Golf Talk Live - Season13 Episode 14 | June 19th, 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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(00:32):
the game's most in depth instruction magazine, including reviews on
the latest equipment, tips from top teaching professionals, all designed
to help you improve from tee to green. Welcome to
Golf Talk Live with your host, Ted Oto Rico. Join
Ted each week as he speaks with some of the
best in golf. This week's special guest will join us

(00:52):
a bit later. But first up is another great discussion
on Coach's Corner, So let's introduce tonight's coaches Corner Panel.

Speaker 2 (01:04):
Good evening, everybody, and welcome to season thirteen a Golf
Talk Live. I'm your host, Ed Roto Rico. We've got
a great show for you this evening. You'll be starting
things off once again with a great discussion on the
Coach's Corner Panel, and I'm joined by one of my
favorite panelists, Pete Buchanan, I'll tell you a little bit
about him in just a moment. And then once again,
golf fitness expert Bob Foreman is going to be joining
me a little bit later on to talk about some

(01:26):
more great tips to get you in shape this year
so you can do your best when you're out in
the golf course and feel your best of course throughout
the season. And then finally, at the end of the
latter part of the show, excuse me, not the end,
I'm going to speaking with two featured guests tonight, John Leahy,
he is the World Golf Western Golf Association Director, and

(01:46):
Kevin Flowers, the newly awarded Evans Scholar, talk about that as.

Speaker 3 (01:52):
Well a little bit.

Speaker 2 (01:53):
They're going to be joining me on the latter half
of the show, so hope you stick around for that,
but don't forget to tune in every Thursday from six
to eight pm cent right here on the Riverside dot
FM network. Best way to tune into the broadcast, or
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(02:14):
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Speaker 3 (02:33):
So, but glad you could join us tonight.

Speaker 2 (02:35):
I'm going to introduce Pete and then we're going to
get into tonight's Coaches Corner panel discussion. So Pete, as
I mentioned, is a become a good friend of mine
here and a favorite on the panel. He's been teaching
this great game of golf now for over thirty years.
He's the founder director of instruction for Plain Simple Golf
and Plaine Simple Golf houses the Plane Simple Golf Circuit
and the Simple Swing Repeater Training Brace, and Pete's been

(02:58):
helping golfers around the globe focus on building a repeatable swing.
So Pete, welcome to the show.

Speaker 4 (03:04):
Hey, Ted, it's great to be here, looking forward.

Speaker 2 (03:06):
To it all right, Always glad to have you on.
As I said, you've fast become one of my favorites
here in the show. You've always got some great insight
and always look forward to to having you as one
of the coaches corner guests here. So we're going to
talk about tonight some tips on how to improve on

(03:26):
course golf strategy. So we're going to talk about en
course strategy. Got a number of points that we're going
to cover here, and then I've got some bonus tips
as well for the listeners out there if we have time.
So the first one I know this is going to
be right up your wheelhouse, and I think really these
are all factors that I think, if ingrained correctly, can

(03:51):
help with your your strategy on course. So one of them,
of course, is to learn to become a master, if
you will, at the short game. And that's a variety
of diferent areas of the short game. You know, obviously
putting chipping, short pitch shots and things like that. You
really want to be able to dial in on those.
Talk a little bit about that, because again we see
so many golfers Pete that go out you know to

(04:13):
the driving range. The first club they're pulling out is
their driver, and you know they only hit a few
drives on any given round, but yet they seem to
spend most of their time, you know, trying to hit
the big shots with their driver instead of focusing on
the area. So talk about why it's important for particularly
becoming a better player, why you need to really dial

(04:35):
in on your short game.

Speaker 4 (04:37):
Well, I think if you look at the overall scoring,
you're going to find probably seventy to seventy five percent
of your shots are going to be inside of about
fifty yards right So right away, if you're looking at
scoring itself, I would be spending some time inside of
fifty yards. That's where you can save the most strokes,

(04:57):
that's where you can gain the most confidence, and that's
where you can also take the pressure off your long game,
because if your short game is really good, then your
long game you know you can pretty much, you know,
have a little bit more freedom with it because you
know you can make it up in the short shots.
But you're absolutely right. I mean, you know the number
of times I look down the driving range and I'll

(05:18):
see people hitting it. I'll see twenty five or thirty
people along the tee line, and twenty eight of them
have drivers in their hands. And our short game is
the least used facility in the area. And we've got
one of the best short game areas around anywhere, great
t two bunkers, three greens at fifteen thousand square foot
putting green. And you know, it's just amazing how many

(05:41):
times they just don't utilize what's going on, especially just
you know, take yourself ten yards off the green. I mean,
how many shots can you save if you just get
to where from inside of ten yards you've got great
control over what's going on. And you can use the
same technique ten yards off the green of putting that
you do and chipping, you can use the same stroke.
All you have to do is understand what a lofty

(06:02):
club will do with that same stroke with a slightly
different setup. But yeah, those shots are if you want
to be a good player. I've never seen anybody shoot
a low round that didn't putt and chip and pitch
well never, yeah, or or the case just simply put well,
you know, the tour players spend a tremendous amount of
time on pitching, and when they play their best, they

(06:23):
don't have any, which is amazing because when they play
their best, they hit sixteen, seventeen, eighteen greens, and you
know the shot they might have one chip or two chips,
or they might have put off the fringe. But you know,
they spend a tremendous amount of time because not only
does it enhance their scoring abilities, but those shots in
their slowed down version create greater feel for motion, which

(06:47):
fuels back into their full swing. So I think it's
the spending more time with the short game is not
only going to produce greater scoring opportunities, but it's also
going to create more feel for controlling the golf ball.

Speaker 2 (07:01):
Yeah, and you raise some you know, some excellent points.
I think, really what what I find the same as
you do. You know, I look down the the T
box and on the range and I just see driver
after driver, and I get it. It's nice to hit
some drives, but when you're spending you know, if you're
spending thirty minutes on the practice tee and you're spending

(07:24):
the majority of that time, you know, hitting your your
driver and you're not spending I'm the same as you.
You know, the practice area that's close near me, you know,
he's got a couple of greens, actually several greens, you know, bunkers,
that sort of thing, and I hardly ever see anybody there.
You know, I might see one guy and he's got

(07:45):
pretty much, you know, one of the whole greens to
himself another you know, I never see anybody hitting bunker shots. Yeah,
it's been you know, the bunkers have been there for
you know, Lord does now. Yeah, you know how long?
I never see anybody in there hitting bunker shots, you know.
So and again even putting, you know, I see people
go out and hit a few pots and then they're
walking off and they're out ready to play. And I know,

(08:05):
you know, you can't get into a full practice session,
you know, right before you're getting ready to play, because
you don't want to start tinkering around too much. But
at the same time, you know, if you've got some time,
get up there and work on that short game, because again,
you know, over fifty percent of all golfers and I'm
talking amateur golfers.

Speaker 3 (08:20):
Struggle to break a hundred absolutely, So you.

Speaker 2 (08:24):
Know, if half of the golfing population can't break a hundred,
there's a reason to it. And it's not because they
can't hit their driver. It's because they can't recover from
where the driver went right, you know a lot of times,
and you know that's that's important. So you know, become
a master of the short game I think is better.
And again, nobody's going to be perfect, but I think
the more you practice and get out there and work

(08:45):
on some of those short little shots and you can
do things to make it fun. We've talked about that.
Another one I want to talk about too is strategic
shot planning. This is one where you know, it takes
a little bit of thought. You know, you get out there,
your face with different conditions, and you can do this
the range as well, where you you sort of visualize
the shot that you need to play. So you've hit

(09:06):
your t shot, Now you've got another shot. What shot
are you going to play now? And sometimes you need
to even do that back it up a little bit
before even get to the hole. You need to sort
of think to yourself, Okay, here's whole number three. It's
a dog leg, you know, right, it's a par four.
You know there's bunkers here that how do you map out?
Let's put together a game plan for each hole, especially
if it's your your home course. You should already have

(09:28):
this in your mind. But I think that's another area too.
If you want to become a better en course strategist,
you need to start planning your shots a little bit
better for your round.

Speaker 3 (09:37):
What do you think?

Speaker 5 (09:37):
Oh?

Speaker 4 (09:38):
Absolutely, And it's funny you came up with this because
just that's probably about a week and a half ago,
one of my clients was playing in a tournament at
his home club, and I went ahead and took the
Google maps of each hole. I think we've lost your
peace that he was playing. Not sure, but looks like
we decided to go through it. Try to fire for

(10:00):
little game. You know, how are we going to play
each one of these holes? And I looked at it
in two phases. One how would I do it? And
then two how would how would we go about, you know,
strategizing for him, how he would go about and play
these holes? And so I drew out each hole and
I looked at it from a tea box from the

(10:20):
tees he was playing, understood how far he would hit
it off the tee. And then you know, especially that
very first hole, the very first hole from his tea box,
he could drive it down forty yards from the green,
and it's one of the hardest greens to put on
the course. And you got a forty yard pitch shot
and you haven't even done anything yet. And I told him,
I said, you need to hit a long iron off
the tee. Hit one hundred and ten or one hundred
and twenty yard shot into the green that you can

(10:42):
control better. That way, you have a better chance of
putting this ball in a place on the green where
you're not going to three put off off the start.
And then so many of the holes, and I would
probably say as you're looking at you know, each one
of the holes you're playing, and some greens that are unulated.
You know, Sam Sneed had a great line a long
long time ago. He said, they can't hide the pin

(11:02):
from you if you hit it in the center of
the green. And so it's you know, it's a lot
of time, you know, look at the middle, where's the
middle of the green and hit the ball to the
middle of the green. Also, depending on what club you're using,
if you're using seven, six, five iron, you should always
be going for the center of the green. If you're
using eight to nine wedge sand wedge, now you can
maybe hunt a pin depending on where that pin is,

(11:26):
where the trouble is, and you know, so on and
so forth relative to what you're doing. But I would
challenge anybody to start off, just go out the next
time you play and hit it in the center of
every green and see how much better you play right
in the middle.

Speaker 2 (11:41):
Yeah, that's a great that's an excellent point as well.
We we missed you a little bit on the first
front side of the discussion. Oh sorry, I have that question.
It froze up a little bit. So hopefully we'll see
if it if it comes through in the finished product.
But we got the best part of it, let's put
it that way, so not a problem. So the next

(12:02):
question I want to address, or the next point I
want to dress rather is and there is an appropriate
time to do this, obviously in a playing lesson or
with your swing coach, and that is okay to experiment
with your swing a little bit. And what I mean
by that is, if you've really been struggling making good
solid ball of contact, there is an appropriate time to

(12:23):
get together with your coach and say, you know, I'm
really struggling making good content. Let's take a look at
my swing as there's some things maybe do we need
to shorten it up a little bit? Am I getting
too long in the back swing?

Speaker 3 (12:32):
You know?

Speaker 2 (12:33):
So there is a time where we might want to
be able to experiment, make some adjustments, and then work
on that. And I don't mean that just before you're
about ready to play, but I'm talking at some point
in the process, because I think once you tighten that
up a little bit, then you can play with a
little bit more confidence when you get out on the
golf course, and you can be a little bit more
strategic in how you play, how you you know, strategically

(12:53):
play your shots and so forth. But if you're still
struggling with your golf swing because you haven't quite gotten
it tightened up the way you need it to be,
then you can run into the problem. So what do
you think about that? And you know, how do you
address that? Because again, you don't want somebody out there
monking around with things when they're out there playing, but
there might be an appropriate time when you're going to
get together with them and say, let's let's tighten this

(13:13):
up a little bit.

Speaker 4 (13:15):
Well, the one thing I do with all the players
that I have is I teach them a go to shot,
So you're going to have a ballflight that you can
go to that you're confident with that if when everything
else breaks down, this is what you go to. And
whether it's something that's a little shorter, something that's a
little bit more of a curve, some type of shot

(13:35):
pattern that they are confided in that they can pull off,
which would be a slight bit of a change from
what their normal routine is when they're playing. But you know,
when you're not playing well, you need to get out
of the norm as you know there's something going wrong there,
so we need to we need to make a change.
But I always give them a go to shot, and
I know I have one. Mine's a little bit of

(13:56):
a pull fade. It's something that I know I can
pull off all the time when things aren't right. Doesn't
go as far as the other shots that I hit.
That's okay, I just take more more club. But giving
them something that they're really confident in that they know
they can do as a backup for when they're playing
and things aren't going as well as they'd like to.
But they also have to put that into their practice too.

