My Golf Source
Attention Golf Enthusiasts! Level up your golf game with hosts Darren Penquite and Noah Horstman, PGA as they keep you up to date on the latest trends, equipment, training aids and more. Learn tips and tricks from PGA Professionals to lower your score and grow your love for the game of golf.
My Golf Source
My three-wood made par fives less toxic and my ego cried a little
We reset our fall golf game by swapping ego for strategy, dialing in iron contact, and turning par fives into birdie chances with three-wood first. We answer member questions on grip pressure, top-end gapping, wedge setups, and spin control through ball and driver fitting.
• breaking 80 by hitting center face and more greens in regulation
• course strategy with three-wood and play-the-hole-backwards planning
• red, yellow, green pin system to manage risk
• pressure practice using the programmable ladder drill
• process over proximity illustrated by a Ricky Fowler practice story
• grip pressure principles and hand roles for control
• fixing 7–4 iron gapping via blended sets and launch conditions
• specialty wedge fitting for 90–115 yard consistency
• ball selection, face control, and driver fit to manage spin
• junior pathway teaser with character skills that golf builds
Please make sure you include your phone number or your email so we can contact you
Welcome to the My Golf Source Podcast. Oh my goodness, welcome back to my golf source. I'm Darren. I'm Noah. So excited to be back. It's been a few weeks off, man.
SPEAKER_03:I know. We've taken some time for sure, but the weather's changing.
SPEAKER_04:Tournaments going on. What have you been up to for the last month?
SPEAKER_03:Man, just everything. We are crushing it here. Golf Drudge is starting to get in full swing. Rain's coming this weekend. Traveling with SOU golf. I don't know. It just keeps going. Golf league started back up again. It's busy. Playoffs tonight. Our team at it again. And you're number two. We're not no, you're no, we're like number four.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, we're like the last place team. We're number, my team, number one. Uh-huh. So we're playing each other. So far.
SPEAKER_03:Let's go. Bring it on. It's kind of like, yeah, I know, right? It's like FedEx Cup style. It doesn't matter as long as you get in, right? And we're playing Tory Pines. Well, and that's kind of in your neck of the woods down there. Have you been practicing? No. My last round was 300 par last week, though. That's kind of, I think, what got us going. I finally played a good round.
SPEAKER_04:So I've been on a goal to break 80.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:I shot an 80. So good. I'm this close. I'm there. I can taste it. I can feel it. I will do it this fall.
SPEAKER_03:I know you will. I know you will. It's so fun to see too. And Toby, uh, your son Toby loves to tell me about your rounds. And he said, like, how much better you're getting.
SPEAKER_04:So I we we played at Bar Run a couple of weeks ago up in Rosebird. And I was hitting seven iron through pitching wedge, and I was hitting darts. So why do you think that is? Um just practice grinding out, you know, keeping my getting that muscle memory built up of keeping your weight forward on your left foot, um, keeping your hands, keeping your hands ahead of the golf ball. So just being out there more. Being out there on the course more and being in the simulator and grinding out and figuring out my irons. I mean, my distances are spot on. And dude, I mean, realistically, like everybody else out there who doesn't play golf for a living, um you can hit an eight eight iron and go, okay, wow, I can hit this club 170 with with a 85-90% swing, but you only do that about 30% of the time because you don't hit the center of the club face, right? Right, right. So I'm hitting the center of the club face more often now.
SPEAKER_03:Good for you.
SPEAKER_04:And so my distance is instead of hitting it 140 to 170, I'm now more consistently hitting it 160 to 170. And so that's kind of getting that. That's a huge difference. That's awesome. A huge difference. And that is a big part of it because a lot of the time, you know, struggling, hitting greens in regulation is a big part of breaking 80, right? You gotta hit more greens in regulation. And I'd hit, you know, I'd shoot it with my rangefinder and be like, okay, I'm 165 out. That's an eight-iron, and I'd hit my eight iron 140. And I'd be short, and then having to chip. And you know, the same frustrations as everybody and their mother who's listening to this podcast experiences, right?
