Owning Your Swing To Find The Light At End Of The Tunnel

Tired of tip-chasing and still shooting the same scores? Let’s flip the script. We’re bringing our YouTube instruction back with a tighter focus on concepts that hold up under force plates, launch monitors, and on-course outcomes—no dogma, no magic moves, just the stuff that actually changes ball flight and scores. We also share travel plans so you can hop on the plates with us in person, or work together online with real data.

Here’s the heart of it: better golf starts by matching your unique movement pattern to a delivery that repeats under pressure. Some players don’t move great but deliver the face beautifully; others move like athletes but deliver inconsistency. We talk through how we decide what to change first, why small, deliberate adjustments beat wholesale overhauls, and how to keep your strengths while fixing the right weakness. Short game gets a reality check too—soft, overseeded, grainy conditions can make good players look lost. We break down why planning, margin for error, and low-point control matter more than endless steep-versus-shallow arguments.

Data turns guesswork into progress. With CLIPPd, we spot real trends, shift practice time where it pays, and resist the urge to overcoach. If your approaches are strong but your putting stalls, we rebuild start line and speed with targeted drills. If chipping is lagging, we design reps that force skill, not just motion. Along the way, we celebrate Justin Rose’s wire-to-wire clinic and the pro habits that keep veterans sharp—early reps, relentless curiosity, and recovery routines that let skill show up on demand.

If you’re ready to stop chasing every new swing hack and commit to a clear plan, this one lays out how to do it: define your pattern, tune delivery, test with data, and iterate with patience. Subscribe, share with a friend who loves the grind, and leave a review telling us your current focus—are you working on the cut, the low point, or smarter practice blocks?

Website : measuredgolf.com 

Instagram : @measuredgolf | @theforceplateguy 

Contact Us : info@measuredgolf.com

Transcript

Big Update: YouTube Relaunch

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Measured Golf Podcast, where you, the listener, sit down and join me, Michael, as we discuss all things golf. And I've got some pretty exciting news to start this podcast with. And there's been a lot of people who have reached out and wanted to know when are we going to get the more golf instruction uh side of the YouTube back up and running. And I don't think we've posted a video in close to nine months now. So a lot of people have wanted to know when that's going to return, when we're going to make uh some more content. And the good news is we have a filming date set. And it looks like uh right now it's the sixth of the month. It looks like here on the 17th of this month, uh, we're gonna get back to filming some content and getting the content distributed onto the YouTube channel pretty shortly thereafter that. So I would imagine by the end of February, we kind of have that side of the content on our YouTube channel back up and cooking. If you're unfamiliar with our YouTube uh channel, you can go over to YouTube and

What We Teach And Why

SPEAKER_00 1:05

search Measured Golf, which will pull it right up for you, and you can check out some of the stuff we've put up. And I think there'll probably be a little bit of um going back and maybe deleting some videos that aren't as relevant or maybe you know we've changed our minds on or opinions on a little bit as we've done research over the past year, looked into things. I think most of it still is pretty good. Uh, but it's always good to kind of do a little uh spring cleaning, if you will, even though we're nowhere near spring. We've still got a foot of snow on the ground here in Michigan. Uh, but yeah, so exciting stuff. Uh get a lot of you that reach out to me wanting to know when that's going to come back. So it is officially coming back. We're going to uh go ahead and you know live the fear of putting stuff up, knowing that a lot of people are going to want to be dismissive and or argue about what we put up. But in general kind of terms, I coach golf for a living uh and I try my best to share the stuff that we know to be true, the things we've measured, uh, the things that are going to generally have an impact on a lot of golfers. And, you know, for me, you know, I really try my best to not create content on YouTube that says this is the only way to do it or this is something you have to do. But rather I try to explain, you know, a lot of the concepts, a lot of the things that we do know need to happen in the golf swing from a human movement or a physics or whatever perspective that it may be. Uh, but we've had a lot of success with that. Uh, we definitely kind of have built the channel on that. So we're excited to get back doing that. Uh, it's probably been a little too long of a break, uh, but that's kind of what happens. You you go a couple of weeks without doing it, and then next thing you know, it's been nine months. So we apologize for the delay. Uh, it was a little bit needed. The YouTube crowd was getting a little overwhelming for me. Uh, so but I am excited to be back doing that, putting that information out there. And, you know, I I think it's a good place for a lot of people to go and, you know, get a better understanding, a better concept,

Force Plates And Personalized Coaching

SPEAKER_00 3:15

whatever it may be. Uh, but I think a lot of people, you know, they they go to that and they, you know, unfortunately don't really have a good diagnosis of what it is that's really holding them back in their swing. And they're like, well, this sounds good or that sounds good. And they start kind of like picking and choosing uh what sounds the most appetizing to them at the moment. And in reality, the the best possible situation uh is that you come here to Measured Golf in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Uh, we get you on the force plates, we get a really good understanding of what you're doing with your movement, we get a really good understanding of kind of how you're trying to deliver the club, and then trying to figure out which one of those two things, you know, we want to kind of stick with and change the other. And that's where, you know, I think it's tough a lot of times with people, is that there's people who, you know, I would put myself in this camp. I don't move the best, but I deliver the club fairly well and fairly consistently. And generally I'm able to play some pretty good golf because I hit the ball at my target. Uh, I don't hit a lot of crooked ones, and I just don't hit it as far as a lot of people do. But it is a way to play golf. So I kind of have this delivery that we probably don't want to change a whole lot. But then when we look at my movement and how I'm moving my body, it's like, okay, that's the thing that we need to change the most. So, you know, I've been working on my golf game again, uh, first time in a long time, but I've got to work on it. Uh, and it's it's really just we got to get the movement better. And then we're going to, you know, we're going to want to maintain as much of that delivery as we can because, like I said, I do a pretty consistent job with that. But we're going to have to adjust that delivery probably a little bit with the new movement, considering the body is going to be in a different place than it was. So uh good stuff uh to come in, get on the plates. Uh, if you can't get on the plates, or if you can't get here to Ann Arbor, Michigan to get on the plates, you know, probably the second best option for people is, you know, there are a lot of force plates out there now. It's not like it was eight, nine years ago when I first kind of got into the plate stuff. Uh, there's a lot of sets of plates out there now. So if you're somebody who's really, you know, wanting some help from me uh and you want some force plate information as well, you know, reach out, let me know what you're kind of thinking, what you want to do. We'll do our best to find somebody close to you that has a set of plates, and then they can actually share that information with me. So when we do the initial evaluation online, uh, we actually have that information at our disposal. So that's been a good combination as well, because we're not really missing anything. We've got the plate data, uh, we've got some launch monitor data, we've we've got your uh kind of thoughts and feelings and opinions about what's been going on, and we can kind of build a plan from there. And I've had a lot of luck with the online coaching. It's been a lot of fun. Uh, I I was very late to the game with the online coaching, but I've I've kind of grown to figure out that there's a lot of ways, in my opinion, that online coaching actually works better than the in-person stuff. Uh, are there some drawbacks to it? And of course, you know, it's

