Flag Hunters Golf Podcast

Golf's Wisdom Keepers: Insights from Mark Heartfield

• Jesse Perryman

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Mark Heartfield, a Class A PGA member since 1986 and former Director of Golf at Sankaty Golf Club, shares his teaching philosophy and career journey spanning over three decades in golf. His approach emphasizes understanding each player's unique swing characteristics rather than imposing a system, helping students realize their full potential through personalized instruction and course management strategies.

• Started playing golf at 15, played collegiately at Stetson University, and turned professional immediately after graduation
• Worked at prestigious clubs including Hyannisport, Plymouth Country Club, Baltusrol (under Bob Ross), and 33 years at Sankity Head
• Believes teaching should be individualized rather than system-based, saying "it's all a puzzle to try to solve"
• Begins lessons with comprehensive assessment including questionnaire and TrackMan yardage session
• Uses sports analogies to help students understand swing mechanics (tennis forehand for golf swing)
• Encourages young players to continue playing multiple sports through high school
• Teaches putting with emphasis on routine, alignment with a line on the ball, and distance control
• Recommends creative practice like the "kiss the fringe" drill for lag putting improvement
• Shares personal battle with melanoma and importance of sun protection on the course
• Advocates for simplicity in teaching, avoiding overly technical jargon that confuses students

For more information about Mark Heartfield, visit www.markheartfield.com or find him at The Ridge Club on Cape Cod.


Speaker 1:

Hello and welcome to another edition of the Flag Hunters Golf Podcast. I am your host, jesse Perriman, along with my brother from another mother, justin Tang, welcoming you to this spring edition of the Flag Hunters Golf Podcast. And this week we have a great episode, one of my favorites really. It's really an enriching conversation with Justin, myself and a fellow by the name of Mark Hartfield. Mark has been a Class A PGA member since 1986. He spent 33 seasons at the Sankity Head Golf Club as a director of golf quite a long time and he is now the current director of instruction at the Ridge Club. So we want to really honor those head professionals and directors of instruction that have been at it for a long time, that have been really the stewards of the game, passing down information that they learned from previous generations, generations and to teach us currently and to plant great seeds moving forward for future generations to not only play golf at a high level but to thoroughly enjoy this game and to really realize the best that we can be, or at least realize what our intentions are, and Mark epitomizes that. At least realize what our intentions are. And Mark epitomizes that. When I think of a head pro, mark is that prototype that really exemplifies all of the things that I just described. So I'm not going to give too much away here in the introduction, but I want to give Mark a big thanks for coming on and being patient with a delayed release. We recorded this in March and this intro is being recorded.

Speaker 1:

Master's Week Happy Master's Week everyone. So if you want more information about Mark and I would encourage you to do so please go to MarkHartfieldcom. It's just like it sounds. It's all one word. He is a wealth of information and you're going to hear it here, and both Justin and I thoroughly enjoyed chatting with Mark. We enjoyed making his acquaintance and I'm sure that we're going to continue to be in contact with him moving forward in the future. And also a big thanks and a shout-out to Mizuno Golf and Gemma Max Grips. Cheers everyone and have a fantastic week. Hello, this is Jesse Perriman of the Flag Hunters Golf Podcast. Welcome you to another edition with my friend, my brother, from all the way around the world. His name is Justin Tang. He is an instructor at the Tanamera Golf Club in Singapore, and our guest today is Mark Hartfield. He is the director of instruction at the Ridge Club in a very cold and blustery Cape Cod this time of year, this time as we're approaching the second week of March. Mark, thanks for coming on.

Speaker 2:

Thanks for having me, Jesse and Justin. I appreciate it.

Speaker 3:

Hey, thanks Matt for coming on. You're Cape Cod's swing doctor, golf Digest's top teacher. Thank you for gracing us with your presence. Can you share with our listeners how you got into golf?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I started actually at the age of 15. It was my sophomore year of high school. I tried out for the golf team, didn't make the varsity team, played on the JV team and I just fell in love with the game. I was a tennis player prior to that. By the time I was a senior, I was captain of the high school team and I ended up going to Stetson University in Florida, which is a very small Division One school in Florida. I played there all 40 years in Florida. I played there all four years. Sam Ryder actually graduated from Stetson and I was there all four years and we had a pretty good team. We were competing against the Florida Florida States Miami's of the world, which was a little out of our league, but we had a good team and it was a lot of fun.

Speaker 2:

The day I graduated from Stetson I turned professional and I actually moved to the Cape and I was the assistant pro at the Hyannisport Club, which is a beautiful Donald Ross course on the Cape. It's the home of where the Kennedys, jfk, lived in the summers. The Kennedy family is still there in the summers and so pretty affluent club. And then, after I was only there one year, I ended up going to another Donald Ross course, plymouth Country Club. I was there for two years and after Plymouth I went to Neshada Country Club in Concord, mass. They used to host the Digital Seniors Championship, one of the senior tour events in New England, and following that I kind of got the break of my golf life.

