All right, Scott, so the two videos we made have been out a
little bit now. How do you think they turned
out? What?
What do you think about him? I liked him, yeah.
You feel like it like communicated you're you're like
what you're trying to get across like, hey, this is decade.
This is what to understand and showing it.
Obviously, typically on those deals, I just vomit as much at
you as possible and then it gets edited down quite a bit.
So I was surprised to see the first one was an hour and 15
minutes. But you're like, there's just so
much good stuff in it. Why not it?
It is funny because some of the comments where they're like
criticizing my or our play at all.
It's like dude trying to do all of this while actually still
playing good golf and thinking through and everything like
that. It's like this isn't easy at all
to pull off. I'm more surprised that I ever
play good in any of those videos.
Then OK, we we got off to a little bit of a shaky start.
Yeah, yeah, no, it's just an epic day.
Like we had great weather. The course that you like, what
you lined up was unbelievable. So thank you for setting that
up. Like that was Steve was awesome
the the architect that we got to hang out, like he was so
interesting to talk to. You get a guy like that, I think
he's like 73 years old. He's just a, a model of health
and what you want to be at his age and just still full of
energy and fire. Like I just he, he is a total
role, role model to to aspire to be, to be one day.
Yeah, he's been doing this forever, like building golf
courses. And so like, yeah, he found the
land, he said 94 or something, and then they built it in 97.
It's like, whoa, that is crazy to be doing that.
So. It's a cool spot.
Yeah. So we've got some comments and
and I thought it'd be fun just to have you come on and discuss
this. The the primary, the primary
thing that we need to discuss is, is Scott, every soccer field
is not the same size. I would I would like.
People just nitwit stuff like this I really like.
I honestly thought every soccer field was the same.
Like they're saying within the same league soccer fields are
different. No, like every football field is
the same. I I just assumed every World Cup
field's. Identical I I love we'll start
we'll start with some good we'll start with some good vibes so we
had a bunch of positive people love the course here you go
Scott swing makes golf look easy I agree Scott you have a great
golf swing hey just. You know, I hate, I hate
swinging since it's my golf swing.
I really like what it's just settled into at 52.
It just so repeats Espe. Obviously, especially with the
driver. Yeah, I, I'm, I'm really happy
with how I swing the the Golf Club now.
What have you changed over the year?
Like compare this to what you're playing the US Open.
What is that 99 that you played in or what year was that like?
What was it way longer? Like what have you changed over
the years? It was way longer.
I mean, again, I still never really got it to parallel.
I mean, I've always been a great ball striker.
I mean always ever since I've become a good player.
So since college at at a minimum, I've, I've, that's
always been my strength. I, I definitely when I was
playing professionally in my 20's, the the putter, the brain
and the putter were the only two reasons I didn't make it.
I definitely hit the ball top 50 in the world at that point.
But like so many other guys on the on the mini tours, can't
figure the rest of the the game out.
My driver specifically, man, it just again, as I put up that one
video. I don't know if you saw the post
I made on Instagram where I took you your post from 18 and I
synced it up to my shots in practice.
I do believe not just to harp back into block practice, but I
just do the exact same thing on every single swing on the T box,
on the range, on everything. That's the only way you're going
to get that repetitiveness. And I just think that people
slowing down had a good conversation with a Korn Ferry
player yesterday and that's all we talked about was slowing down
in practice, getting behind the driver, specifically doing your
full pre shot routine to where you just owned because that's,
that's the timing and the trigger.
That's the art of golf is that timing and triggering to start
your swing. And I, I really believe that's
what Tiger was just so, so good at.
I I want to go, I want to go here, Scott then so talk to me
about all of our 15 handicaps listening to this.
And they watched it and are like, dude, Scott, my driver
goes 240 at best with with a bunch of roll at old memorial.
Like it's a little and I that's like on on a good one.
Are you reading a 14? No because I'm seeing.
I like the idea in the 1st hole though.
The clip, the chip shot he played.
Are you reading something? He's saying, Hey, this theory
makes sense if your driver's controllable and you have a
short game. Unfortunately for most golfers,
neither of those things are are true.
So I talk to talk to that person, this, this guy that's
reading this, that's like, dude, like my driver's not great and
like my short game. I I don't know.
Well, I mean, I bet it's five irons not good either.
Like, what's the alternative? Yeah, I mean, that's the whole
thing that I I don't think people really take an idea all
the way from start to the finish line.
Like, OK, let's say you're terrible with the driver.
What what's next? Three wood or mini driver, but
you stripe that of the smaller, harder to hit head.
Like I just highly doubt that's the case.
And also, you know what then that means you're probably
shooting in the 90s or hundreds. You're just learning the game
still. Just keep learning, having fun
hitting driver. You're going to driver
eventually, so you might as well start now.
You're not really out there trying to shoot your best score
necessarily. You're just trying to learn how
to become functional on the golf course.
And then we'll really start worrying about scoring what
you've got a little bit of of ball control.
I mean, I do remember the hurdles of breaking 100 for the
first time and breaking 90 and 80 and everything else.
But you're just in a spot too, where you're still just trying
to learn the game, you know, as an, as an, as an, as a beginner,
basically. Yeah, yeah.
So you're saying like, yeah, that's great, you should.
You got to practice like, let's go get better.
I don't, I don't. Yeah.
I mean, I don't understand the point of his first one in the
first hold of the chip shot he played has more risk for an
eighth than 100 hundred yard, which what is he talking about?
