EP 55: Golf Improvement Theory Part 3, The SWING. What A Golfer Should be Focusing On.

Golfers obsess over swing positions—but that’s not what creates consistency. Learn how energy, timing, and skill development build a golf swing you can trust and perform with.

⛳ Episode Show Notes

In this episode of The Golf Intervention Podcast, we break down one of the most misunderstood topics in golf: the golf swing.

Most golfers spend their time chasing positions—trying to make their swing look right. But the reality is, great golf isn’t built on perfect positions. It’s built on a system of energy, timing, and geometry that allows you to access skill and perform under pressure.

As part of our Golf Improvement Theory series, we connect the swing to the bigger picture—strategy and skill—and explain why focusing only on mechanics can actually hold you back.

🔑 What You’ll Learn in This Episode

•  Why golfers overvalue swing positions and visuals 
•  The difference between swing (macro) and skill (micro)
•  The 3 true priorities of the golf swing: 
  •  Staying injury-free
  •  Creating efficient energy (clubhead speed)
  •  Allowing access to skill variability
•  Why the golf swing does NOT directly control outcomes
•  How poor practice habits lead to the “hamster wheel” of swing tips 
•  The importance of rhythm and timing in consistent ball striking 
•  Why consistency of rhythm is a universal trait of great players 
•  How to build a swing that creates trust, freedom, and adaptability

🧠 Key Concepts from the Episode

1. Swing vs. Skill

•  The swing is the macro movement (what you see) 
•  Skill is the micro moment at impact (what actually matters) 
•  Good shots ≠ “good swing” 
•  Bad shots ≠ “bad swing” 

2. The Real Job of the Golf Swing

Your swing should:

•  Keep you healthy 
•  Produce efficient energy 
•  Give you access to shot-making skills 

➡️ It should support performance—not control it

3. Energy, Timing, and Geometry

• Energy → How force is created and transferred 
• Timing (Tempo & Rhythm) → When energy is applied 
• Geometry → The structure of the swing (positions) 

👉 Most golfers over-focus on geometry and ignore the other two.

4. Rhythm Is a Game-Changer

•  Great players have consistent rhythm, not identical swings 
•  Full swing rhythm ≈ 3:1 (backswing to downswing) 
•  Short game rhythm ≈ 2:1 
•  Consistent rhythm = more consistent skill access 

5. Why Swing Tips Don’t Work Long-Term

•  One-shot feedback leads to bad conclusions 
•  Constant swing changes destroy trust 
•  Golfers chase “fixes” instead of understanding patterns 

6. The Goal: Trust & Freedom

The ultimate goal of your swing is:

•  To trust it under pressure 
•  To play without constant swing thoughts 
•  To access skills naturally 

⚠️ Big Mistakes Golfers Make

•  Thinking every bad shot = bad swing 
•  Searching for the “perfect” swing model 
•  Believing “you must do this” type instruction 
•  Jumping from tip to tip without a plan 
•  Ignoring strategy and skill development 

💡 Practical Takeaways

•  Focus on rhythm and timing first
•  Build a swing that allows shot variability
•  Don’t jud

Transcript

Eric 0:04

And welcome back in to the Golf Intervention Podcast. Sitting here with my co-host, Rob Fails. We're discussing Cam Young's big win at the Championship today. Actually, we were not discussing that at all, but we

Rob 0:19

Not a single word was uttered about that, but

Eric 0:22

I tried, like

Rob 0:23

we, we could discuss it. Congrats to Cam Young.

Eric 0:28

I like Cam Young. Glad he won. I didn't really watch it. I wish I would've watched

Rob 0:32

So funny. I was, I was interning at Sleepy Hollow, when he was a junior. Right. So I got to play a decent amount of golf with him at Sleepy Hollow with his dad. And just to see him where he is at now is, is amazing.

Eric 0:46

so. Cool. And if you didn't know listener, his father was maybe still is the director of golf at Sleepy Hollow, which is one of the cool, cool places

Rob 0:55

Awesome spot. Yes. Mm-hmm.

Eric 0:57

yeah. In New York. And yeah, cam grew up there But that's cool that you got to play with him. So yeah, we should have talked about it. I guess we did just

Rob 1:04

Yep.

Eric 1:05

it.

Rob 1:05

That was it.

Eric 1:06

to Cam Young on winning the players, so on today's episode, you're gonna discuss the golf swing. So in this series that we're doing, which you can go back to the last couple episodes and check it out, it's on Golf improvement theory, I think is

Rob 1:24

Yep,

Eric 1:24

of the series. And on episode one, we went through the strategy On episode two, we went through, the skill, which is a great episode. And we talked about swing a lot in the skill

Rob 1:36

we did.

Eric 1:36

Because you have to understand and be able to delineate one

Rob 1:41

Yep.

Eric 1:41

to kind of understand what point we're trying to make. And although this is not our message solely, I feel like at times we're a little bit of a voice in the wilderness when it comes to

Rob 1:53

A hundred percent, yes.

Eric 1:55

golfers just, they think about swing all day every day and they correlate swing to. Everything that's happening. Good shot, good swing, bad shot, bad swing, right?

Rob 2:07

Correct.

Eric 2:08

good score, good swing day, bad score, bad swing day. You know? And it's just strategy and skill don't matter in that sense, right? It just never comes to the forefront. And so I think what this, this podcast we've been harping on this episode after episode, there are way easier and less intrusive ways to improve your game and or understand that they are separate things

Rob 2:33

Yes.

Eric 2:34

Okay. That's probably the bigger story. golf swing just tends to bombard us, you know? And it's because. Everything we see. You know, you listen to the players and they talk

Rob 2:46

Mm-hmm.

Eric 2:47

Well, what did he do with that swing, Johnny? Or what was wrong with Scotty's swing when he hit it in the water? You know,

Rob 2:52

Yes.

Eric 2:53

is, everything is swing. Couldn't be bad. Strategy. Couldn't be a less skillful moment from Scotty. No, it was a bad swing from Scotty. Right? And you opened your social media. Swing, swing, swing, swing. Do this with your swing. Do that with your swing. This is a good swing. This swing should look like this. You should do that with your swing. Everyone should have the same swing. No one should have the same swing. Swing, swing, swing. You know? So it's tv, it's your magazines, it's your social media. It's your thoughts. It's what your friends talk about, maybe even your golf coach. Okay? I think that when we discuss swing. We're gonna try to discuss it in a way so that the listener can sort through and you as golfers, you are our target audience right now. Okay? We're not really speaking to and all this, like today is golfer day, right? And want you to know that there'll be things unsaid today, and there'll be things that we'll say are that relevant that you may think are relevant. We don't want to offend you there, but what we're trying to do is give you that addition by subtraction thing keep you focused on what actually are the core principles of golf swing, and try to keep you away from being distracted by things that just seem to be making you spin on the hamster wheel, right when it comes to swing stuff. if you understand that everything gets better. more confident on the golf course, your practice gets more efficient and your strategy gets better and your skill improves when you can really understand how it all fits together. And so hopefully today we'll go through some core tenets of golf swing and be able to give you just some basic understanding of how

Rob 4:50

Yep.

Eric 4:51

And, um, yeah, that's all I have to say

Rob 4:54

Yeah.

