Are You Hitting Your Driver As Far As You Should

Scotty Scheffler is one of the best players on the planet, so when he starts missing right with the driver, it’s not just gossip, it’s a case study. We use his off-the-tee struggles to get into the real reasons great drivers disappear: equipment changes, sponsor pressure, and the psychology of standing over a tee shot when you don’t fully trust what the club will do.

From there, we zoom out to the rest of us. We talk about why constantly tinkering with a driver can keep you from ever building a “relationship” with it, how tiny differences in build and feel can matter more than the launch monitor suggests, and why the safe-looking 3-wood choice is often a myth. If you don’t practice 3-wood off a tee, don’t expect it to magically find fairways when it counts. Better driving isn’t only about distance. It’s about setting your scoring floor and avoiding recovery shots you never practice.

Then we go deep on golf swing speed training using force plates and ground reaction forces. We break down vertical force, torque, de-weighting, and why force precedes motion, plus the lead-leg and low-point fixes that help you add speed without losing control. We also tackle the “hit up on it” driver obsession, attack angle realities from TrackMan data, and why chasing a bigger upward angle can blow up dispersion even if it adds a few yards.

If you want to hit the driver farther and straighter with a plan you can actually practice, this one is for you. Subscribe, share it with your golf group, and leave a review if it helps, what’s your biggest driver miss right now?

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Transcript

Spring Golf And Tour Talk

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Measured Golf Podcast, where you, the listener, join Chuck and I as we discuss all things golf. And we are getting into golf season. It's actually warm here in Michigan, at least warm enough to go outside without freezing to death. And I know Chuck's probably got about 25 rounds this year under his belt so far. So we are getting into golf season, and there is no more clear evidence of that than having the players on the TV in the background, which is always a fun tournament to watch. Seems like you get a lot of the cream rising to the top. And speaking of the cream rising to the top, uh Mr. Scotty Scheffler, we're all kind of waiting for him to assert that dominance on the field again that he usually does. But I know Chuck and I were talking about it uh earlier today and before we started this podcast, but man is he struggling off the tee. He just cannot seem to put a ball in play.

Scheffler’s Driver Miss And Pressure

SPEAKER_00 0:54

He cannot. Um we were on the phone earlier, and I'm looking to see as we film this Thursday afternoon where he is right now. Uh so he even horrors where he finished up, yeah. He finished even. Okay. But we were on the phone. What was it, 13 or 15 that he blew it? Yeah, 15 he blew it right way right.

SPEAKER_01 1:18

I mean, I joked with you, one of the balls he hit had 187 feet of curve.

SPEAKER_00 1:22

That was the one. It was over like further right than the patrons. The patrons are standing. He hit it behind him. Hit it behind him, found a gap, and made Birdie on that hole, but then on 16 also hit it way right in the rough.

SPEAKER_01 1:40

Um I mean the good thing is is he has a one-way miss, right? Like that's kind of how his game's built. Like he's not he's not kind of going through the struggles that Tiger went through for a little while to where you know he hit just as many left as he hit right. Uh, he's definitely hitting them all to the right, but man, like it's just un unsettling to see somebody as good as him struggle that much with his driver.

Equipment Tweaks And Two-Driver Doubt

SPEAKER_00 2:03

Um, I mean, I know he's it's now pretty mainstream. Um the what's the new driver he's got in his hand? The QI. The QI4D. The QI4D. So now it's become pretty mainstream, and they're asking about him about it in press conferences. Which he doesn't like. You can yeah, you can tell he gets agitated. Well, this is also the most agitated I've ever seen him on golf courses. I disagree a hundred percent.

SPEAKER_01 2:31

I remember like I'm a golf junkie, we've talked about this, and I I'm I'm bad for watching early round coverage like on ESPN Plus and DP World Tour and Asian Tour and all these fun things. Uh, I like watching golf, and I remember Scotty Scheffler before he was Scotty Scheffler, and I remember thinking, and I swear this is true, and I wish that there was a podcast I had brought it up on, but he wasn't relevant at the time. But he I always thought that his temper was going to be the reason he didn't become Scotty Scheffler, and he is not this calm, cool, and collected guy that every I just I just read an article. I don't I'm sorry, it was it was an article, but it was about a live interview that Jordan Speet just gave. And he he even said, He's like, you know, it's easy to kind of be smiling and and happy and carefree when everything's going your way and you're winning every week. But and he goes, I even used to be that way. But you know, when you're struggling and when you're curving the freaking golf ball 187 feet, man, like that's it's tough to not react to that. And he is a killer, he is a dominant force, he is Scotty Scheffler, and you don't get that way by being a nice guy. There's a there's a reason that we celebrate Tommy Fleetwood's one-win and we look at Scotty Scheffler and feel like he should win every week because they are totally different personalities.

SPEAKER_00 3:57

Yeah, I do vaguely remember Scotty early and the temper. I I knew that there was a temper because I've heard him talk about it too. Um you're right, it's easy when you know you're winning green jackets and major championships and you are hitting it closer than everybody else in the field all the time. Um yeah, it's easy to but the the equipment can the equipment I guess where I was trying to go with that is can the equipment actually because I know he's gone back to his old driver. You kind of joked that like if you have it's kind of like football, if you've got two quarterbacks, do you really have one? Well, the same as in golf. If you have two drivers, do you really have one? Can the equipment really obviously people are getting fit for these things and good golfers should be fit.

SPEAKER_01 4:50

I mean, they're building him a different driver. Like, I mean, they're putting the QI 10 face on a QI4D because for some reason he sees the the loft on the face better with the blue than whatever the color is this year. Um, so I mean they're they're building him an ex essentially as close to the exact same thing that looks like their retail model as possible. Right.

SPEAKER_00 5:11

But and can the equipment actually affect them as much as they think it does?

SPEAKER_01 5:20

What do you think? It's a tough question. I mean, don't get me wrong, I think I, you know, I've been down this road, you know, one of the one of the players I've worked with in the past um is notorious for being a driver tinkerer. And I mean, I literally was working with him one week and in four rounds of golf, he played three different drivers. Um I I've been down this road with a player before. And funny enough, when they're on the range, I mean, and they're hitting this thing, you're seeing a lot of the same launch angles, you're seeing a lot of the same spin rates, you're seeing more or less the same thing. Uh, but there's a history there. There's a yeah, there's some psychology to this, right? There's, hey, I've I've used this driver, I have a relationship with this. Like, I think that's the thing that goes understated, and I think that's where club jump club junkies miss the mark, is you need to build a relationship with your golf clubs. Like you, you have to have trust in them, you have to have confidence in them. Uh, as a matter of fact, you know, as we're getting closer to the season, and I kind of and and look, I'm nowhere, I'm not trying to compare myself to Scotty Scheffler in any way as a player, but you know, I'm gonna take my clubs to a really well-renowned club builder here uh not too far away from me, he's a couple hours away, and just have him like go through the bag, make sure the lofts are right, make sure the lives are right, swing weights. Like I'm just gonna have him basically tear my clubs apart and rebuild them. And I just want to know when I go out and play golf this year that those golf clubs are exactly what they're I want to have that faith that those golf clubs are what they what they claim to be. And I think for Scotty to kind of go back to that, I would imagine that the effect of the new driver is more psychological than anything else. And he's he's kind of he's cantankerous this way. Um, you know, he's got six wraps of tape under the grip. Uh, he doesn't change grips. I think that's wild. He will he'll change the club, not the grip. Like once the grip goes on that club, he doesn't change it. Um, so he's very kind of cantankerous, likes to play the same stuff. I just think it's tough because, you know, for Scotty, and I get it, you know, I've read all the stuff that he leaves a lot of money on the table and and doesn't really chase the dollar as much as a lot of his counterparts do, but there's there's gotta be enormous pressure on him to put that QI4D in play because Taylor Maid's paying him a lot of money to play that driver and to play those clubs. So I'm sure that he feels an obligation to them. And the big thing that makes him different, you know, I think a lot of these guys that, you know, look like NASCAR drivers and have sponsors everywhere, if the Taylormate check doesn't show up, well, it's not the end of the world because it's a small piece to the pie. But when you're Scotty and you've got like two logos, you've got a Nike swoosh and you've got a Tailormade golf bag, you know, if that Tailormade check doesn't show up, it's going to affect his bottom line quite a bit. So um I'm sure he's feeling pressure. I'm sure that he can hit them both just fine. I think for him right now, it's mostly psychology, but I think the psychology is starting to affect the actual performance because we're seeing him with the old driver today just miss fairway after fairway to the right, and there's just something that he doesn't feel good about.

