Golf Talk Live - Season 13 Episode 9 | May 8th, 2025 - Golf Talk Live

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:09):
The following broadcast is brought to you by the I
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Speaker 2 (00:19):
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Speaker 1 (00:22):
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(00:42):
Welcome to Golf Talk Live with your host Ted oto Rico.

Speaker 3 (00:47):
Join Ted each week.

Speaker 1 (00:48):
As he speaks with some of the best in golf.
This week's special guest will join us a bit later.
But first up is another great discussion on Coach's Corner,
So let's introduce tonight's Coaches Corner Panel.

Speaker 3 (01:05):
All right, everybody, good evening, and welcome to Season thirteen
of Golf Talk Live. I'm your host, Teddodurrico, and we've
got a great show for you this week, and we're
going to start things off as we always do, on
the Coach's Corner Panel, and I've got a couple of
great guys here, John Hughes and Pete Buchanan. I'm going
to introduce both of them and bring you up to
speed a little bit in just a moment or two,
and later some golf drills by golf fitness expert Bob

(01:26):
Foreman's going to be joining me once again this week,
and then later tonight, I've got actually two featured guests,
Jason Moore, the co founder and partner CEO, and Jeremy Santana,
the senior product manager for True Linksware, are going to
be joining me on the second half of the show,
so you want to make sure you stick around for that.

Speaker 4 (01:44):
But great show as always.

Speaker 3 (01:46):
If you want to catch the shows, if you go
to our YouTube channel, it's YouTube dot com at sorry
YouTube dot com for it slash at igolf Sports, or
you can pick it up on Spotify dot com. It's
also available in audio version at spreaker or basically wherever
you listen to podcasts, so if you want to check
that out, and that'll be upload a little bit later
on this evening. So but glad you could join us

(02:07):
on the broadcast, and glad that you're tuning in each
and every week getting more and more people following once again,
especially with a new format, and we're gonna have a
lot of fun tonight on the Coach's Corner Panel. So
let me introduce the guys and we'll get into tonight's discussion.
First up, of course, as John Hughes, PJA Master Professional
and the past president of the North Florida PGA Section.
He was also the twenty thirteen Page of America Professional

(02:27):
Development Award recipient, and he was in twenty nine and
twenty twenty three the North Florida PGA Teacher and Coach
of the Year, as well as Golf Digest Best in
State Instructor in twenty twenty three to present. He's also
a senior contributing editor and a top twenty five instructor
with Golf Tips Plus a favorite here on the panel.
Also another favorite on the panel is my good friend

(02:50):
Pete Buchanan. He's been teaching this great game now for
over thirty years. He's the founder and director of Instruction
for Playing Simple Golf and PSG houses the Planes Golf
Circuit and the Simple Swing Repeater Training Base, and Pete's
been helping golfers around the globe focus on building a
repeatable swing, and as I mentioned, he too is a
favorite here on the panel. So guys, as always welcome

(03:11):
to the Coach's Corner panel.

Speaker 5 (03:14):
He jaed, Yeah, thanks to right.

Speaker 3 (03:17):
So our discussion tonight is cleaning up the clutter. And
what I mean by that is there's alwaysly a lot
of yeah, yeah, I see the look.

Speaker 4 (03:26):
Yeah, I'm not.

Speaker 3 (03:27):
Talking about your room there, John all that that could
probably use a shovel or two as well.

Speaker 4 (03:32):
Uh but no, just kidding. What I mean by that, guys,
is this.

Speaker 3 (03:35):
You know, there's obviously a lot of different opinions when
it comes to instructors. Everybody teaches a little bit different
in that, and these particular topics that I've picked tonight
I think are going to be interesting. So I'm going
to actually start believing or not out of order. I'm
going to start with you, Pete. And this is really
the first one is when addressing the golf ball. So
when where should our eyes be focused on the golf ball?

(03:58):
An example, is it on the back of the ball,
on the top or the front of the ball, et cetera.
And does it change depending on which club we're using.
So focusing on the golf ball, where should we be
looking when we're addressing the golf ball.

Speaker 5 (04:11):
Thanks Ted, it's good to be here looking forward to it. John,
what a great question. I suppose it would depend on,
you know, basically, if you're looking at somebody's golf swing
and what they're trying to accomplish. I mean, if somebody
comes from the outside, they maybe want to look on
the inside of the ball. If they come from the inside,
they might want to look on the outside. I wouldn't
look at the top, because nobody wants to hit the top, right.

(04:34):
I would say you could look at the back of
it if you're trying to swing the club into the back.
But I would try to make it consistent with whatever
you're doing, you know, to try to get the same
situation of what you're doing over and over again. But
to me, it's nothing I really teach. I really don't
look at that very much. You know. I've always said,
if you do all the big things right, those little

(04:55):
things will take care of themselves. But I think, you know,
it really would depend on, you know, what you're trying
to do. And so again, if you want to hit
a shot that maybe starts one direction or another, or
you're trying to look at maybe a little bit of
a curve or something. It may change where you look
at the ball, but in my focus, I would say
it's either on the inside, the outside, or the back

(05:17):
of it. But that's that's probably the only three that
I would I would actually look at if I was
trying to give it to someone. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (05:24):
And the reason why, and again it's not necessarily there's
any right or wrong answer here. The reason why I
bring it up is because I've seen a lot of
and I'm sure you guys have come across this periodically
a lot of instruction, and you'll see different approaches where
someone maybe is struggling with a certain part of their swing,
maybe they're hitting shots, as you pointed out, a little
bit ineffectively, and sometimes coaches may use something, Okay, I
want you to look an inch in front of the ball,

(05:46):
or maybe I want you to look, you know, lower
back right of the ball, behind the ball, or something
along that line to get them to focus on something
opposite to what the problem they're having. And so it's
interesting because I've had people ask me this and say, well,
I don't know where do I look. I mean, I
know I'm looking at the golf, but is there a
specific spot I should be looking at on the golf
ball when I'm said at and as a change from
club to club, like for a driver, because I'm on

(06:07):
hitting it on the sort of the upswing as opposed
to hitting down and through the shot with an iron,
do I need to be looking somewhere else at the
golf ball. So you get that periodically, and I've seen
a lot of different answers, not just online but through
various different golf instructors. So I thought that'd be an
interesting and that's what I meant by cleaning up the clutter,
because again we get a lot of there's a lot
of confusion out there. So I think obviously it depends
on the individual instructor and depends on what you're specifically

(06:29):
working on that maybe that might be something they want
to consider looking at or seeing what the student is
actually looking at for lack of a better word.

Speaker 4 (06:39):
So but appreciate the answer.

Speaker 3 (06:41):
And again, no right or wrong answers necessarily in this
I was just trying to get your opinion on that
particular topic. So this one here, we're moving on to
John and this one is wet, hard and packed or fluffy.
Now I know before you think of going in the
gutter with that. When I'm talking about sand, what changes,
if anything, do we make in order to deal with

(07:03):
these types of bunker sand. So obviously I'm talking about
obviously when the sand is wet, maybe it's just rained.

Speaker 1 (07:08):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (07:08):
Sometimes you get in some courses where the bunkers have
gotten a little bit firmed and packed up and uh.
And then sometimes you get in some areas where the
sand is extremely fluffy.

Speaker 4 (07:18):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (07:19):
So we might want to make some changes to our
bunker shot. So just give us maybe an example of
each if you wouldn't mind, and and if there are
any changes that we might need to make given the circumstances.

Speaker 6 (07:29):
Great question. First off, thanks again for the opportunity to
share and be part of this conversation. I need a favor, Pete.
Can you please referee this so we don't get in
the gutter.

Speaker 3 (07:42):
Yes, I saved especially for you John. I'm going to
ask Pete that one I thought. No, I'm throwing this
one at John.

Speaker 6 (07:51):
So let's let's talk about wet or dry and in Florida.
We're gonna start turning the corner here where we're in
the wet season and when it's wet, it does get
a little bit more compact. What I'm teaching people is
not necessarily distance away from the golf ball where the
club is going to enter. That's part of it. The

(08:12):
other part is what's your bounce angle. It's very traditional
and very right to have someone open up the golf club,
and when you open up the golf club, you're adding bounce,
and that's what most amateurs are not paying attention to.
When you're in firmer, wetter, more condensed sand, you're going

(08:34):
to get more bounce out of that. Sure if it's
dried out and hard. What you're trying to do is
figure out not just how far behind the ball I'm
going to enter the club into the sand with, but
how firm is this? And without taking practice swings and
hitting the sand, you're gonna have to use your feet

(08:56):
a little bit. You're really gonna have to use your
feet to figure out how how fluffy, how dry, how
granular out whatever the condition is, to be able to
determine not just how much to open the club up.
It may be that you're taking a different club with
a different bounce and being able to open it up

(09:19):
to your satisfaction to be able to look at it
and get something that you're desiring out and it result wise.
That's really the key here is, Yeah, you're gonna take
a little less when it's compacted. Yes, you're gonna take
a little bit more when it's dry and fluffy and
so forth. But what's that bounce angle? Because if that

(09:41):
bounce angles off when it's really compact, you're going to
bounce the club into the ball. You're gonna scull it.
Wonder why it's still in the bunker, or wonder why
it's in the next fairway when it's dry and you
don't have enough bounce? Why am I digging? Why am
I digging it deeper into where I am the we
are all considerations as far as getting rid of the clutter,

(10:04):
keep it simple. Dry means closer, but it means less bounce.
I'm sorry, more bounce when it's compact. We it's it's
a lot less bounce. It's a little bit closer. But
the key is, don't change your swing, Just just change
how you're setting up. There's no reason to change. Most

(10:26):
people are going to try to go a little bit
more vertical. Hard compact, you're bouncing again. There's no reason
to do that, figure out how hard and what that
bounce is and you can't go wrong.

Speaker 3 (10:38):
Yeah, And again the reason why I wanted to bring
that up is, again, this is something that people don't
really factor in. And again, playing somewhere in Florida as
opposed to maybe playing up in the Northeast, a lot
of times you're dealing with different types of sand, different
textures of sand, and it makes a difference.

Speaker 4 (10:53):
And I'm a firm believer.

Speaker 3 (10:55):
You know, when you're going to do your warm up
before the round, get a couple out of the bunker
in the practice area, get a feel for what the
sand is like in that particular specially if it's a
course you've never played before, you know, if it's rained
or something. Get a kind of feel for what You
don't have to take a lot of shots, but just
hit a few shots out of that bunker in the
practice area before you go out in place. You have
an idea of what kind of sand and what texture

(11:15):
because again, as you mentioned, John, you can't lay the
club down in a bunker shot, so you don't really
know other than your feet. And that certainly is does
give you a lot of information. But you know, maybe
going hit two or three shots out of a green
side bunker up in the practice area before you get
out to you know, and hit that first e.

Speaker 4 (11:31):
So great answer, and I like that.

Speaker 3 (11:34):
I think it's sometimes it's important just to be consistent
in what you do and understanding how the bounce actually
works in a golf club, which a lot of players,
as you mentioned in the past as well, really don't understand.

Speaker 4 (11:45):
So Pete, I'm coming back to you.

Speaker 3 (11:48):
And again, as I mentioned earlier, opinions differ when it
comes to shaft lean. Here's another one here that we
get to lean or not to lean? That is the question,
as it were, and obviously throwing a little Shakespeare in there,
but I just wanted to get you to talk about
because we hear this a lot of times when you're
setting up, you know, you always hear about, well you

(12:09):
need a little bit of shaft lean, and then you
see a lot of pros on TV that the club
is straight up and down, there's no lean at all.
So what typically is the rule of thought in a
full shot? And are there situations where it maybe leans
a little bit more? And we'll talk about right handed golfers.
So we'll keep it simple and of course for the
left handed, just opposite of what you're about to say.

Speaker 4 (12:27):
But to lean or not to lean.

Speaker 5 (12:31):
Well, I guess again, it depends on what you're trying
to do. I would always try to go with a
little bit of lean because I think more of the
amateurs would benefit from it, because I think they'll get
a little bit better compression and they'll get a little
bit more distance out of it. So I'd always like
to see a little bit you know, I'm if it was,
you know, even back to where they started, that's fine.