Like I was 6 yards off the green shipping straight uphill.
I don't understand. I don't understand the point
anyways so. Yeah, OK, here we go.
Scott was down where amateurs actually miss versus where they
think they miss. Should be mandatory viewing for
any golfer steps on the tee. The cognitive gap between I can
hit that and my dispersion says otherwise is where almost every
handicap lives. I like that.
That's pretty good. Yeah, I mean the, the, the main
thing I try to tell players is just because you can hit a shot
doesn't mean you should hit a shot.
That's just so repetitive. Like I like if you're in the
trees or something, I can see if you see the shot you're talking
about. It's like Nicholson with that
one when he's in the fairway bonker and puts it up through
the hole in the trees and then tells Bones, I didn't want to
tell you about the gap I saw. That's because what Bones would
be saying. They're like, I can totally see
the shot you're talking about and yes, you can pull it off,
but this is a terrible idea. And it was, but MIL, you know,
Phil just wanted to do it because he's having fun out
there. Like I, I totally salute that.
And I totally salute the amateur at home that wants to try the
hero shot. But you're also kidding yourself
if you think you're optimizing your scoring average there.
So those two things are at odds with each other and I was
totally saluting. I mean, again, I, I, the ram
that I shot last week where I was 8 under.
I was, I was, I was 8 under on 16 and had this 3 iron from 200
into a funky shaped green into the wind.
Like if this was a golf tournament for sure.
I'm just kind of punching it down to about 40 yards.
There was not a whole lot of good outcomes that could come
from this 3 iron. But we're playing A10150 hammer
wolf and my partner's kind of looking at me like birdie would
be good right here. So, you know, I'm going to go
for it. That doesn't mean that that that
was a total hero shot to attempt right there and and luckily.
I pulled it off. What'd you do?
Yeah, I put it in the, I put it about 15 yards from the from the
hole in the left bunker. It was literally the only
possible good outcome because I was going to have to hit it so
low into the wind. There was just no way it was
going to stop. And anything further left now is
going to be going downwind with my pitch shot.
This bunker was literally the only place I could put it and it
happened to go there. OK, you, you said a little thing
in the video. It was like if you can't a
recovery shot, you need to be able to do it 8 out of 10 times.
Was that 9 out of 10 * 9 out of 10 times?
You basically need to know I'm going to pull this off every
single time. And then just your total mis
hits that like you hit a little bit fat, it pops up on you into
the tree. That needs to be the only way
that you don't pull the shot off.
OK, got it. That's good.
Good advice. Here we go.
Here's the good on putting there was.
There's a comment on a putting video but the average 10 plus
handicap could probably shave 5 days strokes by lagging and
practicing distance control. I don't know it's that much, but
I think there's not that much but tons of shots to gain from
leg putting. It's 3 or 4 for sure.
I mean, again, this is my my wolf game I normally play with.
There's there's a couple guys that are 2 handicaps and below,
but the majority guys are like between 3:00 and let's call it
10. And so I get to watch a lot of
these people and they really suck at putting.
I mean their speed control is just absolutely horrific.
They never practice it. I mean, they hit balls and then
they roll 6 putts before we go play.
And it's not like they ever sit on the green and practice.
So you, yeah, if you actually want those guys, I mean, they
could knock three or four shots off their game in two months,
probably just by doing speed drills.
Now, I do agree with most and it's like, OK, so I just get 3
or 4 shots less. What difference does it make?
Because they're not trying to play tournament golf or
anything. They don't really care.
As long as they can get the ball around the golf course in a
functional manner in four hours. They don't actually care to be
better. My brain doesn't understand how
that works. But they are legit just out
there to play Wolf and have a few drinks with the boys and
have fun. And I totally salute that.
I. Don't know, I think a lot of
people would have more fun if they shot a little better all
the time. I, I totally think so.
I mean, again, it's frustrating to be 12 feet and hammer at 5
feet by and miss it coming back. I mean that's that is.
Tough. OK, so I, I think it's shocking
how many people are bad at something, say they're bad at
something, want to get better at it, but don't do anything about
it. So like what's your, I know you
have some thoughts on working on distance control.
What's your like 15 minute routine?
I could do a couple times a week to just try to get a little bit
better at it. Well, one of my favorite things
that I've got to get in because of what you just said, there's
do your habits meet, do your habits meet your goals?
Like because if not one of the two has to give, you need to
change your goals or change your habits because otherwise you're
just going to live in eternal frustration.
So I really love that quote and it's definitely something to do
some soul searching on. Like do you, do you want to do
this? But I think that the best way to
practice your putting is to just basically from 20 to 40 feet,
you're trying to roll it into a, a 10% window of the putt.
So just find the straightest 20, you know, the straightest 40
foot putt you can and you put 2 ball marks on one end that are
two feet apart and then another one that makes a three foot
window and you start at 20 feet and you're trying to lag it into
that 2 foot zone of distance control.
When you're successful, you move yourself backwards 6 inches do
not successfully stay at the same place.
If you successfully, you keep moving backwards.
And once you get to 30 feet, now you're trying to lag it into the
three foot window. And you do that all the way
until you get to 40 feet. And maybe your, your 10 handicap
starts from 10 to 30 feet. So from 10 to 20 feet, you're
trying to roll it into the 2 foot window, from 20 to 30 feet
into the three foot window. And you just keep hammering that
over and over and over again until you're pretty proficient
at that. And then you move the goal posts
to to 20 to 40 feet. But that's, I mean, that is
literally exactly how Zaala Taurus worked on his putting all
the way through college early. I don't know what he's still
doing. The last time we talked, he was,
I asked him what he's doing. He said, you know, it's hard to
set this drill up on the the putting green.
