see what I'm saying?
Rob Failes (26:22):
I.
Eric (26:22):
he's been a two years pl actually four years plus of
struggling with back pain.
And what did he need to work on?
He needed to work on his swing,right?
Like.
That was it.
And that was the only, becausenumber one reason you work on
your swing, which we've talkedabout on this before,
Rob Failes (26:39):
Yep.
Eric (26:39):
pain or keep you, you know, it's either hurting you or
to avoid it from hurting you.
Rob Failes (26:43):
You got it.
Eric (26:43):
one reason to work on your swing performance would be
number two.
man, I don't know if I'mranting.
Am I ranting?
I don't know.
Lee Trevino
Rob Failes (26:51):
No,
Eric (26:51):
fired up.
Rob Failes (26:52):
that was fire.
That was, yeah.
Eric (26:54):
But the point is you could see the different processes that
we worked through to just today.
This was just today with me.
Rob Failes (27:00):
Yeah.
Eric (27:00):
one lesson after the next, working on different aspects of
what it was I needed to do, andevery single one of them
hopefully walked out going, Iknow exactly where I am and I
know exactly the next thing Ineed to do.
To improve and I know how topractice it and I'm gonna go
work on it.
Right?
I know the process and I thinkthat that's what we want you to
(27:23):
list.
It's the whole point.
We have this show like, listento me, listener, listen to Rob
fails.
Like there's a time and a placefor each one of these things to
work on, right?
And you just, if you can knowand understand for yourself,
that's great.
If you're a coach that'slistened to this and you haven't
really thought about thisprocess before, we're hope this
helps you out as well.
And then obviously.
(27:43):
You know, go take a lesson ifyou need to, to help yourself
along on the journey, but makesure that your coach is aware of
where you are on the journey aswell.
'cause sometimes that thatcontext can get lost a little
bit as well.
So this is things that you canshare with a personal trainer or
a coach or a physical therapistor whoever.
So anyway, I think that's theend of that rant as far as I
(28:05):
know, like.
I think, I think that's it.
Anything you'd like to add tothe conversation there?
Um, maybe, maybe anything youwant to add from the, um, the
substack, uh, diagram that youput out the other day.
Rob Failes (28:21):
No, I think, I think that mostly covers it.
I think.
Um.
Yeah, I mean, if, if you have achance to, to, to come see me,
right.
Just to kind of talk throughthat.
Again.
I'm a Bos Head Resort inCharlesville, Virginia.
Um, if you're a member of CCV,obviously go see Eric, uh, and
he can work you through it.
But, um, I've got it now towhere it's in a little
(28:41):
clipboard.
I just print a bunch off and,um, usually I'm like, after the
lesson, kind of like, just realquick, like boxing the, the
areas that are relevant to thatparticular golfer.
So everyone's blueprint does,does.
It end up being a little bitdifferent.
Um, but again, for level one,your, your kind of, your
dispersion, your decision tree,um, all that is gonna be very
(29:04):
much the same.
Uh, versus level, level twoyours.
Your dispersions and yourdecision trees are gonna be
pretty similar.
And then level threes, and thenwe level four is just, uh, off
on an island somewhere.
Eric (29:17):
So we hope to get to, um, we've kind of, we've kind of.
Phase into some different partsof our new format of the show
that we're trying to introduce,which is the things we see on
the lesson too, that we thinkcan help people, general ideas
and a little bit of thought atthe beginning about, you know, a
discussion of whatever we thinkwe can help.
Right?
So like
Rob Failes (29:36):
Yep.
Eric (29:36):
you read the show title, you're gonna see about Lee
Trevino or who knows,
Rob Failes (29:42):
Yes.
Eric (29:42):
it'll say, but it's gonna be a discussion of like,
basically.
Knowing and understanding whereyou are, uh, in
Rob Failes (29:49):
Yeah.
Eric (29:49):
your, on your golf development and knowing what to
work on next, like I thinkthat's kind of the idea we
wanted to introduce.
And then we wanted to go intosort of like level one, two, and
three itself
Rob Failes (29:59):
Yeah.
Eric (29:59):
talk about some things that would be very relevant to,
to your development.
So.
As a, as a direct idea aboutlevel one, two, and three
golfers.
This is something that, somebodyasked me the other day, Robbie,
so hope I, I hope this is okayto ask you.
Rob Failes (30:16):
Yeah.
Eric (30:18):
the dispersions, and I know you went through this, uh,
on
Rob Failes (30:21):
Mm-hmm.
Eric (30:22):
that we did.
With another podcast called TheWhole
Rob Failes (30:25):
Yeah.
Eric (30:26):
I think our interview is gonna be coming out.
We, we had a blast with thesedudes, like,
Rob Failes (30:30):
Yeah, it was fun.
Eric (30:30):
out their, their podcast is really fun.
It's very eclectic.
It's like an eclectic golfpodcast in a lot of
Rob Failes (30:35):
Mm-hmm.
Eric (30:36):
they cover a lot of topics like.
Golf architecture, they do talkabout like PGA tour.
They're big fans of PGA tour forsure.
So they like to talk about thatand then they talk about their
own games and their journey.
So they brought us on to helpthem, I think, understand where
they are in the journey, right?
'cause
Rob Failes (30:52):
Yep.
Eric (30:52):
level two and a level player for
Rob Failes (30:55):
Yeah.
Eric (30:56):
Um, that both needed a little, they needed a little
context on their
Rob Failes (30:59):
Little concept.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Little concept help.
Eric (31:02):
They needed some hip, them brothers needed some hip.
Is it?
That's why they called us.
So anyway, check out that thewhole story podcast.
Um, but you described for themthe actual dispersion with the
fingers on the
Rob Failes (31:16):
Yes.
Eric (31:16):
swing.
Now people are very aware of, Ithink the, the putting finger,
uh, with, with, with aim
Rob Failes (31:23):
Using Amboy.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Eric (31:24):
and they're, they're triangular, essentially you're
triangulating with your fingers,um, where to aim.
Uh, but there's also a way touse your hands and fingers to
create a dispersion picture,
Rob Failes (31:39):
Mm-hmm.
Eric (31:40):
in the full swing.
And
Rob Failes (31:42):
Totally.
Eric (31:42):
would you be willing and able to kind of go through that
Rob Failes (31:44):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Eric (31:45):
two, and three player?
I think that would be, and nowthis is gonna be on podcasts for
most people listening to us juston podcasts.
So
Rob Failes (31:52):
Mm-hmm.
Eric (31:53):
describing this, um, just think about what he's doing with
his fingers
Rob Failes (31:56):
I'll, I'll, I'll do the best I can.
Eric (31:59):
And I have to be honest, um, I'm asking this question
mostly for myself because I, Iwanna
Rob Failes (32:04):
Oh, nice.
There we go.
Eric (32:05):
too.
Uh, this is a new, uh, to me,this is something you haven't
seen much of, right?
Like,
Rob Failes (32:11):
Mm-hmm.
Eric (32:11):
the
Rob Failes (32:12):
Yeah,
Eric (32:12):
players are sort of catching on there.
I definitely saw,
Rob Failes (32:16):
it's, it's catching steam on LPGA for sure.
Eric (32:18):
Yeah.
Um, I definitely sent you apicture of a PGA tour player
doing it though.
Rob Failes (32:23):
Yes.
Mm-hmm.
Eric (32:24):
it was.
Asian, an Asian guy, I think if,
Rob Failes (32:26):
Mm-hmm.
Eric (32:27):
if I remember correctly.
Rob Failes (32:29):
I don't remember either, but yeah,
Eric (32:30):
is really super interesting.
So could you, could you kinda gothrough and
Rob Failes (32:34):
for sure.
Eric (32:35):
in on this a little bit?
I think it's game changing, bythe way.
Rob Failes (32:37):
Yeah.
Yeah.
So.
Eric (32:39):
Pia, I wanna set the gravity of this.
This might be the most importantthing you hear on a podcast all
day.
So just.
Be ready for this.
Okay.
Be ready.
Rob Failes (32:48):
Oh gosh.
Um, all right, well, I'll try todo it justice.
Um, but understand first andforemost, like strategy is
aiming a dispersion.
So a lot of people have thebelief that, uh, they can
control again, in control, inquotations where the golf ball's
gonna go.
And in reality, you can onlypredict where a collection of
(33:14):
your shots are likely to go.
So that's the big difference.
So a friend of the pod, ChrisGeorge says, don't aim the one
shot you think you can hit, aim,uh, the shot out of a hundred
that you're likely to hit.
So that's, uh, a big differencein that.
So if you think about what adispersion is, if you hit a
hundred shots, uh, like ChrisGeorge said, you get this big
(33:35):
scatterplot, right?
And what you're trying to do isyou're trying to not aim the
entire dispersion.
Because if you even look at PGAtour, golfers like.
To aim the entire dispersion,your targets would be way too
conservative, right?
Especially if you're looking atthe decision tree that we talk
about, like number one is beingin play.
(33:57):
Number two, uh, if, if we're, ifwe're talking about, um,
approach play, uh, number one'sin play, number two is on the
green.
Number three is proximate ahole, right?
For some, I'm thinking par threeT shots especially.
Um, to get all of yourdispersion in play, you'd have
to be aiming like.
20 yards off the green in a lotof cases.
(34:18):
Right.
So you're so risk averse, right?
That you're not actually gettingthe upside from the shots that
you hit, right?
Like.
Pretty much the, the 16% ofshots that are like your best,
right?
So you want to, you want to beable to get the benefit from
your best shots, but in kind ofthat middle, kind of 50, 51% of
(34:40):
shots, right?
That honestly are like prettyaverage.
Like they're a little bitmisses, right?
Where it's like faces a littlemore open than what you wanted,
face a bit more clothes thanwhat you wanted.
Little Healy, little toy, likeones that you're just like not
thrilled about afterwards, butstill, okay.
You want those to be in a placeto where you can.
Find them in play again on thegreen, number two, and then, um,
(35:00):
obviously as close to the holeas you can.
Number three.
So your level of player, yourlevel of skill, level one, level
two, level three, level four ishighly, highly, highly
correlated to that dispersion.
So if you think about justholding your fingers up in front
of your eyes, kind of extendingyour arms all the way out, um, a
(35:22):
level one golfer is going tohave.
Roughly five fingers on eitherside of their, uh, center of
dispersion.
So if you hold up all 10fingers, putting your thumbs
right beside each other, um,hold the middle of your two
thumbs right over the target.
Not like this, like this, Eric.
(35:42):
There you go.
Eric (35:43):
Got it.
Rob Failes (35:44):
Yeah.
Yep.
Hold the middle of your twothumbs right over the target,
and that from your edge of yourpinky to the other edge of your
pinky is gonna be at 67% of yourshots.
All right, so 67% is would beour kind of our aspiration, our
goal.
All right.
And if you wanna make it easy,oftentimes I'll, I'll hold up my
(36:06):
10 fingers, then I'll havesomeone take their little finger
and their thumb.
'cause oftentimes it's betterjust to hold up one hand, right?
Just kind of split the thumb andthe index finger out.
Sorry, the thumb and the littlefinger out as far as you can And
hold that out in front of you.
Right.
You can even put the middlethree fingers down if you want.
So it kinda looks like hang 10,right?
