Wedge Work Wins ! In Conversation with Mike LaBauve

We challenge the myth that more greens alone lowers scores and show how wedge control and impact-focused coaching change a golfer’s ceiling. Mike shares a short game test, a simple wedge matrix, and a speed move that adds real yardage without chasing positions.

• Mike’s journey from player to coach and key mentors
• Fixing root causes using steep and shallow components
• Why ball flight and communication beat perfect positions
• The Howard Twitty wedge matrix and scoring lessons
• A short game test that sets a real baseline
• Building one partial wedge swing for known yardages
• Pronation and wrist action for faster clubhead speed
• Practicing what affects score, not what flatters ego

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Chapters

• 0:02 Welcome And Guest Introduction
• 3:12 Mike’s Path From Player To Coach
• 8:56 Meeting Masters: Hardy, Haney, And Golf Digest Schools
• 19:36 The Big Swing Change And Learning To Learn
• 33:20 Impact First: Pluses, Minuses, And Fixing Root Causes
• 45:12 Style Versus Score: Teaching By Ball Flight
• 58:00 Howard Twitty, The Wedge Matrix, And The Short Game Test

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:02

Top of the day to everyone. This is Jesse Perryman of the Flag Hunters Golf Podcast, welcoming you to another edition, along with my partner Justin Tang, one of the lead instructors at the Tanamera Golf Club in Singapore. We welcome you. This week we've got a legend, Mike LeBeau, uh, director of instruction at the Roaring Fork Golf Club in Colorado in the high country, and at the Talking Stick Golf Club in Arizona. And Mike is a longtime, very influential uh golf instructor. He, along with his wife, have been at it for quite a while, and Mike's background will be uh be talked about in the main body of the conversation. So I don't want to ring you out with too long of an intro here, but uh we want to definitely give thanks to Mike for coming on and sharing his wisdom. Uh I enjoyed this conversation, I learned a lot. Uh, Mike talks about wedges and the importance of them, and even created a wedge scorecard that um is easy to follow, easy to understand, and you really get to see how good or how not so good your wedge play is, and how that manifests on the golf course. The best players in the world work on their wedges, period. The best players, pros and ams. We've heard it here on this podcast, and we've heard it many times over. And Mike exemplifies that to the nth degree. So uh, and also, too, I want to note something that Mike is the uh a personal instructor of a dear friend of mine that I've known for a few years, and I've seen his game transform big time, uh, from let's say a uh you know an eight-nine handicap, which is not bad, pretty solid, to now uh pushing on the door of a legitimate scratch play. And I'm not talking newspaper scratch play, I'm talking legitimate put the pen the pencil to paper score and uh shoot around par. So uh what Mike says works. Please listen to him, and I will make sure to include his uh contact information in the show notes uh to go out and see him this winter if you're in Arizona. Cheers, everyone, have a great week, and remember to rate, review, and subscribe to the podcast. Thank you. And it's an honor to have a man by the name of Michael Bo on. Mike is a longtime instructor, sputs his time between Aspen and Arizona. He is definitely well known in the in the teaching circles and has taught many a good player and many a beginning player, and that's what we want out of our instructors, somebody who has the capacity to work with anybody at any level and get better playing this game that we love. So, Mike, welcome and thank you for coming on. Justin, always a pleasure, pal.

SPEAKER_02: 3:42

Hey, thanks, Jesse. Thanks, Mike.

SPEAKER_03: 3:45

Yeah, thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_02: 3:48

For the uh our listeners that are a bit young and new to the game. Mike is a celebrated instructor who has been featured on the list of golf digest, golf magazines, top teachers. Uh, I remember growing up as a golfer in the late 90s reading a lot of Mike and Sandy, his uh his dear wife's uh instructional articles. And those were really uh instrumental in helping me become the golfer and the coach that I am today. And it gives me no greater pleasure than to have Mike on our show. Mike, for the benefit of our listeners, could you give us a brief background of yourself and how you came into the game of golf?