SPEAKER_03:Oh, yeah, without question. There's so many experiences out there. It'd be uh, you know, it just seems to me like it's every lesson that's a new lesson, is the goal is I want to be more consistent. We've talked about that, I think one of the first podcasts about consistency, and it's like, define that for me. What does that mean to you? What that means to you isn't what it means to the next person, right? Everyone's consistency is different, right? Embarrassment, right? I just don't want to be embarrassed in the numbers. It takes too long. I just I just need to get done, right? And the funny thing is, is if you have a good round golfing, you don't care how long it actually takes. It's when you're not playing good that you're like, I could be doing this, or I could be spending time with my family, or I could be doing the other things. Closing a business deal right now all day.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, exactly. I wasted this time, and and no, it's it's different. I'll tell you what, my idea of consistency is knowing how far I hit my clubs and doing that consistently. Uh my idea of consistency is bringing it into somewhat of a reasonable window left to right. You know, shot shape, usually shot shape. I mean, listen, and I'll tell you another big secret. I put my driver away. Oh, thank you. I didn't hit it on the course at all. And you hit it far enough that you don't need it. And I hit my three wood 235 to 250.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. And the average length golf course that you're playing is probably somewhere between 6100 and 6400. Absolutely. So your average par four is gonna be under 400 yards. You're in a 250, you're gonna have 150 in, which means you have a nine iron in your hand. Absolutely. Or less.
SPEAKER_04:I'm gonna say or an eight, or even if I'm hitting a seven iron, I'm hitting my irons really well. And you know what? I used to only hit my four iron to punch out from under trees and you know, get myself out of trouble. Now I hit my four iron on the fairway. Love it. And I hit my four hybrid a whole heck of a lot less. Those hybrids are amazing how they help off light. They are, but I find myself with my current swing and swinging with a lot more confidence. I find myself better off with a four-iron than a hybrid right now.
SPEAKER_03:So, how hard was it for you to put driver away? Because obviously you've been playing golf for years, and this is probably one of the first times you've ever done it.
SPEAKER_04:That it was a tough pill to swallow. And and on some of the par fives, I'm not gonna lie, I'm like, I got my driver out of my bag, I walked up to the T-box, and I'm like, who am I kidding? So I walk back and I switch it out for my three-wood, and I'm like on a par five. If there's any hole to not hit a driver and be able to reach the green in regulation, it's on a par five. Right? Especially when you can pump a three-wood out 235, 240.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, and I mean, I think what you have to realize is you're putting yourself into a place that your third shot you can hit close. So using golf garage as much as you do, you gotta find out what your favorite club is and hit it to that yardage more often and play the hole backwards. Play the hole backwards, explain that. Yeah, so play the hole backwards. So what you're looking at is where's the whole location around the green? What kind of trouble is there around that green complex? And I always play red light, yellow light, green light. So I'm, you know, when I'm playing it backwards, I'm like, hey, a red light pin is going to be something where there is a penalty area close by. The pin is most likely tucked close to the edge of the green. There's bunkers that are deep around that pin. And so you play away from the hole. A yellow light might be that one of those factors is in the equation. Maybe it's long, you can't go, or you can't go right. And so, yet again, you're playing a little more conservative away from the hole, but you can be a little more aggressive than a red light pin. And a green light pin is just fire away. It's a center pin, not a lot of slope to the green and whatnot. So, what's unique about that is when you play the hole backwards, if it's a right hole location and it's a dog leg to the right, you need to be as far left on your T shot as you can to access the pin on the right. So you're playing the hole backwards, knowing where that location may be. Or if it's a front hole location on a short hole and it leaves you 40 yards out with driver, and that's an awkward yardage for you because the holes up front, you're probably going to be better off hitting three wood or three iron on the T and leaving yourself a full shot into that front hole location. So you can control spin. You can go after the pin then give yourself 100 yards out. So just knowing and understanding hole locations, playing the hole backwards, um, you know, and then that red, uh, red light, yellow light, green light concept, super helpful in course strategy. And then once you have a plan, more than likely you're not going to think about out of bounds anymore because you're like, my plan is to do this, and that's why you play better.
