The Golf Intervention

EP 40: The Golf Swing. Major Components of the Swing, and Why Changes Shouldn't Be Taken Lightly

• Eric Layton • Episode 40

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Episode Summary

In this episode of The Golf Intervention, we break down the three elements of the golf swing—time, energy, and geometry. While many golfers are obsessed with geometry and, more recently, speed, we discuss why that’s only part of the equation. We also dive into the history of swing models, teaching theories over the years, and why changing your swing isn’t something to take lightly. If you’ve ever wondered whether you should tweak your mechanics or chase the latest swing trend, this episode is for you.

What We Cover in This Episode:

✔️ The three key elements of the golf swing: time, energy, and geometry
✔️ Why golfers are overly focused on geometry and speed—and the potential pitfalls
✔️ A look at the history of swing models and teaching philosophies
✔️ How to approach swing changes wisely to avoid setbacks
✔️ The story of Rob Failes being blocked on Twitter by Brandel Chamblee

✔️ The real factors that lead to long-term improvement


Resources & Links:

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Tyler:

Today's episode is brought to you by the premium content subscribers on the golf intervention substack. And we would of course like to thank all of our listeners for tuning in, you make it all worth while. If you would like to support the show or sign up for our free monthly newsletter, you can do that at thegolfintervention.substack.com or follow the link in the show notes.

Eric:

And welcome back to the golf intervention podcast. My name is Eric Leighton. I'm sitting here with my cohost, Rob fails. We teach golf for a living and today on the golf intervention podcast. We're going to talk about the golf swing. Rob fails. Are you fired up to talk about the golf swing

Rob Failes:

Fired up.

Eric:

fired up? We don't talk about the golf swing that much on here because

Rob Failes:

Nope.

Eric:

a show that's about the process of development, right? Development and learning and skills. And, uh, it's a very process driven show,

Rob Failes:

yep. Mm

Eric:

kind of understand the framework of what we talk about when it comes to development. And I will tell you that know firsthand it's helping people because I've had, I had someone stop me, uh, at the country club the other day and they're like, are you Eric? And I was like, yeah, like, how's it going? And Robbie, you heard this, you heard this story the other day, but I was like, yeah. And he said, well, I'm so and so. And I just wanted to tell you that. I've been listening to your show and you and Rob Fales have really helped me out. He goes on and on and on about how he's playing better and he's, you know, handicaps down and he, you know, did well in the club championship and all these things. And I was like, man, that guy's playing better. He's never met us. Never met us. So all the stuff that we are talking about, and he told me practice habits, strategy on the

Rob Failes:

hmm.

Eric:

course, understanding the uniqueness of who he is and how he plays and how to, you know, efficiently fit that into his life and time and swing and all these things has helped him. so we have focused on all those other things, equipment and practice and mindset and this stuff that really lays the foundation of the learning framework. As I understand it, as you understand it, as a lot of people who teach golf understand it. I think today what we want to get into is the actual swing kind of, right?

Rob Failes:

In a way,

Eric:

In a way we, uh,

Rob Failes:

this isn't the first time we've, we've, we've taken a swing at this, by the way,

Eric:

there you go. I like the pun taking a swing at the swing episode.

Rob Failes:

that was, that was actually not intended at all.

Eric:

did it though. You pulled it off. So. We recorded the other, the other day, and we tried to do this. We tried to pick up on skill and sort of the mechanical, if you want to call it that effects of skill and try to

Rob Failes:

I'd biases you maybe

Eric:

And it just didn't work. It didn't work. And like, halfway through Robbie's like, this is not working. And we had a little

Rob Failes:

because it's too complicated. Like it's,

Eric:

Yeah, it didn't

Rob Failes:

this is the whole point, right?

Eric:

that. It doesn't, it doesn't actually work like that. So, what we're not going to do on this show is criticize how anyone teaches the golf swing, because

Rob Failes:

Right.

Eric:

thing that I've learned a long time ago is that people that put themselves out there doing something try to help people,

Rob Failes:

Yeah.

Eric:

may have different styles. Right.

Rob Failes:

Yep. Okay. Yeah,

Eric:

if you're learning. Or you're growing, then that person's doing their job, right?

Rob Failes:

that's right. Yeah,

Eric:

golf swing goes, and I think the main listener here is likely going to be a golfer would be my guess. well, we're going to say we're going to, we're going to leave a lot of things unsaid. So if you want to think about what we believe, you won't hear certain things. And then you'll probably take a guess as to how we,

Rob Failes:

you can read read between the lines kind of thing. Right.

Eric:

read between the lines, but we don't criticize people because Hey, people can criticize us. Right? Everybody sees things differently. And if you get results with your students, that's what matters. Like, that's the deal. And so I think that when we talk about the golf swing, listener is who knows level 1, level 2, level 3 player, maybe a young coaches tuning in. Um, and what we want to. Really make a point about on this episode that we believe if you're tuning into the golf intervention, because you're you want to listen to what we have to say about it. Right? This is this is what we believe. Right? And here you're my captive audience. What we believe is that the golf swing isn't one right answer. Right. There isn't one model of the swing. Okay. Modeling is, is a little tricky in my opinion. I think that for many years when we taught golf or tried to play golf, we had to sort of see it through the lens of a model because we didn't have a lot of insight on sort of the ball and club interaction or,

Rob Failes:

That's all we had, right? Yeah,

Eric:

we didn't have anything else. Right? So we, we would sort of model it. Um, and, and, and golf has evolved. I think people that's played golf for a long time or studied would say, yeah, things have evolved and things have gotten better. And those teachers that maybe had taught a model, a lot of them maybe have moved away from that and evolved in their own instruction. So I think they're just evolving and data is changing everything. So, as we talk about. Yeah. Golf. The one thing I, I kind of learned way long time ago, teaching golf was that there wasn't one right answer. And so the overall philosophy of people ask me, tell me about your swing philosophy, Eric, because people say swing

Rob Failes:

that's a great one, right?

Eric:

all they ever care about is the swing. So you and you and I have laid out a sort of a framework of golf development. Which is very different than philosophy, right? So what's your swing philosophy, Eric? Well, my swing philosophy is this. Um, everybody's different, right? Everybody's different. people have different past experiences. They have different body shapes. They have different capabilities or limitations out of their body. They learn different ways. They understand different ways. They play different sports. so they all bring something to golf. And then likely Their best way of playing golf is understanding how they can apply that to skill development to make them play better, right?

Rob Failes:

Thank you.

Eric:

Um, that doesn't mean they'll never change their swing. This isn't a swing your swing thing. This is like, you know, there are unique characteristics to each person.

Rob Failes:

Yeah.

Eric:

Um, what I don't believe is the opposite of that, which is, Hey, here's a swing and you should do it

Rob Failes:

Right.