Online Coaching That Actually Works

SPEAKER_00 6:25

it's always nice when if words aren't working, you can just kind of grab them and move them and put the club into a position or whatever the case may be. So that's always, you know, nice to be able to do. But I've kind of found that luckily uh I know enough words and enough analogies to kind of be able to get people to more or less move and do the things we need them to do through Zoom, which is what I use when I do my online coaching. So, you know, I think that's a great option for people. I get a lot of questions about, hey, I would love to come out and see you, but it just doesn't really make sense. I've got a busy schedule uh or it's cost prohibitive or whatever the case may be. But for those of you that are wanting to get some help, uh, that's why we have the online program there so that we can get you some help. So that's exciting as well. You know, third, third best case scenario is go to the YouTube, check out the videos, uh, you know, try try your best to kind of figure out what you think you need the most help with, uh, and then find the video that kind of pertains to that. So that's kind of the way it's structured. Uh, I've definitely had some clients, students, that, you know, they they take a lesson with me and then they go and watch all the videos, then they kind of get lost in the sauce a little bit. And I always tell people, like, you know, if if you're working with me one-on-one, or, you know, whether that's in person or virtual, you know, let's let's stick to what we're working on in person. Let's not necessarily go out there uh and try to find a video that that makes us kind of interested and makes us want to do some different stuff on YouTube. So good stuff. Excited once again. Uh, I hope by the end of this month, the end of February, uh, to be putting content back up for people. So that should be fun and exciting, and uh we'll deal with the uh the backlash as it comes, but I'm looking forward to that. So and other big news, uh, I'm going to be on the road a bit here uh coming up. Uh a lot of it is kind of private client work, uh, but there are some opportunities as well to get with me. So I know next week I'm going, uh actually the next two weeks, I'll be at two different colleges presenting to their golf programs and talking to them a little bit about coaching uh and how we use the force plates to make better decisions with what we want to try to change with people. So that's very exciting. But in March, uh, I believe it's March 25th, if you are in the Manhattan area, New York that is, Manhattan, New York, if you're in the city and uh looking to work with me and get some uh onto the force plates, uh, there's going to be an opportunity for people to come over to Five Iron Golf uh and Manhattan. I'll share more information about that as it becomes available. But we will be there. Uh, I will have the force plates as well as track man with me, and we will be doing coaching there in the city.

Road Dates And How To Work Together

SPEAKER_00 9:11

So if you're somebody up in the northeast who wants to kind of get together and put some work in on your golf game, uh, I'm more than happy to help you there. So uh be on the lookout. We're gonna be, I think, in Tennessee the month after that. Um, possibility of maybe working some people in there. So if you're down in more the southern part of the country, uh and Tennessee is a little easier for you to get to, uh, reach out to me because I will be down there as well. So as you can tell, it's gonna be uh a bit of a busy start to the year, uh, which I'm very excited about. I enjoy getting out uh and sharing the information with people and getting a change of scenery for myself. We have an amazing facility here, uh, but it is nice to see something different every now and then. So I'm excited about getting back out on the road, meeting a lot of new people, and trying to help them play better golf because at the end of the day, that's what it's all about. So I didn't really uh have a topic for the podcast tonight. Uh I didn't really have anything that was jumping off the page at me that I really wanted to get into.

Chipping Struggles At Scottsdale

SPEAKER_00 10:14

Um, you know, I I thought about maybe talking a little bit about, you know, we've got the waste management open going on second round today. And, you know, it's kind of all over the internet, or at least it's been all over my feed so far today. But seeing a lot of people out there uh really struggling with the chipping out at uh TPC Scottsdale. And, you know, it it's kind of interesting out there this time of year. You know, it's it's definitely a good time of the year to be in Phoenix, especially if you're like me and in one of the colder parts of the country, it's a great time to be there. Um, but it's also still the the you know, it's not the the growing season, so to say, out there uh in that part of the country. So things are overseated, things are a little wet, things are a little long, and it's definitely giving some players some issues around the greens when it comes to chipping. I know uh Colin really struggled yesterday. Um I mean that that one's kind of been all over the place, takes a fairly big cut at it, ball doesn't go very far. Uh Jordan Spieth kind of made a mess of a hole and uh tried to kind of take one up top and uh kind of left it short of the green. And then probably the one that was the most surprising to most was Scotty probably had a chip shot, pitch shot that he was kind of looking at and likely trying to make, and uh literally, you know, chunked it up onto the green and it came back to his feet. Uh and he had a pretty wild reaction to that. But you know, a lot of people have reached out to me and been like, hey, you know, look at this, the steep stuff and and all that. I don't, I don't think that's per se what it is. I think it's it's a lot of conditions, chipping into grain, things like that, being a little softer out there. You know, that that stuff is tough, man. And and when you're out there playing golf and chipping on overseated, soft conditions, uh, it can be kind of grabby and grainy. So you really gotta be good at kind of having a plan for what kind of shot you're trying to hit. And then more importantly, kind of being able to execute it under an enormous amounts of pressure. So um, yeah, I don't I don't think that I want to get into that too deep. Uh, I don't want to uh necessarily label a bunch of players as being super steep or having a high VSP. Uh, like I said in the past, I think some of that stuff can be really good depending on the shot you're trying to hit. Uh, so I don't necessarily think it was that. I think it was just the overseated soft conditions that were getting to them more so than others. Uh obviously, you know, we we want to make sure in those situations that we're we're kind of game planning a solution for the shot that is going to really minimize, you know, the the downside. So I do think, you know, and I'm not trying to get into the war again, but uh I do think that you're gonna see the guys that are maybe a little shallower uh with their pitching and chipping, they are going to do a little better in those conditions than some of the guys that are steeper, just because as we get steeper, it definitely requires us to be very surgical