SPEAKER_04:Of course. That makes a lot of sense. And another thing that I know we're all guilty of is par five. So we want to get there in two. We want to hit the ball as far as we can on our first shot. We want to hit the ball as far as we can on our second shot. In reality, if we want to set ourselves up for success, the likelihood of a par or a birdie is far greater on a par five. Well, I think and so let's play it strategically. Let's put our ego back in the bag, aka driver. The big dog. And let's and and let's play this course to get as close to the pin as we can in three.
SPEAKER_03:Well, I think it's interesting that you said that. When we get to the par five, we like to think about going for it in two. And so that's not part of anybody's process that's any good, right? Because you're already thinking about the score you want to make before you've even teed off. And so what we need to think about is yes, I would love to make a four, I'd love to make a three, I'd love to make a two on a par five, right? Because ultimately, if I can get there in two, that means I could make a two. But people don't think that way either. They're just like, I should make birdie here because it's a par five and I hit it far enough. Well, now you're thinking about the expectation, you hit one bad shot, and most likely you're gonna make uh, you know, par or bogey or worse because you press to make birdie because that's what you told yourself you should have done. So instead, you need to backtrack and say, hey, look, I know I can make a birdie on this hole. That's great. Now, what's the process first? I've got to hit a T shot over here, right? And the only focus at that point moving forward is my T shot going to you know, left center of the fairway to give myself an opportunity to avoid some trees on the right or whatever that may be for that hole. And then you're thinking about, okay, what's the conservative aggressive play to knock it on and two? Because maybe there's a bunker I can't go in. Because if I go in that bunker, I'm definitely making par because the lip is so deep or whatever, right? So I think that's kind of the direction is, and I still make birdie even from the fairway, certainly can, right? So you're always thinking about chess instead of you know anything else. Right.
SPEAKER_04:With how I'm hitting my shorter irons right now, if I can put myself inside of 130, chances of going up and down are pretty good.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, absolutely.
SPEAKER_04:Inside of 130, and that's a birdie opportunity on a par five.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, without question.
SPEAKER_04:So if my second shot can put me at 125, 130 out, I've got a good birdie opportunity.
SPEAKER_03:Well, the other thing for you is you're starting to play good enough golf because your ball striking is good that it's always going to be about speed or distance control. So whether it's putting distance control or it's distance control with your iron. So you need to really work hard on inside of 125 because it's it's virtually proven now with stats that 70% of your score is inside of 125, which is your wedge game and below.
SPEAKER_04:And that is where my game has improved the most, thus drop my score, you know, several strokes.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, without question. I mean, any good player is going to be working on ladder drills left and right where you work at, you know, let's just say it's a five-yard ladder drill where you go 50, 50, 5, 60, 60, 570, right? And they're gonna hit multiple balls from those spots and try to get it to a certain distance on the green.
SPEAKER_04:Tell us about the new ladder drill that's available on the sim.
SPEAKER_03:Oh, it's awesome. Yeah. So the sim we found out today actually has TGL on it and it has almost 1800 golf courses on it. It's got the Dubai Desert Classic course on it now. So we're going all over the place with GS Pro. Um, but ladder drill is super cool. And um, it was the one thing I felt like we were missing was you would almost have to come up with some of your own ladder drills, but we now have the ability to um basically program the drill to what we want it to be based on distance from the hole to move up ladder. Um, you can actually do a ladder to where you move back down the ladder rung or have to start over on the ladder if you don't accomplish a shot. So when we talk about practicing the right way, we always talk about how do we create a course environment, right? Well, in a course environment, you get one opportunity off of whatever shot that is on that hole to be successful. Well, this is really putting that kind of pressure back on you, right? And and and then when somebody is struggling in a certain yardage, if they can get past that ladder rung, it just builds so much confidence. And we know that we fail a lot more than we're successful. And and that could mean something as simple as I hit the 65 yard shot, 65 yards, but it still felt bad. So to a really exceptional golfer, that's a failure because it felt bad and they wanted to feel like a perfect golf shot. But to an average player, they may not know what it feels like to hit it off of the heel or the toe, and all they care about is where the ball ended up.
SPEAKER_04:The truth is the PGA tour players hit golf shots all the time that give them the ultimate result of what they want, but the golf shot didn't feel good. Didn't have the shot shape that they wanted, it didn't have the spin or the distance that they wanted, but ultimately when the ball hit the ground and rolled out because it didn't have the spin they wanted, they ended up getting the distance and the placement that they wanted.