SPEAKER_03: 4:36

Um, yeah, it's great to be with you guys. Um, first of all, um I I started uh as a kid, I was playing other sports, baseball, basketball, football, and uh my dad got me into the game uh through caddy. I caddy from my dad, and I had two uncles that played. They were all about 10, 12 handicaps. And um and through that caddium, uh, by the time I was 15, I quit everything else, and all I want to do was play golf. And uh, so I played high school golf, played golf at LSU, and um, and then uh got out of college and met my wife, Sandy, uh, who is the daughter of the late Jack Lumpkin. And uh so I'm at Hilton Head. I got my start at Hilton Head Island as an outside service person. I graduated in accounting, but I knew by the time I was a junior I wasn't gonna do any accounting, and I wanted to do something in golf. So um, so I I meet uh I meet Sandy and uh find out her dad is Jack Lumpkin. And I when I go to meet the parents, Jack uh says, uh, hey, I'm I'm I've got to teach a couple lessons in the morning. Would you like to come watch? I said, Yes, sir, I would. So I didn't know anything about instruction at this time. And uh so I go watch Jack give a couple lessons, and I was just floored by what he could do with these students. And I didn't know any of this stuff. And before he could ask, would you like to come watch again? I said, Yes, sir, where and when I'll be there.

SPEAKER_02: 6:19

And that's how I got my stuff. At this point in time, were you more interested in playing the game or coaching? And from there we can quickly figure out which you who you were more interested in, Sandy or Jack?

SPEAKER_03: 6:34

Yeah, yeah. No, well, yeah, that's a that's a tough, tough question there. Um, but I was um I'd kind of reached my limit as a player, and I was as good as I was gonna be. And I was uh a bit frustrated with that, but uh there I was in the golf business and uh as an outside service person, and and then I got a uh first assistance job on the island, and um and things just kept progressing from there. And and Jack invited me to come help with the golf digest schools as a range attendant, and so I got to watch Bob Toskey, Peter Costas, Davis Love, Jim Flick, Chuck Cook, uh all these these great instructors, and I was I was thrown in the in the fire right there, and uh, and then uh uh I was brought to uh Jack got uh the director of instruction position at Pinehurst, and he brought me there as his assistant because Jack was going to be on the road for half the year, and Hank Haney was brought in at the same time to run the Pinehurst Golf Schools. So um there I was helping with the golf digest schools and had to put on a different hat and work with Hank in the Pinehurst Golf Schools, and Hank had come from the John Jacobs school of golf. So um you can imagine the the learning that curved that I was put into right off the bat as a new instructor. Um I can't imagine uh having that opportunity, you know, for a young instructor.

SPEAKER_02: 8:21

That's a very interesting uh background you had there.

SPEAKER_03: 8:24

Yeah. So we'd do we would do a golf digest school on like Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and then I'd do a Pine Hair school on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. It was crazy. Teaching every day, just 40 students at a time, 20 students at a time. You can learn how to teach doing that.

SPEAKER_02: 8:45

That's what we always discuss on on this podcast. That's plenty of cadavers to work on.

SPEAKER_03: 8:52

So then uh it was like uh my my wife and I got married in in 81, and um and then Hank and I Hank gets this call one day from Jim Hardy, and uh Hank had known Jim uh as a junior at X-More Country Club in Chicago, and so Jim calls up and says, uh, hey, I've got some new information. You need to get out to Palm Springs and come come check this out. And so Hank asked me if I would like to go with him. I said, sure. So we drove across country to Palm Springs to watch Jim Hardy teach. And uh he started at uh seven o'clock in the morning. He started he taught from like seven to two every day. So I showed up at seven o'clock to watch him give his first lesson, and um I watched him uh diagnose, correct, and start coaching this person. And once I could see where he was going, I would go hit balls for a little while and I'd show back up at eight o'clock for the eight o'clock lesson and do the same thing, watch the diagnosis, correction, and coaching. And I did this for two days in a row. And uh after two days, he comes walking over to where I was hitting balls and he says, Would you like some help? I said, Yes, sir, I would, because I I had reached my limit as a player, and uh on the LSU golf team, I had the worst swing on the team, but I had the best short game. So I could score because of my wedge and putter. And you had a but I couldn't hit.

SPEAKER_02: 10:36

And I think for the benefit of our listeners, we need to mention that you carried a plus four handicap in LSU. And if I recall correctly, if the coach needed a low number, you were the guy that they sent down.

SPEAKER_03: 10:53

Well, I'm not I'm not sure I'd put it that way, but I I could shoot a low number. But if we were invited to play at a tournament where you needed good ball striking, I wasn't going on the trip. If it was a golf course that you could drive it sideways and hit wedge into the green, I was on the trip. And um through college, I averaged seven greens in regulation. I had a plus four handicap hitting seven greens at regulation. And to this day, I'm always amazed at how many 10 to 12 handicappers, let's say, I ask about their golf game and how they think they could get better. And and they say, Well, I need to hit more fairways and more greens. And I and I ask them, Well, how many greens do you hit now? Well, probably 10, 10, 11 greens. I go, wait a minute. You're you're a 12 handicap and you hit 11 or 12 greens. My next question is, do you drive it on the property? Oh, yeah, I keep it in play with the driver. You drive it on the property, you hit 11 or 12 greens, and you're a 12 handicap. How's your short game? Well, my short game's pretty good. That's a something done. How many people think that they need to hit 12 to 14 greens to be a better golfer? It's unbelievable.