(14:16):
They have to practice that all the time, so they
have that backup for themselves when they're out there. And
you know, the best time to experiment too is you know,
if you're going to get confident and being able to
change something and make it happen, there's no better place
to do it than while you're playing. You know, get
out there and get a little pressure on yourself and
see if you can pull it off. And if you can't,
that just means you haven't practiced it enough. So you've

(14:38):
got to go back to the range and practice a
little bit more and just get into the habit of
you know, understanding, you know what your norms are, and
then if those are a little bit falling off, you
need to have something you can go to that will
enable you to play. I know there's some higher handicappers
out there and they'll say, you know, my normal is
not even to go to, so I don't I don't

(14:59):
know what you're talking about. No, but you have to
get to that point if you really want to score better,
you're going to have to figure out, you know, here's
a little shot I can hit. It might be my
nine iron gos one hundred yards, this one only goes seventy.
But I know I can do it all the time.
So I'm gonna make this swing and I'm gonna take
a little bit more club and see if i can't
get myself back into some rhythm, back into some more confidences.

(15:21):
I'm moving around the golf course.

Speaker 2 (15:23):
You know, it's a really interesting point because you know,
I remember years ago on the Golf Channel, I've talked
about this. In fact, I had him as a guest
some years back. But Wally Armstrong, who used to be
on the Golf Channel, he talked about Actually he did
a session on the Golf Channel one evening and he
actually had a seven iron, a pitching wedge, and a putter,
and he paid played three holes, a part three, four

(15:46):
and a five and actually, ultimately, i'll keep it short,
but he ended up scoring one under. And the point
that he was trying to prove is that he hit
the seven iron off of every tee and sometimes he
had to hit it two or three times, like on
the Power I had to hit it three times to
get it on there. And then but on that par
five he ended up putting for a birdie because he
got his seven iron close enough on the third shot,

(16:08):
and on the par four he got there in two
with a seven iron.

Speaker 3 (16:11):
It was not obviously the holes were a little bit
short in what they.

Speaker 2 (16:14):
Are today, but the point that he was saying was
that you know, if you're somebody that's struggling with your
t shots, why pull the driver out and hit it.
You know two hundred and fifty yards and fifty yards
of it being to the right, so you know, now
you're out of bounds or you're in some of it.
So he said, you know, if you got to pull
your seven, you know, eight iron out or six iron,
if you're comfortable hitting you know those irons, hit those

(16:35):
off the tee and then work on the other an
appropriate time. But get yourself into play because you know
I mean And again he hit some great shots with
those irons and ended up playing three holes and ended
up ultimately with one under par over the three holes.
So again he showed very easily you could make par
or better on it on any golf course pretty much

(16:56):
regardless of the length, if you were just willing to
be smart about it and use a little strategy. And
that's really what we're talking about here. So yes, right
and one two points I want to bring up real quick,
and you're welcome to comment. Uh, And then we're gonna
move on to some of the bonus ones. But number
one is, you know, you want to develop a repeatable
preshot routine. We've talked about this, I know to death

(17:18):
on here, but there's a reason for it. And then
the other one, which touches on what you were just
talking about, and that is practice with purpose. If you're
going to go out in practice, do it with purpose.
Don't just go up, bang and you know, rake and
hit balls. Get out there and put a game plan
together and say, I'm going to put a practice session together,
whether it's with your coach or you know or not,
but get out there and practice with purpose. So do
you want to comment on either one of those or both.

(17:40):
You're welcome to.

Speaker 4 (17:41):
Oh, there's no question. Pre shot routine is what settles
you into what you're doing. That's your comfort zone. And
so to ease yourself into playing, you got to have
something that's repeatable and common to you. And you know,
practicing with purpose is great because I just did a
video today talking about you know, when you practice, you
should think like a machine does. A machine you know,

(18:02):
is has a process to form a function for a result.
And so the machine can never change the process. It
does it over and over and over and over again.
As a golfer, you have to keep the process going
to get that function, to get the result. The problem
is you see a ball flight you don't like and
you change the process. Well, now all of a sudden
you're getting so far away from where you were that

(18:22):
no wonder, you can't do it. So when you're going
to practice, you've got to have a process in place,
stick with that process and do it the whole time.
Don't alter the process because that inevitably is going to
take you further away from where you're trying to get. So, yeah, great,
great points there.

Speaker 2 (18:38):
Yeah, and I think it just you know, I know
we talk about this a lot on the show, but
it's because I really want for people for it really
to be hammered home, for people to understand, you know,
these those two points. Is you know, if you don't
have a consistent preshot routine, it could be whatever it
is that works for you, but you have to work

(18:59):
on that. Because if you look at the professionals, and
I get it, not everybody's going to become a professional,
but if you look at it, they go through that routine,
the exact same routine for every single shot, and if
something throws them off, then they start and repeat it
over again. They don't just pick up from where they
left off. And there's a reason they do that because
it gets them settled, as you suggest, and it gets

(19:20):
them organized and gets their thoughts together for Okay, here's
the shot I've got, here's how I've got to get
my mindset ready, and here's what I need to do
to get prepared. And they go through that preshot routine
and it doesn't take very long. It might be thirty seconds,
might be twenty seconds, might be forty five seconds, whatever,
but it's something that they do and they repeat it
for every single shot exactly the same. So you have

(19:40):
to practice that, and that's when you get up on
the practice tea and you work on those things. Practicing
with a purpose. Again, we've talked about that as well
many times, and again there's no point just going up
to the range and hitting a bucket of balls and
not really putting any thought behind it, because you're just
going to find yourself, you know, making the same old mistakes.
You're not pairing yourself, and it really it's not about

(20:03):
becoming necessarily just a better ball striker. It's about becoming
a better player. But you first have to be able
to hit the ball well. And again it doesn't it
be perfect, but you have to be able to make
consistent contact with the golf ball. So that takes some practice.
But you've got to do that methodically and not just
you know, sort of rake and hit ball. So we're
gonna get into some of the bonus ones here. I've
got fore Pete as well. This is one again I

(20:26):
think that a lot of people don't have. And if
you want to be an improve and increase your encorese strategy,
you've got to do this, and not as you have
to know your numbers. You have to know how far
you're hitting each of your clubs, and I want you
to touch I'm not going to give it away, but
there's a specific understanding of the distance that you're hitting them.

(20:47):
There's two different categories, if you will, and I'm going
to get you to talk about both of those. You
know what I'm talking about, and that is your carry
and your ultimate you know, with role and so forth.
What's in important? Why is it important and how important
is it to know your numbers?

Speaker 4 (21:05):
Well, without the numbers, I mean, what club are you
going to pick?

Speaker 5 (21:08):
You know?

Speaker 4 (21:09):
So, I mean especially when I used to go out
and I'd say, how far does your seven iron go?
Anywhere between one hundred and one hundred and sixty yards
and I'm like, well, when do you know when to
hit it?

Speaker 5 (21:18):
How do you?

Speaker 4 (21:18):
I mean, what are you you hitting at forty yards
over the green or twenty yards short? So you have
to get some consistency of what your numbers are doing,
not only in the direction they go, but how they fall,
how they fly. So you need to understand the overall
carry number. Obviously the roll out with the irons is
going to be as far as the rollout with the
fairway woods and the driver and some of the hybrids,

(21:40):
but you need to understand how far they're going to
carry because that's going to set you up for the
type of shots you're going to play. And I would
always say this, especially to anybody who's and it could
be even better players, anybody who's a ten handicap or higher.
I would always take one more club into the green
than what you think, because inevitably the tour players are
sick to eight yards short of what their yardage is

(22:03):
on average when they play. Ye, so if they're six
to eight yard shorts, the amateurs are eight to twenty
yard short, right, So that's one to three clubs more
so you should at least take one more club so
that you can understand that, hey, what's my maximum here
and understanding you know a little bit about you know,
what you can do. There may be a range in

(22:24):
your area that has a top tracer or has you
know some kind of you know, maybe one of the simulators,
has you know the ball flight to numbers. You can
get in there and start to get an idea of
how far they go. But it's important to understand that
because you've got to be able to to know what
clubs to hit. That's going to help a little bit
in the confidence of what clubs are hitting. But you

(22:44):
need to know the carry, so then you need to
know where to put it relative to where the green is,
the hole is, what's going on. So yeah, there's that's
definitely something that you have to work on, and obviously
you have to get better at ball striking to get
more consistent with what they do. But that's just a
piece of the of the process of understanding how far
they go. But I think, to me, more than anything else,

(23:06):
I think the carry numbers are more important because you're
going to have more carry numbers with the iron shots
that you're hitting into the green. For most of us
amateurs players or most of the amateur players, it's going
to be seven iron on down, So you need to
understand what those carry numbers are. And the rollout a
little bit, Yeah, that's fine. I mean the driver's going
to roll three, what's going to roll a little bit.
But I think Carrie to me, is more important of

(23:29):
those stats of understanding how far your ball is going
to go.

Speaker 2 (23:33):
Yeah, And that's that's well said because you know, again
a lot of people when they look at this and
they're looking at the numbers to to you know, to
carry the green, let's say, and you know to the
front of the green, it's one hundred and thirty five
yards from where they're at and they've got a bunker
to go over. But the pins may be you know,
cut at one fifty five, and so they're thinking, okay,

(23:55):
I'm going to hit that, you know, my seven arm
because I hit it one fifty five. But you know
that's maybe once in a blue moon, maybe they're actually
only hitting it, you know, one forty or something. So
that might be the right club in that particular case,
but other scenarios where they might have, you know, a
little bit longer carry and they're thinking, you know, because

(24:16):
their carry distance is one fifty five, but maybe it's
one sixty to the front of the green and they think, Okay,
I'm going to try to get it on there and
let it roll, and you might be lucky and it
might happen. But again, if you're guessing all the time,
and maybe that back lip of that bunker is one
forty or one forty five, and now you're playing with
fire a little bit because if you don't quite carry it,

(24:36):
now you're back in the bunker and pot quite possibly
plugged into you know, into the lips. So you know,
you have to be careful of that. So knowing your
numbers is good great points. If they've got top tracer
or a simulator or something like that, they can get
in there, and you need to again, don't just because
you hit one great shot saying Okay, that's how far
I hit my seven R and that's how far I
hit my eight. You've got to take an average of

(24:57):
all of your shots, and you've got to look at
it a percentage wise too, because if percentage wise, if
you're hitting less than thirty percent, let's say again we'll
use simple numbers, one hundred and fifty is your seven
iron and less than thirty percent of the shots or
hitting at one hundred and fifty yards and the rest
of them are going at one thirty five or one,

(25:17):
you know, one forty or whatever. That thirty percent is
not how far you're hitting it. So you need to
take a positive average of all of that and you
have to look at that, and a lot of people
don't do that, so very very important to do it.
And I think when you know your numbers then it
gives you a little bit more confidence when you're making
the right club selection.

Speaker 3 (25:36):
As you suggest.

Speaker 2 (25:38):
This is one here too again really dials in for
our high handicap golfers. But and that is don't be
a hero. And what I mean by that is, again,
don't think you have to go for the green or
even or the pin, or even the green. Sometimes you
know there's so much trouble there and you're maybe there's

(25:58):
water around the green, might have to lay up or something.
So again, give us your thoughts here. You know, we
see a lot of heroes out there, but unfortunately we
see a lot of bad scores at the end of
the day. So what are your thoughts here?

Speaker 3 (26:11):
What do we do?

Speaker 2 (26:12):
You know, if we're trying to be encourage them to
be well, but at the same time not to go overboard.