SPEAKER_03:That's a great point. Um, quick story. I'm at the Waste Management Phoenix Open practice round at TPC Scottsdale, and I've got my wife and my brand new baby girl when Emma was. Oh, is this the diaper incident that you told me about? Yeah. So same time as a diaper incident, but there was a few golfers I wanted to see. I wanna see Tiger, of course, but uh always really enjoyed Ricky Fowler and I always thought he was great because I got to follow him inside the rope. Oh, dude, he can stand that it's like stash, no stash, orange pants, whatever, right? So we get up to I think it's the number one handicap hole on the back nine, and there's water down the whole left side, and it's a pretty long hole, so they're hitting more of a seven, six, five iron end, depending on the player. And I remember watching Ricky hit this shot to 15 feet right over the flag in the practice round. And I'm like, wow, that was a gutsy play where that pin was kind of close to the water, and you know, you watch body language a lot um as you want to figure out what the tour players are doing, just because they're like anyone else, they're human, and the cameras always, you know, go away from them, and sometimes you see a little bit more in practice around what they like or they don't like, and it was pretty cool. Sure enough, he hits this golf shot and he doesn't even watch it land, and he's already talking to his caddy, and he's like, Give me another ball. And his caddy gets behind him and videotapes him, and he hits another golf shot, and he hits it about 20 feet right of that one. So it's almost the equivalent of 30 to 40 feet away from that hole. And he looks at his caddy, and I remember hearing him say, That's what I wanted to do, right? So ultimately, from a crowd perspective, we see him flag hunt this flag, and it was an amazing golf shot from where he was, but the swing wasn't what he was trying to accomplish, and therefore he's like, Give me a ball right away, and then he hits the shot, looks at the video and says, That's what I wanted. So he didn't even care that he was 40 more feet away. And I think where the average golfer gets into trouble is they care so much about going after the flag or being close, right? That their score goes up because they don't know how to manage that.
SPEAKER_04:Right. So my son Toby, I came in last on Saturday morning after he was done with his high school practice, and I watched him playing this ladder drill on the simulator, and I was blown away. I'm like, where did this come from? And then he said, Well, Ryan said it was brand new, and he got me set up on it, and this is part of my practice today. And he did really, really well at it. And I told him, Okay, you have to do that every day. I bring you in here now. Um, so we have a members tip line that people can call into and ask golf questions to us. Uh, my son called into this uh tip line to ask his question.
SPEAKER_00:Hey guys, this is Toby. I have a question about grip. What is the proper grip pressure and is right or left hand grip more important?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, great question, Toby. Um, and you know, in working with you, I think, you know, it's interesting because you're starting to mature and you're starting to hit the ball a lot farther. So let's kind of go into that. Grip pressure is unique because at address, if you're gripping it too tight, they call it the death grip or whatever, if you will, it's gonna create tension up your arms, um, up into your shoulders, and it's going to make it tougher to actually make a motion or a turn, right? So create lag. Yeah, any of that, right? So I think at the end of the day, what you'll want to look at more than anything is each player is slightly different. The type of grip they have on the club is going to be slightly different. Some players have a little stronger grip than others. You're very rarely going to find a weak grip. But what happens is the harder you swing, okay. Think of it as tugawar, the harder you swing, the harder you're gonna have to hold on to the handle or it's gonna fly out. So they don't really teach you that. I've heard things like hold on to it like it's a baby's hand or it's a baby bird or all this stuff. I'm like, you still have to hold on to the club. And if you're swinging over a hundred miles an hour, your grip is going to naturally get tighter, otherwise, the club's gonna fly out of your hands. So I think what you have to get into is the idea of tension defeats motion. So you want to hold it tight enough that you're not gonna let it fly out. But understand that as you start creating speed, right? Now all of a sudden, that grip pressure will naturally tighten, and there's nothing.
SPEAKER_04:So you want to hold on to it just enough to not throw the club. And it's funny I think with your left hand. Yeah, you're a right-handed golfer.
