The Golf Intervention

EP 50: Playing from the Rough and Huge Upgrades in Iron Fitting Technology

• Eric Layton • Episode 50

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On this episode of The Golf Intervention Podcast, we dig into three critical areas that can help golfers of all levels play smarter and score better.

Topics we cover include:

  • Playing from the Rough:
    • How to assess your lie and choose the right shot.
    • When to take a risk versus when to play safe.
    • How rough affects spin, launch, and distance—and what that means for club selection.
  • The Iron Fitting Revolution with Loft Adjustments:
    • Why iron fitting has changed dramatically thanks to loft optimization.
    • How adjusting lofts can fine-tune launch height, spin rates, and carry distance.
    • Why proper gapping throughout your set is essential for consistent scoring.
    • What every golfer should know before buying or tweaking their irons.
  • Lessons from the Lesson Tee:
    • The importance of separating two key skills:
      • Impact location on the clubface (centeredness of strike).
      • Clubface orientation (open vs. closed at impact).
    • Why confusing these two often leads to frustration and misdiagnosis of swing flaws.
    • Practical drills to improve both skills and build more reliable ball flight.

This episode combines on-course strategy, cutting-edge equipment fitting insights, and real teaching takeaways to give you insights you can apply immediately to your game.

For bonus content, subscribe to The Golf Intervention Substack at https://thegolfintervention.substack.com/

Tiger Woods crazy shot from the rough from 184 yards with a pitching wedge   https://www.youtube.com/shorts/zhdXHMtxbbw

Eric:

Welcome back to the Golf Intervention Podcast. We're so glad you're tuning in with us this evening. We've got a robust full of golf performance, excitement. I mean, that sounded pretty snazzy there, Rob, didn't it?

Rob Failes:

It sounds like a show title to me.

Eric:

We're trying to, we're trying to draw, draw you in listener with our, excitement about the topics we're gonna discuss. But what, I mean, we are gonna start off with a topic, I think super exciting. Has iron fitting been revolutionized and no one's talking about it? So that's gonna be a topic tonight. We're gonna take you through. A level 1, 2, 3 player discussion on playing from the rough, which is a question from one of my students and avid listener to the show. So this is for her. She'll know who she is when she hears it, and then we'll do lessons from our lessons, which is kind of a fun way that, we share some insights of things that we see from our lesson t that help you may help you, I should say, the listener with your golf game. So, how you doing this evening? Rob fails you doing well?

Rob Failes:

We're doing great. Yeah. Had a, had a good full day and, did a little golf school with Hunter today, so, yeah, it was fun. Yeah. The term golf school, it's interesting, right? It's not, yeah. I, I'll keep thinking of, of alternative terms, but that's what we're going with.

Eric:

an immersive experience. We'll say. That's what it is.

Rob Failes:

Ah, there we go. Love it.

Eric:

to say that,

Rob Failes:

Yeah,

Eric:

These are the days where you could teach. 10 straight hours and not even break a

Rob Failes:

percent.

Eric:

It was, I had the

Rob Failes:

Yeah.

Eric:

on all day. You spend fall weather in Central Virginia and I am excited about this time of year'cause it's my favorite time of year other than the rack wheat that kills me. That's why we didn't

Rob Failes:

Mm-hmm.

Eric:

the other day because of man allergies were killing me. I had no voice. But, other than that, it's a great time of year. So we are gonna have a discussion. I, I kind of teased it at the beginning about. Has iron fitting been revolutionized and no one's discussing it? I think kind of now why is no one discussing it? I think a couple reasons. Number one, like who cares? It's not that exciting. I mean, it is a performance thing, but at the end of the day, you know, like iron fitting isn't like the most exciting topic to talk about in

Rob Failes:

Hmm.

Eric:

but I will say. As someone who club fits a lot and I, I, you know, with my job, and I mentioned it on here before, I teach a lot and I club fit a lot like an in inordinate

Rob Failes:

Yeah.

Eric:

Wouldn't you say? So

Rob Failes:

percent.

Eric:

Titleist has come out with their new irons, which I think I, I wrote at least a substack about their new irons and ping as some new irons.

Rob Failes:

Yep.

Eric:

Callaway this year when they brought out the Elite iron fitting set, redid their whole fitting configuration. And what we're getting from those three companies is that,, the lofts are very customizable and adjustable. For the fitting process and obviously for the ordering process. Well, okay. Eric, why does, why in the, why does that matter? Right. Well, here's why it matters because when you're fitting somebody, you're fitting them to an iron that performs at a certain, a certain way to create an optimal shot. Right? And that optimal shot has a certain height to, it has a certain, what we call land angle. It's like the angle that it's coming out of the air on, into the green. And then the spin obviously is part of that. you're fitting people based on their club speed, you're trying to hit certain optimal heights. Do you do much of, do you do much fitting? Rob hadn't seen

Rob Failes:

really that much. Yeah.

Eric:

Ping for a few years has had what they call the power spec and

Rob Failes:

Mm-hmm.

Eric:

they brought the retro spec out and we've had fitting heads with that. So power spec is like stronger lofts, and then retrospect is like. A combination of weaker lofts, um, and then they have their standard heads, and so you could fit with those and ingest. But Titleist right on the Zel now has this fitting set that's unbelievable for, I like, if you haven't checked it out yet, those of you that fit, you've gotta check it out and like, and see it because you've got. upright, a standard in a flat setting, and then you've got all the combinations of being able to go up and down in the line, going up and down in the loft, and it's insane. so they also came out with, what they call the, the two 50, the T two 50 star, which has weaker lofts to start with. It's like almost like a retrospect like, you

Rob Failes:

That's pretty cool.

Eric:

so. I'm fitting lofts, like we do this with dr. We've done this with drivers forever, right?'cause you're trying to get this peak height to optimize

Rob Failes:

Mm-hmm.