So I basically just make a three foot circle with a few ball
Marks and I'm just trying to lag it into that circle.
And I know if I'm 20 feet, it needs to be more towards the
middle. If I'm 30 or 40 feet, just
getting it into circles, a good result.
And he just says that he just rolls it all around the green.
Because the one thing that I think I did wrong when I was
playing in my 20s was I just randomly rolled balls all around
the green without knowing how far the putt was.
I do believe that knowing this is 22 feet starts to give you a
little bit of a feel, not not not explicitly like a pills
clock system or how Bryson tries to do it, but you start to get a
feel for like, you know, this is about 30 feet in in the length
of. Stroke, yeah, No, I agree.
I think it's all about like having a good setup and then
being intentional and knowing what you're doing and then
giving. Intentional for everything.
Again, that's circling back to the block and random practice
debate. I think that the main thing the
random people get wrong is they just think that block equals
brain dead and you can go brain dead in any of them.
I'll I'll agree that if you're changing your targets and clubs,
it's probably harder to go brain dead, but you can.
Yeah, but you certainly can. And you just you just because
you're hitting the same shot over and over doesn't mean you
have to go brain dead. I certainly don't.
But like I say something back to that corner player yesterday, I
mean, it was it was a 90 minute conversation where we basically
landed on the main things he needs to be doing is slowing
down in practice in order to really hone that that internal
dialogue that's going on because that is what that that was Tiger
superpower period. OK, let's let's keep it going.
What do we got? OK, middle.
We got middle of the Greens. A brand new.
OK, so you made a comment like middle of the green is not a
good a good, you know just you can't do that every time
question Yeah, depends on skill for Bowie ball for middle of the
green is great for a scratch. No, I think that is even be
crazier because I think a lot of high handicap golfers aiming
middle of the green could be putting themselves in too much
risk as well, probably potentially.
So like I I think there is a ton of variability and aim at middle
of the the the goal is to hit a green, right?
Like hitting a green is good, but unless it puts too much risk
of hitting a hazard or something of those along those lines.
Well, this is what brand I've This is my Last Post on
Instagram. Brandel said yesterday on Live
from the Masters that all the statisticians are basically
making this too complicated, that Kathy Whitworth and her
tiny little book explained course management by hit at the
middle of the green. And that's what Jack said he did
and Tiger said he did. Well, just because that's what
they said they did, that's not doesn't mean that is what they
did. I mean, Tiger, I can assure you,
did not aim at the middle of the green on certain shots He did,
absolutely, But with his sand wedge and stuff.
So there's this inflection point that's in this, again, what I
was just posting about Brando. There's, there's an inflection
point where aiming at the hole is typically not optimal and
aiming at the middle of the green typically is not optimal.
There's an inflection point somewhere in the middle.
And if that decision can save you 5 hundredths of a shot, that
doesn't seem like much. But if we make that decision 18
times in a round, it's literally nearly a full shot.
And the reason that advice falls miles apart is circling back to
every soccer field is not the same.
Every golf ball certainly is not the same.
And so the the my canned 2 examples are always 18.
At Saint Andrews, the holes 354 yards long and the green is 52
yards wide. I highly doubt you need to aim
at the middle of the green when the pins on the left and you get
60 yards. Conversely #10 at Pebble Beach
is 500 yards from the US Open Tees.
There's an ocean on the right and the green is only 17 yards
wide. Middle of the green there is way
too aggressive. You need to be aiming almost at
the left edge of the green, which is why the scoring
averages through the roof in the US Open.
So middle of the green just, it just isn't good enough advice.
And that's where the traditional playing lesson really falls
apart in my opinion is let's pretend I just, I took you out
for a playing lesson and I gave you perfect information.
So number six, we're going to aim 4 yards left of this pin.
But I didn't explain to you why. I just told you, 4 yards left of
this pin. You would have to see that exact
same situation in a tournament, the same length shot, the same
surrounding hazards, the same conditions and be like, oh, this
match is 6. But that's again, not to pitch a
decade too hard here, but that's what decade accomplishes this
for use based on the constraints of the shots.
How long is the shot? What are the surrounding
hazards? Here's how far we need to be
aiming. And yes, that will be moving
towards the middle of the green the longer and more difficult
the shot becomes, but that doesn't mean we're always
getting to the middle of the green.
I mean, again, Mark Brody, the creator of Stroke's game did a
great, I mean, he's way smarter and better with programming than
I am. And he's ran a great little
study showing that the middle of the green is just very rarely
the correct target on the PJ tour.
And and so no Brandel or whoever Dulce golf nut middle of the
green is just not good enough information.
And sure, if we're if you're not trying to optimize your scoring
average, OK, obviously hitting the green is better than not,
but optimizing your scoring average is what I'm all about.
And again, like I was saying earlier, if that's not you, then
hey, I'm not your guy and that's totally cool.
I salute you. Go try what you want to do, but
you're wasting shots. Yeah, yeah.
What percentage of time? I don't even think that's.
Yeah, we're going to skip that comment.
Yeah, all this theory, this was back to the high handicap.
All this theory is worth nothing if you can't pull off the shots
mainly from the T like your comment is.