SPEAKER_03:There you go. And I think also this is the funny thing, too, right? You have a cross-handed golfer. There's grips. We have a junior golfer that's doing that right now. There was a 75-year-old that I used to play with that cross-handed grip, and he would literally shoot 74 to 77 every time at Centennial when he played. Um, Gene Nemani was awesome. But, you know, what we're looking for more than anything is finding a feel that works for you. And that's something that can't necessarily be taught. What we do as coaches is say, you know, look, feel isn't real half the time. But when we're talking about grip, you have to continue to dig it out of the dirt to say, man, that felt good. And then it's your job as a player to find the awareness of what that grip pressure was that worked for you because potting is going to feel different than chipping. I remember reading a book that Tiger wrote that on faster greens you have lighter grip pressure. Well, I tried it, it worked great for me. But other players may disagree. Well, it never feels like I'm gripping it lighter. I'm always gripping, I'm actually gripping it tighter. And so that's the relative part of this: left hand versus right hand. Left hand's the driver, left side's the driver, right? That's the engine, that's the motor. The right hand is the stability. Um, it's the stabilizer of the club face. And so for a right-handed golfer, so that's what we have to right remember.
SPEAKER_04:And for a left hand, the left hand is your hold on to the club and not throw it. Your right hand is your steering wheel.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, you could say it that way for sure. And then I mean, there's even drills where I'll take the right hand off at impact just to get someone to continue their rotation. And so there's things like that that you can do. And I mean, ultimately, what I think is really fun if you want to find your grip pressure, is hit a ball with just your right hand, hit a ball with just your left hand, and use your wedges, and that's gonna give you a pretty good idea.
SPEAKER_04:I love that. Good job. Let's go to our next question. What's up, Nate?
SPEAKER_01:Hey guys, I seem to have pretty consistent gapping from the bottom of my bag through about seven iron. And at seven, seven, six, five, and four all tend to carry about the same uh distance, just carrying different ball flights. And I'm wondering what's uh an area of the swing that I could work on to tidy, tidy that up a little bit and maybe extend the length on the top end of the bag.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, hey, thanks for the question, Nate. I think there's a lot going on here. Um, and we see this all the time as we fit people for clubs. So I'm gonna steer a little bit away from the swing side of things um and engage more in the top end of what the set makeup is. And I know Nate has the same set all the way through, I believe, is what we had talked to him about before. So um what we're looking for more than anything is launch conditions in this situation. And it sounds like they're going the same distance, and then maybe the flight is coming down, diving out of the sky as he gets less and less loft. So seven, six, five, four, and so on. The other thing that happens is the club length changes. And as you get into a four-iron, it's quite a bit longer than your seven iron. And so what's nice is at least he knows that that's where he starts to struggle. And so what we look at from a fitting perspective is that, you know, based on the type of club you're playing, there's typically an alternative that will allow you to launch it higher. And if the ball stays in the air longer because you've launched it higher and it's still moving forward, then most likely your carry numbers will be better. And then in this situation, that's kind of what we're looking at is the fact that we'll use Taylor made as an example. They have all sorts of different categories and they have like a muscle back and then they get into a cavity back, and then they get into a 770 and then a 790 iron, and then they get into more um of your game improvement iron, right? So what would happen is let's just use the 770 for the example. That's kind of the middle of the pack there. A lot of people play that iron. And so let's say your wedge are um 770 all the way to that eight iron, because you can hit that well. Then you would want to look at the launch conditions and see if they change if we put you into a 790, and then we could lower the center of gravity a little bit and get that ball to launch. What happens a lot of times is it'll launch a little bit better, but maybe it's not perfect yet. But the 790 is a little stronger lofted club. So now we can also adjust loft to help with backspin conditions and launch conditions together. And now all of a sudden you're getting um not just a dart that's flying too far, because the 790 is hotter off the face based on loft and how it's designed, but you're also able to control that a little bit by adding loft. And so now um instead of the reverse problem of, hey, my 770 eight iron goes, you know, this far and then my seven iron goes way too far, you're able to control that by modifying those things. So I would just say that for someone in this situation, the number one thing is just checking out equipment because you're obviously able to hit that eight, seven or uh eight and nine and pitching wedge and so on. Okay. And it just goes back to, you know, a really good player that I used to work with that would only bring a wedge and a driver to the range, right? And that's all he practiced with. And if you can hit a wedge well and you, you know, you're you're swinging a driver after that. Everything else in between is just it's easy.