Speaker 2:

I was hired by a gentleman named Bob Ross who was one of my mentors. Bob was probably the best known head professional in the country, had a great reputation for moving staff on to their own jobs and he was a fine player, teacher, merchandiser of the Year, teacher, merchandiser of the Year, professional of the Year just a great guy to work for, very well-rounded. And I got a lucky break and worked for him for two years and after the second year I was hired for a small 33 year career. Loved every minute of it and my.

Speaker 2:

On the very final year my 34th year actually I was put in a position to be the executive director of the US Mid-Am, the US Mid-Am. We hosted the US Mid-Am and it was kind of cool because it was our club's 100-year anniversary and it was just a great way to go out. So then I retired from there. I'm a member there now, which was a nice treat. They gave me a membership. I get to go back whenever I want to play. And then this job where I am today at the Ridge Club, kind of fell in my lap and I'm loving every minute of it. It's really where my passion has always been, in teaching, so I'm happy to be at the Ridge Club.

Speaker 3:

You missed. You missed one point. Baltus Roll, you were the assistant professional.

Speaker 2:

Well, no, that's where Bob Ross hired me. I'm sorry I might not mention the club name, but Bob was the head pro at Baltus Roll and just the best guy. So that's a Tillinghast course. They have 36 holes, so kind of going from the Donald Ross courses to a Tillinghast course. They have 36 holes, so kind of going from the Donald Ross courses to the Tillinghast course. I've been pretty fortunate in the clubs where I've worked.

Speaker 3:

There must have been some really interesting things that you saw during your time at Baltusro. What were some of the high profile tournaments that were held there?

Speaker 2:

what were some of the high profile tournaments that were held there. So during my two years there, um, we had hosted the uh us women's open the year before I arrived, um, so then they had a little pause in between tournaments, so unfortunately I wasn't there during any of the the major championships that they had. But, um, they're right up there in the in hosting the most majors of any club in the country.

Speaker 3:

You mentioned that you are a very high level tennis player. Did tennis help you in learning golf or did you learn it?

Speaker 2:

concurrently and I wouldn't say I was a high level player. I was a pretty good junior tennis player. I stopped playing when I fell in love with golf at 15. So the similarities I see, and I actually use this quite a bit in my teaching. I think for a right-handed player, a forehand top spin in tennis is actually very similar, uh, to a golf swing. And, um, anybody that I know is coming to me for a lesson that is a tennis player. I seem to always go that direction. Um, and I know, um, uh, a lot of really good tennis players end up going to play golf.

Speaker 2:

Um, um, I don't know if you've ever seen that is not pretty, but I guess he's pretty effective with it and it looks like he's hitting a top spin with his with his t-shot yeah, I think he's a scratch player, at least close to it yeah, um, I did get to know uh and play with uh Yvonne Lendl quite a bit.

Speaker 3:

Whoa, that's a classic.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, he actually had aspirations of becoming a tour player, yeah, and he got very close and he has a couple of daughters that ended up being very good junior players as well. So, yeah, I think the sports relate to each other very well so we can already get a glimpse of your teaching philosophy.

Speaker 3:

You kind of relate the golf swing to a student's experience in prior sports. Is there an assumption?

Speaker 2:

I I do. That's a good assumption. I've worked with some hockey players. Actually Bobby Orr was a member at our club, the Ridge Club. He just moved out last, at the end of last summer. We have the whole Kachuk family that are top players there. I think a lot of hockey players have similar emotions to golf and even just the release points and things like that, they know how to generate the speed and the power. Obviously there's quite a few baseball players that are also good golfers. So it's that baseball pitcher or Tom Brady throwing a football. They know how to generate the speed and the power. So I think players that grow up playing all kinds of sports I've had a couple of dads say do you think he should stop playing basketball because he's really falling in love with golf? Absolutely not. Let his legs get stronger, let the athletic motion take over. I think playing other sports is a very positive aspect.

Speaker 3:

Could you expand a little bit on when juniors should specialize?

Speaker 2:

I would say even all the way through high school. I would continue playing all the way through high school. If you want to go away and play on a division one collegiate team, that could be the time to start to put the other sports aside. If somebody is a extremely high level golfer, maybe you want to just do it. Stop because of avoiding injury. But I find nothing wrong with playing other sports because it's strengthening other body parts that we use for golf.

Speaker 3:

Well, I guess some tour pros also maintain their enthusiasm for fishing.

Speaker 2:

Oh, I love to fish.

Speaker 3:

That's good for the throwing motion of the trail. Yeah, absolutely. Good for the throwing motion of the trail. Yeah, absolutely yeah. Could we expand a little bit on your philosophy? If Jesse and I would come to you for lessons, what?