Eric:

are. And I think that's, that's kind of when we can get in a little bit of trouble in golf, because

Rob Failes:

It's interesting. Right. It's like what people, a lot of people want, right. When they, when they take golf lessons, they want their pro oftentimes just tell them, Hey, just do this.

Eric:

Just do this. That's it. Just do this. And you can't just do that. That is not what we just do. So I would say that, um, there, it's easy to look and watch the PGA tour. You know, Rory won right yesterday. Rory's got the swing that you would watch and go, wow, that looks, it looks like an orthodox golf swing. Like if you, you know, whatever that means, would you watch it? You go like, that looks like a great player with a great swing. great. Um, I would say that if you, if you were trying to learn golf from major social media trends, it doesn't look like Rory's swing. And it certainly doesn't look like Scottie Scheffler swing. It's almost

Rob Failes:

That's right.

Eric:

Scheffler is a gift from the golf gods to make fun of all the, all the like

Rob Failes:

Yes.

Eric:

golf

Rob Failes:

Correct.

Eric:

like he's doing the complete opposite,

Rob Failes:

Yes. Yeah. Yeah.

Eric:

motion. Like, okay, that's not exactly what, what we're influencing on tick tock or something

Rob Failes:

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Sure.

Eric:

easy to see there isn't a right answer for should your, should your left wrist or, you know, your lead risk be cupped or boat or flat at the top, you know, should you have your arms over your right shoulder? Should your left arm be straight? Should you. Who knows, should you separate your femurs it when you, you know, transition, it is, whatever these things are, okay, the answer is, it depends, isn't that, isn't that true? I mean, so I think that what we try to do as coaches is just learn the player, learn their history, learn their body shape, right? Like, if you go back to our last episode with Dr Mike K and listen to what he says about the shape of a person's body and how that may influence how they move, all kinds of things. And so, um, we talk about the swing, it's a little hard for like Robbie and I to go like, yeah, here's the swing. You should do this because because really, hopefully, if you come and watch us teach, you'd say, wow, well, you taught eight lessons today, Eric, but. all did kind of different things probably. And that's, that's fair to say when they come to see you, Robert, a lot of good teachers, right? We don't want a quarter in the market on this. So, I think that some of those important factors, like, I'm just going to name some bullet points and we'll try to go through some of this today. Um, a generally people are just different. They see things differently. They learn differently. They may. I may be able to move, you know, differently based on their body shape, or, maybe some past injury history, or stiff in certain areas, or we can certain areas or hyper mobile, like, all these things come into play. Right? Um, then you've got sort of how they understand. Where the club is in space, I think this is kind of a modern understanding of teaching, which does come into play, um, some of them we call connect a club kinetics, like this relationship between how we're moving and pulling the club and how it's kind of moving through space. Um, and I think Sasha taught us a lot about that, right? If you go back to our episode and our interview with Sasha, and I said that, I think Sasha put out 1 of the most important kind of videos. the history of golf instruction with, with Chris combo, because it introduced a lot of us to this understanding. Um, then you've got sort of this other stuff that we're seeing in the modern swing, which has a lot to do with how we're developing energy in the swing, right? No, we use the term energy speeds. You put speed in there. Um, but really this development of energy again, listen to Dr. Mike K in that. I've listened to that episode at least 3 or 4 times, um, because just like the way he explains it. And he, he's got that brain. That's kind of like,

Rob Failes:

Oh, yeah,

Eric:

he's

Rob Failes:

it's, it's, it's going too fast.

Eric:

it's going fast. And I wish we had the video for it because he

Rob Failes:

Oh, yeah.

Eric:

I mean, it's like, he's moving all over the, I don't know if he was in a chair that had wheels on it, but it was like, he was, it felt like he was moving all around his room when he was talking

Rob Failes:

Yeah. And then at one point he did bring out the pelvis and that was actually showing us. And that's our thing about a podcast is that you don't get the visual. So I feel like watching it back over. Was a lot clearer and easier to understand than maybe listening, but I think still, I totally agree with you, like, listening back to it. It's, uh, it's always so much fun listening to him talk about movement.

Eric:

and I thought you did a great job, which I texted you and said, a lot of what he was described super cool. But you had obviously been,

Rob Failes:

some experience with him. Right?

Eric:

about it and had a relationship. So you had these, these, like, little illustrations. You're like, well, it's kind of like this and I thought those were great, you know, and those parts of the, of the interview were awesome. And so there were so many things to take out of there. Yeah, it was a, it was a broad episode that covered a lot of stuff,

Rob Failes:

Yeah. Yes,

Eric:

really interesting pieces to it. And in the modern instructional game right now, people are fascinated with that with energy. Like, it's just it's the thing. ground force reaction. It's, um, you know, um, speed training.

Rob Failes:

I would say so. And right. If we go back to, we've talked about this before the, the 3 main. Um, if you're going to come up with like a deterministic model of what is a golf swing, it really boils down to energy, time and geometry, right? Being the main three, I would say that energy is, is up and coming really recently, honestly, but it's nowhere close to geometry in terms of what people are obsessed with. Like if you look at Instagram, if you look at YouTube, if you look at all this stuff, everybody is still obsessed with. Geometry like the positions the club is moving through and that kind of stuff. Um, me

Eric:

I didn't actually say this. I meant to, is it for a lot of time? Our digestion of the swing form was 2 dimensional, right? So it's just like pictures or videos. And so we're trying to glean information from positions of the swing. And then that sort of phases into. The Instagram, YouTube kind of, I don't know anything about TikTok because I don't have it, but

Rob Failes:

either.

Eric:

visual, like everything on everything on Instagram is the visual, like the picture. Right.

Rob Failes:

Yeah.

Eric:

kind of funny to me, like, you watch these, these swings that kind of pop up and they're all in slow motion. And like, if

Rob Failes:

Yes.

Eric:

in slow motion, it probably looks kind of cool.

Rob Failes:

Can't stand slomo.

Eric:

so you have to be careful about what you interpret from 2 D, uh, pictures or video. I remember one time when I got Rob Fales blocked by Brandon Chamblee on Twitter because he would

Rob Failes:

I remember that

Eric:

of like complete random

Rob Failes:

the camera angles were so bad.

Eric:

Um, he was trying to make all these points. Um, and I'm not poo poo and brandled by any means, but he was trying to make these points about the golf swing up from old black and white pictures from weird camera angles. And I just tagged Robbie and I was like, camera angles, question mark. And boom, Robbie gets blocked. I don't know why Robbie

Rob Failes:

Yeah.

Eric:

I, he didn't block me.

Rob Failes:

I don't think I actually ever said anything.

Eric:

I don't think you did either, or you just like maybe made an emoji face,

Rob Failes:

Yeah. I liked it or something. I don't know.

Eric:

or something, but,

Rob Failes:

Funny.