Shoutout To Justin Rose’s Masterclass

SPEAKER_00 13:20

with low point when we're playing in those soft, overseated, grainy conditions. So I I like I said, you know, I think a lot of it has more to do with course condition than necessarily technique. So all those guys can obviously pitch the ball. Jordan Speith, uh, probably one of the better short games that's out there. So seeing him struggle a little bit just kind of gives you a pretty good understanding of how difficult it is out there. Course is playing uh very firm uh on the greens, but a little softer, like I said, in the approaches with the overseating and all of that good stuff. So not too surprising there. Um, you know, the week before in the Amex, you know, I I think that that really I don't know if it's because he's not an American player, or if we're coming off of a rider cop that was, you know, uh a little bit kind of viewed as us versus them or what the case is. But I was really surprised uh at the lack of kind of positive response to Justin Rose absolutely blitzing the field and going wire to wire. Um, you know, we've all heard it before. It's incredibly difficult to win on the PGA tour. Winning an event by six or seven strokes, whatever it was, I mean, that's almost unheard of. And breaking Tigers' scoring record at the age of 45, you know, that also is kind of unheard of. So I think it's pretty wild uh that we haven't had more fanfare around Justin Rose's win at the Amex. Um, he's definitely my favorite player of all time, big rosy guy. Uh, hard, hard not to cheer for the guy and like the guy. But um at the age of 45, putting on that performance, I mean, it's very similar to seeing Wilt Chamberlain, you know, score a hundred points. I mean, that's really the level that he was at. Uh, it's it's just probably one of I would be shocked if we see a performance as good as what Justin Rose did last week. So uh I wanted to make sure that I kind of shouted out my guy Rosie uh and congratulated him for that performance because, like I said, I think it'd be very tough to see another performance as good as that for four rounds uh the rest of the PGA tour season. And for him to be doing it at 45 years old when a lot of guys are you know struggling and just trying to hang on to their card and he's thriving, you know, I think that speaks a lot to his work ethic. And one thing that I will share uh that I think is pretty cool, I think it's probably the best compliment I've ever heard. But I was talking to uh Sean Foley about, and I I know I'm name-dropping, but I was talking to Shane uh Sean Foley about Justin Rose just because I was so curious because like I said, he's my favorite player of all time, and we were just kind of talking about some of the stuff they worked on and what they were doing when they were working together. Obviously, um uh Justin is now working with Mark Blackburn,

Work Ethic Lessons From Pros

SPEAKER_00 16:10

but we were kind of talking about their time together, and uh Sean said, you know, if you watch Justin practice, you would swear the guys never won anything. And I just was really blown away by that comment. And it it's just I can't really think of a higher compliment that a coach could could pay a player. So I thought that was really cool. Uh really speaks to Justin's intense work ethic. Um, you know, got to witness that myself at this this last rider cup. Justin typically was out there before the others, uh, generally was out there later than the others. And you know, that's that's pretty cool stuff. That's I think that's how he's really maintained um his stature in the game, right? And being 45 years old. And we all know about the you know, the RV that he has, it's all loaded up with all the recovery stuff so that he can stay on top of his health and his mobility. Uh, I think that stuff's really cool. But it also reminds me, you know, going back to the Ryder Cup at Whistling Straits a few years ago. Um, I remember we we were out there, we're freaks, sicko's, you know, degenerates, can't get enough golf. And and Aram, my trainer here at Measured Golf, uh, Smash Factor Performance online, uh, he was with me on that trip to Whistling Straits. And it was it was early in the morning. I mean, it was probably, you know, it was still dark out. So, I mean, it's before 7 a.m. Uh, we're, you know, kind of on perverts row there at the range, you know, pushed up against the fence like we like to do, uh, watching these guys go to work. And we got there early enough to where nobody was on the range. And the first person on the range was Sergio Garcia. And I know a lot of people have mixed emotions about Sergio Garcia, uh, and I know he's a little less thought of now, just you know, since he's joined uh Live. But, you know, you have to take your hat off because it's very early in the morning. I mean, it's still dark. Uh, it was very cold. And for Sergio to be out there first thing, and I mean, I don't even think he was the first group off that day. I think that he went off way later, but just out there working and grinding. And, you know, at the time, Sergio, I think, was probably close to 40, if not maybe a little bit older than that. And, you know, I think that's these guys that have been around forever that we remember from 20 years ago that are still out there and still relevant, still competing for wins, you know,