Eric:

flight. I've been fitting lofts, like customizing. I will tell you for a few of my students that really struggle, either hitting the ball too high or they've hit the ball too low, I can get'em in the right iron for their, for their, you know, whatever they do kind of naturally, right? Without having

Rob Failes:

Right.

Eric:

So you, you see this with students, Robbie, like, I've got a seven iron in my hand and the peak height, like I've got decent speed. I swing it at 70 miles an hour, but the peak height of the shot is 46 feet.

Rob Failes:

Yeah.

Eric:

Right. For whatever reason, you know, and so we as we as instructors are trying to, the, the main, the only real way that we influence that is by getting the dynamic loft up. how easy

Rob Failes:

Right.

Eric:

it to change someone's dynamic loft at Impact?

Rob Failes:

Not super easy.

Eric:

Let's say one of the harder things we do, I would say, right, because it's hard to separate Dynamic Loft from Face Angle. Okay, so let's

Rob Failes:

And attacking. Yeah.

Eric:

so as you're trying to parse that out, think about it this way. Dynamic Loft is the loft of the club at Impact on the vertical side of the club face, right? That's Loft. And then Face Angle, which we talk about and everybody thinks about club face, is the horizontal measurement, right? They both have. influence on the ball goes. And so for someone that delivers the club with too little dynamic loft, that is

Rob Failes:

Mm-hmm.

Eric:

hard thing to change in my opinion, right? Unless you

Rob Failes:

I agree.

Eric:

point around in some functional way, which again, for a lot

Rob Failes:

Yeah.

Eric:

actually, isn't that easy? So what do we end up doing? We end up getting them weaker shafts, like we're trying to get'em like these,

Rob Failes:

Yes.

Eric:

soft kicky shafts that hit the ball

Rob Failes:

Yeah, exactly.

Eric:

And with soft and Kicky comes more dispersion typically, right? So. Now all of a sudden I can take that person and just like fit them to weaker lofts and they're hitting the ball. So much be, I mean, it's,

Rob Failes:

That's awesome. Yeah.

Eric:

cra So one player, uh, in particular who've worked with for 15 years on his game, just always hit it low. Like it wasn't terribly low, just always low. We've always worked

Rob Failes:

Yeah,

Eric:

and I fit him in two degrees weaker. I think it was a Callaway Elite oh my gosh, it's changed. It's changed everything for, he's gone from 56 peak height to 72 peak height on seven iron,

Rob Failes:

that's crazy how much, much of that changes based off two degrees.

Eric:

and by the way, carry distance has gone up 15 yards.

Rob Failes:

Oh, sure. Yeah.

Eric:

So people don't always think about

Rob Failes:

Makes sense.

Eric:

oh, if I hit it lower, I'll hit it further. No, it doesn't work that way. There's a peak height

Rob Failes:

No,

Eric:

that's

Rob Failes:

yes.

Eric:

So now he

Rob Failes:

Yeah,

Eric:

a shaft that's the right stiffness loft on the club and the club. That's right. Like, you know, like isn't a

Rob Failes:

yeah,

Eric:

that really needed a huge game improvement club. He just hit the ball a little low. Right? So.

Rob Failes:

totally. And with those, with those really high MO, I. Basically high forgiveness club heads. A lot of times they put the, the mass really low and back, which tends to help launch it up. And then they counteract that as saying, okay, we're gonna strengthen the loss. Well, plenty of people who fit into that club, they don't have enough speed anyway. Right. And their peak height's gonna be too low anyway. So like, why are we, why are we strengthening the lofts on those clubs? Like, you know, let's, let's keep the lofts standard for a lot and then you'll get on a probably. Lower proportion of golfers who have enough speed with that clubhead, and then we can bring the loft down. So yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

Eric:

I think it's, I wanna say revolutionary to be able to fit the loft that way. Um, so kudos to the companies that have done that. I mean, I think, I think actually Tailormade, I don't fit with Tailormade a ton. I have to be

Rob Failes:

me either.

Eric:

They

Rob Failes:

Yeah.

Eric:

sleeve kind of configuration that think you can change the loft a little bit on.

Rob Failes:

Mm-hmm.

Eric:

Titleist, that fitting set is outrageous. The amount of options that you have and the t and the T series irons that they just came out with like a month ago are just unbelievably good. So. If you haven't tried'em, you're thinking about new irons. Go to a good club fitter, um, someone who knows what they're doing, and definitely test out. Definitely test out those new T series titles'cause they are just outrageously good and with all the customizable options. Um, there's really something for everybody. It's pretty, it's pretty awesome. Pretty

Rob Failes:

Yeah.

Eric:

So hopefully that wasn't too nerdy of a discussion. I was trying to think of, why. Why isn't this a bigger discussion in the world of like,

Rob Failes:

Hmm.

Eric:

and I, you know, I gotta understand what the, what the general population of golfers, they're not 100% in tune to loss of their irons or

Rob Failes:

Yes.

Eric:

of a nerdy topic,

Rob Failes:

Agree. Yeah.

Eric:

like in our world of discussions with other teachers or forums, or,

Rob Failes:

Mm-hmm.

Eric:

haven't heard any dis, it's like zero discussion.

Rob Failes:

Mm-hmm.

Eric:

start, maybe this will be the start of that discussion.

Rob Failes:

there you go.

Eric:

There you go. you go. So I had a question for one of my students playing from the rough. Now she is a avid listener, loves the show. So we appreciate her enthusiastic support'cause she definitely shares with all her friends that they need to listen to the show. And she was just, she's a beginner golfer essentially. She's learning quickly., But had a question about playing out of the rough.

Rob Failes:

Mm-hmm.

Eric:

I would say this time of year, the rough is just in Central Virginia for

Rob Failes:

It can be. Yeah,

Eric:

'cause

Rob Failes:

sure.

Eric:

outta the summer, the Bermuda, the Bermuda is so healthy we get a little bit of rain a little bit now, temperature's perfect and it is just brutal. And on our, our James River course, you know, we're prepping for, our final hosting of one of the champion store playoffs events. And so the rough just gets really healthy this time of year.