Speaker 2:

can we expect from Mark Hartfield? So I would love to I always start off, by the way, with the assessment of trying to get to know the student. I have a whole sheet made up of questions that, like one of them would be the sports question Do you play other sports and do you have any injuries, and what's your current handicap and what's your aspiration of in the game? You know what's your aspiration of in the game. You know what are your goals. And then I want to learn a little bit about their shot patterns. And do you hit it left to right or right to left? I want to know what their favorite part of the game is and their least favorite part of the game. So it's a pretty extensive questionnaire. And then I I also like to do a track man session with them to understand their yardages. I just call it a track man yardage session. It takes like 45 minutes. I let each student hit shots until and they go all the way from lob wedge all the way up through driver, and when they tell me that they hit a really solid shot, that's the one that I'm going to record, and I record their carry distance as well as their total distance. I don't think enough people pay attention to the carry distance. At the Ridge Club we have a lot of false fronts and elevated greens. I think we have 12 of the 18 holes that have elevated greens. So if you're not carrying the ball up onto the putting surface, it's coming back down the hill and hitting those false fronts. So they learn a lot about that. They all think they hit the ball further than they do with every club. So it's a little enlightening sometimes to share that information with them. But but it's part of my initial assessment.

Speaker 2:

And then I use TrackMan on almost every lesson, and not necessarily because I need to, I like to. I think it's a. It's almost like having two teachers at the same time. For me it's just backing up my what I'm seeing with my eyes. I use video as well and then I look at shot patterns and and my. Basically, my philosophy to answer your question is if somebody's slicing it too much, I want to get them to learn how to hook it. If they're hooking it too much, I want to teach them how to slice it, and my goal I call it kind of counterbalancing You're too far this way, you're too far that way. I'm always trying to zoom in on uh, on the target, and hope that those track band numbers start to show some improvement.

Speaker 3:

What you just said in the last three minutes resonates so much with us. I've seen so so many high level coaches just screen their players like oh, your trackman numbers. Xyz, four sizes, there's sports boxes. You gotta do this without even understanding how those numbers came about, like what David Ledbetter used to say. It says track man tells you the path is five degrees inside out, but it doesn't tell you how it got there. And you still need to educate, still need to understand what the students intentions are and what he's doing to create the in to out path.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so I think there's the, the what is happening, the how is it happening, and then our goal as instructors is why is it happening? And trying to figure out the why is the hard part, but it's the most important part as well. So I kind of pride myself on trying to solve that puzzle.

Speaker 3:

You mentioned another thing that really strikes deep, with Jesse and I solving the puzzle. A lot of lesser golf pros don't think that the golf swing is a puzzle to be solved. They think all they need to do is to shoebox players into a particular method. It could be the right-sidedsided swing, left-sided swing or the the center post swing, for example right. Can you elaborate a little bit on the differences between a system or framework versus a method?

Speaker 2:

well, I am so not a system teacher. I like to look at what each individual does, look at their body types I don't measure, by the way, I probably should and keep in mind transitioning from being a head professional at Syncity to now a director of instruction I mean, you wear so many hats as a head professional and I didn't have the time when I was there, and it's a busy, busy place In the summer. I'm there for seven months in the summer and it's busy, so I've got my hand in everything. I also own the golf shop there, which was was great, but it's so time consuming. And now to be able to put all my energy into instruction and learn more about instruction, this is my passion and I have fallen in love with teaching and I study it like nobody else studies it. I use Sportsbox. I'm not an expert at it, so I hesitate to use it a little bit, but I want to learn more about the biomechanics and sequencing and things like that which I'm studying now. But yeah, I think it's all. It's all a puzzle to try to try to solve and I'm just. I'm learning, I think, every single day.

Speaker 2:

I want to show you a picture of why, why I don't think he can have a system. Can you guys see that? Yes, sir. So look at the difference. I'll go to the top one first. Look at the difference in those three swings, right. And then these were the four guys that when COVID first came back, they started showing golf on TV. This was the event at Seminole. And those happen to be the four players Matt Wolfe, dustin Johnson, rory McIlroy and Ricky Fowler. All so different and you can't take a model and put those four guys into a model You'd probably destroy. Of the seven pictures model you'd destroy. You'd probably destroy. Of the seven pictures there, you'd destroy six of them.

Speaker 3:

Hang on, just for clarity's sake for our listeners. What Mark was showing us was a picture of seven tour pros at the top of their backstrings, every one of them different from each other.

Speaker 2:

Yes, yeah. So that to me, is part of the puzzle that we're trying to solve. And doing match. I call them matchups. You know, if somebody has a really strong grip, most likely they're going to be more of a rotator, and if somebody's got a weak grip, they're going to release it a little bit more. So these are all the little differences that I look at when I assess somebody for the first time and then I told you about, you know, somebody's hitting it too far right. If we can get them to learn how to hit a draw.