(36:26):
And you can aim the middle ofthat zone, such that, again,
from the, from the left edge tothe right edge is again in play,
number one on the green.
Number two, if you're hitting anapproach shot.
And then if you've got room oneither side, still on the green,
then you can slide this thingcloser to the hole.
Um, you can look at the, uh,like the driver.
(36:50):
Like for, for driver, that's onthe sheet as well.
But again, it's kind of like inplay number one, we're trying to
get this thing as far down asclose to the green as we can.
Number two, and then if you'vestill got some, some.
Margin on both sides and getthis thing a little bit more
kind of in the, in the middle ofthe fairway or maximizing the
number of shots in the fairway.
That's kind of number three.
So understand what that decisiontree is and then understand,
(37:12):
hey, what level of player am Iand what's my dispersion?
So level one is five fingers oneither side, which is usually if
you, if you hold up your thumbto little finger and just split
'em out as far as you can fromone side or the other, that's
gonna be about the same.
It's a little tighter, but it's,it's close enough, right?
Level two is gonna be fourfingers, which is usually, if I
(37:35):
can take the, the index fingerand the little finger and split
that out wide as far as I can,right.
That's gonna be a level twogolfer.
So again, four fingers on eitherside.
It's gonna be roughly the same.
Again, it's close.
It's maybe a tiny bit tighter,but it's, it's, uh, close enough
for government work, right?
Um.
(37:56):
Getting that out as wide as youcan, it's gonna be level two,
right?
So we could, we say like hook'emhorns, right?
For level two,
Eric (38:02):
So if
Rob Failes (38:02):
right?
Eric (38:03):
the middle, like let's say you're, you're looking at the
flag just as a reference
Rob Failes (38:08):
Mm-hmm.
Eric (38:09):
an approach shot.
I put the flag.
As a reference in the middle,and I could see what's on the
other side as like a dispersion.
Is that,
Rob Failes (38:18):
Yes.
Mm-hmm.
Eric (38:19):
and then you could move that.
Right.
So like,
Rob Failes (38:22):
Mm-hmm.
Eric (38:23):
inside that dispersion inside my fingers is a pond,
which is
Rob Failes (38:29):
Mm-hmm.
Eric (38:30):
Right?
Or a treacherous deep bunker.
I can't get out of or out ofbounds potentially, you know,
Rob Failes (38:36):
Mm-hmm.
Eric (38:37):
So then I would slide that to where it's safe,
Rob Failes (38:40):
Yes, correct.
Eric (38:42):
of that is where I'm gonna start to put my new of where I'm
gonna start, probably
Rob Failes (38:47):
Correct.
And it in the middle of thatdispersion is not necessarily
where you're like, people thinkabout where am I aiming?
It's not necessarily whereyou're aiming, it's just where
you want the center of yourdispersion to be.
So if you're a fader, you might
Eric (39:01):
Right.
Rob Failes (39:01):
totally, like, if you're a fader, you might aim a
little left of that and hit alittle fade.
Back to it, right?
So again, there's, there's a amillion different ways to, uh,
to aim and to, to organize yourshot, but understand like, hey,
what is my dispersion size?
And then for the level golfer,and then I said level three is
(39:22):
right, you're gonna take thatindex finger in little finger
and then slide it in about afinger width on either side
again.
'cause you go from four fingersto three fingers.
So level three is gonna be acloser to like wolf pack.
Right.
Not quite Wolf Pack.
It's a little bit further outthan than Wolf Pack, but it's
gonna be in the ballpark, right?
And then level four is like, ohmy gosh.
(39:43):
It's like,
Eric (39:44):
It's
Rob Failes (39:45):
right, it's, it's two fingers on either side, so
it's per, it's actually perfect,right?
Like that, that's the Tor playerdispersion, which again is 67%
of your shots, right?
Would be kind of a standard disdistribution.
Um, so there's nothing.
Eric (40:00):
is it fair to say if there's, if there's a big
leverage.
Moment you might be a, you mightplay that slightly more
conservatively, like if there'sa big pond in the way, would
you, would you shade a littlebit more in that sense out of
67% and just shade it a littlebit?
So you're favoring a little bitmore towards like 80%.
(40:22):
What do you think about that?
Or no,
Rob Failes (40:25):
Uh,
Eric (40:25):
at 67.
Rob Failes (40:27):
that's, again, that is the, that is the decision
tree.
That is number one priority.
You are, you are getting theentire, uh.
Standard, like the normaldistribution of shots in play,
number one.
Um, because again, like we arelooking for optimal strategy,
(40:49):
right?
So it doesn't matter, like ifyou're quote unquote too
conservative, you're gonna belosing shots on the other side
anyway, right?
So it, it doesn't really matter.
Like there's, I tell golferslike, there's never really a
scenario where I want you.
Breaking that decision tree,right?
(41:10):
Um, now what I will say is thebeauty of using fingers, the
beauty of using fingers, numberone, super easy, super simple to
do, right?
You don't need any technology,you don't need an app, you don't
need anything.
You just literally hold your armhere, your hand out in front of
you.
The other thing that you, thatis very helpful is, um, other
than the fact that you canactually track it on the range
(41:32):
when you're practicing.
Right.
Imagine that, right?
Imagine practicing and usingsomething in your practice that
you can actually take on thegolf course, right?
Um, but what it also does is itgives you some flexibility.
So we say like, this would be alevel, level two golfer.
Well, let's say again like,let's say you're into the wind.
All right?
(41:53):
Well then maybe let's try andstretch this out.
Let's add a little bit of armbend, right?
Because this dis, this end ofthe wind is gonna magnify that
dispersion.
Let's say we're downwind.
Let's slide this in a littlebit, right?
Let's say we're in the rough.
Let's make it a little bitwider.
Add a little bit of elbow flex,right?
(42:13):
Get those fingers just a littlecloser to your face.
Let's say that we're got a likea.
Very flat, very stock standardlie that you always tend to
practice with.
Like fairway, no slope oranything like, I don't know,
maybe, right?
Again,'cause this is an average,um, let's say you're feeling
really good that day.
Let's say, man, I like my swingis dialed, right?
I'm feeling really good, right?
(42:34):
Maybe you can slide that in alittle bit.
Let's just say you just feellike you don't have it.
You're like, oh, man, like Ijust, I don't have my a, a
stuff, or maybe even my B, my Bstuff today.
Maybe you make that a littlewider so it gives you some
flexibility.
It gives you some flexibility,right?
Um, to be able to commit to theshot that you've chosen, and
(42:55):
that is a big, big, big dealbecause this, this dispersion is
assuming that you are swingingfreely, right?
The data is collected usually ina range context, usually, again,
swinging freely.
As soon as we are getting overthis saying, you know what, I
(43:17):
just don't really want to hitthis shot.
Or as soon as you're standingover it saying, you know what?
I feel like I should do this,but I just, I don't like it.
I just don't wanna hit thisshot.
What do you think is gonnahappen to, to your dispersion,
Eric?
Eric (43:31):
It's gonna grow
Rob Failes (43:33):
It's gonna get bigger,
Eric (43:34):
big,
Rob Failes (43:35):
So, so what we say is we use this decision tree
and.
If you, again, if you just feellike you're not in that space,
then you gotta like widen thatthing out, right?
Get that thing as wide as youneed it to, to where like,
you're fine, like from one edgeto the other.
You're like, yeah, I'm, I canfully commit to what I'm doing
(43:57):
there.
And again, it's, it's never,it's never just a right to left
thing.
It's a long to short thing aswell.
So understand that a threefinger dispersion is 10%.
Right.
So you can kind of do the math,right, and understand, hey, like
if the, if the pen is, let's sayI'm one 50 and there's, uh,
there's a, uh, like water short.
(44:19):
Okay, so, but the pen's oneight, well then you know right
away, right?
You know, like, Hey, I've gottabe minimum seven paces beyond
that, that flag, right?
Eric (44:29):
Mm-hmm.
Rob Failes (44:30):
don't want to be within 15, right?
I don't wanna be within 10% ofthat penalty area.
Eric (44:36):
Right.
Rob Failes (44:37):
Right, and that's when you're gonna change, like
you'll, you'll get that numberand then you'll, you'll add or
subtract wind or lie or, or, or,you know, slope or anything that
you want to off of that.
Eric (44:49):
It's so brilliant for a lot of reasons, and I was
messing around with this on therange the other
Rob Failes (44:54):
I.
Eric (44:55):
and I, it's hard for the listener to picture this, but
when you stand out and just doit, you'll notice that it
triangulates over.
The length of the shot.
Right.
So like it, and that's what,that's how it works.
That's why we're not saying, oh,on a driver it's, it's 10
fingers and on a sand wedge,it's one.
No, it's always the same basedon how you control the ball.
Rob Failes (45:17):
Mm-hmm.
Eric (45:18):
over the spatial, like the triangulation over space
essentially widens the
Rob Failes (45:23):
It scales.
Eric (45:24):
yeah, it scales.
So as I was looking at a twofinger, like.
sort of doing a, a hook'em hornsat 200 yards versus, um, a flag
that was at 94 and you could seehow much different it, you know,
Rob Failes (45:37):
Yeah.
Eric (45:38):
the,
Rob Failes (45:38):
Super different.
Eric (45:39):
that dispersion was.
Rob Failes (45:41):
Mm-hmm.
Eric (45:42):
it's really nice, like you said, something to use on the
range to practice to kind of geta gauge like we're,
Rob Failes (45:47):
Mm-hmm.
Eric (45:48):
2, 3 level players, or four if you count the tour
player, but you may be like.
know, you might be, you might bea level two player that has a
horrible short game and you're astick, right?
You might,
Rob Failes (46:00):
Mm-hmm.
Eric (46:00):
might have a dispersion that's way tighter
Rob Failes (46:03):
a great point.
Eric (46:04):
two, right?
So.
Rob Failes (46:06):
totally, and that's what you learn if you come and
see your eye.
We can look at you, we canagain, track your stats.
You're gonna see, right, you'regonna see like, hey, like, I'm
actually hitting it to like alevel two golfer, but I'm
putting it to like a, not even alevel one.
Like, oh, okay.
All right.
Maybe spend some time there,right?
Because you might have a leveltwo dispersion, but being only a
level one player.
So, yeah.
Uh, that's a great point.
(46:27):
Thanks for, thanks forclarifying that.
Eric (46:29):
this for 10 years with Track Man, right?
Where you're trying to get agauge on dispersion.
Now it's tricky because it's amat in a controlled environment
in the same club over and overagain,
Rob Failes (46:39):
This is so much better than
Eric (46:41):
yeah.
Rob Failes (46:42):
my gosh.
Like, you don't, like, I don't,I don't real, I I never really
figured out how to take theinformation from TrackMan and,
and then,'cause the golfer wouldsay, okay, well then what does
that mean?
How do I use that?
And then it'd be a bunch ofmath.
It would be a lot of math.
You'd be like, okay, well, yougotta figure out your
percentages.
(47:02):
And you gotta say, okay, wellhow far is the flag from the
edge?
Right?
Well then, okay, then what's mypercentage there?
And then you're doing math,like, no, this, this is no math.
You just literally hold yourfingers out, work through that
decision tree, make sure thatyou're, you're going priority
number one, priority number two,priority number three, and then
make your adjustments in thename and swing, right.
That that process right there isliterally on the, on the sheet.