Improvement Doesn’t Follow Your Timeline

SPEAKER_00 18:36

they they haven't worked less hard. They haven't, you know, lost that desire to compete. So I think that's a big part of it, right? Is you know, having that hunger, working on things, constantly evolving, constantly trying to improve. You know, Justin Rose doing that with his recovery techniques and all the different things he does to keep his body ready. But also, you know, I know him and Mark do a ton of work. And, you know, whether it be 3D motion capture, force plates, launch monitors, you know, he's constantly digging. He's constantly trying to turn over that next stone and figure out how he's gonna get a little bit better. And that's that's kind of really, I think, something that doesn't get talked about a lot, and maybe a good little segue into, you know, us as normal human beings, normal golfers that aren't PGA tour players. I think the thing that a lot of people don't realize is generally speaking, you know, golf and getting better at golf uh doesn't really work on this timeline that we want it to. You know, generally speaking, a lot of golfers want to get better today. Now, we need to get better today for sure, but getting better today doesn't mean we shoot better scores tomorrow. We could get better today and shoot the same score tomorrow. We could get better today and shoot a higher score or a lower score. Maybe another area of our golf game doesn't show up that day, whatever the case may be. But I think the lesson to be learned from Sergio and Justin is this idea of like, hey, let's get 1% better today, and let's get 1% better tomorrow, and let's get 1%. And the thing is, is statistically, when we look at kind of the evolvement of golfers, right? You know, obviously a lot of people do not play on the PGA tour, but we have a lot of people that play college golf. And if you look at division one, two, three, four, or NAIA or whatever you want to look at, statistically, when we look at these players, generally their sophomore year is the best year that they have. Uh, it just that's how the math works out, that's how the stats work out. But generally, when we look at this, we see that their sophomore year tends to be their best campaign, and then they get a little worse their third year and a little worse their fourth year, and then they kind of slide into whatever career they go into and become weekend warriors and things like that. But one of the big messages that I'm always talking about with my players that are in college golf is if we can figure out a way to get a little bit better our junior year than we were our sophomore, we're we're really gaining on the field because we know that by and large, the rest of the field, sophomore year or older, are sliding a little bit the wrong way. And if we're sliding a little bit the positive way, that's creating a big gap. And this is really important for people, right? Is if we can find a way to kind of get our improvement, you know, kind of that trend line to kind of creep upwards a little bit, a little bit, a little bit, generally we're really gaining on our competition because they tend to be going the other way, especially as we get older, we lose a little mobility, we lose a little strength, uh, we just lose time, right? You know, people get busy with careers, people get busy with families. So if you're one of those people that can just constantly kind of keep getting A little better and keep learning a little bit more and keep refining your technique. You know, if you put that on a long enough timeline, you know, after a few years of that, you're going to be pretty darn good at golf. And that's

Know Your Pattern, Match Delivery

SPEAKER_00 22:12

the hard part. And I listened to an amazing podcast earlier this week with my absolute favorite golf coach in the world. I'm very much on the record as saying, I believe Pete Cowan is the very best golf coach there's ever been. If I was to put a Mount Rushmore uh up of top instructors, I would put Pete Cowan, Pete Cowan, Pete Cowan, and Pete Cowan. Uh I really think he's that good and that brilliant. And, you know, Pete talked a lot about this in the podcast. And if you want to listen to that podcast, uh, it was actually on the Rick Shields podcast, um, and you had Pete on, I think it's maybe five or six episodes ago. I just I saw a clip of it somewhere on my algorithm, and I didn't even know that they had done it. So I I gave it a listen and Pete talks about this. But he was saying that, you know, if you if you help people kind of understand what their pattern is, meaning like if we get them to understand, like, hey, this is how you move really well, like this is what you do, like you're really good at taking lateral force and pairing it with vertical force, or you're really good at taking torque and pairing it with vertical force, or however you do it, if we understand that, and then we understand how to match up the club delivery to that movement pattern, like that's you. That's who you're going to be, right? Like that's who you're gonna be today, tomorrow, forever. So if we can help golfers like understand that, now we've at least got them on the path. And the nice thing about being on the path is we can kind of in the distance see the light at the end of the tunnel. And what Pete said was the problem with getting people on the path and seeing the light at the end of the tunnel is sometimes we feel like that light's getting bigger and bigger and we're like sprinting towards it. But other times we're we're feeling like we're not really gaining on that light. We can see it, but we feel like we're kind of walking at a very slow pace. And that's the hard part for golfers to kind of recognize and accept is that once again, improvement and getting better at golf doesn't always work on our timeline. So I think it's very important that we understand that it doesn't work on our timeline. But as long as we understand what that light is and we understand that we're moving towards it, that's the best path for us to find a better golf game, to find a better swing, to have a better technique, whatever the case may be. But that's where it gets really tough because it gets monotonous sometimes, right? It's we as golfers like to tinker. Uh we like to get new clubs, we like to try new techniques, we see something in our algorithm that seems like, oh man, that's what I need. But Pete called it just kind of searching for that shortcut, right? And the problem is that we're constantly inundated with these shortcuts. There's a million people on social media. Uh, hey, do this one thing, hey, do this one thing, hey, do this one thing. And maybe it works for you for a little while, maybe it works for you for a long time, maybe it's just a placebo. But the problem is, is that we kind of start trying to chase these shortcuts, and pretty quickly we can't see that light at all anymore because maybe those shortcut those shortcuts don't align with what our pattern is and what our delivery needs to be. So I think it's really, really important that if you are trying to get better at this game of golf, if you're trying to improve yourself, I think you just really have to hold yourself accountable to, hey, this is who I am, this is what I do well, and these are the things that I'm gonna work at to try to improve the areas where I need improvement. And the other stuff I'm gonna kind of maintain, and you know, I'm gonna have to accept it. You know, I would love, I've never been a long hitter in my life. Now, when I say that, I'm comparing that to what we see on TV and what we see at the college kind of level. Uh, and you know, it's it's really not a big thing anymore to be 180 mile an hour ball speed. If you're one of the top players in the world