Go go practice, go train. Yeah, I mean, it's just, it's,
it's just so it's so weird to me because it's like, well, sure,
but that person still has to aim their shots somewhere.
I mean, it's very, very weird to me when people have that.
People either say that or the other one.
I get a lot of, well, what happens when everybody on the
tour is playing with perfect decade strategy and like then
the better players going to win more often.
We're going to remove some variants from results and it
should be more uniform. But right now the best players
are the best strategist. They're also the best ball
strikers, but they are definitely the best strategist.
I mean, and Scotty Scheffler is a perfect example of that.
He he was making a ton of birdies his first three years on
tour. He was making way too many
bogeys. I worked with Ted Scott for a
long time while he was with Bubba and I texted Ted him when
he got hired. I'm like, dude, this kids good.
He just needs to get his bogey rate down.
The fact you can he can make that many birdies for three
straight years shows he can control his golf ball.
Let him know it's about avoiding these silly mistakes.
And he did. He lowered his bogey rate from
15% down to 10 or 11%. That 4 or 5% reduction in bogey
is 3/4 of a shot just by making fewer bogeys I mean.
Super interesting. It it's a big deal, OK.
I like this one. Here we go Scott's a brilliant
guy Dustin is great for single digit player Scott's also a
salesman. Good job Scott.
He says something about he's not going to get an 1824 handicap to
a single digit if you hit a driver 200 and 235 iron, you're
going to focus on the short game consistently face single swing
path low point bring to 85 most consistently.
OK, talk to me. Have you helped someone go from
that 18 handicap to a single digit before?
I mean, my members do it all the time.
OK, how do they do it? By a understanding strategy and
at least having some and then focusing on their putting, not
trying to hero shot more often. Making bogeys from the trees by
just removing the big stupid scores.
I mean, it's just such a I don't know what, it's just such a
limiting belief kind of a thought process here.
It's it's Raymond Floyd book The Art of Scoring, which makes me
mad because my favorite book is the Art of learning.
If I was going to write a book, it would be called The Art of
Scoring. So Raymond stole that for me.
But on the inside jacket, it says even if you and I sort of
like to attend handicapped, even if you and I had the exact same
skill set, I would still beat you 99 times out of 100 because
I understand how to play the game more.
And that is the truest statement ever made.
I mean, in looking back at working with Zala Torres and
Bryson and all these guys to be able to come in and take these
elite players and just instantly make them better.
So I'm, I am just now using their same skills and I am just
making them a shot or two better overnight.
So like if that happens at that level, I can assure you the 10
handicap, I mean the, the 18, I bet you, if I was thinking for
an 18 handicap, they would probably be an 11 or 12.
I, I don't think it may, the, the, the numbers we've run
before is that I don't remember exactly, it's been years, but
basically the vast majority of our membership knocks 30 or 40%
off of their handicap in the first six months.
So that 20 comes down to a, you know, a 12 or 13 or whatever it
is. I mean, there's just the vast
majority of, like, I would love to see if anyone actually
doesn't get better. We take, what we did on that one
was I think we took the first 5 scores they entered and treated
that as their baseline and then took however many scores after
that. And, and just, I mean literally
100% of people. Improve.
Yeah. Well, I think the reality is
like, why content with you content we've done with coach
Will Robbins, like on course strategy stuff is a lot of these
these folks in this 15 handicap range have been hitting balls at
the range. They have been, you know, trying
to do stuff for, you know, a decade at this decades at this
point. And so like, when they see this,
like, OK, maybe there's something that I'm doing wrong
with course management and strategy that is going to get me
better without having to go change my body or do something,
you know, on the range and they start to, you know, get some
results and they pay. I think there's a reason this is
gaining this field is gaining so much more like interest because
people are like, OK, I've, I've, I've been on the range for a
decade and maybe I need to think about core strategy.
Maybe there's something there for me to get down for my 1516
and. Well, I believe that again, like
for me personally, I mean, when I quit playing Professional Golf
as a + 6 or something, excuse me, I think it was my first
registered handicap and you know, over a couple years it
decayed down to a + 4 and then it just stayed there for 10
years at this point. I mean, last year was the first
year that I got all the way down, up, whatever you call it
to +2. You know, I've had four
surgeries and missed, you know, nine months last year.
So that makes sense to me that I struggled.
But that's entirely just because of understanding how to play the
game, how the game scored, how to score, understanding what to
practice, how to practice. I mean, I just, I practice
lagging from 20 to 40 feet. I practice the very basic chip
shots. I don't know if I, if I, I don't
need to hit a flop shot if I, if I have three flop shots in a
round, The problem is on my second shots and strategy that
wasn't, I don't need to get better at a flop shot in order
to get back to I think +4 to get back to +6.
I would, but I think that I can play and that's just by going
to, again, just trying to not do patently stupid stuff and then
just being good off the tee and good at lag putting.
Yeah, yeah, no, that's, that's a great point.
I I love that. Yeah, because you are just.
Yeah, Good off the tee, good leg putting, good chipping.
Good to go. That's the thing to me that
people didn't even comment about on the video we shot was every
putt that I had, I don't really remember yours specifically, but
every 20 to 40 foot putt that I had just rolled up there to 6
inches. Like it just that.
That's just from understanding how important that is.
I did. I did not.
I I think I3 putted one or two just I'll go ahead and put my
hand up on that one here. You like this one, Scott, This
one's for you. Has anyone actually improved?