(12:52):
But you know, most of the time, and John, I
know you've seen this, Ted, You've seen it is they
go the other direction more than they go lean, and
so they're always trying to scoop at it and add loft.
And I've always said an amateur takes a seven and
turns it into a nine, and a tour player takes
a seven and turns it into a five, and so
there's four clubs difference there when you're looking at distance,
and so I'd always like to have a little bit

(13:14):
of lean, especially with an iron, especially with some short
game shots, just to make sure you're getting a better
contact with that. But then again, if you're trying to
hit something really high. If you're trying to you know,
loft something up in the air, then you know you're
not going to want to have that lean in there
because you want to go to the other direction. So
it really depends on what you're trying to do with
a shot, whether you want it low, whether you want

(13:35):
some more compression, whether you want to get a little
bit more you know, ball speed off it, or you
want to toss it up in the air maybe a
little bit higher. You could use that somewhere around the greens.
You know, I would for my players, I would still
like them around the greens to have a little bit
of lean, but just open the face if they need
more loft, only so they can get the right contact.

(13:57):
So that's the only thing that I would change. But
you know, I think really depending on the shot you're
trying to play, I would always lean toward a little
bit more lean than you know, not having any at all.

Speaker 3 (14:09):
Yeah, and again, you see so many differences, and it's
not just on the teaching side, but from players, and
obviously every player is different. And we're going to talk
about that with you John here in just a minute
that we're actually the next few questions are going to
get into a little bit more of that. But again,
you know, you look at there's so many variations now
of what we see out there in the golf swing.

(14:30):
Certain things are obviously the same, but you see a
lot of things where you know, see some players are
leaning the shaft a little bit more, some are are
emphasizing more weight on the lead foot, especially for the
iron shots, particularly for the iron shots, and then you
see some that have a lot more lean and some
don't have or very little lean at all, and but
yet there they seem to be effective. So I think

(14:50):
it really comes down to the individual. And this really
talks to what we're going to talk about or have
you talked about, John, And that is the subjectivity of
the game, and that is swing variability, different swings, you know,
players specific needs, skill levels, obviously different learning styles. Know,
it's a lot in there, and body types. There's a
lot of differences in players. So again, the old school

(15:15):
of thought was let's teach everybody kind of in the
same box. But as we've started to discover, as more
information is becoming available to as instructors, we're seeing that
there are opportunities where we can vary some of the
teaching methods to cater more to the student based on
again body type, body style, swing skill levels, that sort

(15:37):
of thing. So maybe just unpack that a little bit.
I know it's a lot to get in there, but
maybe you could just touch on a few things there.

Speaker 6 (15:43):
So trying to stick with the theme of let's get
rid of the clutter to that you mentioned a lot
of different things, And what I find with my clientele
is they'll come with so much stuff and there's no
priority to it. And really, what you're talking about, and
I'll say a little bit differently than you. Everybody's gonna
set up different, everybody's going to swing different, But what

(16:06):
is the priority to you and your makeup as a golfer?
And it's always going to start with how you set up.
And I'm sure Pete has his own way of getting
everybody set up using almost the same words, but because
he's got somebody different there, it's going to be different

(16:26):
each and every time he gets somebody set up. There's
some absolute such as aiming and understanding aiming and what
that does to affect other things. But as far as
the paradigm of gas grip alignment, stance posture. There's so
much science out there now. It doesn't rip it apart
so much as it has confirmed the importance of each segment,

(16:49):
but not necessarily in that order for certain people. Once
you get the priority of aim out of the way,
it could be a hodgepodge of different things. So I'll
give you the amplied three clients today. All three. I
tell them, hey, use your area code to remember these
priorities and the first number, whether it was five, four, seven,

(17:11):
whatever it was, let's get the club aim correctly. But literally,
the second person we had to work on ball position
that the first person we had to work on is grip.
The third person it was all about balance. So literally,
using just some simple words but a priority list for
that person, you can get them set up and reduce

(17:33):
the clutter because you're, in my case, I'm trying to
get them to remember three things, not one hundred things
in various orders. I call that standardization. Can you standardize
what you do and can you put it in the
same order each time? Our human brains want that and

(17:53):
thirst for that. We love routine. So what if you've
got this routine and all of a sudden you're faced
with something unusual. With that unusual situation, you can go
through the team, check the boxes and realize, hey, I've
got to deviate my standard a little bit here because
of this when I've got to deviate and very how

(18:14):
I hold the cloud or where I'm going to put
the ball in ball position wise based on the situation
I'm in, Because it all boils down to if I
don't understand my standards, how can I vary? How can
I make those adjustments to those special situations, which in
turn creates a circumstance that you may or may not want.

(18:36):
And that's really to me, how I'm trying to prioritize
for people, and most of the time they're coming with
zero priority. Once they can do that and create some standards,
that is cleaning up all the clutter. That is literally
just putting in a funnel, letting it come out the
way it needs to for you. And it may be

(18:57):
the same for you as for other people may be
totally different, but it is for you based on what
your priority saw.

Speaker 3 (19:06):
Yeah, and those are again some great points, you know,
the reason I real reason I spoke about this topic tonight,
cleaning up the clutter as as sort of a general
theme is because there is a lot of information that people,
especially in today's game and technology out there, and we'll
talk a little bit about that as well, but there's

(19:26):
so much information coming out to the player that a
lot of people are confused. They're they're cluttering their minds,
they're thinking about too many things out there in the
golf course. Even in a practice session when they're working
with you on the lesson t you know, you're trying
to talk to about one specific thing, but they got
four things going on here on top of what they
may be going on in their business life or in
the personal life. They're bringing all of the baggage, as

(19:48):
we often refer to here to the golf course with them.
So it's very difficult to focus and to be able
to identify key areas that might need work on that
could very simply improve your game dramatical. But because you've
got so much clutter going on in your head, it's
very difficult to filter that through. So yeah, you have
to sort of declutter yourself. And that's something I mean,
you could do a whole show on that with so

(20:09):
many opportunities, but great answers. John, I appreciate that Pete,
here's something too that that you know, we see variation
in teaching approaches, and there's nothing wrong with the approaches,
but you know, some like to focus more on the fundamentals.

Speaker 4 (20:23):
And that's fine.

Speaker 3 (20:25):
I think everybody covers a lot of this stuff, but
there's some that like to just focus on that. Others
may be emphasize more with the technology. They like to
use some of the technology and like to really focus
on the numbers. And that's when we've talked about that,
and well, maybe others offer more personalized as opposed to
versus to generic. So they might as as John was
pointing out, you know, everybody's different. We're going to get

(20:45):
more personalized instead of doing everybody fits in this box.
So when you're talking about variation of teaching approaches, let's
unclutter that a little bit. Do you think that instructors
in today's market need to have a little bit of
everything or is it okay for them to focus more
in a general area focus whether it be the fundamentals,
or focus on a more personalized experience and and and

(21:07):
or you know, bring in technology. So I know it's
a lot of again to unpack, but if you want
to just pull a few things out of there and
just give me sort of a general overview is how
do you think instructors need to focus today?

Speaker 4 (21:18):
Is it more centralized?

Speaker 3 (21:19):
Is it more a little bit of everything, a little
bit of you know, extra spice in the sauce sort
of speak.

Speaker 4 (21:24):
What do you think on that?

Speaker 5 (21:27):
Well, you know, a super cool question, But I think
it really depends on the student. I mean, some of them,
the younger ones, love the tech. They're all into it, so,
you know, having the numbers, being able to see what's
going on, using training aids, I mean, they really like
all that stuff. But I think in the end, if
you can utilize all of those in a very simple

(21:47):
way into the instruction, then you can pretty much use
it all if you want to. I mean, I have
the launch monitor on every lesson and just leave it
on whether they, you know, use the data or not,
and I use it to pinpoint a couple of things
as we're moving along. But I think really depending on
on the person, depending on the ability level, depending on

(22:08):
you know, what they actually want out of the lesson.
You know, you can use all of it. You can
use some of it, but you can use none of it.
It really depends on you know what you're what you're
trying to accomplish with each player that's in front of you.
I think really depending on you know that person. And
then also I think too, I mean, there is a
lot of information. It's just it can be it can

(22:30):
be a ton, But I think we as instructors need
to understand how to simplify all of the information down
into uh a pretty much compact area so that when
we present it to them, we're not giving them a
bunch of clutter, as you said, We're giving them a
very simple idea of what they're trying to do based
on any of the technology or any of the training

(22:52):
aids or anything you're trying to use, but using that
knowledge relative to the student and keep it as simple
overall as possible with everything that you're trying to use.

Speaker 3 (23:02):
Yeah, great again, great points. You know, we see again.
I don't think I think there's anything wrong with focusing
on or adapting a specific approach to your teaching style.

Speaker 4 (23:15):
I think that's good.

Speaker 3 (23:15):
I mean that makes us all unique and makes you know,
you different from John, and John different from me and
vice versa. But I think at the same time, there's
certain core things that have to be taught. And I
think there's a way of approaching this again, as you said,
with younger students, maybe we're going to throw a little
bit more technology in there. Maybe for some of our
older golfers, it's going to be a reevaluation of the fundamentals,

(23:36):
make sure they're still doing the things and working on
ways of helping them to either not necessarily get more distance,
but maintain the distance that they've had for you know,
maybe the last couple of years, and not lose that.
So how can we find these or to score better
in a case where they have lost distance. So there's
a lot of different variables that can be put in there,
and I think it's okay to have different teaching styles,
but I think we have to be careful that we
don't get too hyper focused in one way or the

(23:58):
other and then put everybody in that same box. So
great answers again, John, Uh, you know, there's a lot
of complexity to the golf swing in many ways.

Speaker 7 (24:07):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (24:08):
We we talk about things like coordination and timing. Uh.

Speaker 3 (24:11):
You know, people have referred to muscle memory as well, Uh,
and obviously the mental game. So there's a lot of
complexity there's a lot of factors to be considered, UH
to focus on. So what are your thoughts here as
far as do we again, do we address UH There
may be others that you may want to consider as well,
But do we focus on sort of one at a time,

(24:33):
do we try to mold them all together and and
and do it that way? Or what what's the best
approach when it comes to dealing with some of the
complexities of the of the swing.

Speaker 6 (24:43):
I want to go back to the priority answer as
well as what Pete said that everybody's going to be
a little bit different, and everybody's gonna have a specific
need at a specific moment. I think some of the
best coaches in the world are able to jump in
and jump out of those categories, but yet meld it

(25:05):
together for that person at that time based on what
their questions are, based on what their disbeliefs might be,
based on what their trends and tendencies are happening at
that particular moment. And that's something I'm always trying to
be on top of, watching nonverbal communication, really listening to

(25:28):
a question, not just for the surface area of the question,
what are they really asking and being able to take
them on a small journey per se, and either stick
with the nuts and bolts, say hey, it's a technical
thing and here's the science behind it, or here's the
technique behind it. But then also from a cause and

(25:49):
effective this happens, then you're going to have a chain
effect for some other things. It's going to be based
on the individual and the situation. I hate to be
eric and that answer, but it's very true. Again, the
three different people I dealt with today, one of them
has some serious health issues. So keeping things more simple

(26:13):
and relative to what that person's journey is to be
fighting as health issues was more paramount than the second
person who couldn't break one hundred last year and now
is flirting with breaking eighty. It was more of a hey,
here are the goals, and here's this, and here's the
little details. And the third person is a former single

(26:35):
digit who's now seeing the scores climb, and they lost
touch with not reality so much as their actuality and
how things are going. So it was literally three different people,
three different directions, but yet three different messages to be
able to provide them where they wanted to go, what

(26:55):
are their goals, and how they're going to get there.
I think the listener, the average amateur who's listening or
watching this podcast is going to really sit down and
figure out what is it that they want to do
and where do they want to go and clearly communicate
to us these things. And when things are not going

(27:17):
well in their brain it's too clouded or in their
heart they're just being torn apart. Or go this way
or go that way. You've got to be able to
communicate to that to your coach. And all the great
coaches I've ever been around all my life are either
going to give you that answer and provide you the education.
Are they going to go you know what, I don't

(27:37):
know this. It's time to bring in somebody else. It's
time to bring in somebody to satisfy that need of
yours and that that's really what you're after.