Speaker 2:

I call it you've probably heard this before, but it's the Goldilocks theory You're too far right, I'm going to get you too far left, or we're going to find it just right. So and same with trajectory Somebody hits it too high, the next guy hits it too low. And, by the way, my game went from think of being on an island. For 33 years I spent every winter in Florida. I had two head pro jobs down there as well. For 20 years I went back and forth and doing the wind and wind, and wind. And now you go somewhere where it's not windy and my whole trajectory changes. So it's kind of fun being able to work with people that hit at different trajectories and different curvatures and, and you know, just trying to, I just try to chip away and make everybody a little bit better.

Speaker 3:

You talk about neutralizing the swing. I would imagine you've read the book Practical Golf from John Jacobs. By John Jacobs, I have it's probably up.

Speaker 2:

I have a library here. It's probably up in my library somewhere.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, and Jim Hardy, whom I believe you've studied, from I haven't studied.

Speaker 2:

I've listened to some of his stuff for the. You know the different planes, I'm familiar with him, but I haven't really studied with him now.

Speaker 3:

So I think Jim Hardy spent a lot of time with John Jacobs and he used to say right, if the next ball is not better, then the information you're giving your student probably is not correct or he's just not doing it. And I like what you said about neutralizing the swing, because I often say this the golf swing is not as difficult as the game of golf. The ball is not moving like other sports. So once you understand how the tool is being used, you get your body into a golf-like position. Then hitting the ball should be a fairly straightforward task, right.

Speaker 2:

So I don't think we spend enough time with the fundamentals. So it's just this winter. This is an interesting story. So to show you that I'm just diving into this business now and trying to learn as much as I can, I went down to Florida. I drove down from Massachusetts. It's 1200 mile drive and I stopped at different places and met with different people along the way and I witnessed and watched. I spent a whole day with Brad Faxon on the putting green. I worked with and observed Jason Bale, who just won the 2025 PGA Teacher of the Year Award. I watched him give eight. He's Lucas Glover's coach. I watched him give eight lessons and I'm just trying to learn. I watched Craig Shanklin.

Speaker 2:

I don't know if you're familiar with that name. He's an old legend. He's 85 years old. I went and spent some time with him and just trying to learn as much as I can A little. You know odds and ends. I call them nuggets. If I could take a little nugget away from each one of these guys and just kind of strengthen my teaching skills, to me it was all worthwhile. And then I went to the, to the PGA teaching and coaching summit at the PGA show. That was a two day seminar Just again, just trying to soak it all in and learn as much as I can it's. It's enjoyable for me too.

Speaker 3:

You were obviously a player in your prime. You shot a 65 before. How did you get so good? And I want to use that and segue into your thoughts on how golf instruction has changed yeah, good question, um, I'll tell you what.

Speaker 2:

I'll tell you how I got good if you can tell me how I can get it back. I, uh, I've been going through so I'm 65 now, so uh've kind of I'm not on my a game per se, but I still hit balls literally every day. I try to hit balls, even if it's for 15 minutes. Um, just again trying to get better, I still feel like I can still play great golf. It just isn't quite happening the way I visualize it, but I think a lot of it was when I was younger, when I first started playing as a sophomore in high school. When I tell you, I like dove into it. I would play some days 36 holes a day. My mom would drop me off at the club in the morning and pick me up before dinnertime. I worked for my dad so he was very flexible with giving me either a morning off or an afternoon off. But it was the love of the game and I played. I didn't really practice, we didn't have the best driving range, but I played a lot of golf and I play. I competed a lot. Everything I could play in I wanted to play in. Um, I can't give that any more. Um, you know praise and for young people's you gotta play the game. They spend so much time on the range beating balls and that's not where you learn how to play the game and learn how to score.

Speaker 2:

So, getting my students out on the golf course and really teaching them how to play the game, you know a perfect example, I use this a lot. You're standing by the 150 yard marker and it's one of our elevated greens and the pins in the back right and it's blowing into your face 20 miles an hour and joe or sally are standing next to the 150 marker and they're pulling their 150 or maybe 160 club out. And I'm saying every mile an hour into the wind is a yard and believe me, I learned that from playing golf at Zankity. It's like one mile an hour equals one yard. When you're into the wind downwind it helps you half a yard, into the wind it hurts you a full yard.

Speaker 2:

So now you got 20 yards difference there with the wind. You've got an elevated green, that's another 10, a back pin that's another 10. So you're looking at 190 yard shot and nobody, nobody makes those adjustments. So, um, it's teaching the student that, but that stuff, and then around the grain. I mean, there's just you got to teach them to be creative and try different shots and learn how to hit low bump and run shots and high flop shots. And I love the short game and obviously the best way to cut somebody's handicap down is, you know, giving them a better short game.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, we're loving this conversation.