Eric:

but the fact of the matter is, you know, the golf, the golf swing and the energy and all that it's hard to determine from, you know, what we had in the past, like pictures. And so now what we have is new, new interpretations. Well, I think are getting interpreted incorrectly as well at times. Like, not afraid to say that. Um, and I would think that other people aren't afraid to say that, like, know, you can't. You can't take 100 tour players put a couple sensors on them and then say, okay, here's whatever. Let's average all that data together and tell people this is what they

Rob Failes:

Yeah. It's so dangerous. Right.

Eric:

Yeah, I think that's just because that's the, I mean, it was an interpretation of data. Right? So fact is, that's the opposite of what we started with the beginning when we said people bring their own unique things to the table and then we got to teach them how to. Have golf skills, right? But that, that modeling, that heart, like that, big time, like, here's the one model we're going to, know, that's tough. That's, I think that again, it probably helps some people and some other people are going to really struggle with that.

Rob Failes:

Right.

Eric:

everybody does have their own stuff. And the way, not, not a lot of people move like tour players. Like, so if you're taking tour

Rob Failes:

Yeah,

Eric:

data and trying to teach a beginner 72 year old. Whoever man or woman to put like that data isn't super helpful. I don't

Rob Failes:

correct.

Eric:

right. It's not the thing to be focusing on. And when they go to practice on their own, what are they practicing? Like, are they working on? And they're not getting the data from whatever the 3D were giving them in the

Rob Failes:

Right.

Eric:

right? So they got to be able to carry that out with them and they can't. So,

Rob Failes:

and that's where, as an instructor, our job can be so dangerous if we have the belief that the swing creates the shot, right? Because we're going to give this guarantee. We're not going, you and I aren't going to do, but a lot of folks who are maybe early in their teaching career or, or just miss unders who have misguided, um, are going to look at this data. Because I know I did in the past for sure. So, so no hard feelings, but, you know, you look at the data and you say, okay, well, on average, which is incredibly dangerous. First of all, because you could have an average of data where no 1 is exhibiting that exact data point. Right?

Eric:

right.

Rob Failes:

and you say, okay, well, because they're doing this. Just do this, right? But that data doesn't tell you how it's collect, how it's created, right? It just tells you the result, what, what ended up happening. So then you tell the story like, okay, well, if tour pros do this. It must improve the quality of your shots, whatever that means. Again, it's more of a judgment of like good or bad. Right? And so a golfer is going to go out and they're going to try to do X movement. And then their feedback is their judgment of, Oh, that was a good shot. That was a bad shot. Right? And so this is how we get into these, these really, really bad rabbit holes and kind of spiral a good go down this downward spiral.

Eric:

Yeah.

Rob Failes:

Is oftentimes that's kind of the sequence that that happens. Unfortunately.

Eric:

I think the most frustrated I ever see golfers is when they are trying to. Quote unquote hit positions in their golf swing in

Rob Failes:

Yes.

Eric:

And they're really struggling with that. Um, a, it's really hard to, for most golfers to just feel they're doing while they're doing it.

Rob Failes:

Yes, absolutely.

Eric:

just be honest. Right. And so like, just to say, Oh, you know, I was told I needed to do this at the top of my swing or this halfway back or in my transition.

Rob Failes:

Right?

Eric:

all work on parts of the swing. I'm not saying we don't. When you're When you're just trying to work on that and the only feedback is, yeah, at the top of my back swing, I'm supposed to do this thing,

Rob Failes:

And that means good shot.

Eric:

Yeah, it's really hard. Right?

Rob Failes:

Right?

Eric:

filming every swing and and giving yourself feedback. That's why we, we try to in the framework, build you a feedback loop that has to do with impact skills. Right? We teach you. Where the ball sitting on the face, trying to make some judgment about the low point to make some judgment about the face path relationship as the balls flying through the air. Right? So, those are the things that you can give yourself feedback on as you're

Rob Failes:

Totally. Yes.

Eric:

Um, that's gonna be tricky. I'm not saying we don't teach stuff like that, but it's gonna be trickier. Right? So just have to be careful what it is that you're trying to take on. So, A, you should never take any of that stuff on without, without a really good reason to do it,

Rob Failes:

Yes.

Eric:

And without, like, if you go take a lesson from a coach and they say, hey, here's exactly what you need to do because your skills and here's your, here's your goals and you're not going to get there. And if you believe them and you understand it, then you should go work on that.

Rob Failes:

Yep.

Eric:

you're like, hey, um, I want to get better at golf. And I saw this. that said, if I do this thing, I had it for it's gonna be tough. Or I read this

Rob Failes:

Yeah.

Eric:

or article. It's gonna be really tough because the context matters the context of the whole to your point. The context of that whole thing matters. So, as we go back into this a little bit. Rob kind of backtracking. when it comes to the swing itself, and I know Mike K talked about this, but let's just talk about the human being for a minute, right?

Rob Failes:

Yeah.

Eric:

being comes in and they're trying to figure out what the golf swing is for them. What are some considerations? Obviously, you can summarize a little bit from Mike K's interview, but other things that you like to look at as far as just The person, you know, they come, they're standing in front of you you're thinking about what golf swing should look like for them.

Rob Failes:

Yeah.

Eric:

you making some judgments upon that

Rob Failes:

Oh.

Eric:

see him swing?

Rob Failes:

Yeah, for sure. I mean, like, like Dr. K has talked about in the last episode, whether or not you, your skeleton, your frame is biased toward a wide or a narrow is absolutely going to give you constraints. Right? I think understanding that it is a constraint doesn't mean it's determining that this is what you should or are going to do, but just appreciating the fact that this is something that is going to influence what you do. Right? So why rib cage versus narrow rib cage? Uh, if you just look at the human, right, you can look at someone with maybe a narrower jaw versus a wider jaw, right? So those two humans, while they're both humans, you can think of them as different animals, right? You've got a, uh, you got a giraffe, right? Real long, you know, very narrow, and then you've got An elephant, right? Not, it has nothing to do with your, your body mass or your weight or anything like that. Like you have an elite, elite, elite athletes who are wides, uh, or narrows, right? So it has nothing to do with that. Just your DNA, your physical structure would be number one. And then the other thing that I look at a lot is just a golfer's gait. Like when they walk, are they actually moving through early, middle, late propulsion in their feet? Is there some sort of like a cross crawl pattern happening between the step in the rib cage glide that in the rib cage, a change of shape that we've talked about in the last episode and then are their arms actually swinging freely, right? So what does that kind of sound like? Which a golf swing, right? There's a step, your rib cage changes shape, your arm swing, right? So that all happens in a golf swing. So if I see somebody who's maybe their left side is really pulled down, they're kind of, they, they, they can strive. Well, with one foot or the other, right? Or maybe one arms just not swinging, right? Then that's kind of giving me clues like, oh, we might have some stuff might have some again, some constraints. I mean, it doesn't mean that because I've seen some people who

Eric:

Yeah.

Rob Failes:

walk, I watch them stand. I watched it. I was like, Oh,

Eric:

Silence.