Speaker 4 (26:18):
Well, I think the first question you have to ask
yourself is in practice on the range, if you can
pull this off six or seven times out of ten,
then I would say you could probably maybe try it
on the golf course. But if that percentage isn't there
in practice, then I wouldn't do it on the course.
And so with the trouble that's there, you're gonna have
to play away from it, you know, put the ball

(26:38):
in a different place, lay it up like you said,
you know, shoot away from where the trouble is, and
that's only one stroke and it can save you three
or four. So yeah, there's there's definitely ways to play.
I would say more defensive golf than offensive golf. Most
of the higher handicappers are trying to play offensive golf
and it's just they just can't get it. So yeah,

(27:01):
I would definitely look at each situation ask yourself first
of all, can you do it? And now that I
saw it on TV? Can I do this?

Speaker 3 (27:09):
Yeah?

Speaker 4 (27:09):
And in practice have I ever done it before? And
if you haven't ever done it before, that's a pretty
good sign you probably shouldn't try it when you're out
there playing, you know, because I know there's some that
will try it. You know, I think I can hit
it over that tree. Yeah, when that forty years ago,
you could hit it over that tree. It's a tall tree.
Now it's ca'ed to it now. So it's all a

(27:30):
matter of you know, any shot that you see those
miraculous shots on TV, they've practiced those time and time again.
It's not they're never going to pull off a shot
on TV that they haven't practiced. They know, especially if
you watched the Open last week, you can figure that out.
You can't be a genius out of that rough. You
just got to put it back in a fair way.
That stuff was nasty. So yeah, so the higher handicappers

(27:52):
are tenfold They got to play safe.

Speaker 2 (27:54):
Yeah, and that's that's again some great great analysiss. You know,
if you're if you're a high handicapper and you know
that the percentage is against you to pull off a
specific shot, then why are you trying to do that?
You know you're you're wanting to you know, the number
one thing I hear people besides you know, obviously hitting

(28:16):
the ball further is that they want to be able
to score better. But yet they keep making the same
mistakes all the time. They keep taking risks that are unnecessary.
You know, you know, you might get a par three
and let's say you've got water around the side and
in the front, and there's this sort of a layup
area to the right of the green. Hit for that

(28:36):
layup area. And if you happen to get lucky and
you pull a little bit and it goes far enough
and it gets on the green. Great, if you push
a little bit, as long as you you know, factor in,
you know your you're you know pros and cons or
your plus and minus is either way, even if you
push it a little bit, you're probably still going to
be safe. And now you've got you know, a little
bit of a chip or a short pitch shot, you know,

(28:58):
onto the green now and you avoided a lot of
that trouble. So you again, don't be a hero, play smart.
And that's really again, dels into what we're talking about
here is if you want to improve your on course strategy,
then you have to be able to do some of
the things that we're talking about. This one is is
you know, Pete is it seems kind of might seem

(29:20):
kind of out there, but you got to respect the course.
You know, there's some tough courses out there, Yes there are,
and some challenging courses, and you know, these architects are
not doing it so that people can bulldoze over and
shoot super low scores. They're doing it. They want it
to be a challenge, and so you've got to respect

(29:40):
the course. And again it goes to what we're talking
about is you got to be smart when you're playing
around there. So if you're getting on a challenging course,
what would be the number one thing that you would
tell somebody if they're you know, maybe not a great golfer,
maybe they're a high handicap, or maybe they're a fifteen
to twenty handicap and they're going to play a difficult course.
It's a resort course. Maybe they want to get out
there and you know, old Pete Dice put some put

(30:02):
some good stuff together, and they want to get out
there and have a good time.

Speaker 3 (30:06):
What would be some advice that you would give them.

Speaker 4 (30:08):
I'll tell you a classic example of that. A couple
of octobers ago, I took my son and my now
son in law and we played TPC Tampa Bay, and
I told them, I said, listen, we're gonna play a
tea box so that when you miss your drives, you're
past the water. Yep, there's no reason for you to
hit all your drives in the water all day long.
It's going to be frustrating. You're not gonna have any fun,

(30:30):
and none of us are going to have any fun.
And I'm gonna play the same tea as you do,
because I don't want to hit in that water either.
So sometimes you can move up a set of te's
on a difficult golf course short in the course. Ye,
most of the time you'll put yourself on a tea box.
Now you're driving it past all the trouble. And so
that's something to take into consideration if it's really really hard.

(30:51):
You know, I tell people all the time, you remember
the old seniors and super seniors when they played I
think the seniors played what sixty sixty, one hundred six
thousand yards. You know, if if those professionals were playing
that length as you're getting up there, you should be
playing fifty seven, fifty six fifty five.

Speaker 3 (31:10):
Don't play any.

Speaker 4 (31:10):
Par threes above one hundred and fifty yards. Look on
the scorecard, look across where is it where no par
threes more than one fifty And let's play those teas
today and make it fun.

Speaker 3 (31:21):
Make it fun.

Speaker 4 (31:21):
Get up there. So my advice on the difficult ones
is make it as short as you possibly can. I
think that's going to put you out of the trouble areas.
And then again, as we just talked about, around the greens,
if there's water, if there's trouble, just play away from it,
you know, just yeah.

Speaker 2 (31:37):
Yeah, you got to be again, it all boils down.
You have to be smart about what you're doing. And again,
so many people, you know, I see it all the time.
I'll watch the groups in front and even sometimes when
you know there's a bit of a backlog or whatever,
and I'll look back and watch the guys playing up
behind me, and I'll watch some of the stuff, and
you know, you'll get some guy and you know he'll

(31:59):
be out in the middle of the fairway and he's
quite a ways back, and I'll see him pulling out
his you know, his his fairway woods. Sometimes I'll even
see him pull out of three wood, you know, if
it's a long enough hole. And you know, sometimes you'll
see you'll get a guy that hits a good shot
and it comes up and you know, somewhere around the green.
But more often not, they're duffinite. They're topping it, or

(32:19):
they're hitting a you know, screamer along the ground. It
might go up one hundred yards and I'm just sitting
there thinking, you know, you've got two hundred yards, two
hundred and twenty five yards to the green. If you
can't hit that shot with confidence, you need to respect
the course and you need to say, okay, let me
break this up into two shots. So I know, if
I've got two twenty five, I knew one hundred and

(32:41):
ten or one hundred and five is my go to shot,
So break the difference. I'm going to hit, you know,
my first shot here instead of trying to scream at
two hundred and twenty five yards. If I've got one
hundred and five, I'm going to hit this shot one
hundred and twenty yards land up in that one oh
five spot. Now I can pull up my wedge and
I've got a good chance of getting on the green.

(33:02):
So maybe you only make a par on that par
five instead of getting the birdie. But at least you know,
at least you've you've avoided, you know, a pack of trouble.
So you need to be respected or you got fairway
bunkers and things. Again, lay up, don't hit your driver
out there. Sorry, you're gonna say something.

Speaker 4 (33:17):
No, I was gonna say. I mean, it's it's it's
exactly that. I mean. Most of the time they're going
to try to take the long one for the glory.
But you've got to respect the score in the end.
So you know, take take what the golf course has
given you and and respect the yardagan you know, play
two shots instead of trying to try to make one
miraculous one.

Speaker 2 (33:35):
Yeah, I mean again, even if worst case scenario, if
you come away with the bogie, you know, if worst
case scenario, maybe your putts don't go the way they want.
At least it could have been worse. It could have
been a snowman. Sure, you know it could have been
you know, it could have been worse.

Speaker 3 (33:50):
Than that.

Speaker 2 (33:50):
So you know, you got to let the lesser of
two evils. The last one we're gonna wrap up with
is and this is when Jack Nicholas. Many have said this,
but Jack Nicholas famously talked about this and golf my
way and others, is that he always visualized the shots.
This is something to a lot of golfers don't do.
Is they don't sit there. You know, they don't get behind.
And it doesn't matter whether it's a pot, whether it's
a chip shot or a full shot. You know, you

(34:12):
need to visualize, imagine the shot that you want to hit. Now,
you may not necessarily pull it off, but you have
to have some visualization. Nicholas talked about this a lot
in his career and there was a reason for it.
He never hit a shot until he was able to
visualize it in his mind's eye before he stepped up
to that ball, and there was a reason for it.

Speaker 3 (34:30):
What are your thoughts here? Do you agree with that?

Speaker 2 (34:32):
Is that something that you think all golfers really need
to pay attention to and why is it important?

Speaker 3 (34:37):
You think?

Speaker 4 (34:38):
Well, that's a great point, and I think Jack not
only visualized the shots he was playing, he visualized the
shots before even played. He and Tiger prepared so much
more before they got to the golf course than anybody
else because they took the golf course apart before they
ever played it. And yeah, you have to first and foremost,
I'd say, you need to visualize the shot and ask

(34:59):
your can I do it? I mean not to me.
For the higher handicappers, is the number one? Can I
actually pull this off? Then you need to visualize shots
you can pull off. So picture something you can do
and then go ahead and do it. I think it's
always important to have an understanding, and it can work
both ways. It can work positive and negative. I mean,

(35:20):
how many times have you seen somebody step up on
the first tee and they slice it off in the
trees and they said, oh, I'm gonna hit another one,
And they don't take a practice swinger, They don't stop
or do anything, and they hit the ball, the second
one right next to the one in the trees they
just hit. They did the exact same thing. So you
have to be able to stop for a minute. You know,
I don't think you're going to stand on the tee
and picture hitting in the woods, So get the right

(35:41):
picture can I hit this picture and then what club
do I need for the picture that I just I
just did And it's not always going to be driver,
So you have to look at what you can do
and what you can't do. And yeah, I mean when
I was playing professionally, you know, pitching was never my forte.
You know, to bump and run the ball all over
the place, and so I would never leave the ball

(36:03):
in a situation where I had to pitch it with
what difficult for me. So if it was a par
five and I couldn't get there until I'd lay it
up one hundred and twenty yards away, I just didn't
want to deal with with less than full swings. I
wasn't the best at those, and so I just played
away from them, and so I could continually score. I
constantly worked at it, but it wasn't it wasn't the
sharpest part of my game. It wasn't bad, but it

(36:24):
wasn't the best part. So I just stayed away from it.
So I think in that case, you know, visualizing, you
know what you want to do, can you do it?
What club do I need for this? And then take
off and do it?

Speaker 2 (36:35):
Yeah, And I think the other thing Nicholas always talked
about was to play to your strengths, you know, whatever
that may be. Again, if you're if pitching is not
your forte, then you play to the strengths the rest
of your game. You look at what we're your strong
areas in your game, and you use those to your advantage.
But the idea is you want to develop a good
h encurse golf strategy. And one of the ways to
do that is, you know, again, even if you're playing

(36:57):
a course that you play every every day or every week,
you know, take a look at that scorecard and look
at the distance on the holes and say, okay, how
can I play this differently than I have before. I'm
stuck hitting, you know, a twenty handicap, and I want
to improve my handicap.

Speaker 3 (37:13):
I want to do a better job.

Speaker 2 (37:15):
So maybe one of the options, Okay, I'm going to
next time I play, I'm going to move up te
box and see how that works. And instead of trying
to go for the green in two, I'm going to
chop it up and maybe get on the green in three,
even on the par fours. You know, I'm going to
try to do it in such a way that I'm
going to improve that. And you know, for some guy
that's struggling to break one hundred, even struggling to break ninety,

(37:36):
may find that his scores are going to drop considerably
just by playing a little bit more strategy when he
gets out in the golf course. And that's really what
it's all about, and that's what all these tips that
we're talking about here are really designed to do, and
that is to you know, work on your short game,
you know, develop that preshot routine. You know, plan out
your shots, you know, think about what you want to do,
and make sure that the shots you're planning out are

(37:57):
shots that you have a high percentage of being able
to pull them off. Always practice with purpose, as we
talk about. Certainly make adjustments to your swing if necessary,
preferably not during your round. But you know, those are
things that you might have to have to do. Got
to know your numbers, got to know what you have
to dial into, and you have to be honest about that.

(38:17):
And don't try to, you know, don't try to, as
I said, be a hero and hit shots that you
know you're not capable of hitting just because you want
to try to shoot lower score. Respect the course of course,
you know, you've got to look at all of the
potential hazards that may be out there and be mindful
of that when you're making your strategy or your plans,

(38:39):
and then visualize the shots as Nicholas did. If the best,
one of the best players, or the best player in
my opinion, in the world had to do that, then
why shouldn't you, right, So I think you have to
look at it that way, but very interesting. Always appreciate
your thoughts and input on that, and as always, I'm
going to give you a chance to let the listeners
know if they want to reach out Pete as we

(39:01):
wrap up and where where they can get in touch
with you, and if there's anything special that you want
to plug go ahead.