Speaker 3:

This is not a smart-ass question. How do you figure out the wind speed on the golf course? Of what? The wind speed on the golf course you mentioned? One mile is equivalent to one yard. Yes, how can our listeners estimate wind speeds when they're out on the golf course?

Speaker 2:

So first of all, there's apps, right. So I have a weather app. If I show up in the morning and it's windy and I want to know how much the wind's blowing, pop on your app. It'll say 17 miles an hour At least it gives you an estimate. And then if you're in the trees maybe it's a little less. If you're in a higher elevation it's going to be a little bit more. But that's a great question. But it's just trust me that that is how it works.

Speaker 2:

And I've played in 40 mile an hour winds many, many times where the ball doesn't even stay on the green. But it's a great way to really understand what your yardages are doing. And then you know, along that line out on the golf course, teaching them that if you take more club and hit it easier you're taking spin off the ball. And the more spin you have on a ball, the higher the ball is going to fly. So trying to get them to take extra club and make reduced speed swings like maybe hit it at 60% or 70% just to take the spin off.

Speaker 2:

And we all watch the tour events and you'll see a lot of the better players that obviously they spin it a lot. They'll hit sand wedges into greens, they'll hit on, they'll spin back, they'll roll off the front of the green. At Augusta we see it a lot Like the ninth hole. That happens a lot and having them understand that if you took more club and hit it easier, you're flighting it better, it'll keep the height down, it'll keep the spin off the ball. To me those are why why you got to get out on the golf course and you don't really learn that on the driving range, especially if you're on mats I like what you say about that.

Speaker 3:

So there is technique, of technique I would describe it as the overall motion and you can hit the ball with it. And then there's the skill aspect of golf, where you learn to vary your technique to produce different shots for the situation on hand right so I've.

Speaker 2:

I've grown to call them part shots. You're not hitting a full shot, you're hitting a partial shot or a part shot. And, um, when I grew up playing all those years at Sankity, I learned how to hit all these difficult part shots.

Speaker 3:

It's a great way to help your scoring for sure, and we need not look further than two great champions, seve Ballesteros and Tiger Woods. Both were experts in trouble shots, both had great imagination and you can't get, you can't develop that sort of creativity at the range.

Speaker 2:

It's just different from imagining a tree in front of you versus having a real tree in front of you right, yeah, and I recommend, if you're on the range and there are trees on the range or off to the side, try to hit shots over them. If you don't have trees, I look at the clouds and I'll try to hit a ball. I call them windows. You're trying to hit it into a particular window so you'll see different cloud heights and you'll try to hit your shot so it goes through that particular cloud. So there's lots of ways of being creative to try to understand the trajectories.

Speaker 3:

I like your focus on the short game and I often say this to my beginners. I say if you can reduce the number of four putts and make them three putts, reduce the three putts and make them two putts. You would break 100 or 90 fairly easily.

Speaker 2:

If some of my students were here, you know what they'd say. Mark says three putting is unacceptable. I do. I teach them that it's unacceptable because they start to rely on oh, it's okay, I had seven, three putts today. I'm like no, you just took seven shots and threw them out the window. Gone, they're gone. I said if you're 60 feet you've got to learn how to two putt. And just to get them thinking the right way, I mean we all three putt on occasions, but it's trying to get them to think a little bit differently.

Speaker 3:

Mark, how often do people practice 60-footers? That's the issue. So when they are faced with a 60-footer on the golf course, their mind goes blank.

Speaker 2:

Yes, yeah, so you do have to practice. We have three putting greens at the Ridge Club practice greens, one's kind of a combination of a chipping and putting green, and then two in front of the clubhouse that are massive putting, just putting greens, no chipping, and so there are areas to practice this. And I think if you can teach somebody to be a good lag putter and then a really good short putter so they make all their, you know, say four feet and in, and their lag putts they can get within four feet and in, then you know you really shouldn't be three putting very often.

Speaker 3:

That's such an awesome philosophy on putting. All too often I see players take five balls, they park themselves 12 feet from the hole and they try to make everyone and obviously at 12 feet the probability of making them is not 100%. So they are actually training themselves to fail and they're increasing training themselves to fail and they're increasing their frustration because you know what? It's not meant. Not all of them are meant to go in.