Trusting A Club Over Time

SPEAKER_00 8:47

Yeah. Yeah. I don't know how you would. And we both know people that just tinker, tinker, tinker. I don't know how you would ever get that comfortability with your club. And I wouldn't I wouldn't want to be standing over a shot and the last thought in my mind is I I hope this doesn't do X, Y, Z, or I should be playing the other one in my closet for this shot.

Tiger’s One-Gram Driver Story

SPEAKER_01 9:16

You know, I I would just especially with a driver, man. It's an intimate relationship. Like you, you know, we used to do this all the time because I grew up, you know, whatever my case was, my situation, you know, socioeconomically or whatever. But we used to uh this is no joke, we used to do this all the time. Uh growing up in Kentucky, I I didn't live that far away from a golf course, walking distance. I mean, it was a bit of a hike, but like, you know, within a mile and a half, uh, and like my friends that were on the golf team would meet me at my house at night, and we would take our golf clubs and go like jump this fence and play this golf course at night. Uh, and like if the moon was out, you could kind of see. Uh, but still, even even with a full moon, you couldn't see that great. And like you, you used to like you could just tell off the face where that thing went. You knew that driver, you knew those clubs, like you knew what it felt like when you faded it, you knew what it felt like when you drew it. And yes, part partly that's golf swing, but that's also like just having that understanding of what this particular driver is going to do when you hit it somewhere other than the middle of the face. And that's that's the thing that I I wonder about with the the kind of club junkies out there that are switching all the time, is like how do you ever develop that feel with that club? And I think that's why a lot of club junkies also tend to be swing junkies and and constantly trying to mess with their golf swing, because they don't understand that not, I mean, I get it. You can go by two of the exact same model and they will do different things. Like they just will. Like the the manufacturing process is what it is, as close and and similar as these two clubs are to one another, you know, they are not exactly the same and they're going to perform slightly differently. You know, I'm not I'm not one of these elite golfers that that really has this great sense of feel, but I can feel that stuff. And if I can, then I would imagine that your really high-level players probably have a feel that doesn't even make sense to me, or I can't even wrap my noodle around. I I remember hearing a funny story. Um, Tiger was at the oven, uh, which is where Artisan is out in Texas now. They artisan kind of took over the oven from Nike when they went defunct with the club business. And I think it was pretty early doors for Tiger at Nike. And they were they were building a driver for Tiger. And and I've heard this story a couple of times, so I I feel comfortable sharing this one because I think it's true. But Tiger is at the oven and they're there and they've prototyped it and they've kind of figured out what Tiger wants. And I guess they built three, three exact exactly the same drivers for Tiger. The all three built by the best guy at the oven. They're exactly the same, they weigh the same, everything's perfect. They're exact carbon copies of one another. And the reason they built three was because Tiger was going to pick the best one, the one he liked the most, that was gonna be his gamer. Then obviously, he has to have a backup, and the third one was just gonna be, you know, thrown on the trash pile or whatever, framed and and put in the oven or whatever it was. But Tiger goes out to the range and hits hits the three drivers, and with the third driver, hits about two balls, I think, two or three balls, not very many. And he turns around, because there's you know a bunch of the Nike engineers there, and he turns around and goes, This one's a gram heavier. And the the the guy that had put it together, the uh person shall remain nameless. The person who put it together for him is like, no, it's the exact same tiger. I I just put them together, I weighed them, like it's exact, exactly the same weight. Tiger goes, no, it's not. Didn't say it so nicely. It's a gram heavy. I think he said it's a gram F and heavy, right? Like it in very early doors tiger, very kind of straight to the point. So anyway, the guy, and I don't know why, and part of it's because Tiger wasn't exactly Tiger yet, but the guy kind of like holds his ground. He's like, I'm telling you, Tiger, like you're crazy. Like that driver's the exact so anyway, they take it inside, they weigh the driver, and when you know it, the driver's a gram heavier. Wow. And the dude loses his job.

unknown 13:27

Oh gosh.

SPEAKER_01 13:29

And like, I mean, like that kind of a gram, dude. So, you know, is there something slightly different with the QI? Yeah, I mean, it's a different, it's a different engineering uh proposition for ty uh Taylor made. They've tweaked it, they've they've made the weights different, the face is different, you know, whatever. But like I said, they're they're gonna build this to where it's where he needs it to be. And it's just for whatever reason, he has not gotten comfortable with it yet.

SPEAKER_00 13:55

I'm sure the Taylor made folks, they want it just as badly to be fixed as he does.

Stop Defaulting To Three Wood

SPEAKER_01 14:01

It's not like it's gonna be flying off the shelves if you're I mean, we've heard this story before Bryson with Cobra, you know, and like just hated like couldn't was it Cobra? Am I getting that right? I feel like that's wrong, but maybe that's right. It was Cobra. Yeah, it was Cobra because he's now with Crank. Yeah, crank and LA golf and and a vota. Um, but yeah, like when Tiger was with Cobra, you know, like there was that big dust up in the media because Bryson got all kind of cranky and was like, yeah, they can't make a club that I like or what. Like these club companies want to get these players exactly what they want. That's that's why they have the tour van. That's why they build them special clubs, and they do, and they all say they don't, but they do. Um, they want to get this right because they want that club and play. And when that player, like, you know, it's worth a lot of money to Tailormade when Rory hits that seven iron at Augusta on 15, like to be holding a Tailor-Made club when he has that seminal moment, you know. I mean, that's going to go down in history. And every pitcher with Ty with Rory twirling that club, it's a Tailor made he's twirling. So I mean, it's big money. I know that the the marketing has changed a lot in the past, you know, basically since COVID, influencers are getting a lot more of the marketing dollars now than the tour players are, but they they're they're trying to make this work. So it's just I'm kind of amiss with it. And I I'm I'm curious to see, you know, where where Scotty goes from here because I like I said, I I think it's more of a swing thing with the driver than it is a driver thing on its own per se. So I'm kind of curious to see what kind of tweaks they make, what kind of what kind of path he takes forward from this. But if I know anything, I think Scotty will be back uh before long. And you know, we're not the major season yet. And he's already got, you know, a win, a couple top 15s, you know, like Scotty's gonna be fine. I just think that he's getting a little bit of the tiger effect right now, to where back in Tiger's heyday, I remember it, you know, fondly. But if Tiger wasn't winning every two or three weeks, what's wrong with Tiger? And I just feel like Scotty's kind of falling victim to the 24-hour news cycle these days. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:08

Yeah, that's a tough spot to be in when you just got all those expectations and pressure on you.

SPEAKER_01 16:14

I mean, if he would only hit his driver like you're hitting your driver right now, he would be a lot happier.

SPEAKER_00 16:19

Yeah, surprisingly, the the driver has been it's one of my, if not the my buddies will joke with me, it might be the straightest club in my bag. Yeah, it it really has been. Like I'd the to the point that I don't even um if there's a hole that you need to lay up on or not lay up, but you've you've got to keep it, you can't hit it too far, or you it requires a cut or something. I I don't even hit three wood off the tee. I will like tee it down and hit down on it or do different like just swing like kind of fairway finder. Uh I don't even hit three wood off the tee. Like that I'm so comfortable with my driver that I think it's absolutely ridiculous if people hit three wood off the tee.

SPEAKER_01 17:15

I do. Like yeah, unless like you're forced because you're gonna run out of fairway. I think this idea that you're gonna find more fairways with your three wood, BS. Because here's the thing I know people practice hitting their driver off a T. They don't practice hitting their three wood off the T. You're gonna be way more accurate off the T with your driver than any other club in the bag, in my opinion. Now, don't get me wrong, like you could tee up your seven iron and hit that and probably find more fairways. Like I I know somebody's gonna say that in the comments, but like this idea that you are more accurate automatically with a three wood than a driver, I just don't buy it, man. I think the three wood, especially the current way, and and I'm not trying to make this an equipment issue, but especially with the way the the modern three woods are are designed and set up, you know, there people aren't going to be more accurate with that thing off the T. I just don't buy that. I don't think that's an automatic fairway hit because you you gear down.