Speaker 3 (27:48):
Sure, And again, great answer, you know, and the question
I asked you. You know, there's a couple of things
that you know that I was thinking about when I
was putting this together. And you know, really one of
the goals that we have as a coach coach when
dealing with the swing is we're trying to create obviously,
something that's going to be repeatable for the students so
that they're able to go out there and execute that
particular shot on a repetitive basis, so that they know

(28:09):
that if if they need to recall that, they know, okay,
remember how that feels, so they're you know, we always
hear some people like to throw in the term and
some like to throw it out muscle memory. And I
look at it this way, is you know, whether you
use that or use some other terminology, that's fine, But
really what you're trying to do is you're trying to develop.
You're trying to get their coordination and their timing as such,

(28:30):
so that they repeat that and they can feel now
sense or feel what that good shot feels like, and
what that that smooth takeaway and what that smooth overall
flow or a rhythm of their swing feels like. And
that's what I equate muscle memory with is. And I
know some people look at it differently, but it's really
about getting that timing down and then how does it

(28:50):
feel to me? How does it feel when I execute
that shot under good circumstances? And then also how does
it feel when it's not working? You know, things are
not firing in all cylinders, So I want have that
so that I can compare it to and I think
it's important when you're delving into different parts of the
golf swing. You know, sometimes we can get too mechanical
and the students gets locked, you know, lost or bogged down.

(29:11):
So sometimes it's just simple as getting them to understand
how something feels, how something is can make it repeatable
for them so that they can continue to move forward
and hopefully improve.

Speaker 4 (29:23):
And I think if they do that, that's going to happen.

Speaker 3 (29:26):
So as we get ready to close out the final
questions for both of you, and what I want to
get is, Pete, I'm going to come back with you
is is sort of summarize, in your opinion, how to
coaches and players come together and help sort of filter
out this clutter because as we talked about, and there's
many others, I mean, there's a ton of other things
that we could talk about, but there is a lot

(29:46):
of clutter out there. So how can the coach and
the player work together to sort of filter out some
of that clutter and be able to move forward in
a positive way when you're working with those students.

Speaker 4 (29:57):
Your thoughts here, well, I think.

Speaker 5 (29:58):
The first thing you have to do is you have
to get them to understand, you know, what they're trying
to do. And you know, because a lot of people
come to us and as John mentioned before, their idea
of what should happen is so far away from what
really happens. And so we have to get them an
understanding of what are we trying to do first, and
then once we understand what we're trying to do, now

(30:20):
we can put a process together to go achieve it,
and so that itself will sort of, you know, guide
you around the clutter a little bit, but focusing in
on this is what I'm trying to do, This is
how I've got to set up, this is how I
have to move the club in order to achieve that
type of impact I'm looking for. So then we're a
direct process all the time. And so I think if

(30:40):
we can move along those lines of understanding first and
then you know, truthfully too, I mean, I get this
all the time, and I'm sure you guys get it.
I'll go through a lesson, though at the end of
the lesson we'll say, yeah, but what about A B, C, D, E,
F G. And I said, well, if they weren't necessary
otherwise I would have talked about And so a certain

(31:01):
amount of times you can you can declutter a lot
of that because you don't mention it. And we all
know that we can make one change that makes four
or five other things changed, and so they don't have
to worry about it. And so I think more more
importantly is you know, they need to be focused on
what's necessary, because I think so many of them have
no idea what they're trying to do. And you know,

(31:22):
they watch twenty seven YouTube videos and now they've got
twenty seven different opinions, and so they're really getting so
far off from what they're trying to do. So I
think an ultra focus on what are we trying to do,
what are we trying to achieve, and how do we
go about a process to achieve it? And I think
that will get to clutter out. I give them a
direct line focus for what they're trying to do.

Speaker 3 (31:44):
Yeah, And you raise a really interesting point too about
that with with students, because that is a common thing
is they'll, in fact, what a lot of them will
do is they will think about two or three things
that are unrelated to what you're talking about on the
range that they've seen in a video or they've heard
somewhere else one of their buddies, you know, planning forsome,
and the whole time, instead of really listening and absorbing

(32:06):
what it is that you're saying to him, they're thinking
about that question. It's kind of like when you have
a conversation, their eyes are glazing over, they're not really listening.
They've already got a question in mind that they want
to ask you, and they're just waiting for you to
shut up. And that's really what it boils down to.
And that happens on the practice team. And the truth
of the matter is, you know, if you're not prepared
to listen to what I'm going to tell you as

(32:28):
an instructor, then why are you coming to see an instructor?
If you've already got everything all figured out, then why
are you coming to see an instructor. You're there because
you're you're drawing on our knowledge and our expertise and
our understanding of the game to be able to help
you improve yours. And it's okay to ask questions and
okay to refer to something you've seen, but if if
the whole time you're there in the back of your mind,

(32:50):
you've got a whole roll of dex of questions that
you want to ask that are unrelated to the topic
that you're discussing. Then you're not really paying attention, and
you know, and then that's why when it comes to
the next lesson, they're falling behind because they didn't hear
what you said this time, so they can't go and
practice it in the meantime before the next lesson comes around,
and you've got to end up repeating half of the

(33:11):
stuff because well, and they don't want to tell you
that they weren't listening, but that's really the God's honest truth.
So you know, just to want to throw that two
cents in there, John Weddy, if you summarize what we
were talking about today as coaches and players, what are
your thoughts here? How do we help them, in your opinion,
to get rid of some of this clutter.

Speaker 6 (33:28):
Well, Pete sort of hit on, and I say it
less is more. Sometimes just providing less is a lot more,
particularly for the person who's trying to anticipate what we're
saying to them, but yet they have this clutter in
their brain. When you can sump things up in one word,
two words, three words. That's very meaningful and very impactful,

(33:52):
not only literally but figuravely. Sometimes that can really be
the aha moment that we're searching for of them. I
don't mind the questions because the questions show that they care.
It's a matter of steering the questions in the direction
that they're trying to go in. To sort of repeat
what Pete was saying, I'm just saying it differently. Can

(34:15):
I take those questions and if they want to go
on a southerly track, let's go on the southerly track.
But as we're on that southerly track, or do these
questions pertain to that? Or are we going to make
a west turn here? Do you really want to make
the turn to the west or do you want to
continue to go south? Those are the things that that

(34:36):
can you're literally allowing some of this inquisitiveness too, and
you're directing it. It's sort of like havin Harness on
a horse. Let the horse run, but let's direct the
horse in the direction that they want to run in.
And that that's sort of the styles and the strategies

(34:56):
I use. But when these questions come from a very
uneducated point of view, it's it's what they saw on
YouTube and they're confused. And now I'm as guilty as arrest.
I put that stuff on there, but it's not meant
to confuse. It's literally meant to, hey, here the important

(35:17):
things set up and get to impact and get through
the ball. Those are the three things that are basically
on my YouTube channel. But yet I had somebody today
one of the three talked about a grip video I did,
and all of a sudden, he's off in four different
places with this where I had to say, well, time out,
this is what was meant by this video. Why don't

(35:39):
you try this the way I meant it and got
him to do it. He says, Wow, this is different, Yes,
it should be different. We are here to help you
navigate that different We're here to help you navigate the uncomfortability.
But the more you're inquisitive, the less likely you're going
to feel that uncomfortability. It's okay because a lot of

(36:03):
times I see Pete shaking his head. A lot of
times they don't want to deal with the uncomfortability. They're
just going to keep asking to avoid it, and at
some point you're gonna have to face the truth. You're
gonna have to hurdle that obstacle to get where you
want to go. And that's what our jobs are is
to help you that. We'll hold your hand for a
little bit, but at some point you've got to be

(36:26):
able to take the risk or make the risk happen
and jump over that hurdle and accept all these things.
That's typically the aha moment that I see of the
golfers I work with, because I'm always trying to get
somebody to that next level, and they say they want it.
Once they realize what it's going to take, that's something different.

Speaker 3 (36:47):
Yeah, And I mean you guys both raise some great points.
We've all been through that at some point in our careers,
and it's just a matter of I think, really getting
the student. And there's nothing wrong with questions. I don't
have a and people asking questions. I mean, you know,
that's how if that's how they learn. I mean, it's good.
I don't want somebody just standing there and the crickets
chirping in the background and I've you know, put something

(37:09):
out there and they're just agree with everything I say
or not responding at all.

Speaker 4 (37:14):
I want them to ask.

Speaker 3 (37:15):
I don't even mind being challenged, you know, certainly respectfully,
but being challenged on something. But I don't want to
I don't want to have to filter out a thousand
different ideas every time you get together with somebody, is
you want them to come prepared to uh, you know,
let's let's talk about Let's focus on what the reason
you're here for, and then at some point if you
want to sit down for a few minutes after if

(37:35):
you've got some questions, but let's let's focus on what
we're here for today, and let's get a game plan
that you can take away with you until the next
time we meet, and then we can maybe have a conversation.
And if there's certain things about what we're talking about
right now that you have questions on, fine, but you
don't want to get into you know, somebody. I think
I don't know if it was I think we've all
probably said this, but I think Pete you mentioned this

(37:56):
some time ago back on the shows, and that was
sort of paralysis by analysis. And that's what happens is
people get so much information. And that's again why I
talked about clutter, is that people get so much information
going on in their head that they're not really listening
to what information they're getting now because they're thinking about
some you know, two or three other things. And that

(38:17):
was what I talked about the beginning at the top
of the show, was you know, they're thinking about things
going at home, they're thinking about the office, they're thinking
about whatever. You've got to clean this, you know, start
with a clean slate when you come to the lesson
tee and you've got to be focused on what the
task is at hand. Then when you're done, then you
can decompress from that and then you can focus on
whatever you want. But great, great discussion, guys. Hopefully we

(38:37):
helped a few people unclutter their their minds and certainly
hope we didn't confuse anybody. But I think you guys
covered everything pretty good. So Pete, I'm gonna give you
a chance to let the folks know the best way
to reach that and if there's anything specific that you
want to plug, go ahead, and then John, I know
you've got something here.

Speaker 5 (38:54):
So well again, thanks Ted for having me on. John,
It's always a pleasure. I always joy being on with you.
They can reach me pepkennangolf dot com. One of the
things to look at for is an app I'm always
told is Nation, which is gaining some traction. It's an
all sports app. So if you're interested in what that
has to do, send me a note and I'll let
you know what has all about.

Speaker 3 (39:14):
Perfect and John, let me just let me just bring
this up here. So if you cover my face, yeah
I'm doing it. Let me let me just know it's
not good. So I'm putting this up on the screen
because John's got some something exciting coming up in a
couple of weeks. So John, I'm gonna turn it over
to you and just let the folks know what it
is that you got cooking.

Speaker 6 (39:35):
Well. Sure. One of my partners is Golf Live App,
and Golf Live App is basically a really cool platform
to do virtual lessons off of. I've been doing virtual
lessons for quite a while and this is I call
it Zoom on steroids. It's everything that a video analysis

(39:55):
program can do, plus being able to live stream like Zoom.
I've been very fortunate this year to be named to
their Coach's Advisory Board and one of the things they're
asking us to do is can you engage the audience
of Golf Live App through the app and beginning May
twentieth is my inaugural episode of On Par with Me

(40:20):
John Hughes, and it's a half hour program that you
have to see on Golf High Up. You have to
have that downloaded to your mobile device and it's a
real simple thing. Can you feed me questions? Can you
send me video gonna I'm gonna put that up in
the app. I'm gonna analyze some videos. I'm going to

(40:41):
answer some questions. We're going to be at the Omni
champions Gate Resort May twentieth. I'm gonna demonstrate some things. Occasionally,
we're going to have a special guest. But it's all
about you. It's all about somebody literally being able to
see this live and get your questions answered. And this
is the first of many really exciting things I've been

(41:03):
working on now for quite a long time, and this
is just the tip of the iceberg that I'm looking
forward to. I'm going to have some help along the
way and be it some really cool places along the
way with this. So I do hope you download the
Golf Live app, find me as your coach, but be
on the lookout for once a month on Par with

(41:25):
John Hughes and be able to join us for those
streaming opportunities.