Eric (47:24):
And it's, it's building acceptance, which I love.
Rob Failes (47:28):
Yes.
Eric (47:29):
I'm accepting that this is the.
This is the width of the, of mydispersion pattern.
Rob Failes (47:36):
Mm-hmm.
Eric (47:36):
so it's just built in acceptance.
So I,
Rob Failes (47:39):
You got it.
Eric (47:40):
to, I have to adjust.
So super, super cool, um, way todo it.
So anyway, check out the, thefigure dispersions, test it out
in your practice.
Test it out in the course nexttime.
Don't think anybody will thinkyou're weird'cause you'll be
crushing them and taking theirlunch money and then no one will
say anything about it.
Um, people do it on the, youknow, it's a very similar
(48:02):
process to how we use AIM pointon the green.
And so it's just the similar,similar deal.
Rob Failes (48:08):
Mm-hmm.
Eric (48:10):
I love the, uh, I love.
That discussion.
Thank you for sharing with us.
Rob Failes (48:15):
Mm-hmm.
Eric (48:16):
anything else you've seen recently that you want to talk,
any questions that you've hadsome students have that you'd
love to, um, answer on thequestion and answer segment
today?
Any general stuff that's comeup?
Rob Failes (48:27):
No, it's just been a lot of, again, I get, I get
beginner, like, not beginner.
I get first time lessons all thetime, like literally had one
today.
And it's just so often the casethat if you awareness is.
On the current task at hand.
Like literally.
(48:48):
Okay.
Like what, what am I trying,what am I, what is the task?
What, like it's not to lookgood.
Like, it's not to, um, it's notto appease anyone else.
It's not to, um,
Eric (49:06):
Impress
Rob Failes (49:06):
a certain way.
Eric (49:08):
of your golf
Rob Failes (49:08):
It's not, it's not to right.
Like.
There's just so few actual tasksthat, that we, that we need,
that we actually do have on agolf course.
Like when you think about like,hey, like what are you gonna
have to do?
Like, okay, well find, find thegolf ball, right?
Figure out how far it needs togo.
Figure out what the directionneeds to go.
(49:29):
Right.
Pick the club and the shot.
Right.
And then walk in and swing.
Right?
Like that's, that's pretty much,uh, all that, all that we have.
And it's just so funny how,again, I had somebody today who
was just multitasking like crazyover the golf ball with, had so
many things that he was tryingto do, and none of them were
(49:51):
relevant.
None of them were relevant tothe task at hand.
So.
All we did was we just did some,'cause he had no idea why the
golf ball was going where he wasgoing.
And I think that's a lot oftimes why we have so many of
these competing tasks is thatthe ball was going left, he was
just hitting straight poles andhe believed it was because of
what his pelvis was doing.
Eric (50:12):
Right.
Rob Failes (50:14):
The a golf ball doesn't care about what your
pelvis is doing.
The ball cares about what theclub is doing to it.
Let's, let's discuss that firstand then.
We will go from there.
Right.
And we really didn't have to gomuch past, like some very, very,
very basic differential trainingwith him, um, to get him to
understand why the golf ball wasgoing where I was going.
(50:35):
And he's like, so it means Idon't have to worry about
shallowing.
I was like, Nope.
Uh, so that means that I don'thave to like, have a pre-shot
routine, like have to walk inand take the, the same number
step?
No.
Uh, so you mean like I don'thave to like.
Uh, like, get my shoulderssquare.
Like, no, like you mean like Idon't have to like kick like my,
push my left foot forward, liketo get my pelvis back and like,
(50:58):
so I don't really extend, no.
Mm-hmm.
It's like, so you mean that likeI just need to like,
Eric (51:03):
point the club face to the left at impacted.
You're gonna be fine.
Rob Failes (51:06):
correct.
Like, um, I was like, just giveme like whatever time you have,
and this was on his blueprint,um, you need to give me skill
differential training.
Um.
And then he had a little bit ofrhythm stuff where he didn't
have enough energy going backand then the way that he was
trying to add energy to thatsystem was, was causing the face
(51:28):
to go up.
Now, why that was the case?
I have no idea.
All we did was saying, Hey, likeI think your backswing energy's
a little interesting.
Let's play around with it.
Give me some that like you feellike you don't have nearly
enough backswing for the shotthat you're hitting.
And gimme some where you feellike you have way too much and
let's just see what happens withthe club face.
When he gave me what felt likewas too much backswing energy,
he never hit one left when hegave it, when he said like,
(51:51):
okay, I want to give, I want youto give me not enough backswing
energy for the shot that youhad.
Every time when he would reallytry to add energy to the, to
that, um, I.
To the swing, like in the, atthe top or coming down, it was
like left almost exclusively.
So yes, it was a skill issue,like he could organize skill
around that.
But I think for him it was alsoa little bit of a rhythm thing,
(52:13):
and I had no idea why.
Like, I didn't, I didn't tellhim.
Oh, it was because your, yourleft wrist was going into
extension or your left wrist.
Forearm was pro like, no, it'sjust like for whatever reason,
when you gave it less in thebackswing, the thing that you
were doing to speed it up wasalso causing that face to shut
for you.
Because I've seen it work theother way too.
Like I've had people who don'tgive it enough backswing energy
(52:37):
for the shot that they'rehitting and they're always.
Like adding stuff late and theface opens.
I'll just say that's almost morecommon, right?
From what I've seen.
But again, it's like you can'tassume, you just gotta, like,
that's why so much of what we dois just like, Hey, let's run the
experiment.
Let's just test this for like,
Eric (52:56):
Yep.
Rob Failes (52:56):
that's my favorite kind of lesson, honestly.
If I can, if I just havesomeone's like, Hey, let's,
let's run an experiment forlike.
Eight, five to eight balls justto see what happens.
And we're just gonna work oneither side of the spectrum and
just see what happens.
It's so often the case that weget these like ahas, like, oh
wow, that's crazy.
Like, I had never, never thoughtto like even explore in that
area.
But it's, it's such a low risk,high upside way of going about
(53:19):
it that, I mean, I'm justtalking from the coach
standpoint is a lot lessanxiety, a lot less stressful
knowing like, hey, like.
I'm appreciating the fact that Idon't have, quote unquote, like
the geometry answer.
Right.
I'm actually just on thisjourney with you and we're just
gonna explore.
I just have a couple moreplaces, um, that are relevant to
(53:41):
look and explore that maybe youhaven't explored yet.
Eric (53:46):
Super cool, super cool, and that that's, a lot of times
if you get a good lesson andyou're working on it the right
way, you're actually quoteunquote fixing things and you
don't even know how you're doingit, and that's the best way,
because then you're notconsciously worried about, am I
pronating?
Am I Am I doing this?
Am I doing that?
You're just reacting as anathlete and getting the.
(54:09):
Getting the ball to do what youneed to do.
And so that's what I try to doall the time, is just set them
up for a natural situation to
Rob Failes (54:16):
Mm-hmm.
Eric (54:17):
and fix the swing.
So anyway, Rob fails.
I think that takes us to aboutan hour on today's show.
Super fun.
Anything else you want to add atthe end here, buddy?
Rob Failes (54:28):
I think we got it.
Eric (54:30):
I think that was really fun.
So check us out if you wannacheck out the Substack for our
bonus content.
Check out the link of the shownotes.
We'd also love if you would rateand review our show.
We have a perfect five starrating on both Apple and Google,
which is super, super cool.
And if you haven't given us thatfive star rating yet, just kind
of just do it kind of right now.
(54:50):
If you're not driving, we wouldlove for you to, for us to rate
the show, uh, that really doeshelp us find new listeners.
Thank you again for tuning intothe Golf Intervention Podcast.
If you ever have questions.
can just ask it on our Substack.
We have like a chat forum and sothere's a little bit of an open
chat there for questions and uh,we'll try to get to'em on the
show.
So thanks again for tuning intothe Golf Intervention Podcast.
(55:13):
We'll be back next time withanother hopefully fun and
insightful episode to help youplay your best golf in 2025.
Have a great night.
And welcome back to the Golf Intervention Podcast.
On today's episode, we're gonnadiscuss where you stand with
your game currently.
to know what to work on.
And what you should do now thatit's in the middle of the season
where you put your energy andyou know, coach Rufas.
(00:22):
I was thinking about thatbecause I've had a bunch of
lessons actually today, which iskind of strange for me, where it
was actually first time studentsback to back, to back,
Rob Failes (00:31):
Oh, nice.
Yeah.
That's fun.
Eric (00:32):
I just got my 19 year pin at the Country Club of Virginia.
So I've been
Rob Failes (00:36):
Nice.
Eric (00:38):
Although it's a big membership.
Um, we're not like one of thesememberships that's, uh.
people are moving around a lot,joining,
Rob Failes (00:45):
Yeah.
Eric (00:45):
joining, leaving.
It doesn't happen at the countryclub.
This is like a, a legacymembership type place.
But, so it's kind of strangewhen I get a bunch of lessons in
a row where I've never taughtsomebody before
Rob Failes (00:55):
Yeah.
Eric (00:56):
here in 19 years.
And so that just happened tohappen today.
And so kind of like through thislens, I was like seeing and
having these conversationsabout.
Hey, let's talk about who youare as a player.
Tell me what to, you know, asI'm on this journey, as they're
trying to, trying to hop ontheir train, so to speak.
Like you're
Rob Failes (01:14):
Yeah.
Eric (01:14):
journey.
You might not know where thetrain's going, but I'm supposed
to be the conductor and I'mjumping on the, I'm jumping on a
Rob Failes (01:20):
Nice.
Eric (01:20):
with you.
That's kind of like what it is.
Rob Failes (01:23):
That's pretty much, yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Absolutely.
That's a great analogy.
Eric (01:28):
oh, hey, tell me, like, I always say this.
I'm like, Hey.
What's the scoop?
You know, like, just tell me,tell me what's the deal?
You know, what, why are youhere?
What are we doing?
um, and so I had these differenttypes of situations and I think
today on the show, I want tokind of go through and I know
you and I both wanna go throughthis, is like I.
Rob Failes (01:48):
Yeah.
Eric (01:49):
How do we know where that moving train is
Rob Failes (01:52):
Mm-hmm.
Eric (01:53):
what, what city am I in on my golf journey?
Rob Failes (01:56):
Yeah.
Eric (01:56):
like what's relevant to me getting to the next stop on the
on the route?
can the conductor help you getthere and what makes that
process smoother?
Being that we're traveling at acertain time of season here, and
so it was really interestingtoday.
Because I had a whole mix ofdifferent things.
I had one guy that likeliterally plays kind of recently
(02:19):
retired.
He goes to Florida and he's hereand he just plays constantly,
right?
Like all year round all thetime.
was struggling with a fewthings.
15 handicap.
Then I had like a really goodathlete, younger guy, back
problems, big time from golf.
Rob Failes (02:34):
Hmm.
Eric (02:35):
why he's been doing pt.
He took lessons from other golfpros.
I had never met him before.
And nobody, not the other golfpros, not the PTs, not the
doctors.
No one discussed his golf swingwith him and what could
Rob Failes (02:51):
Hmm.
Eric (02:51):
the back pain.
Okay?
So that was another one.
and then there was another onewhere Avid golfer member of
incredibly good clubs has playedgood golf in his life and
self-admittedly.