Has this action improved anyone's game Decade is the
Emperor's new close of golf. I like that that that's a good
one. For I mean, it's it's so wild
how many? You gonna put that on the
website? Yeah, I mean.
It just, it's just incredible how many people hate me.
It's really funny. OK, maybe a little coaching for
this guy. I like this.
Something I really struggle with is aggressiveness off the tee.
I hear Scott saying that distance is important and be
aggressive off the tee and my brain interprets that as
distance is king, swing out of your shoes.
And I lunged the ball sliced into the trees.
I don't know how to stop myself from doing that.
Kind of interesting thought. How would you coach this guy?
Well, I mean, I would say that we probably do need to be
working on speed, but there's a difference.
And this is where I think that when you hear old players say,
you know, I'm only swinging at 80%, No, you're not.
You might be swinging at 80% of like your effort.
So, but you're not swinging at 80% of your Max speed.
And this is man, there was a guy who I'm not going to say his
name, I just thought of who it was that was telling me that he
has multiple tour players and high level college players that
leave 20% of their club head speed in the tank.
I'm like name 1. I mean Tony Finow apparently can
get it into the mid one 30s but that's the guy has a.
Video of that on the Internet, yes.
No, no, no, I know that. But the reason he can do that is
because his swing is so short. Yeah.
So it all he has to do to get that is lengthen his swing and
yeah, and then he's going to he can't find the golf course.
He is swinging hit everyone on tours cruising speed is probably
within about 3 or 4 miles an hour of their Max ball speed.
Are there a couple of long tail anomalies out there?
Sure, But his whole deal was like Bryson was it 225 or
whatever in ball speed? I'm like he was training for the
World long drive contest and he also realized that wasn't
working. So sure, OK, Bryson can get up
there, but he can't right now. He can't throw them in the mid
two 20s. He's playing a right around what
his current peak is. Maybe 5 or 8 miles an hour more
he could get, but he couldn't play the game.
The vast majority guys are swinging as fast as they can,
which is different than swing as hard as they can.
This guy's talking about swinging as hard as he can, and
that's not what it is. Does that make sense to you?
You know, I'm saying like, you can just be like, swing harder,
but it's just not. It's not going to go faster when
you do that. Something I've noticed that's
really important and it's probably overlooked by a lot of
amateurs, is that like the amount of rounds you're putting
in and the amount of swings you're putting in make a big
difference on your speed. Like if you haven't been playing
for a month you are not going to be swinging as fast as you had.
If you've been playing like 3 * a week it there's something
about that I've found of the reps you're putting in like.
Kill a gulf shape, right? Are you in Gulf shape or not?
And so like you got to understand, I mean guys
understand that they're slower Monday, Tuesday than they are
Friday, Saturday, right? Like they get faster as they go
that during the week. This corn fair guy was talking
about playing, talking about yesterday he was talking with
Bryson and asked him about the speed training and Bryson told
him that he was hitting 100 balls a day at full Max effort.
I'm like he was, I got to see some of it in Como's living
room. But he was also training for the
world long drive contest. That wasn't training for the PJ
tour. I do believe, and this is the
the advice that I gave him, like Max Grazerman, who picked up 5
or 6 miles an hour ball speed, you know, a couple years ago Max
told me he's like, I just, I was doing all the speed training and
everything. You know, I obviously understand
RIP sticks. I've got my stack right here.
I I understand speed training, but I don't know that it's
totally necessary versus what Matt said.
He's like, I just end every practice session, not before a
turn around, but every practice session with 10 as hard as I can
possibly swing. No regard whatsoever for contact
or anything, just but swinging driver and hitting a ball, which
Eddie Fernandez agrees with. That's more important than just
swinging the speed sticks and then two cruisers.
And he's like, that's, that's really, I was doing all the
speed train, but it just, I didn't really like it.
I felt like I was going to hurt myself.
So I just did that. Because what you're really doing
is lifting the governor that's in your brain because there is
one. We are all stronger than our
brain lets us be. You know, we're not quite
gorillas, but we are all stronger than that.
And like when you get electrocuted and jump 15 feet in
the air, that's not the electricity shooting you.
That's your muscles. That's how strong your muscles
actually are. They're just typically limited
from getting to there because obviously you're going to hurt
yourself. So you really are just training
your brain. I can go faster than this.
It's safe, it's safe, it's safe. And you just kind of keep on
bumping that governor up. And I I think the way Max is
doing it is the way most people can and should do it.
We got a video of Eddie Fernandez coming out shortly, so
yeah, I know it's good. I've been using his hits here
testing it out. He was he, he was over in John
Sinclair's place in Fort Worth a couple years ago and came over
to my house to to hit some balls and his first.
Now granted he'd been hitting balls at Sinclair's, but he
hadn't touched the club in at least 90 minutes because he
drove had lunch. He takes my mini driver and just
first swing with a 43 1/2 inch mini driver has 210 on it.
I'm like go odd. I mean, it's wild when you see
someone that can really hit it. Here we are.
OK, comments on the Tiger, the Tiger five.
OK, I like this one. Tiger recently added a six
broomstick putters. That's a dig at me.
I do like that one. You're gonna have to add.
That's to the list, Scott. OK, I like this question on the
bogey from 1:50 and you kind of answered it here, but maybe just
expounded a little bit on the bogey from 1:50.
This would should you amend it to your own 9 hour distance?