Stats Over Feel: Using CLIPPd

SPEAKER_00 26:10

or one of the top collegiate players in the world, 180 is really not even that big of a number anymore, to be honest with you. So I I I compare myself just because that's what I see to that a lot. But in reality, like as a 41-year-old person who doesn't play a lot of golf and doesn't practice enough, I'm working on that, but still don't practice enough. But, you know, I have to change my benchmarks and change what I perceive. And the reality is, is if if I can get it to 165 ball speed, which is kind of you probably my max effort right now, uh, I'm probably hanging out about 60, but I'll be 65-ish by the time we get to the season to kick off here in Michigan. But, you know, 165 ball speed, you know, that's gonna give me, you know, a 275, 285 carry somewhere in there, depending on launch and conditions of the spin rate and things like that. But, you know, that's more than enough to play golf at the level I want to play golf at, assuming I'm playing the right T's. So it's I have to make my peace with that. And I get really lost sometimes kind of chasing more distance and wanting to hit it farther. And hey, I really want my eight iron to go like 165, 170. I want to look like the college kids I work with and look like the pros I work with. But, you know, realistically, with the way that you know my pattern is and the way my delivery is, I would really have to make some big, big changes to kind of create that speed that I need to create in terms of getting in the gym more, eating better, sleeping better, recovering better, uh, and really taking better care of my body. And as somebody who owns a small business and is very busy, you know, it's just not very realistic. So holding myself accountable, I really need to work on creating this sustainable pattern that I'm working on, trying to create a little better job with the timing of my forces. They tend to be a little late, like a lot of us. But, you know, for me, if that leads to a little more distance, great. But what I'm really seeking is I'm really seeking getting the club delivery a little better so that I stop hitting the ball left. I tend to overdraw the golf ball when I miss one. I hate it, it drives me crazy. Like there's nothing, I don't care if it lands two feet from the pen. If that ball is more left than I aimed it, I hate it. And I've been that way for a long time. And I've talked about on this podcast two years ago, you know, really probably having one of the better seasons I've had in a long time, I was fading the golf ball. And man, did I love it because that ball wasn't winding up left of my target. If anything, it would wind up right. And when I miss a green right or a pen right or whatever the case may be, I'm very rarely up unhappy about that. Unless I like just hit it out of the heel and don't hit it very well. But generally speaking, if I hit one fairly solid and it winds up a little bit right, no big deal. If I hit it perfect, but it's left, I hate it. So for me, a lot of what I'm trying to do with my golf game and my golf swing is get delivery to happen in a way to where my path doesn't blow out too far to the right. I don't get that face closing, trying to get the ball on target and overdraw it a bit, trying to get the path a little bit more left, trying to feel like I'm almost kind of coming across it a bit more and trying to get that face to where it's wanting to open up relative to the path. So for me, that's kind of the end goal of what I'm working on. But once again, you know, if if I'm drawing the golf ball a bit, that generally is going to create a little more speed and distance versus the fading it. And I think that's kind of the catch 22 for me, is that where I get kind of lost in the sauce and chasing speed, that kind of promotes more of a draw pattern out of me. And I have to once again hold myself accountable and go, hey, screw speed, let's worry about getting the ball to cut, because that's when you're really going to play your best on the golf course. So um, yeah, I mean, that's that's just kind of the way it goes. And, you know, here lately I've really been trying to manage, you know, that light at the end of the tunnel. And yeah, maybe the speed isn't there. I I really, you know, hadn't hit a lot of golf balls in a few months. Hadn't really touched a golf club too much in a few months. And here recently have kind of been back at it. And, you know, the speed's not there yet. And that's to be expected, right? It's been a few months off. It's going to take a little while to get back up to, you know, getting the speed and the strength back where I need it to be. Um, but once again, like I'm I'm trying right now, excuse me, just to hit more cuts because I know that when I get out on the golf course and we start playing golf again, that's how I play my best golf. So that's how I played my best golf in high school, college, uh, on some mini tours as well, was you know, hitting that cut. But I really I like to fall back into that draw pattern. That's that's kind of always been the MO with me. So doing some work on the force plates, getting that cleaned up a little bit, getting a little more lateral, which I think is going to help uh definitely kind of solve some of that issue. And

Don’t Overcoach: Let Players Learn

SPEAKER_00 31:12

I think gonna get the forces to act a little or get the forces to time up a little better for me. But uh that's enough about me. Uh, but I think you know it's it's a good, it's a good reference for what I'm talking about in terms of just trying to get a little better, right? And trying to understand you know what the end game is, what our goals are, uh, and what's actually gonna allow us to play our best golf. You know, a lot of people, you could give them five to ten more miles an hour of ball speed, but is that really gonna help them play better golf? You know, that's these are the questions that I always ask myself as a coach is you know, what does this player actually need to play better golf? And where we're inside here at Measured Golf, it's an indoor facility. You know, I'm not out there on the golf course with them a ton. I'm not really, you know, aware of like, hey, how do you play golf? Because I've seen it quite a few times to where, you know, I have a client that, you know, I spend a lot of time with here inside, and maybe they're a little bit more of a draw player, and we get out on the golf course and they just hit nothing but cuts. And it's like, well, wait a minute, like I didn't expect this. But, you know, understanding like, hey, this is kind of how my my brain sees this shot. This is kind of what I execute on the golf course, and then trying to understand, like, hey, do you do you feel better hitting a cut into that pen, or do you feel better hitting a draw into that pen? Or are you just kind of trying to hit it more or less straight? Um, and it falls right, it falls left, and we kind of take it, you know, as it comes. So I think, you know, trying to figure out like, hey, this is who I am, this is how I play the best, you know, and and that that's where I really think keeping stats helps, right? Is you know, I love the clip app. I've said this before, I'll say it again. The clip app, C L I P P D. Uh, if you want to go find this thing, it really allows me, who's not on the golf course with the player, to really get an intimate understanding of how that player plays golf. It helps me understand, like, hey, where are our misses at? How are we missing? And then you can have a conversation, right? You can literally go and go, hey, you missed these three greens. Um, you know, let's say it was, you know, hole seven, hole 11, hole 15. You miss these three greens to the left. Where was the pen? And they're like, oh, well, the pen was here, the pen was here, the pen was here. Okay, well, when you were like looking at that shot, were you kind of thinking more draw? Were you thinking more fade? Were you thinking kind of more of a straight one that falls one way or the other? And it's like, oh, well, you know, I was thinking draw here. Okay, well, you know, let's say that we find out through that conversation there's a pattern of, hey, on those three shots, I was thinking draw, and I overdrew all three of them. Okay, well, you know, maybe that's where the problem lies is we got to get them away from thinking draw when in reality they need to be thinking more fade. Um, and it could be as simple as that, right? So I think having the stats there is super, super important. I think having the stats there because it provides trend lines as well, it's one of the amazing things that I think clipped does better than most, is it puts these trend lines together for us. And now it's like we can just kind of manage our game a little better. And like I said, you know, if if let's say you're a great ball striker, and let's say like driving and approach game is your strength. Okay, cool. You know, we have a number associated with that skill within Clipped, uh, based off a metric of 200. Okay, so generally, let's say like you're 90 and 90. Okay, let's say you're like a five handicap or whatever, and you're at like 90 and 90. Okay, cool. Like, here's what we're gonna do for a little while. We're in golf season, we're trying to play golf, we're trying to get better, we're trying to shoot lower scores, which typically is what better means for most people. And it's like, look, we're gonna leave the ball striking alone a little bit. Like, we know what we're doing here, you're at a 90, that's a good place to be. Uh, but you're you're scrambling uh around the green score, is like let's say 75, and let's say your putting's at like 80. Okay, well, if we want to like elevate the overall number to 90 to match the driving and approach play, then we've got to like do some work on the short game. So, you know, what we're gonna do is we're gonna do enough work with the ball striking, with the driving, with the approach. We're gonna do enough work there to kind of manage that and maintain that, but we're gonna take the bulkhead of the hours that you're practicing, we're gonna take the majority of that, and we're gonna devote that over here to this short game practice