Rob Failes:

Yeah.

Eric:

it's really hard to play out of. she said, can you do an episode on playing from the rough? And I was like, yeah, totally can do that. So

Rob Failes:

Mm-hmm.

Eric:

a pretty complex, almost like you could,

Rob Failes:

Oh, yeah.

Eric:

yeah. There, there's some complexity to playing from the rough because some, there's some, um, decision points, right? You almost need a

Rob Failes:

Mm-hmm.

Eric:

Like you could almost Write

Rob Failes:

Decision tree. Yeah.

Eric:

or a decision tree,

Rob Failes:

Yeah.

Eric:

of it is based on club at speed and skill,,

Rob Failes:

Oh, yes.

Eric:

or the same. They, they generally

Rob Failes:

Mm-hmm.

Eric:

go

Rob Failes:

Agree.

Eric:

and then obviously the type of grass, thick and deep the grass is, how the ball's sitting in it, what shot you're trying to play.

Rob Failes:

Mm-hmm.

Eric:

you know, um, what you have to go over, what you don't have to go over, how high you need to hit the shot, like what the situation is. So there's a lot of decision points. We talk about playing from the rough. We could probably do a series on playing from the rough, to be honest,

Rob Failes:

He legitimately we could.

Eric:

nobody listening to that brother, so we gotta.

Rob Failes:

Oh, come on. You're not, you're not giving us enough credit.

Eric:

the person that's like, honey, uh, we're driving to, we're driving to the shore this weekend for a little getaway. Can we listen to this two hour episode on playing from the rough? Can you imagine how that, how well that would go over? Probably not super well.

Rob Failes:

Yeah, probably not. Great. Yeah.

Eric:

But I think we can summarize and give'em some jumping off points,, to

Rob Failes:

Mm-hmm.

Eric:

ways that they can explore. So you rob, like in your mind, um, how are you sorting this question out? Just,

Rob Failes:

Yeah,

Eric:

impressions of the question. How are you sorting through it right now?

Rob Failes:

for sure. Yeah. So it, it always starts with the, the read, right? So a, a lot of playing in the rough is predicting how that lie club ball interaction's gonna gonna work out, right? Typically I will break it down into kind of like A, B, C, and then for level three, four golfers, maybe a D, right? So you have four real different types of lies. A lies might as well be in the fairway. Right. So no change, you're not doing anything different. That's a prediction you're making. You might say, all right, I feel like this is gonna come out the no, the exact same as it would off the fairway. And you make impact and it comes out way faster and higher, and no spin than you think. Sometimes it comes out way lower, dead, no spin., And again, it's, it's just the difference in your prediction. So. Is it an a lie? Meaning like no adjustment? Is it a b lie, which would be the ball sitting up. So these are gonna be typically your flyers, right? Or ones where you could actually hit it high on the face if the arc height is a little too low. And again, that's more of a skill of, of perceiving where the ball is in space and matching where the bottom of your swing is to that there's a sea lie, which is. Sitting down. All right, so typically the ball's gonna come out slower. And there's a, there's a element with this as far as okay, predicting how much stuff you have underneath the golf ball. That's gonna determine again, the AR height and a little bit of, kind of your loft affordances. Like how much loft can you actually hit out of this, out of this lie? And then you have D lies, which are gonna be fescue., Buried, just situations where you literally just have to get it out by any means necessary. There's been some crazy DLI where I've seen where it's the fescue and the grass is growing into the grain, and as soon as the club touches the, the grass, it just catches it like crazy and all the momentum stops and you advance the ball about a foot. Right? So these are the types of lies that, um. Are really, they're, they're penalties. If you think about, like, if you go and map out a golf course and try to figure out like, Hey, where can I hit it? Where can't I hit it? Even though they're not penalties by the rules of golf, per se.'cause you can find your ball in these areas, probably a, a good idea to go ahead and treat that as a penalty when you're targeting. So you have these four main different types of lies, A, B, C, D, and then you have, like you said, the shot that you have. Are we. Greenside, is this a short iron approach, mid to long iron approach? Are we hitting into a par five, right? Is this our second shot in a par five? Where are we? And then probably backing up even before that, who are you as a golfer? Are you a level one golfer, level two, level three, or level level four, tor pro?, All of these factors are gonna play into ultimately what you're gonna do. But understanding that regardless, every line in the rough is gonna affect three things. It's gonna affect the ball speed, it's gonna affect the launch, and it's gonna affect the spin. And that's it. That's what you need to understand. Now, once you get into D lies and sometimes C lies, it can affect the rotation of the club face about the shaft. So there's a little bit of prediction with that too, in terms of, okay, is this. Grass that the golf club is interacting with, going to change the face rotation by the time I get to impact or not. Right. And that's, again, that's something that you need to work through and have a strategy for dealing with that, as well. But that's a little more rare. But it's usually those three things. Ball, speed, launch, and spin. As a general rule, again, I just worked through a, through D, the, the, the greater the density of material that gets between the face and the ball. The lower the launch, the lower the ball speed, the lower the spin, just as a, as a general rule. And if you can predict that, well, that's gonna go into the club that you're using as well as the speed that you're using. That being said, once you've gone ahead and made your prediction as far as, Hey, what club am I using? Speed, what have you, depending on the, the shot that you have. A lot of it for, we'll just start with level one golfers. A lot of it is just the skill. Of managing that arc height relative to where the ball is in space. And I'd say that's probably the main thing. There's plenty of times where you hit level one golfer hits the ball in the rough and it's almost a little bit easier, right? Because the ball, you might have an A lie or a B lie, and the ball's kind of sitting up a little bit, right? And for those golfers who, let's say your tendency is for that archive to be a little high or whatnot, like it can work out great. There's also situations where level one golfers who maybe have an aversion to hitting the ground or don't quite get the bottom and swing arc as low as, they need to where they get a C lie or a D lie. And it's like almost a full shot, maybe a shot and half penalty because it takes'em two to, to get it out of that just because the arc height never got low enough for where the ball was in space. So that'd be my main consideration for level one. Did you have any, anything else, Eric, for level one?