SPEAKER_02: 12:21

I gotta stop you right there, Mike. So when I heard you talk about your greens in regulation on a couple different podcasts, it really upended my thinking about greens in regulation as a predictor of someone's scores. Years ago, the USGA they had this thing called the Ricky's test. So if you hit 10 greens in regulation, your predicted score would be 95 minus 10 multiplied by 2. So it's 95 minus 20. Your score should be 75. But after I heard you talk about your short game philosophy, it kind of freed me up. Like, yeah, I don't really have to hit 1012 to be shooting in the mid-70s. Could you talk a little bit about your experience playing on the LSU team and how you overcame this to reach a plus four handicap?

SPEAKER_03: 13:30

Well, I'm not I'm not sure. I didn't have any lessons really per se. Um I was just, I think I just had good hand-eye coordination, and I I uh I would just set out to figure out how to get the ball in the hole as fast as I could. And I was naturally a good putter. I'm still a good putter today, and I've always been good with wedges, bunker shots, chip shots, pitch shots, to the point where I don't really have to think about it too much to hit good shots. I just need to look at the target and hit. Uh my full swing has never been that way. There's other people that are the opposite that might have a good swing and they they're pretty predictable with where the ball goes and they can't putt. Uh, I was pretty natural at at the short game. And so when I practiced, I would go practice what I was good at. Because everybody would come by and go, man, you chipped the ball nice, man, you hit bunker shots nice. And the more I I heard that, the more I wanted to do it more. And it was embarrassing for me to go hit balls in front of people. Matter of fact, when I became a new instructor, that's what made me want to change my golf swing after five years out of college because I was embarrassed about my my swing, having to demonstrate in front of students, especially some better players. And um so five years out of college, I got to I got to change my my golf swing. But yeah, in college, I had a I had a very upright swing, I had a very close club face, very steep swing, and I had a reverse C so that I wouldn't slam into the ground making a big divot. And the first day Hank Haney saw me hit balls, we we came to Pinehurst together. The first day he saw me hit balls, he says, I hit like three balls, and he goes, Does your back ever hurt? I said, matter of fact, it does. I'm seeing a chiropractor every two weeks. He says, You better fix that swing or you're gonna break it. You're gonna break your back. And I it made me kind of mad at first. Here's a guy telling me that you know I I can't hit the ball, but I could play. So I could I could beat these some most of these people, but I knew I'd reached the limit of my golf. I wasn't gonna get any better, and I was always gonna be embarrassed about my golf swing. So that that led me to to change five years out of college, and that's when I met Jim Hardy. He was the guy that made the change.

SPEAKER_02: 16:19

How different is your swing now compared to during college days?