Eric 4:54

think this will get

Rob 4:56

We were talking earlier about how we're gonna attack this. So we're going to, we're gonna take a two-pronged approach here. I'm gonna just quickly just get right into it. Like what are the, the three to four priorities when we're looking at swing? And then for a lot of the rest of the episode is gonna be, here's what you don't need to be worrying about. Kind of a,, myth busting, kind of however long we take. This just might be a, a Robin Eric rant for 45 minutes, and that's okay., But we think it's a very valuable, exercise and, and starting to learn, hey, how to look at this maybe a little bit differently. So what are the priorities of swing? What are the things that we are looking at? The number one priority of the swing is to keep you safe, to allow you to play golf. If your, if your general motion right, we say skill is micro, swing is macro. The swing is what you can see from 300 yards away. You know who that is on the other side of the range based off of how they're swinging the golf club, right? The shot, what the ball did is dependent on the skill, which is the micro, that's the stuff that is determined in the one 2000th of a second of impact, right? So the macro, the swing number one priority is to keep you playing golf. That's gonna be, again, a little bit of a hot take, right? Maybe for some of y'all, maybe, right, this is preaching to the choir. But if your general motion is constantly hurting you, then you need to change your swing a hundred percent. Like. Without a shadow of doubt, unless it's you're playing for millions of dollars and your runway is very short and it's not hurting you that bad. Like you can still go out and play. You can tolerate it. You have strategies in place before and after the round to handle that pain. Right? So there again, there's that cost benefit analysis that we've talked about a lot throughout this podcast. It's like, for some people changing their swing, the cost of changing their swing at that point, like they're the top, you know, they're, they're the end of level four golfers. They're playing for millions of dollars. The cost of changing their swing at that point is too great. They would rather invest the time before and after the round and in between tournaments in rehabbing their body, making sure that, hey, this stuff is, is, it might be getting worse, but it's, it's getting worse at a reduced rate. And then cash the checks, right. Enjoy your retirement, right? And then, who are we to say that's the wrong way to go about it? But most of who we're talking about here are level one, two, and three golfers, not end of level four golfers. And we firmly believe that preventing injury as best as we can, and again, it's tricky, it's very, a very tricky conversation, right? Is our, is our number one due diligence, right? So we're gonna set that aside. The second priority of swing is efficiency, right? So, and yet I could probably argue like second and third priorities can be flip flopped depending on the level of golfer you are. But really the, the, the second and third is gonna be so efficiency. Like, hey, for how much work you're putting in, how much are you getting out of it? Right? And if we're looking at the skills, like probably club head speed would be the closest comp to that, like. Is the general motion, the the general pattern that you are moving with creating enough club head speed for you to play, and then it's also like, can I make the swing more efficient to get more club head speed so that I can play better? That kind of goes into that category as well, right? So again, that's technically a skill, right? It's allowing for a skill. And we're gonna talk about throughout a lot of this, the episode, the swing allows for skills. It doesn't determine skills, okay? And then the last, the last priority of swing is to be effective enough, functional enough to, again, I'm saying this again, allowing you to be skillful, which means you have access to. The, the, basically the, the ranges of the spectrum of arc location up and down and away from you and towards you. So heel and toe, right? So you have access to, to the ends of those spectrums, meaning like you can hit the heel and the toe, you can hit high on the face and low on the face. Right. You have access to both ends of the spectrum on face to path. Right. You ha you can have a ball curbing left, have a ball curbing. Right? Right. You can, right. And then we'll, we, we will maybe get into a little bit of on, on start line and like, Hey, what shot shape am I hitting? That's not what I'm talking about. Like, hey. Does your swing allow you to access both ends of the face to path spectrum? Again, that face to path number that you're gonna see on track man, it's just, again, it's just the twisting of the shaft. So if you can think of the, the club shaft in general and just spinning it back and forth, you're gonna see that face change relative to the shaft that's going to, it is gonna change the start direction for sure, but it's from a field perspective, most closely correlated to the curve of the golf ball. Right? So can you hit it straightish? Can you curve it right? Can you curve it left? Does your swing allow for that? And I would say like, is it neutral ish enough to where the ball can kind of start within your dispersion and stay inside your dispersion? Meaning like it's not so extreme with a club path going, you know, left or right or bottom of the swing being too far behind the ball or too far ahead the ball to where. Right. Again, it's not allowing you to be skillful for driver all the way down through wedge. Right? And that's pretty much it, so it's,, can I keep myself safe? Can I create and manage clubhead speed efficiently? And then do I have access to my skills? Right? Arc, location, face the path. And then club at speed would be the third skill. But we're kind of lumping that into efficiency.

Eric 11:01

Exactly. You didn't say a lot of things that I see on Instagram, though. I there aren't there magic lines that Michael Club has

Rob 11:10

Oh yeah. No, you gotta get, you gotta be slotted, Eric.

Eric 11:14

Oh, I gotta be slotted. I can't rotate the face. That's another one. Face can't rotate. Has to, has to have no rotation. I'm just teasing you. So those, that was a great, I think that if people listen to what you just said there. Those are some absolute truths to go to good golfers, your access to skill is that thing that I think I harp on a lot with my students. It's very hard for you to do the thing that you're trying to do with what you're trying to

Rob 11:39

Yes.

Eric 11:40

with what you are doing. And I feel like, you know, we work on swing so much as golf instructors because we're the experts there, right?

Rob 11:49

Yeah.

Eric 11:49

able to get in there I think that when someone doesn't have access to the skill that they need, let's say it's a bottom of the A thing, right? And you describe this in great detail in the last episode very, very well. So if, if we're, we're kind of glancing over this in a

Rob 12:06

Mm-hmm.

Eric 12:06

of on purpose,'cause I don't wanna, I don't wanna harp on skill on the

Rob 12:09

Right. Yeah.

Eric 12:11

so, but one of the thing I, I think I mentioned, but I'll mention again, is. When that changes with a, with a change to the swing, it can be so dramatic. You can literally not be skillful in the moment and just completely miss it. Right? You can top it and thin it, and if the, if the golf instructor understands, and you have a good product like TrackMan helping you measure some of the parameters that you're looking at, you could go, no, no, no, that was better. That was better. Just hang with me a minute. We're gonna keep working on this swing and you're gonna get skillful in a moment., Hopefully. And if not, we'll figure something out. That's, you know, we have options here, but that's how it typically works on our own. When we're practicing and we're constantly like, oh, here's a swing tip and here's a swing tip, and that's a swing tip, and I gotta try this. And I saw this on YouTube, all of a sudden you just keep, you're spinning the hamster wheel, right? Because if it doesn't work into swings, you have, you don't have feedback. A lot of times they just go, oh, that was a bad shot, so it must have been a bad swing, and now I'm gonna be onto the next, a

Rob 13:09

Right. It's all, it's all subjective, just good or bad, as opposed to being a little bit more objective and targeted to what's relevant.

Eric 13:18

So I don't wanna get too, too off on a tangent there, but I I, I did like what you said there and the whole first do no harm to your body is a story that I don't thinkers think that much about until they get hurt. Right. And so did see this week, I don't know if you saw this, the clickbait stuff is just so crazy to me.

Rob 13:36

The rage debate. Yeah.

Eric 13:37

Morikawa, hurt his back. I don't know if it was in the first round. Did you see

Rob 13:41

Mm-hmm. No.

Eric 13:43

He had to withdraw he basically said like, I, I've never had a back injury before. I took a swing. And it just felt really bad. And then I knew I had to withdraw. It was like that

Rob 13:54

Hmm.

Eric 13:55

And you know, he just won a couple weeks ago. Right. So he's playing great. And

Rob 13:59

Wow. Yeah.

Eric 14:00

the crown jewel, the PGA tour season. So. article says this, this is the title of the article and I got sucked into it.'cause I had to, I had to click on this one. It said, is TGL hurting Players' Backs or something like that leading to back injuries is TGL leading to back

Rob 14:22

Interesting.

Eric 14:22

And I'm

Rob 14:23

Oh my gosh.

Eric 14:24

What? I click on it and it

Rob 14:27

the,

Eric 14:27

I guess a couple of,

Rob 14:28

league.

Eric 14:29

we go with players are having bad back that play in the TGL, right? And so, and then they're like, but we interviewed this back specialist. And they said no, it would have nothing to do with it. Because I'm like, why would you even write the article if you're just gonna say like, no, we asked somebody in there. But you know, that's just the way it goes. Like, everything's about swing and click this, read this article and it's. You know, it sends you down these rabbit holes like, oh my gosh, indoor golf might ruin my back or something. I have no idea. point being, I got distracted there for a second, right? I clicked the button and read it. So being healthy a huge deal. and efficiency in the swing a lot of times do go together, in my opinion. Right? If you're

Rob 15:16

Agreed.