Eric:

for those golfers visualizing, when you say arch height, so there's, there's, there's

Rob Failes:

Thank you. Yes. Yeah.

Eric:

Trying to visualize in space where the hula hoop of your swing. Arc is, is going relative to the ground, and then there's also, how deep that is relative to the ball, right? So higher or lower of the ball. Then there's also low point control too, right? So the which are, which are tied together, but are different as well. And so some of those, like if you're a hang back scooper, have a hard time in the rough, right? Because your low point gets. And so you start catching the grass early. and that's, that's trouble, right? Some of the people that that hit well outta the rough are the over the top, steeper, steeper swings,

Rob Failes:

Mm-hmm.

Eric:

if they really come over the top and get ahead of it and really smash down on it, they can be good outta the rough, actually get the ball outta the rough easier. So that can be one of the adjustments that you're making actually, is that I will say that,. The biggest issue I see with players, I would say on the level one spectrum, getting out of the rough is a, just controlling the arc in a way that's, it's somewhere predictable, right?

Rob Failes:

Yeah.

Eric:

and low point. The second is speed, like

Rob Failes:

Speed. Yeah.

Eric:

the

Rob Failes:

Having literally enough, right?

Eric:

get the ball out. As you get into the C lie and the D lie, it could still

Rob Failes:

Mm-hmm.

Eric:

really hard.

Rob Failes:

Really tough. Yeah.

Eric:

you almost have to do is create a strategy for getting just back to the fairway, because you may even look at that shot and go, oh, I mean, I'm, I'm hitting it towards the hole, but I've gotta carry it 20 yards to get outta the rough back to, you

Rob Failes:

Mm-hmm.

Eric:

it's in that you might have to just go like, I'm not sure I can do that. have to go more sideways to the

Rob Failes:

Totally.

Eric:

Um, if you don't keep score, you may just fluff it up in the rough and play. I mean, to be honest, like just pop it up in the rough and try to

Rob Failes:

Yeah.

Eric:

if you're not

Rob Failes:

Yeah.

Eric:

anyway, so I would say when you get in the rough, it's a conundrum. That's a big word. It's a conundrum. It's a catch

Rob Failes:

Yes.

Eric:

a new golfer, because here's the story. I've gotta be pretty precise at the bottom of the

Rob Failes:

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Eric:

what feels like faster that that loss of control we add speed lends to less control the bottom of the

Rob Failes:

Mm-hmm.

Eric:

So it's really

Rob Failes:

sure.

Eric:

just really tough. Here's the story. Don't hit it in the rough. Hit it straight. Take a golf lesson and get fit really well for

Rob Failes:

Um, another, another point I wanted to make is, and this kind of alludes to the, um, the loft fitting stuff that you're talking about with, with irons, is that for a given speed, there's definitely a, an an optimal launch that's gonna give you the most carry. So if you have the per, if you have the perception as a, as a level one golfer, like oh, just. My longer clubs always go further. Well, if you have a sea lie, I would be willing to bet that if you're level one golfer, and let's say you hit your driver less than 180 yards, that a six iron is going to go shore than a seven iron out of the roof

Eric:

Mm-hmm.

Rob Failes:

and a sea lie, and potentially, potentially a seven iron could go shorter than even an eight iron. So. Generally speaking, again, the the, as you go from C to D or you get more stuff between the face of the ball, that launch is gonna come down, the spin's gonna come down, the ball speed's gonna count, which means that you need more launch. You need higher launch angles to get this thing to actually carry far enough, which means that you need to also be, again, when you're reading the lie, when you're figuring out how slow this thing's gonna come out, there's that law of diminishing returns. What's the, what's the least amount of loft that I can play and still retain that? That nice launch angle. Um, a lot of times it's gonna be a nine iron, it's gonna be an eight, it's gonna be something like that. Some, you know, seven. Once you get into six five and it gets a little bit dicey, you better be getting pretty lucky, honestly, with the lie. For those two to actually go further for a level one golf.

Eric:

Yeah, and I think that, one of the mistakes I see with that level one, probably level two, maybe even level three golfer, nah, probably not level three golfer, They know that it's hard, it's hard to hit outta this. So, okay, so, I'm one 50 out and that's normally my seven iron.

Rob Failes:

Mm-hmm.

Eric:

should hit six or five iron here? Because the ball comes out, you know, slower sometimes the answer's absolutely not right?

Rob Failes:

Mm-hmm.

Eric:

it might not come out at all, right? Like it might, and

Rob Failes:

Mm-hmm.

Eric:

it does, it might fly so low to your point that it's never gonna carry to get there.

Rob Failes:

Mm.

Eric:

Um. So you're almost better, you know, taking more loft and just slashing at it in a way and see if you can get it to

Rob Failes:

Yeah,

Eric:

and

Rob Failes:

exactly.

Eric:

Um, don't do a t Was that, was that Firestone, that tiger hit that ridiculous pitching wedge. This is probably before you were old enough to remember golf, but tiger hit, I, should link this in the show. Maybe I'll try to find it. Link it in the show notes. Tiger hit a pitching wedge from like 185 yards at like Firestone or one of these places from

Rob Failes:

Nice. From a B lie, probably.

Eric:

no, no, no, no. This thing was so far down. He

Rob Failes:

Oh, was it?

Eric:

hard at this thing. And the announcer, it was either, I think it was David Faherty. It was just like, there's no chance, like any human can hit that shot. And he flew it

Rob Failes:

Mm-hmm.

Eric:

like five feet and made a birdie, put like,

Rob Failes:

That's insane. Yeah.