SPEAKER_03: 16:25

Oh, it well, it it's so different from college. Uh matter of fact, um once I was with the golf digest staff, um they were all trying to help me with my swing, and and nothing, nobody was hit in the nail on the head of this is what needs to change. Um like a lot of the lessons today, there's a lot of people that can see um that well, this person doesn't shift their weight, or this person doesn't uh uh move through the ball or whatever. I mean, a lot of people see some symptoms in the swing that that uh if you don't identify the root cause of the problem, those symptoms never go away. They they stick with you for years. And um finally uh when I met Jim Hardy, he was the guy that found the root cause of the problem, and um he changed my swing plane from being so upright to a little bit more of what you would call on plane, and it didn't have to be perfect, it just needed to be reasonable. But knowing what I did as an instructor, the thing that fascinates me more today than than anything else is how people learn. Can I get somebody to learn what they need to learn? Uh you can you can spot uh issues with somebody's game uh you know pretty easily, I find. But uh getting them to learn that change is the biggest challenge for me today. And so knowing what I did as a as a young teacher, even about making changes, when Jim Hardy said, This is what you need to do. First of all, it made sense to me. And number two, I knew that I may not hit the first ball great, but I'm gonna do what he tells me to do. So he he uh had me set up and he grabbed my golf club and he took my club around, going back and and then coming down, and I thought, holy cow, this feels so different. And he said, do that, and I did it with a sand wedge, and I coal topped it off the T. And Jim says, That's perfect, do it more. He wasn't looking for a good golf shot, he was looking for me to change my motion. So I okay, I'm gonna do it more. I topped the next eight balls, and every time I topped one, he says, Perfect, do it more. I kept doing it more. Finally, I had a good wedge shot that felt like nothing I'd ever felt before. This is in 1982, by the way, and Hank Haney is watching this lesson, okay, at this time, and then he says, uh, get your driver out. And uh, we're at the Muni course in Palm Springs, and he does the same thing with my driver. He takes it back, brings me down, and it felt like the club face at that time, coming from an upright closed position, felt like my my swing was my club was more open coming in. And I said, Jim, there's condos over there on the right. He says, He says, I don't care, do it. So I made this move, and sure enough, my ball goes bam, hits the condos. He says, Perfect, do it more. So I did another swing and I hit the condos like eight times in a row, and finally this ball comes out straight. It was like nothing I'd ever felt or seen. And he's standing back there and he goes, Hide that feel. I said, That's incredible, it feels so different. I can't believe it. So, anyway, Hank's watching this lesson. We go back to Pinehurst, where we were working at the time, doing these golf schools, and um some of the people that had seen my old swing saw this new swing, and they said, Holy cow, what what happened to your swing? You got a good swing now. And I'm like, Well, I didn't even didn't even want to get into it because it's it's so hard to explain, you know. Somebody that that uh has never gone through a major swing change, it's it's hard to hard for them to understand. Most people think you can just tweak this or tweak that, and you got a better golf game. It doesn't always work that way. Sometimes you got to work at it, and it takes a lot of coaching. And for me, I made a major change, and so then I I had nine years of competitive golf after that. So Jim raised my level of play to uh something I I never dreamed of. So I would I was in the southwest section in Arizona, and I became player of the year in 1989, and played in five tour events and felt like I belonged. That's a good from college getting seven greens in regulation and five years out of college, working on my game, getting nowhere, and finally here's this guy, Jim Hardy, that says, This is what you need to do. And I did it, and it took me about three months to change. Three months time. And uh when Hank and I were doing golf schools at lunchtime, I would get I would get one of the guys to order my lunch. I said, order me this, I'll be there in 10 minutes. And I would go in the indoor studio and get on video and coach myself on what Jim had me doing. And I did this every day. So I'd do about 10 minutes at a time. I'd do 10 minutes at the end of the day, I'd do 10 minutes at lunch, I'd do 10 minutes in the morning, and through those repetitions, I I shaped my swing totally different.

SPEAKER_02: 22:44

That's amazing for our listeners. Looking, they change their swing, they've got to go back to the last three minutes and re-listen to that. You know, the amazing thing about Jim's philosophy is that, and he challenged me, right? He said the next ball has to be better. Otherwise, you're giving the wrong information. Yeah, and it need not be a complicated fix, as you said, right? It's just uh matching up pieces in the golf swing. And I think the value of a good coach is this he can he or she can help you break past your previously uh thought limitations. That's the real value of a good coach. Yeah, and you know you mentioned earlier about the eight cold tops with your wedges. That's where the average uh lesson taker would check out this coach doesn't know what he's doing. Yeah, but there is a difference, right? What's the outcome that we are trying to achieve? Is it a better shot? Or is it a better anatomical motion? Yeah. Most lesson takers want to change in three minutes.

SPEAKER_03: 24:08

Sure. Jim uh years ago in a summit, in a coaching summit, he gave uh one of the best presentations talking about most lessons are uh a quick fix lesson, a repair lesson. And he told this analogy about uh you know driving a Porsche versus a Chevrolet station wagon. And my most uh most golfers uh, you know, when they drive their Chevrolet station wagon in the ditch, they they just want you to get them back on the road driving again. Whereas uh somebody that's looking to uh have a better golf swing, that's more of a developmental lesson. And so all of our quick fix lessons, Jim, one of his uh greatest contributions to golf to me was when he came up with this uh pluses and minuses concept where every time a coach looks at a player hitting a golf ball, either their impact is too shallow or too steep. And um as an instructor, you've got to be able to affect that impact immediately. And if they're too shallow, either you have to take a shallow away or give them another steep component to get impact correct, and by doing it that way, you can fix somebody on the next ball, on the very next ball, they will feel a different golf shot, and um everything that you've ever heard. Matter of fact, when I do some some coaching of young instructors, I have them make a list of everything they've ever heard in golf, every tip they've ever heard. I make them make a list right now. Let's let's write them down. Uh, swing more upright, swing flatter, bend over more, stand up straighter, turn more back, turn more through. Think of all the things we've ever heard in golf. Strengthen your grip, weaken your grip, turn the club over, uh, shift your weight to the right, shift your weight to the left. Can you imagine all the things we could write down? And every listener out there has heard all these things. They've heard some of these tips. And if you so then when I'm I'm talking to these young instructors, I make them think about okay, so everything we just named, every single thing will either steepen or shallow impact. So if you hear somebody hitting a golf shot that doesn't sound right, let's say it's too thin, and the player's catching the ball on the upswing, so they're too shallow coming in. The next thing out of the coach's mouth should be something that helps steepen their impact. And unfortunately, too many times something that would shallow it even more comes out. I think you need to do this or that because of how the swing looks. And um so a lot of times a golfer is playing with matching mistakes, and when you time those mistakes just right, you hit a good shot. But you don't know what's coming on the next one, and that's what makes people so inconsistent and frustrated with golf.