Eric 15:17

moving

Rob 15:17

Yes.

Eric 15:18

and you're moving in a way that's, that, that is healthy and efficient, you're gonna be, you're gonna be okay, right? That

Rob 15:25

Yep.

Eric 15:26

you're probably moving the joints that need to move well and

Rob 15:30

Yep.

Eric 15:30

joints in the right ways and creating a good efficient motion. so that's huge. Right? And I, I've talked about efficiency with my students. Before I knew anything about golf instruction, but I knew it had to be, it had to be efficient in some way, shape, or form. And that that was a picture that people needed to have in their mind for what they were trying to work towards. And. so I like, I like the way that you described those. And again, there are pieces of golf swing we didn't, we didn't mention you know, it, what is the perfect model swing? Like, Eric, what is my back swing supposed to do? Or what is my elbow supposed to do? Or what is my sequence supposed to be like? And I think that you can try to answer those questions, but because the answer is always, well, it depends, then it's really not worth answering. You know what I mean?

Rob 16:21

Yes,

Eric 16:21

can't a, you can't answer in absolutes if you're being honest.

Rob 16:25

Yes. Yep.

Eric 16:27

there's some people being called held. Okay. So I'm trying not to get too far down the rabbit hole, but, there's a thing called the kinematics sequence, right? Which is, basically like what order your body parts are accelerating and decelerating it, right? And I should say segments, but you know, there's, there's TPI that's like, it has to be, has to be, it's how they say it, right? Pelvis, torso, arms club. It's like this, this 4, 3, 2, 1. See, it has to be, that's the most efficient. That's the, if you measure PGA tour players, like half of them aren't in that sequence. Somewhere around half, at least the stats I've seen, right? I don't know what you've seen somewhere around half. so how can that be the right answer? I mean, it might be the most efficient it could be, but also maybe for a lot of people being most skillful. Isn't that right? I don't actually know the answer. I'm just saying this is what, this is what the data says, right? So if, if many are not, I don't know if half is right. I've seen some conflicting things. Not that I measure tour players. I don't. Have you seen any stats on this? Have you

Rob 17:30

I don't know the percentages, but yeah, I know like one, one being pelvis, two being torso, three being arm four being club. There are quite a few, 1, 2, 3 fours for sure. But then there's also like a staggering number of 1 3, 2 fours as well.

Eric 17:45

Correct,

Rob 17:46

so it's, again, it's like we're looking probably in the wrong place now. What I will say is like, hey, like if, if you have a bay that's got the, the technology to be able to measure this stuff, then when players are playing their best, and this is what we're gonna talk about here in a little bit. We believe the general consistency of rhythm is a big deal. Like how much is the rhythm changing from shot to shot? So totally like go measure your sequence when you're playing really well and when you're not, go hook yourself back up and see if you see any huge changes. A hundred percent definitely, offer stuff like that for sure. But. Where we gotta be careful is like attributing it directly to skill. It's like, oh, if your club face tends to be two degrees close to the path, let's take a look at your kinematic sequence, right? And try to find

Eric 18:34

Right,

Rob 18:34

difference in two degrees of face. You're not gonna find it like you can convince yourself that you found it, but there's just, it's two degrees is way too small. The, the amount of time and space this golf club is swinging through the, the amount of things that can actually create a a two degree difference is, is infinite. You can't possibly attribute it to a swing. A macro thing.

Eric 19:00

Mm-hmm. Correct. It's discounting the things that we know really are controlling that

Rob 19:09

Yep.

Eric 19:09

which is

Rob 19:10

Yes.

Eric 19:10

right. And then our influence of that through swing. And so being able to produce shots,'cause that was the other part that you said there., Am I able to produce the skill, I should say, not the shots, but the skill, which is, you know, creating

Rob 19:24

Yeah, exactly.

Eric 19:25

Do I have access to that? you know, I had a, I had a gentleman come in for a club fitting the other day and with what he was doing with the swing. Now this was not a lesson, this was a club

Rob 19:38

Yeah.

Eric 19:38

But what, what he was doing with the swing, he currently didn't have access to being able to hit the ball high or hit the ball with any ball flight other than curving to the right. Right. That was it. And so I was explaining to him in the fitting, you, you know, what you're doing with your swing is creating a low. Cutting to the right or you know, curving

Rob 19:58

Bias. Yeah.

Eric 20:00

which is a, which is kind of a hard thing to fit with really,

Rob 20:03

Yeah.

Eric 20:03

We're trying to work through that. And so, you know, I had to give him a picture on why his swing was creating those biases, right? And said, I'm gonna fit you in a way that I feel like you can your best shots now, but also grow with these clubs if your swing does improve. Right? So trying to fit the range of outcomes. So there are just times that you cannot like, and that's where I wonder about practice with folks that when they quote unquote go to practice their swing, and there's been a lot of discussion about this this week on social media, like is hitting balls on the range for most people? Anything more than just quote unquote a waste of time? I don't, I don't believe that, by the way. I'm not one that thinks it's a waste of time at all. I think if you're putting the time in to. Trying to get better. That's a huge deal. Right? And so I would never discount that. I do think that there's probably more efficient ways to work on

Rob 21:02

Yes,

Eric 21:02

less efficient ways to

Rob 21:03

absolutely.

Eric 21:05

But it's not a waste of time. Just be, that's the thing that like sometimes golf instructors can be so, can be so arrogant in that way. Oh, they just don't know. They don't know the answers. They don't know how

Rob 21:14

Yeah.

Eric 21:15

They're just wasting their time. I'm like, no. I mean, I went in the backyard and didn't know how to shoot a basketball and I just spent time with myself and got better at it. And the skill of shooting a basketball, let's be honest, is way easier than hitting a golf

Rob 21:26

Yep.

Eric 21:26

But point being I wasn't being coached and it probably wasn't that efficient, but I got better at it. Right? And so there is stuff to not be discounted there, but at the end of the day, if I'm putting time in. And I'm just swinging the way. I'm always swinging and hoping for a different outcome. I may not have the swing that can bias the shots that I'm trying to see. So then I'm just, then I'm beating my head

Rob 21:50

Yes. Yeah.

Eric 21:50

I'm accepting of that and trying to practice, in a way to create my best dispersion pattern and understand it. I need to practice in a way to improve my swing, to create a new skillset. And I think that's where people get lost in that last, in that second little piece. And that's where we as golf instructors, you and I come in.'cause we should be able to be the consultant there and say, let me step into that space with you and say, here are the things that I think can help you create the skill that you're looking for. And we need to figure out a plan for it and a way to practice it and a way to understand it so that you can