Speaker 3 (41:31):
Sounds good, all right, So let me let me just
say this as we get ready to wrap up, don't
forget to as John mentioned, go download the Golf Live app.
I believe it's available in both Andrew Android, excuse me,
and idol. So it's available in both and Join him
Live May twentieth at five pm so for the inaugural episode.

Speaker 4 (41:55):
So John, thank you very much. Pete Hey.

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Speaker 3 (42:27):
Welcome back everybody who took just a short commercial break,
and I'm excited to be joined by my very special
guest tonight Bob Foreman. He's a golf fitness professional and
let me tell you a little bit about him. He's
the former director of a fitness and wellness for the
Congressional Country Club in Bethesda, Maryland. He's also internationally known
as a leader in the field of golf fitness, and

(42:48):
his programs have been recognized multiple years in a row,
from twenty twenty one to twenty twenty three by the
Golf Fitness Association of America. He holds a Master's of
Science degree in Exercise Physiology and is a certified golf
Fitness Instructor through TPI or Titleist Performance Institute. And he's
also a certified personal trainer through the American College of

(43:09):
Sports Medicine. So, Bob, welcome back to the show. It's
I know it's been a couple of weeks, but uh
we had had a few glitches here and there, and
last week we had some issues and we've had actually
a couple here tonight as well. But fingers crossed everything
will go well. But uh so what I'm gonna do
first is we're gonna talk about uh some things.

Speaker 2 (43:27):
Now.

Speaker 3 (43:27):
I've I've got a few uh steps here that that
you're gonna a few drills if you will, that I
know you're going to talk about. I know we had
you wanted to kind of queue up, but there were
a couple of videos that you wanted me to put through.
I'll explain to you later, but I wasn't able to
upload those, so we'll have to figure something out for that.
But but there are a few things here that we're
going to talk about. Uh and UH, I know a

(43:49):
couple we've touched on before.

Speaker 4 (43:50):
So let me.

Speaker 3 (43:51):
I'm just gonna get us into the mode, if you will,
and uh, and then what we can do is uh
get to our discussion.

Speaker 4 (43:58):
So here we are, and.

Speaker 3 (44:00):
This is called I believe the heisman, is that correct?

Speaker 7 (44:04):
This is uh side steps?

Speaker 3 (44:07):
Sorry, I'm side step okay, So explain what you're doing here.
You're getting into the position and these are drills and
these are things exercise drills if you will, to get
yourself golf ready for the season. So let's talk about
that side step. What are you doing here? Explain what
you've got and what you got on your legs there.

Speaker 7 (44:25):
Yeah, dispatch of exercises are a little bit more golf specific.
You know, we talked a couple of weeks ago about
hitting the basic muscles, But now we're going to get
a little bit more specific and you know, get into
a little more golf minute type exercises. This one's called
the side step, and the beauty about this one is
that it's going to work you in an east to

(44:47):
west pattern versus most of the stuff in gym's fitness
centers are going to work you north to south, front
to back. Now, this will work the what's called the
glutist media's which is a hip stabilizer. So it's an
important muscle group to keep nice and strong, but it
also will help stabilize the lower body as you're swinging

(45:10):
your as you're twisting and turning the upper body. So
basically what I have here is I have an exercise
band tied around my ankles, and you have different tensions
in the bands. You can start with a medium tension
then work your way up. And what I'm gonna do
here is I'm just gonna take some side steps. I'm
going to reach out with my right leg as far

(45:31):
as possible to the side, and then I'm going to
bring the left leg back in not all the way
so that the feed are touching, but I'm going to
bring it back in about three quarters of the way
so that I keep some tension on that band, and
I'm going to do that ten to fifteen to twenty
times in one direction, and then I'm going to reverse

(45:52):
and head back ten to fifteen to twenty times in
the other direction. And this is a great exercise. It
also will help with knee stabilization because if you have
a weak gluteous medius, and a lot of us do,
because we sit during the day and when you sit,
you elongate the goot muscles, and when you elongate muscles

(46:15):
over time, you weaken them. So if the gluteous medius
is weak, what can happen is the thigh bone the
femur can actually rotate, which can cause knee issues to
that side. So not only is it good for your gossling,
it's good for your health, it's good for your knee support.
And like you say, it's one of the only exercises

(46:36):
that kind of gets you going east and west right.

Speaker 3 (46:39):
So let's move to the next one and get you
to touch on that one, and I'll stop it as
soon as the next clip comes through.

Speaker 4 (46:46):
So here's one.

Speaker 3 (46:46):
I apologize that technology sometimes isn't what it needs to be,
and it's cut your head off. But we can see
basically what you're doing here. So what are you getting
up ready to do? Here?

Speaker 4 (46:55):
What's this exercise?

Speaker 7 (46:56):
Go to the next one. Maybe the next one will
be if you can.

Speaker 3 (47:00):
Yeah, I can do that. So we're going to do
that and I'll pause when it gets there. Okay, okay, Yeah.

Speaker 7 (47:06):
This one's called the Heisman and basically, uh, you know,
in the golf swing, you're going to go through what's
called the X factor. You know, Jim McClain talked about
that years ago. Basically, you know, you want to separate
disassociation between the upper body and the lower body. Right
as you're swinging the club. For a right handed golfer,
you've got both the shoulders and both the hips rotating

(47:27):
towards the right, and at some point you want to
start the lower body going in the opposite direction. So
that's called the X factor. Uh, this drill here. What
you can't see is I'm standing on a bench and
the height can change depending upon you know your conditioning level.
You can start low and you can raise it up

(47:47):
if you need to. I'm squatting back and then I'm
coming up with my left leg here and coming across
my body while I have that medicine ball on my hip.
So I'm basically trying to get my hips to go
to the right while my upper body is stable. And

(48:08):
then obviously you would want to do the other side
so that your hips are going to the left while
your upper body is stable. But again, it's a good exercise.
It's kind of a progressive exercise to help golfers get
that disassociation between the upper and lower. And as you're
stepping up and down the bench, well you're not really
stepping on the bench that in this particular picture here,

(48:30):
my right foot is going to stay on the bench,
my left foot will come down to the ground and
then come back up again, go down and come up.
So you're also getting kind of a good exercise to
help strengthen the quad and the glutes to the leg
side that's on the bench. So it's again it provides
multiple benefits, but the biggest thing is getting that separation

(48:52):
between the upper and lower again, which a lot of
golfers have difficulty doing.

Speaker 3 (48:57):
Yeah, I will set and you know it's good too,
because I think at some point you have to and
again you know we've we've said this in the past,
and I want to just repeat this real quick. Is
obviously you want to consult with not just somebody like
Bob that's a certified golf fitness instructor, but you also
want to you know, especially for some of the older golfers,
you want to make sure that you're consulting with your

(49:18):
physician to make sure that you're able to do some
of these things. I mean, they might not seem that difficult,
but sometimes they could put pressure on areas if you're
having if you've got a bad backs, let's say, or
you've got knee issues and things like that. You want
to make sure that you get clear to do these
things and your professional can help you.

Speaker 7 (49:34):
Sorry, go ahead, Yeah this one here, I mean, it
will get you winded because you are stepping up and
down right on a bench, so it will kind of
challenge your cardio as well. So yeah, no, that's a
good point about making sure that you get checked out
with the physician before you start any type of exercise program.

Speaker 3 (49:50):
And it's always good and I know that people like yourself, Bob,
that are in the profession always begin with an assessment
anyways to see where where the golfers at before you
get into any sort of exercise. Let's move on to
the next one. Let's see what we've got here. See
what I think we might have passed it. Hang on
a second. Here we go. So this one here again,

(50:11):
I apologize his upper body is cut off.

Speaker 7 (50:14):
Oh that's good, that's all right.

Speaker 4 (50:16):
That's focusing on what we want.

Speaker 3 (50:17):
So here you've got a golf club in your left hand,
and we're gonna assume this is for right handed golfers or.

Speaker 4 (50:22):
Does it matter?

Speaker 3 (50:23):
Doesn't matter, And I'm going to show you the next
one here so you can see what he's doing. So
he's he's holding it in his left hand there, and
I'm going to advance it to the next clip, and
then you can explain what you're doing here, what the
exercise is, so we'll get to the next one.

Speaker 4 (50:37):
There you go.

Speaker 3 (50:37):
So now he's raised it up, but you notice his
arms in the same position. He's still standing erect. So
walk us through this. What what are you doing here
and why are you doing it?

Speaker 7 (50:46):
Well? You know, the forearms are an important muscle group
to keep nice and strong, you know, So that's can
handle the grip on the golf club. I mean, because
when you swing the club, I mean you're swinging the
club in seventy eighty ninety hundred miles an hour. You
want to be, But I'll hold on to that thing.
So a lot of exercises can focus on the underside

(51:06):
of the arm, the flexer side, and on the back
side of the arm, the expensor side. There's not a
whole lot that works the muscle groups on the inner side,
which are called your adductors. You know, add to add
to the midline of the body. So if I were
to stand up and I would do this all right,

(51:28):
I'm adding to the midline of the body. I'm using
these muscles on the inside. And then the adductors are
on the outside part of the forearm and they take
the hand and go away from the body. Now, when
you're swinging the club, you're gonna do a lot of
adduction adduction as you're bringing the club back. Okay, So

(51:50):
to isolate those muscle groups would be a good thing
to do. So this exercise here will do that. So
I have the club in my left hand, and I
have it so that the most of the club is
going to be extended to the front. I'm freezing my
left arm against my body, and I don't want the
arm to move, I just want the hand to move.

(52:13):
I'm doing this from the wrist. So again as I
bring it up and down, I want to kind of
like tap the club to the front, bring it up,
Tap the club, bring it up, tap it. So that's
again working what's called the you know, the outer part,
the ab d the abductors. So you can use a
golf club, you can use a weighted pole, you know,

(52:37):
a six pound pole or nine pound pole. And the further, yeah,
the further you go out onto the pole, the tougher
it's going to be. This is a kind of a
bicep bar, curl bar, and these things can be quite heavy.
So what I'm gonna do here is I'm going to
do the opposite, all right. I'm going to have most

(52:58):
of the bar all right, extended to the back, and
what I'm gonna do is envision that I'm going to
tap the back of that bar to the floor and
bring it up and down, up and down, which is
working the inner side of the forearm, the adductors, the
add So there are really good exercises to really kind

(53:18):
of complete the entire muscle. Muscle groups that are in
the forearm, so you can work the flexers, you can
work the extensors, but this is a good one to
kind of get those side muscles that you're going to
use predominantly when you're swinging the gull pub.

Speaker 3 (53:37):
And obviously it's important to do both versions of this exercise,
the front and the back, because you want to keep
it balanced, because if you do too much of one
and not enough the others, then you've got a weak
area that now gets essentially exposed. You're developing too much
muscle in the front. And this is not building muscle.
I don't mean it that way, but you're engaging too
much muscle one way. And obviously you want to keep

(53:58):
things balanced out so you're able to execute things a
little bit more. And again, these are the types of
exercises that, again you're not really engaging the whole body.
You're actually just engaging certain isolating certain muscles. And you know,
maybe if if this bar for again for some of older golfers,
if it's just a little bit too heavy and you're
finding it you're straining to do it because you don't

(54:19):
want to be It's like with weights, you don't see
them throwing the weight back or that sort of so
you find something else that will work just as well.
You want to maybe a little bit of a resistance,
a little bit of weight, So if you're finding this,
maybe you could substitute something else. But now, I think
this is a great exercise, and use the tools that
are available in a gym like this. And you know
every gym has these weighted bars. So again, if you've

(54:40):
got this set up with a golf professional like yourself
that can walk you through the process and make sure
that you're doing the exercise is properly, and that's the
main thing.

Speaker 7 (54:48):
Yeah, and it will be tougher when you tap to
the front when you're working those add abductors the first
two pictures that you saw. So if you're using a
weighting bar or some like this, you may not go
to the end of the bar. You know, you can
go halfway, just grip right before the notts there so
there's not as much resistance, and then as the strength

(55:11):
gets better, you can go further out towards the end
of the bar.