SPEAKER_02: 28:01

Yeah, without giving the game away, Jim's uh matrix just had four components in their face, attack angle, path, and width. And yeah, it's it's gonna take uh budding instructors a lot of time to get the wrap their head around how to mix and match the various uh components to produce a repeatable ball flood, but well worth your time to uh explore Jim's uh matrix. You know, I want to go back to your initial induction into coaching with the Golf Digest Schools as well as Hank Haney. There could not be two more different philosophies, if you will. The Golf Digest Schools, if I recall, was very clubhead focused with Jim Flitt and Bob Toske. Whereas the Hank Haney approach is somewhat different. And would you say that led you to a very well-rounded uh toolbox?

SPEAKER_03: 29:10

Yeah, yeah, very much. Matter of fact, I mean, you know, if you're if you're a coach, I think the more methods that you can get around and learn, the more students you can help. And and after after a while, you can see where uh wow, all this person needs is a John Jacobs lesson. And all this person needs is uh, you know, they could go to this person or this person, and you can see where they could be helped. Um yeah, so it was quite different. Uh John Jacobs was um more of a two plane swing, as you know, defined by Jim Hardy. And um and golf digest was more of a uh uh developmental program you know they they built everything on on good fundamentals uh watching the all the golf schools uh you know starting with a good grip and a good setup and good foundation and um it was pretty pretty simple you know jim flick of course was a um more of a arm swinger uh controlling the swing with the arms and the arms can uh the body followed there were others in the school which was interesting to watch because there were some different philosophies with with all those top teachers and uh some believed that the body was more important and uh somebody like flick was more of an arm swinger uh but they were all good and they were the best at communicating they could really get a point of that is such an underrated skill whenever you ask budding golf instructor what's the number one skill you want to learn they'll be telling us telling you I need to learn XYZ golf swing philosophy or systems it's rare for one of them to say I need to learn how to communicate concepts across easily especially complex concepts yes you're you're exactly right that's that's what I see more than anything especially today with the internet uh just about anybody can tell you what the average tour player does in their setup and their takeaway how they make a transition uh that's that's all there for for any instructor or even a 10 handicap to to uh to study on the internet or even a parent or even a parent yeah that doesn't play golf that doesn't play golf totally yeah totally but to be able to look at a student and and communicate to 10 different students what they need is so different and to watch somebody like Jim Hardy or Hank Haney or Jack Lumpkin which I got to watch quite a bit they'd go from student to student and and you would you'd hear something totally different and a lot of it was based on how the student learned and you can get cues from students as to what they grab a hold of or what they visualize or what they feel they'll they'll ask you for different ways of communicating and you've got to be able to do that as an instructor and you have to be an artist a lot of times it's not just cookie cutting everybody doesn't take every time I hear you have to take the club back like this on the internet I just want to post pictures of all the people in the hall of fame that didn't take it back like that. It's like there's there's a lot of things that that people are led to believe that is not going to make them a better golfer.

SPEAKER_02: 33:30

It's not going to make them a better player I kind of feel after 20 years of coaching that it's coming back full circle to call it the late 80s just before the advent of uh video analysis back then people swung the way they they had to or they could it was all about ball flight it kind of feels now that people are a bit jaded with I gotta get into this position I've got to rotate I've got to do this and that back to simplicity to what's the ball flight doing what's my score there's no point in having the best and I'm not saying it's um it's not important there's no point in having the best track man, foresight, swing catalyst uh hat motion numbers if your scores are not lower, if your ball flight is not better or more repeatable it's coming back to what matters yeah see I I believe that as a coach you ought to be able to teach quite a few students a large majority of your students with your back to them never even watching them hit and I've I've told myself on that yeah totally I saw John Jacobs do a lesson in front of 400 golf pros in Arizona and he taught this guy never seeing him and got him to hit the ball better.