Speaker 2:

Correct and I do, I think you. Then you leave the putting green, go to the first tee and you just watch yourself miss three quarters of your 12 footers, and what kind of attitude does that help you with when you're going to the first tee? It doesn't. Can I give you my thoughts on what would make somebody a better putter? I don't think people pay enough attention to their routine, and I have a routine that I use for every one of my putting lessons, and I've used it myself for over probably 12 years it would be my guess of how long I've been using this. So I think that I'm a big fan of putting the line on the ball. I don't know what you guys, your thoughts are on that, but I love putting the line on the ball. I try to get all my students to do it as well. So the first thing, we obviously have to look at what we think the break's going to be, and whether you have to walk to both sides or not. That's up to you. But from there I want you to put the line down and aim it where you think the ball should start. So if it was a one foot break right to left, you're going to aim the line one foot to the right of the hole, then stand behind and confirm that the line is perfect. If it's like, ah, that's close enough, it's not going in. So I use the term you have to love the line, not like the line. And if you just say, yeah, that's pretty good, it's probably not going in. So it's a conviction. Like so many people get over the ball and they don't like the look of the line, you got to walk back and take another look at it. And I'm not trying to say that this is going to slow down play it shouldn't. I time a bunch of my students to make sure they're not spending too much time. But then the key is from the side of the ball. Your eyes need to be looking at the hole and you take two rehearsal strokes and I don't call them practice strokes because we're really rehearsing the shot we're about to play. So two rehearsal strokes that have to feel exactly the way that you're about to hit the spots. He's got to feel like if it's 30 feet, I'm going to make a 30 foot practice stroke. Now, a rank beginner, how do they know what that is? But if you do this time and time again, it really works into the system. So then you so that's I call that feel Then you put I have a line on my putter, I connect the line on my putter to the line on the ball to create a straight line.

Speaker 2:

And if you didn't have a line on the putter, you just make it perpendicular to the face, so that gets takes care of alignment. And then the only thing you're thinking about when you're making the stroke is distance control. So people three putt because they knock it 10 feet by or 10 feet short. They don't hit it 10 feet to the right or 10 feet to the left, so they're just not focused enough on distance control. So the feel of the practice strokes create the feeling for distance, the alignment is taken care of by the line on the ball and setting your putter and your feet lines and body lines parallel to the line on the ball. And then all you're thinking of in your stroke is distance control. And it works.

Speaker 3:

Jesse is also a phenomenal putter. Jesse, could you share a little bit with our listeners on your putting routine?

Speaker 1:

I think Mark said it best distance control. I mean, if we think about the great putters, you know the goats of the putters. You throw Tiger. You know Trevino, bobby Locke, gary Player, nicholas, all of these great putters Lauren Roberts, ben Crenshaw their distance control was, was phenomenal and, and that's the nucleus of what they work on- yeah, agree um, I, I don't use a line but um, just because that gets me a little bit too much in my left brain.

Speaker 1:

But one thing that I found about the line is I actually have been using it in practice, so even working on some of the egregiously long putts, which I love. By the way, and for everyone who's listening, one of the best drills that I've ever done in my life is practicing stupid long, radical breaking putts, because it gets you to figure out the start line, first and foremost, and then if you can really get those balls close, man it, just it, it. It really creates so much more synergy between your hands and your creativity. Yeah, um, I, I read that that Lauren Roberts did that when he was an assistant pro at San Luis Obispo Country Club and he used to do that and go out and practice in the practice green, and I've been fortunate to see Loren putt up close and personal and his distance control is phenomenal. I mean, that's it. I agree 100%.

Speaker 3:

I really like what you said, Jesse. You make your practice so difficult that your actual time on the golf course seems easy in comparison. You're not surprised.

Speaker 2:

Right.

Speaker 2:

So, there's another great drill along those lines. I call it kiss the fringe, so you can get 50 feet away from any fringe. They don't put the flag on the fringe, so go to the fringe and there's no hole. We're not worrying about the hole, we're worrying about distance and get a 50 footer and try to lag it up where it literally just taps the fringe. I call it kiss the fringe so you don't want them running through up into the rough on the other side and the more you do that. And it's also good for those of you that play in shotgun tournaments the putting greens packed and everybody's aiming at the five holes that are on the putting green and nobody's hitting to the fringe. And the reason you're out there to practice before you're around is just to get a feel for the speed of the grain. So the kiss the fringe drill is one of my favorites.

Speaker 1:

In college we called we called it quarters. So we did the same thing. We'd actually call it quarters.

Speaker 2:

And we did that, but it was bouncing the quarters off the table into a beer cup.

Speaker 3:

I love it, Ma I like what you talked about making two rehearsal strokes. It's almost as if the golfer gave himself two mulligans before he hits the actual putt.

Speaker 2:

Right, exactly. So I do this in my short game as well, by the way, chipping, I think it's important to do. And the only added part I'll say on short game is the player doesn't examine the lie enough. They don't look. If they're in the rough and they have a little short, little pitch shot around the green and they're in the rough, they just automatically grab a club out of their bag, they walk over to the ball. They're going to use the same club, regardless of what the lie is like. And if that ball is sitting on top of the rough or halfway down or buried to the bottom, you're really looking at three different shots. And then, instead of the practice strokes, I'm doing my rehearsal strokes to try to feel the texture of the grass. Is it deep? Is it grabbing my club? Is my club going through it very easily? Is it into the grain? Is it down grain? So these are all the areas that I put a lot of energy and focus in.