SPEAKER_04:I'll tell you where my trouble is right now is um 90 to 90 to 115 yards is the death of me. If I'm short of 90 or I'm at 120 or more, I'm good. Why? Because my gap wedge is garbage. And my gap wedge came in part of my iron set. I bought an off-the-rack iron set a long time ago, and we need to address that issue here in a couple of weeks. Um but I am determined that my next set is gonna be a pitching wedge through four iron. I don't want the gap wedge as part of the set. I want a gap wedge as something that is custom tailored for me separate from the iron set. And I like I said, my my gap wedge, I cannot hit that club for the life of me right now. But I can hit my 69, I can hit my 60, I can hit my 56, and I can hit my pitching wedge.
SPEAKER_03:My gap wedge can't hit it. Listen, I saw you in Sin League hit that 69, and you hit it like to gimme range, and everybody freaked out. So if you can hit that club, then we know that all you need is a traditional wedge at that point.
SPEAKER_04:I'm good with the 69 inside of 35 yards. I'm good with the 60 inside of 70 yards, I'm good with a 56 inside of 90 yards. I don't like to do that 90 yard, you know, I don't like to swing the 56 to hit a hundred and hundred and five yard shot. I don't like the club for that. Maybe if I was custom fit for it, it would be a different story. But that gap between the 90-yard shot, 95 yard shot, and the pitch, the soft pitching wedge shot at 1520, that's my nemesis.
SPEAKER_03:Well, here's the deal. So, viewers, here's what we're gonna do is we're gonna do that fitting for you, and we're gonna record some of this, and then we'll post it on our Facebook page for you. Love it. All right. Hey, let's go to our last question for the day.
SPEAKER_04:What's up, Tyler?
SPEAKER_02:Hey guys, I have a question. So I spin the ball a ton, way more than the average person. Um, proud and sad to admit that. So my question is how how much does um golf ball selection and then the certain type of uh like driver face affect that?
SPEAKER_03:Oh man, what an awesome question. And we just did ball fitting, you know, a few uh few months ago. Yeah, a couple months ago. I guess it was, wasn't it? It felt like it was weeks ago. You know, I I think this is such a cool thing, and um that was uh Tyler Lake, right? Yeah, yeah, perfect. Okay, so um Tyler, number one, is a really good player, and he has a ton of golf uh club at speed.
SPEAKER_04:And so um naturally his spin is off the charts then.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, he he definitely can spin the driver a lot. Um and what's unique about this is spin is not a bad thing necessarily. Um, and especially if you hit it as far as he does, sometimes spin is good. Um, however, you are losing a lot of distance, and so there's a couple factors you're gonna look at there. Number one, a premium golf ball, and we'll just use this example of a uh Taylor-made TP5 versus TP5X or Pro V1, Pro V1X. Um on those sides of things, one of the balls will spin a little bit less than the other, and usually you're looking at 300 RPM difference in that golf ball. So when you're dealing with someone that uh is spinning a driver at over 3,000 spin, that's too much, right? We're looking at that as a three would so your your typical is gonna be somewhere in that two to three thousand range for your average player, and you're looking at a launch of 10 to 12 degrees with a driver. So the number one thing when we're looking at a ball fit with a driver is are you launching it well, right? And then are you spinning it well? So if you are and the ball's still not coming out of the sky well, you're gonna look at descent angle. So is it descending for some reason out of the sky too steep? And so there's a lot of factors that go into this. Um, but going into the club face side of the question, if that club face is open, right, all of a sudden you can still hit what looks like a fairly straight shot depending on, and we're not gonna get into too much detail, but what your what your path and your and your face to target are and everything, right? But if your face is slightly open at impact, it's going to obviously create some left to right spin. It's also going to create additional backspin because you've added loft at impact, right? So a lot of times what we see with a golfer is the two-way miss to where, oh man, I'm naturally cutting, I'm naturally cutting it. I don't like it. My ball's hitting and stopping because that face is open too much, creating more backspin. And then they do something in the round and they pull one and they hit it so far and they go out of bounds. So far left. Yeah. So far, yeah, they just hit it hard and left of their target line, and now they squared the face up because they've compensated. And that's the one that