Technique Versus Ownership In Practice

SPEAKER_00 35:42

and get better at this. And you know, the cool thing is for me as a coach, like I'm always wondering, is it technique? Is it a lack of practice? Is it a lack of game plan? Like, what is it that's holding this person back? So generally we identify that like around the green and putting, these two areas need to work. It's like, all right, well, I want you to spend more time on that. Go get it. And you know, you send them out there into the wilderness to start kind of figuring out some of this stuff for themselves. And, you know, then we can look, right? We we have these trend lines. And maybe let's say, you know, they spend a little bit more time chipping and pitching the ball, they kind of figure out what they need to figure out, and all of a sudden we see that go from I think I said 80. Let's say it bumps up to like 83. Okay, great, keep doing what you're doing, right? Like that's wonderful. It just needed a little more work. Uh, and now that we're giving it a little more work, we're seeing it grow a little bit, right? So that's fine. But let's say maybe putting is like still hanging out at 75, and they're like, Coach, I've been putting in the hours. I've been, you know, I've I'm doing, you know, let's say 60% of my time that I'm practicing, I'm on the putting green working on this. Okay, well, now let's talk about how we're working on it. What drills are you doing? You know, what are you doing when you're spending that time on the putting green? And now all of a sudden we like look at that, we go, okay, well, let's give that an overhaul. Like, let's come up with some new drills, let's come up with some different things we need to be doing to kind of manage whether it be, you know, start line with the putt, whether it be speed control with the putting. Uh, but let's like figure out what we got to do there. So we kind of re you know, give that an overhaul, if you will, and we kind of look at that trend line again and hey, they're they're still creeping up. Let's say they're up to 85, 86 with the around the green. The chipping's getting better because we're we're giving that more, you know, water and sunshine and practice time, right? So that's growing for us. But the putting's just not coming around. Okay, well, now it's like, you know, now I feel pretty confident it's technique. Okay, so now it's a good time for me to step in and go, okay, like let's look at this technique. Let's figure out what's going on with the stroke mechanics. Uh, let's figure out what's going on with your green reading abilities and and let's let's come up with something new. Uh, because obviously the way we're trying to go about doing this isn't getting it done. But that's like a way more reasonable approach to this, right? And I think that it's really given me the freedom to not overcoach people. And as a younger coach, I would definitely want to jump in with the technique, like first and foremost, like, oh, let's let's work on this technique, let's work on this technique, let's work on this technique. But where I've really found the difference and like high-level coaching from kind of this mid-level coaching is you've got to give the players uh the opportunity to grow. And you've got to give them the opportunity to really do um some learning on their own and to kind of figure things out on their own and take some ownership on their own. So when we kind of think of that, it's you know, there's there's really two types of learning out there. There's the it's there's the explicit, right? Where I tell you what to do and then you try to do it. And then there's the implicit, right? Which is I've told you what to do, I've shown you what to do, I've given you the drills to do. And now it's on you to go out there and really kind of make that your own and and to grow into that. And that's the implicit part or the inherent part of learning, right? So I think that really gets sold down the river. And it makes sense why, because we can't really market that and we can't really sell that as golf coaches or golf club manufacturers or whatever. Uh, we it's it's bad business to tell people like, hey, if you invest a little bit of time into this, it might actually get better. So I think that's really an important part of the learning cycle. And that's why, you know, I like being able to layer in the clipped app with my coaching because A, it tells me where I need to be spending my time with players, and B, I can kind of let some things sit for a little while. And and maybe I don't tell the player uh that I'm not doing chipping with them right now because I'm kind of letting them figure it out. But I'm I'm kind of designing that in their practice plans. And like, hey, why is why is the time like up for chipping a pitching coach? Uh, I just think it's time we put a little more effort into that. You don't really tell them, right?