Got trapped in the YouTuberabbit hole and feels like his
brain is so screwed up.
He literally can't stand overthe ball and hit the shot
(03:13):
anymore.
So
Rob Failes (03:14):
Mm-hmm.
Eric (03:14):
are some of the things that I was seeing today, and I'm
like, and then another one was acollege student.
Super nice.
Was a wrestler in high school,so didn't do sports that, you
know, he hit balls with sticksand he just trying to like,
loves the game.
Super fun kid.
And um, yeah, had a good swing,had no skill.
And
Rob Failes (03:32):
Mm-hmm.
Eric (03:32):
we kinda like had to learn that.
So we worked on, I kind of hadto explain that to'em.
Rob Failes (03:37):
Yeah,
Eric (03:37):
so all these folks were on different places on the journey,
so to speak,
Rob Failes (03:43):
for sure.
Eric (03:44):
they were either struggling.
Maybe didn't struggle, didn'tknow what they needed to work
on, and that's what the coachcomes in and tries to help.
But what we try to do on thisshow and we're gonna do today is
try to provide you that contextso you on your own, can figure
out where you are on thatjourney.
Is
Rob Failes (04:01):
Yep.
Eric (04:01):
Rob?
Rob Failes (04:02):
A hundred percent.
Yep.
We just, uh, we just posted a,uh, a little, what, what I'm
calling like the, the TGIblueprint, right to our
substack.
And I think, um, if you want to,uh, spot us a cup of coffee
every month, I.
Then you can have access tothat, right?
So what it does is it kind ofbreaks down, um, score,
(04:23):
strategy, skill and swing.
Uh, like we've talked about adnauseum on the podcast, but it
gives you some very, very simpledata points.
Like literally, uh, just keeptrack of your score and your
total puts, right?
And that can get you at least inthe ballpark and kind of
figuring out, Hey, do I need towork on my shots to green or do
(04:43):
I need to work on my putting?
Um, and then depending on, wecan obviously peel the onion
away of from that.
Um, but then within that youhave your strategy, which has a
combination of your dispersion,your decision tree, as well as
kind of your shot process.
Uh, it breaks down the threeskills and how you can train
them, uh, and then a couplelittle tidbits on swing, kind of
(05:07):
what needs to be consistentthere.
So, uh, we can definitely talkabout that today and kind of.
How to navigate that.
I think that could be a good useof time, uh, especially,
especially for our subscribers,I think, uh, would be nice.
But it's really what we do onevery lesson.
It's like, alright, are youlevel one, two, or three?
Right?
Where are you at?
Shots to green versus totalputs?
And then how much of it is skillversus how much of it is swing,
(05:30):
um, versus how much of it isstrategy, right?
Eric (05:33):
Yeah, so Robbie's reference in the Substack, which
we haven't brought up in awhile, um.
But we really do appreciate thefolks that subscribe to the
Substack.
We have a free kind of version,and then we have the paid
version, which,
Rob Failes (05:48):
Yep.
Eric (05:48):
it's not a, a, a super huge investment, but we do
appreciate that because it doescover the cost that we have for
this
Rob Failes (05:56):
Yes.
Eric (05:56):
which you'd be surprised.
Um, we
Rob Failes (05:58):
Oh yeah,
Eric (05:59):
for the love of the game in a lot of ways.
That's
Rob Failes (06:01):
we do.
Yes.
Eric (06:03):
has been to help.
People understand the process ofplaying better.
Um,
Rob Failes (06:07):
Yep.
Eric (06:08):
we don't push the Substack a ton.
But we do really appreciate thefolks that subscribe and if you
would like to subscribe, thereis some really good stuff on
there.
And I think in the, in thecoming weeks and months, we're
definitely gonna embellish thateven more.
Um,
Rob Failes (06:21):
For sure.
Eric (06:21):
Robbie, like he and I were just discussing, I've had life
happening a lot recently.
It's kind of held us.
Back a little bit, I would say.
And we, we have an episode thatrecorded a little bit funny,
that hasn't gone out.
I haven't figured out how toclean it up yet.
So hopefully that episode willcome out too.
So we'll start putting some ofthe on the main feed here.
So
Rob Failes (06:38):
Yes,
Eric (06:39):
like we haven't been out in a while.
So life is lifeing, as they say,but I
Rob Failes (06:44):
yes.
Eric (06:44):
get back into the groove here.
And, um, and so if you want tocheck out the substack, it's the
golf intervention.substack.com.
You can check that, check outthe link in the show notes, and
that'll take you right there.
And we appreciate each and everyperson that subscribes, whether
it's the free or the paidversion, but that does kind of
keep us, keeps the, uh, lightson, as they say
Rob Failes (07:04):
Yep.
Yeah, absolutely.
Eric (07:06):
So, thank you.
Thank you.
And.
You know, I think that we couldgo through this, it kind of like
the, I like the moving trainanalogy that we were just
talking about.
So, um, when, when a studentcomes in, I, I've gotta figure
out where, where they are onthis journey.
I've gotta help them with that.
And with the new student afternew student, after new student
(07:27):
today, it was like the same kindof conversation happening over
and over again.
And I will say today was 111 onthe heat index in Richmond,
Virginia.
Did you have a, did you have aday like that in
Rob Failes (07:37):
It was a hundred here.
Yeah,
Eric (07:39):
it was outrageous.
Probably the hottest day I couldever remember.
Rob Failes (07:44):
it was insane.
Eric (07:45):
actually, I don't wanna say luckily, but, I took my wife
to physical therapy thismorning.
She had some surgery.
I.
Last week, um, I wouldn't saymajor, but kind of like medium
size surgery
Rob Failes (07:58):
Mm-hmm.
Eric (07:58):
has to get some PT on.
So I had to take her today.
She's not allowed to drive yet,so I only taught from 12 to six,
but, most of my days are seven30 to six with maybe a half an
hour break.
So 110 on the heat indexwould've been crazy, brother.
um, that's what gonna be my daytomorrow, so wish me luck.
(08:19):
So anyhow,
Rob Failes (08:20):
have big, y'all have big fans in there, right?
Or do you have, is it AC or doy'all have like actual fans?
Eric (08:25):
that's the hard part
Rob Failes (08:27):
Oh, they blow under the suit.
Yeah.
Eric (08:29):
And so I gotta be smart about just getting something to
blow on me.
Like I have a little one at
Rob Failes (08:34):
Yeah.
Eric (08:34):
which is fine.
Rob Failes (08:35):
Yeah.
Eric (08:36):
Um, but I'm usually not at the desk, so I just kind of
Rob Failes (08:38):
Right.
Eric (08:39):
I had a, I was fine today.
It was all good.
So anyway, like as people arecoming in.
We're trying to hop on that.
We're trying to hop on thattrain out where they are.
If it's a reoccurring student,we have a good sense of where
they are.
Rob Failes (08:52):
for sure.
Eric (08:53):
in that first lesson, and what you should do as a listener
is try to think
Rob Failes (08:55):
I.
Eric (08:56):
you stand on that right now.
And so we go through this kindof.
Uh, on the golf intervention, wesit, we kind of put you into
three groups of players.
Level one player, which is kindof like beginner golfer, you
know, someone that's not keepingscore yet, all the way to maybe
like bogey, golfer, 20 ishhandicap kind of
Rob Failes (09:13):
Yep.
Eric (09:13):
in the, in the nineties kind of score.
Rob Failes (09:16):
Yes.
Eric (09:17):
and then level two is like where we turn this corner.
And we start seeing somedifferent things in our game.
And that takes us all the waydown to like, kind of like
scoring 76, like scratch golferish.
And then that turns a corner inthe data set as well for scratch
or better.
And then tour players live ontheir own island.
We don't even really count
Rob Failes (09:36):
Yes.
Eric (09:37):
like level
Rob Failes (09:37):
They're, they're level four.
Yeah.
Eric (09:39):
Yeah.
They're just not human as wesay.
So we call it we, these thingsmatter.
And I think putting the contextaround who you are as a player.
Is what helps us learn and grow.
'cause we gotta know where weneed to start, We just need to
know when I'm jumping on, whenI'm jumping on that train with
them, I gotta know where we are,where are we right now?
(10:01):
And so.
Rob, what are the things thatyou kind of, what can the, what
can the listener learn from howwe assess the student, um, to
kind of say like, okay, like,here's my scoring.
That's fine, but what does thattell me?
What does that tell me about whoI am and what I'm kind of
currently dealing with in mygame?
Because.
(10:22):
One of the guys today, like Iwas telling you, he plays all
year round and he's like gettingbetter.
He was a 25 a couple years ago,handicap, now he's down to like
a 15 and he's telling me thesethings and I'm like, no, no, no.
Like I know exactly what youneed to work on and here's why.
And he's like, you know, kind oflike.
I would say he's kind of a typeA, but he's like very excited.
He's excited to learn and grab.
(10:42):
I'm like, listen, we alreadyknow what you need to work on.
And he's like, really?
I said, let me ask you thesequestions about your game.
And as soon as I starteddescribing his game, he is like,
how did you know that?
I'm like, it's in the
Rob Failes (10:53):
Yeah.
Eric (10:54):
It's in the
Rob Failes (10:54):
Yeah.
Eric (10:55):
So you just fit, you fit in the bell curve.
That's why.
Okay.
So what are you, what can thelistener learn about that sort
of data set?
Where I stand?
they can say, okay, here's whereI am and these are the things.
This is kind of generally what Iknow I need to do in the moment.
Not big, not every littledetail.
'cause we're not going throughthat today.
(11:15):
If you want to know
Rob Failes (11:16):
Yeah.
Eric (11:17):
you could go back to our early episodes.
What I'm saying is like from thescores and then putting into the
context of we're in the seasonright now too.
Rob Failes (11:26):
Yes.
Yeah,
Eric (11:26):
little chart maybe that you made, help us understand
like where I am and what I needto.
What I need to work on in themoment.
I guess if they're there for
Rob Failes (11:34):
for,
Eric (11:34):
decide they need to work on
Rob Failes (11:35):
for sure.
Yeah.
And I, I think the, the firstthing that we would like to.
To discuss with golfers is thatwe make decisions based off of
trends or like a, not just a, aone-off occurrence.
Right?
So I think the biggest errorgolfers make is they play around
in golf, they don't really trackmuch, uh, but they remember
(11:57):
maybe like three putting thelast hole or something like
that.
And they say, gosh, you know,if, if I could only get better
at putting Right.
Where it's like, hold on asecond, like.
Do you know how many putts foryour level you need to be per
round and over the last three tofour or five?
I, I mean, Brian Bailey sayseight rounds.
(12:20):
I, I'd say kind of five-ish,four to six-ish, somewhere in
that range.
If you can get about that many,of just knowing, okay, what was
my total score?
What was my total putts, right?
Am I in the ballpark?
Right?
Because if your total putts arein the ballpark and you're not.
To that level, you need to getthe ball from the D box to the
(12:42):
green faster.
Right?
And it's not, again, not justone round, but over the course
of, you know, four to sixrounds, understanding that data.
Right.
If your shots to greener in theballpark and you're just a
little bit off, a lot of timesimprovements in putting can come
quicker.
So again, if you're just likeonly maybe two shots off of your
scoring of where you're of yourkind of like your next level and
(13:05):
your shots to greener in theballpark, but you're always like
two to three putts higher.