Eric:

with a pitching wedge. Um, so you almost have to just like slash it out, right? And

Rob Failes:

Mm-hmm.

Eric:

Take the medicine, like whether it's one 50 and you should be able to hit it that far, a hundred yards.

Rob Failes:

Yep.

Eric:

there's times you've gotta read as that ball is going lower in the rough. To your point,

Rob Failes:

Mm-hmm.

Eric:

B2C to D, you've gotta be adding in my opinion, adding loft and moving it back in your stance to

Rob Failes:

Yep. Sure.

Eric:

did, to hit down and chop it outta there.

Rob Failes:

Sure.

Eric:

it's the worse the lie is the more of a chop out it's gonna be. That's just the

Rob Failes:

Mm-hmm.

Eric:

That's just

Rob Failes:

I agree.

Eric:

So. You know, the, other consideration that I see, and this is something that I, I noticed over time is there was this notion that as the ball was getting into that B lie and C lie, the ball's sitting down a little bit more in the rough, but I could still hit it. That I should just take a hybrid'cause hybrids make it come out better.

Rob Failes:

Yes, I know exactly where you're going here.

Eric:

Um, and.

Rob Failes:

and I agree.

Eric:

Yeah, so one of, one of the, one of the things that is interesting about hybrid design is that the face is really shallow, right? So when you're trying to control arc height, which is a struggle outta the rough, right, with the ball sitting in there, um, it's really easy to hit it right off the top of your hybrid and it,

Rob Failes:

Yes.

Eric:

straight up in the air, and it goes nowhere. Like it goes nowhere. And you get a big mark on the top of your hybrid like it's.

Rob Failes:

Yeah, it's a fun time.

Eric:

The, the iron face is a lot deeper, right? So you have more vertical component to an iron face to be able to catch that ball and hit it out. So I would say I would try to revert to 7, 8, 9, uh, rather than a

Rob Failes:

Mm-hmm.

Eric:

some people hit hybrid's really great outta there. That's fine. But as you're coming in with that shallower attack angle,'cause you're hitting a longer club, A, you're more likely to just hit more grass before the ball. And then

Rob Failes:

Yeah.

Eric:

shallower face, I think it's easier to hit it on the top of the club. And then you

Rob Failes:

Yeah.

Eric:

ver what's called vertical gear effect, where it adds a bunch of loft and impact. It just doesn't go anywhere, right?

Rob Failes:

Mm-hmm.

Eric:

my opinion is, you just want to, you know, play a club outta there that you, that you know you can get outta there. Right?

Rob Failes:

Yeah.

Eric:

level one consideration is like. Practice it. Try to figure out if you can chop down on it with a, with a, you know. With a shorter club and get it and play more directly to the fairway. As you become level two player, you are probably reading the lie a little bit better and matching it to your skill and trying to understand if you can hit it high enough, um, and control it better and to those considerations you have with Loft as you get to be a better player. We're talking level three is like a scratch golfer. Now you're reading lies and trying to get, is this a flyer? Is this a, is it

Rob Failes:

Yeah.

Eric:

Is this into grain? Is this down grain?

Rob Failes:

Mm-hmm.

Eric:

grass different than fescue grass, different than blue grass, you know, different than cocoa grass or whatever.

Rob Failes:

Yeah.

Eric:

those different considerations as you're trying to predict. The ball coming out of it, but the truth is you can't really predict it very well. Right. So you're just making the best educated guess and playing on, so your best golfers, you know, those scratch golfers and better. Is there any unique considerations you're giving them, Robbie, kind of outside of what you've

Rob Failes:

Yes. Yeah. So this is where level two and level three into level four, you need to understand how your dispersion gets bigger. Outta the rough and how much, um, so again, for, for my golfers who are targeting using fingers, uh, you're gonna wanna figure out like, hey, for, for me in these particular shots, how much am I widening out that that zone, right? Because then that's gonna change your target, right? Because our, our number one deal here is like, hey, nothing within this zone. And again, it's not. 0% of our shots, right? But understand like, hey, this is, you know, in the, in the neighborhood of, you know, 75, 80 ish percent of shots are gonna be in this zone, assuming I'm swinging and playing freely. So for this lie, how big does that need to be? And then where do I need to put this so that zero of my, you know, inside my dispersion are touching a penalty area. Um, would be number one. And then getting as much of that on the green as I can, number two. And then if I have margin on either side, then I can slide it closer to the flag number three. So it's just like wind, it's like headwind. It's gonna increase your dispersion. Just like rough. It's just another consideration that you need to make in your targeting. You're just gonna be a little more conservative in your target outta the rough in general.

Eric:

Again, I would say right to left dispersion and short to long dispersion. Right, it's really unpredictable on the carry

Rob Failes:

For sure.

Eric:

I guess if

Rob Failes:

And then as a,

Eric:

ahead.

Rob Failes:

and then as a level three golfer, especially if you're, if you're in the rough, but you, let's say have less than a six iron in or, or, so, you're gonna be also reading, okay, based off this lie. When the ball hits the green, how is it gonna respond off of that? Right. And that's gonna get baked into your carry number,, that you're, that you're intending to, to hit.

Eric:

So defining what a flyer lie is, you

Rob Failes:

Mm-hmm.

Eric:

people listening to this probably don't know what a flyer lie is, although they probably have had one. It just means that. Grass gets between the club and the face you make to pretty good contact with it., But, the grass gets between the club and the face and the ball basically doesn't spin as much. So

Rob Failes:

Mm-hmm.

Eric:

spin, it just rockets off the club face and carry, it'll carry a long way typically, and it will also roll a long way when. When it does finally hit planet Earth, which sometimes can be way too long. So trying to predict a flyer lie is really difficult, I think.

Rob Failes:

Mm-hmm.

Eric:

'Cause sometimes it comes out soft, sometimes it comes out

Rob Failes:

For sure.