SPEAKER_00 18:09

Yeah, and then you just feel worse when you do miss it. Um that like, oh well, I should just hit driver. So I just started teeing stuff down. Like if there was, okay, I'm gonna run through the fairway, I just started teeing stuff down. Yeah. And with my driver and just putting a you know three-quarter-ish swing on it.

SPEAKER_01 18:29

Um well, you're also swinging it faster now, which is fun too. So now you probably do have to three-quarter it a little bit.

Finding Speed With Force Plates

SPEAKER_00 18:35

Yeah, I mean, but this it is nice that that you and I have been able to um kind of crack into this speed code of mine a little bit. Um I mean, I don't I don't know how how deep you want me to get with this, but um yeah, it was typically wasn't a fast player, but I picked up golf later in life, like in college, um, and didn't grow up with or didn't didn't get into the game with that whole like, hey, hit it as hard as you can, and we'll find it later. Um it was like, oh well, you can't play good golf spraying it everywhere. Like, don't hit it hard. Uh just get it in play. So it wasn't one that had a bunch of natural club ed speed and with some of the limitations.

SPEAKER_01 19:29

It's weird because you're naturally athletic. Like you played quarterback, like you're a very athletic guy, you're in shape, work out a lot, and like that was always when we first start working, and we've mentioned it before, you've you've got some issues with your right leg, but I mean, even with that, like once we figured out that you could load into that thing and use it, that was like, why doesn't he make more speed? So it's been kind of fun.

SPEAKER_00 19:54

Yeah. Um, and I I think that was uh one thing that drew me to you was that you had this expertise of force plates, and I in my journey of wanting to continue to learn and just devour information, um, I I just knew that there had to be something like for the things that I can do physically, where am I lack of a better term, like leaking power? Like what what where what am I not understanding?

SPEAKER_01 20:28

What am I doing that um and before we get filled up with comments on this, it's literally you're you just didn't use your left leg. I mean, actually you kind of overused your left leg, uh, but not in a very efficient way.

SPEAKER_00 20:41

Yeah, I think it's I think it's gonna be uh you'll be able to speak more to the technical part of it. But yeah, like I I would get on the plates and see, and be you know, kind of before I I knew a little bit about force plates before you, but you've been great about helping kind of dive in and understanding in that there's the three different forces with vertical, the lateral torque, and the AP forces, right?

SPEAKER_01 21:08

Those are the three. And you can keep it simple and just say you got lateral force, you got vertical torque, and you've got vertical force. Yeah. So my um AP creates the vertical torque, though. You're not wrong, which is normally how we talk about it.

SPEAKER_00 21:20

Yeah. So like I would I'd noticed, and you and you hear for everybody listening, you you hear Greg Rose and all those guys that are talking about speed, speed, speed, they talk about the verticals and how important the vertical is, and how you had important it is, huh? You had none, by the way. None, like it was shockingly none.

SPEAKER_01 21:44

I want to say, I think if and I I mean I could look it up real quick, but like I think originally with you, you were like a 125 to like 145% of body weight and vertical force, something crazy low like that.

SPEAKER_00 21:57

I think it was like 120. Yeah. It was less.

SPEAKER_01 22:01

And um And it was late too. I mean, not only was it like not existent, but it was like late as could be. So I mean, you just really weren't transferring like I would put it like this. You were kind of like that kid in the high school parking lot just doing burnouts forever and like never slapping that thing into gear and going forward. Like you just you were putting a lot of energy into it, but you just weren't able to transfer it out through the body and through the club to the ball uh in time. So I mean, like that was the big thing for you. So that's always the the fun thing for me, though, is you know, I think speed, speed on its own, like if if that's your selling point to people, it's like, ah, yeah, it'd be nice to hit it farther. But I think in the back of people's heads, they're also like, well, you know, I maybe don't hit it as straight as I would like to. So by giving me more speed, like I'm just 30 yards deeper into the woods. Um, but the thing that's really cool about kind of the the way that I view it and the way that I like using force plates and other technologies, is like speed and and straight kind of go hand in hand. Um, you don't have to sacrifice accuracy for more speed. And I I definitely think given what you're talking about and your ability to kind of walk up to any fairway right now and go, hey, I'm hitting driver. I mean, I I think that speaks to that. You're hitting it harder, you're hitting it farther, and you're hitting it straighter. And that's kind of the perfect little uh trifecta there.

SPEAKER_00 23:30

Yeah, it's no fun. What what's the phrase um that your um your driver how well you hit your driver is like your your uh your floor for what you're going to score that day. So there's a there's a phrase that I'm missing there, but it's like you know, if you're spraying it everywhere, your scoring numbers are just going to immediately take to plummet because now everything's recovery.

SPEAKER_01 24:01

I mean, I know guys that shoot a million, but if they hit the driver well, they're fine. Like they're happy. You know what I mean? Like it's it I think the driver is kind of the fun part of the game, right? Is getting out there and and look, I I blast guys that just want to hit bombs and drink transfusions, but you know, at the same time, it it is it's fun to hit the golf ball far. Like, you know, I equate, you know, watching a golf, like I equate my enjoyment to golf. I really, really loved, uh I'll tell you a little bit about me. I really, really loved playing with model rockets when I was a kid. There was nothing that excited me more than playing with model rockets. And, you know, at first my parents were like nice and and helped me get a couple of these model rockets, and they come with a certain amount of powder and a certain amount of this, that, and the other that makes it go so high. But like I was always like, oh, hang on, let's tweak this thing and let's make this thing go farther. And like I was trying to put one on the moon. Um, so you know, I I like the idea of like how far can I make this ball go? Like what, you know, I like thinking about the trajectory. I like thinking about spin rates, like my brain naturally kind of goes there. But at the end of the day, like when I play golf, if I'm hitting the driver well, we're gonna be okay. You know, like I'm gonna I'm gonna enjoy my round of golf. Um, I've probably shot some pretty good scores. I know I've shot some pretty good scores, not hitting the driver all that well, but then it just feels like work, right? Like now you're grinding versus like man, when you can just put it in the fairway all day long and you don't have to deal with the hazards and you don't have to deal with the trees, you know, it just makes the game way more fun, man.

SPEAKER_00 25:37

Yeah, people, people you're playing with or um people watching would would say, oh man, like if if you're finding a bunch of fairways, everybody's gonna say, Oh, you're hitting it grade today, or yeah. It because it does make it a lot easier. You're you're literally giving yourself a chance on you know, 14 of the holes to attempt to score. Yeah.

Why Recovery Golf Feels Impossible

SPEAKER_01 26:01

Um it's kind of like you know, if you hit your driver well, it's like shooting a three, which, you know, isn't the easiest of things in the world, but it's doable, versus like heaving it up from half court. I mean, I'm not saying you can't make one from half court, man, but it's a whole heck of a lot harder than getting to the arc. So, you know, I mean, it's like you gotta find find a way to where, you know, the game has changed, man. Like the the courses are longer. Um, you know, especially where I live in Michigan, it's pretty soft. So you're gonna have to carry the ball a substantial portion of the distance. Uh, you're not gonna get one of these tour fairways where this thing rolls out 60, 70 yards. So you gotta you gotta be able to carry the golf ball. And if you're gonna put the golf ball in the air, you know, you're gonna have to be able to manage the the spin axis and the curve. And if you can do if you can put those things together, man, it's just way more fun. And hopefully, you know, if you're bombing it like you are right now, it instead of being at the three-point line, you're at the free throw line, and now you got a real good opportunity to score. Yeah, which you're doing as well, which is cool.

SPEAKER_00 27:02

Yeah, because if you're if you are not hitting it well, now it's you've got two recovery shots essentially. Because you're you're left or right off the fairway, and if it's not in a hazard or in the water or wherever, you're then thinking, okay, well, what's the best way to position myself to get back into uh the fairway or the green? So now it's that recovery shot plus the recovery shot around the green, instead of okay, we missed a green, let's just try and get up and down. It's like you're saying it's a lot of work because you're just putting this unneeded stress. It's a lot of work you're not prepared for.