Let's work on some puttingstuff.
I think a lot of timesunderstanding green reading,
understanding how that relatesto.
Distance predictability, howthat relates to your overall
process?
I think putting improvements canhappen much, much quicker and
easier than even short gameimprovements.
(13:28):
I mean, short game I think itcan be, can happen pretty
quickly, but, um, that's evenoftentimes, uh, quicker than
say, like full swingimprovements.
And that's the, that's thetrick.
It's understanding that for manygolfers, like where is your.
Lowest hanging fruit.
Right.
What's the, what's the greatestamount?
(13:48):
What's, what's the biggestdifference in between where
you're at and where you need tobe?
Either from shots to green orfrom total puts?
But then it's like, okay, wellwhat, what's gonna gimme the
highest likelihood of actuallygaining those strokes?
Right?
And that's why, you know, thedata says for most level one and
two golfers, it's gonna be shotsto green usually, but like maybe
(14:10):
some putting in some short gamestuff for an individual golfer
who doesn't have a bunch oftime.
And these are the questions thatwe ask, like, how much time do
you have?
What can you actually do?
Like there's so much that goesinto it.
Like for some golfers, yeah,like their shots to green aren't
where they need to be, but justto get them a couple shots
better based off the fact thatthey have like zero time to
(14:30):
practice.
I might just work on the shortgame or might work on their
putting.
'cause I know like, hey, theycan actually do this and I can
get some momentum going in theright direction.
They see some scores coming downand now it's like a.
I got'em.
Now they're hooked.
Like now they're like, okay,like let's, let's go, let's do
this.
And then maybe afterwards we canget into some of the, the tee
shots and the approach shotstuff.
Um, if I have somebody who'slike, yeah, I got a bunch of
(14:53):
time.
I'm super dedicated and my shotsof green is nowhere even close
to where I want, then you betterbelieve like we're, we're taking
a look at some, some swingfoundations, like things that
need to be pretty consistent,which is the way we hold it, the
way we stand, the generalpattern.
All right.
And the rhythm of how we'reswinging the golf club, we're
taking a look and kind ofchecking those boxes.
(15:15):
Um, but if like, a lot of thatstuff is pretty consistent and
we're, especially in season, alot of times we're just doing
some little bit of skill stuffasking, Hey, how did that feel
different?
And then just rolling with sometemporary feels, right?
Because again, we're in seasonwhere it's not like we're gonna
be making any sort of wholesalechanges to geometry swing wise
especially.
(15:35):
Um, I'm a big fan of always liketweaking.
Energy and time, right?
So the, the rhythm stuff, ifthat's off, you always have
permission, in my opinion to, toclean that stuff up.
'cause that goes into like thegeneral freedom in which you're
swinging the club like that,that we want to always kind of
be consistent with.
But like, if the club's in acertain position midway season,
right?
We call that geometry.
(15:56):
Like if you looked at just theshape of the swing or a position
of the golf club, that's a lotharder to change.
It's way, way more beneficial Ithink in season.
To just make little skilltweaks.
Right.
And that is, I think, Eric, yousent me a video from Lee
Trevino, didn't you?
And that's what Lee was talkingabout, is like, you have to
have, and I think what he wastalking about was skill training
there.
(16:16):
Like, you have to have the, thefeel tweaks, right?
You have to be able to know howto do that without taking up,
you know, swing thoughts in yourbrain without trying to do a
bunch more stuff.
I, I said do in quotation marks,right.
Right.
We're not trying to add thingsto what you're doing.
A lot of times in season we're,if anything, trying to strip
stuff away and then just giveyou some feel, toolbox feels in
(16:39):
your toolbox to be able to use,um, if you notice, uh, a trend
one way than another.
So that was, that felt like along ramble, but hopefully I
kind of got to the, the gist ofyour question there.
Eric (16:50):
Well, the, the point was, um, well
Rob Failes (16:53):
Yeah.
What was the point?
You tell me?
Eric (16:55):
The po the point, well, the point
Rob Failes (16:56):
Yeah.
Eric (16:56):
well noted there, Rafael, which is, we were just saying
like, generally if people knowwhere they stand, they're gonna
Rob Failes (17:04):
Mm-hmm.
Eric (17:04):
up less.
Okay.
And this is, this was one of thelessons today, again, good
competent golfer.
Remember at Great Clubs comesin, tells me about a horrible
golf experience he just had.
I'm sitting there, I'm like,I've seen him hit balls.
I know him.
I say hi to him.
I, I mean.
I don't think I've ever givenhim a lesson before, but, so he
(17:25):
hits balls for a while and he'stelling me about how little he
is enjoying golf right now.
Like, that's what he's tellingme.
Like he's, he's a member at oneof the top, literally top golf
courses, the top five golfcourses in the world.
Okay.
obviously at CCV as well.
And he is like, just came backfrom a, from a trip that he
(17:47):
played a PGA tour venue, whichis very well known and very.
Good.
he played terrible and he wassaying, I really don't like golf
right now.
I really don't like to play it.
And I'm like, wow, Like, I'mjust taking it all in.
I just, I didn't know, you know,I'm just kind of listening to
him.
And so he hits a couple.
(18:08):
I said, let's do this.
Let's just like, he's like, Igot, I got, I just, I'm trying
to do too much.
I'm trying to do this.
I'm trying to, I'm like, okay.
I said, why don't we just hitsome seven irons and just hit
the ball?
Like, let's just hit some andlet me just see what's going.
Let me just watch you swing.
You know, to watch things likerhythm, right?
Or.
You know, whatever.
Just, just watch how he goesthrough his process.
So I'm just taking in the bigpicture.
(18:29):
just aim it straight out thereand just swing hit like 10
seminars.
And after he hit about five, hejust turns around and goes,
alright, I gotta be honest aboutsomething.
I'm like, what's that?
He goes, I watch way too manyYouTube videos on the swing.
I was like, oh no.
And so I said, I just kindastarted chuckling.
I didn't really think he wasgonna go there.
(18:50):
I wasn't expecting that.
And, um, and so he's like, Istand over the ball.
I think I should be doing this.
I think I should be doing that.
I, and I didn't, I didn't getinto any of that.
I did, I just sort of.
It was what it was.
What I said was, let's just letgo of all of it.
That's what I said.
Like he's like, okay.
I'm like, just let go of all ofit.
(19:10):
How doesn't that feel good?
Like just forget.
Just forget it.
But I listened to thesewell-known teachers and stuff.
I'm said, they're great.
are great.
They don't know what you need towork on.
And the fact of the matter wasafter we kind of just got
swinging, I kind of saw what hewas struggling with Right.
A little bit with his actualswing.
And the fact of the matter washe was so unaware of it.
(19:33):
That there's no chance hewould've ever found the answer
for it on YouTube.
Right?
'cause he didn't know what hewould, he didn't know the the
problem.
So the point that I'm trying tomake here, and I think that
Robbie's trying to make here, isthere's moments to that when
things aren't going well, thatmaybe you look for him, maybe
things are going well.
Then we start looking for like,what's the next better thing to
work on?
(19:53):
Well, if it's data driven, likeRobbie says, Hey, I'm two puts
around away from being a betterplayer.
Maybe I need to work on putting.
Okay, great.
So at least you know where youstand on the journey.
And that's what we, that's whatwe want you to do.
We want you to be able to say, Iknow who I am as a player.
I know what I need to work on.
(20:13):
And I will tell you, I currentlywork with a tour player who
knows exactly where she is allthe time and what she needs to
work on to make her score good.
And she's that level fourplayer.
But the point is like she's veryaware, always aware.
Sometimes it's just in theequipment, sometimes it's in
things like.
Making sure her green reading'sreally good.
Like sometimes it's just in theprocess of like how far her
(20:34):
ball's carrying in a certainlike, but she knows exactly what
she's working on all the time.
'cause she knows exactly whatshe needs out of her game to
play the ways that she wants to.
But I think that the averagegolfer really struggles to
figure that out.
Right, like really strugglestoday.
Like
Rob Failes (20:49):
I agree.
Eric (20:49):
I am I on the journey, and right now we're in the middle of
the golf season.
So if you're someone who's anavid golfer and you love playing
golf, what you don't need tofirst work on, probably,
especially without the guidanceof a coach, is your golf swing,
Rob Failes (21:05):
Geometry?
Yeah.
Eric (21:06):
The, what
Rob Failes (21:07):
totally.
Eric (21:08):
right?
Which I refer to my students asjust quote unquote the swing.
Right?
Rob Failes (21:13):
Yeah,
Eric (21:14):
what you probably need to do is, I love the little, I love
that Lee Trevino thing that Isent you because he, he didn't
say skill, he called it tweaks,which I
Rob Failes (21:23):
he was totally talking about skill though.
Eric (21:25):
He was totally talking about skill.
Wonder if I could figure out away to play it.
That'd be kind of fun if I coulddo that.
'cause it'd be so cool to listento it.
Rob Failes (21:32):
Mm-hmm.
Eric (21:33):
Tell people I said, you know.
You are what you are.
When you get a golf swing, youown it.
The only reason that that guy'splaying professional and your
swing is just like his, youcan't make it.
But he can is he knows how totweak.
(21:53):
You don't know how to tweak.
You are trying to hit shots andmake these shots with the same
grip, with the same stance, withthe same ball position, you
know, with the same weightdistribution.
Can't do that.
You have to learn that when thepins on the right, depends on
the left.
Pin is deep.
Pin is front.
(22:13):
You have gotta make someadjustments.
The adjustments might be in thegrip and the weight distribution
position of the ball swingdoesn't change.
Rob Failes (22:25):
Swing, don't change.
Eric (22:27):
So how cool is that?
Rob Failes (22:29):
Yeah.
Eric (22:30):
Like, I feel like he went through the entire thing.
We tried to tell, people justsaid it a little bit different
way,
Rob Failes (22:35):
No, but I think, I think when he is talking about
tweaks, I think that's when hesays that you don't know how to
tweak, skill doesn't, oh, sorry,swing doesn't change.
I think that's very muchconfirmation bias, obviously.
So.
Eric (22:50):
But the, the point is, um, I think the way he framed, like,
Hey, I could tell that's Maxhoa, or I could tell that's John
Rob Failes (22:57):
Mm-hmm.
Eric (22:57):
I could
Rob Failes (22:58):
Mm-hmm.
Eric (22:58):
He's making the right point there.
That's your, that's yourgeometry discussion.
Right?
Rob Failes (23:03):
Totally.
Eric (23:03):
see that is, that is Rob Fa swing.
That is Eric Layton swing.
That is John Rom swing.
Like that's Lee Trevino swing.
There's a blueprint to thatright now.
I had a kid today who.
His swing was totally good.
He had no skill, none, couldn'thit the ball in the face,
couldn't control the club face.
Why?
'cause he's, he's new to golf,
Rob Failes (23:23):
No.
Eric (23:24):
So,
Rob Failes (23:24):
absolutely.
Eric (23:26):
so he walks in and he goes, yeah, I need a lesson.
You know, I know you help mydad.
And he's such, such a good kid.
He's so much fun to work with.
Really open, open-minded, likereal energetic, and.
He needed to know where he wason the journey, which was, guess
what, bro, you can swing checkthis out.
I, I would just show him thevideo.