Rob 22:26

I think the key there, the key there is that you're doing something to change a bias, right? And then by definite, like, that bias is going to be playing out over a long period of time. So when golfers get into trouble is they are looking for a swing. That is going to guarantee an avoidance of the outcomes and the skills and the right, the performance that they aren't willing to accept, right? So it's like, I just took this lesson. What did I leave my coach with? Did I leave my coach with the idea that this is what I should do and this is what good players do? And if I continue to drill this and drill this and drill this, I'm gonna avoid hitting this X shot ever again. Or, it's going to just make my scores improve and just have it be a very generic, a, a very non-specific type of outcome. Like, oh, just do this and you'll get better. Like, no, hold on. So if I'm gonna change swing to change a bias, then I'm gonna make sure that the player understands what that bias is and how to assess it in practice and. You can't assume just based off of like, Hey, you maybe did the swing stuff, right? But if one outcome wasn't the bias that you were looking, if the, okay, let's, let's give this like a tangible example. Let's say that someone has a, very open face to path, right? And they're gripping it way up in the palm of their lead hand. They're trail hands going right through the palm and they're just spinning that thing wide open, going back and like they could work skill with that and maybe on a shot get the face close to the path. But over the course of an entire year of doing that, they're gonna average maybe say like three to four degrees open relative to the path for an entire year. Right? Let's just, we're just throwing out numbers here. So they come and see us golf intervention and we say, alright, well let's first make sure you're aware of the thing that's causing the ball to go to the right. So we're not gonna, even though we know that we're gonna change the grip, we're not gonna change the grip right away. Hey, can you explore the face relative to the path to see, that's the thing that's. Causing the shots to go where we want. Yeah. And sometimes when we do skill, I've actually seen where people will change their grips once they are aware of the skill and they're aware of what they're trying to do with the skill, which is very interesting. But let's just say they don't change the grip.'cause that's totally possible too. And through doing that skill training the right side of the spectrum, the open face into the spectrum is so easy for them to manage. Like yeah, like I ask them to open the face path, watch this coach. No problem. I ask them to close the face of the path. Like, oh wait, no, we're here for like five, 10 minutes trying to, trying to just create one where it's close the path. All right. So now we're gonna say, all right, let's explore this different grip and see if it makes closing the face the path easier for you. And we continue with that same skill training with the new grip, and all of a sudden, oh wait, they can do it. And that's where it's like, Hey, this new technique, this new swing thing is helping make that skill easier. Here's the problem though, and here's what we gotta get our golfers to understand. Too many people will leave that lesson saying, and and we will tell them literally verbatim, exactly what I just told them, but they will still leave believing this is what I should do and this is gonna mean I'm gonna hit good golf shots on the golf course. And again, you might, but that's not like the swing thing that we did isn't quote unquote correct. It's not, it's just different. That's gonna bias the skill differently, right? So when they go out on the range on their own, they hit one shot. Like they, let's say, Hey, I did a great job with my grip. I am holding it exactly the way I want. They go up to the shot, they make a swing, and guess what? The ball curves are the right with their new grip. They, the one that they just did, they just, they improved. They knew that they, they held it well and the ball still curves are the right And what do they say? Oh, wait, what? That must be wrong then. Hold on. I, I thought this grip was supposed to not do that. This must be wrong. Like, no, no.

Eric 26:31

Why did, why

Rob 26:31

That's what exactly what we're talking about. Like,

Eric 26:34

why

Rob 26:34

exactly. So what we're saying is like, just let it play out. If you're still seeing the bias, don't even, then don't assume that your swing is incorrect. Go back into your skill training. The, your differential training that we do, um, see if then that becomes a little bit easier for you. And then retest and see what happens over the course of maybe 20 shots across different clubs. And then you're not worried about, sorry for that golfer. You're not worried about the arc location where you're hitting it on the face high or low or heel toe. You're not worried about the distance the ball's going, which is clubhead speed related. Um, other things related to that. But you will, you get my, the idea. You what's, you're, what's you're diagnosing is the curve of the golf ball. That's it. That's literally it. You're diagnosing the curve of the golf ball. Right. And if the ball was straightish, then great. If it curved to the left, great. If it curved to the right, great. But okay, if it's one shot to the right, that's one thing. If it's two still, we're not doing anything. If it's three in a row, four in a row, then you know like, Hey, I either need a calibrate skill, or I do need to just double check and say, Hey, am I actually doing the swing thing that my coach wanted me to do correctly? But again, we're not doing that based off of just one shot. We're doing that based off of the bias, the like the more the pattern, the long term data that you're kind of collecting as it relates to that one element of the skill.

Eric 27:58

Yeah. And I think that's the, that's the patience that's required to create the skill and the belief in the, and the belief in the

Rob 28:08

Yeah.

Eric 28:09

to do it right. So I think that when it comes to swing, we're gonna talk about some swing stuff. We are. But I think that the big truth though, that I would love my students always to think about, is that your goal with your golf swing. Is to create complete freedom and trust with a swing that, you know, you can have access to the skills that you need to create the shots that you want to create, to play and enjoy the game in a, in a injury free way. Right? Like, that's the whole summary. Right. And I think, think avid golfers have a really hard time getting to the trust and freedom part, right? And that's, I think that's what we're talking about here, is we guide you to that in a way where you can just believe in yourself, just believe in yourself a little bit to be able to trust that you can do it right. I, I gotta, I gotta be doing some things that can do it, but then I gotta build the belief and trust that I can just let it go and have it happen. have a really hard time getting to that point, right? Because they, they just to your, what you were just saying is like, once one goes wrong in their mind it's, what did I do? Why didn't that work? And then I'm back to square one with, what was that tip? What did that guy say? You know, we were joking before we got on here, and I said, a lot of times I get these texts from usually not my students, it's usually like friends who play golf or you know, maybe, um, family members or whatever. And it's always like, Hey, should I try this thing? And it's like a, like a Instagram tip or something, and I'm like, I have no idea what you should try. Right? Like, I don't know, like maybe, probably not, I'm not really sure. And this, that's just that cycle of distrust that keeps bubbling up with golfers. Like, I always wanna do better, but they never get to that place where they lean into what they're doing with their, with their swing to develop the skill. So that's what I think it, like, you gotta lean in at times. And sometimes I'll say to my students, I'll say, Hey, we're in this place right now where I don't want you trying to find the next thing. Okay, from a swing standpoint, whatever, I want you to lean into what you're doing right now and just build faith and trust in your routine and in your process. And, to really hone in. I had junior, I had a junior golfer who's,, entering the season and, but that's all we've been talking about for like three weeks because he's worked so hard on what he's done and it's really coming together an incredible way. And I'm, and he's really wants to be good. So he keeps wanting to find the next thing.'cause that's his

Rob 30:41

Yeah.

Eric 30:42

And I'm like, just lean into it right now. Let's just lean into it and kind of just stay where we are. Stay the

Rob 30:48

See what happens, right?

Eric 30:49

and, um, let's see what happens. Just try to build

Rob 30:51

Yeah.

Eric 30:52

at some point we gotta build trust, right? And, and believe in what we're doing without trying to constantly be changing things.

Rob 30:58

And I'd say like, I, I like the idea of trust. I would, I would also say like a frame, like a framework, basically, like how you're looking at, how you're interpreting what you're experiencing on a golf course.'cause no one, no one gets to decide whether or not they experience outcomes that they don't prefer. Every single round of golf, you're gonna have

Eric 31:19

Right.

Rob 31:20

plenty of information that could tell you that your swing sucks. Every golfer, every single golfer is going to be,

Eric 31:29

percent.

Rob 31:30

be given information in a round of golf from tee to green that could tell you that your swing is garbage. And we're here to tell you that you cannot jump to that assumption right away. There is strategy. There is skill and then there is swing. And, but then even within swing, right, there are things that we might, we might discuss here on this podcast that aren't the, the obvious. Like, Hey, where is my left arm at the top? Where is my, what is my right shoulder doing? What is my left hip doing? Like the geometry of the swing and the positions of the golf swing. Like you can't even blame. Like you probably shouldn't be blaming that first either. Even, let's say you've gone all the way to swing, we would probably say let's start with the rhythm of it first before even looking at the geometry of it. So there's just, again, I, strategy, skill, swing, and then what, even within swing, there's like. Energy and time. Right. Rhythm before we even ever get to the positions, right? Like

Eric 32:32

Right,

Rob 32:33

you're at a P four or P six, that's four things down the line that you need to be pretty well educated and have a framework of how to assess what's happening before you ever get into changing geometry. And I'm not saying I don't do that with clients, and I do, but it's certainly not the first, line of defense, if you will.

Eric 32:53

No, it's not. So let's get, let's get into it a little bit. What do you think the

Rob 32:56

Yeah, yeah, for sure.

Eric 32:58

like swingy swing, and you talked about, um, you talked about rhythm. I, I work probably more on rhythm now than ever, you know, I would say in the last couple years with students especially, you know what's funny? The better the player is, the more I work on'em,

Rob 33:17

A hundred percent. A hundred percent agree.