Love the system by the way. I just chose 150 because this
was way back in the early 2000s before irons were completely
juiced and Tiger was playing whatever blades and the Zunas or
whatever he was playing at the time.
I would doubt he hit his nine iron much more than 150 back
then. He might have.
I mean, it wouldn't have been much more than 155 or 60.
I really would believe it's around 1:50 that and that's the
whole reason I chose that. Most players, you know, the
Tiger 5 is definitely geared at low single digits for the
numbers that they are. The Tiger 510 handicap might be,
you know, triples or you know, whatever, you know, just but
really the definition of improvement is becoming better
than yourself. Like it's that whole 1% better
thing. So really all you want to be
doing with the Tiger people like what should I do this?
And I just just get the number and then just make your smaller.
It's like that joke from whatever old raunchy comedy
where the girl needed to lose weight.
She was like on the she was like a newscaster and the lady was
like, so I want you to stand on the scale in the morning and I
want you to weigh yourself and then make that number be
smaller. It's like that's improvement.
Like I want you to record your Tiger fives and then just make
that number keep being smaller. OK, so the next one when
recording I thought was a good technical question, but like if
you're recording one, do you record 2 Tiger fives if you had
a three putt and that made you get a double bogey?
Like is that 2 or is it 1? You can have all 5 Tiger five
points on one particularly disastrous par 5 God.
That'd be sick. I mean, 5th hole of champions to
her final stage. I made an 8I, slipped on my
second shot because these Dang golf shoes I was having to wear
and I slipped and pulled it in the desert and just butchered it
from there and walked off with a snowman and I believe I had
bogey inside. 150, double bogey, bogey on par, 5I didn't 3 putt
and I didn't have a blown easy save so I had three.
Put the five on shoot. Almost.
There's.
A great start. Some name for next time.
OK, we got some wind questions. I'm going to go to this one
first, OK? You explained how to judge wind.
You had. We were like, you're showing
like, hey, you should understand how wind blows.
So you had one of those? Yeah.
And. We were kind of talking about
that and then there's a formula for judging wind, which is in
the video. So somebody was asking here of
like, OK, if I had a low draw, you know, that hat, you know,
it's it's less spin. How the question is?
Ball flight and all that. So as a concrete example, when I
shot that 64 last week, it was in a 20 mile an hour wind and my
on the 8th hole I was 100 yards straight into the wind and my
wedges and short irons are just terrible.
They just poof up into the air. My pitching wedge goes about
1:22. So if we use that 20%, I'm 120%
is the shots playing 120. That theoretically should just
be a perfect pitching wedge for me.
But obviously he's correct. I'm not going to just RIP a full
wedge up into the air and just cross my fingers.
So my 9 iron is normally 135. So I hit my 9 iron 120 in order
to take trajectory and spin and everything off the ball and it's
playing 120, which means it's going to go 100 yards and I hit
it to 6 feet. Just a chippy, flighty little.
So yes, the the number it boils down to is correct.
Now you need to you need to figure out what's the best shot
for you and your game to get it to go that net far.
Because you're saying even though the math said 120, if you
had hit your 120 shot normally it would have gone shorter than
one? It probably would have gone
shorter than 120, yeah, because of the trajectory.
That's like a result of like over 20 mile hour winds as well.
Like, that's like a lot of wind. It's a lot more than.
Like a 10 mile an hour. I think it's hilarious when
people say I played in a 35 mile an hour wind the other day.
Like no you didn't it was probably 2020 is humming.
I mean 10 miles an hour is is actually a decent amount of
wind. Like unless you're in Scotland
or Ireland somewhere. I mean, maybe like abandoned
dunes, I have no idea, but 20s, 20s, pretty Dang windy it it's
very rare and 1st, you know. And again, I shouldn't say I
highly doubt it because obviously people playing 30 plus
mile an hour winds some and that may be just the anomaly that I
happen to be interacting with right then.
But on average, it's not blowing as much as people think it is.
OK, got it. But do you think that in the
higher winds that change like choosing to hit the 9 iron 120
for sitting a full pitching ledge is more you have to be
more aware of that than if it's like average it's an 8 mile an
hour wind or something like you probably in normal shots.
Most likely it's like if I was 110 into an 8 mile an hour wind
so it's playing 120I. I would probably hit a pitching
wedge in that scenario. Yeah, yeah.
I mean, and that's just probably, again, I'm trying to
like put myself in that position as to why I would be making that
decision. It's hard without actually
feeling the wind, but I just don't feel like the wind would
balloon it quite as much as it could when it's 20.
Yeah. So a general thought here about
wind is like that's this is too much math, too much data.
You got to go off feel, which I understand, like people thinking
that, but you feel so much more confident over a golf shot in
the wind. Once you know what number you're
trying to hit it. It's not like this shot is 150.
I feel like it's a 2 club win. So I'm going to go this no, I I
think that's you're you are guessing at that point, right.
So like the. Video that I did with Rick
Shields, not to promote someone else's YouTube channel here, but
if you go to Rick Shields and Scott Fawcett, it's a great,
great video. The 2nd hole, I think the hole
was playing like 190 ish something like that into the
wind. And I said, you know, how much
wind do you think this is? And I, I think that was his
answer, like A1 club wind. I'm like, that doesn't really
mean anything. It does historically understand
that's how we thought about it, but that just really doesn't
mean anything. How about this instead?