(23:46):
I'm like, watch this.
You like that turn.
Oh, it was cool.
You followed through you onbalance.
Yep.
How about that?
It's pretty awesome, right?
do, why can't I hit the ball?
Well,'cause you don't, youdon't, you haven't learned it
yet.
You haven't acquired the skillyet.
The squi skill is acquiredthrough practice.
Nobody practiced
Rob Failes (24:03):
Yes.
Eric (24:04):
That's what he, he dug it out of the dirt, right?
Like the point is, so what didwe work on?
He, he was shanking everythingessentially.
Heel or shank it, or he hit it.
Okay, what do we work on?
Golf intervention listeners knowwhat we worked on.
We worked on the skill ofhitting the ball on the club
face.
Like I said, Hey, I want you tohit in the middle of the club
face.
He's like, oh, okay, cool.
(24:25):
I didn't know, I was not hittingit on the, you know, I didn't
know what I was doing.
I'm like, yeah, you've playedgolf
Rob Failes (24:30):
Nice.
Eric (24:31):
in your life.
How would you know?
Right?
Rob Failes (24:32):
That's awesome.
Eric (24:33):
we track man's showing him.
I put impact tape on his club,gave him a whole bunch of it.
I said, your swing is fine.
You're hitting it off the heel.
I said, maybe try to hit it offthe toe and see what happens.
Well, how would I do that, Eric?
Right.
So he opened up theconversation, right?
And guess what?
He got way better at golf.
Like he was fired up at the endof the thing.
Now
Rob Failes (24:53):
Yep,
Eric (24:54):
the ball solidly.
Still couldn't control the faceangle.
That's step two.
That's what we talk
Rob Failes (24:58):
that's right.
Eric (24:59):
right?
I.
Skill number two is gonna be theface path relationship.
So now he could hit it on theface, but he couldn't.
He had no idea where the facewas gonna be pointed.
So I told him,'cause he knewthat's what he needs to work on.
I gave him a way to work on it.
He's gonna come back in a coupleweeks, we're gonna see where he
is.
We're gonna keep working on it.
Right.
And.
He didn't need to work on aswing.
(25:20):
Now the other guy that came inand told me, I've herniated a
disc playing golf.
I could play right now, but I'vetaken two big times off with
physical therapy and all thisstuff in between.
And I said, well, what aboutyour swing?
Have you, have you worked onlike figuring out why it's
hurting your back?
No.
What about the physicaltherapist?
Did they talk to you about that?
(25:41):
No.
How about who you were takinglessons to, from, from?
Did they talk to you about that?
No.
I said, well, okay, I'm, I'msorry you're not playing as well
right now as you'd like to, butwe have one goal and that's to
get you to understand how toswing with less pain and maybe
in a way that's not gonna hurtyou.
He's like, cool, let's do it.
And guess what?
We figured out in about fourminutes.
(26:02):
I mean, it was crazy.
He was like,
Rob Failes (26:04):
Hmm.
Eric (26:05):
little posture change.
Little, I mean, it wasn't thatbig of a deal.
All of a sudden he could.
And he was six feet.
Six.
So there he had someconsiderations set up, at the
end of the day, he's like, man,I'll just hit for an hour.
I have no back pain.
He's like, that hasn't happenedin a long time.
Rob Failes (26:19):
That's awesome.
Eric (26:20):
we worked on that in four minutes.
You see what I'm saying?
Rob Failes (26:22):
I.
Eric (26:22):
he's been a two years pl actually four years plus of
struggling with back pain.
And what did he need to work on?
He needed to work on his swing,right?
Like.
That was it.
And that was the only, becausenumber one reason you work on
your swing, which we've talkedabout on this before,
Rob Failes (26:39):
Yep.
Eric (26:39):
pain or keep you, you know, it's either hurting you or
to avoid it from hurting you.
Rob Failes (26:43):
You got it.
Eric (26:43):
one reason to work on your swing performance would be
number two.
man, I don't know if I'mranting.
Am I ranting?
I don't know.
Lee Trevino
Rob Failes (26:51):
No,
Eric (26:51):
fired up.
Rob Failes (26:52):
that was fire.
That was, yeah.
Eric (26:54):
But the point is you could see the different processes that
we worked through to just today.
This was just today with me.
Rob Failes (27:00):
Yeah.
Eric (27:00):
one lesson after the next, working on different aspects of
what it was I needed to do, andevery single one of them
hopefully walked out going, Iknow exactly where I am and I
know exactly the next thing Ineed to do.
To improve and I know how topractice it and I'm gonna go
work on it.
Right?
I know the process and I thinkthat that's what we want you to
(27:23):
list.
It's the whole point.
We have this show like, listento me, listener, listen to Rob
fails.
Like there's a time and a placefor each one of these things to
work on, right?
And you just, if you can knowand understand for yourself,
that's great.
If you're a coach that'slistened to this and you haven't
really thought about thisprocess before, we're hope this
helps you out as well.
And then obviously.
(27:43):
You know, go take a lesson ifyou need to, to help yourself
along on the journey, but makesure that your coach is aware of
where you are on the journey aswell.
'cause sometimes that thatcontext can get lost a little
bit as well.
So this is things that you canshare with a personal trainer or
a coach or a physical therapistor whoever.
So anyway, I think that's theend of that rant as far as I
(28:05):
know, like.
I think, I think that's it.
Anything you'd like to add tothe conversation there?
Um, maybe, maybe anything youwant to add from the, um, the
substack, uh, diagram that youput out the other day.
Rob Failes (28:21):
No, I think, I think that mostly covers it.
I think.
Um.
Yeah, I mean, if, if you have achance to, to, to come see me,
right.
Just to kind of talk throughthat.
Again.
I'm a Bos Head Resort inCharlesville, Virginia.
Um, if you're a member of CCV,obviously go see Eric, uh, and
he can work you through it.
But, um, I've got it now towhere it's in a little
(28:41):
clipboard.
I just print a bunch off and,um, usually I'm like, after the
lesson, kind of like, just realquick, like boxing the, the
areas that are relevant to thatparticular golfer.
So everyone's blueprint does,does.
It end up being a little bitdifferent.
Um, but again, for level one,your, your kind of, your
dispersion, your decision tree,um, all that is gonna be very
(29:04):
much the same.
Uh, versus level, level twoyours.
Your dispersions and yourdecision trees are gonna be
pretty similar.
And then level threes, and thenwe level four is just, uh, off
on an island somewhere.
Eric (29:17):
So we hope to get to, um, we've kind of, we've kind of.
Phase into some different partsof our new format of the show
that we're trying to introduce,which is the things we see on
the lesson too, that we thinkcan help people, general ideas
and a little bit of thought atthe beginning about, you know, a
discussion of whatever we thinkwe can help.
Right?
So like
Rob Failes (29:36):
Yep.
Eric (29:36):
you read the show title, you're gonna see about Lee
Trevino or who knows,
Rob Failes (29:42):
Yes.
Eric (29:42):
it'll say, but it's gonna be a discussion of like,
basically.
Knowing and understanding whereyou are, uh, in
Rob Failes (29:49):
Yeah.
Eric (29:49):
your, on your golf development and knowing what to
work on next, like I thinkthat's kind of the idea we
wanted to introduce.
And then we wanted to go intosort of like level one, two, and
three itself
Rob Failes (29:59):
Yeah.
Eric (29:59):
talk about some things that would be very relevant to,
to your development.
So.
As a, as a direct idea aboutlevel one, two, and three
golfers.
This is something that, somebodyasked me the other day, Robbie,
so hope I, I hope this is okayto ask you.
Rob Failes (30:16):
Yeah.
Eric (30:18):
the dispersions, and I know you went through this, uh,
on
Rob Failes (30:21):
Mm-hmm.
Eric (30:22):
that we did.
With another podcast called TheWhole
Rob Failes (30:25):
Yeah.
Eric (30:26):
I think our interview is gonna be coming out.
We, we had a blast with thesedudes, like,
Rob Failes (30:30):
Yeah, it was fun.
Eric (30:30):
out their, their podcast is really fun.
It's very eclectic.
It's like an eclectic golfpodcast in a lot of
Rob Failes (30:35):
Mm-hmm.
Eric (30:36):
they cover a lot of topics like.
Golf architecture, they do talkabout like PGA tour.
They're big fans of PGA tour forsure.
So they like to talk about thatand then they talk about their
own games and their journey.
So they brought us on to helpthem, I think, understand where
they are in the journey, right?
'cause
Rob Failes (30:52):
Yep.
Eric (30:52):
level two and a level player for
Rob Failes (30:55):
Yeah.
Eric (30:56):
Um, that both needed a little, they needed a little
context on their
Rob Failes (30:59):
Little concept.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Little concept help.
Eric (31:02):
They needed some hip, them brothers needed some hip.
Is it?
That's why they called us.
So anyway, check out that thewhole story podcast.
Um, but you described for themthe actual dispersion with the
fingers on the
Rob Failes (31:16):
Yes.
Eric (31:16):
swing.
Now people are very aware of, Ithink the, the putting finger,
uh, with, with, with aim
Rob Failes (31:23):
Using Amboy.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Eric (31:24):
and they're, they're triangular, essentially you're
triangulating with your fingers,um, where to aim.
Uh, but there's also a way touse your hands and fingers to
create a dispersion picture,
Rob Failes (31:39):
Mm-hmm.
Eric (31:40):
in the full swing.
And
Rob Failes (31:42):
Totally.
Eric (31:42):
would you be willing and able to kind of go through that
Rob Failes (31:44):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Eric (31:45):
two, and three player?
I think that would be, and nowthis is gonna be on podcasts for
most people listening to us juston podcasts.
So
Rob Failes (31:52):
Mm-hmm.
Eric (31:53):
describing this, um, just think about what he's doing with
his fingers
Rob Failes (31:56):
I'll, I'll, I'll do the best I can.
Eric (31:59):
And I have to be honest, um, I'm asking this question
mostly for myself because I, Iwanna
Rob Failes (32:04):
Oh, nice.
There we go.
Eric (32:05):
too.
Uh, this is a new, uh, to me,this is something you haven't
seen much of, right?
Like,
Rob Failes (32:11):
Mm-hmm.
Eric (32:11):
the
Rob Failes (32:12):
Yeah,
Eric (32:12):
players are sort of catching on there.
I definitely saw,
Rob Failes (32:16):
it's, it's catching steam on LPGA for sure.
Eric (32:18):
Yeah.
Um, I definitely sent you apicture of a PGA tour player
doing it though.
Rob Failes (32:23):
Yes.
Mm-hmm.
Eric (32:24):
it was.
Asian, an Asian guy, I think if,
Rob Failes (32:26):
Mm-hmm.
Eric (32:27):
if I remember correctly.
Rob Failes (32:29):
I don't remember either, but yeah,
Eric (32:30):
is really super interesting.
So could you, could you kinda gothrough and
Rob Failes (32:34):
for sure.
Eric (32:35):
in on this a little bit?
I think it's game changing, bythe way.
Rob Failes (32:37):
Yeah.
Yeah.
So.
Eric (32:39):
Pia, I wanna set the gravity of this.
This might be the most importantthing you hear on a podcast all
day.
So just.
Be ready for this.
Okay.
Be ready.
Rob Failes (32:48):
Oh gosh.