Eric 33:18

as

Rob 33:19

Yes.

Eric 33:20

as they're moving up into level two, really level three

Rob 33:24

Two to three. Yeah, it's a lot of that for sure.

Eric 33:27

I, I'm, I'm fortunate as, as you know, I work with a lot of

Rob 33:31

Yeah.

Eric 33:31

golf game, an inordinate amount, but also like an inordinate amount of really good

Rob 33:35

Yeah.

Eric 33:36

So two of my better players I was working with this week, probably both in the one's probably plus two, one's probably like plus four or five handicap, like really good competitive, like USGA competitive type players on the amateur side. And one was a short game lesson, one was a full swing lesson and we worked on rhythm. And one, like, it was just, and it's the spring, right? So a lot of times, in this time of year in Virginia, especially coming out of a month with ice on the ground, it's the thing to be working home with a lot of people. They're hitting, they're hitting some, some weird shots and they're seeing some weird stuff and easy to go to. Who knows, like, oh my gosh, I'm chunking my

Rob 34:18

Yeah.

Eric 34:18

be, we, it's gotta be weight shift, it's gotta be this, gotta be that. And I'm like, it's so off. It's off rhythm.

Rob 34:24

Yeah.

Eric 34:25

off rhythm them. Let's just work on that. So we use Tour Tempo a lot with my students. I don't know how much you use

Rob 34:30

Love it.

Eric 34:31

your

Rob 34:31

Yeah,

Eric 34:32

I'm a

Rob 34:32

yeah,

Eric 34:33

Love it. Um, and that's an app that you can get and you kind of find your rhythm on the app for lack of a better, like, I guess there's a timing to the how it, how it beeps and you find, um, they have some ways that you, you

Rob 34:45

yeah.

Eric 34:45

one that works for you and, there's different ways to train with it.

Rob 34:49

Yes, there are. Yeah.

Eric 34:51

I had a, I had a really, really, really good player who was not, I mean, the, we were trying to hit 15 yard carry wide shots and it was, it was, yeah. It was like, he's like, it's

Rob 35:03

Mm-hmm.

Eric 35:03

okay, now we're playing on dormant Bermuda. Like, like I said, we

Rob 35:07

Yeah. You're, you're, your short game areas there in the winter are dicey.

Eric 35:12

Yeah, I mean, it's.

Rob 35:13

Yeah.

Eric 35:14

uh, yeah. So all I said was, I said I, we could have, we could have worked on a hundred geometrical things to be honest. Like you could look at, if you'd have slowed

Rob 35:25

Yeah.

Eric 35:26

and looked at it frame by frame, like you're talking about positionally, it would've looked off. We didn't talk about any of that,

Rob 35:33

Yeah.

Eric 35:34

right. We talked about getting the tension out and swinging on rhythm and get, got the tour tempo back in his practice. He texted me the next day. He is like, I just had the best practice session I've

Rob 35:43

That's, that's awesome.

Eric 35:44

just all, it was perfect. So that was just tour

Rob 35:47

Mm-hmm.

Eric 35:47

just like finding the right rhythm in a short

Rob 35:49

Yeah.

Eric 35:50

on it. And then there's some freedom of that too,

Rob 35:52

Yes.

Eric 35:53

trying to work on positions with, with, with rhythm, that's not working for him, it, I don't care what positions you work on,

Rob 36:01

Yeah. So a hundred percent, and I, I just wanna say a lot of. The geometry. So we talk about swinging within energy, time, and geometry, like energy, time and geometry. Basically make up the swing, right? Those are our three main options. Geometry is very, very much shot dependent. If you're, if you're working on a geometry thing, like a position thing, the question you need to ask is for what shot, right? Because as soon as you change the shot, a bunch of geometry stuff probably should change, right? So, so we don't go there first. That's not really, and there are some geome geometric things like your grip, how you're holding it, the posture, how you're standing, that stuff is, is high, high up there for me. I will go geometry first when it comes to that stuff for sure. But you know, energy and time is more often than not kind of where we go. So within that like energy is also. There's kind of how you're applying energy, which is a big deal. And then there's how much you're applying energy. But then time is, is really broken up into tempo and, and rhythm. Right? And that's kind of what we talk a lot about is that's more of gonna be the constant, like energy's gonna

Eric 37:15

Okay, so, so

Rob 37:16

Yes.

Eric 37:17

describe to the listener, we've done this a long

Rob 37:20

No, I'm, yeah.

Eric 37:21

brilliantly before. Please describe what the definition

Rob 37:25

Yes. Yeah,

Eric 37:26

it's like so confusing for people.

Rob 37:28

So when we go into time, right, we have, we have tempo and rhythm, and I think a lot of people confuse the two and they lump them together as being the same things. They are not, when it comes to a golf swing, context tempo would be essentially the speed of it. I, I shouldn't even really say speed. It's the number of really beats per minute, right? So if I were to. Take the, the, the amount of time a swing takes, right? The total amount of swing time is essentially gonna be the tempo. So is your swing kind of here or is it here? Right. Those are two different tempos. And you'll see, on the Tour Tempo app, I always laugh because they call it, um, they go through the different, like 21 7, uh, 28, whatever, uh, 20. I, I can't do mental math right now on the podcast. Is that what I'm starting to learn? But, um, it's all three to one, but then they, they will call them, the tempos, the three to one tempo. It's like, no, it's not. That's rhythm. Okay. Because rhythm is a ratio of time, right? It's a pattern of time, right? So we can say like, there's an amount of time the club is taking in the backswing. And then there's an amount of time the club is taking from the top of the swing to the ball, right? And you'll, you'll see like the, the rhythm on long game shots tends to be three-ish to one, really two and a half, to three and a half to one on highly established ball strikers. Like tour pros are gonna be three and a half to two and a half to one. That's why I say three-ish. Like, don't ever let someone tell you you have to be exactly three to one. You do not. But then there's also short game, which tends to be two-ish to one, right? So one and a half to two and a half to one, meaning a, the amount of time the club. So for full swing, the amount of club that the amount of time the club is taking in the backswing direction is about three times the amount it's gonna take from the top of the backswing to the ball. Interestingly enough, if you take the ball away and you measure the backswing time relative to the entire downswing and follow through time, they're roughly similar. Across all shots, like with, again, highly established ball strikers. So if, if we said Hey, your backswing is gonna be three syllables, like Virginia, your entire downswing, and follow through to the club stops at the end of your finish is gonna be about three syllables. So Virginia. Virginia, right. And that would be a kind of like a nice rhythm, right? Whereas if you were like Virginia Cat, right, and your entire downswing and follow through took one syllable. Right, the word cat, that would be a different rhythm and a rhythm that we probably wouldn't super recommend. But the research does show that it's the consistency of the rhythm that is incredibly highly correlated to proficiency in ball striking. The more consistent your rhythm is, basically the, the higher likelihood you can develop skill on top of it. So if, if the rhythm that you're bringing is the same basically to every single shot, guess what? You can take that same rhythm and you can learn to locate the bottom of the swing arc, the face relative to the path, and then the club speed impact relative to the shot you have. Right? So again, tempo is the amount of swing time, the number of beats per minute. The, i, again, I don't like saying speed of it, because that's different., Especially when we're talking about the skill, right? Speed is an amount of momentum at impact.

Eric 41:10

Hmm.

Rob 41:10

It's really the amount of time, tempo is the amount of time your swing takes, is your swing taking it. And again, that's not correlated really strongly at all to the amount of clip at speed. You can create an impact. You can have someone with a one syllable swing like a John Rom, where it's like their ba the back swing is John again. One syllable, the entire downswing and fall through is rom one syllable and can create 120 miles an hour club at speed. You can also have someone with a three syllable, swing where the backswing takes three syllables and the entire downswing and fall through, takes three syllables, and then also create 120 miles per hour club at speed. Right? So that's not super correlated. But what is is, again, not the tempo'cause there's tons of different tempos, but they do stay relatively consistent. The thing that super stays consistent is the rhythm, which again, is the pattern of time, the, the ratio of time in the backswing relative to the ratio of, of time in the downswing and follow through.