Speaker 4 (39:07):
Well thanks Ted. It's always a pleasure of being on
and UH, all of us from this end of the
of the show appreciate what you do and how you
run this. It's it's great for us to be UH
to participate in it. They can reach me at petebucanangolf
dot com. I've just signed on to be an ambassador
with Xview on their their three D software, So that's
some things that are coming down the Road's working with

(39:29):
Golf Live now to uh, to to do some more
more online, more broadcasting, get the word out a little
bit more. So keep an eye on that. There might
be some things down the road. We're gonna be doing
some uh. I think we've got a mental golf class
we're setting up. I think we're gonna do uh with
one of my my big time players, who's who's deep
into that. So it'll be a nice broadcast for people

(39:50):
to watch. And you know, other than that, you know,
like I've always said, reach out, let's just start a conversation.
I mean, the more we can talk about your game.

Speaker 6 (39:58):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (39:58):
In today's technology and today's world, we can get to
anybody anywhere, anytime, and it's just like being there. So
you know, we can set up watch it, we can
capture it, we can talk about it, we can show
it back to you. So you know, the technology today
is great, So you know, don't hesitate.

Speaker 2 (40:15):
Yeah, it's amazing now what technology is able to bring
you know, not only shows like this, but you know
online platforms like you're talking about, to be able to
communicate with players and students and things like that.

Speaker 3 (40:27):
It's just you know, from all over the globe.

Speaker 2 (40:29):
It's just amazing really when you think of the technology,
and it's only getting going to get better as time
moves on, so appreciate it. As always, we're gonna take
a quick commercial break and when I come back and
be joined by my very special guest, golf fitness expert
Bob Forman, will be joining me here up coming up next,
so hope you'll stick around.

Speaker 3 (41:34):
And welcome back everybody.

Speaker 2 (41:35):
I'm excited now to be joined once again by my
good friend, golf fitness expert Bob Foreman. He's the former
director of Fitness and Wellness for the Congressional Country Club
in Bethesda, Maryland. He's also internationally known as a leader
in the fitness of golf in the field excuse me
of golf fitness, and his programs have been recognized multiple
years in a row by the Golf Fitness Association of America.

(41:56):
He holds a Master's of Science degree in Exercise physio
and is certified Golf Fitness Instructor through TPI or Titleist
Performance Institute. And he's also a certified personal trainer through
the American College of Sports Medicine. And he also is
an author. I've forgot to mention the last few times

(42:18):
functional golf fitness training and you can get that at
the book patch dot com. Will tell you a little
bit more about that as we progress through the show.
But Bob, welcome back.

Speaker 5 (42:26):
Hey Ted, it's good to be back.

Speaker 6 (42:28):
Thanks.

Speaker 3 (42:28):
Yeah, we had a little bit of a break. I
had to not do a show.

Speaker 2 (42:33):
I was had an outside engagement, so we had to
cancel one of the shows. So we're picking up the
next time here, But I appreciate it now. When we
were last on air together, we talked about fitness must
haves for a better golf swing, and I think there's
about twelve of them here, and I think we finished
off with number five, which is the X factor. So

(42:56):
what I'm going to do is just for those that
are tuning in, maybe we'll touch on that one a
little bit again. We'll start off with that one this
time and then try to progress through the remainder.

Speaker 3 (43:06):
So you want the.

Speaker 2 (43:07):
Ability to disassociate your upper body from the lower body.
Jim McClain always talked about the X factor. What are
we talking about here and why is that important and
how is that going to help us improve our golf swing?

Speaker 5 (43:21):
Well, the X factor, like you say, Jim McClain, is
the guy who kind of invented that or developed it.
I mean, if you look, if you had a camera
and you placed it over the golfer as they're swinging
the golf club, their shoulders and their hips are going
to be rotating to the right. For a right handed golfer,
the shoulders will be rotating a little bit more than

(43:43):
the hips, and eventually you would see an X kind
of form between the shoulders and the hips. And again
looking down from above, the difference between the angle of
the shoulders and the hips is called the X factor angle.
And the greater the angle a golfer can develop, the
more clubhead speed they're going to be able to incorporate

(44:05):
on the golf ball in the downswing phase. So it's
important to kind of have that flexibility, that range of motion,
that stability to disassociate the upper body in the lower
bodies so that you can develop that X factor angle.

Speaker 2 (44:22):
Yeah, and you touched on and this really comes into
our next point. You talk about really having a fair
degree of rotational movement in the shoulders. A lot of
times we see and this is what I've seen so
many times where people will just move their arms back
and not really actually rotate the shoulders and they think
they've got a shoulder turn or they've got a good backswing,
but really all they've done is they've just picked the

(44:43):
club up and their arms have gotten them up to
the top, but the shoulders have barely moved maybe you know,
ten to fifteen degrees, when really they should be you know,
moving considerably more. So, how do we Is there something
that we can do to help work on that. Is
there an exercise or a group of exercise maybe that
could help with shoulder rotation?

Speaker 5 (45:01):
Oh, yeah, there's a ton of exercises. And specifically for
the shoulder, you're looking for what's called external shoulder rotation.
So you want to be able to rotate your arm back,
you know, externally, to have that range of motion because
in the backswing you're going to externally rotate your trail
side shoulder, right shoulder for a right handed golfer, and

(45:24):
on the downswing you're going to externally rotate that target
side shoulder, left shoulder. So again, you need a fair
degree of range of motion in the shoulder joint to
develop to be able to kind of make that good
shoulder turn. And in addition to that, you know and
I'm sure we'll probably talk about this because this is

(45:44):
another must have is mid back range of motion as
well to help enhance that shoulder turn. But yeah, there
are exercises stretches that you can do to enhance. One
good one is called the open book, which the golfer
is laying on their side and the fetal position, the
arms are straight out in front of them with the

(46:05):
elbows ben at ninety degrees, and then they're bringing the
top arm over to the opposite side, maintaining the angles
and the shoulder and getting a good stretch in through
the chest and also working that external shoulder rotation. But
if you go online, you know, and again on the website,

(46:25):
there's a bunch of articles in there that show different
exercises and explain the significance of mobility for the shoulder joint.

Speaker 2 (46:34):
Yeah, we'll give them that information when we're getting close
to excuse me, close to wrapping up, so that they
can have that and go and check out some of
the articles that you put together the other one too.
And and you know, since we're talking about the upper body,
which obviously is important, but the lower body is important
as well. And you know, one of the other points
that you have is you know, having adequate glute strength

(46:54):
and which obviously helps with your lower body stability and
you want to be able to avoid excessive lateral movement.
We see a lot of people swaying in the back
swing for a number of reasons. One incorrect you know
understanding of the swing mechanics, but a lot of it
too is because they're they're lacking in certain strength in
the lower body and they're compensating by swaying in order

(47:17):
to basically make it feel better and are really missing
out on loading up some of that extra stored power.
So talk about that, talk about the glutes, talk about
some of the other things with the hips in that
that that create some of the lower body issues.

Speaker 5 (47:32):
Yeah, well you have three glute muscles. You have the
gluteus maximus, which is the largest muscle in the body.
You have the gluteus medius, and the gluteous minimus, and
you know, the TPI calls those the grandfather of the
golf swing. One specific one that I tend to isolate
with a lot of golfers because they tend to have
a lot of weakness in the glutes, and a lot

(47:52):
of us are weak because we sit a lot during
the day, and when you sit, you elongate the glute muscle,
and over time, when you elongate a muscle, you weaken it.
So the glutes are important to help me you maintain
that lower body while you're turning twisting the upper body,
you know, going back to that disassociation between the upper

(48:12):
and lower body. But like I said that one of
the biggest ones is that gluteous medius and it's important
because it's a hip stabilizer, right, so it will maintain
the hip, and it also can have an impact on
the knee as well. You know, if your gluteous medius
is weak, it can allow rotation of the thigh bone

(48:35):
the femur, which can cause knee issues. But most of
the exercises that golfers do in the gym is kind
of in a north south range of motion, and you know,
in order to get the really the gluteous medius is
you want to work more east and west. So a
good exercise, a really good exercise that probably we all

(48:56):
should be doing because we all need to strengthen that
gluteous are those side steps that we have discussed to pass,
you know, getting a band, wrapping it around the ankles,
tying it with your feet together, and then just doing
side steps, you know, ten to fifteen to twenty side
steps in one direction and then coming back and doing

(49:17):
the ten to fifteen to twenty side steps back in
the other direction. And I guarantee that most golfers out there,
when they first do that, we'll be able to identify
where their gluteous medius is because it'll talk to them.
The other one is the bigger guy, the gluteous maximus,
And you know bridges, lying on your back, feet flat

(49:39):
on the floor, heals close to the body and lifting
the hips up into the air. That's a bridge exercise
that'll isolate the glutes. You can do one in a
time when you're in that bridge, if you just kind
of lift one leg up off the floor, that will
isolate the opposite side glute. So that's a good one
to do as well. Three sets, holding for ten to

(50:01):
fifteen seconds on each, real good exercise to help get
those glutes activated.

Speaker 2 (50:09):
Yeah, and I guarantee that's one. As you said, that's
one area that probably the majority of people fail to
to think about because let's be honest, we're we're sitting
a good part of the day now working you know,
here we are, you know, on a on our podcast.
Here we're sitting on our glutes and uh, you know,
talking talking golf and talking fitness particularly, and we we

(50:33):
should be out there doing something. So maybe in future
podcasts we're gonna have to start doing some exercise. Well
we're while we're here talking, at least get us going.
You also talk about you know, not having sort of
sufficient uh freedom of moving in the hips, and you
talk about you know, having more flexible inner hip rotators
as well. So what what are what are we talking

(50:54):
about here? Where is that located? I mean obviously it's
in the interior or internal rather, but what are we
talking about here? And how does that sort of help,
you know, sort of free up movement in our hips?

Speaker 5 (51:08):
Yeah, well, I mean hip rotation. Hip mobility is really
the first link of the kinetic chain. You know, once
that golfer gets into the top of their back swing,
the initial movement in the down swing should start from
the ground up right. That's the kinetic chain or the
kinematic sequence, and that is initiated by a lateral, slight
lateral bump of the hips, followed by the trunk, then

(51:30):
the arms then the golf club and that's how you
generate power and energy to the golf club. And hip mobility. Uh,
you know, there's really focus on three different muscle groups.
You know, the hamstrings in the back of the thigh,
which we discussed, the hip flexers which are in the
front part of the hip, and then your internal hip

(51:51):
rotators which are kind of like inside the like the
what are called the growing muscles or the adductor a
d D bringing the legs to the midline of the
body of the adductor muscle groups. And I tell you
when I do my stretch classes and stuff and work
with golfers, there are a lot of folks who are
really tight in those adductor muscles in that groin area

(52:15):
and there and any one of those by themselves or
usually you see it in combination. You know, you're tight
in your your adductors, you're tight in your hamstrings, So
any combination is going to limit that mobility of the hip,
which again is going to impact your golf swing. So again,

(52:36):
there's a lot of good stretches that you can do specifically,
and you don't want to rule out work in those adductors.
A lot of people hit the hamstrings, they hit the
hip flexers, but you got to include those groin muscles,
those adductor muscles with some range emotion flexibility exercises.

Speaker 2 (52:54):
Yeah, it's it's really a full body, you know, system
that you have to work on because everything's connected and
we have to be able to you know, you can't
overdo one and then not do something with somewhere else
because you know you're gonna you're gonna spot.

Speaker 3 (53:08):
The weeks is pretty quick, you know.

Speaker 2 (53:09):
I know recently, I had a little tweak in my
lower back, and you know, so I got on the
floor to do some some stretches and that, and I
was thinking to myself, good lord, I need to do
more of this and get down there and work on
some of the things we're talking about. So that's gonna
be my my my thing to do here in the
next little bit. But you know, somewhere else too. People
don't think about this as well, but you know you
talk about here. Another must have is the forearm muscle

(53:31):
strength and balance. I mean, you know, even though the
forearms aren't connected to the golf club, they play a
role as well. So give us your your input here,
what's your thoughts and what do we need to do well?