Speaker 3:

Well, that's not something you can learn if you're stuck in the range all the time, that's right especially hitting on mats yeah, could you share with our listeners some distance control drills?

Speaker 2:

with um, with putting yes. So I love the kiss, the friends drill. I also use a ladder drill where I'll put a tee at like 10 feet, another one at 15 feet, another one at 20 feet, another one at 25 and 30 feet and you can take one ball, two balls, three balls, and you're trying to land the ball between the different tees and not go short of one of the tees you're aiming at or pass them through to the next tee. So it's just working on dying the ball into those little segments, the better you get. Instead of going in five foot increments, you go three foot increments or and a putter's generally 36 inches, 35. So just lay your putter down, put a tee down, lay it down again, put another tee down and just try to work on getting the ball to die within those two tee markers, that's.

Speaker 3:

That's one of my favorite ones too you mentioned that you spent some time with brad saxon. Yeah, could you share a little bit about what you've learned?

Speaker 2:

yeah, so he had a really cool drill that I actually never seen before. He had a young high school student that was a like a superstar high school kid and he had him pull five different clubs out of his bag. I think he had a three wood, a long iron. He might've even had a hybrid, a three wood like a five iron. I think he had a pitching wedge and a putter was the last one and Brad had him hit putts with all five of those different clubs. Why do you think he was doing that?

Speaker 3:

the different lengths so that he could vary his uh control of the the club. Yeah, so it's a feel it's a feel thing too.

Speaker 2:

It's like to get it to hit with a club you've never used and try to work on your pace. And this kid, he he had him make, he made all five putts and he was, I think, maybe seven, eight feet. He made all five putts with the five different clubs, not the first time, but as as he worked on it. And then Brad put, he worked a lot on dying the ball in towards the hole and talked a lot about that with a couple of the students that I watched, always taking it from the high side and trying to see the hole, the ball coming in from the high side. And it makes sense because any ball that hits the high side of a hole has got a chance to go in. Once it gets low it's going further away from the hole. So and it also is a is a really good drill, just to work on your pace, trying to get play.

Speaker 2:

These were pretty big breakers, so trying to throw it out to the right and have it take the break and and die by the hole. So a lot, of, a lot of distance control drills. Um, he spent a lot of time on players posture like an amazing amount of time with the posture and um, making sure that he was the putter was kind of coming back at a almost a perpendicular angle to his belt line. I found that interesting. And even his toe lines, eye lines he liked his eyes a little behind the ball and a little inside the ball. So those were areas that I paid a lot of attention to because I had never really been around too many great putting instructors and I mean he's obviously working with some of the best.

Speaker 3:

You know you talk about the eye line. In the good old days it used to be, eye line had to be directly on top of the ball.

Speaker 2:

I used to hold a ball on my bridge of my nose and drop it and have it land on top of the other ball, and now I think it's a little bit more on the inside. But that has a little to do with the arc of the putt too, and brad's big on, uh, on having a little bit of an arc to it another guy that's big on that is justin lennon.

Speaker 3:

I just went back to review his victory in 1997 at Royal Troon. It was almost as though he was hitting an iron shot. That was how far inside the target line his eyes were in relation to the ball.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and that kind of goes with his whole golf swing too. Very much a wrap, almost like a baseball swing, and that kind of goes with his whole golf swing too.

Speaker 3:

Yes, very much Baseball, almost like a baseball swing Flat, flat, yeah, and I think it's also going to do with him growing up in Texas. Right, keep the ball under the wind.

Speaker 2:

Right. So I think we're so lucky to be in this business. It's a very unique business where we share ideas with even fellow competitors. Like you see tour players helping each other out. Like what other sports do? Players help each other and then go try to beat their brains in when they play. Other and then go try to beat their brains in when they play. And in our, in my business, as an instructor, anybody that I reached out to and asked if I could come observe them, every single one of them, like Jason Bale did, and Brad did, and and Craig Shanklin it's just a. It's a very giving kind of go out community where we help and support each other, and I think that's a pretty cool part of our business.

Speaker 3:

Who are some of the other instructors that have had a big impact on your teaching philosophy?

Speaker 2:

So I've done some golf schools. Do you remember John Redman? Yes, john Redman. Yes, john Redman is Paul Azinger's coach. Yeah, and I played that way in college. I gripped it really strong and people used to say to me you look like the Paul Azinger of New England. And I said, well, why don't I go to the guy that teaches Paul Azinger? So I did. I went to him in Orlando and he had a very unique style. It's definitely not for everybody, but because that's what fit my game, I used him as my instructor for a little while, and I even had him to Sanford to do a golf school with me too. I mean, there's a lot of teachers that I really admire. I think Mark Blackburn right now is as good as they get. I had the pleasure of helping him in a golf school at Sanford as well with the director of instruction, jennifer Hudson, who I hired, and he was phenomenal. Who else do I really pay much attention to?