Speaker 3 (55:14):
Yeah, all right, so let's uh, let's advance to the
next set of photos and see what we've got here.
I'll stop on the first one when it comes through. Okay,
so here you are. We got all a bob in
this one. So we got here. You're on a platform, obviously,
I know these are. You can elevate them. You can
see in the background. You can put different cones underneath,
and you can elevate to whatever left. So what are

(55:35):
you getting ready to do here? And I'll advance it
when you're ready to go to the next clip? So
what are you setting yourself up?

Speaker 7 (55:39):
So here we're working a little dynamic balance. It's called
an angle kneed dip. And so yeah, I have a step,
I have a riser underneath just one end of the step,
and you can put one riser, you can put two risers.
I probably wouldn't go any more than two risers to
give you that angle. So what I'm doing here is
I'm going to focus on one leg at a time.

(56:01):
So I have my right foot on the bench and
I'm gonna do five to six to seven little tiny
dips squats, one leg at squats, not going down that far,
just you know, six inches twelve inches and then come
back up. So it's isolating the inside muscle in the quads.

(56:22):
You know, you got the four muscles in the front
part of your thigh, the quadriceps. This is isolating the
inside muscle that is the main supportive structure of the knee.
So it's a great exercise again to help stabilize the knee,
but it also is gonna work your dynamic balance, all right.
So I'm gonna do six to seven dips or little

(56:42):
tiny squats in this direction, and then I'm gonna rotate
ninety degrees so i would be facing away from the camera.
On the next set, I'm gonna do six to seven
little tiny squats dips, then I'm gonna rotate ninety degrees again,
so I would be facing to the right six to seven,
and then finally rotating another ninety degrees so I would

(57:05):
be facing the camera. So every time you rotate, gravity
is going to have a different effect on it, and
this is going to simulate almost every golf shot you're
going to have on the golf course. So in this
picture here, the ball would be above my feet when
I rotate ninety degrees away from the camera, it would

(57:25):
be an uphill lie. When I rotate towards the mirror
to the right, it would be ball below my feet
and when I rotate facing the camera, it would be ball,
you know, a downhill line. So it gets every single situation.
It isolates that vastest mediumss obilique, that knee support, and

(57:46):
it works that dynamic balance which is so important.

Speaker 6 (57:49):
And again, you.

Speaker 7 (57:51):
Know all the golfers I've tested over the years, dynamic
balance is a challenge for a lot of golfers, and
they need to get into exercises like this, not the
status stuff where you're just standing on one foot for
thirty seconds. You have to have movement involved because when
you're swinging the golf club, you're moving, you're not standing still.

Speaker 3 (58:10):
Yeah, And a lot of people always focus on the
big muscles all the time, you know.

Speaker 4 (58:13):
That's why you see them at the gym. They're working
in the big muscles.

Speaker 3 (58:15):
But there's a lot of smaller muscles that are stabilizing
muscles that play an important.

Speaker 4 (58:19):
Role as well. In the spring.

Speaker 3 (58:20):
Let's let's go on to the next one here, as
we're getting close to our time here in a few minutes,
and I want to see what we've got here. I
think this might be just giving us an example of No,
that was it. So that was the Yeah, that was
the last one. That we had in there, one of
the ones. I know you talked about the medicine ball.
I didn't have that one. It didn't come in with

(58:40):
the stuff. We'll have to get that the next time.
But just sort of quickly are summer rise up. So
really what we're trying to do here with these exercise
and again to get a sort of golf ready as
we're getting into the season a little bit more forcefully
now is the weather's starting to warm up all over
the place. We're seeing lots of good golf, the Masters
just a couple of weeks ago, we're getting ready for
the PGA coming up, and all these good things. So

(59:03):
we really want to get into shape. And but this
is again as you pointed out earlier, these are golf
specific exercise. So just give us sort of a quick
summary what it is that we're trying to accomplish with
these exercise. We're not trying to you know, bulk up
or anything. What is it we're overall? What we're trying
to do here.

Speaker 7 (59:19):
Well, again, you know it's good to start with isolating,
build the base work, the basic muscle groups, the major
muscle groups, like we discussed a few weeks back, right
do that for three or four or five weeks, get
that base developed, you know, get in the gym three
days a week if you can do a total body workout.
And again we're talking about the majority of golfers out here,

(59:41):
you know that just need to kind of get into
something to help you know their better their body, to
better their swing. And then once you get past the
basic phase, you know, you want to start getting into
more golf specific exercises, you know that are going to
work dynamic balants that are going to kind of mimic
the golf swing, that are going to help you confront
all the different shots you're going to have out on

(01:00:03):
the golf course. And that's what those particular three or
four exercises that we went over today, and there's a
bunch more, but I just wanted to kind of give
your viewers some examples of some of those golf specific
exercises that they can get into that can really kind
of take their program to the next level.

Speaker 3 (01:00:22):
Yeah, well said, And I know that you've got a
book that's available at the book patch dot com.

Speaker 4 (01:00:28):
There's a link involved. Hold that up there.

Speaker 3 (01:00:30):
I need to get I know you sent me a
copy of the cover. I was going to put it
up here, but it wasn't clear enough to show. So
what I'm going to do is I'm going to get
it on our website, Golf tipsmag dot com. That's Golf
tipsmag dot com with that link so you can actually
purchase a book. So I'll get the jacket cover a
different image of it so that we can get it
up there, and I'll have that up in the next day.
But yeah, great book, a lot of great information in there.

(01:00:53):
And as I said, Bob is been doing this for
a long long time and hopes to keep doing it
even longer, and I'm going to bring him on as
many times as he wants. But I want to thank
you guys always Bob for coming on and giving us
some great information as we get ready for another golf season.
So I'm going to take another quick commercial break, and
when I return, I'm going to be joined by tonight's

(01:01:13):
featured guests. I hope you stick around.

Speaker 1 (01:01:43):
M M.

Speaker 3 (01:02:00):
All right, Welcome back, everybody. I'm excited to introduce tonight's
featured guest, Jason Moore. He's the co founder, partner and
CEO of True Linksware. I'm going to tell you just
a little bit about him, and then he's actually on
the show right now as you can see, and then
we'll get into tonight's discussion.

Speaker 4 (01:02:16):
Of course.

Speaker 3 (01:02:16):
True Linksware is a golf footwear and apparel brand renown
for its minimalist design and focus on comfort and performance,
and raised in a golf centric family, Jason's early experiences
included managing a golf ball resale business at age six
and later adding for his brother and talked about that
for sure PG true professional Ryan Moore, and his formative years,

(01:02:40):
of course, cultivated his deep understanding of the game and
its demands. And here we are just a short little
while later and he's running True Linksware. So Jason, thank you.
Glad you're feeling better. I know we were going to
do this last week and you were a little bit
under the weather and things didn't work out. But I'm
glad you're able to make it tonight. So welcome to
the show.

Speaker 2 (01:02:59):
Glad to be introduced, so graciously you know my bio
better than I do.

Speaker 3 (01:03:05):
Well, there's a lot more there, but I have to
edit it down because otherwise we wouldn't get a chance
to talk. So but so before we get into I
know you've got some exciting news this week. You guys
just launched a new product, and I just got to say,
you know, as somebody in the golf business, I'm a
teacher professional have been for thirty plus years, and also

(01:03:25):
and the owner editor of Golf Tips magazine, and we've
just done some new launches ourselves. And I won't bore
everybody with that now, but because we're here to talk
about you, but I'm really excited about your brand.

Speaker 4 (01:03:38):
I have a pair of your shoes. I love them
to death.

Speaker 3 (01:03:40):
They're starting to wear a little bit thin, though, so
I might have to hit you up for some new
products soon. But you guys just have some great and
I just love the whole thing. So just give us
a little bit of an overview. How did this really
come about for you? What was it that said to you? Okay,
and let me actually let me even go back first.
Let's go back to when you were six. What was
the deal with the resale of the golf balls? What
was was this stealing out of dad's golf bag and

(01:04:02):
reselling them or were you It's.

Speaker 2 (01:04:03):
A good question, that's a very good questions. I did
fish them out of the ponds, but my dad actually
owned a small family business, humble little driving range here
to come to Washington, and my brothers and I kind
of grew up working the weekends picking balls off the range.
And you know our driving range, people are pulling their

(01:04:24):
own golf balls out of.

Speaker 9 (01:04:25):
Their bag and hitting a time to time.

Speaker 2 (01:04:27):
I would collect to those created quite an assortment. And
I had a little stand out front of the driving
range that my dad would charge me rent to operate.
Of course, I was business and I called it Jason's Pearls.
And you know I had I had a little pricing
structures fifty cents a golf ball or seven dollars a dozen.

Speaker 9 (01:04:48):
Do the math, it.

Speaker 2 (01:04:49):
Doesn't quite pencil out, but I sold a lot of
dozens at that, so that's good.

Speaker 3 (01:04:55):
Did you also pay have to pay them a like
an affiliate fee as well for when you were selling them?
Did he get into the program where you had to
give him a little extra commission or he just charged
you the rent.

Speaker 6 (01:05:04):
He was taking.

Speaker 2 (01:05:04):
He was taking a little cut, that's for sure, and
rightfully so. And as you know, operating a business isn't
as easy as he thinks. So you know, understand the
math and understanding how rent works was probably a good
life lesson. Now, six years old is pretty young to
learn that, but yeah, it's stuck with me.

Speaker 3 (01:05:23):
Well you know it's it's good though, really because you
know my father and I won't again bore everybody with
the story, but you know, my father started me out
similar very young, you know, taught me certain things and
I think it's important as as youngster growing up, and
especially if you know, if dad can sort of you know,
bring you along and sometimes you have to learn some lessons,
you know, you know, charging that rent get you to say, okay,
you know it's not going to be all about me.

(01:05:44):
I've got to split some of this and here's why,
and sort of sets up the foundation. So and here
we are today. So fast forward a number of years.
At some point obviously, uh you know you mentioned or
mentioned Ryan in the bioh being obviously on the PGA
tour and he's of course your brother, so you had
obviously some great exposure and you actually caddied for him

(01:06:07):
a little bit later on. So was he partially the
inspiration for developing true linksware? I mean, is he involved?
I understand, Actually, let me rephrase that. I understand there's
a lot of you guys relatives, friends, all this stuff.
It's literally almost like a family at true. So tell
us how that sort of came about. How did it
come off the ground.

Speaker 2 (01:06:27):
Yeah, Well, first of all, you know, while I was
selling golf balls out front of my dad's driving range,
Ryan was hitting golf balls, which led to his career
on tour, and so I should have picked the other path, apparently.

Speaker 9 (01:06:41):
But I actually love what I do.

Speaker 2 (01:06:42):
So but yeah, I was out caddying on the PGA
Tour with my brother, traveling the world, dream come true,
having time of our lives. You know, I was in
my early twenties, and my brother and I, you know,
got to this point in his season where he's testing
new product and trying to decide am I going to
sign with x y Z Brands for next year? And

(01:07:04):
he just couldn't find any footwear solutions that he was
happy with. And legitimately, you know, my brother likes to
believe in the products he endorses. There's a lot of
guys that will just take the biggest check. I get it, course,
but Ryan's gutcheck just didn't feel right signing with a
footwear brain at the time, And very fortuitously, somebody came
to us with a pretty novel concept of launching our

(01:07:26):
own golf footwear company and showed us the initial drawings
and designs and we're like, no, but this is a
good idea. Let's talk about this. And so, you know,
the initial concept.

Speaker 9 (01:07:40):
Ryan was heavily involved in.

Speaker 2 (01:07:42):
You know, we were just round tabling an idea, having
no idea how to make shoes ourselves. But we had
a whole lifetime of golf experience and had played at
every different level and could literally live every you know,
career that you could e golf at that point, and
we just thought, you know what, let's let's give this

(01:08:05):
a try.

Speaker 3 (01:08:06):
So was he your guinea pig then a little bit
in the beginning when when you were coming up with
the different designs, and obviously he would try them out
and say, yeah, I.

Speaker 4 (01:08:13):
Like this now.