Eric:

Then if you have wind to consider, that's a really big consideration. But it kind of goes back to the Iron Loft fitting, conversation too, because I'm fitting, you just made this point a little while ago, but they put it in the context of Flyer lies You know, non flyer lies. If I'm getting a seven iron, that I'm just someone who launches the ball low and I tend to land it at 38 degrees land angle, right? With 4,000 or 4,200 spin on a seven iron when I go in the rough and that spin goes down. I mean, that is a impossible ball to control, right?

Rob Failes:

A hundred percent.

Eric:

fitting them on these optimal launch conditions from a mat or from a fairway line. Right? But you

Rob Failes:

Yeah. Yeah, exactly.

Eric:

Realize when you put that in the context of playing the golf course, there is some struggles out there when you're talking about the spin going down even more from an optimal spin. So

Rob Failes:

Yep.

Eric:

puts it another one of those revolutionary things with this, with the loft fitting. And again, I could always, so someone's listening to this being like, Eric, you could always change the loss. That is a hundred percent true. But, it was always a guess. I would always have to guess like, oh, is this gonna help the person or

Rob Failes:

Ah, it's probably like a degree weaker or two degrees. Now you, you're like, yes, you are. Two degree. Yeah.

Eric:

man. I know it's working

Rob Failes:

for sure.

Eric:

So I think that that getting your irons fit properly is such a, it's such a big deal

Rob Failes:

Mm-hmm.

Eric:

about it from good condition, but man, when it gets to be, from the, from not great conditions. It's really, really helpful to have irons that really,, fit you well and can really work from all condition. So level th level three consideration there. I think reading Elia is huge, to your point, like

Rob Failes:

Yeah,

Eric:

dispersion because

Rob Failes:

that's most of it, to be honest. Obviously there's, there's always skill stuff present, but it's not their ability to produce a skill, right? They're producing the skill within reason. But it's their, what they intended wasn't matching what was needed. Right. So it's, yeah. For, again, for level three and level four golfers, I almost always start with prediction, right? Because it's, most of the time,, they think it's their swing or they think it's their skill, and in reality it's just their, their prediction of, of what they're trying to do.

Eric:

Awesome. So I think that was a pretty comprehensive discussion of,

Rob Failes:

Yeah, agree. I think we hit on it.

Eric:

about that mainly from a, from a full swing discussion. We didn't get into it as much on the short game, and I think that's okay.

Rob Failes:

But it's pretty, yeah, no, it's, it's just, it's, the rules are the same. A, B, C, D is changing the launch. It's changing the ball speed. It's changing the spin. Um, and then it's your ability to read what's gonna happen, and create a choice of loft speed. Right. And match your skill Right to that.

Eric:

I think we covered,, in some of our short game episodes, playing from the rough around the green, so

Rob Failes:

Mm-hmm.

Eric:

probably go back and check out some of those episodes or review some of those episodes. But,

Rob Failes:

Yeah. Should probably, hopefully hear a lot of the same stuff, but it's goods.

Eric:

we've changed our mind, but I don't think so. we have to trust the science, Robbie, so we're trusting the

Rob Failes:

Yeah. No, we're, we're, we're just stuck in our ways, man.

Eric:

stuck in our ways. So yeah, thank you for that discussion. I thought that was good. So,

Rob Failes:

Yeah. Agreed.

Eric:

I'll check in with my friend, see, see if she learned something from that. So lessons from the lesson tee. I think this is kind

Rob Failes:

Yeah. What you've been seeing,

Eric:

this is kind of turned into one of my more favorite, parts of the podcast.'cause I think people can sort of,

Rob Failes:

I've actually gotten some good feedback on it too.

Eric:

people can see themselves in these stories a bit.

Rob Failes:

Yeah.

Eric:

Talking about golf performance from just a, the standpoint of a textbook. Like if you do this, then all these if then discussions, like if your ball's in a CY then play, like that's, you know, but

Rob Failes:

Hm.

Eric:

Like that's

Rob Failes:

Mm-hmm.

Eric:

But then like understanding an individual person and their

Rob Failes:

Mm-hmm.

Eric:

needs and what their hopes and goals are, and then how we've. Help those people develop or help them learn how to develop. I think people can see themselves in those stories. And so, um, you said you had, you had one you wanted to discuss today, which I

Rob Failes:

Yeah, yeah,

Eric:

to hear about it.

Rob Failes:

no. It's funny when you start teaching, you have. Just random weeks where you see like similar stuff,, you know, multiple days of that week. And this week was really funny. So, almost every lesson that, that I teach, I don't, I don't, shy away from, from advertising it. You're gonna get, an understanding of, of your rhythm, right? What does swinging freely mean to you? You're gonna get an understanding of training skill. I mean, you're gonna get an understanding of strategy, which is your, decision making and your shot process, what is relevant to you to get better, right? So that's my, that's what we do. That's what we talk about on a podcast every day. Throughout the week when I've been, when I was doing skill training, and I don't know if it was how I was presenting it or if it was just the random look of the draw, I had three separate people. In the same week completely confuse face to path in horizontal impact, spot on the face, heel to toe. So I remember sending you this video or this text, I said, Hey, don't let me forget., This is, this is what I wanted to talk about on the podcast and. For this golfer, every single time we would try to do heel or toe strikes. So again, I was very, I was trying my best to be very clear that, hey, all we're changing here is the location of your low point, basically the bottom of your swing in space. All right, for a toe strike, the bottom of the swing is closer to you, closer to your feet. For a heel strike. The bottom of the swing is. Further forward away from your feet. And every single time when he would try to give it a heel strike, he would open the face and a toe strike, he would close the face. And I thought, huh, that's pretty interesting. And so I, I obviously brought to his attention and then we said, Hey, you're not changing the face. You're just changing. And then we went on about it and. It happened again, like literally, like within the week, same thing. No, we're not changing face, we're just, and then it, it happened again. And,, they, they did not all do the same thing. So,, I had, I had one who was closing the face more for heel strikes and, and opening the face more for toe strikes. So it wasn't that, but I think. Oftentimes golfers, when they hit it right or left, they might think that, oh, it was just because I hit it on the heel or the toe, right? In reality, like, no, it's just where the face was pointed and vice versa, right? If they, they feel a heel strike or a toe strike, they're perceiving it as the face being open or closed. Like, no, it was just where the swing was in space. So it was a very, very bizarre week. But just so everyone knows,. The impact spot on the face. So where the ball is touching on the face is completely different, separate than where the face is pointed when it hits the ball. And I know like if you've listened to this podcast before, this should be very much review for you. This is caption, you know, but do not assume, this is not like captain obvious stuff from a, like a field perspective as you're swinging a golf club and you're experiencing impacts perspective. Especially if you're a little bit more limited in your experience. This is not captain obvious stuff. Like people need to, to have that awareness of like, hey, there is a difference in where the ball hits on the face. Or there can be a difference in where the ball is hitting on the face versus where the ball's going because of where the face is pointed at impact. So,, it was very interesting. I, I think it was just a good reminder that we needed to take our time with our students and we need to make sure that. Their perceptions and their concepts of what we are talking about in term, in terms of skill is very, very, very clear. Because I do it all day and I sometimes get in the habit of just like skimming and kind of running through it. And that week really taught me to just slow down, take a, take a deep breath, and just, you know, we don't have to get through every single skill in one lesson, essentially. I've, I've gotten to the point now to where it's like. All right. If this person just really needs a better understanding of this one particular aspect of arc location, whether it be a height or arc location forward back, then we just don't even get past that. We just do that. Right., And it's been good. So that, that was my, that was my main lesson.