Let's use this 10% and I can't remember exactly how we came up
with the numbers, but basically I took him from wanting to hit a
six iron to just a perfect five and he hit it exactly whole
high. And it it's exactly what you
said there. I boiled it down to let's just
pretend this shot was 205 and I told you nothing else.
What would you be hitting? And that was vibrant.
It was just the perfect club. It's easier way to do it.
Much easier way, OK. And then the the last kind of
question on this was like left to right, right to left winds
like how are you thinking? How are you thinking about that?
They're really so all the the the Ballistics guy from the FBI
that did this work. You mean you have to just say
it's a zero spin axis that they're doing on left to right
wind and into the wind like so they're just predicting that
basically the the your shape really dictates when it's a
cross wind. So the other day, I mean, this
is really embarrassing. I hit a six iron from think it
was 165 and the wind was just straight off the right and I hit
this thing and it was right at it.
I'm posing like it looks great and it comes up 20 yards short
in the front bunker. It wasn't even close.
And that's because I I kind of flared it up into the wind,
which was kind of the shot I was trying to, I mean, I basically
hit the shot I was trying to hit.
I couldn't believe it honestly went that short and I definitely
was thinking that's a shot I need to practice a lot coming up
and try to figure out if I can straighten my my fade out a
little bit in order for it not to have so much impact.
Because I did it again a couple holes later with the pitching
wedge with the wind off the right from 1:10 again, I just
don't hit my irons anywhere but you really on those shots
because now if I and now if the wind is off the left it, it
certainly can just ride it a heck of a lot easier.
So those those ones, because the guy had to do it with a 0 spin
axis. I don't really think the numbers
are that relevant. You really need to understand
how your shape impacts with the wind, the distance it's going to
go, and how much the wind's going to move it left to right.
Well, it's understanding your stock shot.
What am I likely going to hit here?
What's the spin axis of that? And then understanding that, I
mean you, you'd got to know what shot you're playing then to.
Yeah, and it need and that one needs to come up.
That's where the double cross. That's where let's pretend.
So I fade every shot, I fade every shot.
Let's pretend I've got a 10 mile an hour wind off the left and
I'm going to hit a little punch, draw 6 iron and hold it just
that way. It's strange the shout out
rather than riding it with A7 iron.
And well, in that scenario, if I do double cross it, which is
going to happen a lot, lot more than people think because I'm
going to move the ball back in my stance.
I'm going to change my path to the right.
But it's also now I've got to get the club on the other side,
the club base on the other side of path even earlier in my
swing, which is a really difficult thing to do.
So now my miss when I double cross it is going to be a block
because the face is left open. I've moved my path to the right
and the wind is off the left. Like the double cross in that
setting is so far off the planet, it's just incredible.
And so I am definitely a proponent.
Unless there's a tree in the way, just ride the wind and make
sure, you know, make sure the shape you're intending to come
off the club face is what comes off the club face.
And then just get better at figuring out, OK, this is going
to move at 15 or 20 yards. Cool.
It's better than it moving 25 yards the wrong way.
Yep. OK, moving on, Scott.
I got some Flack. I did.
I didn't think you did a bad job, did you?
I argued with you and that was wrong with me.
I don't. Remember, where was it?
OK, so I think they they got they got mad at me on the 2nd
hole. On the 1st hole, we argued about
what club to hit off the set and then we also the second into the
green. So I did, I did like I did like
that I was, I was a fan and I'm going to, I'm going to go ahead
and we're we're going to talk about this a little bit, but on
the 2nd hole, So I'm going to, I'm going to share the 2nd hole
here because I think people weren't, weren't, weren't a fan
of me saying like, oh, I need to hit the nine.
You're saying hit the eight. I hit the nine.
It came up short and like I hit it decently.
So if I would have missed it, it would have been way short.
So. The comments were all like, Wong
is dead on that hole. I'm like, but if you never get
the club to the hole, it wasn't the right club.
Well, let's talk about it. OK, So I think I was somewhere
over here and I was like 161621 was 165 to the flag, 2nd hole
today. It was cold.
And so I was like, that's kind of a nine.
If I hit it and you're like, I think you should hit the 8.
And I was like, I don't want to go long.
So I ended up hitting the 9. And I was, I was well, short.
I, I was guess I was 40 feet short or something like that,
kind of in here. And the flag was back here.
You can see this. You can see my screen.
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, OK.
Using the dead center of the green.
Yeah, yeah. So like, and I, yeah, so I was
afraid of going along. I didn't want to go back here,
but I thought that was really bad.
So I was trying to just stay short and live, live up in here.
So talk talk me through some of the same.
Thing that I would clean up there always is just the
language. I didn't want to go long.
That's that's an irrelevant thought.
Where do we want to go? OK, we.
Want to go roughly pin high? I mean I totally agree that it
was possible the 8 iron. And this is the other funny
thing too. Why did you not want to go long?
You've never played the course before.
You have no idea what's going on back there.
I mean, you have no idea what's going on long, but you're like,
I don't want to go long. I mean, well, you don't want to
meet again. What you've got to think of as
Venn diagrams for both target selection directionally and in
distance control the Venn diagram.
The 9 iron portion of it is at best probably 5 yards short all
the way to back short of the green.
The Venn diagram of the 8 iron might even be centered.
The the shortest shots are only 5 yards.
You know, the the shorter end of the Venn diagram is 5 yards.
I mean, they're going to overlap.