Speaker 3 (01:08:13):
Did he actually and I'm talking to early stages before
it really you know, clicked. Was he wearing some of
them out on the events? Was he taking that? I mean,
because that's a bit of a risk. I mean, if
you're wearing something that's not really comfortable and you're out
there and you're in the heat of you know, the
battle out in the PGA tour and your feet are
sore because you're wearing a pair of shoes that aren't
quite right. You know, that's a little bit of a gamble.
So was he doing some of that though early on

(01:08:36):
or was he just sort of practicing with them and
maybe playing some practice rounds.

Speaker 4 (01:08:39):
What was what was hisle.

Speaker 2 (01:08:41):
Absolutely he was Prototypes would come straight to Ryan, he'd
put him on practice in and we got a call
one day He's like, Prototypes, good, I'm wearing him next
week on tour. And we're like, oh, we don't have
a company name, we don't know what we're doing yet.
I guess we got turned this into a real business

(01:09:01):
and so we got pretty fast tracked to actually bring
this to the market because of Ryan's enthusiasm about wearing
the product and competition.

Speaker 3 (01:09:11):
Now I know, and we'll get into that a little
bit later. I know you've got some other stuff there,
But what was it about the shoes though? I mean
that's kind of an you know, everybody gets into equipment,
and everybody gets into other apparel, and I know you've
you've got some other things that you guys are doing
now you're not just strictly footwear, But but what is
what was sort of the methodology. Was it mainly because
he was finding a difficulty getting something or was it

(01:09:34):
just something Hey, you know, I think that might be
a market for us to get into. What was how
did that sort of come about with that aspect? Is
why the footwear? Why not some other aspect of golf equipment.

Speaker 2 (01:09:43):
Or well, it was based on this simple concept of
building something more natural, built for movement, built for walking,
built more ergonomically.

Speaker 9 (01:09:53):
So that we cater to natural foothealth.

Speaker 2 (01:09:55):
And you know, to be honest, the first prototype that
came in, it's pretty.

Speaker 9 (01:09:59):
Hard to look at.

Speaker 2 (01:10:01):
It wasn't something that my brother was proud to lace
up from a style standpoint, but they felt so good.
And he was still young in his career. He's only
on his fifth or sixth year on tour, and he thought,
I want to play for twenty plus years, and I
want to play injury free. And he had already struggled
with feeling pain in his ankles and feet, which eventually

(01:10:22):
leads to knee and hip and back problems. And so
he thought, you know what, let's start fixing my health
from the ground up. And the footwear was the perfect
place to start.

Speaker 3 (01:10:33):
You know, without dating myself because I always say I'm
a lot older than you and Ryan. But I remember
early golf shoes, and first off, they weren't the most
stylished golf shoes, and they weren't really all that comfortable,
but they obviously served a purpose.

Speaker 4 (01:10:51):
He really strikes me about.

Speaker 3 (01:10:54):
And I know this word is used a lot in
today's analogy of different products now, but it's not just
a footwear.

Speaker 4 (01:11:02):
It's a lifestyle.

Speaker 3 (01:11:03):
And what's very unique about your shoes because I have
a pair of your black I'm trying to remember which
which version. I mean, you've got so many stuff now
on the market. I got one of the earlier ones
and it's very, very comfortable, and I don't even have
the time.

Speaker 4 (01:11:16):
Don't even wear it on the golf course.

Speaker 3 (01:11:17):
I wear it more off the golf course because it
just goes with so many different things, and black, of
course is a pretty neutral color there. But they're just
so comfortable I can walk around I don't even though
I have them on. And yeah, exactly, so I should
get an endorsement for something like that, but we'll talk
about that later. But you know what's interesting is about it,

(01:11:38):
So lifestyle was something that was really important for you
guys as well. It wasn't just about creating a great product,
but you wanted people to have something more. And we
see that a lot with the golf clothing nowadays, where
it's not just about okay, it's golf. People want, especially women,
want to wear some of that clothing, be able to
wear it in other areas besides just the golf course.
So when that was was that in the methodology as well,

(01:12:00):
when your first starting to knows it wasn't just Aboutkay,
let's do another golf shoop.

Speaker 4 (01:12:02):
We wanted to make it a lifestyle brand.

Speaker 2 (01:12:05):
Yeah, absolutely, I mean we had this philosophy as pretty.

Speaker 9 (01:12:09):
Simple, is that you shouldn't have to put on a.

Speaker 2 (01:12:11):
Golf costume to go play golf, you know, like especially
when you live on tour. And a lot of what
we do is based on selfish ideation.

Speaker 10 (01:12:20):
It's this idea of what do we always wished to
existed and could you have that outfit or those you know,
footwear pieces that could seamlessly transition from your morning workout
to going to the office, to going on a plane
to go playing golf without.

Speaker 9 (01:12:36):
Skipping a beat.

Speaker 2 (01:12:36):
And I think that was really one of the first
you know breakthrough ideas was not just comfort, but the
versatility aspect. The golfer wishes they played golf all day
every day, but oftentimes you find yourselves doing an array
of activities, and can you get footwear that's multipurpose and
functional and still performs at the highest level for PGA
Tour players.

Speaker 3 (01:12:57):
Now you have multiple We're to talk about your new
launch here in just a few moments, but I want
to you have some others. So what was the first
one that came out officially on the market, Which shoe
was that? And then how did you progress from there?
Was it again more a lifestyle leaning in the initial
shoe that came out, obviously comfort and obviously performance not

(01:13:18):
And then where are you sort of taking it now?

Speaker 4 (01:13:20):
And then we'll get into to your new launch.

Speaker 2 (01:13:22):
Yeah, the first shoe that came out is actually still
our most popular style today. We call them our original Family.
It's a pretty novel concept and no one makes golf
shoes anything like it. There's zero drop platform, they're a
little bit wider in the towbox, super comfortable, flexible, and
they're going to move naturally with your body. And so

(01:13:44):
for us, that original family was that differentiator and the
reason that you had to have true after that, you know,
we do serve and cater to a lot of PGA
Tour players. In fact, today we have a dozen players
that lace them up in competition at the highest level, right.
And so our lux family of product was kind of
the next evolution of what can we do to elevate

(01:14:06):
the performance, the quality of the materials, the innovation that
goes into each season, coming up with new ideas, testing
new tread patterns and even launching new spikes, and so
that for us is.

Speaker 9 (01:14:19):
Another important category.

Speaker 2 (01:14:21):
But the third category I think is maybe our most
popular all over time, which is our all day category.
It's like the shoe that you can lace up, like
I said, in the morning and drop your kids off
at school and go to work and maybe hit a
bucket of balls at the range without skipping a beat.
And I think that for us has been that shoe that, yeah,

(01:14:42):
maybe you don't play golf in them every day, but
you still wear them every day and you dream about golf,
sit at your desk.

Speaker 3 (01:14:48):
Well, and don't get me wrong, I mean obviously I've
played many rounds with them on and you know, hit
balls up in the range and so forth. But a
lot of time just going out for a meal and
I'll slip among because they're comfortable and and what I
like about it is they're very breathable too, which is
nice because you know, I live in the South, and
I know you're up in the Northwest, so you've got

(01:15:08):
a little bit different climate than I do in Florida,
so it's pretty steamy down here, and you know, so
I like something that's comfortable, but I like something that's
breathable too that you know, my feet aren't getting, you know,
feel like they're in a sweat box. So I really
like that. And I like the fact, again they're very
versatile that I'm able to wear them in a lot
of different circumstances. So I mentioned you guys just launched

(01:15:29):
on Tuesday, I think was the official launch of the
lux too, So tell us about that.

Speaker 4 (01:15:34):
That's pretty exciting.

Speaker 3 (01:15:35):
What's different from what you typically have gone and what's
new and exciting about this one?

Speaker 2 (01:15:40):
Yeah, So Let's do is a huge step forward and
innovation for our company. Could be more proud of the
end result. The amount of blood, sweat, and tears that
went into these things is pretty.

Speaker 9 (01:15:52):
Shocking, you know.

Speaker 2 (01:15:53):
At some point when you're in product development, which is
actually my passion and where I spend a lot of
my time, you start feeling like a failure after three
or four prototypes and it's just not turning out right.
But we didn't give up on this product category. What
we really wanted to do was bring that same true
comfort and performance that people kind of come to our
brand for, but elevate the experience with replaceable spikes. And

(01:16:17):
so we iterated and iterated and iterated on this, and
the amount of times that we internally thought, oh, we're
getting close, and thought, how we can do a little better,
and we held it and held it and held it,
and we're just now bringing it to market and we're
thrilled with the results, not just internally in our wear

(01:16:38):
testing with our tour players, but now that they're actually
getting seated out to the market.

Speaker 9 (01:16:43):
The response has been remarkable. You know, we wanted to
be able to.

Speaker 2 (01:16:47):
Offer a replaceable spike platform, but we didn't want it
to feel like all other spike shoes. So the amount
of innovative components in this and the level of the
quality of craft and material in it is really and precedented.

Speaker 3 (01:17:01):
And obviously they're changeable, So if spikes wear out, you're
able to pop in a fresh one.

Speaker 4 (01:17:05):
You know, if you're.

Speaker 3 (01:17:08):
One gets worn out or gets for some reason, should
get damage, you're able to pop that out. And I'm
assuming obviously there's a tool that you guys have as
well for that. Now is it interchangeable?

Speaker 6 (01:17:16):
Now?

Speaker 3 (01:17:17):
The spikes are Is that something that you guys created
or are you partnering with somebody where you're using their
spikes or how does that work?

Speaker 4 (01:17:23):
Is that something you guys put together?

Speaker 2 (01:17:25):
They're actually universal soft spikes, So if you have a
favorite spike, you could throw it in there, like a
lot of tour guys do, but you're gonna be able
to replace them at any club or shop around the
country or a lot of people got that in their garage,
you know, ready to roll.

Speaker 6 (01:17:39):
You know.

Speaker 3 (01:17:39):
What's what's really interesting about what you guys have done
is and you know this, you know probably better than
anybody because you've had to we up against that headwind.
You know that when you're coming into a market like
the golf market, where there's so many big players out there,
and you know, you go back several years when you
guys were first, you know sort of dipping your toes
into into the bunk or as it were. You know,

(01:18:02):
you had a lot of big monsters out there that
you had to come up against, but you found really
a very open niche in the market that was not
being filled. Because I can tell you I've been playing
this game for over thirty something years, and as I said,
I'm not going to date myself, but I'm getting up there.
I'm long in the tooth, as it were. So you know,
I know that there's a lot of guys out there,

(01:18:23):
and you guys seem to have found a market that
really was not being serviced. So when you're moving forward
with new products like lux too, and you're addressing other needs,
is there a point that you say to yourself, Okay,
we're going to stop at this and we're going to

(01:18:44):
just continue to improve of what we got, or are
there other things and you don't have to leak anything
out if it's if it's something that's not ready to
come out. But how do you see yourself because because
one of the biggest problems in whether it's in your
market or the peril market is sometimes people go too
far afield. They get so much out there and then
it gets to the point where you know, they're doing

(01:19:05):
something over here, they're doing something over there, and they
sort of over expand themselves. Do you guys sort of
keep yourself grounded to a point and say we're going
to we're going to stay focused on this and we're
gonna be the best that we can possibly be. Or
what's your thought in that area.

Speaker 9 (01:19:19):
Yeah, no, it's a great question.

Speaker 2 (01:19:21):
And you know, one of the ethos that's actually written
over the front of my office right here is forever
the underdog.

Speaker 9 (01:19:28):
We get it.

Speaker 2 (01:19:29):
We're up against a bunch of giants, and these megabrands
are always going to have more designers, and they're always
going to have a bigger marketing budget, and they're always
going to be willing to pay athletes more than we
are to wear their product. But it's not going to
stop us from putting our best foot forward, grinding and
showing grit and determination to come out with the best

(01:19:50):
possible products. And so, you know, when you ask yourself,
is there a threshold to our innovation? I would like
to think not, you know, as far as you know,
our our ability to keep innovating, ide eating and coming
out with new things. That being said, something that we've
held true to since the very beginning. And this is

(01:20:11):
very much at my brother Ryan's directive is if you
wouldn't wear it, why are we trying to sell it?
And you know, I remember very early on, I debuted
three brand new shoes to him and I was like, hey,
you know, this is for this, This is for this,
this is for this. He was like, well, would you
wear all three? And I was like, well, no, I

(01:20:35):
would only wear these two. But there's somebody that would
like that. He's like, well, let's somebody else make that
then yeah. And if it's not something that we feel
inspired by, that we think that needs to exist, we
don't bring it to market. So some years that might
be a dozen styles, some years it might be three
or four.