Rob Failes:

a golf club in their hand and they have the task in front of them, they move like amazing in front of me. And I'm like, man, that was surprising. So again, it's not deterministic. It's just, again, it's a constraint. Um, so that would be number two. And then obviously we've talked about this a lot again. Other constraints are going to be just your beliefs, right? Your conventions. What you believe you should quote unquote do, um, oftentimes over long enough period of time, you end up doing pretty much what you think you should do or trying to do. Um, problem is, it's not always helpful. Right? So those are kind of the, some of the main things that I look at on a day to day basis for sure.

Eric:

I look at shoulders a lot, you know, how their posture is at the top of their top of their back and their shoulders, you know,

Rob Failes:

Oh, yeah, for sure.

Eric:

Are they kind of that rounded look? Um,

Rob Failes:

That all goes into like the gate. So like when I'm watching their gate, I'm watching their whole like, yeah, absolutely. I agree. 100 percent with that.

Eric:

a, that's a big one. And I don't see tons of walking, right? Because they're just kind of popping into the bay with me

Rob Failes:

Yeah.

Eric:

So that's 1, but I would say that, Yeah. Trying to understand what people's limitations are. So if you take a lesson and I, and I say, Hey, tell me if you got any, you know, do you have any knees, shoulders, ankles, you

Rob Failes:

People don't remember.

Eric:

well, they just, they just lie most of the time.

Rob Failes:

Or that, right?

Eric:

I don't think they're lying. I take it back. What they're, what they're doing is they're downplaying. Cause this is what we do in our mind. Like we'll say, ah, you know, like that knees, Bob, it's not a big deal. So we just kind of, we compartmentalize it yeah, maybe day to day life. Like it's not a big deal, but in golf, it could be.

Rob Failes:

I think half the time they do it because they're like, oh, well, if I tell them. This is going to affect the way they look at me or like they view my swing or something like they, they want the most like unbiased

Eric:

Yeah.

Rob Failes:

possible, but it only just helps us. Like, that's the thing. Like it's not. And then to my point earlier, like I've, I've had situations where like three or four lessons in we're doing some stuff, right. And then they start feeling like their left ankle starting to burn or whatever. And then like, Oh, like what's going on with your left foot. And then they think about it. They're like, Oh wait, I actually did. I have like a grade three sprain a couple of months ago. I was like, Oh, that would have been good to know. Right.

Eric:

right. Um, Oh, my ankles fused. Oh,

Rob Failes:

Oh

Eric:

a couple of weeks ago where the lady, I said, tell me about your shoulder. Cause I could just kind of see it. Something was going on there

Rob Failes:

yeah.

Eric:

and she goes, I don't have any problems. And she takes two swings and she goes, well, I do have a torn rotator cuff. I was like, well,

Rob Failes:

Mm hmm.

Eric:

you know, right shoulder torn rotator cuff, kind of

Rob Failes:

Mm. 100%.

Eric:

that, and, and what I would say is, If your belief system was you were supposed to swing like Rory McIlroy have a torn rotator cuff in your right shoulder, that's going to be difficult. But if you don't have that belief and you say, Hey, I've got this limitation, maybe not a torn rotator. Maybe I'm just a little bit limited in my rotation. Um, I can still play really good golf. I can play my best golf with what I'm bringing to the table. And that's what we're trying to tell you, right? The other thing that I think is interesting is I don't think that there's a, there is some notion that. Based on who you are, there's a right answer to exactly how you

Rob Failes:

Right.

Eric:

anatomically. And I do, I

Rob Failes:

Yeah.

Eric:

some of those inferences are fine. I think they're good and they're insightful. But again, if you, if you're influencing the belief system too much of the person, then it kind of contradicts with something that they think they should do.

Rob Failes:

Right.

Eric:

a problem. So I had a

Rob Failes:

Yes.

Eric:

a, who's a very good teacher. he, um, He was learning a system.

Rob Failes:

Mm hmm.

Eric:

you know, he went, he went, certified in this system of like biomechanical measure me and tell me all these things, right. Tell me how I'm supposed to swing. Now he's a fabulous player played at the university of Florida. Okay. Like good golfer. Um, I said, wow, I was interested, like, how did it go? What did you learn? Oh, it was really interesting. But, you know, like when they told me how I'm supposed to swing, um, it hurt and, and, and I don't, and, and obviously it's like, you know, it's a swing change. So I got to kind of, I got to kind of work through it. So, you know, Dot, dot, dot. I'm saying is he, his instinct was this isn't actually, it's not helping me and it hurts a little bit. It

Rob Failes:

Yeah.

Eric:

actually. So there can be some inferences there. I'm not saying that there aren't, but again, I think it's very, gotta be careful when you say you should, or you have

Rob Failes:

Yes. Should is a very dangerous word.

Eric:

Yeah, we like could or options. Like you

Rob Failes:

Yes.

Eric:

Eric, should I take the club here in my takeaway or here? Well, I mean, let's talk about how

Rob Failes:

Right.

Eric:

the ball flight. all. That's always what I'm going back to like. Well, if you take it back here, do you think that will open or close the clip face? Do you think that will make the path move more in to out or out to in? Like, there is some cause and effect there. do you think it's going to help? And then, or change, right? Or influence. And then, hit some shots and see, right? See,

Rob Failes:

Yeah.

Eric:

see how it feels. Does that feel right to you? Does that not feel right to you? Um, so, when we're talking about the body itself, The body shape and then those, um, limitations, you could call them the limitations that people have. Um, it's going to really lend to options are in a lot of ways, but it's not going to say, here's your box. You're going to go fit in it.

Rob Failes:

Correct.

Eric:

at least I don't believe it's that way.

Rob Failes:

Nope.

Eric:

I'm always doing when I teach the golf swing, just like any other part is just what I said, we ask questions. Like, I ask them questions, ask me questions. We. We explore things a little bit, right? And then we come back and try to find, like, does that feel right? Could you do that? Does not because I'm always trying to judge far off of what feels like kind of like normal to them. It is

Rob Failes:

For

Eric:

I don't want to try to move them too far off that. Right? Because I've learned that when you move people too far away from that all at once, it's very difficult to make the change.

Rob Failes:

skills to line up. Right. And that's where

Eric:

Yeah.

Rob Failes:

we, when we do skill training, whether we Do it intentionally or not. You can call playing golf skill training. Um, when you use a General movement pattern and you skill train long enough. It's going to get Coupled with that general movement pattern, right? So this is the cost of swing changes is that if you, if it becomes too different, then you're going to have to reestablish your awareness and your perception and your coordination of those skills that you spent all that time doing with your previous general movement pattern with what you're now doing, right? Which you can do. It's not a huge deal, but it just takes time.