SPEAKER_01 27:45

I mean, you practice more than anybody I know that that doesn't play for a living. Um and you probably honestly practice more than most of those guys, too. Uh, but you know, the thing that I know is that golfers, you know, go to the driving range, go to the simulator, they make full swings, they hit it as hard as they can. Uh, but they're practicing pretty much a straightforward golf shot. You know, are they practicing, hey, I gotta keep this one under the trees and hook it left? Hey, I gotta get keep this one under the trees and and and slice it to the right. You know, no, they're not practicing any of those shots. Uh, so you know, when they are in the trees, when they are out of position like you're talking about, now they're having to do something they're not good at to begin with and don't practice. So now they're they're kind of doubly screwed on that. And then to your point, it's like, okay, you know, it's a 440-yard par four, not the worst thing in the world, but it's like you're in the trees. So let's say you do find a way to kind of hood hook one out of the trees and get it back into the fairway. Well, now you've got this 70, 80 yard wedge shot, and we know nobody's practicing those. And it's like you the the odds that you're gonna get that into position to have a reasonable chance of saving par, it's pretty low. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:56

Yeah. I I think some of the what you're talking about, the recovery shots, because no one's practicing them, you don't even have anywhere to practice them. Like you could, it's not, you know, the range isn't have a bunch of trees, and you can go over and like, let me see if I can keep this low. Like you're not able to practice it. You you can get some awareness of face control and like how would I hit this shot?

Augusta Prep And Pine Straw Reality

SPEAKER_01 29:19

Um that was one of the coolest things I think I've ever seen. Is the fur I think it was the first or the second year I went to Augusta National, which is right around the corner. Um one of the first or second years I went to Augusta National and was working. Um, a bunch of the players in the group I was with, I was really like young inexperienced. I was just keeping it myself and trying to stay out of the way. Um, but a lot of the players in our group and other groups I saw do this as well, like they would go up to 13 uh and they would drop balls on the pine straw up there and like try to hit like figure out what they would do from there. And I just thought that that was the craziest thing ever. Because to your point, you know, it's one thing to simulate that on a driving range. It's one thing to to maybe, you know, simulate that in a practice, but until like you've been there and tried it and seen how it kind of plays out, you know, you really don't know. So I I I think you're spot on with that. There's not a lot of places to even practice this, let alone simulate this. So uh I thought that was one of the coolest things I've ever seen is guys going up there and dropping balls and and kind of the woods there on 13, uh, which really isn't the woods, it's just you know, between two holes.

SPEAKER_00 30:32

But yeah, yeah, I mean it's smart though, because it if you haven't if if you're listening to this and you have not hit off of pine straw, it is difficult because there it you you're like it's not quite ice, but it you've got this layer, huh? It's slippery, it is, it's this layer above the ground, and when you go to to uh interact with it, it it gives.

SPEAKER_01 30:59

Um and the ball launches high, and if you don't freaking get low point in front of it, it just jumps straight up in the air. Like, yeah, you're not it's it's true, it it is difficult to do. It's a hard shot. Um but it's not so hard at Augusta because it's perfect like everything else, but you know, it's hard at your local local Muni when you get on the pine straw.

SPEAKER_00 31:19

It is it is funny watching it is so perfectly laid, and when those guys get in there on 13 and they just really dig their feet in, is somebody coming out from behind the trees with his pine straw.

SPEAKER_01 31:33

There's a pine straw director at Augusta National for sure. Somebody's coming to the street. The craziest thing, man, is I will never forget um I think it was 2019, the year Tiger won. And I I could be mistaken on the year, and I apologize if I am, but I think it was 2019. It was like Tuesday, the practice round. Dude, it poured and it like poured poured. Like, and you know how the weather is down there that time of year. Like those storms roll through there and it can get pretty nasty. This is 2019. Okay. Yeah, okay. Okay, exact storm. Yep, it poured, and it poured so much, and the weather got so bad that they just booted everybody out, which they they do in practice rounds. And I remember like walking out of Augusta National. Like I was on my way to the parking lot, right? And it's muddy and it's all torn up. And I'm like, man, I don't remember ever seeing Augusta National like this. Like, this is gonna be awful the rest of the week. And like, I even like the next morning, like put on like I had an old pair of shoes that I had with me. I was like, I'm wearing my old shoes. Like, this is gonna be terrible today. Dude, we get out there Wednesday morning, like, and I'm there early. I'm there like 6 a.m. We get out there Wednesday, spotless, perfect. Like you would have never known that any of that had happened. Like, it is amazing at how not only do they have the presentation of that place perfect at the start of the week, but how perfect they keep it throughout the week. Yeah, it's unreal.

SPEAKER_00 32:58

It's amazing what zero budget does for you, the amount of people you can throw on something.

SPEAKER_01 33:03

Um like the when the trees fell, like the next day you went out there and it was like what where was the tree at? Like, yeah, yeah, I mean, there wasn't even I I think there was a stump. I take that back. I think they didn't get the stump out of there in time, but like you would have never known. Like they soldered it, they fixed it. Like, I mean, it's it's unbelievable how and I've been told, and I've been there a bunch, as as you know, and I'm sure the listeners of this know, but I've been told that there is just crews and crews and crews of people in hotels around Augusta National on standby for whatever possibly could happen. And most of these crews never see any action, but it's just like they're prepared. Like whatever happens, whatever gets thrown our way, it is not going to rain on the parade that is Augusta National.

SPEAKER_00 33:50

No, zero budget.

The No-Laying-Down Augusta Rule

SPEAKER_01 33:52

Like, I'm surprised they didn't have a sniper waiting for Tom Segura when he made his like Augusta jokes, like just take him out right then and there. Like, I'm I'm shocked that that's all the light of the day. Yeah. I'm I'm sure they're up there. I'm sure they're hiding. Oh, yeah. Um probably the craziest thing I've ever seen at Augusta. People like this. This will do well on the podcast. Hopefully, we can make this a clip. But I will never forget. Um, I you know, you go to a golf tournament and you see people that are overserved. Like it goes hand in hand. Like, especially if you're the waste management open, uh, you see this. But you get overserved there? What's that? They get overserved there at the waste of the game. I guess apparently they ride every now and then and take over the place. But uh you don't really see that at Augusta National for obvious reasons. Like it's you kind of feel this code of ethics like bestowed upon you when you walk through the gate, and you you very quickly realize it's not a place you mess around. Um, but you generally don't see people wandering around with the cups all stacked up and you know belligerent. Um, but this one I think it was like two years ago. Um I'm walking, I can't remember where I'm at on the golf course, but I see a gentleman sitting on the ground, right? And you can sit on the ground at Augusta National, but you cannot lay on the ground at Augusta National. Okay. I found out that's a hard rule for them. Okay. So he is sitting and I can kind of see his head kind of doing the wobble. And I'm like, oh, that guy's in trouble. Well, about the time I figured out he's in trouble, he just hits his back on the ground and he's out, right? Or seems to be out. And as soon as he laid down, like there were eyes on him. As soon as he laid down, one of the uh one of the people volunteering at Augusta walked up to him and they're like, sir, uh, you can't lay down on the ground here. We got to get you up, you got to get moving, uh, but you can't lay on the ground. And the guy on the ground is like F you dude, like, you know, belligerent, had too many. Uh decides he's he's gonna take a nap there. The the gentleman that told him he couldn't lay there just turns around and just starts walking off. And I don't know where they came from, Chuck. I swear to you, I didn't see him coming. But basically, I would assume they were like Secret Service slash special military operators. All of a sudden, he is surrounded by five or six of the largest human beings I have ever seen in my life. They throw what looks like a tarp over him, zip tie it, and throw it over two of their backs and carry this guy out. And you like he just disappeared.

SPEAKER_00 36:30

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_01 36:33

Like black bag this guy, you're out of here. Sounds like something you'd see south of the border from the cartel or something. Oh my god, dude. It was the craziest thing I've ever seen. But that is that is the Augusta difference right there, and it is not a place to try to bend and or break the rules.

How To Spot Power Leaks

SPEAKER_00 36:50

No, no, not there. Uh so as as a um coach that uh deals in the force plate world, if someone I guess you would you would not know uh if if you're a golfer listening to this, you're not going to know without force plates where your deficiencies are. Is is is there a way for anybody to get a sense of.