Speaker 3 (01:20:53):
Yeah, and you know you have to And what I
mean by really what I'm trying to say is sort
of staying in your lane. And that doesn't mean that
you can't improve or you can't develop in other areas.
But that's really the point I was making is because
you get a lot of people that do what you're
doing and I'm not talking about footwear, but I'm just
talking about in their business, and they start trying to
navigate into other areas, think, Okay, I'm going to expand

(01:21:13):
the business over here. And what they had right here
was working great. They could expand it till you know,
to the moon and back. But they start trying to
expand too much, and it gets to a point where
eventually they're not really doing good on anything because they've
gotten so big and so out out there on so
many different you know lanes. I guess that were that
they're not really able to handle that. And I think

(01:21:34):
it's important because I know, I see that in the
technology industry. I mean, there's some behemos in the technology
industry in golf and yet, and I'm not going to
name names, but there's a few contenders that are coming
in that command at a different price point and coming
in now and they're you know, hitting number one, number
two in the golf market, going against the giants. And
it's because they did, much like you as they came

(01:21:55):
in with a philosophy. If I'm not going to wear it,
why do I want to make it? And I want
to make it for the markets that are really not
being served. And I may not be you know, brand
a right now, but I'm happy with that because I'm
servicing a big market that's not being serviced. So it's
very important to, as you said, be true to what
it is that you're doing. Yeah, do you love most

(01:22:16):
about your job and don't bry Well, Actually you can
go ahead, we brag all you want.

Speaker 2 (01:22:24):
Well, I like to think I've never worked a day
in my life because I actually love what I get
to do. And so yes, do I work sixty hour
work weeks, absolutely right? And are there sleepless nights trying
to figure out how to make a you know, startup
business work? Absolutely But you know, at the end of
the day, I think the thing I value most is
the relationships I've built, you know. And you know, early

(01:22:48):
on it was a very much a core ethos of
ours that we wouldn't build a company that we didn't
want to go work at ourselves. And so if we
built the right company environment and culture where people look
forward to coming into the office, then you don't have
to convince people that working from home is not advantageous,

(01:23:09):
you know. And so we I think we built this
amazing team and culture here at this office, and.

Speaker 9 (01:23:14):
We have a lot of fun and we do a
lot of work. So it's it's a.

Speaker 2 (01:23:20):
It's a cool thing though, when everyone's kind of working
on the same vision and mission. You know a lot
of these people even though you know they're co workers
and their friends. And we look forward to today's company
wide meeting with all fifty of us gathered around and
catching up and swapping stories and telling, you know, praise

(01:23:43):
reports of different work that's been done in different departments,
to doing company cookouts and playing Skins games together every
Thursday night. So yeah, it's not a bad gig.

Speaker 4 (01:23:55):
It's not a bad it's a lifestyle.

Speaker 3 (01:23:58):
Cobody else has got to be doing and all the
heavy lift and that's too much fun now, you know,
I think it's partant.

Speaker 4 (01:24:03):
You hit it though, right on the head.

Speaker 3 (01:24:05):
And I do the same thing, you know, for my
business and for me, like I enjoy doing these shows.
I've been doing this my thirteen season, doing this broadcast here,
and this is a new format for me. I've done
pretty much audio in the past, but you know, this
was something I enjoyed doing for a number of years
and I'll keep doing it. And I obviously taught for

(01:24:25):
thirty plus years, and then you know, I took on
the magazine a few years ago and so I like to,
you know, do that sort of thing, but you have
to enjoy what you're doing, and if you don't enjoy it,
then it is a job. And you know, so I
want to just go back real quickly to the lux too,
because there's actually two shoes. Correct, There's the player and

(01:24:45):
then what's the other one? Again, that's right, So there's
actually two. So what's the difference between the two? I mean,
I know you don't have them right here in front
of you, but what's essentially the difference? Why too different?
Two different shoes?

Speaker 2 (01:24:57):
Yeah, well, when we're kind of creating products, like we mentioned,
that have to have a purpose. And for us, you know,
our tour staff, even though they play in Spike issues
day and day out and they love them, we always
get the question, what would a true Spikes you feel like?

Speaker 9 (01:25:13):
Right?

Speaker 2 (01:25:14):
And so the innovation was really geared at that top
performer and top tier athlete that wants to try and
see if they can get a performance benefit or advantage
from a different technology. And so you know, for us,
we wanted to also create two different fits and feels
on a similar platform. And so the Maven you can

(01:25:36):
think of it as like really our flagship model, and
so we spared no expense on this thing, literally every
component of this after a dozen years in footmate, but
we're manufacturing myself. I can attest our best in class,
you know, materials and practices, from the full grain apple

(01:25:56):
leather to you a full leather welting system to pu
co molded mid soul. I mean, when you're talking about
these shoe nerd things, all I'm hearing is dollar science
because it's about as nice and expensive as you can
make a shoe. And the biggest key differentiator in that
shoe is a carbon fiber plate system in the in

(01:26:16):
the midsole. And so after years of toying around with
this idea and testing it, we were finding actually noticeable
gains in ground force reaction with our activated carbon fiber
plate midsole. And to our knowledge, no one's ever done
a full footbed activated a carbon fiber insert, and the

(01:26:38):
gains are pretty drastics actually in what people are seeing
from ground force reaction. The other thing that you know,
really made us believers in that technology and science is
decades of research in the Ultra marathon running space where
they introduced carbon fiber footbeds to some of the high
end performance running shoes and studied it over a decade

(01:26:58):
and the amount of tigue that it can relieve from
your feet through the walking or running stride is pretty drastic.
And you know, you're hiking seven miles up and down
a hill with a golf bag on your back.

Speaker 9 (01:27:10):
Any advantage you can get that you'll take it right.

Speaker 2 (01:27:13):
And so eliminating foot fatigue is a huge benefit of
that carbon fiber plate too. So it's a it's a
more substantial feeling shoe the Maven, but we also wanted
to give you something that felt a little bit more
like a true signature fit and feel, and that's what
you find in our Player, So foregoing the carbon fiber plate,
we've actually replaced it with what we call our true

(01:27:35):
comfort system, just adding a little bit more plush feeling
on your foot and a little bit more flexibility underfoot,
and then we used a true dur synthetic leather upper
that's crazy durable as well, but it gives it a
more minimalist, spottier look and we're able to offer that,
you know, basically for one hundred dollars less. And you
know where the tour player top caliber am sure is

(01:28:00):
that they want to try the Maven and go all out,
you can go for it, and then the guy that
wants to be able to you know, have a very
very similar experience, but for a fraction of the price,
you can go with the Player.

Speaker 3 (01:28:15):
So really, what if I hear you correctly, Really, what
you're saying is the Maven is more of a high
performance shoe. And not to say that the Player doesn't
offer a certain element performance, But if somebody really wants
to take their game and really have the benefits of
a higher performance shoe, they're going to get the Maven,
like the tour players and the high you know or
low handicap amateurs. And then for you know, those others

(01:28:37):
that still want a good performing shoe, they have an
option for a little bit less a price to get
a lot of the benefits and perks of the other
but at a little bit more reduced and maybe a
few tweaks here and there different. So I think that's
you know, again, that's great, And as I mentioned earlier,
I know that you have other, you know, products that
you guys have expanded out to, but it's really more

(01:28:57):
complementary to the line. It's not so much that you're
delving into a whole different market. You're just adding more
or less accessories or other aspects. So just tell us
a few of the other things that you guys carry
at True Links with.

Speaker 2 (01:29:09):
Yeah, no, I think that one of the products that
we just released and unfortunately it sold out. I shouldn't
be advertising this right now, but is our newest iteration
of our originals. We talked about those earlier on the call.
But you know, for us, this is staying true to
ourselves and continuing to go back to our bread and butter,
what we're best at and what nobody else has really

(01:29:30):
figured out how to replicate yet, and people have tried,
but you know, there's something really distinctive about our original class,
and so we just introduced our OG three Pro, which
is basically our most golf performance driven you know, original
today a little bit more aggressive tread pattern on the bottom,
a little bit extra cushioning for that long day on

(01:29:51):
your feet, and a crazy durable upper. It's actually made
from the same factory that produces like BMW car seats,
and so they last, They last.

Speaker 9 (01:30:02):
Quite a while and feel pretty great.

Speaker 3 (01:30:04):
Person where fantastic, So let me ask you, I want
to go back to the people here for a second,
because I had heard something that somebody had told me
about your group. And it's all positive, by the way,
so I'm not I'm not catching you off guard with anything.
I know. Obviously you and Ryan are brothers, but some
of the other team members as well, they're either related

(01:30:26):
or very close friends. So it's a very family business.
And again you don't have to get in all the
names or anything like that. But is it is there
more family involved in the business, like direct family, uh,
you know, siblings type of thing.

Speaker 4 (01:30:40):
Is it that type of business.

Speaker 3 (01:30:41):
Or is it just a group of us boys from
the northwest Pacific Northwest that decided we're going to get
together and and we're going to kick some butt in
the golf business. So tell us a little bit about
the folks behind the scenes.

Speaker 2 (01:30:54):
You know, it's everybody that I grew up playing junior
golf against. Basically, we actually have some sticks around the office.
You know, I'm a plus handicap myself, and I'm nowhere
near the best golfer in this office. But we all
love the game, and we do have a lot of
people with familial ties and some capacity, not necessarily blood ties.

(01:31:16):
But what feels like blood ties after a lifetime of
knowing each other and.

Speaker 9 (01:31:21):
Playing the game of golf together.

Speaker 2 (01:31:22):
I do work with my cousin brand and who runs
our marketing. It's just a brilliant savant when it comes
to e commerce. You know, one of my two of
my childhood best friends actually work, you know, side by side.
One runs our product development and just does a crazy
great job as our director of all of our product design,

(01:31:42):
and for us, it's critical that he has a lifetime
of experiencing golf as well and a top tier athlete himself.
And then you know, my right hand guy that helps
me operate this company, JD. We go way back, same
high school golf team, and you know, we've actually been
a part of several other investments and startups throughout the

(01:32:05):
years together. And he's somebody that I could always count on.
He was actually running you know, PXG's Northwest division when
I took over True and was running it. I was like, dude,
I want to get you over here eventually, and I
was able to finally recruit them over. But everybody you
know around here, we hire strangers. We post jobs on

(01:32:27):
LinkedIn right, We're hiring around the.

Speaker 9 (01:32:29):
Country with people we don't know.

Speaker 2 (01:32:31):
But you know, what's most important is that we're building
a great team that has a great rapport together. And
so the culture is so critical in growing a company.
As you know, there's enough headaches you don't want to
have personnel headaches as well well.

Speaker 3 (01:32:46):
And you know, and there's so many you know, potentially
pros and cons to that because you know, obviously you're very,
very forced and you've got a good group of people.

Speaker 4 (01:32:55):
Because it can have the opposite effect too.

Speaker 3 (01:32:57):
You can get some guys that you went to school
with and there's thinking, okay, I'm with Jason here, so
it's not a big deal. We're all buds, and you
know they're a little lazy or something, so you know,
you just push them off the mountain or whatever. But
but no, you know it, it can be very challenging
to do that. So I give you guys a lot
of credit to be able to do that. So obviously
you guys are tight enough and close enough and trust

(01:33:18):
one another enough to say, okay, yeah, we you know,
we want to have fun, we want to make this
a great environment to work with, but hey, we got
to do some work too, So you know, it can't
be all having a good time and partying all the
time and cooking out and all these things. We got
to work like the rest of the world too, but
we're going to do it a little bit differently because
we're gonna have some fun along the way. So and
that's not an easy thing to balance. So kudos to

(01:33:39):
you and and to all of JD and all of
the others. Brandon and that I knew I'd heard that
there was some family in there. I mean, I knew
about Ryan obviously, but I knew there was some family
and a few close friends. But it sounds like you've
got quite a few. Uh, and it's and it's good. Now,
does everybody check every like when when you're getting somebody
new coming in and they're not from the the old mold, say,

(01:34:00):
does everybody kind of say get a not necessarily a
voice in it, but kind of say, okay, let's really
make sure we do a deep dive on I don't
I don't remember them from school or I don't remember
you guys.