Speaker 5 (53:42):
And people think about forearm strength, they think about the
flexers on the underside part of the forearm, you know,
they and also the extensors on the back of the forearm,
so you know it's gonna help with the gripping of
the club. The the other set of muscle groups that
people don't usually think about, or what again called the

(54:02):
adductors and the abductors. So your adductors are kind of
along the inside border of the of the forearm, which
bring the risks towards the midline of the body, and
the abductors which are kind of on the outside part
thumb side of the of the forearm. And when you're
swinging to golf club, I mean you're kind of doing

(54:22):
a lot of adduction abduction right in addition to some
flexions some extension. So it would be advantageous for the
golfer to focus on all areas of the forearm, working
the flexers. You know, with gripping, we tend to be
stronger on the flexers because we're constantly gripping things, and

(54:44):
you know that can lead to wrist and elbow and
shoulder issues. So you really want to balance out to
strengthen the forarm by doing some extension exercises for the
muscle groups in the top part of the arm, and
to do some exercises for the adductors and groups for
the adductors. And you know, real good exercise is just

(55:04):
to take your driver, hold the end of the grip
of the driver, keep your arms solid down at your side,
you know, and just kind of tap the driver behind you.
Just tap the head of the driver on the floor,
move it up and down, and that's gonna work those
add those adductors. And you do that fifteen to twenty

(55:24):
times or so. And then you turn the driver around
so that the club head is facing front and you
do the same thing to the front where you tap
the driver to the front and again. You know, there's
a lot of articles on the website and stuff like that. Well,
I don't think I have one up on that yet,
but I will put one up there after we get

(55:46):
off here. But yeah, it's important to do, and that'll
help with the grip and then it'll help you get
some more distance down the fairway.

Speaker 2 (55:54):
Yeah, we'll get that information to everybody after the show
or after the segment and get them going into the website.
To take a look at some of these different exercises
that are going to help in these areas.

Speaker 3 (56:04):
We're talking about.

Speaker 2 (56:06):
What are you talking about when you say, you know
overall dynamic balance. You know, obviously we have to have
good balance. I'm going to take a guess on this.
You know, obviously everybody focuses on a lot of the
big muscles. Are you talking about some of the smaller
muscles here as well? About that in the dynamic Is
that something that we're talking about here or are you

(56:28):
talking about something different?

Speaker 5 (56:29):
Well, I mean static balance is being able to stand
on one foot for ten, fifteen, twenty seconds, and static
balance is good. I mean, we want to make sure
we work on our balance, especially as we get older,
because we don't want to fall and break something. But
you know, again with the golfswing, you're you're moving multiple
body parts in different directions in all three planes of movement,

(56:52):
so you want to be able to and you've got
weight shifting go in there, you know, with the weight
over on to the left side, right side, So you
want to be able to maintain good balance. So static
balance is good to have, yes, But dynamic balance where
there's movement involved, why you're standing on that one foot

(57:13):
would be even better because that's what you're going to
do when you're swinging a golf club. So for instance,
standing on one foot and while you're standing on that
one foot, just rotate the upper body back and forth,
you know, ten times or so to see if you
can maintain that balance, and then try it on the
opposite foot. People will be surprised that they'll either be

(57:35):
really good on both legs, they'll be really bad on
both legs, or they'll be good on one and bad
on the other. So again, you know, the brain wants
you to stay safe if you're bad on your let's
say your target foot, you know, again your left foot
for a right handed golfer, and you're trying to shift
that weight over to the left side in the downswing

(57:57):
follow through, but your balance is really not that good.
Your brain may kind of hold you back a little bit,
you know, in that movement pattern, and again that's going
to impact your ability to get the ball down the
fair with.

Speaker 2 (58:12):
Yeah, that's that's an excellent point, you know that you
make because that that is a big issue for a
lot of golfers, is to to not have that dynamic
balance and it makes a lot of sense what you're
talking about. Probably must have, Bob, if I was to
hazard to guess is this last one here is probably
one that a lot of people don't even think about,

(58:34):
and that is their carter youovascular fitness. You know, we
see a lot of golfer especially as we get older,
and they're puffing and weas and by the time they
hit the back nine, especially down here in the southeast
where you got humidity now, and you know it's it's
some stifling heat you're out there, and you know, obviously
there's nutritional things that can help with that as well
that that are important, but you also have to have

(58:56):
your your you know, your your lungs have to be
good and healthy and and you know, so what are
some things that we can do here to improve our
cardiovascar fitness?

Speaker 5 (59:05):
Yeah, I mean, if you want of those golfers that's
your back Your front nine is great, but your back
nine stinks. It might be your cardiovascular conditioning, you know,
and if you don't have that conditioning, you're going to
suffer in terms of being able to move the body
in the again multiple plane movement that the golf swing
and you know demands so any type of cardiovascular exercise

(59:30):
would be good to kind of get the heart and
the lungs and shape and the blood flow through the body.
If you can be specific to golf, walking would be great,
especially if you like to walk the golf course, that
will help improve your cardiovascular fitness. But riding a bike,
stationary bike, ellipticals, stairmasters, swimming, you know, that's all good

(59:53):
stuff to kind of help improve your your cardiovascular conditioning levels,
which will fight off fatigue you know in the back nine,
which will help your scoring in your playing performance.

Speaker 2 (01:00:07):
Yeah, and again, you know, I see a lot of
especially our senior golfers out there, and you know, someone
can only play nine holes now because of that, because
they just can't play eighteen holes. And it's not a
physical thing so much as that you know, they can
still swing the club in that, but they just they
don't seem to have the energy levels anymore. You know,
they're you know, they're not walking very much, they're not

(01:00:27):
doing any other exercise to to you know, to keep
you know that cardiovascar muscles going if you will, and
get fatigued very you know, very easily, which obviously negatively
impacts your golf swing in general, and as you point out,
it can increase the risk for injury as well. So

(01:00:48):
a lot of great must haves here for better golf swings.
And I think the question that most people have to
ask is how many of these must haves are you missing?
And the only way to find out is a golf
fitness assessment is going to be able to tell you that,
and you're the man to do that. So let's give
them the website now as we get ready to wrap up.
Where can they go to get some information in general

(01:01:10):
information and also some of these exercise that you've been
pointing to throughout the discussion tonight. And then also if
they're interested in getting a golf fitness assessment, how can
they go about doing that.

Speaker 5 (01:01:22):
Yeah, the website is golf Fit Carolina and it's just
one one T and g O L F I T Carolina,
so golfit Carolina dot com. And like I said, there's
educational articles, there's some videos. I put all the podcasts
on there that we're doing so people can go back

(01:01:44):
and take a look at some of that, some of
the exercises that we've discussed over the past couple of months.
So you know, that's a good resource for them. The
book is also a good resource, has a lot of
good exercises in their little self assessments that they can
do to determine whether or not they're deficient in one
or more of these kind of must have areas. But

(01:02:06):
also in your area. You know, Tyler's Performance Institute has
a website that you can go to and you can
find a trainer in your area and you just kind
of click on the location and it will list trainers
that you know are service certified here that help you
go through the assessment and give you exercises to improve

(01:02:28):
upon those deficiencies.

Speaker 2 (01:02:30):
Yeah, and the important thing I want to emphasize too
for the listeners is these people that are TPI certified
in that such as yourself, are are golf fitness certified.
You know, there's obviously general fitness and there is certainly
maybe some crossovers, but you want to get somebody who
is specifically trained and how to help improve your golf muscles,

(01:02:52):
because there are certain movements and things in a golf
swing that you don't typically do in everyday life, and
you want to make sure the exercise that you're doing
are conducive to helping your golf game. So you want
to make sure that they're certified golf fitness professionals, not
just any old fitness professional. That's not to knock them,
but it's just that they're more generally trained and the

(01:03:12):
TPI and that are specifically trained to Yeah, it's good.

Speaker 5 (01:03:16):
I mean if your golf fitness professional knows something about
the golf swing some of the mechanics, yeah, you know,
not that you know, they want to teach the mechanics piece, right,
but they have to take a look at Yeah, they
can take a look at a video of your swing
and kind of identifier where your gross swing faults are
correlate that back to your physical deficiencies.

Speaker 3 (01:03:35):
Yeap, I couldn't agree more.

Speaker 2 (01:03:37):
Well, Bob is always thank you very much, and he'll
be back in a couple of weeks with some more
great tips in that. And on that note, we're going
to take another commercial break when I come back and
to be speaking with tonight's feature guests. I hope you'll
stick around for that as well. We'll be right back.

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Speaker 2 (01:04:22):
And I'm excited to have tonight's two featured guests. I'm
going to introduce both of them here and then we're
going to get into a great discussion here on Golf
Talk Live. First up, of course, is John Leahy. He
is the WJA director at the Baltimore Country Club, also
the president and founder at Target Market Group. Has a
lot of experience and he founded and built a Target

(01:04:43):
Market Group back in nineteen eighty six, which has become
one of the top distributors of promotional merchandise in the country.
And also he's been involved now for over a decade
with WJA at the Baltimore Country Club, so we're glad
to have him. Also, a newly awarded Evan skull from
Baltimore Country Club is Kevin Flowers, who plans to study kinesiology,

(01:05:05):
recently graduated from Loyola blake Field and House, and I
believe it is Maryland. I apologize if I said that incorrectly.
He is the first in his family to attend college,
and growing up in a single parent household has shaped
his views on education. He said he was taught that
hard work and good education are the keys to achieving
your dreams, values that make him a better student, caddie

(01:05:27):
and athlete. So, Kevin, welcome to you, and John welcome
to you as well. I appreciate you coming on Golf
Talk Live tonight. Yep, thank you, thank you, all right,
I appreciate it. So I'm going to talk to John
just briefly. I'm going to sort of pitch back and
forth between the two of you for different things, obviously,
but I just want to John maybe kind of give
us an overview of the Evans Scholarship, sort of how

(01:05:50):
it began and just a little bit of the background
and sort of how long has it been going on and.

Speaker 3 (01:05:56):
What was the purpose of the scholarship program.

Speaker 8 (01:06:00):
Get great, I'm glad you asked that question. Yeah, The
Evans Scho Scholar Program is named after a famous amateur
golfer named Chick Evans from Chicago. Chick Evans won as
was the first amateur golfer to win the US Amateur
and the US Open in the same year. That was

(01:06:20):
in nineteen sixteen. As part of that winning, he had
some royalties from a couple of sponsorships that they wanted
to pay him, and if he took the money, he'd
have to turn professional. His mother suggested that he remain
keep his amateur status, that he would do something else
with the money. So they forwarded the money into a
scholarship fund for education. It was his mother's idea, so

(01:06:45):
they had those funds put away for education, and then
in nineteen thirty, the Evans Scholar Foundation started and they
awarded the first scholarship to two students at Northwestern University
with that money, and the foundation was started. Then by coincidence,

(01:07:05):
Bobby Jones was the only other golfer ever to win
the US Amateur and the US Opening the same year,
and so Chick Evans and Bobby Jones, so it started
out of Chicago nineteen thirty. We're coming up on a
one hundred year anniversary of the program. We've put over
probably close to thirteen thousand Evan scholars through college in

(01:07:28):
the past ninety five some years.

Speaker 2 (01:07:30):
Well, that's incredible. Before I get you to talk about
some of the criteria that the students have to go
through to become involved with this, I want to go
to Kevin now and I want to just get your
thoughts on.

Speaker 3 (01:07:43):
First of, how did you hear about that?

Speaker 2 (01:07:45):
Were you somebody that had kind of dipped your toes
in the sand to golf a little bit beforehand? How
did you hear about the program? And what was your
sort of thoughts when it first came available, and what
did you have to do to get prepared for it?

Speaker 3 (01:08:00):
Right?

Speaker 6 (01:08:00):
So, I didn't know anything about golf before mister Leahy
had offered me a job, so it was really just
a brand new thing I was trying. So my freshman
year he had offered me a job as a golf caddy,
and you know, I was a bit hesitant because you know,
like I said, I was I was really clueless, so
I didn't really know what I was getting into. But

(01:08:22):
you know, he was really he was really helpful as
far as like getting me a custom and as I
kept going out there. I got better slowly but surely.