Eric:

Mhm. No

Rob Failes:

And so if you got somebody, you know, who's getting ready to go play a tournament, that's why we've always said like, yeah, swing probably needs to be pretty darn low on the list. If you got somebody getting ready to go out and play a tournament in the next month or two,

Eric:

people are so willy nilly about changing their swing.

Rob Failes:

I know it's, it's, it's unbelievable.

Eric:

It's crazy to me. And I,

Rob Failes:

Good players too. It's

Eric:

I think it's just because we're inundated with swing stuff all the

Rob Failes:

like the only option they're aware of.

Eric:

yeah, people are just inundated with swings up all the time. If you talk about process, no one's interested. You lose them in like 20 seconds, right? Unless the very intelligent listeners, the golf intervention podcasts are interested in that. But I was listening to another podcast, completely unrelated. And the guy, okay. Um, was saying that he had a, it was an interview and he was saying, yeah, I've got a health and wellness podcast. And he said, what you really want to tell people is it starts with mindset. It starts

Rob Failes:

Yes.

Eric:

know, the process, it starts with all these things, you know, you can build up. But people, people don't want to hear it. They want to say they want three quick tips to losing 10 pounds in a week. And like,

Rob Failes:

Just do this. Yeah, for sure. Yeah.

Eric:

will say, like, once you click on one swing tip on your Instagram, it just. Your, your feed is inundated with all these things and these people that are trying to make their, and I'm not trying to be, I'm not trying to be critical, but a lot of the time is, it's just young instructors that are trying to make a name for themselves somehow, right? And it's like popping up in my feed and it's. You know, you must do these three things on your backs. When I saw this one the other day, these are the three must haves in your backswing, I'm like 30 second video. What are you talking about? Like, it's just kind of irresponsible sometimes to do stuff like that. And I think that affects people's belief system so much, but they see it and they see it and golf tip after golf tip, after golf tip, swing tip, after swing tip, after swing tip. And so they're just like, oh, I should try this or I should try that. Or I should try this and I should try that.

Rob Failes:

Right. They're just grasping his straws. Right.

Eric:

you're grasping at straws. it's kind of like buying crypto trading crypto versus like just buying a stock and sitting on it for 20 years or something

Rob Failes:

Right.

Eric:

you want to, everyone wants the quick, the quick turnaround when it's like, no, no, no, there's a process. And if you trust the process, things are going to work out for you in the long run. Like.

Rob Failes:

Yup.

Eric:

In the long term, things are gonna be fine in the short term. It's a little trickier, right? But you got to be patient with the process. And so that's why we focus on process. Not as much on swing because I think what we said very early on in this show is like, if you wanted to change your swing, if it came down to that, which it does a lot of times, you got to get a coach. I mean, almost have to get a coach

Rob Failes:

Yup.

Eric:

and a coach that you trust and coach that. That can really help you. you know, as we talked about, as we talk about, um, the swing itself, this understanding of club kinetics, which we are not going to have a deep, deep talk about that today. Like I said, I think trying to go back and

Rob Failes:

It'd be a subject.

Eric:

yeah, it could be, you know what, maybe it will be a success. Okay, the next bonus episode on the sub stack will be on club kinetics. So give it, give the listener, Rob, you're like, 30 seconds summation of what that means to you. What, what will we cover on that sub stack episode?

Rob Failes:

Yeah. It's just your options of applying force to the club, right? And where that force is directed and in what direction relative to the club center mass, right? You also have like, The amount of force, right? The rate of force. There's a lot of that that can go into it, but again, it's just your options, right? So how does it, how do you get a club moving and rotating and swinging in space? Right. So where are you going to have to do, or how are you going to have to push and pull that thing? Right. Amazing. Yeah.

Eric:

teaching golf, right? As opposed to like, You know, you can go all the way back to field based kind of instruction from the back in the day, which is really, which was really good. And people got people playing off and then golf kind of evolved into a little bit of like a golf guru instruction time. I mean, I think the players had their moment, right? Ben Hogan kind of started like the players had their moment and they were teaching. And then you had all the gurus in the eighties and nineties that were like, come to the Mecca. And this is true story. Like David Leadbearer is one of those. Butch Armins were like, I know two tour players, one LPGA, one PGA tour, both, you know, retired, but they both have stories, similar stories of like going to see David Ledbetter with 30, tour players on the range at one time, you know, just coming because they had, there was a belief that there was an answer that I guess there probably was right. If he got results, like he was getting with certain players with the swing stuff that he was teaching, then yeah, go see, go see him, you know? This is before track man with the ball and club data. So. your, what you had was like these teachers that were just considered they were the, they were the ones,

Rob Failes:

The gate keeper is right. Yeah. Yep.

Eric:

And I'm not being critical of that. I mean, they did awesome, right? People had, they were helping people. So that was what, that's just what it was at the time. It was based on two and it was based on stuff. And then, then that kind of moved into, um, like the early computer modeling of the swing, probably, right? Like, You know, with the, with the Morad stuff and the golf, the golfing machine kind of influenced a lot of teachers for a long time. It was like this, like, uh, mechanical understanding stack and tilt came out of that, out of that moment, right? Like all these swings that were kind of named at that point. Right. And now I think we're just to this point where we're kind of not that that stuff's irrelevant. It's not people are still learning from that, but it's like, you know, the evolution is, is in this other stuff. I think, um, And so then you have the, well, you and I believe, which is that it's all starts with learning and process, and then you're trying to try to incorporate this stuff in as need be, you know, and I think that if the description I have from three different tour players in the eighties, late eighties, early nineties of people on the range with a swing guru, one person's filming them the, the person's not even watching them hit most of the time they're walking to a little Like cave kind of thing with a, with a videotape VHS tape with the golf instructor and then drawing lines on the screen, like with like marker, right? Because I

Rob Failes:

Yep.

Eric:

and so that was, but that was the tools they had,

Rob Failes:

That's right.

Eric:

wasn't obviously a whole developmental structure was all about the swing. So they were going to see that person for swing advice. Period.

Rob Failes:

Totally

Eric:

And so that's just the way it was. And so I think now what you have is a little bit A little bit of a different deal, right? And it's, there's all this technology and there's all this insight. And I think that we're a little bit, um, we're just trying to take it all in and understand it, you know, AI going to affect it? How is, you know, new ideas of swing modeling going to affect it? I've been very hesitant to use 3D modeling systems just because I just don't the ranges of outcome that they spit out for the player in front of me. I'm just not sure.

Rob Failes:

right,

Eric:

How relevant it is and how they can practice it and how they can it has to fit in the framework is what I'm

Rob Failes:

right? Yeah,

Eric:

seen it in the framework. What do you what about you? Does it fit in the framework for you? Or how does that how are you seeing it?