SPEAKER_01 37:25

I think people do have a sense of it. I I think there's a lot of people out there that you know, and and I'm gonna be on the golfer side here, maybe for the first time ever. There's a lot of golfers here, man, uh, listening and and playing golf out there in the golf world, but there's a lot of people, man, that kind of have a pretty innate sense that like the ball's not going as far as it should. You know, I I think that's that's the catalyst for that, right? Is you know, you kind of look at yourself and you go, hey, I I kind of hit it out of the middle of the face, and you know, I'm bigger than the guys I'm playing with, or I'm stronger than the guys I'm playing with, and they're hitting it by me. And I I think that is that is the I think it's true. I think for most people. I think I've and I mean this, I have honestly not found a golfer that I couldn't help hit the golf ball farther. And I've worked with a lot of long drive guys, and and it's like I know the comments are coming. Well, the long drive guys hit it as far as they can be hit. No, they don't. They can hit it farther. And it's like it doesn't matter whether you're John Rum, Scotty Scheffler, um, you know, Justin James, you know, uh Martin Borgmeister. It doesn't matter. Like there, there's always more there. And I think, you know, to answer kind of your question, you know, there's really not a way to understand where the gap is without the force plates. You know, luckily for me, doing this for the past eight, nine years or whatever it's been with force plates, um, you know, I've had a lot of success with my online coaching. And I've helped a lot of people through the online coach. And I mean, you're you're technically an online client. Yeah. Um, but I mean, I've had a lot of success in helping people virtually gain distance. And you're in a little bit of a different circumstance to where your club is amazing and has a set of force plates. And, you know, I think the last lesson or two lessons ago, like, luckily, like in the middle of a lesson, I was like, hey, let's get a force plate capture. And I was able to look at it right then and there. Um, but generally speaking, I I can see things, you know, like that left leg we were talking about. Uh, if you've got a bent left leg uh coming into the ball, like we're probably not transferring a lot of energy.

SPEAKER_00 39:39

Okay, so this is good. So you here would be some uh some thoughts from Michael of if you're seeing this on camera, yeah. A bent left leggy left leg. Saggy left leg no chance. You you are certainly not putting any verticals into it.

SPEAKER_01 39:56

No, and if you're not putting any verticals in it, then the other forces you might be trying to make up the gap with them, but it it's a misfire. Like it's it just is.

SPEAKER_00 40:05

Um, not only the uh the leg being straight, but it's got to be straight halfway down the golf swing.

SPEAKER_01 40:16

Near, yeah, near um, as I try and describe this over uh an audio medium, when my hands are essentially at my shoulder on the way down, shaft and you gotta like get that left leg basically straightened out by club shaft 90 degrees or club shaft parallel at the latest. I mean, that's you gotta have that happening, and and for so many people, you know, and I would I would accuse you of this, you know, when you see people taking the club back and that left leg is just more or less following the golf club and the backswing and kind of collapsing, it's gonna be really hard to straighten that thing out in time and get on top of it. So, you know, for me, when I do the when I do the virtual assessments with people, you know, there's clues, you can see things, uh, but most people, you know, don't do a great job using the ground. I feel pretty comfortable saying that. Yeah. Uh, even the people that do a pretty good job using the ground could still use it better. Uh, that's kind of the amazing thing that we've learned with force plates is that there's always more in the tank. We always can kind of train and build and and kind of increase the capacity, if you will. But the thing that's really wild to me is how few people relate the ground reaction force scenario to the club delivery scenario. And so many people are like fixated on not hitting it crooked and trying to hit it straight that they kind of sacrifice their ability to use the ground to try to get the golf club in a better position to have a quote unquote square face. So I think the the big thing that I pride myself on is kind of understanding that, you know, we've got a golf swing and we've got these ground reaction forces, and it's a closed system and they go together. So the reason that so many people are late uh with their vertical force, and so many people don't create enough vertical force is that they've got their arms so far behind them that if they actually did like throw the vertical force and make it spike, they're just gonna drop kick the living heck out of the golf ball. So I think most people are kind of almost putting the cart before the horse, if you will. And kind of like you said earlier, like you were taught, like hit it straight, don't worry, we'll figure out far later. Well, they go hand in hand. It's not a this or that scenario. So I think for a lot of people, they're trying to work on their golf swing without understanding that when they try to make speed, that's what's throwing off their golf swing. And you gotta have to work on both of these things kind of simultaneously, which is why it's kind of funny. Like I do a lot of virtual lessons, it's a bigger, bigger and bigger part of my business. But getting, you know, low point in the right place is the first step in being able to use some ground force. If we don't have low point in the right place, we're never gonna use the ground very well. Because, like I said, we're just either gonna start dropkicking it or topping it or whatever else we're gonna do.

De-Weight Then Jump For Speed

SPEAKER_00 43:06

So you kind of you led into my next part seamlessly. Um we're syncing up finally. Three episodes in and we're syncing up. That's right. So walk us through um, okay, and we can use me as an example. We we can identify with this golfer. You know, for the the ones listening, they're kind of looking at their swings on video, they're trying to figure out you know, am I losing distance? Can I get more? Let's say, okay, we've identified the lead leg, clearly there's some vertical force issues. Don't even need the force plates, got issues there, it's not straight. So for the guy that that has never felt what that's like, talk us and walk us through you know, for me, my feel with you and I was that I was literally Going to take as I'm taking the club back, feel a bit of a squat. Not not a ton, but like a bit of a I'm priming myself to do a box jump.

SPEAKER_01 44:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 44:12

And or any jump. What's that? Or any jump. Or any jump. Yeah, I'm just gonna jump. I'm I'm priming myself for the jump.

SPEAKER_01 44:19

And so you kind of you don't go up up when you jump, you go down up.

SPEAKER_00 44:22

Right. So I've kind of I've kind of sunk just a little bit. Um and then here head home for you.

SPEAKER_01 44:30

Like once I let you start going down, right, in the back swing, like that's when you're like, ooh, this feels athletic again. Like this feels really, really good. Yep. And that's it, right? Like, I mean, I think so many golfers feel unathletic trying to swing a golf club. And and the reason I think they feel unathletic is because kind of they are. And you know, like I said, there's this hyperfixation on where the golf club is in time and space, and golf has very much been taught from a positional standpoint for so many years. And you know, like the big thing is now is, and and look, I I agree with some of it, I disagree with some other parts of it, but people trying to make this big X factor stretch and trying to make this backswing as big as they can make it, and thinking that they're gonna give themselves more runway and it's gonna lead to more speed, you know, I just think that that is really counterproductive to making club ed speed for a lot of people. And the reason I say that is because as people are trying to kind of make this big long backswing, the body starts to kind of push away from the ground and extend. And now it's like, well, where am I gonna like find the up? I'm already up, I've already extended. Yeah, and if I've already extended, don't get me wrong, there's there's segments to the body, right? So I do want the spine to extend some in the backswing. I absolutely want that. So if anybody is listening that's a really good golf coach and understands what I'm talking about, then yes, I do want the spine to extend, but I want the legs to bend, right? I I don't want the legs kind of extend. I'm not saying that the right hip doesn't go back up and around, it does, but I still need some kind of down, hopefully near the top of my swing. That's the D weighting phase or the bot when I go down to jump. It's a nice way to say that, but I've got to have some down to go up. If I'm playing basketball, I know we keep hitting basketball today, but if I'm playing basketball and I want to be Dennis Rodman and a great rebounder, I just aged myself really nicely there. If I want to be like this great rebounder like Dennis Rodman, if I'm standing there with my legs straight when that ball goes up, I am not getting that rebound. Like there is no chance. When that ball goes up, my butt goes down, and then I can go up and get that rebound. And that's the thing that I think a lot of people are missing in the golf swing, is especially when it comes to vertical force like we're talking about, is they don't do, and that was you to a T. That was the very first thing I said when I looked at your force plates was you didn't de-weight worth of crap. Right. And that's what I was gonna say. Right. So that was like the very first thing I saw with your force plates, is that you had this really slow and very minimal D weighting that was kind of almost happening throughout your entire backswing. Uh, it wasn't really happening dynamically or enough to kind of time up and allow you to get up. So I think, you know, generally speaking, you can see some of that stuff. Um, you know, I like to use a little bit of sports box AI here and there. Uh you can kind of look at, you know, the level of the head, the level of the pelvis, you know, what's going up, what's going down, when is that happening? So there are definitely clues that you can see visually with some of this stuff. But kind of to your point, you know, you might be able to get a decent understanding of of vertical force. Uh, but when it comes to torque, when it comes to AP force, when it comes to lateral, you know, that stuff, man, it's nice to have a force plate because it just makes it so much easier and you don't have to guess at it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 47:59

That the um I was certainly in my swing thinking that to generate speed, well, if I just get this really, really long and tall right side, that's gonna help me. And I would then have to go down and then back up. And as you explained to me, you don't have enough time to do that in the downswing. You do not have enough time to go back down to D weight, then try and push up, and then let all that stuff get out into the club head in a quarter of a second.