Speaker 4 (01:34:10):
Put them through the ringer.

Speaker 3 (01:34:11):
Is that.

Speaker 2 (01:34:14):
Today are marked last fifty of you or something? We
do make them give speeches at our all team meeting,
you know, is a part of their hazing process. But no, no, no,
it's we don't think of ourselves as a family company
per se. We like to think of ourselves as a
competitive team. We want the best players, and it just
so happens that I happen to know some of the

(01:34:36):
best players out there, and I recruit them over to
the team, and we've built a really cool, you know,
working environment together.

Speaker 3 (01:34:45):
Where do you see how do you envision things? I mean, again,
you've just done a recent launch, and maybe you have
some other things, and you don't obviously have to share
them at this point, but I can certainly have you
back on when that time comes, when appropriate. But where
do you see as you move through twenty twenty five
and the future? Where do you see yourself in a

(01:35:07):
few years down the road? And I don't necessarily mean
by volume or size and things like that. Where would
you like to see I guess is a better way
to put that. Where do you see yourself progressing this
year and then maybe two three years down the road?
Where do you see changes happening within your organization that
are going to be crucial, that need to happen that
you've forecasted. Can you share some of that with us,

(01:35:28):
it's not giving.

Speaker 2 (01:35:28):
You absolutely well, you know, we see ourselves as a
brand that's here to stay first and foremost. You know,
we're not a flash in the pan brand. We're not
just a style or fashion trend. We think we're bringing
real IP and innovation to a space that needs it.
And we hope that we are the household golf shoe
brand name at the end of the day. And you

(01:35:50):
know that takes a consistency and a dedication and a
focus at mastering our craft, continuing to innovate but also
perfect what we do year after year.

Speaker 9 (01:36:02):
And you know, for.

Speaker 2 (01:36:03):
Us, we've done a great job at serving our e
commerce client to date as a digitally native company, but
we also want to meet customers where they want to shop.
We still know eighty percent of golf shoes or bought
off physical retail shelves. I grew up in a small
family golf business, and I want to be able to
see and work with, you know, small family golf shops

(01:36:25):
and country clubs around the country being able to stock
our shoes and service their member guests and provide a
great in person experience. And we're continuing to grow and
push that. In fact that side of our business is
growing at one hundred percent year over year the last
several years, and we don't see that ending anytime soon
because it's still such a fresh market for.

Speaker 9 (01:36:45):
Us, you know.

Speaker 2 (01:36:46):
Outside of that, you know, we really want to be
a global brand, and we've already made strides to reach
new markets. Factory of a great established cult market in Australia.
In fact, it's so great that we acquire aired our distributors,
brought them in house, and Mark and Sam, we run
that territory for us, are now part of the team.

Speaker 9 (01:37:06):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (01:37:07):
They're helping us grow into new international territories. So there's
markets like Korea that are just mad about golf, and
we love what they do with golf fashion and golf
apparel and golf equipment, and so we want to jump
into that market and serve it well. And so for us,
we know that there's obviously a market right out our
back door locally and then nationally, but globally, it's important

(01:37:31):
that we pay attention to the trends of what's happening
around the world.

Speaker 3 (01:37:36):
What has been I mean, I can pretty much guess
the answer to this, but I want to hear it
from you. What has been some of the feedback. And
not from the tour level, because I mean tour level.
I mean that's important because these guys wear this stuff
all the time and they're able to really give you
the truth of what they like and don't like and
that sort of thing. But your general customers, what's been

(01:37:57):
some of the feedback and have they said to you,
you know, we would really like to see this, this
or that and do you see yourselves? Okay, we want
to move again. Going back to what I said earlier,
you got to be careful because you don't want to
go down too many pathways, so you have to sort
of stay true to yourself. But where what's been some
of the feedback that you guys have gotten so far

(01:38:17):
from from your customer base and even from those that
are that you're expanding to other markets? What's that you
mentioned the Asian market? What's been some of the exposure
there so far and what's been some of the feedback.

Speaker 2 (01:38:28):
Yeah, especially as you cater to international markets, you have
to pay real close attention to what's happening in that
space and get to know the culture well and serve
it well.

Speaker 9 (01:38:37):
And so there's no.

Speaker 2 (01:38:38):
Boilerplate, you know, true idea that you just copy and
paste around the world now, and so we definitely have
to be sensitive too and listen and bring wisdom in
each territory to succeed in it. But for us, definitely,
customer feedback is a huge part of the process. I'd
be lying if I said I didn't read every review.

Speaker 9 (01:38:57):
I care.

Speaker 2 (01:38:58):
I actually care, all right, responsors do them, and I
think it's important that you stay a breast to your
customer's opinion feedback, and it definitely motivates and guides some
of our decision making on how to improve products, specifically
if there's a problem or an issue, how to make
the next generation even better, how to create colorways that

(01:39:19):
the audience thinks are missing. But you know, I always
think you got to open, you know, walk through doors
when they're open. And you know, an example of that
is we released great custom head where you know in
twenty twenty, and you know, our dead Golfer icon became
pretty popular and we're selling thousands and thousands of those
dead Golfer hats, and the shop at Bandoned Dunes was like, hey,

(01:39:43):
these hats are really cool. Could you make one with
like abandon logo? And like, sure, you know, and we
didn't know what we were doing, and we made them
samples and before you knew it, we were one of
the best selling hat companies that Bandon does. And so
even though wasn't like an internal motivation to become the

(01:40:03):
stress headwear company, now we have a very sizable headwear
business amongst hundreds of accounts across the country, including our
own website.

Speaker 3 (01:40:13):
Yeah, and that's the beauty of it is. You know,
you have the flexibility when you have your own business
to be able. And you know, I've again learned with
my own now that the online markets and the internet,
I mean has just opened up a plethora of possibilities now,
I mean not just you know, years ago, if you
wanted to get into an international market, you know, it

(01:40:35):
was a much different process.

Speaker 4 (01:40:37):
I mean now with.

Speaker 3 (01:40:38):
With you know, the benefits of zoom calls and things
like that, you can communicate all over the world and
even shipping and getting product over there is even easier
now than what it was, you know, twenty thirty years ago,
even ten years ago. So the ability to get into
so many markets. One final thing I want to ask you,

(01:40:58):
and then I'll let you close out any final comments
or thoughts you want to make is how I mean,
you're obviously I know you're available for the men's market
and obviously the latest market. What's been some of the
feedback from the women on tour and some of your
female customers because they're the toughest critics. Let me tell you, guys,
I mean, we can float whatever you want and we're

(01:41:19):
happy to do that. We're pretty easy going, but when
it comes to the ladies, you've got to be really
on your ball for that.

Speaker 4 (01:41:24):
What's been some of the feedback there?

Speaker 2 (01:41:26):
Yeah, I'm glad you asked. But our LPGA tour staff
is you know, actually been incredibly easy to work with,
to be honest, and maybe we just got some of
the right characters with Madeline Seikstrom and Sophia has been amazing,
or Christina cam but you know, really getting their feedback

(01:41:47):
on fit, feel and function to make sure that we're
doing it right, you know, has been critical. But you know,
from from a difficulty to work with standpoint, I would
say they're probably much less demanding than my PGA to
our audience. You know, our PGA juror player is going

(01:42:07):
to be a little bit more finicky, but you know,
We've definitely gained momentum and popularity amongst you know, our
women's shopping demographics, and it's something we want to push
more innovation into. In fact, a few of our new
designers are women with really great perspectives, and we think
we can bring some meaningful design perspective to the women's

(01:42:29):
footwear space as well.

Speaker 4 (01:42:31):
What do you want as we get ready to wrap up?
What are your.

Speaker 3 (01:42:35):
Final thoughts or comments that you want people that are
going to be listening to the show. What do you
want them to know about True Linksware? What is it
you really want? What's the message you want to get
out there?

Speaker 6 (01:42:45):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (01:42:46):
I mean, if you're a golfer that loves this game
as much as we do, we hope that you know
we can join you in your journey to try to
enjoy the walk. And for us, I think it's important
to know that if you're working, you know, with us,
or if you're buying a pair of shoes from our website,
you're working with a great group of humans that has

(01:43:08):
all the best intentions and we'll take care of you,
you know. And I don't think that you find that
behind a lot of these big, faceless corporations and Megabrands.
We really have a vision and a passion to keep
growing and perfecting and improving our craft. But what we're
putting out there today, we're really proud of and we're
excited for you to experience that.

Speaker 9 (01:43:29):
If you've never worn.

Speaker 2 (01:43:29):
A pair of our shoes, it's hard to describe how
different they are. And different, I mean in a good way.
You'll feel like you just free to your feet. You know,
something lightweight that moves naturally with your body, that actually
conforms to the undulation of the course. It's a whole
different experience. And once you kind of give one pair
of trial, just warn everybody you might get hooked and

(01:43:52):
you might be like the rest of our customers who
on five to ten or twenty pairs. But you know,
for us, you know, we're just a small company trying
to do the right thing and grow this game.

Speaker 4 (01:44:03):
Yeah, and you guys, did I mean, I've visited your boose.

Speaker 3 (01:44:07):
I know you've been attending the PGA show for a
few years now, and I mean, you guys just it's
like it's like throwing bread crumbs out.

Speaker 4 (01:44:15):
The seagulls just come by.

Speaker 3 (01:44:16):
And I mean that in a common in a positive
way is that everybody flocks to your booth because you
guys have just got so many great things there, and
it really is a lifestyle brand.

Speaker 4 (01:44:25):
It's really not just that.

Speaker 3 (01:44:27):
It works for the purpose that you've put the brand
out there, but it really allows people to be comfortable,
enjoy what they're wearing, be multi functional so that they're
not just having to be out in the golf course
with it, as you said, you know, sort of just
you know, golf attire all the time. They can use
it for other aspects of their life and it works

(01:44:48):
and fits just well. I've done it myself, so I
know exactly what I'm I'm talking about that it's just
a great brand, a great product, and it sounds like
you've got a fantastic team there. So I want to
get you just to hang on for one second as
I get ready to wrap up and we close up.
I want to thank everybody for tuning in tonight to
this broadcast, and a special thanks to my earlier guest
John Hughes and Pepe you Canon for joining me on

(01:45:09):
the Coaches Corner panel. Thanks guys for always bringing your
best and my good friend Bob Foreman, golf fitness Professional,
for joining me and giving you guys some drills and
tips to get golf ready this season. And also my
featured guest of the night, Jason Moore, CEO and co
founder of True Linksware, Thank you much continued success. Go

(01:45:30):
to their website truelinksware dot com. Is that correct, that's correct?
Check out you'll see the launch of their new lux
to check those out two versions, the Maven and the
Player and all of the other great stuff that's available. Well,
go out and I guarantee you won't be disappointed if
you make a purchase. So get out there and do that,
and I hope you come back and join me, and
I appreciate it for coming on and much continued success,

(01:45:53):
and I look forward to working with you guys as
we move forward to in this twenty twenty five season.

Speaker 2 (01:45:59):
Well, thanks for having me ed and wish you success
as well.

Speaker 9 (01:46:02):
Keep us up.

Speaker 3 (01:46:03):
I appreciate it, Thank you, thanks for joining us.

Speaker 1 (01:46:11):
We hope you enjoyed this week's broadcast of Golf Talk Live.
We'd like to thank this week's Coach's Corner panel and
a special thank you to tonight's guest. Remember to join
TED every Thursday from six to eight pm. Central on
Golf Talk Live, and be sure to follow Ted on Facebook, Twitter.

Speaker 3 (01:46:28):
And Instagram.

Speaker 1 (01:46:30):
If you're interested in being a guest on Golf Talk Live,
send Ted an email at Ted dot golf Talklive.

Speaker 3 (01:46:36):
At gmail dot com.

Speaker 1 (01:46:38):
This has been a production of the Igolf Sports Network.

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Golf Talk Live - Season 13 Episode 9 | May 8th, 2025

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Golf Talk Live - Season 13 Episode 9 | May 8th, 2025