Rob Failes:

I use it as like a convention buster, right? So like if I have a, if I have a, like I use a system that's called motion to coach and they're actually coming to sponsor the, uh, the retreat, which we're really excited about. Um, but I use motion to coach a lot as well as smart to move and just show that they might have the belief that they need to stay still. Right. Or that their pressure doesn't move and I'll show them one of my best ball strikers on smart to move and I'll show them the center pressure going back and forth and kind of a nice flow. Right. And then that will bust that convention. Right. And think, and also things about like the direction handle moves at a different times. Right. So people think, Oh, I've got to pull the handle straight to the ball in the downswing. Well, no, like look at some of the best golfers that I have. It does not move in a straight line towards the boss. Right. And so I think from that standpoint, it can be extremely helpful to that end though. Would I, would my coaching be that much different if I didn't have it? No. I mean, I'd say it's not super relevant for 99 percent of the golfers that I see on a day to day basis. But again, that doesn't mean like that, that technology is so, so, so valuable for us to learn. What to teach in some ways, but then also what not to teach. Like

Eric:

Yeah.

Rob Failes:

at some point, like I could have had the belief that the panel moves in a straight line towards the ball. Right. But because we have measurement devices that actually look and see what these players are doing, we learned, Oh wait, hold on. No, there's, they're not doing that. Right. So I think that's, that's why I'm so grateful for things like motion to coach and smart to move is that they really inform me on like what not to teach or what not to inundate someone with.

Eric:

Right. I think that's totally right. Um, And, and it's just, it's just like, for me, it's all about the feedback. So when we look at, when we kind of go back into kind of the bullet points, we're talking about that ability to take a swing and adapt, adapt it functionally to the

Rob Failes:

Yes.

Eric:

to create has to come from a place of, I don't know, something that's, that's, that you have a good understanding of what you're doing,

Rob Failes:

Right. And that's,

Eric:

some feedback.

Rob Failes:

and that's where like smart to move and emotion to coach have been really helpful is because a lot of my time is spent getting golfers to disassociate the feedback of their swing in their feedback of the skill and their feedback of the shot. Right. So a lot of times golfers go straight from swing to shot, like direct line, no awareness of skill whatsoever. So if we can start to, to understand that middle ground. As we work through swing options to change biases, to maybe get someone pain free, to maybe increase, uh, or, or take away some of the constraints, like let's say the way they're swinging just doesn't allow them to swing at a speed that they need to play, right? Well, if we're working on swing stuff, just try to reduce those constraints. Hey, I want to see the result. Like, is it actually moving that bias? But then two, I want them to be able to give me feedback absent of the impact spot on the face, absent of the ball flight, right? Absent of the ball speed. Hey, did you do that or not? And so now if I can take a motion to coach, I can show them like, yep, it was definitely different. You did something different. Now the shot wasn't what you wanted. You hit off the heel, but it doesn't matter. Like you still did the swing that we wanted. We can go and still train. Within the context of that same swing to get off the mill to face. No problem.

Eric:

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's, a, um, As long as, as long as they can get feedback that that's the key, that's

Rob Failes:

You bet. It 100%. Yeah.

Eric:

Yeah. And so if you're, it's hard to learn and develop without closing that loop down. And I think that's where golfers get stuck. So the golf swing, we're talking about the golf swing. You know, if you were, if you were coming into this episode trying to figure out how many planes you needed and, you know, what's your wrist angle should be, um, what you, what you hopefully can take away from this episode is there's options, right? And if you look, at the swings of great players, see they do things differently. I don't love the term biomechanical matchup, although I do understand it. I do understand what they're getting at, but what I would say about that is, um, sort of cause and effect match biomechanical matchup.

Rob Failes:

yeah.

Eric:

It kind of, again, horseshoes people a little bit, I think

Rob Failes:

Yes.

Eric:

Okay. Um, you know, you're, you're, you're doing this one thing in your back swing. So you have to do this in your back

Rob Failes:

Mm hmm.

Eric:

that matches up or whatever.

Rob Failes:

Yeah.

Eric:

I think again, it's a way to communicate with people, which is fine. Um, at the

Rob Failes:

It quote unquote makes sense. Right.

Eric:

makes sense. It makes, um,

Rob Failes:

Doesn't mean it's right.

Eric:

but at the end of the day, I think that when you, when you listen to some of that jargon, it's like, there's just so much. There's so much information given to the students saying, do this and do this and do this, then do

Rob Failes:

Mm hmm.

Eric:

it. Then do do then do. And it's like, all this stuff over and over and over again. And, um, and, uh, and again, I think it can work, but what I'm saying is, I think that if the student is really learning and understanding a lot of that stuff's coming from them, they're asking questions or understanding their understanding is pushing them towards a skill. And then when it comes from inside of the student, when it's organic in that way, guided by a coach who's asking them questions or given them feedback, they ask questions and then they go, Oh, I understand what that means to me. I understand what it means to me,

Rob Failes:

Yeah.

Eric:

connecting the dots for myself. Then when they take it out of there, it's theirs. They have ownership in it. They have the ownership in it. It is not your concept of the swing.

Rob Failes:

Totally.

Eric:

them towards it. their understanding is what matters, right? And this is where I feel like coaching becomes such an important thing. And this is what I try to reiterate with all my young instructors is like, you're going to have to, at some point, see it through a little bit of a lens of a whatever, because you're just learning. You're learning the cause and effect. You're learning these things. Like, how does this. Make this skill, or what am I trying to do, but it's all about communication. And when that student can come out of there and go, I really learned something today. It's it makes sense to me, right? And it might be different than the next person that comes in. That coach is that person on to gain a higher level of understanding that really helps them in the long term develop. Right? And. If you, is why I never once put like side by side swings, like Mrs Smith here's Nelly Korda, right?

Rob Failes:

right. Right, right. Right.

Eric:

five feet five. I digress. Right? Oh, the top of the spring, you know, you're you look at this and where your club is where Nelly's club is right? Okay.

Rob Failes:

Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yep.

Eric:

but let's just watch it. Or let's just watch Shane Lowry. Like he, he hits this certain type of ball flight. Let's watch what he's doing. See if you can figure out why he might be able to pull that off. And then they ask me questions and they say things. We have a conversation and again, learning happens. I mean, you've watched me teach for many years, right? So I think that those those moments are so impactful for the student

Rob Failes:

Yep. Okay.

Eric:

Robbie and I are saying here, it's not a willy nilly lighthearted, Hey, I'm going to change my swing tomorrow. Kind of thing. Like,

Rob Failes:

hmm.

Eric:

man, I think if we could just get golfers a little bit away from that. And working more on their skills. And then when they feel like they've run into a wall with their skills, guess what? There's a gap in my skillset. Let me go find a good coach and see if they can help me. I need a swing change to accomplish that? And a lot of times the answer is yes, they do need a little bit of a tweak here. There.