Eric:

I think it's, it's good to point out that not every person that plays golf, and I think there's plenty of people probably listening to this, and I would put myself in this as a golfer for a long time when I was learning to play this game, is that I really had no idea what made the ball go where it went. I had no idea, you know, I would swing and hope it would go straight and I would try to swing better and I would try to, you

Rob Failes:

Yeah.

Eric:

this, I'm talking about 30 years ago when there was no track man, and there was no, you know, there was no understanding from a science perspective, and I was trying to learn golf. Like I, I didn't really know. is what, this is what you, when you're going through development, it's about acquiring skill. Okay, so I just watched, you know, I wouldn't say a lot of the US open tennis. I watched some of it I just can't, I play a little bit of racket sports. My daughter plays tennis. We play some pickleball. I like tennis. amount of skill that those tennis players have is mindboggling. It's

Rob Failes:

It is,

Eric:

right? It's easy to see. I think it plays out in tennis. You can see that skill, the way they control the

Rob Failes:

uh.

Eric:

right? in golf is about control, right? So what are you controlling? You're controlling where the ball's sitting on the face, right? You're controlling where the face is pointed. But those are separate, right? To your point. And, and they both have the influence on where the ball goes. And so I think that, trying to sort out in your mind as a golfer. Why is my ball going where it's going and why is it not going where, where I hope it to go or why am I not controlling it very well? And that's to your point about it, you know, do I have, do I have the right perception of what's going on? And this is where coaching comes in because sometimes we

Rob Failes:

Yeah.

Eric:

know. And sometimes I don't know about my own swing. I've gotta kind of sort through it a little bit.

Rob Failes:

Oh my gosh. Like, and this is every week I get golfers who are perceiving, they're hitting the heel and they're actually hitting the toe. I have golfers who are perceiving that the ball's going left because their hips and reality, it's the face being closed. Right. So like this is a, this is an every, every week thing. Yeah, for sure.

Eric:

we wanna correlate the proper things to the proper outcomes. And so yeah, to your point, Your hips are not causing the ball to go right or left, you know, the club face is causing the ball to go right or left. And so gotta sort that through. So, yeah, I think that's really good. I mean, I, I, uh, I didn't come into this one tonight with a specific story from the recent time. It's just been, it's been a fun season of teaching. I've taught probably more this year than ever'cause I've played. Played less

Rob Failes:

Yeah.

Eric:

and I'm just kind of cranking him out these days. And,

Rob Failes:

Mm-hmm.

Eric:

it's been, it's been fun. It's been fun seeing some newer golfers really

Rob Failes:

Yeah.

Eric:

to play an acquiring skill, right. And then practicing in a way where they can adjust on their own. I had a, I had a listener who I worked with, on his game. He's a member, but he, he likes to listen to the show and he was telling me today, he's like. I'm able to understand on the course when things go sideways, how to change it because you've helped me learn what the

Rob Failes:

Yes.

Eric:

and he's a 16 handicap, you know, he is like, I don't have. A hundred percent control of what I'm doing all the time, but I can make adjustments when I see issues mid round. so I think from a teaching perspective, currently, I'm trying to really instill in the player, almost teaching from skill backwards and, and then trying to

Rob Failes:

Mm-hmm.

Eric:

have the swing react to how they want

Rob Failes:

Mm-hmm.

Eric:

right? So.

Rob Failes:

That's, that's, yes, absolutely. Like when it comes to geometry, right? So three aspects of the swing, energy, time, geometry, energy. Really just an amount of like, and how amount of momentum, amount of work. And it also comprises of like how you're doing it, how you're putting the energy in, right? Time really. The, the, the amount of time and the pattern of time, right. Which we call rhythm. And then there's geometry, right? Which is the positions, right? The, the locations in space where the club is swinging through. I currently believe that the shot creates the geometry., Whatever shot you're trying to hit, right? The geometry is subordinate to that shot. What does not change, is the, relative to the shot, how you're putting energy into it, right? And the pattern of that energy as well as the, the time aspects, are gonna, again, the general rhythms gonna stay really, really consistent. Even though the amount of energy might change, the time of the swing might change a little bit, but the rhythm. Of the swing is gonna be, extremely consistent, ideally.