Eric 42:07

Mm-hmm. And that's why I like training with Tor tempo. You can get that consistency of pattern, you know, going. So I have one, one really good player that likes to train at actually a slower tempo on Tor tempo than he

Rob 42:22

Yeah.

Eric 42:22

'cause it helps him slow

Rob 42:24

Cool. Yeah.

Eric 42:25

he, he just so he warms up though, I should say it this way, he warms up that way, at least in his early warmup. And he just finds

Rob 42:31

That's cool.

Eric 42:31

but, but to be able to sort of backdoor it and just consistently have something that helps you, gives you a concrete feel of I know what I'm playing well at. This is what it, this is

Rob 42:44

Yeah,

Eric 42:44

out is really helpful in my opinion. Right.

Rob 42:48

a hundred percent.

Eric 42:48

This is, again, it's like this is universal to good golfers. This is, this isn't

Rob 42:55

Yeah.

Eric 42:56

and you could look at came young, his rhythm is interesting,

Rob 42:59

Super consistent.

Eric 43:01

But it's extremely

Rob 43:02

Yes. Does it the same way every single time? Yes.

Eric 43:06

Right. And so that really helps. Did he have that, I guess you played with him as a junior golfer. Was it always like that big, slow

Rob 43:15

Yes. Mm-hmm.

Eric 43:16

ripped the

Rob 43:17

Yeah,

Eric 43:17

Yeah,

Rob 43:18

yeah,

Eric 43:18

I figured it

Rob 43:19

yeah.

Eric 43:20

probably just always

Rob 43:21

That stuff ain't changing with the best players in the world, that general rhythm is not changing. Now the short game rhythm is a little bit different. So this is what we talk about. Like golfers are typically, especially through level three, are either really good at speeding the ball up or slowing the ball down, right? So two to one rhythm is really great at slowing the ball down. Three to one rhythm's really great at speeding the ball up. The best player is level four, I believe. Get there, get to level four in no small part because they're pretty darn good at speeding it up and slowing it down. And so their three to one rhythm is incredibly consistent and their two to one con rhythm is incredibly consistent.

Eric 44:01

Mm-hmm.

Rob 44:03

tricky., I'm telling you like coaching this stuff, it is very tricky because you get someone really good at three to one and guess what? That's all they wanna do with short game. You get someone really good two to one. Guess what? That's all they wanna do in long game, right? So there, there are intricacies to that. That's actually gonna be in my presentation at Codebreakers retreat. So shameless plug, in October, I'm actually gonna talk about the, a lot and Sean Kennedy, my buddy too, is gonna talk about the differences in how to coach three to one versus two to one rhythm. And,

Eric 44:31

oh,

Rob 44:31

Tour tempo is actually gonna be a part of that. Right. Uh, and like you said, like there are different ways to, to coach it and there are ways that we see people use it that are great and ways that we see people use it, that are not so great. So, um, but but yeah. Sorry. Kind of backtracking to your point. Yes. That is the kind of the universal constant for sure. The rhythm.

Eric 44:53

And so as we improve a golf rhythm becomes, I don't know if just better is the right word, more consistent for sure. there's more ownership in the

Rob 45:05

Yeah.

Eric 45:06

I would say, like that. That's leading to freedom

Rob 45:08

Yep.

Eric 45:09

And I know that we correlate, you and I had a big, long discussion about golf swing face-to-face, maybe

Rob 45:15

Mm-hmm.

Eric 45:15

ago, six. Was it before the ice storm?

Rob 45:18

No, it was after. Yeah.

Eric 45:21

Oh.'cause we were, were we in simulators that day? No,

Rob 45:24

Yes. Mm-hmm. Yeah. There were indoor sims. Yeah.

Eric 45:26

we were in, we were indoors. So we had a long discussion about golf swing stuff. And about rhythm. We talked about posture. We talked about tension.

Rob 45:41

Yes.

Eric 45:42

These are the, these are the universal things,

Rob 45:45

Yeah.

Eric 45:45

like outside of that, it's like, it depends. It depends.

Rob 45:51

It depends on the shot. Yes, exactly.

Eric 45:53

I see

Rob 45:54

Yes.

Eric 45:54

see these. I, okay, so I see these golf. Okay. I'm, I'm gonna start ranting a little bit.

Rob 45:59

Here we go.

Eric 46:00

These hard truths, okay? is the perfect backswing. seen these, I send them

Rob 46:07

Yes.

Eric 46:07

I think they're ridiculous, right? Because, well, Nancy Lopez didn't do that.

Rob 46:12

right?

Eric 46:13

maybe the, the greatest female golfer of all time. Okay. Um, Jack

Rob 46:19

Yeah.

Eric 46:19

didn't do

Rob 46:20

Scotty Scheffler doesn't do anything

Eric 46:23

most

Rob 46:23

You.

Eric 46:24

Well, no. Scotty Scheffler does a, everything we talk

Rob 46:28

Yes. Oh, yeah. Yeah. He doesn't,

Eric 46:30

see what

Rob 46:30

yeah, yeah, yeah,

Eric 46:31

Yeah. So Scotty's the poster Boy, thing about Tiger, I would say fair to say that Scotty's the best, most dominant golfer since

Rob 46:40

yeah.

Eric 46:41

I think that's just straight up, fair to say. And the thing with Tiger is he had the beautiful

Rob 46:49

Yes, he did. Which was a blessing and a curse for us. That's for sure. Because this, because I don't mean to cut you off from your rant, but the geometry is what everyone sees. It's, it's the thing. It's the thing that is the most obvious to look at. Yeah.

Eric 47:07

And they correlate that to his greatness.

Rob 47:09

Yep.

Eric 47:10

Like, no, I mean, tiger changed, everyone knows he changed it pretty significantly. Four times. Four. Did he win majors with four very different kind of looking swings, right? What did he, were the, what were the foundational truths of all that? Did Tiger's grip ever

Rob 47:27

Nope.

Eric 47:29

His posture changed a little bit. I will say that that moved around a little bit back pain and different things that he was trying to do. Maybe undo, maybe, shouldn't have

Rob 47:41

Yeah.

Eric 47:41

Um, so I will bet you his mindset didn't change very much. Right? Not that that's part of swing, but it kind

Rob 47:50

Oh, it super is. We can get into that.

Eric 47:53

it kind of is. So these are the universal truths, right? And so if you're tuning in going like, Eric, just tell me where my right elbow goes. I can't answer that for you because it's just whatever I tell you is disingenuous. If you come for a lesson and we see things in your swing that we think are lending you towards having a bias that isn't helping you, we

Rob 48:15

Yeah,

Eric 48:15

it. Right? This is, this is what we're trying to say. This is not a, Hey, every swing works and you just gotta believe and smile and you'll be great at golf. It does not work

Rob 48:23

yeah,

Eric 48:23

That is not

Rob 48:24

yeah,

Eric 48:25

That gentleman that came in the other day was never gonna hit the ball high or anything, but to the

Rob 48:30

yeah.

Eric 48:30

until he had a pretty serious swing change, right? and we, we do that stuff all the

Rob 48:35

Mm-hmm.

Eric 48:36

like you said, a lot of that is working through it with just trying to build them up, um, to a certain place and then try to lean

Rob 48:44

Mm-hmm.

Eric 48:44

right? Build a little belief. Build a little skill, get a little routine going

Rob 48:48

Totally.

Eric 48:48

like believe in yourself for a little

Rob 48:50

It's like you gotta ask yourself the question is what they're doing allowing, like what's their, what's their capacity to create? Enough club head speed in a safe way for, for their goals and this is the big thing with beginner golfers is they keep tension in their arms like crazy. They ke they do not move pressure from below their like

Eric 49:15

Mm.