SPEAKER_03: 35:08

Now to me instead of dissecting everything on video if if you can't teach quite a few people with your back to them I'm not so sure you're looking at the right stuff.

SPEAKER_02: 35:28

Amen to that here yeah there's there's a lot of a lot of golfers that have beautiful looking swings that that don't play the game very well and on the other hand you've got some people that can play really well and everybody goes man that that lady has a weird swing or that guy has a weird swing and yeah it doesn't look orthodox but they can play the game it takes a strong ego doesn't it mike yeah I mean look you look at look at a hall of fame career like uh jim fury 75 million dollars in career earnings imagine the stick that he must have gotten going through the twirl oh I can fix you I can make your swing look better it's it takes it takes a strong ego to withstand uh overtures to help your swing look better and I guess by extension make you look better as a person right the golf swing and the ego is somehow tightened together it is and uh there's a lot of um a lot of swings that look the same today and uh not all of them can play so matter of fact when I was a uh young instructor um you and I might have chatted about this a little bit before but um when I was a young instructor I would I would I'd start to give lessons and then I found out well if I gave a package of six lessons you know your typical package of lessons and I would have a student um after six lessons I'd say so how do you feel about your game I'd say well I feel like I'm hitting it better I feel like my swing is better and uh I'd say what's your handicap well I'm still a 12 and I would think to myself huh what's wrong with this picture and so it frustrated me as an instructor why is this person not better and it uh years ago I was fortunate enough to work with Howard Twitty who uh won three times on the tour and uh it was pretty funny because the first phone call I got from him he says yeah he says um if you can help me get my driver on the property I think we can do some good somebody told me I need to come see you for a lesson so here's a tour player wanting to get his driver on the property it is he was a great butter wasn't he he was a great putter and a great short game player so he comes out for the first lesson and um this is a cool story comes out for the first lesson and uh we chat a little bit and he pulls out his sand wedge and um stretches a little bit makes a couple practice swings and he looks at the first target on the range and this is before the day of range finders and track man and GPS on the cart and everything else he just looks at this target and he hits the first shot two feet away and he says that's about 82 yards to that flag isn't it and I'm thinking how do you come up with that number and I had a sprinkler head measured on the T and I walked it off and we're exactly 82 yards.