Rob Failes:

Right. And in not all swing changes arise as intentional swing changes. So like a lot of times it's a concept thing. It was like, okay, what is your belief around how club head speed is created? Right? Like that's a. Big, big, big one. Right. And if you can find a coach that can start to strip away some of those constraints for you, you never know, like your swing. If you take that constraint away, you never know how your swing is going to develop over time, but it's not, you never actually put your attention on changing your swing, right? Like that's the, one of the big things that we want to get across is like how far down the line that can be in oftentimes should be, I don't like using the word should, but. It's my belief, um, especially for, for highly established players, even like low to mid handicaps, like they've got, they're playing every single weekend, like they're going out there playing with their buds, like their runway to actually change something is objectively really small, unless they're at the country club of Virginia and they have a, an amazing indoor facility they can use throughout the winter and actually, you know, use it, use it for that way. But a lot of times, like, especially in Virginia, yeah. You know, we put the clubs down for throughout the winter and then we're playing, we pick it up in the spring and we're playing right away. So it's like, it's just. It's not going to happen for a lot of players. Like they're not going to be able to actually change the, the macro aspect of how they're swinging a golf club. Good news. You can dramatically change it with golfer's ball flight. You can get them swinging faster and get the ball going faster off the face. You can make a massive change to how they enjoy and play the game. Without and you can make a massive change in their swing without putting their attention on it, getting them down these rabbit holes of, Oh, I have to do this and I have to do this and I have to do this to be successful because what we've learned from dr prior is that the more constriction that we give you, the less space that you have. Right. And then what tends to happen? We don't play freely. We don't have access to the skills that we've developed. Right. And then our psychology and our movement start to move in the undesired direction. So just keep that in mind. Like putting, putting a golfer's attention on changing their motion is does not come without cost. It does not come without risk. Um, And you better know what skill you're trying to bias, right? To understand, Hey, we're just biasing it. You're just moving the standard, like the, the center of dispersion a little bit.

Eric:

Yeah.

Rob Failes:

it doesn't mean you're going to hit this next shot. Great. Right. There's no guarantees here. Um, I think the more that we can separate the skill from the swing, from the shot, um, I think we can get golfers really on a, on a much. More a steadier, longer term path of improvement

Eric:

Yeah, agree. And to your point, like, when you go after a skill change, sometimes the swing changes, it just

Rob Failes:

as a result of developing that skill. Right, exactly.

Eric:

I'm not picking on this, but if you're just judging, like you put some 3d sensors on them and there's big time scooper, right? Like

Rob Failes:

Yeah.

Eric:

doesn't move laterally and transition weights, you know, pressures on their back foot and impact. Right? they're flipping their wrists. I'm trying to use like basic terminology for the listener. Right? all of a sudden you say to them, like, well, and I know you, you do that. Like, how do you, how does, how does the ball get off the ground? Okay.

Rob Failes:

Right. Yeah, exactly.

Eric:

it? Well, a lot of times they don't realize it. Maybe even consciously, sometimes kind of someone's not that they're literally trying to fit the bottom of the club under the ball

Rob Failes:

Yes,

Eric:

and lift it up, right? You see, it's a lot

Rob Failes:

correct.

Eric:

an adult beginners

Rob Failes:

Right.

Eric:

describe to them. Hey, let's check this out. I'm gonna show you, I'm gonna show you how the ball goes up in the air. You just described low point to him. You described loft like

Rob Failes:

Mm-hmm

Eric:

on the face and you give them the club back. Let me see a couple of practice swings. Let me see if you can hit the ground. where the ball would be right and the next thing, you know, what's happening, they're shifting their weight,

Rob Failes:

Exactly.

Eric:

The low point is moved forward. They're not on their back foot. So the swing change

Rob Failes:

Mm-hmm

Eric:

the skill change, Right. And it was, it was not about changing the swing to change the skill. changing the concept of what they were doing to

Rob Failes:

Yeah, exactly

Eric:

and then their swing athletically adapted. So I think a lot of times we're just, we're just doing it a little bit backwards, right? They were doing a little bit backwards and then, you know, we're making it a lot harder on the student or

Rob Failes:

Yes,

Eric:

potentially than it needs to be, right? And so what did that student gain from that discussion? A, they gained an idea of what the skills are. B, they gained this actual natural athletic motion without even thinking about it. So they're doing it without trying to do it. So as again, going back to Dr. Pryor, they're, they're being, they're not doing

Rob Failes:

yes.

Eric:

So they're

Rob Failes:

Love it. Yeah. Hundred percent.

Eric:

It is what it is. So again, so we're referencing a couple episodes today, Dr. Pryor, Dr. Mike

Rob Failes:

It's like every episode now, we tell people

Eric:

Dr.

Rob Failes:

listen to that one. Right.

Eric:

check them out. I'm going to link them in the show notes. Why not? I know you can't find them anyway, but why not make it easier on the listener? The point is. We've learned a lot from those guys over time, they're, they're influencing people like Dr. Mike. Dr. Mike, maybe isn't as well known as those other guys, but there's other people in that space that are influencing, right? They're influencing in a similar way. And so I think that the point that Robbie and I were trying to make to the listener, I think we've pulled off. I'm excited about it. Hopefully we've pulled this off. Listener is. The golf swing. It's really based on you, the person, It's really based on you, the person, and it shouldn't be taken lightly. When you, when you change your swing, you should have a process for that and you should work through what we've talked about before. This framework of skill development. Go back to just our last few. Not the, well, you could listen to my cave, but those two other episodes, full length episodes we

Rob Failes:

Hmm.

Eric:

Where we talked about the skills, the framework building up to this, and we, we did that episode, when to make swing changes, which I've gotten tons of feedback on that

Rob Failes:

Yeah,

Eric:

Um, and here we are, we're at swing changes we tried to do this episode as like, okay, if the low points this, you might have these options and it just was, it was ridiculous. A, because we don't teach like that anyway, necessarily. Like

Rob Failes:

We don't. Yeah,

Eric:

We don't communicate it that way all the

Rob Failes:

no,

Eric:

So we knew it was crap. So we got rid of it. Here we are. I think we, but hopefully we did better this time. So, um, I think that in summation, hopefully you've learned a little bit of something, anything else you want to add to the, uh, to the story tonight? Rob fails. Yeah.

Rob Failes:

right? There are a few things that the research has shown us that most, if not all elite ball strikers, foreign professionals do. Pretty similarly, right? Um, it's only a couple, it's like two or three things. Um, I think we're, this is either going to be a sub stack or maybe the next episode, but it's not what you think. It's not like the position of the arms at the top. It's not the clubface position. It's not the position halfway down. It's not the, the, uh,

Eric:

style

Rob Failes:

right. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's, it's a lot of stuff that you can't really see that well,

Eric:

Yeah.

Rob Failes:

which is why again, I'm of the opinion and I'm sharing this on video that this number of golfers. I'm making a zero, this number of golfers, uh, need to video their swing and look at their swing. I just don't,

Eric:

bold statement. Bold statement.