Rob 49:15

belt basically. Like it all say like, um, and just with what they're doing, it is like, you can tell they're just selling out on making sure they don't miss the golf ball basically. Right? But it's like, okay, you can make contact doing that, but you create no club head speed doing that, right? So then it's like, yeah, we gotta make a big change. Like we gotta teach you how to shift pressure very similar to how you walk. We gotta get your rib cages going back and forth. We got to get the arms swinging, rotating, folding, get tension outta the forearms, shoulders, wrists kind of stuff. Then to get the club swinging and rotating fast around their body so that they can play. Right. But it's like, aside from that, it's gonna be like you said, if they, if they have enough efficiency and enough speed and they can access those skills, that totally like, let's lean into this thing. Let's develop strategy. Let's continuing to, to develop skill on top of what we're doing, right. Try to keep stuff as consistent as we can.

Eric 50:15

Yeah. And I think some of the things that will hinder golfers, trends that we see, and I think, be honest, I'm not trying to be critical because you can help, you can help golfers in certain ways, but sometimes in the way that you help, some golfers can hinder other

Rob 50:31

Hundred percent.

Eric 50:32

right? So you have to be a little bit careful when you teach. Methodology, I would say. Okay. So some of the trends that I find, that can be conflicting to students' growth, I should say, is the way I'm trying to put this right, like maybe it could help, maybe it can't. Depends on how their mind works. Depends on how their body works. Depends on what their skillset is like. the if then propositions, like, if you do this, then you

Rob 51:00

Hundred percent. Yeah.

Eric 51:02

Anything that's anytime anybody says you have to do something, it's probably pro, I'm making a generality, but it's probably not true. Okay. then if you believe them,'cause they're making a good, you know, there's some, they look like, they sound like they're credible and they say you have to do this. you could probably find really good golfers that don't do that thing.

Rob 51:22

Yep.

Eric 51:23

Um, and then the other one is like, if you're this, then you have to be this and that belief system's just as tricky because it's like. Oh, because I do this, I have to do

Rob 51:33

Mm-hmm.

Eric 51:33

be good at golf. And then they just believe in that. And I don't think that's necessarily true either.

Rob 51:38

Yeah.

Eric 51:38

We're trying to, we're trying to get our students to develop above all that stuff actually. That's just like minutiae, that's bogs people down in their development. Like if we can get above that and work on stuff, like a lot of that stuff comes together and we don't have to really worry about it. Right? So like, the longer you teach and the more you efficiently you teach, the more you skip out, you skip across a lot of this stuff, right? You figure out what is this person probably gonna develop without me having to have them come, you know, work on it in some complex way, right? That's really gonna maybe set their development backwards, right? So that's the way that people are gonna tend to push their development forward. these belief systems is just like you. if I'm like this, then I have to do that. It just, I just drives me crazy in a

Rob 52:26

Yeah.

Eric 52:27

Yes, there's certain things that some people are gonna do better than others based on body shape or anatomy or, or whatever. that does not have to be the be all,

Rob 52:37

No, no. Like getting

Eric 52:39

Athleticism still plays a role in

Rob 52:41

a hundred percent and like getting into some of the mental stuff, so many golfers are like figuratively, like walking a tight rope 24 7 with their golf swing, right? So they believe I have to, I must do X, Y, Z with my golf swing, and if I don't, I have got no chance of playing the way I want to play. And it just could not be further from the truth. If you actually look at, and, um, hunter actually had a, has a really good, um, presentation with his students that, that I really like quite a bit when he talks about how many different geometries do you see in the Hall of Fame, right? Quite a bit, right? Hall of fame's littered with what you would think of as like, quote unquote, like bag golf swings. And then on PGA tour, like if you look at the geometry, yes, there are things that they all do relatively similarly. So I'm not gonna discredit that. But when you look at like the big geometry aspects of like where the club is in different points in the swing, at the top right, early back, like there are, there's so much variability to that now. That's to get on tour. That's the amount of geometry variability that is possible to play on PGA tour. Now let's think about how many, how much variability is possible to be scratch, right? That goes up quite a bit.

Eric 54:15

I would say way

Rob 54:16

a bit.

Eric 54:17

infinity.

Rob 54:18

let's think about your average, like your, I hate saying average. No one's average, but like, let's think about your like 15, 12 handicap that's obsessed with golf, right? And just wants to look, swing, swing, swing. How much variability is possible to be an eight or a seven, right? Like when you start to think about it, it's like as soon as someone says, well, yeah, I'm doing this with my right hip. Like what? The first thing is, I'm kind of thinking about like, especially if it's like a 15 handicap is why do I care? Like why do I care? Like what your, you know what I mean?, Let's, let's, let's just make sure like from, from a skill standpoint, you're, you're creating. You know, momentum, you're swinging freely. Like you're creating enough speed to be able to play, you're able to do that consistently. And then let's just go get after skill as much as we possibly can.

Eric 55:08

Mm-hmm.

Rob 55:08

Um,'cause there's just so much freaking variability. I don't think I will ever with, you know, tell someone that this position of the, at the top of the swing or early, but this takeaway or this like, you know, whatever. They have to do that.'cause you don't, like, there's so many, there's so much variability in what you can do to, if you're listening to this, very likely a level two golfer. Even to get like beginning of level three to where you're averaging 76, there's so much variability. You are not walking a tight rope with your golf swing, I promise you. And if a coach is making you feel like you've got a list of four or five things that you have to do to be able to play well or hit the shot that you want, then. I don't know what to say. I don't wanna tell you to see a different coach, but I might be kind of telling you You need to think about it a little bit.

Eric 55:59

Okay, so let's go back in time to our interview with Sasha McKenzie. I was thinking about this the other day, and I think it was you that brought up, or maybe it was me, one of us saw this story about when he worked with Matthew Fitzpatrick. Right. And

Rob 56:17

yeah,

Eric 56:18

McKenzie, the smartest person in golf swing. Whatever you wanna call it, right? He literally, he really literally defined energy in the swing, essentially, right? He, he, he could say, he, did he say on our show? I could tell you every source of every mile an hour clip, head

Rob 56:37

Yes,

Eric 56:38

your swing.

Rob 56:38

yes.

Eric 56:39

He said

Rob 56:39

Yeah. No, he can figure it out. Yeah.

Eric 56:42

Okay. So when he, when Matthew Fitzpatrick asked him for help to gain speed in his, like, I need work on my swing. Did Scio say, here's the answer

Rob 56:52

Nope.

Eric 56:53

he did not. said, here's some options. Here's a bunch of options. I want you to read over these options and tell me which ones make most sense to you. Is it, am I

Rob 57:03

Yes. You know, that's exactly what happened. Yes.

Eric 57:06

Okay, top player in the world, top smartest person in the world when it comes probably to golf swing stuff in a lot of ways, right? He's right there with anybody. And he didn't say, here's the answer, isn't that crazy? said, here's a bunch of stuff we could, here's a bunch of

Rob 57:25

Yep.

Eric 57:26

and what do you feel like you're most comfortable with? Okay, so let's listen to like, let's listen to the

Rob 57:32

Literally

Eric 57:32

a second.

Rob 57:33

The top.

Eric 57:34

to the

Rob 57:34

Yes.

Eric 57:36

for a second. Okay. So he's very busy, creating companies that do great things and doing research and whatever he is doing and working for Ping. So like that's where he spends his time and working with great players. Let's listen to what he says. Okay, not listen to some dude with a hoodie who's

Rob 57:57

Man,

Eric 57:59

man, you should do

Rob 58:00

don't, don't rag on hoodies, dude. Come on.

Eric 58:05

I'm

Rob 58:05

I know. I know.