Speaker 3:

Sounds like you spent some time with.

Speaker 2:

Mike Adams. I've been around him and I've been to some of the Sportsbox and Terry Rolls some of the Sportsbox sessions that they've done. I even tune into their online sessions that they'll do, trying to learn a little bit more about sports box. I don't I told you I don't use that measuring system that he does, but it doesn't mean it's not right, it's, it's just it. It's like where do you stop in this business? There's so much information out there. Sportsbox is amazing. I mean to be able to get that kind of data in 3D and actually prove to somebody what the actual numbers are is I think the direction that this business is going in numbers are is, I think, the direction that this business is going in and force plates and you know all the new technology and those are things down the road I'll look at investing in.

Speaker 2:

I want to talk a little bit about your battle with melanoma and how it's changed your perspective on life. Well, thank you. Yeah, I had quite a shock in November of I could tell you what day it was and what time it was. When you get that phone call from a doctor and they tell you you had melanoma cancer, it's a bit of a shocker. I had it right here on my face. I had a brown spot that a dermatologist in Florida froze off and about a year later the same area came back again and he froze it off again, didn't biopsy it, and then shortly after that the same area became a little bit elevated and around the bump I started to see these little dots. And that's when a different dermatologist did a biopsy on it. And then I found out I had melanoma and I had stage three B, which is just a shy little bit of a way from stage four. So it was a very serious case. I had 11 surgeries, six weeks of radiation, a year of chemo.

Speaker 2:

The club, thank God, kept me on, as their pro told me to get better. My job was there when I got back and I owe Sankity so much for that. It was awfully nice, so I did get better in time. Awfully nice. So I did get better in time and I had, you know, a lot of plastic surgery and things like that to look semi-presentable. As my friends say, you're never good looking to begin with. So what were you worried about? Those are the friends you want to have, right? But anyway, it definitely changes your perspective because when a doctor tells you you have about a 10 to 20 percent chance of surviving this, it's pretty scary. So you start to look at life a little differently. I definitely have a little stronger faith from that and I'm lucky to be here.

Speaker 3:

I think it's important for our listeners to remember that to be able to play the game of golf puts us in a better position than many people that we know, and we need to be constantly reminded of our good fortune.

Speaker 2:

Yes, we do, and as a plug for everybody out there that hopefully I helped somebody in this on this call wear the best sunscreen every day. Wear long sleeve shirts. If you don't like long sleeve shirts, get the sleeves that you can put on underneath the short sleeve shirt. Wear a big brim hat. I still see people you know out there without even wearing a hat and that just blows me away because it's it doesn't have favorites out there, so you just have to be so careful. So please take my advice on that.

Speaker 3:

Thank you for the public awareness message, Jesse. Any questions for Mark?

Speaker 1:

No, this has been a fantastic conversation, mark, I can't thank you enough for sharing your story and coming on. I think that we're all in alignment with the passion that we have for the game, the endless hours of study and contemplation and R&D and making sure that, for both of you, you get the proper information out to your students and the golf world at large. So my hat's off to both of you for doing what you do. Thank you.

Speaker 2:

One last. Can I give a last closing? Of course, absolutely off to both of you for doing what you do. One one, can I give a last closing? Of course, absolutely. I think the instructors today are getting a little bit too complicated with terminology. When I hear people talking and I know there's the proper terminology for like flexion and extension versus bowed and cupped, and then when I start to hear people talking about gamma forces and delta forces and do you think Mrs McGillicuddy knows what that is?

Speaker 3:

She doesn't care whether it's delta, the navy seal's coming man, keep yes keep it simple and and um, repetitive.

Speaker 2:

Just continue to go over the same message over and over. Don't give them too much information. So I think simplicity and using words that everybody understands is is the way to go.

Speaker 3:

Where can our listeners find more about you, what's the social media handles and if they want to visit you at St Cathy.

Speaker 2:

Well, I'm at the Ridge Club now, so that's right, if they're on Cape Cod, they can find me for sure at the ridge club. I have a website, it's markhartfieldcom, and hartfield is h-e-a-r-t. F-i-e-l-d. I'm on instagram. I don't do a lot of posting on facebook, but I I have facebook account as well, but I have Facebook account as well, but I occasionally I'll post some things on on Instagram, and no Twitter or any of the others, but Instagram or my website Perfect.

Speaker 3:

Thank you so much for your time again, Matt.

Speaker 2:

You're welcome. Thank you guys very much, it was a pleasure.