SPEAKER_01 48:35

Yeah. Um that's why I don't like the the the you know, it used to be taught you squat at the top. And, you know, I think a lot of people are taking the the very solid idea, the the very true idea that you D-weight at the top of your swing, and they're just going way too far with it. But if you're trying to squat at the top, the the odds that you're gonna get up in time to get that golf club moving the right direction, I just think it's gonna be very, very difficult. So there's ways to do this. Uh, but I think the other big thing, too, that makes it difficult is that force precedes motion. So by the time you see the body moving, that force has already happened. Already happened in the next one. That's where a lot of people really struggle with this. And I mean, there's a ton of people that have force plates that, you know, they they don't understand that. They think that when they see the graph, that's when the movement's no, no, no, no, no. This is happening before the movement, which is why, you know, we were talking about where does vertical force need to happen in the golf swing. I said it has to happen between the club shaft being vertical and parallel in the downswing or perpendicular to the ground and parallel in the downswing. Like that's obviously well before the ball. Well, the reason that has to happen before the ball is I then have to transfer that energy that I created from the ground through the body, through the arms, and out through the club. And it takes time, right? It's not instantaneous. This is an electric motor. So that takes time to transfer out. So these things have to happen uh a lot earlier than most people expect or would ever kind of get to on their own, I feel like. And uh I'm the king of uncomfortability, and like that's that's that's the thing, right? Is like my job as a coach, and I told you this, my job as your coach is to make you uncomfortable because the odds that you have done this before correctly are pretty slim to none, or you would still be doing it, or you would like kind of be messing around with that. So the idea that a golfer is gonna go out and make a substantial change to their golf swing without any objective data, I don't buy because we're gonna do what we know how to do. We're gonna do what feels comfortable to us, especially if we're out at the driving range and there's a bunch of people there, you don't want to look like a buffoon in front of people. So you're gonna do kind of what you know how to do. And and generally people uh don't understand that to change the motor pattern, to change what you're doing from a ground reaction force perspective, it's going to be rather uncomfortable in the beginning. But that's where you have to be somewhat talented in a way to A, have the bedside manner to kind of ease that uncomfortability, and B, you better be telling them the right thing pretty quickly because they're only gonna give you so many uncomfortable swings. And if they don't see that ball flight start doing something different, they're gonna bell on that pretty quick.

SPEAKER_00 51:29

Yeah, you you certainly anything speed related, you've got to throw comfortability out the window, and you've got to live in that world of uncomfortable. Yeah. Um, so for the for the guy or gal that's that listening and goes out this weekend and they're like, okay, yeah, I I can see that my left leg's not straight enough. I'm gonna I'm gonna try this. All right. So let's say they start hitting a few balls, they they're like, oh, this is uncomfortable, and they're seeing then they maybe they kind of get the hang of it, but they're seeing a golf ball, give us kind of the quick version of if a ball goes right and a ball or a ball goes left, um I would I would make it more contact based, honestly.

SPEAKER_01 52:16

So what I would say is like if if you're out there and you're filming yourself, by the way, film yourself from face on, you learn a lot more. Um, but if you're out there filming yourself at the driving range and you see that you got a pretty saggy left leg uh coming into the ball, you know, the first thing I would say is work on that. And the easiest way to work on that is just put your hands over your head. If you're watching on YouTube, you can see me do this. But literally get your hands extended over your head and go down into a jump and then jump, and as you're jumping, force your arms down. Okay, so that's very weird. We don't do that a whole lot as human beings. I was having a conversation with a really famous golf coach not that long ago, and we were talking about how the only two times that in sports that we have our rib cage going up and our arms aren't going up is in golf and ski jump. Okay, so that's really interesting for people that haven't played a lot of golf or are inexperienced in golf or have just never really worked through the motion of what it takes to make a solid golf swing in motion. So just go to the driving range and kind of put your arms over your head, go down like you're getting ready to jump, go ahead and jump completely off the ground and force your arms down as hard as you can. That's going to start giving you the clues from a neurological perspective into what we want to happen from the top of that swing down, is we want to feel a lot of up with the body, and we want to feel a lot of extension and down with the arms. Now, keep in mind that the arms are not going down behind the ball, rather, are going to low point in front of the ball. That's key. We can't just pull the arms down behind us really hard because that's not going to help us. And if you're out there and you're trying this and you're hitting a lot of shots fat, and or you're hitting a lot of shots where the face control is really, really bad and you're hitting it fat, typically it's because we're not getting the club to low point. We got to get the arms working more across the body to low point versus down and behind where the ball would be. So I think for a lot of people that see that, that is kind of you know the genesis of, hey, I want to get my left leg straighter, I got to get that to happen sooner, but I'm hitting it really fat when I try this. That tends to be a low point issue, and we got to work on getting the hands more out in front of the golf ball. If you have people that are kind of trying to do this jump move and trying to straighten that left leg and they start hitting it thin, wonderful. Keep doing that because you're on the right pathway. This the trick to solving the thin shot is we've got to let the chest go up. We've got to get out of posture, we got to feel like we're standing up with the entire body, not just jumping with the legs, but we got to get the body to feel like it's standing up more. Andor we've got to start letting those wrist angles dissipate and release. And that's really, really big because so many golfers that have low point issues think that wrist angles are what save them, but the wrist angles just keep you from releasing the golf club too early and dropkicking this golf ball and hitting it fat. So we want to make sure that we're getting those wrist angles dumped out, low point to forward, and the body extending and going up. That's the key to really being able to take advantage of some of this vertical force.

SPEAKER_00 55:30

Yeah, and and not thinking that because you're uh getting uh vertical with with the lower body and the upper body, it's not a that's not a early extension move.

SPEAKER_01 55:43

Um early extension is the legs, you know, and and how the legs fire. And you know, I it's getting beat to death, you know. It's early extension is like kind of one of these like Bermuda triangles in the golf golf community. It's like keep your head down, stupid. It's like, you know, should whatever. People say crazy things that they don't understand. But you know, early extension is essentially when when I when I get to the top of my swing, right? And we've seen the golfer on ice and his feet slide forward and back, we've all seen that, hopefully. And if you haven't, you can Google golfer on ice and you'll find the video. But his right foot goes backward, his left foot goes forward. Well, in a perfect scenario, and not everybody's perfect, and not everybody does this exactly the same, but in a perfect scenario, your right foot goes back and your left foot goes forward simultaneously. And when I create that shearing effect, is what that's called, when I create this shearing effect, that creates torque, vertical torque up through the chain. That's how we actually create that in the golf swing. Now, there are people uh that early extend for sure. 100%. I've seen a bunch of them. I'm kind of guilty of that myself from time to time. But when I early extend, what that's saying is that instead of those forces kind of happening opposing to one another at the same time, what actually tends to happen is one of two things. One, the right leg kicks second after the lead leg kicks. So we don't want the trail leg kicking after the lead leg is kicked. And if you think about that, if you push back with your left leg first or lead leg first, and then push forward with your right leg second or trail leg second, now of a sudden your body is kind of in the way of where you're trying to go with that golf club. That is early extension. The other way that early extension can happen is the first way, just to make sure I said that correctly. The first way is that the right leg kicks second versus the lead leg, or the trail leg kicks second versus the lead leg, or you don't have enough positive towards the ball, AP coming out of the lead foot, which is most people actually. So when we don't spike those together, when we don't kick together and create that shearing effect, it's not the end of the world. But we need the trail leg to happen first, the lead leg to happen second, and if we do have it separated and we have it in that order, that lead leg better be about three times the amount of the trail leg. That's and there's really good golfers who do it that way, which is fine. And a lot of long drive guys kind of actually do it that way as well. But we don't typically see the normal person who's already struggling creating enough of that because, as you've said, when I've really worked on this with you, you almost feel like you're gonna shank it because you feel like you're moving closer to the golf ball. And that's a feeling that most golfers don't like. Most golfers, especially your average golfers, are way too far away from it to begin with, and then they're always trying to get away from the golf ball. You watch these guys at the players, they look like they're trying to trim their toenails with their golf club. They set up so close to it and then they move closer to it. I mean, it's it's just a completely different way of kind of going about making that speed. But that's one of the big things that I see is that the the tour guys and gals, if you look at them just set up way closer to the ball than the average golfer. Well, why is it they make more speed? Well, it's because now they're able to take advantage of that AP way better when they're not set up a mile away from the golf ball.