Eric:

So I've, I've been working with a level three player, and this is, goes right to the point you just made, who's trying to be a level four player. So he's working towards trying to play as a tour player He's coming off injury. He came to see me and I hadn't ever worked with him. And I'm watching, watching his control the ball first and trying to make a judgment upon that to help him the best I can and realizing he's not controlling the ball. He knows this by the way. He knows he's not controlled the ball, he the way he wants to. not good enough to be a tour player and then in the moment, and so he needs some change to his swing. This is a swing change, right? It wasn't a skill chain. This was a swing change what he was doing from the geometry wasn't gonna produce the, the dispersion pattern, the control that he needed. so I'm looking at different ways, right? Like a little bit of Hand path. Um, what is lower bodies doing relative to his upper body? How's rotating through the swing? There's all kinds of stuff going on. And we kind of worked back and forth on stuff and I finally said, can you hit a draw for me? Okay. I turned his, I turned his focus to the

Rob Failes:

Yeah.

Eric:

right? And all of a

Rob Failes:

Yep.

Eric:

the hand path changed. Okay?

Rob Failes:

Yep.

Eric:

changed, the left knee started working differently, and all of a sudden. my gosh. He said freedom. I, this is, I'm freed up. Right. He's playing

Rob Failes:

Yeah,

Eric:

So it just, to the point you made, he, we changed his focus onto the shot and then his swing, or what you call

Rob Failes:

the gm, the geometry.

Eric:

it just changed right. Without him

Rob Failes:

Mm-hmm.

Eric:

too much about it. So. Absolutely can happen. But again, it's really hard to do that on your own. I mean, I think you need a little guidance on that, knowing what to do, when to do it.

Rob Failes:

Mm-hmm.

Eric:

but yeah, great story, Rob. That was really, that was really good. And I think that's things that hopefully the listener can latch onto a little bit, learn

Rob Failes:

Yep. Yep.

Eric:

so if you're practicing listener practice, just like Robbie always says, can you hit it on the toe? Can you hit it on the heel? Can you move the low point around a little bit? Can you practice with the face open? Can you practice with the face close? Can you hit it in the middle of the face with a face open with the face closed to change the

Rob Failes:

Mm-hmm.

Eric:

That type of skill training will do you an amazing amount of goodwill in the long run where you can really start to

Rob Failes:

Yep.

Eric:

make the ball do what you would like it to do. And on that front, Rob fails. Anything else,, you'd like to add on the back end of today's episode, which I'm so glad. We got recorded and I hope my computer worked so that we don't, we don't

Rob Failes:

Yeah. No, no. I think, I think we hit on it.

Eric:

So, cool. So Robbie and I are working on a, a, a project for our substack, which is gonna be really. I think really good and all and and ongoing. So we're gonna start populating the substack with more and more, content as we go. And one big project, which I don't wanna mention yet'cause we haven't recorded the first episode, but I, I want to tease it a little bit and then we'll record an episode on it. We'll go from there. But let's just say it's gonna be a very, um, it's gonna be a case study

Rob Failes:

Mm-hmm.

Eric:

somebody creating a long-term ongoing plan for plan. The best golf that they can, and it's gonna hit from every angle we're talking, lifestyle, nutrition, sleep, you know, recovery, exercise, equipment strategy training. Organization of life and time and family,, all these things, um, that all of us really, really need to learn from. So that'll be on the substack,, coming. So it's not out yet, but we're gonna record the first

Rob Failes:

Loading.

Eric:

soon loading. So that'll be really, really good. So you want to check that out. We'll let you know when it's live on there. You'll see, you'll see. If you don't follow us on the Substack, you should, there's a free, there's a free, version, which we do put some stuff. I put a newsletter out or some, some videos. And then there's the behind the paywall stuff, which this case study will be. But if you just follow us on the, on the other part of it, you'll get some notifications on stuff and you can decide

Rob Failes:

Yeah.

Eric:

support the show in that way. But we are just glad that you tune in, to be quite honest. We're

Rob Failes:

Mm-hmm.

Eric:

So. With that being said, thank you for tuning into another edition of the Golf Intervention Podcast. We are now celebrating two years of doing this. This is episode

Rob Failes:

Whew.

Eric:

so we're about two,

Rob Failes:

That's crazy.

Eric:

episodes a month, which for us feels,, I think feels pretty good. I'd like to put more out, but we just, you know, life lifes and we, we run into stuff,

Rob Failes:

Yep.

Eric:

Yeah, so thanks Rob fails. It's been, it's been

Rob Failes:

Thank you.

Eric:

We're gonna keep going.

Rob Failes:

Fun times.

Eric:

if you have any questions for us, you can always hit us up on social media. I've put my swing on social media recently, so if you're interested on how Eric Leighton swings the club, I've been doing some little swing stuff on there just for fun., And so I'm Eric Clayton PGA at Eric Clayton PGA on Instagram. If you wanna check it out, and see what I've got going on with my swing. I'm unafraid to share it. not too bad. It can, it can improve, but it's not too bad right now. so check that out there and you can always,, send us a DM or a message on there asking us,, some questions that you'd like to us to cover on the show.'cause we're always looking for some good ideas. So that's all I got for this evening. Rob fails. Thank you again for being on. It's always a pleasure. have a great week out there in Charlottesville. I'll actually be in Charlottesville tomorrow. No, not tomorrow, Thursday. Yeah, just, I gotta drop some stuff off to my son who is a Oahu, as they say.

Rob Failes:

Well come on by.

Eric:

may, maybe I will. It'll be late in the evening, so you'll probably be home by then. But,

Rob Failes:

Oh yeah, we got our second day of our golf school, so sorry. I don't have time for you.

Eric:

it's an, it's an immersive experience at golf school.

Rob Failes:

It is

Eric:

Have fun with the golf school. Alright, boss.

Rob Failes:

right.

Eric:

you sir.

Rob Failes:

See ya. All right. Bye-bye.

Contributor

Eric Layton

Host
Contributor

Rob Failes

Host