Speaker 3 (01:08:31):
Now and sorry, go ahead.

Speaker 6 (01:08:35):
And I found out about the Evans Scholarship through him actually,
like he kept talking to me about it, like as
I kept caddying, you know, but I didn't really pay
attention to I didn't pay attention to it till last
summer because you know what freshmen in high school or
what sophomore in high school was really thinking about college
like that, you know, So I just kept tuning it
out until it was really time to focus on it.

(01:09:00):
Last summer, he really told me that I had to.
I had to lock in and get as many loops
as I could to get to the amount of loops
that I needed, you know, So he put the battery
in my bag to really like come back and Caddy consistently.
Because without him, I don't think I would have, like
even if I did come back, I wouldn't have been
eligible for the scholarship. So I'm just thankful for him

(01:09:23):
for like not only introducing me, but like helping me
get back into Caddy.

Speaker 2 (01:09:27):
And you know, it's interesting, uh, you know, John, when
you when you hear Kevin's story like that, because you know,
here's here's a young man and I, by the way, Kevin,
I appreciate your honesty and saying it's true, you know,
sophomore that they're not thinking about, you know, the future
and and you know they're they're are they just want
to have a good time, and you know at school
at that point is is you know, sometimes can be fun,

(01:09:50):
but it can be a bit of a drag too,
you know, and let you know, we're being honest.

Speaker 3 (01:09:55):
But you gave him an opportunity.

Speaker 2 (01:09:58):
You obviously saw something in this young man that you said,
you know what, I think he could really benefit from
what we have to offer here.

Speaker 3 (01:10:06):
What was it.

Speaker 2 (01:10:07):
About Kevin that you saw that led you to that
decision to say, you know, Kevin, you need to be
you know, thinking about this and thinking about your future.
And then we'll get into talking about what it is
that you know, he had to do and.

Speaker 3 (01:10:20):
What the others have to do to really participate.

Speaker 6 (01:10:22):
Yeah, that's a good question.

Speaker 8 (01:10:23):
Yeah, we be part of our responsibility as a director
of the Western Golf Association at these clubs around the
country and there's four hundred of us around the country
at various clubs, and part of our part of our
our mission is to recruit caddies, recruit kids who have
potential to do this. So I had had met with
Kevin and he quite frankly it was initiative. I mean

(01:10:48):
he we had if you if you remember that, Kevin,
we had launch four of us, four scholars scholars over
scholarship recipient Server Loyal Blakefield High School here in Baltimore,
and we had we had four of them there and
I mentioned it to all four of them and they
were all looking at me like what are you What

(01:11:09):
is that? I mean, caddyan going to carry a bag around?

Speaker 3 (01:11:12):
I don't want to do that.

Speaker 8 (01:11:14):
And when you know then and then Kevin two weeks
later I gave everybody my card. He called me up
and said, hey, what's this Caddian thing all about? Can
can we talk more about us? And fantastic So to
answer your question, taed Yes. What really inspired me at
that point was he had he took initiative to find
out what was going on. Just like Kevin said, what
kid who is a freshman in high school? You know,

(01:11:35):
I think thinks that far ahead to say, you know,
I'm going to try something totally unknown and see see
where it takes me. And you know this. It's the
path that he that he traveled. So that's what really
sparked the interest in having Kevin. He he showed initiative
and we supported them all the way to UH to
get this scholarship.

Speaker 2 (01:11:54):
So yeah, and and you know, and Kevin, I think
that's that speaks volumes about you, because again, sometimes it
just it can be a phone call, it can be
you know, just some sort of a spark in you
that says, you know what, there might be something here
for me. I need to really investigate that. And you know,
maybe it is, maybe it isn't, but you don't know.

(01:12:14):
But until you make that first step, you put that
first foot forward, you'll never know. And here you are,
you know, obviously sometime later and understanding the benefits.

Speaker 3 (01:12:22):
Now.

Speaker 2 (01:12:22):
So once you made that call, once you got introduced
to it and you got out there and you were
carrying the bag around it, well it really wasn't that bad.
I'm sure after you got used to it and understood
the game a little bit better. Because you said you
really didn't know that much about you know, about golf
and really didn't have a lot of experience about that.

Speaker 3 (01:12:40):
Do you see what it is?

Speaker 2 (01:12:44):
Because I mean obviously, I know you're familiar with professional
golf now, but do you see why so many people
are attracted to this game now that you've had a
chance to be exposed to it as well.

Speaker 6 (01:12:55):
Absolutely, so I'm glad you said that because I'll was
looking at the standings at the US Open. It was
probably like I didn't like really watch it live because
I was also caddying for like in the tournament, like
for those working days. Yeah, remembers, yes, So I was

(01:13:18):
like I was keeping track of it and like like, okay,
what's going on, Like who are the top dogs, Like
who's going to qualify? Who's not? Like where they actually
playing and I'm realizing okay, Like they're playing at Oakmont
Country Club, one of the hardest courses like in the world,
and like you see you see professionals playing like your
average Joe's you know, it's like it's fun to see.

(01:13:40):
It's fun to see like the evolution of the game,
how far it's coming, Like let's see like twenty years even.
I think, honestly, it's it kind of has the same
appeal as baseball. You know, if you sit down and
watch a game for or around for like about three hours,
three four hours is then you know, if you really

(01:14:01):
pay attention, you can definitely get some entertaining moments out
of it. I think the US Open especially, I keep
talking about it because like it, like it really intrigued me,
especially since an underdog one, but it's really entertained and
honestly and being out there at Caddyan obviously that got

(01:14:21):
me into it, right, because I don't think I would
really turn on golf if I wasn't a caddy, if
I wasn't trying to learn the game. It's a shame,
you know, because people that have the same mindset as
I did before I started caddying, they're kind of missing out.
I believe golf is a beautiful game. It's like unlike
any other there's dozens of acres of beautiful land, lavish greens,

(01:14:46):
just the environment, the people out there. You know, it's unmatched.
You don't get that from any other sport.

Speaker 3 (01:14:53):
Yeah, well said. And I don't know if you know this.

Speaker 2 (01:14:55):
I don't have the statistics in front of me, but
I can tell you that it's big numbers. But of
all other sports that includes baseball, football, basketball, soccer, you
name it, no other sport raises much for charity than
golf does through all of the thousands that I mean thousands,
and I'm not just talking about at the professional level.
I'm talking about even every day you know, tournaments, corporate events,

(01:15:19):
things like that have fundraisers all over the United States.
Raises literally billions of dollars each and every year for charities,
much more than any other sports. So that's something to
remember as well. They give a lot back, not just
the pro guys, but just the average folks out there
playing in that John If you wouldn't mind, I said,
I was going to get you to talk a little

(01:15:39):
bit about some of the requirements. So what were some
of the things that Kevin had to do, and not
just Kevin personally, but as a general rule for somebody
that's interested in becoming involved in the program, what some
of the requirements exactly was.

Speaker 8 (01:15:52):
It's actually pretty simple. It kind of boils down to
the first, they need financial They need some financial assistance
to go to college, and these who doesn't quite frankly,
but so they need financial They need the financial assistance.
From number one. Number two, they have to be they
have to have a pretty solid grade point average. We'd

(01:16:14):
like to see around three point no less than three
point two, you know, three point five grade point average.
So they have to be a good student and be motivated.
They have to show outstanding character, you know, a period
of time, you know, be involved in a lot of
you know, extracurriceters at school. And then they the big

(01:16:36):
requirement is they have to have they have to get
the loops. They have to get the caddy rounds. We
have a minimum of one hundred you know, most of
the caddies were getting somewhere between one hundred and thirty
one hundred and fifty loops. So the Evan Scholarship is
caddies only. If you don't caddy, no need to apply, right,
But those four things are kind of the prrequisite that
we're looking for on a really solid applicant. And this

(01:17:00):
year we had about close to three hundred and fifty,
three hundred and sixty scholarships awarded around the country.

Speaker 2 (01:17:07):
Wow, that's incredible, you know, and it is really a
great opportunity for a young man like Kevin to take
advantage of that because again, you know, obviously catting is
is a big part of it, but getting a solid
education out of this, I mean, you know, Kevin, there's

(01:17:28):
nothing that you will ever do in your life that
will better prepare you than a good education and having
you know that ability to do that and to be
able to go on and do the things that you
you know, whatever dreams that you have in your heart.
And I'll get you to talk a little bit about that.
But you know, because I mentioned earlier what your interests are.

(01:17:51):
But I want to first ask you, and I'm gonna
play a little devil's advocate here because I think I
heard you correctly. You said that you caddied for John,
so at some point you had to give him a
little bit of advice around the golf course. Can you
think of a time because you got to know his
game a little bit as you were catting, and I
don't know if you did for others as well, but
you got to caddy for John a little bit. What

(01:18:11):
did you notice about his game that you said, Okay,
I think I can help him with this pick wrong,
picking the wrong club here, and you know, instead of
hitting that seven iron, maybe he needs to step up
and hit a different club or something.

Speaker 3 (01:18:24):
So did you find moments like that?

Speaker 2 (01:18:26):
Obviously, respectfully, but were you you had to step up
and say, you know, John, I think you need some
help on this one.

Speaker 6 (01:18:34):
Yeah, no, I've never done wait for this answer. No,
I'm happy to answer it. You know, I'm not that
kind of caddy. There are definitely some caddies out there
that will tell you, they will speak up if they
think that you're making the wrong decision, you know, But
me personally, like I said, I'm not really comfortable with
that yet because I'm still learning the game. And even

(01:18:59):
if I did, I don't think I would do that.
I'm not. Yeah, no, that's not my personality.

Speaker 8 (01:19:06):
I that's a good point. Kevin would Kevin would usually
he would respond with you ask him if if I
toward his you know, his second and third year, I
asked him, maybe, what do you think about reading this grit?

Speaker 6 (01:19:18):
This put?

Speaker 8 (01:19:19):
What do you think about the green? And then he
would get up there and start looking at it, and
he would he would give you some advice, but it
was it was always uh, he wouldn't give unsolicited advice.
Let's put it that way, which is which is great?
A great, that's a great attribute for a good caddie.

Speaker 6 (01:19:31):
You know.

Speaker 3 (01:19:33):
Now that's perfect.

Speaker 2 (01:19:34):
I'll tell you a little inside thing that I used
to see and this is obviously going to date me
a little bit. But I used to watch growing up
Lee Trevino and Lee Trevino had his caddy for years.
Of course he's no longer at Lee is, but his
caddie is no longer herman with us. But he would
always throw back and he would say, and this is
this is a go to Kevin. So I'm giving you
some advice here is if the player ever says to you,

(01:19:56):
you know, what do you think, you could throw right
back and say what do you think? How do you
think think the putt looks from here and get them
to give it and then you say, yeah, I think
that looks good and then let them go to and
then if they then if they make the mistake, it's
on him. So that's advice there is. Don't give the
unsolicited advice, Just say what do you think? What do
you think that putt looks like?

Speaker 3 (01:20:13):
There?

Speaker 2 (01:20:14):
What do you think you think you can get there
with that seven iron? You know, whatever the case is,
throw it back on them that way. Then you're you're
you're good to go. What did you learn from your experience?

Speaker 3 (01:20:24):
Though?

Speaker 2 (01:20:24):
All kidding aside, I just wanted to have some fun there.
What did you learn going through the program, obviously you
learned about golf something that you weren't familiar with.

Speaker 3 (01:20:33):
But what did.

Speaker 2 (01:20:34):
Caddie caddying teach you one about the game? What about yourself?

Speaker 6 (01:20:41):
Absolutely so taught me discipline, because just to get there
to get the most rounds, especially in the summer, you
might have to get up early, or if you're going
in the middle of the day, you might have to
you know, trust through the sun m hm. You know.
And also just like being aware of your surroundings too.

(01:21:03):
Also realize that because you know, you wouldn't be a
good caddy if you weren't aware of especially if you
carrying two bags. You wouldn't be a good caddy if
you weren't aware of where both of your golfers are
at the same time. You wouldn't be aware, I mean,
you wouldn't be a good caddy if you weren't aware
of the green, like how like how fast the green is,
like which way it's going, which way the ball is
going to go. You know, just being aware, being disciplined,

(01:21:27):
and those those are the two main things.