Filter The Internet And Commit

SPEAKER_00 40:12

And you're just kind of running these experiments in the background. But instead of constantly going off of gut feelings and intuitions, it's like now we've got a little bit more objective data with the clip app to tell us, like, hey, giving a little more time to this is is working. Um, you know, that that could be good, versus the just constantly jumping in with technique and technique and technique and kind of overcoaching the player. Uh, and nobody likes that. Nobody, nobody enjoys being overcoached. And you know, the the big thing that I've learned is you just sometimes have to sit back and it's painful, right? Like I wanna, I'm a fixer, you know, that's why I do what I do. I like to fix things. So um that can be good and technique can help. Uh, and you know, we're constantly refining techniques, right? But at the same time, we also have to give the the player the opportunity to figure out their way. And that's kind of what I like about doing, you know, putting putting is boring as hell. Uh if you're just out rolling, rolling the ball around the green. Like that's that's no fun for anybody. But if we're really specific with the drills that we're kind of giving people, uh it really allows them to kind of figure out how to get the job done. And there's a lot of players, you know, that and whether it be professional, college, high school, amateur, uh, you know, weekend stud, weekend warrior, there's a lot of players that I work with that honestly, you know, I watch them swing the club or I watch them chip or putt or whatever the case may be, and it's like, I don't love the way that looks. But at the same time, like they get it done. And at the end of the day, it's about getting it done. Um, I hate to tell people, like, there isn't there's no score for prettiest swing, uh, and nobody really cares, you know, what your swing is or what it looks like. Um you you gotta be able to get the ball in the hole. So, you know, in the least amount of strokes possible. So I I think if you're one of those people to where you're constantly, you know, banging on technique, you know, I think A, it's it's really easy to fall into preferences, you know. I think that's that's kind of a bad place to be. And a lot of your players start looking very similar with their swings. But B, I just I think that it doesn't allow the player to really find their strengths and their weaknesses. Um, and I I think that's where you kind of got to let the baby bird go out of the nest a little bit and kind of do a little bit of homework. And, you know, if they get hungry enough, they'll come back to the nest and ask you how to hunt better. So uh I like giving players the opportunity to do that. But as somebody who's a bit of a control freak and somebody who's constantly wondering about these things and wanting to know how we're doing, you know, kind of having that clipped app running in the background, feeding me information, you know, I I don't feel like, you know, we're potentially wasting time. And and that's really important, right? Because especially here, you know, where I live in Michigan, the golf season's very short. So let's say that I decide to just tell somebody to go and work at it a little bit more and see if that works, you know, I'm gonna get pretty quick feedback, depending on how much golf that person's playing, on whether this this experiment's working or not. And let's say that, you know, I tell somebody to go work on their chipping more and that trend line doesn't really move up. Okay, well, I don't look at that as wasted time. I don't look at that as like a failed experiment. I just know now that there's an issue there that needs to, like I I kind of have to flush it out a little bit, right? So, in a lot of the way, a lot of ways, I'm using the clipped app kind of as my bird dog to go out there and kind of flush out the problems for me and go, hey, you know, run through that field and We're going to see what problems kind of start shooting up into the sky. And now I know which ones I need to start trying to shoot down. So I think it's good. Um, I think it's really good. And I think, you know, generally speaking, that's where a lot of a lot of players who who want to get better miss the mark. Is it's very subjective with people. And I feel like I don't do this well enough, and I feel like I don't do that well enough. And like I said on an earlier podcast, uh, I'm gonna get back to putting my stuff into clipped again this year. And I can guarantee you, because I've done this in the past, that I'm not going to see that, you know, when I put my information in there, that it's saying I'm not hitting the ball far enough. Uh, I'm not gonna have that problem. Like I'm not, I know this. But subjectively, my feelings are I don't hit the ball far enough because when I watch players on the PGA tour and I watch players at the college level, high school level, I'm like, man, they hit it so far. Uh, but that's that's really, you know, my ego, my hubris, whatever you want to call it, uh kind of kicking in there, and I'm not being very objective. So, you know, for me, it's way more about getting the ball to not go left, and that's gonna put me in a position to to play a lot better. Plus, I need to uh get back to