SPEAKER_00 59:17

Yeah. Look at that. You said you weren't gonna get into AP forces and you you tricked me into it anyway.

SPEAKER_01 59:23

You're good at that. You're good at you're good at extracting information from me.

Driver Low Point And Attack Angle

SPEAKER_00 59:27

You um and I know that we're running short on time, but uh you gave us a great for the iron swing with the vertical forces a second ago if someone's going out and working on it and things they can pay attention to and watch. Now go driver with us. Um uh work us from top of back swing to contact. Um what would you want to see? I mean, are we still moving that low point forward, or are you are we wanting to get the low point? Just walk us through that.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:02

We're still moving low point forward. Um, you know, if if you look at track man data, they they provide averages every so often. They just put out a new one, uh, I believe the middle of last year. And like the average PGA tour player is still 1.7 degrees down. It's just a fact. Like the idea that you know, being at zero or even a couple degrees negative with your attack angle with your driver, uh, you know, people hate that. But in reality, like that's going to give you a pretty stable ball flight. So what I tend to see with a lot of golfers is that you know, with when it comes to the driver, especially, they tend to almost, I wouldn't say that they spike, they they they tend to spike the vertical force earlier than they do with an iron. I would say that. I feel pretty comfortable saying that. Um, but the the issue is that they don't really spike the vertical force and then wind up getting onto their left side. So they kind of spike and fall back. And I think that a lot of people are doing that with their driver in particular. One, because low point doesn't matter as much, the ball's teed up, and two, because they're trying to hit up on it. And you see a lot of people that think hitting up on it being the answer, they really kind of look like they have like that C posture or whatever you want to call it when they hit their driver. Now, they're gonna be like, well, my left leg's straight. Well, yeah, it is, but your right leg's collapsed and you're hanging back. So I think that where a lot of people go wrong with the vertical force scenario with the driver is that they tend to want to hang back to try to create this positive angle of attack. And generally, what I would say is that because the driver's longer, because the magnitude of the forces we create tend to be a bit higher, even if I'm trying to move low point forward with the driver, A, I'm likely not to get it there. And B, it's still not the worst case if you do, because we're still hopefully fitted into a driver that has enough loft on the face to where even hitting, you know, pretty neutral or one or two degrees down, you're still gonna be able to create enough launch angle to get that ball to fly its optimal number. Um, but with that said, you know, if you don't have vertical force, you're not hitting your driver far enough. And if you don't have vertical force, hitting your driver higher is probably not gonna help much either. So I think at some point with the driver in this context, you're still gonna have to work on getting more to your lead side and feeling, even if you don't, feeling like you're getting low point more in front of the ball, even though that's not really our goal, that's gonna still allow us to get the arms extended a little bit more on the lead side of the body and allow us to transfer that energy through the system.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:55

For the guy that's filming his swing from face on and sees that okay, I got my left leg straight, but that right leg is kind of collapsed, it's almost at an angle, right? Pushing kind of looks like it's pushing you forward.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:11

Meaning tower of pizza.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:12

Yeah, yeah. You can't do it.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:13

And generally that guy's biggest problem or gal's biggest problem is is typically kind of going back to what we talked about earlier, is they're not getting their chest open enough. Yeah, right. So that's why yeah. So typically they're just kind of stuck with a square chest, and we got to get that chest opening. And that's the going back to the conversation about AP force that you got me into. Um, you know, when we talk about AP, that AP transfers via torque through the system, and that's what allows us to kind of get that chest opening, which is what allows us to get our arms in front of us without making our path crazy right.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:46

Yeah. Uh I guess that's where I was going with that. Is that guy looking at his video, he sees that kind of reverse C and he he sees his leg collapsing and he's kind of in this leaning motion. So you would then say that guy needs to then be working, working that chest, keep feeling like we're moving low point forward, because that's going to bring everything with us.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:12

Yeah. I'm going to put that guy on the the smallest T I can get, or if if we're outside, I'm going to tee him down like super low, like you would tee a fairway would. Uh, and then I'm going to work on that, you know, A, finding the face with that thing not teed up way in the air and seeing those arms get a bit straighter. You know, that's that's the big thing that I see a lot with poor drivers of the golf ball that don't hit it very far, is they got super bent-up arms when they're hitting the ball. Uh, and the reason is is because like if you think of Jordan Spiet, you know, Mr. Kind of, he's like the poster child for like that chicken wing out of the lead arm, that's a shallower. And that's why people do that, is they're trying to shallow the golf club into the ball. So for me, anytime I see that, it's like I'm gonna take the T height away from you and work on getting those arms to straighten out by creating better rotation through the chest.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:02

And uh are you even really because those guys on tour are are hitting down at times on it. Uh or or not even at times, average, they're hitting down. So the the myth of of is that really busting the myth of um or not busting the myth, but it probably just goes to show that teeing it up and hitting up while you might see some bigger carry numbers, it's probably not that drastic, or every tour player would be hitting their driver that way. Would be if it was that big of a number change, they'd all be throwing it way too.

When Pros Chased Upward AoA

SPEAKER_01 1:05:45

This is played out already. I mean, it I don't think it got covered in fairness, and I don't think they understood what was going on. But a few years ago, probably a little more than a few now, but when Bryson first started pounding the golf ball and won the open. At Shinnecock. Uh, he's just pounding the daylights out of the golf ball. That's when Bryson was at his biggest, just mashing the thing. Uh Wingfoot, excuse me. Um, Bryson was at his biggest, strongest, just mashing the golf ball, driving the par four at whistling straights at the Ryder Cup, yeah, uh doing all that stuff. There was this big push by a lot of your top players to go hit it farther. And Rory's talked about it, he went chasing speed, Jordan Speed talked about it, he went chasing speed. Uh Ricky Fowler talked about it, he went chasing speed. And the funny thing was is that I don't know, I wasn't in uh any of those camps at the time. I don't know exactly what happened, but I know some of the details. And I know that those guys, or I think those guys really didn't try to bulk up like Bryson did. Yeah, they tried to do it through golf ways, which is well, how would I hit this golf ball farther, Mr. Trackman? And Mr. Trackman's like, oh, well, just hit up on it more, right? And like that'll you'll hit the ball farther. And yes, if you can control all the variables like club path and face to path and dynamic line, all these things, if you can control those things, then yes, you probably will hit it a little bit farther, hitting up on it, because theoretically, you're going to be able to launch it higher and spin it less. And we know high launch, low spin is the combination for hitting bombs. Like that's the way we do it. So there is, there is the math works out, right? To where if I hit up on it, it's gonna lower the spin rate and keep I keep my launch the same or increase my launch a little bit, ball goes farther. That math is true. The issue is that controlling those other variables when you go from neutral to three, four, five up gets really, really difficult because you're hitting it at a different point on the arc. So now the face is gonna want to be different, the path is gonna want to be different, and now you see that a lot of these guys have abandoned that. And Rory's very well docked. I quit, I'm just trying to hit my fate again, right? Like Speath really hasn't recovered. He's hitting it better now, but there for a while, man. Like his misses with the driver were crazy, like crazy, crazy. And Ricky, same case, right? Like Ricky really, like of all the swings that didn't need to think swing up on it, Ricky was probably the leading candidate in that group with the way he delivers the club. But generally speaking, I think it's worth experimenting with, but at the same time, you kind of have to figure out like, hey, if I swing up on this and I gain, let's say 10 yards, I'll be generally, you know, I think you could gain 10 yards by, you know, swinging up on it a little bit more. Let's say that you're gonna gain 10 yards by swinging up on it more. Okay, cool. That sounds great. Okay, like I think everybody listening to this would sign up for that. But you're going to miss 15 to 20 percent more fairways. Now, when you miss a fairway, that's not the end of the world, but your miss is probably a little bigger. It's maybe not in the first cut, maybe now it's in the second cut, maybe it's not in the second cut, maybe it's in the trees, maybe it's not in the trees, maybe it's in the water. Now we have to start kind of figuring out like, is this an actual gain, or is this like kind of wash out, or is this kind of a negative? And I think what a lot of the guys that I just alluded to found out was that the dispersion rate wasn't worth the gain because they already hit it far. And I don't think very many golfers are going to gain significant distance just by learning to swing up on it. I think if they learn to swing up on it, a lot of the other characteristics of their swing might get a little better, which might create more distance as well. But just the idea that if I swing up on it, I'm gonna hit it farther. I don't I don't buy that as the cheat code.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:47