So let's say that the 9 iron is exactly whole high and the 8
iron is 5 yards short up to however long the 9 iron wasn't
going to get to there. I mean, it's so one thing that's
interesting to me is how many times in a round of golf and
it's it's to me, it's usually a sign you're not playing very
well, that no club feels right for like 18 straight holes.
You like, you feel like you just had eighteen straight bad
numbers. It's like it has to be one of
these two. They can't both feel like
there's no way A9 iron gets there and there's no way an 8
iron stays short of the back of the green.
Like that can't be the case. It has to be one of the two.
I just, I think that it's a really, and again, I'm not
saying I don't do the same thing.
I mean, one thing I've said a few times recently on podcast, I
do think a lot of the winning requires luck.
Qualifying requires luck. Idea that I talk about all the
time is just having some good numbers, just more good numbers
in any given round. I my US mid am last year my
practice round, I shot 64 and had eighteen straight perfect
numbers. I mean, it was just comical how
it was just if you told me you're going to have an 8 iron,
what number do you want? 162.
I mean just every single hole. The next day I reverted to the
mean and I had 18 straight tweeners and nothing felt
comfortable. That was probably a little
nerves. We're in the US mid air
qualifier, you know, and obviously we'd like to qualify.
And then just, you know, just a little bit of doubt in my own
game because I hadn't been playing at all.
I mean, so everything felt wrong.
It's hard. Yep.
It's got to be one of two. OK, well here's a, here's a good
question. Let's end on this.
This is very practical for a lot of us at our at our home clubs,
a lot of match play, 4 ball matches.
I think it's, you know, pretty common for most of us.
Are you changing your decade strategy?
How do you how do you suggest that people handle that?
The one thing that I say you can do both in stroke play and match
play in order to make more birdies is on slightly barely
reachable par fives. You can play that second shot
really aggressive and slightly barely drivable par fours.
You can play that tee shot very aggressive, but I would only be
doing that if I'm like Dormy or close to Dormy 2 down with three
to play. I need to make something happen.
I'm probably going to need a little bit of help too, but I
also need to make something happen.
So those are spots that's where I can materially increase my
birdies, but I'm also going to materially increase my bogeys
most likely. So it's going to give me the
same net scoring average for the most part.
When people think I'm three down to three to go, I need to fire
at flags. I need to, you know, never up,
never in my 20 footer. Like those things don't result
in more birdies. It's the variance within your
shot pattern that's going to give you that look from 1:50.
And it's just making the hole as big as physically possible on
that 20 footer. I mean, if you hit a putt 4 feet
by you've made the hole about 10% of the size that it should
be. You just, it sucks when you
leave a putt short, but you just have to leave some putt short
from 20 feet to optimize both your make rate and strokes to
hole out rate. So it really is and, and one
concrete example of this is and, and where it really was like in
my face, the idea that three feet on tour is 100% make rate,
basically 99% and 8 feet is 5050.
So unless your opponent opponent is inside 8 feet, you really
don't know what they're going to make on the hole in the 1st
place. And so on the 9th hole in the
quarterfinals, I'm pretty sure it was of the US junior when
Will won. We were out there with like a
nine iron. It looked like our opponent had
stuffed at the greens a little elevated.
It looked like this guy was 3 feet.
And so I did tell Will like we're going to get more
aggressive on this shot. Instead of carrying it 4 yards
past the flag and three yards left, we're going to really just
try to fire right at this flag. And he fanned it a little bit
and he came up in the front right bunker.
He hit the exact shot that if we'd played with the proper
target, he would have stuffed. The real problem with this is
then when we get up to the green, the guy was 15 feet, so
he had a A-15 footer. Is what does that make rated is
what do we got here 20% on tour? I mean this kids maybe 15% to
make that putt and we just gave him a hole.
I mean just straight up gave him a hole when really if we played
kept with this proper strategy, proper target will might have
even won the hole. You just got to golf is unique
because it's, it's also a sport where you don't, you don't play
defense. That makes it very unique
because you can't impact your opponent's play.
I always have somebody when I say that like, well, you can
rattle change or do this. I'm like, well, that's
gamesmanship and you're an asshole.
That's not defense. That's you just being psychotic.
It's just you just you can only impact your own place.
So you just, I just largely don't even care what my
opponent's doing anymore. At this point.
It's it really is irrelevant to me trying to take the optimal
scoring average on this hole for me right now.
Got it Scott, thanks for thanks for answering some comments.
I I love all these two videos. Turned out it was so fun to to
shoot those with you. Thanks for your generosity of
sharing and setting it all up and, and everything.
So it was what a what a cool series to to kick the year off
here and and publish out there for everyone.
So yeah, it was. Fun some of the comments like,
Oh my God, is this guy going to be on your channel all the time?
And now you're going to hit him again with another one.
Boy, you're walking a fine line. I'll see.
I'll see you in 2027 for our next video.
It's a different it's this is on the podcast channel.
You know, it's a different. It's the only the real the real
folks are over here watching this.
That's the commentary. But OK, people, if they do want
to learn how to you teased of how to not aim in the middle of
the greens. They want to learn.
They should go get the decade app.
They can learn all your stuff in there and.
Go to decade dot golf. Use that.
Use the code. Cordy, use the code Cordy, you
can get a nice discount. We do appreciate that.
And they can use that app. Everyone is asking what's that
app that Scott's using on the on the T shots?
That was your your decade app as well.
So yeah, appreciate it. Thanks for hanging out, Scott.
Always.