Final Reminders And Ways To Connect

SPEAKER_00 45:12

trusting my short game a little bit more instead of trying to be so so kind of deliberate with it. Um, that's another big thing. But that's a topic for another time. So uh yeah, you know, I I I I guess I guess we ended up kind of talking about, you know, putting putting improvement on a timeline, which I think is a good thing to talk about. I'm I'm not so uh discouraged with what I've talked about on this podcast. I kind of like that idea. Um, but yeah, if you can find a way, you know, kind of going back to the last podcast, if you can find, you know, a plan that's gonna work for you and you can put that plan on a long enough timeline, you know, generally we're gonna wind up where we want to be. It might not be in the amount of time that we want it to be, uh, because we can't control the timeline. But if we can kind of keep our eyes locked on that light at the end of the tunnel and just keep moving forward, uh Andy Dufresne and the shit pipe, man, you know, like if you can just keep crawling through it and stomach it, you know, eventually it leads to uh to freedom and to where we want to be. So I think that's important, you know. I I think it's tough these days. I understand where people are coming from. Uh I've had a lot of people reach out to me and you know, want to work with me online or or whatever the case, maybe here in person. But a lot of the online clients, you know, they they reach out and they have these like grandiose visions of what they want to do in, you know, a very short amount of time. And it's like, okay, well, you know, we look at where they're at, we look at what's going on, and it's like, hey, I'm sorry to tell you, like, I I get it. You want to start at like letter G, but we're really on letter C. And you know, we got to cover these other letters before we get there. And that's tough for people, right? Like, we always think we're a lot closer than we are in a lot of cases. I think a lot of golfers, uh, because golf kind of looks easy on TV because we're watching a bunch of masters, it, you know, kind of and keep in mind it's made for TV. So you're seeing masters of what they do on a good day. So like they make it look very, very easy. So I think a lot of us kind of sit back and go, well, it looks so easy, I can't be that far off, I can do that. And, you know, I don't think people, I don't think people, you know, watch Bo Jackson blow somebody up. Uh that might be a little too old of a reference for a lot of people, but you know, like you don't watch Bo Jackson like blow somebody up and go, I could do that. You don't watch Steph Curry shoot it from half court with amazing accuracy and go, I could do that. So why do we watch Scotty Scheffler and go, I can do that? It's because it looks easy, right? And it's because we all play this game. Uh, we play, we we can, you know, you can go out and play TPC Scottsdale, so you can play the same venue. Uh, you can do a lot of the same things that these tour players do, but I think that creates this fallacy that we should be able to do it too. But the thing we don't see is we don't see the amount of work they put in week to week, we don't see the off-course regimens that these guys have. We don't see what they're doing in the gym, we don't see what they're doing with the PT. We don't see what they're doing in recovery, we don't see what they're doing in practice. And a lot of us, if we're being honest with ourselves, just don't really put that much effort into it. So expecting to not put that much effort into it and then perform like somebody who's putting everything they have into it is just a little bit unrealistic. So a lot of people that we reach out to me, um, you know, they they want a lot in short order. And, you know, I've just kind of gotten a little bit maybe more mature in my coaching, maybe have a little more wisdom. And I just tell them, like, hey, I'm probably not the coach for you. But I don't, I'm not angry at that person. I don't feel like that person is, you know, not smart or whatever the case may be. I just feel like it's somebody who, you know, constantly is told on the internet that, you know, do this one thing and you'll get this, and do this one thing and you'll get that. And it just doesn't really work that way. So if it did, you know, that person would probably be teaching all the golf lessons instead of you know trying to sell golf lessons online to people. So, you know, with that being said, um, I think you got to be careful, you know, where you get your information from. I think you, you know, are better off, you know, and look, there's there's a there's probably you know there are a lot of good golf coaches out there. I believe that there's a lot of great content out there, but I think, you know, what you kind of have to do if you're somebody who is out there in the social media space or the YouTube space a lot is you kind of have to identify the guys that you've vetted and and feel like have good stuff that aligns with what you're doing and is stuff you can do, right? It's not something that just works only with tour players and people that move really well. Like if you have some movement issues, you know, and a lot of people do, uh, and it's not because they have uh an inhing and can't do it, it's because they don't have a neurological connection from the brain to the muscle. They've never done it before. So if they've never done it before, we got to teach them what that feels like, how, you know, and it's gonna feel awkward. So, you know, you got to find somebody out there that aligns with what you can do, what you want to do, uh, and then stick with that. And, you know, maybe don't follow and subscribe uh to all the other people and kind of confuse yourself because there is a lot of stuff you'll it happens to me all the time, you know, and and the algorithm that I'm looking at, it's like I see one thing and and they're saying one thing at one end of the spectrum, and then the next video, this guy's saying the other end of the spectrum. And you're like, well, shit, which one is right? And that's that's sometimes difficult to figure out. So I think you got to kind of pick and choose uh where you wanna where you want to subscribe to, what you want to believe in. Um, but more importantly, you wanna you wanna be doing stuff that's leading to better. Uh, and that's where I think you know, layering and the stats with clipped uh can be really, really good. I also was accused uh after the last podcast of the podcast before that. This is I'm not sponsored by Clipped. Uh I don't have any relationship with those guys. Uh they're great guys. I've been over to London, I've I've met their team, wonderful people. I haven't seen them in too long. I need to visit them again. But, you know, I'm not sponsored by Clipped. Uh, I'm actually not sponsored by anybody. Uh I don't do staff deals. I don't do uh any of that stuff because I want to be honest and tell people what I think. And, you know, I presented for Smart to Move, but I'm not an ambassador of Smart to Move. I presented for Swing Catalyst, I'm not an ambassador for swing catalyst. Uh I I like being able to say, you know, everything has a strength and a weakness, and I like kind of being able to talk about those things freely without fear of getting yelled at by somebody that you know is kind of holding all the cards. So uh I'm not sponsored by Clipped, I'm not trying to sell Clipped. I do think it's a phenomenal tool. Uh I use it, uh I have my players use it. I think it's very, very good. And I think if you're you're serious, you know, about understanding your golf game, then we need some objective data. And if we're gonna have objective data with our practice and our lessons and things like that, then why wouldn't we have objective data when it comes to how we play? Because that's super important. And it allows us to start understanding, you know, how we get it around the golf course, what our strengths are, what our weaknesses are, and then we can take that information and kind of build a nice little practice plan out of it. So uh I think that's all good stuff, and I highly recommend it if you're trying to get better at golf. So, you know, uh, like I said, we we kind of covered it a little bit on this podcast. I didn't really know where I was gonna go with it. I'm kind of happy with where it went. So uh I'm probably gonna stop talking before I screw this whole thing up and then feel like I did a terrible podcast. But uh another reminder, you know, the the golf swing, the golf concepts, uh that stuff on YouTube is relaunching hopefully by the end of February. So we are excited about that. Uh and I will be on the road a bit. I'm not gonna go through the dates again, uh, but definitely a public event. April 25th, I will be in New York City. So if you're gonna be there checking out the Big Apple or live there in the Big Apple, uh, I'll be there. I'll have the force plates, I'll have Track Man. And if you're serious about putting together a plan to kind of get you with your light at the end of the tunnel, I'm more than happy to try to help you do that. So make sure to reach out to me. Uh, and you can do that uh by following me on social media. So you can follow me directly at the forceplate guy on Instagram. You can follow the business measured golf at measured golf. Uh, you can find our website at measured golf, or I'm sorry, you can find the website by uh putting measuredgolf.com into your web browser. And obviously, you're listening to the podcast, so you don't need any help finding that. But if you're listening to the podcast and like to watch the podcast for some reason, you can also find that on our YouTube channel. So there's going to be a lot more going on with the YouTube. Uh, hopefully going to be a little bit more going on with the social media as well. And I'm really looking forward to sharing that information with you guys. So, once again, thank you so much for listening. Thank you so much for downloading and subscribing to this podcast. If you haven't done that already, please do. That really helps us out a lot. And as always, I really appreciate it and keep grinding.