probably would have rolled out forever because the face was more neutral relative to their setup. And all of a sudden that backspin went down and everything changed because they hit it on the center of the face. Because what's happening is hit location rules, right? Ball speeds are going to be up from the center of the face. Also, if the face is open at all, the heel is actually leading into the ball. So you're mishitting it off the heel anyway. So there's a lot of factors there. But if we're looking at general just a ball, the ball is everything in golf at this point in time because the USGA has set um these rules that don't allow driver faces to be any hotter than they are. And they also have put rules in that the ball can't be any faster off the face in the middle of the hit than it already is as well. And so I think more than anything with um someone like Tyler, there just needs to be some a couple of factors. One, can the ball do what he wants it to do, right? When he looks up, is that ball flying through the window that he wants to see? Rory McElroy, um, a few years back, uh, most people don't know this, but he was playing an older ball than what was out. He was still on staff with Taylor Maid, but oddly enough, I think this is public knowledge now, but oddly enough, the newer ball actually launched too high for what he wanted to see. And at a golfer at that level, if they look up and can't see the ball on their sight line, they're lost, right? There's a loss of confidence. We all know that feeling. Oh, yeah. Where's the ball? Oh, it's over there. Oh, and it's funny when somebody's like, Where's the ball? It's down the middle. Oh it's over there. It's your teammate sitting behind you. He notices it. You don't see it. Yeah, yeah. So, so in in this Situation where he's playing a different ball, you know, at some point in time, Taylor Me's like, we got to find something that's going to work for Rory. And the consumer's getting smarter too, to where they're like, I really want to play the kind of ball that they're playing. And so I think what's cool about the manufacturers is they're starting to allow that to happen. They're starting to give um something similar to what the tour players are playing now, just because, you know, I think that's really cool to be able to say, I'm playing that ball. And so because of that, it comes with a price tag. Without question. Yeah. And because of that, right, someone like Tyler that might be launching it a little bit too high, um, you know, because then that also affects descent angle as well. Still hitting at 300 plus, but it's like, man, you could hit it 330, 340 if the ball penetrated more for you. And I'm only saying that because I I know a little bit about his game, but um, ultimately the driver is the other factor, you know, and and you're trying to see what type of shape driver you need. Is it something with a lower center of gravity that launches it higher? Is it something that's a little more traditional, pear-shaped head? Is it a lower CC um driver head? So a smaller head, right? All these factors play into how the ball's gonna launch. What is it?
SPEAKER_04:Combination of the ball and the club fitting.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. Without question, and its delivery method. So a lot of things, too, that change is when we go into club too, not only club head, but we look at shaft. So this is the hard one when you're on the podcast, is I'm not seeing it, I'm listening to it. Number one is get in there and get fit by your local PGA professional. Always ask why. That is my number one golden rule is they should not be fitting or teaching you if they can't answer why they're giving you something. Why? Why?
unknown:Why?
SPEAKER_03:Why? Why? Exactly, exactly. No, because you should know, and then it it takes all of the head trash out, right? One of my friends um in the industry, Andy Hilts, who actually helped open a lot of golf techs. I've spent some time with him. He's a wonderful salesperson, but he's also a really good teacher and fitter. And because of all those things, I've learned a lot from him. Um, just the art of the golf industry in general. He's a consultant as well. But it's funny, he always used that word head trash or that that term head trash. And I was like, what is that? He's like, Well, look, when you're getting in with somebody, they always have all of these things in that first lesson. You got to get all their head trash out. So that way they'll actually learn from you. I'm like, that is so smart. And so, you know, I think that's one of the reasons um, you know, I feel like I I can relate to people in teaching is just the fact that I'm listening a lot more probably than I'm speaking and trying to help them with the stuff they already have issues with.