Speaker 3 (01:21:31):
That's great.

Speaker 8 (01:21:32):
Let me just let me just add that too, just
for some contact. Kevin lives on the west side of town.
It takes about thirty minutes to get to the club.
So it's not like he is a couple of blocks
away and walks to the club. He had to in
the early days. His dad had to bring him over
and then would wait in the parking lot for four
hours while four or five hours while he got ready
to go out and do a loop and come back.

Speaker 6 (01:21:53):
And then he would wait.

Speaker 8 (01:21:54):
There and drive him back home. And then when Kevin
got his license, and he would drive across town to
get there every day. So talk about discipline, you refer
too early on, right, I mean, what does it make,
you know, makes Kevin's story special? Is it's just disciplined
and motivation to see it and go get it.

Speaker 4 (01:22:13):
You know.

Speaker 2 (01:22:14):
Yeah, and and that you know that's so true, and
you know that that speaks volumes again for you as
as a young man, because again in this day and age,
you know, we see so much of the youth not
really finding their way. And this has opened a door
for you. Whether you ever play you know, golf at

(01:22:36):
some sort of competitive level, or whether you just play
it recreationally, you know, with some friends, or whether you
don't ever play it at all. It's opened a door
for you that may not otherwise have been opened, and
and and taught you something that you didn't know about
a game and about a sport that you didn't know before.

Speaker 3 (01:22:54):
So there's so many firsts for you.

Speaker 2 (01:22:57):
But at the same time, now you can go through
with a little bit more confidence, so that maybe the
next time when you are you know, if you do
get an opportunity to carry John's golf bag, you can
tell him which club to select, because you'll have confidence now,
and he won't give you any flack because you'll know
that you've been doing this for a while and you
know what you're talking about.

Speaker 3 (01:23:16):
So I'm just having some fun.

Speaker 6 (01:23:20):
John.

Speaker 2 (01:23:20):
Let's talk about the BMW Championship. This is something that
has been a big contributor to helping raise and fund
and that tell us a little bit about it for
those aren't familiar. Obviously, the BMW Championship is a professional event,
but that's happening up in August, raised a lot of
money for the Caddy Scholarship.

Speaker 3 (01:23:37):
Talk a little bit about that, if you wouldn't mind.

Speaker 8 (01:23:39):
Yeah, that's a great question. The BMW Championship is actually
run by the Western Golf Association and in The proceeds
from the BMW Championship go to the evn Skalwar Foundation.
So in twenty twenty one, I think I'm trying to
think of the notes on that. When it started, the
BMW Championship started.

Speaker 6 (01:24:01):
What was that.

Speaker 8 (01:24:04):
Two thousand and seven, I guess was the first one, right,
And so we were we were lucky to get the
BMW Championship here in Baltimore, Kay's Valley in twenty twenty one,
and it was a highly successful event. I think we
raised over five and a half million dollars from that
event directly for the Evans Scholar Foundation and for scholarships,

(01:24:24):
and I think over that period of time, the since
two thousand and seven, we've raised about sixty million dollars
for the Evans Scholar Foundation. So it's a big marquee event.
Of course, the BMW is coming back to Baltimore this August,
back to Cays Valley. They just renovated the golf course.

(01:24:46):
I was just there yesterday. It's it's quite it's gonna
be quite a quite a tournament. They really toughened it
up and it's gonna be real exciting that for those
that don't know, it's it's the it's the the event
leading up to the final cut for the Tour Championship.

Speaker 2 (01:25:01):
Yeah, it's it's always been a good event, and it's
done so much to help. And then there's also the
the alum for the Evan Scholars and also other partners
and things like that that helped to raise a lot
of money. And you guys have done a phenomenal job
using this UH, this foundation and the different programs that

(01:25:21):
are available, especially this Caddie UH program that has helped
to bring so many young men like like Kevin into
the fold. And and I want to talk about education
just for a second, if you don't mind, I just
want to switch here. I mean, obviously, you know, Kevin,
you you you know, you had to be a pretty
good student getting in here. You can't just you know,
sort of come in resting on your laurels. You have

(01:25:43):
to you know, you have to work a little bit
uh in the books to get an education UH and
preparation for this and that. But I talked about in
the intro that you plan on studying kinesiology. First off,
for those that don't know what that is, I want
you share what that is and why why is? Why
do you have the interest there.

Speaker 6 (01:26:03):
Oh, absolutely, I'd love to. So kinesiology is well some
people call exercise science, but really it's the textbook definition
is the study of human body movement. And I really
wanted to get into that because, you know, I'm a
I'm an athlete myself, and my father, you know, who
had prostate cancer when I was a little He was

(01:26:24):
diagnosed when I was in like elementary school, so most
of my childhood life really I saw him like going
through chronic pain, like in his back and stuff like that. Right,
So I just wanted a career where I can like
help others and myself, you know, just live physically pain free.

Speaker 2 (01:26:46):
Yeah, and and and that's you know, that's very admirable.
And again it just I can't say this enough, but
it just speaks to the character of this young man.
And it's it's very evident John, why you know, you
you sort of chose him to to to be a
part of this because it's you know, he obviously has the.

Speaker 3 (01:27:08):
Ability to.

Speaker 2 (01:27:10):
You know, try new things number one, but also recognizes
others that maybe have struggles, you know, obviously in this
case his father, and says, you know, I'd like to
be somebody that can make a difference, you know, not
necessarily just potentially for him, but for others that I
may come across that may have struggles as well, that
you know, if I can do something to help them,

(01:27:31):
and that that again tells a lot about an individual.
Let's talk about because I'm sure you've played some golf, now,
Kevin Uh, Let's talk about your golf game a little bit,
are you? Because you said you're an athlete, so I
imagine you're you're you're hitting it out there pretty good?

Speaker 3 (01:27:47):
Would I would? That'd be good assessment.

Speaker 6 (01:27:50):
All right, So let me tell you this, right, I
was gonna so I was this close to get in
the bag last summer and like actually going out there
and playing. But you know, I got my license a
little too late. I got it in August, so you know,
that's basically when schools started, so I didn't really get
a chance to. But now that I'm going to College Park,

(01:28:13):
they have a golf course out there, so hopefully I
can get out there and play. I've always wanted to
play ever since I gotten Caddy. Because I was out
there and I was like, you know, they're kind of
making it harder than it looks.

Speaker 3 (01:28:28):
You know you're that.

Speaker 6 (01:28:31):
No, no, no, no, not referencing him references of course.
Oh seriously, I remember after.

Speaker 8 (01:28:44):
I was gonna say, remember you know, maybe Ted doesn't
know that, but I Kevin had to figure out whether
how to get the school in and the loops. And
he also was working, uh, twenty hours a week in
a retirement home near near where he lives.

Speaker 6 (01:28:58):
So he was working.

Speaker 8 (01:28:59):
He was working in the afternoons in the evenings and
a lot of Saturday evenings, so he would caddy in
the morning and go out and work four or five
hours in the evening at the Charlestown Community Center Charlestown, right, Kevin, Yeah, Charlestown.

Speaker 4 (01:29:13):
So not only not.

Speaker 8 (01:29:14):
Only was he doing the school or doing the caddy,
but then he had a find way to find twenty
hour twenty hours a week for a high school kid.
That just that's just kind of good show to confirm that,
as you said earlier, Ted, the character of this young man.

Speaker 2 (01:29:27):
Well, I can tell you, Hevin, you're better than me
because I didn't do that much and I was I
was lucky to get through school. Nevermind, but and I
can add on to that. No, but if I got
on that go ahead, please go ahead.

Speaker 6 (01:29:45):
So that last summer especially, I think that was probably
like the hot the pinnacle, the highlight of my Caddy
career because it was it was absolutely ridiculous, Like I
honestly don't know how I managed to get that amount
of loops, like I had to. There were some days where,
like mister Lakey said, I would like work two times

(01:30:05):
in the morning. I mean I would work two days
two times in one day, Like I would Caddy in
the morning and I would go to Charlestown in the afternoon.
Actually I just did it like last week on Saturday.
But last summer, like the there was like a time
where I had to like request to leave of absence
because I had to like commit full time to Caddy

(01:30:26):
and because I had to get a certain amount of loops,
and it was it was crazy. Honestly, I don't know
how I did it, And honestly, like I don't know
a lot of kids that would do that because it's
such a time commitment, like I basically had to Caddy
I'd say three four times a week, and like sometimes

(01:30:47):
I would carry two bags. And honestly that that was
an experience like no other I've never been through something
like that before. And I knew at the beginning of
the summer when like around this time last year year,
I was a ball spider in the same tournament in
the in the member guest tournament, and I was out
there for three days straight for like a couple of hours,

(01:31:09):
and I knew it would be a long summer because
it was. It was terribly hot. It was crazy smell weather.
For you'll be really cold in the morning and we'll
be really hot in the afternoon.

Speaker 3 (01:31:24):
Well, I live in Florida, so I know all about hot.
So let me tell you. Let me tell you all
about hot.

Speaker 2 (01:31:29):
Come on down here, my friend, and and we'll introduce
you some real heat. So you're gonna try to get
out obviously, now that you've got your license and you
you've got a little free time sort of speak, you're
gonna try to get out there and work on your game.

Speaker 3 (01:31:43):
I want to go back.

Speaker 2 (01:31:44):
I got to circle back and again I'm playing a
little Devil's advocate here. You you made a statement and
or a comment, and I gotta I gotta pick you
up on this. And you said that you know watching,
uh you know others play as you were caddying that.
Uh it didn't you know, you didn't think golf was
was as hard as as uh, you know what they

(01:32:06):
were making it out to be.

Speaker 3 (01:32:07):
What made you and all joking aside? What major?

Speaker 2 (01:32:10):
And John, I'm sorry if he's referring to your game,
I apologize.

Speaker 3 (01:32:14):
But what I mean again this is this is the youth.
I mean, it's not so hard. It's not that believe me.

Speaker 2 (01:32:22):
Yeah, what is it about? What is it you think
from what you've seen? And again we'll leave We'll leave
John out of this, don't. I don't want to pick
on John, But when you when you were watching players
play and you and what helped you to formulate that
that thought in your mind that you know what again,
because you're wanting to study kinesiology, so obviously you understand
the body and your athlete and that what is it

(01:32:44):
that you think that people, most golfers don't get that,
that they make it more difficult than what it need be.

Speaker 3 (01:32:50):
What is it that you saw? Because that intrigues me.
The weirdsons.

Speaker 2 (01:32:53):
I've taught this game for thirty two plus years and
I've seen all kinds of golf swings from some of
the best in the world, from Tiger right on down.
And uh, I've seen some some on the other end
of the spectrum that are pretty bad, And I've never
seen anybody that came out and said, oh, it's not
that bad. So I'm here, I'm all ears, I got
my my headset cranked up here, I'm all ears. What

(01:33:14):
is it about the game that you think a lot
of people make it more difficult than what it needs
to be?

Speaker 6 (01:33:21):
All right? So when I said that, that was that
was the perspective of somebody who was ignorant to the game, because,
like I said, that was when I first started out.
When I first started out, I was like, you know what,
y'all making it look way too hard. But it's anybody
who says that, you know, they don't know what they're
talking about, because golf is really hard. Like if you hit,

(01:33:43):
if you hit, like if you hit a club, even
just like a few inches off of where you're supposed
to hit it, you can end up in the rough
or in the bunker, and you know you can. It
could honestly like mess up the entire hole or depending
on where you are, probably the entire match. So people
that say that they probably never picked up a golf
club or they're just hating for I don't know what reason,

(01:34:07):
but you know it's it's it's really hard, like and
I was definitely humbled, like for the first time when
I went out to the range and I just started
off with like a I think it was a four iron.
It's the first club I hit.

Speaker 3 (01:34:20):
Wow, And I'm like, that's challenging, that's tough.

Speaker 6 (01:34:25):
I'm like, God, lee this. You know, maybe maybe I'll
be quiet, you know, maybe maybe I'll just stick to
watching instead of talking.