Yeah, I think that's important. That's a very important point. That just because it's up, it's not like it's about to go 40 yards further. No. Now, if you're talking about 40 yards, then yeah, maybe we're gonna go. Yeah, let's go. Let's swing up on it. Yeah, then maybe we do say, okay, yeah, the dispersion's gonna be different. But strokes gained would tell you. I mean, 10 yards is not, it's not gonna move the needle one way or the other on your strokes gained where you're hitting this golf ball. But if you're dispersing.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:18

What I know and from what I've seen, you know, your quote unquote best drivers of the golf ball, uh, the guys that you know find where they need to be to attack pens. Uh, and I'm not saying that's always from the fairway. I'm not. I'm if Scott if Scott Foss is listening, I'm not saying you always got to be in the fairway. But like at the same time, I think your guys who are pretty accurate and safe off the T, they tend to be pretty neutral delivery guys. Like, I I've heard this story, I think it's true. I've heard it a couple of times, and I've I've heard it from some higher-ups. Uh, when Klaus, the owner of Track Man, uh and Frederick first brought out the very first track man, right? Like Trackman won. Okay, it was ugly. It was like this big goliath. Uh, when they first brought out Trackman, they were just trying to like capture swings to see A, if the thing worked, and B, what it told them. And one of the, from what I understand, one of the first touring professionals that they actually caught on a driving range and got to measure was Sergio Garcia. And this is when Sergio was like El Nino. This is when like Sergio could really, really golf. I mean, he's still a great golfer, but this is when like he was supposed to be the heir apparent to Tiger. And people forget at the time with the equipment, Sergio was one of the best drivers of the golf ball in the world. Like he was getting comparisons to Greg Norman, and I I know I'm going back pretty far. Greg Norman during the Ballada era was considered to be the best driver of the golf ball on the planet. But Sergio was this great driver of the golf ball, like just hit it a mile, hit it straight, like really was driving it well. And when they first measured Sergio Garcia, Trackman said he was hitting 10 down on his driver. That can't be possible. Was that real? Was that real? With the ball, with the technology they were using at that time, it could be. But I do know this, and the only reason I kind of believe this story is because I went back and found a bunch of old footage of Sergio. He used to leave little divots on T-boxes when he'd hit his driver. If you go back and find old uh Sergio Garcia swings back in the day, he would take a little divot with his drivers. He looked like he was hitting fairway woods off the T-Box.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:31

So assume it wasn't teed up very high.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:33

Wasn't teed up super high. And knowing what I know about the way shafts were back then and the balls, this was early, early stages of the Pro V1. Okay, okay. You know, it it's possible, but I I think it's hilarious. The funny part to the story is, you know, and by the way, who knows how accurate that first track man was, too, right? Like, yeah, yeah. I I think it's safe to say though, if it said it was 10 down, he was hitting down on it, and especially if he was taking a divot in front of the ball, he was hitting down on it. So with with that, the funny thing is is they're like, hey, Sergio, you're like hitting 10 down on your driver. Turns around, he's like, Okay, like, so what? You see how good I hit my driver? Yeah. And it's like that's that's kind of the the point of this, right? Is whether you and I and look, I am not saying hit 10 down your driver. That's not gonna help anybody. Uh, and if you're hitting 10 down your driver, come see me for a golf lesson because we got work to do. But at the end of the day, you know, if you're if you're two degrees down, you know, I don't think you want to go much more than that. But if you're two degrees down, definitely not the end of the world. Uh, if you're two degrees up, not the end of the world. But I think once you get outside of those ranges with your driver when it comes to attack angle, I I think you're gonna have to really manage things well to get the ball in play as much as you could. And I'm not saying that you're gonna lose a ton of distance like changing that a little. Like I think between negative two, positive two, I think that's kind of the sweet spot for both having plenty of speed and having plenty of precision.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:05

Yeah, as you you made the point to me, you were like, Well, how are you gonna hit a explain to me how you're gonna hit a cut with a pat or with a um attack angle that's like four up. It's gonna be tough. How are you gonna do it? It's gonna be tough.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:23

You're gonna have to aim pretty left. I mean, you can do a godd-up does, right? And just aim 40 yards left. Yeah. But yeah, I mean, I just don't think that's a strategy for everybody. So, man, we uh we got into more than I thought we were gonna get into. I I logged into this call with Chuck, and I was like, I hope you got something to say, because like I don't have a lot. And uh Chuck has magically pulled it out of me again. So I think you know, I'm gonna dedicate this episode to that new hairdo, dude. I I think that inspired me. If you're uh if you haven't watched on YouTube, Chuck has got just the most amazing. And look, I'm bald, so there's definitely some hair envy going on here, but it is an amazing, amazing head of hair that you have.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:01

I I chopped some off this week. It it got a lot shorter overnight. That was the first thing you said when I popped up on screen. Um yeah, this was a great episode. I I think you got into a lot of good stuff. I think, especially with the driver and maybe some myth, not myth, but just debunking a few things that like, oh, it's going to do immeasurably more for your swing. Well, no, it's not.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:25

There's very few absolutes in the golf swing.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:28

Yeah. Yeah. Um, I just know that it's I always feel like this time of year, first of March, we get the players. To me, that's always like a peak beginning of golf. The time changes, we're able to stay out later and grind for so much longer on the chipping and putty greens. It doesn't get dark early. This is uh we're getting into the best part of the year, which is spring golf. People are getting excited about being outside. This is a fun time.

Where To Send Questions

SPEAKER_01 1:15:59

Yeah, I think so. I mean, it's amazing to me. We've had a couple days here in Michigan where it's gotten to the 70s in the past week and the golf courses are just full. I mean, people have cabin fever, they're ready to get out, they want to play golf. And, you know, kind of like we've talked about, we're we're doing this podcast in earnest to try and help golfers play better golf, and that's why we do this. So hopefully somebody is going to take something away from today's podcast and play a little better golf this season. Absolutely. Awesome. Well, I think that's gonna do it for this episode. It has been a blast. Time has flown by. I told Chuck that I wanted this to get more conversational and be more like our phone calls that we make when we're not recording ourselves, and I think we're starting to do that. So uh I want to thank Chuck once again for being a tremendous co-host and offering his insights into things as well, because he definitely makes this podcast better. So happy to have him. Super happy to see the feedback starting to pick up a little bit, people reaching out with questions, people reaching out with topics. Uh, we will get to them, we will cover off as much as we can. Uh, generally speaking, you know, if you have questions, if you have comments, if you have topics, you can reach out to us on Instagram. Uh, you can find me at two different places. We have the Measured Golf Instagram account, which you can find just by searching measured golf. And then if you're looking for me specifically and my coaching adventures, which will be taking me to New York uh next week or the week after that, you can find me at the force plate guy. Don't forget the the. Uh, a lot of people reached out and said they couldn't find it because they were typing in forceplate guy, but you got to put the the in there uh because I'm close to Ohio and they love a good the down there. So uh you can find us uh on Instagram, you can find us on YouTube. Uh pretty surprised at how many more people are now watching this podcast on YouTube where we put the video up. I am going to give Chuck all the credit with that hairdo. I think that's really pulling in the viewers. Uh, hopefully we get a slightly different demographic these days with a better-looking guy on here. But I think that's all good. But you can find us on YouTube by searching Measured Golf. And as always, you can download this podcast anywhere you download your favorite podcast. So if you have questions, if you have comments, if you have concerns, please reach out to us, let us know, and we will do our best to address them on the next episode. But until then, keep grinding.