Um, all right, well, I'll try todo it justice.
Um, but understand first andforemost, like strategy is
aiming a dispersion.
So a lot of people have thebelief that, uh, they can
control again, in control, inquotations where the golf ball's
gonna go.
And in reality, you can onlypredict where a collection of
(33:14):
your shots are likely to go.
So that's the big difference.
So a friend of the pod, ChrisGeorge says, don't aim the one
shot you think you can hit, aim,uh, the shot out of a hundred
that you're likely to hit.
So that's, uh, a big differencein that.
So if you think about what adispersion is, if you hit a
hundred shots, uh, like ChrisGeorge said, you get this big
(33:35):
scatterplot, right?
And what you're trying to do isyou're trying to not aim the
entire dispersion.
Because if you even look at PGAtour, golfers like.
To aim the entire dispersion,your targets would be way too
conservative, right?
Especially if you're looking atthe decision tree that we talk
about, like number one is beingin play.
(33:57):
Number two, uh, if, if we're, ifwe're talking about, um,
approach play, uh, number one'sin play, number two is on the
green.
Number three is proximate ahole, right?
For some, I'm thinking par threeT shots especially.
Um, to get all of yourdispersion in play, you'd have
to be aiming like.
20 yards off the green in a lotof cases.
(34:18):
Right.
So you're so risk averse, right?
That you're not actually gettingthe upside from the shots that
you hit, right?
Like.
Pretty much the, the 16% ofshots that are like your best,
right?
So you want to, you want to beable to get the benefit from
your best shots, but in kind ofthat middle, kind of 50, 51% of
(34:40):
shots, right?
That honestly are like prettyaverage.
Like they're a little bitmisses, right?
Where it's like faces a littlemore open than what you wanted,
face a bit more clothes thanwhat you wanted.
Little Healy, little toy, likeones that you're just like not
thrilled about afterwards, butstill, okay.
You want those to be in a placeto where you can.
Find them in play again on thegreen, number two, and then, um,
(35:00):
obviously as close to the holeas you can.
Number three.
So your level of player, yourlevel of skill, level one, level
two, level three, level four ishighly, highly, highly
correlated to that dispersion.
So if you think about justholding your fingers up in front
of your eyes, kind of extendingyour arms all the way out, um, a
(35:22):
level one golfer is going tohave.
Roughly five fingers on eitherside of their, uh, center of
dispersion.
So if you hold up all 10fingers, putting your thumbs
right beside each other, um,hold the middle of your two
thumbs right over the target.
Not like this, like this, Eric.
(35:42):
There you go.
Eric (35:43):
Got it.
Rob Failes (35:44):
Yeah.
Yep.
Hold the middle of your twothumbs right over the target,
and that from your edge of yourpinky to the other edge of your
pinky is gonna be at 67% of yourshots.
All right, so 67% is would beour kind of our aspiration, our
goal.
All right.
And if you wanna make it easy,oftentimes I'll, I'll hold up my
(36:06):
10 fingers, then I'll havesomeone take their little finger
and their thumb.
'cause oftentimes it's betterjust to hold up one hand, right?
Just kind of split the thumb andthe index finger out.
Sorry, the thumb and the littlefinger out as far as you can And
hold that out in front of you.
Right.
You can even put the middlethree fingers down if you want.
So it kinda looks like hang 10,right?
(36:26):
And you can aim the middle ofthat zone, such that, again,
from the, from the left edge tothe right edge is again in play,
number one on the green.
Number two, if you're hitting anapproach shot.
And then if you've got room oneither side, still on the green,
then you can slide this thingcloser to the hole.
Um, you can look at the, uh,like the driver.
(36:50):
Like for, for driver, that's onthe sheet as well.
But again, it's kind of like inplay number one, we're trying to
get this thing as far down asclose to the green as we can.
Number two, and then if you'vestill got some, some.
Margin on both sides and getthis thing a little bit more
kind of in the, in the middle ofthe fairway or maximizing the
number of shots in the fairway.
That's kind of number three.
So understand what that decisiontree is and then understand,
(37:12):
hey, what level of player am Iand what's my dispersion?
So level one is five fingers oneither side, which is usually if
you, if you hold up your thumbto little finger and just split
'em out as far as you can fromone side or the other, that's
gonna be about the same.
It's a little tighter, but it's,it's close enough, right?
Level two is gonna be fourfingers, which is usually, if I
(37:35):
can take the, the index fingerand the little finger and split
that out wide as far as I can,right.
That's gonna be a level twogolfer.
So again, four fingers on eitherside.
It's gonna be roughly the same.
Again, it's close.
It's maybe a tiny bit tighter,but it's, it's, uh, close enough
for government work, right?
Um.
(37:56):
Getting that out as wide as youcan, it's gonna be level two,
right?
So we could, we say like hook'emhorns, right?
For level two,
Eric (38:02):
So if
Rob Failes (38:02):
right?
Eric (38:03):
the middle, like let's say you're, you're looking at the
flag just as a reference
Rob Failes (38:08):
Mm-hmm.
Eric (38:09):
an approach shot.
I put the flag.
As a reference in the middle,and I could see what's on the
other side as like a dispersion.
Is that,
Rob Failes (38:18):
Yes.
Mm-hmm.
Eric (38:19):
and then you could move that.
Right.
So like,
Rob Failes (38:22):
Mm-hmm.
Eric (38:23):
inside that dispersion inside my fingers is a pond,
which is
Rob Failes (38:29):
Mm-hmm.
Eric (38:30):
Right?
Or a treacherous deep bunker.
I can't get out of or out ofbounds potentially, you know,
Rob Failes (38:36):
Mm-hmm.
Eric (38:37):
So then I would slide that to where it's safe,
Rob Failes (38:40):
Yes, correct.
Eric (38:42):
of that is where I'm gonna start to put my new of where I'm
gonna start, probably
Rob Failes (38:47):
Correct.
And it in the middle of thatdispersion is not necessarily
where you're like, people thinkabout where am I aiming?
It's not necessarily whereyou're aiming, it's just where
you want the center of yourdispersion to be.
So if you're a fader, you might
Eric (39:01):
Right.
Rob Failes (39:01):
totally, like, if you're a fader, you might aim a
little left of that and hit alittle fade.
Back to it, right?
So again, there's, there's a amillion different ways to, uh,
to aim and to, to organize yourshot, but understand like, hey,
what is my dispersion size?
And then for the level golfer,and then I said level three is
(39:22):
right, you're gonna take thatindex finger in little finger
and then slide it in about afinger width on either side
again.
'cause you go from four fingersto three fingers.
So level three is gonna be acloser to like wolf pack.
Right.
Not quite Wolf Pack.
It's a little bit further outthan than Wolf Pack, but it's
gonna be in the ballpark, right?
And then level four is like, ohmy gosh.
(39:43):
It's like,
Eric (39:44):
It's
Rob Failes (39:45):
right, it's, it's two fingers on either side, so
it's per, it's actually perfect,right?
Like that, that's the Tor playerdispersion, which again is 67%
of your shots, right?
Would be kind of a standard disdistribution.
Um, so there's nothing.
Eric (40:00):
is it fair to say if there's, if there's a big
leverage.
Moment you might be a, you mightplay that slightly more
conservatively, like if there'sa big pond in the way, would
you, would you shade a littlebit more in that sense out of
67% and just shade it a littlebit?
So you're favoring a little bitmore towards like 80%.
(40:22):
What do you think about that?
Or no,
Rob Failes (40:25):
Uh,
Eric (40:25):
at 67.
Rob Failes (40:27):
that's, again, that is the, that is the decision
tree.
That is number one priority.
You are, you are getting theentire, uh.
Standard, like the normaldistribution of shots in play,
number one.
Um, because again, like we arelooking for optimal strategy,
(40:49):
right?
So it doesn't matter, like ifyou're quote unquote too
conservative, you're gonna belosing shots on the other side
anyway, right?
So it, it doesn't really matter.
Like there's, I tell golferslike, there's never really a
scenario where I want you.
Breaking that decision tree,right?
(41:10):
Um, now what I will say is thebeauty of using fingers, the
beauty of using fingers, numberone, super easy, super simple to
do, right?
You don't need any technology,you don't need an app, you don't
need anything.
You just literally hold your armhere, your hand out in front of
you.
The other thing that you, thatis very helpful is, um, other
than the fact that you canactually track it on the range
(41:32):
when you're practicing.
Right.
Imagine that, right?
Imagine practicing and usingsomething in your practice that
you can actually take on thegolf course, right?
Um, but what it also does is itgives you some flexibility.
So we say like, this would be alevel, level two golfer.
Well, let's say again like,let's say you're into the wind.
All right?
(41:53):
Well then maybe let's try andstretch this out.
Let's add a little bit of armbend, right?
Because this dis, this end ofthe wind is gonna magnify that
dispersion.
Let's say we're downwind.
Let's slide this in a littlebit, right?
Let's say we're in the rough.
Let's make it a little bitwider.
Add a little bit of elbow flex,right?
(42:13):
Get those fingers just a littlecloser to your face.
Let's say that we're got a likea.
Very flat, very stock standardlie that you always tend to
practice with.
Like fairway, no slope oranything like, I don't know,
maybe, right?
Again,'cause this is an average,um, let's say you're feeling
really good that day.
Let's say, man, I like my swingis dialed, right?
I'm feeling really good, right?
(42:34):
Maybe you can slide that in alittle bit.
Let's just say you just feellike you don't have it.
You're like, oh, man, like Ijust, I don't have my a, a
stuff, or maybe even my B, my Bstuff today.
Maybe you make that a littlewider so it gives you some
flexibility.
It gives you some flexibility,right?
Um, to be able to commit to theshot that you've chosen, and
(42:55):
that is a big, big, big dealbecause this, this dispersion is
assuming that you are swingingfreely, right?
The data is collected usually ina range context, usually, again,
swinging freely.
As soon as we are getting overthis saying, you know what, I
(43:17):
just don't really want to hitthis shot.
Or as soon as you're standingover it saying, you know what?
I feel like I should do this,but I just, I don't like it.
I just don't wanna hit thisshot.
What do you think is gonnahappen to, to your dispersion,
Eric?
Eric (43:31):
It's gonna grow
Rob Failes (43:33):
It's gonna get bigger,
Eric (43:34):
big,
Rob Failes (43:35):
So, so what we say is we use this decision tree
and.
If you, again, if you just feellike you're not in that space,
then you gotta like widen thatthing out, right?
Get that thing as wide as youneed it to, to where like,
you're fine, like from one edgeto the other.
You're like, yeah, I'm, I canfully commit to what I'm doing
(43:57):
there.
And again, it's, it's never,it's never just a right to left
thing.
It's a long to short thing aswell.
So understand that a threefinger dispersion is 10%.
Right.
So you can kind of do the math,right, and understand, hey, like
if the, if the pen is, let's sayI'm one 50 and there's, uh,
there's a, uh, like water short.
(44:19):
Okay, so, but the pen's oneight, well then you know right
away, right?
You know, like, Hey, I've gottabe minimum seven paces beyond
that, that flag, right?
Eric (44:29):
Mm-hmm.
Rob Failes (44:30):
don't want to be within 15, right?
I don't wanna be within 10% ofthat penalty area.
Eric (44:36):
Right.