Speaker 2 (01:34:34):
You know, that's why that's why the Good Lord gave
us two years and only one mouse that we listened
twice as much as we talk.

Speaker 3 (01:34:42):
You know. It's funny.

Speaker 2 (01:34:43):
It's funny that you mentioned that though, because you know, again,
starting off with a four iron that's pretty tough even
for some of the better players to do. So, you know,
hitting a wedge or you know, maybe nine iron would
have been a better place to start, uh, to hit
your first few balls out there. So I'm glad that
you were humbled a little bit. And and you know
what I think, because you are athletic, I think once

(01:35:07):
you do get the understanding of the game and how
it really works, I think you'll you'll probably do extremely well.
Most young guys when they get out there, you know, obviously,
you know they're they're full of testosterone. They're out there
and I'm just gonna belt this thing a mile. And
they get out there and they whiff the first few
balls and they don't go very far.

Speaker 3 (01:35:24):
They're all over the place.

Speaker 2 (01:35:26):
But you know, you've got a really good attitude about it,
and you know the fact that you were able to
humble yourself. So what I want to ask you, and
then I'm going to go back to John here real quickly,
what do you hope golf does for you moving forward?
I mean, I'm assuming because of your age, I don't
know how old you are, but I'm guessing you're you're

(01:35:47):
you're getting up there, so it'd be a little late
to start a pro career perhaps, I mean, there are
some guys out there on tour that have done that. Uh,
but do you see it benefiting you maybe as you know,
whatever work you've been into, you know, as as helping
your corporate life or your business life, or you just

(01:36:08):
want to keep it sort of just Hey, I just
want to go out and play with my friends.

Speaker 3 (01:36:12):
Where do you see golf fitting in the future.

Speaker 6 (01:36:15):
I'm gonna tell you right now, there's no way I'm
going to be a professional golf player. That's that's out.
I'm eighteen, so you know it'll be way too late
to start. But I see golf as like kind of
like a casual thing. I don't really see it being
like a huge part, you know. But you know, I'm

(01:36:37):
going into kinesiology, so you never know. But like my
main sport was martial arts, so like I kind of
plan to like keep that going in my adult life. Golf,
like I said, it's like it's a great game to
play as you get older, and it's definitely good for
networking and stuff like that, so I'll never rule that out.
And I also hope to like connect kids too, from

(01:36:57):
the next generation to caddying or maybe even golf itself,
because I feel like it's good to give back, especially
since you know, I never thought i'd be in this
position now, and like just to see kids coming up
the same way I grew up, to see them have
that same opportunity, you know, I feel like it will
fulfill me and I feel like it will give them

(01:37:18):
the opportunity to have the same have the same have
the same opportunity I did.

Speaker 3 (01:37:25):
Yeah, well said let.

Speaker 8 (01:37:27):
Me let me just add too, I think we're really
confident that I think you can tell already Dally, that
Kevin will be a great ambassador for our program here
in Baltimore, you know, as he goes through the University
of Maryland and graduates from there in a few years,
and and to go back into the you know, back
into the city and where he went to school, and
uh and and and kind of mentor and teach some

(01:37:50):
of these younger kids. I mean, I think that's where
that's where golf can take them.

Speaker 3 (01:37:55):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:37:55):
I couldn't agree more. Just on a side note, I
know you won't know who he is, but Larry Nelson
didn't start playing professional golf till he was twenty one,
so there is there is still hope. No mind, he
did play professional baseball. He was he wanted to play
professional baseball. So never say never. But I agree with you.
I think it's something that you see, uh, you know,
potentially opening future doors for you and and being able

(01:38:18):
to you know, be something that you can do one
nice thing about golf. And you can tell I've got
some snow on on the roof here as well, so
you know, it's something you can play well into your
your later years, and you know, it's unlike so many
other sports, and it does. As I said early on,
you know, there's so many charities that have benefited from golf,

(01:38:39):
both at the from the professionals what they give back
to the game to everyday golfers like you and me
that that just go out there and play in events
that raise funds for for different charities, whether it's a
kid's foundation or or something, or giving back to the
Evans Schuller Foundation as well. John, I'm going to give
you some final opportunity and final words here to talk

(01:39:00):
about the program, talk about the w g A, whatever
you want to talk about, let the folks know how
they can participate, how they can get involved and uh
and maybe you know, give us a little bit of
a pit to maybe some younger audience members out there
or parents out there that maybe have somebody you know
that's that's like Kevin here that would like to maybe

(01:39:21):
look into this.

Speaker 3 (01:39:22):
How can they go about doing that? Well?

Speaker 6 (01:39:25):
Thank you, we appreciate that.

Speaker 8 (01:39:27):
First of all, I would say, if you want to
know more about the program, go to w g A
e s F dot org. That's Western Golf Association, Evans
Scholar Foundation w g A e s F dot org
and learn about the program, learn about what we do.
You know, as far as the Evans Scholar Foundation, you
can you can donate. There were certainly a plug for that.

(01:39:49):
You can become a park club member at your club,
any any club, any any any person at any golf
club in the country, whether we have a caddy program
or an Evans program, can can be sponsor. It's a
two hundred and fifty dollars a year to be a
park club membership. You get a cool bag tag. You
also get a gift from the Western Golf Association, maybe

(01:40:11):
it's umbrella or sleeve the balls or a cap. What
we're trying to do is raise awareness around the country.
So that would be for anybody anywhere in the country
who had any interest in and that's a good place
to go to support it financially. But check in when
you're into your community was interesting, you know, we talked
about the program started nineteen thirty. It's really been a

(01:40:34):
secret out in the Midwest. It's been in Chicago. In
the Midwest, all the big ten schools have got Evans
Scholar Houses chapter houses there and you know, we just
talked about tens of thousands of alumni and most of
them come from the Midwest, so we're always looking for
clubs to get involved. So to certainly reach out to
the organization and ask about it. Well, they can reach

(01:40:56):
out to you, and they can refer them back to me.
I mean, I'm happy to take any call.

Speaker 3 (01:41:01):
Fantastic.

Speaker 2 (01:41:02):
Well, Kevin, I want to thank you as well for
coming on and sharing your story. And I know you've
got a great future ahead of you and I hope
that I hope that you'll really, you know, dig into
to golf because I think you're going to find it's
a lot more interesting, it's going to be challenging, and
maybe fast forward in a few decades, you're going to

(01:41:23):
be in John's position and some young man like you
is going to become up. He's going to be carrying
your bag and you're going to be able to have
given him that same opportunity. And I hope that happens
many times over for you as well, So you know,
it is a great opportunity. There are so many things,
and I've said this my whole life and my whole career,
Golf mimics life in so many ways, more so than

(01:41:46):
anything else any other sport that I've ever been involved with,
and I've played most of them at some certainly professional level,
but at some level. And but you know, what I've
always found is if you can navigate the challenge is
on the golf course with some amount of success, and
that doesn't mean you're perfect, but you are able to

(01:42:06):
rise up to those challenges, then you're going to do
the same thing in your life and vice versa. And
that's what I mean by the parallels between golf and life.
There are so many similarities, and John, I know you
could equate that. I'm going to give you a final
thought or to anything that you'd like to say to
maybe some young viewers out there that may be watching this.
If you want to make your pitch as somebody that's
gone through the program, what would you advise them? If

(01:42:27):
you had a group of youngsters sitting in front of
you right now that we're interested or curious as to
what you've gone through, what would you say to them?

Speaker 6 (01:42:36):
Absolutely so, I would tell you, guys to first of all,
keep a level ahead, okay, like it's larger than life,
especially going to a country club for the first time,
and you know, just like taking it all in. But
if you're just getting into the game, just you know,
take it like you would take anything else. You know,
at the end of the day, like the people that

(01:42:58):
are helping you, and their people too, even though it
may not seem like it because you know they live
different lifestyles and you they're here to most most of
these people are here to help you. And I would
I would say, put in the work early, don't wait
till the last minute. Like I did. I had to
spend then entire summer just trying to just trying to

(01:43:19):
be eligible for the scholarship. It'll help if you're eligible,
like by the time you're a sophomore or even a junior.
You know, that would be perfect, you know, instead of
you know, having to like go all in the summer
before your senior year. You know, that wasn't really fun.
But at the end of the day, it definitely taught me.

(01:43:39):
It taught me one not to wait to the last minute,
don't procrastinate on stuff, and and two just put your
head down and work. Sometimes you just have to put
your head down and work the things that you want.
If you really want something, go get it. I know
it's a cliche, but that's something I really wanted. I mean,
nobody really wants to like pay thousands of dollars for

(01:44:00):
tuition in college, right, so I definitely wanted that financial freedom.

Speaker 3 (01:44:05):
That's words of wisdom, words to live by.

Speaker 2 (01:44:08):
And you know what, sometimes you have to go through
some difficult challenges because in the long run, Kevin, it
makes you a better person because you're you can look
back now and you can say, man, that was a
tough summer, but you know what, I got through it,
and here I am on the other side. I feel
good about myself. And because now you know you can
do it. The next time another challenge comes through, you're
not going to be looking down, you know and saying, God,

(01:44:29):
I don't know if I can make this, because you
know you did it the last time. And it's just
a matter of being persevere and just you know, make
that commitment to yourself. And it's really all for you.
For nobody else, it's for you. It's for your This
is your life, and this is your opportunity. A door
has been open for you, and you have one of
two choices. You can either close that door or you
can walk through. And you've chosen to walk through it.

(01:44:49):
So just keep on walking as the next door comes through,
and you're going to be very eat you know. I'm
very impressed, I all sincerely. I mean, I joked around
a little bit with you tonight, but I had to
keep it real for for the young audience. But you know, John,
I'm I'm grateful and thankful for you for doing what
you did to open a door for this young man
because I can see he's got a very bright future

(01:45:11):
no matter what he does with it. With the rest
of his life, he's on a good path. And I
think that he's going to I think he's going to
gravitate to uh golf a lot more than he realizes.
And again, maybe he's not going to be out in
the PGA tour, but that's okay. You can uh you know,
the senior tours out there too, so maybe you can
play on that. But when you get old enough, But

(01:45:33):
in the meantime, get out there and enjoy it. Keep
you know, keep uh uh you know, working through your
education because that's number one right there. And and John,
quickly the website one more time, if you wouldn't mind
as we close off, and then and then we'll we'll go.

Speaker 8 (01:45:47):
Yeah, thank you again. It's w g a E s
F as A stands for Western Golf Association, Evan Skauer
Foundation dot org.

Speaker 4 (01:45:56):
W G A E.

Speaker 6 (01:45:58):
S F dot org.

Speaker 8 (01:45:59):
You can Gorey can acquire about starting a program we're
getting involved at your club, or you can make a
donation there. We'd love to have you make a donation
and represent your club.

Speaker 3 (01:46:09):
Perfect.

Speaker 2 (01:46:10):
Perfect, Well, John and Kevin, thank you very much for
joining me tonight and sharing both of your experiences from
obviously different perspectives. I'm gonna wrap up, so hang tight
for just a second, guys, if you don't mind. I
want to thank you for tuning in tonight to Golf
Talk Live. I want to thank my earlier special guests
Pete McCann for joining me on the Coach's Corner panel,
and then also my good friend golf fitness expert Bob

(01:46:32):
Foreman for giving us some must haves for this season
to make sure that you're in good golf shape. And
then obviously to John Leahy and Kevin Flowers for joining
me here talking about the WGA and the Evan Sculler
Foundation as well.

Speaker 3 (01:46:44):
So thank you guys as well.

Speaker 2 (01:46:46):
And on that note, I will see you guys next
week right here on Golf Talk Live.

Speaker 3 (01:46:49):
God bless everybody and have a great week.

Speaker 1 (01:46:56):
Thanks for joining us. We hope you enjoyed this week's
broadcast Golf Talklive. We'd like to thank this week's Coaches
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, and Instagram. If you're interested in

(01:47:17):
being a guest on Golf Talklive, send Ted an email
at Ted dot golf Talklive at gmail dot com. This
has been a production of the Igolf Sports Network.

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Golf Talk Live - Season13 Episode 14 | June 19th, 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 - Season13 Episode 14 | June 19th, 2025