Eric 58:06

it's pretty clear, If you've never heard their name, then they, they're, and they're spending all their time making videos for Instagram. They're probably not teaching all day long. Right. So there, there's a, the rise of the swing guru is crazy to me. Like this, these random people who just, they just think they know everything.

Rob 58:23

gatekeeper of, of, yeah.

Eric 58:26

before. They don't teach golf. They just think they know everything. Right. point being, I'm kind of ranting, listen to the smart people. If sho think there's, if Sho thinks there's options, there's options, right? If Butch Harmon says, you know what? There's some truths, but you can get this done looking like Justin Johnson. You can get this done looking like Tiger Woods and you can get this done looking like Ricky Fowler. Let's listen to Butch Harmon, right? Maybe the greatest coach of all time. So there's just this, I think as, as our eyes have been drawn to. Things like Instagram, right? Where everything's about the visual, this is what you see, right? This is the thing, this is the thing that you see, and it draws us towards the positions and it draws us towards this stuff. And it gets us away from, I would say, the fundamental truths about the game. Like, okay, we gotta develop a really good athletic way to stand and hold the club, right? We gotta manage the tension in our body the right way. We've gotta be able to, like you said, I gotta be able to somehow move

Rob 59:35

Great energy. Yeah.

Eric 59:37

right? I saw a swing the other day where really good player, former D one golfer, but not creating a lot of energy swing looked like. You watch it swinging and you go like, he's swinging hard, right? And it was like 92 driver

Rob 59:51

Wow. Yeah.

Eric 59:53

no pressure. Pressure not

Rob 59:55

That's, yeah.

Eric 59:56

So he's just not creating the energy. That's what we worked on. So anyway, I know I'm ranting and I'm gonna try not to be critical, but I, I'm, so, I just want golfers to stay the course, work on the things that, really, really

Rob 1:00:11

Yep.

Eric 1:00:11

you know? And, and if you do that in a way that I think as efficient, you can get better at

Rob 1:00:19

Yeah,

Eric 1:00:19

and build the trust. But if you're constantly listening to a ton of voices, it's just tough. It's

Rob 1:00:24

totally.

Eric 1:00:24

Right.

Rob 1:00:25

And go back and listen to our skill episode because I think that's a huge, huge deal of what's gonna kind of keep you on track and staying the course is like, you are not gonna let one outcome or two outcomes or just shot outcomes in general, tell you that definitively it's my swing and I need to go searching for geometry solutions to my experiences. Right.

Eric 1:00:52

right,

Rob 1:00:52

Yeah,

Eric 1:00:53

right. All right, so what else with the swing, Rob, what else is on your mind today?

Rob 1:01:00

just trying to think yeah, I mean, I think we pretty well covered it. You know, I, I think we can, we can have. Especially when we do our, a driving or long game series, we'll get into a little bit more of like how we see pressure shifting, how we see energy being created. Um, you know, a lot of what we talked about kind of face to face, um, that day in, in Richmond. But, but no, from a, from a, you know, golf improvement theory, I think, I think those are, those are kind of the main key points for sure.

Eric 1:01:34

Golf improvement theory. Stay focused on what matters, try to block out what doesn't. And if you have that, if you have that line drawn, it really does help, doesn't it?

Rob 1:01:42

Yeah.

Eric 1:01:43

really helps. And just remember, it depends. There's no, there's not a lot of hard truths in the story, especially when it comes to what a swing looks like.

Rob 1:01:51

Yeah.

Eric 1:01:51

And, um, it can be, it can be in, it can be in a way to

Rob 1:01:56

Mm-hmm.

Eric 1:01:57

stuff and really try to to learn. You know, Scott recently gained a bunch of speed. His swing looks exactly the same,

Rob 1:02:05

Yes.

Eric 1:02:06

He said, he said he learned from Dr. Wan's

Rob 1:02:09

Mm-hmm.

Eric 1:02:11

This is Adam Scott we're talking about, right? Like he said, he learned his swing looks exactly the same. So why is he swinging faster? What does Dr. Kwan talk about? The things we just

Rob 1:02:21

Energy and time.

Eric 1:02:22

energy, energy and

Rob 1:02:24

Yep.

Eric 1:02:24

right? So these are the things that matter. Listen to the greats, listen to them. Listen to what they say. The smart people, the

Rob 1:02:30

Yep.

Eric 1:02:30

they say things and it matters. don't get distracted with going down the road of the new shiny idea.'cause it,

Rob 1:02:39

Yep.

Eric 1:02:40

send you into, it could send you into that tailspin where you're constantly chasing, sort of chasing your tail. And I wish I had more stories to tell

Rob 1:02:49

Well, that, that's a, that's a lead into, so again, our, our structure for TGI 2.0 is gonna be, Hey, this is the series. We're gonna do a strategy episode, a skill episode, and a swing episode. That last episode is gonna be some combination depending on the series of lessons from our lessons mailbag, and then maybe like a guest interview, right? So next episode, listen to this, get your questions in. Again, you can reach us on, on Instagram, at the golf intervention. Just DM us. And we'll put, you put your question in there, but we'll, we'll be talking about our experiences on the lesson team, what we're seeing and some of the real life stuff. And it should be a really fun episode when it comes to this, golf Improvement Theory series and kind of wrapping that up.

Eric 1:03:35

So if you've sent us a question, which we have gotten

Rob 1:03:38

I've got a real,

Eric 1:03:38

uh,

Rob 1:03:39

I forgot to tell you one actually, when we get off, I've got a really good one, for next time too, so yeah.

Eric 1:03:45

So we have, I would guess our next episode is gonna be the question and answer.

Rob 1:03:48

Yes,

Eric 1:03:49

if you wanna send us a question, the golf intervention@gmail.com is a place. We've gotten a few there. People have just come up and asked me a few questions with, I filed away. Robbie apparently has some, so we've got some questions to go over,

Rob 1:04:02

yes, we did.

Eric 1:04:03

There's a more than 0% chance we're gonna have an interview with one, literally one of the greatest golfers that's ever walked Planet Earth.

Rob 1:04:12

You said less than zero. I thought you were talking about like Jack Nicholas, like tiger. Yeah. Yeah. We're not, we're not getting them on the pod.

Eric 1:04:19

Ben, Ben Hogan. There's a less than zero

Rob 1:04:22

Yes.

Eric 1:04:23

Ben Hogan,

Rob 1:04:24

That's great

Eric 1:04:25

a more than zero chance

Rob 1:04:27

we actually are. Yes.

Eric 1:04:29

maybe one of the greatest players who's ever graced planet Earth. And it's, yeah. So that'll be cool if we can figure

Rob 1:04:35

Yeah.

Eric 1:04:36

Be super cool. A lot to learn from that gentleman. For

Rob 1:04:39

Yeah.

Eric 1:04:40

So guess this brings us to the end, and I think in summation, stay the course people, you know, work on your strategy. That's the best way to do it. Early in the season, if you're just coming outta the winter, I would say work on rhythm a lot. Work on the fundamental stuff. Make sure you feel like you're getting your general stance, your posture right, you're finding some rhythm, you're managing your attention. what you're gonna pay attention to in your swing. But on your skills, you know, do a little skill training. Short game, full swing. Strategies, the big deal. It helps us all be patient. If you're in a place that has dormant Bermuda grass as your short game,'cause it, I promise it'll

Rob 1:05:21

Yeah.

Eric 1:05:22

in a couple weeks and you'll be, game will get a lot easier. that's all I have for this evening and I thank you listener for tuning in. This has been a fun series for

Rob 1:05:31

Yes.

Eric 1:05:32

I like our new format and yeah, things are chugging along, so I just wanna say thanks.

Rob 1:05:38

Thank you.

Eric 1:05:38

in. That's it, Thanks for being on the

Rob 1:05:41

Yes, sir.

Eric 1:05:42

appreciate it. I hope you, sir, have a

Rob 1:05:45

Yep, you too. Have a good night. Yep.