Rob Failes (44:37):
Right, and that's when you're gonna change, like
you'll, you'll get that numberand then you'll, you'll add or
subtract wind or lie or, or, or,you know, slope or anything that
you want to off of that.
Eric (44:49):
It's so brilliant for a lot of reasons, and I was
messing around with this on therange the other
Rob Failes (44:54):
I.
Eric (44:55):
and I, it's hard for the listener to picture this, but
when you stand out and just doit, you'll notice that it
triangulates over.
The length of the shot.
Right.
So like it, and that's what,that's how it works.
That's why we're not saying, oh,on a driver it's, it's 10
fingers and on a sand wedge,it's one.
No, it's always the same basedon how you control the ball.
Rob Failes (45:17):
Mm-hmm.
Eric (45:18):
over the spatial, like the triangulation over space
essentially widens the
Rob Failes (45:23):
It scales.
Eric (45:24):
yeah, it scales.
So as I was looking at a twofinger, like.
sort of doing a, a hook'em hornsat 200 yards versus, um, a flag
that was at 94 and you could seehow much different it, you know,
Rob Failes (45:37):
Yeah.
Eric (45:38):
the,
Rob Failes (45:38):
Super different.
Eric (45:39):
that dispersion was.
Rob Failes (45:41):
Mm-hmm.
Eric (45:42):
it's really nice, like you said, something to use on the
range to practice to kind of geta gauge like we're,
Rob Failes (45:47):
Mm-hmm.
Eric (45:48):
2, 3 level players, or four if you count the tour
player, but you may be like.
know, you might be, you might bea level two player that has a
horrible short game and you're astick, right?
You might,
Rob Failes (46:00):
Mm-hmm.
Eric (46:00):
might have a dispersion that's way tighter
Rob Failes (46:03):
a great point.
Eric (46:04):
two, right?
So.
Rob Failes (46:06):
totally, and that's what you learn if you come and
see your eye.
We can look at you, we canagain, track your stats.
You're gonna see, right, you'regonna see like, hey, like, I'm
actually hitting it to like alevel two golfer, but I'm
putting it to like a, not even alevel one.
Like, oh, okay.
All right.
Maybe spend some time there,right?
Because you might have a leveltwo dispersion, but being only a
level one player.
So, yeah.
Uh, that's a great point.
(46:27):
Thanks for, thanks forclarifying that.
Eric (46:29):
this for 10 years with Track Man, right?
Where you're trying to get agauge on dispersion.
Now it's tricky because it's amat in a controlled environment
in the same club over and overagain,
Rob Failes (46:39):
This is so much better than
Eric (46:41):
yeah.
Rob Failes (46:42):
my gosh.
Like, you don't, like, I don't,I don't real, I I never really
figured out how to take theinformation from TrackMan and,
and then,'cause the golfer wouldsay, okay, well then what does
that mean?
How do I use that?
And then it'd be a bunch ofmath.
It would be a lot of math.
You'd be like, okay, well, yougotta figure out your
percentages.
(47:02):
And you gotta say, okay, wellhow far is the flag from the
edge?
Right?
Well then, okay, then what's mypercentage there?
And then you're doing math,like, no, this, this is no math.
You just literally hold yourfingers out, work through that
decision tree, make sure thatyou're, you're going priority
number one, priority number two,priority number three, and then
make your adjustments in thename and swing, right.
That that process right there isliterally on the, on the sheet.
Eric (47:24):
And it's, it's building acceptance, which I love.
Rob Failes (47:28):
Yes.
Eric (47:29):
I'm accepting that this is the.
This is the width of the, of mydispersion pattern.
Rob Failes (47:36):
Mm-hmm.
Eric (47:36):
so it's just built in acceptance.
So I,
Rob Failes (47:39):
You got it.
Eric (47:40):
to, I have to adjust.
So super, super cool, um, way todo it.
So anyway, check out the, thefigure dispersions, test it out
in your practice.
Test it out in the course nexttime.
Don't think anybody will thinkyou're weird'cause you'll be
crushing them and taking theirlunch money and then no one will
say anything about it.
Um, people do it on the, youknow, it's a very similar
(48:02):
process to how we use AIM pointon the green.
And so it's just the similar,similar deal.
Rob Failes (48:08):
Mm-hmm.
Eric (48:10):
I love the, uh, I love.
That discussion.
Thank you for sharing with us.
Rob Failes (48:15):
Mm-hmm.
Eric (48:16):
anything else you've seen recently that you want to talk,
any questions that you've hadsome students have that you'd
love to, um, answer on thequestion and answer segment
today?
Any general stuff that's comeup?
Rob Failes (48:27):
No, it's just been a lot of, again, I get, I get
beginner, like, not beginner.
I get first time lessons all thetime, like literally had one
today.
And it's just so often the casethat if you awareness is.
On the current task at hand.
Like literally.
(48:48):
Okay.
Like what, what am I trying,what am I, what is the task?
What, like it's not to lookgood.
Like, it's not to, um, it's notto appease anyone else.
It's not to, um,
Eric (49:06):
Impress
Rob Failes (49:06):
a certain way.
Eric (49:08):
of your golf
Rob Failes (49:08):
It's not, it's not to right.
Like.
There's just so few actual tasksthat, that we, that we need,
that we actually do have on agolf course.
Like when you think about like,hey, like what are you gonna
have to do?
Like, okay, well find, find thegolf ball, right?
Figure out how far it needs togo.
Figure out what the directionneeds to go.
(49:29):
Right.
Pick the club and the shot.
Right.
And then walk in and swing.
Right?
Like that's, that's pretty much,uh, all that, all that we have.
And it's just so funny how,again, I had somebody today who
was just multitasking like crazyover the golf ball with, had so
many things that he was tryingto do, and none of them were
(49:51):
relevant.
None of them were relevant tothe task at hand.
So.
All we did was we just did some,'cause he had no idea why the
golf ball was going where he wasgoing.
And I think that's a lot oftimes why we have so many of
these competing tasks is thatthe ball was going left, he was
just hitting straight poles andhe believed it was because of
what his pelvis was doing.
Eric (50:12):
Right.
Rob Failes (50:14):
The a golf ball doesn't care about what your
pelvis is doing.
The ball cares about what theclub is doing to it.
Let's, let's discuss that firstand then.
We will go from there.
Right.
And we really didn't have to gomuch past, like some very, very,
very basic differential trainingwith him, um, to get him to
understand why the golf ball wasgoing where I was going.
(50:35):
And he's like, so it means Idon't have to worry about
shallowing.
I was like, Nope.
Uh, so that means that I don'thave to like, have a pre-shot
routine, like have to walk inand take the, the same number
step?
No.
Uh, so you mean like I don'thave to like.
Uh, like, get my shoulderssquare.
Like, no, like you mean like Idon't have to like kick like my,
push my left foot forward, liketo get my pelvis back and like,
(50:58):
so I don't really extend, no.
Mm-hmm.
It's like, so you mean that likeI just need to like,
Eric (51:03):
point the club face to the left at impacted.
You're gonna be fine.
Rob Failes (51:06):
correct.
Like, um, I was like, just giveme like whatever time you have,
and this was on his blueprint,um, you need to give me skill
differential training.
Um.
And then he had a little bit ofrhythm stuff where he didn't
have enough energy going backand then the way that he was
trying to add energy to thatsystem was, was causing the face
(51:28):
to go up.
Now, why that was the case?
I have no idea.
All we did was saying, Hey, likeI think your backswing energy's
a little interesting.
Let's play around with it.
Give me some that like you feellike you don't have nearly
enough backswing for the shotthat you're hitting.
And gimme some where you feellike you have way too much and
let's just see what happens withthe club face.
When he gave me what felt likewas too much backswing energy,
he never hit one left when hegave it, when he said like,
(51:51):
okay, I want to give, I want youto give me not enough backswing
energy for the shot that youhad.
Every time when he would reallytry to add energy to the, to
that, um, I.
To the swing, like in the, atthe top or coming down, it was
like left almost exclusively.
So yes, it was a skill issue,like he could organize skill
around that.
But I think for him it was alsoa little bit of a rhythm thing,
(52:13):
and I had no idea why.
Like, I didn't, I didn't tellhim.
Oh, it was because your, yourleft wrist was going into
extension or your left wrist.
Forearm was pro like, no, it'sjust like for whatever reason,
when you gave it less in thebackswing, the thing that you
were doing to speed it up wasalso causing that face to shut
for you.
Because I've seen it work theother way too.
Like I've had people who don'tgive it enough backswing energy
(52:37):
for the shot that they'rehitting and they're always.
Like adding stuff late and theface opens.
I'll just say that's almost morecommon, right?
From what I've seen.
But again, it's like you can'tassume, you just gotta, like,
that's why so much of what we dois just like, Hey, let's run the
experiment.
Let's just test this for like,
Eric (52:56):
Yep.
Rob Failes (52:56):
that's my favorite kind of lesson, honestly.
If I can, if I just havesomeone's like, Hey, let's,
let's run an experiment forlike.
Eight, five to eight balls justto see what happens.
And we're just gonna work oneither side of the spectrum and
just see what happens.
It's so often the case that weget these like ahas, like, oh
wow, that's crazy.
Like, I had never, never thoughtto like even explore in that
area.
But it's, it's such a low risk,high upside way of going about
(53:19):
it that, I mean, I'm justtalking from the coach
standpoint is a lot lessanxiety, a lot less stressful
knowing like, hey, like.
I'm appreciating the fact that Idon't have, quote unquote, like
the geometry answer.
Right.
I'm actually just on thisjourney with you and we're just
gonna explore.
I just have a couple moreplaces, um, that are relevant to
(53:41):
look and explore that maybe youhaven't explored yet.
Eric (53:46):
Super cool, super cool, and that that's, a lot of times
if you get a good lesson andyou're working on it the right
way, you're actually quoteunquote fixing things and you
don't even know how you're doingit, and that's the best way,
because then you're notconsciously worried about, am I
pronating?
Am I Am I doing this?
Am I doing that?
You're just reacting as anathlete and getting the.
(54:09):
Getting the ball to do what youneed to do.
And so that's what I try to doall the time, is just set them
up for a natural situation to
Rob Failes (54:16):
Mm-hmm.
Eric (54:17):
and fix the swing.
So anyway, Rob fails.
I think that takes us to aboutan hour on today's show.
Super fun.
Anything else you want to add atthe end here, buddy?
Rob Failes (54:28):
I think we got it.
Eric (54:30):
I think that was really fun.
So check us out if you wannacheck out the Substack for our
bonus content.
Check out the link of the shownotes.
We'd also love if you would rateand review our show.
We have a perfect five starrating on both Apple and Google,
which is super, super cool.
And if you haven't given us thatfive star rating yet, just kind
of just do it kind of right now.
(54:50):
If you're not driving, we wouldlove for you to, for us to rate
the show, uh, that really doeshelp us find new listeners.
Thank you again for tuning intothe Golf Intervention Podcast.
If you ever have questions.
can just ask it on our Substack.
We have like a chat forum and sothere's a little bit of an open
chat there for questions and uh,we'll try to get to'em on the
show.
So thanks again for tuning intothe Golf Intervention Podcast.
(55:13):
We'll be back next time withanother hopefully fun and
insightful episode to help youplay your best golf in 2025.
Have a great night.
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