SPEAKER_03: 38:56

I said how'd you come up with that number he said well my secondary sand wedge that I practiced I practiced a lot with Dave Pells my secondary sand wedge goes 84 yards and when I looked out there it looked like 84 yards but when I hit the shot I caught it a little bit light so I figured it was 82 yards. I'm thinking to myself tell me more so he tells me about this wedge system that he had where his full wedges went these yardages and with one swing at nine o'clock he hit the 11 yard gaps and that's something that any golfer could get better doing some kind of a program like that. There's very few golfers that know anything less than a full swing of how far it's going to go. So if you developed a swing call it parallel to the ground with your lead arm and you went to the finish and tracked the distance of your three or four wedges at the time Howard he showed he showed me this these shots and he goes so I have three wedges two swings six yardages where I know exactly where they're at and I can work off of that so we hit but he wanted to get to the driver so I said okay so let's hit some seven irons and I videoed it just for my purposes and then he I said uh all right let's hit something longer and uh I said how about this uh he had a three iron in his back how about this three iron and he looks at me and he goes why he says if you look at that three iron this brand new I never practice with a three iron and I'm I'm going why not he goes look I play the tour and the fact is I'm gonna hit the green with this three iron maybe 25% of the time I'm just looking for the side of the green I can miss on and get it up and down so here I am as an instructor I've just learned two important lessons number one how important the wedge game is and number two long irons are not that important you're gonna miss the green and if you can find the side of the green that is an easier up and down you're a better golfer and it's so sexy isn't it yeah to boast about the the two iron that we flushed onto the green yeah and so many golfers they come out for lesson I want you to teach me how to hand my four iron why it's not important you're gonna miss the green we're working on something that's not gonna affect your score so this forced me to come up with a short game test. Howard Twiddy opened my eyes to using a wedge and the putter and chipping and pitching so I um I started penciling it out one night writing down okay what does a golfer need to do to be able to score better? Okay number one you got to be able to make short putts number two you have to be able to lag longer putts to be able to make that short putt you got to be able to chip you got to be able to pitch you got to hit your standard bunker shot and you need to be able to hit a half wedge that's what I had penciled out at first and the next day I brought it out Howard was out there practicing I said Howard take a look at this you I you've kind of opened my eyes to the short game and I'm trying to come up with a test that I could I can help people get better. And I said these are the shots I have so far what else do I need? What am I missing? And he looks at it and he goes you need a 20 foot putt I said why 20 feet he said well Dave Pells has done all these tests and found that the average good player tour player is putting a lot from 20 feet for birdies and amateurs are putting from 20 feet for whatever put a 20 foot in there. I said okay 20 foot I said what else and he's looking at it and he says you need another partial wedge shot because nobody knows how to do it. He says I play in these pro ams every Wednesday with four amateurs and every time they have a partial shot into the green they have no idea how far it's going so put another partial wedge in there. So I did. So I came up with eight shots a 60 yarder a 40 yarder your standard pitch a bunker shot a chip shot lagting and short putts and I came up with a scoring system based on what Dave Pels had found 50 years ago where the average tour player was making 50% of their putts from six feet. Today that's out to almost eight feet whether it's better putting or the conditions are better that's where they're making 50% of their putts. So Dave Pelz's idea was we have to get inside of this six foot circle for you to actually realize any improvement in your short game. So there's a lot of people that that might work on their short game but they don't realize they're chipping it to eight feet 12 feet 15 feet and they're just too funny making a bogey going to the next hole you have to hit it closer with your wedges and so I I I had a I had a uh a scoring system that came out to par 72 and so I started testing every player I could find on this short game course and it played like a hard golf course. So a five handicapper going through this short game course which took 12 to 15 minutes they might shoot 83 and I go I thought I would shoot better than that. Well that's what your handicapping is in short game and so when they would come out the next time I had a a baseline for their short game where we could go work on the places that they were weak and see if they could score better. And it started changing their scores and I still use it today. It's interesting you mentioned this six foot circle because uh most tour pros one part conversion probability from uh the six foot circle is about 65 to 70 70 percent yeah so where where can our listeners get hold get a hold of this uh short game test is this uh for sale uh and you know i i'm just giving it out over the years i don't i don't sell it i've okay i've sent it to college coaches i've sent it to other um teachers and coaches and um i'll be glad to mail it to you email it to you oh let's just yeah let's do this for our listeners who want to get hold of this short game test we will have mike's email address in the details of this podcast feel free to reach out to Mike directly and while you're doing that might as well get a lesson from Mike and you know Mike you talked about the partial wedge and you talked about Howard Tweety having three different distances with two different clubs for a total of six yardages what's the optimal number of uh this matrix if you will so I know Dave Pells in the past uh when he was alive he advocated four wedges with three different positions for a total of 12 yardages is there an optimal number of this I know there are competing philosophies over how to use the uh half wedge matrix and I like your thoughts about that you know um I always encourage people to start with one one other swing other than their full swing just one swing so uh if you swing your if you're a right handed golfer if you swing your left arm back to parallel to the ground and you were to swing to the finish at a nice accelerated pace without rushing just a nice smooth swing and and start tracking where what distance that is with your different wedges just start with one swing that's different than your full swing and I will say that most uh most top players that I know don't try to hit their wedges a hundred percent they have some it's almost like they have a a smoother wedge swing the best wedge players where their full swing they'll give you their full swing yardages and it's a uh it's a beautiful graceful motion where they hit their full wedges and then they'll have start with one swing a tour player might have a few different swings but most average golfers are not going to practice that much. So start with one swing.

SPEAKER_02: 49:03

So let's get back to the matrix let's say we've we we utilize a three by three system for nine different yardages and that spread starts from call it 55 yards to 120 yards how do you advocate the use of this matrix let me give you let me give some uh background on this I would advise my players to play to those yardages inside that matrix but some guys just hit the ball they take out their matrix oh I'm 65 from the pin I want to be 62 oh let's see what yardage oh I've got a 58 on this uh matrix and then they they take that swing and hit it a little bit harder is there a preference um well I think um if you did come up with these two swings a full swing and one other swing if we started there and let's say you hit your pitching wedge for our purposes here let's say a a golfer hit the pitching wedge 120 yards and uh your nine o'clock swing or your level swing with your left arm going back hits at 105 yards so there if you're at 110 you could certainly add a little bit to that 105 but if somebody is is if the pitching wedge goes 120 and you've got a 125 shot a golfer that is really trying to develop their game will will test to see can I add five more yards to my pitching wedge or should I be taking my nine iron and hitting a little three quarter shot which one would I get most control and that's what most golfers are looking for how can I get my proximity to the hole closer more consistently is it with a a swing that's harder or one that's a little easier and that takes some testing with every golfer you know in the spirit of a holistic swing philosophy like yours could we talk a little bit about one of your more celebrated articles in golf digest which is the pronation piece and its impact on club head speed I know you've helped some of your golfers pick up at least 20 yards just with this move.