SPEAKER_04:Tyler, when you're in here next, hit up Noah for a one-on-one lesson in the ball fitting. Let's go, buddy. Let's get that. And um, if you have a question for Noah, you want some tips and tricks, um, any podcast source you're on, find our message board, click on it, send us a message. Please make sure you include your phone number or your email so we can contact you. Otherwise, we don't see your email address if you just send us a message. So make sure you include your phone number or your email in the message, and we'll get in touch with you and um have you ask Noah a question. Last topic before we call it quits today. You and I were talking about my son, and you're like, okay, he's hitting the ball well. We're going on to a new level. Let's start talking about high school, how that's gonna work into college, and how that's gonna work into um possibly a career in golf. So let's preface this. For me, that's this is where my brain explodes.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, for sure, for sure. So we're gonna preface this as this is gonna be our full topic for next week, and we're gonna try to see if our main man Don Law can be on with us next week, who uh recently retired, owned the Don Law Golf Academy in Florida, uh, national youth player development award winner. The guy's incredible what he and his wife did down there, and they actually had a global academy where the which is what we're doing here now, um, where they had kids coming in from South America, they had US Kids World's champions coming out of there. Wow. I'm just so excited to talk with him more about this type of a subject as well. But you know what? Your son is so passionate about everything he does, he's such a good kid. He comes in and picks balls, and there's all these things. So it's like his worth echo his work ethic is there, right? His love of the game is there, right? He listens so well, so he's got good support system from his parents, which is great. Um, and I think there's like so many positives there that it's more about maturity and seeing what's gonna happen, right? So a lot of times parents want to know what needs to happen now, as opposed to hey, here's a game plan that's gonna work for him now, but that's gonna be an ever-changing game plan as he moves forward and as his goals change. So right now, Toby wants to play on tour. Right now, Toby wants to play in college. Yeah, right now Toby wants to play golf with everybody anytime, anywhere, right?
SPEAKER_04:Let's be real. I mean, as a parent, I know that you know, playing on the PGA tours like your son who plays junior high football who wants to play in the NFL. I get that. We get that. However, I know the PGA is very different. There's such a broad spectrum of career paths through the PGA without even playing on tour that you can make a good career and a decent middle class income being a member of the PGA. And Toby loves golf so much and he's a homeschooled student. All of his eggs are in that one basket. And it's like, what do we need to do to make that happen? Now, I'm not talking necessarily about making the PGA tour. Of course that would be nice. Of course, that's his goal, like everybody else. But if that doesn't happen, where does his career path sit in the golf industry?
SPEAKER_03:Here's what I'm gonna tell you right now, because I don't want to I don't want to like ruin next week. So the first thing is that kid can talk to anybody and will ask anyone to play with him. So he already has the relationship side of people down, which most people never learn. So the fact that he can talk to anybody and has no fear of going up to somebody is go in the golf industry and then you find somebody that has a private plane and says, Hey, I want you to come and work for me, and now all of a sudden you're like set, right? That's like the weird well, we see that all the time at private clubs where head pros go into sales jobs or these other jobs because they understand how to take care of people, and that's a tough thing. I mean, service is free. We talk about that at golf garage all the time. Indeed. Yet it's a choice if you're going to serve others or not. And so for your son to understand that already is huge. What I'm excited about for Toby is that he's physically maturing, he's starting to hit driver well. Uh, his shot shape is so good that last on Wednesday, I was like, just keep doing what you're doing, but let's look at the process differently. We looked at some course strategy and then we worked on putting. And and all of a sudden he started putting the lights out of it because I put him into pressure with one of the SOU girls on the team. And then I shared with him what was actually happening with his swing and how he was getting armsy and understood how to use the torso and the putting stroke, and all of a sudden he was like, Oh, look how much better it's rolling, right? Well, when you hear something like that, there's not much more you have to coach because you want him to go run with that confidence and go and go and go. You know it's gonna be better already.
SPEAKER_04:All right, we're gonna go in depth on this next week. If you love golf, even if you're not very good, but you have kids, get them involved in golf. Why? Because it teaches integrity, teaches honesty, teaches discipline. What else?
SPEAKER_03:Oh man, sportsmanship, everything. I just think it's just everyone's on the same playing field. You don't have to play great golf uh to play with other people that are great golfers. It doesn't matter. Everyone wants to be together and build relationships. That's what we're doing at Golf Garage, baby. I love it. Thank you, Noah. Thank you, Darren. Good to be with you, buddy. We'll see you again next week.
SPEAKER_04:Take care.