Rob Failes:

because here's the deal. the only thing they're going to look at is geometry anyway. Like, and there's nothing GM geometrically that all the best golf. All the best players or ball strikers do commonly. So like, what are we doing

Eric:

And

Rob Failes:

basically? Like,

Eric:

you know, I want to add this and I know we, we made this point a couple episodes ago, but if it's in here right in this moment, too, if your notion of the golf swing is that there's perfect positions that you're going to perfectly repeat, Time and time again to hit your ball right in the middle of the clubface or the square clubface or whatever ball flight you're going to hit, and you're just going to repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat, and you're going to train that through repetition, and then change it. And it's never going to change. you're just setting yourself up for a tough. Time and golf, right? And you have to have adaptability and you have to understand function and you have to understand who you are as a person and how you move and how you learn and how, you know, how you can judge your skills and change your skills and adapt. And, and I thought that Mike Kay said something that I just have to wrap my mind around a little bit more, is he was talking about tuning the club.

Rob Failes:

yes,

Eric:

And I just got to wrap my mind around that one a little bit more because I, I know what he's talking about.

Rob Failes:

Oh, for sure.

Eric:

almost an unmentionable thing

Rob Failes:

It's a state of being. I think, I think you're just present with the club. I don't think you're trying to force anything. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Eric:

like, it's almost like golf swing nirvana. like the culmination of like we

Rob Failes:

mentioned it in like you and I have both experienced it. Like, yep. I felt like I had all the time in the world there. I knew exactly where the club was the whole time. Right.

Eric:

Right. But you're, and again, I think the more we constrain, the more constraints we have, The less likely we're ever going to get to a place like that.

Rob Failes:

Totally agree. The more you think you're like, you have to do X, Y, Z. I think the less likely you experienced that.

Eric:

so that's why and again, I don't want to leave this episode with anybody thinking we were being critical of any instructor. We are not. I think people do the best that they can. People communicate differently. People learn differently. People had different tools at different times and in the world and in life, and they've all done great. I would never criticize anybody. I mean, I mentioned names today. David Ledbetter. David Ledbetter is one of the greatest instructors of

Rob Failes:

Legend.

Eric:

Yeah, he's a legend. So I'm not, I'm not being critical. I'm just telling you what it was like to go see him in the 90s from the that I had heard. So the point is, um, And I don't know that I would teach the golf swing just like David Ledbetter does, and I think that's okay, too. The point is, um, you have, you have options. And so if you believe you don't have options, like, I have to do this. That's why I said I don't love the matchup thing. I understand what people are communicating there. Like, oh, if you do this, then you have to do this thing to match it up. Well, I mean,

Rob Failes:

But like, there's no such thing as there's no such thing as cause and effect. Anyway,

Eric:

well, that'll be part of our other episode. We, we don't have enough time to talk about how Rob Bales just

Rob Failes:

that's a,

Eric:

There's no

Rob Failes:

that, that's a, that's a, that's a very, very poor misunderstanding of how this all works is cause and effect. That's like my, one of my least favorite things ever.

Eric:

So it's just, you have this swing. And again, we're, we're going to do a sub stack on the, on the club kinetics. And we might add something else into that as well. We'll see how deep that goes. Um, but that'll be our next bonus episode, which we will record in the next few days. And I kind of feel like that whole Mike K tuned in the club thing, which is so cool. that's just like the culmination of what we were just talking about.

Rob Failes:

Yeah, it's like your access to skills.

Eric:

place where

Rob Failes:

Yeah.

Eric:

at one with what you're doing you can literally just adapt your skills in a moment in time and just be, you know, just be with the ball flight. And I know that sounds a little Zen and I am no, I am not a Zen guy at all, but the point is, it's just, it's a state that we've been in. If you've played really good golf,

Rob Failes:

Oh, a hundred percent. Yeah.

Eric:

not there right now is Victor Hoffman, and it's tough to listen to Victor talk right now.

Rob Failes:

Mm hmm.

Eric:

is, if you've heard some of his interviews recently, um, he's really, really in the, in the, like, in the woods, it sounds like, lost in the woods, in the wilderness, kind of like, wandering around with his golf swing. but to your point, when he talked about the changes he was making to see certain things, now he can't figure out where he was. That's what he keeps saying. He said, I was here and I was doing great. then I wanted this one extra little thing. And now I can't figure out

Rob Failes:

I know.

Eric:

that I was

Rob Failes:

And not to get on through the long of a tangent, but like, I think he needs to accept that you can't step in the same river twice. You can't go back in time. You can't be who you were

Eric:

The

Rob Failes:

like,

Eric:

we sound really Zen today. We

Rob Failes:

right.

Eric:

or something today. point is, um, yeah, that river has changed. Right?

Rob Failes:

Yeah.

Eric:

trying to find that. And he's got a good instructor that I think he's working with now from, you know, friend of the pod. We'll call him, but

Rob Failes:

Yeah.

Eric:

hopefully. they find a place. Hopefully, I mean, he said he had no idea. He said his golf swing was trash, I think. And the next day he shot 65 at Pimple Beach, you know, like, but that's the talent level of Victor Hovland. Like he's

Rob Failes:

Yeah. His skills lined up on that 65, right?

Eric:

up and hopefully his swing starts to get himself to where he can,

Rob Failes:

Yeah.

Eric:

some, some level of comfort, um, to where he was. So I like that. You can't step in the same river twice. Think about that people. You cannot step in the same river twice. That's why we talk about adaptability.

Rob Failes:

Yes.

Eric:

day to day. Tiger Woods talked about this. No one listened to him. Everybody thought Tiger was crazy and he talked about it constantly. Right? And. is Tiger changing? Why is Tiger doing? Why is Tiger hit nine shot? He should only hit one shot all the time. Like, no, like Tiger knew what he was doing. He was the greatest of all time for many reasons. So anyway, don't think I have anything else to add to the golf swing

Rob Failes:

No, I think we, I think we did it.

Eric:

I think we covered the things we wanted to cover. Again, not being, we were not critical of any money. We would never do that. We're just trying to say, if you want to tune into our show, here's what we're going to talk about. And that's it. Cause that's your, if you're listening for our opinion, we gave it. And hopefully it was helpful to you. So takeaways from today, listen to those other episodes, be don't do change the work on your skills. If you have to work on your swing, take a lesson and don't take it lightheartedly because golf swing changes are. So thank you for tuning in again to another episode of the golf intervention podcast. We're humbled and honored that you listen to our show to be quite honest. We're just a couple of guys that can't believe. Um, yeah, I mean, we just keep growing and growing. It's pretty cool to see. We appreciate you tuning in. So anyhow, I hope you all, I hope you all have a great evening. Good luck with whatever it is that you're doing in golf. I hope it's warm where you are at 65 today in Richmond and I'm looking forward to the spring sooner rather than later. right, Rob fails. Have a good night.

Rob Failes:

Good night. Cheers.

People on this episode

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Eric Layton

Host
Contributor

Rob Failes

Host