SPEAKER_03: 51:57

Can you share that for the benefit of our listeners looking to add yardage to their drivers yeah uh you know I did a um years ago I did a test because I I kept uh hearing uh golfers that were going on to get fit for golf clubs and and I talked to these fitters and and um they'd say yeah just uh that guy swings 90 miles an hour fit him just just fit him for 90 miles an hour and but I said but he's he's trying to get more club ed speed and I kept hearing well he's not they're not really going to change just fit him for 90 miles an hour. I said I I don't buy that so what if I had a group that really wanted more club ed speed and um so I took 12 golfers and uh I put them in a on a six week program where I I saw them once a week and I um got our fitness director at the club that I was at to help me. I said you do your normal fitness of core training but after I see these golfers sling I might add something to your fitness training he says okay so I took 12 golfers and I took them to an independent tester um in Phoenix and had them all tested and uh make the long story short at the end of six weeks I brought them back with their driver and the average improvement was nine miles an hour that's a lot that's about 18 18 yards nine miles an hour is closer to 25 yards 25 like two point two point sevens and uh one guy gained 20 miles an hour so I had a couple of women in this group I had some guys and I had one junior and nine miles an hour was the average so and how did I get that speed um some was a little bit of technique um some was training some of the their faster moving muscles versus core training uh I see a lot of golfers today that are working on their core and and they should but if their hands and arms are not working like they should you're not going to realize the distance that you could be getting so pronation you know your right hand if you're a right handed golfer the way you throw can affect how you swing a golf club the way you swing a bat the way you swing a tennis racket so if you if you find any golfer that has played baseball tennis hockey any kind of throwing throwing a football um there is pronation in all of those sports um and so if a golfer is swinging through the ball with no pronation they're they're definitely not going to get any speed uh if they are swinging through the ball without using their extension and flexion of their wrists they're not gonna get any speed so there's there's different ways to release the golf club and by pronating there's been quite a few players over the years that that had a a lot of pronation which increases your speed and by pronation for somebody that's that's not familiar or understand what we're talking about if you held your right hand out and you held your palm up and then turned your hand counterclockwise to the left so that your palm was down that is pronation in your in your hand and so palms to the sky and then palms to the ground that's pronation. Palm to the ground right so and I'll I'll show that to people sometimes say here's palm up here's palm down and then I'll say okay now turn it like that and they'll turn it and they'll be slow and then I'll say okay now I want you to snap it like that. Snap it over and there's very few people that are used to using their hands quickly and that can produce a lot of speed so you can imagine holding a golf club in your hand or a tennis racket palm up and then turning it palm down the head of the racket or the club would whip from right to left and most people are not familiar with doing that. And so when when we see a lot of golfers swing they they look like they're laboring to try and make the ball go and there is no either pronation or good movement of the hands and wrists through impact there you can hit a golf ball with without pronation through through impact just with some wrist extension and flexion side to side almost like clapping your hands but that's a big speed producer. And how do our listeners get a hold of you Mike and find out more about the services you and Sandy offer well you know it's it's interesting I'm at a at a point in my career where um in the Aspen Valley I'm at a private club a very fine private club and so I'm here taking care of our our members all summer but in the wintertime uh we're at the talking stick resort uh in Scottsdale and um I do take some clients that that come in town and want to work on their game. I'm also I I do quite a bit of stuff on Facebook and Instagram I don't post a lot of stuff about exactly what I think but I do post some interesting swings on there and try to make people think a little bit uh out of the box as to why was this player so good with a swing that doesn't look like everything that's exactly taught today. I'm more interested in the unorthodox swings and why they work and why your unorthodox swing might work better. I'd rather find out how to make your unorthodox swing work better rather than teaching you how Rory McElroy swings. That's giving us hope Mike absolutely so what's your handle on IG for the benefit of our listeners uh you know I think it's just uh laBove golf um you're gonna make me go check Check right here.

SPEAKER_02: 1:00:01

And and Mike, do send us the short game test so that I can put it on social media and our listeners can get a hold of you.

SPEAKER_03: 1:00:13

I will do that for sure. Yeah, I'm at uh at LaBeauve Gall. Great.

SPEAKER_02: 1:00:22

There you have it. Mike LeBove.