In this episode of Easy Game, we discuss getting through winter golf, what we are taking from 2024, Patrick's driver fitting and swing lesson, golf trips, TGL, the golf ball rollback, and Long Game Golf.
[00:00:01] Thanks for listening to this episode of the Easy Game Golf Podcast. Remember to visit us at easygameradio.com, follow us on Instagram at Easy Game Golf, and subscribe to the podcast on both Spotify and Apple Podcasts. Hello and welcome back to another episode of Easy Game. I'm your host Patrick, he is your co-host AJ, and this is episode two.
[00:00:31] AJ, let's get started man. So... Episode two. Episode two. So first things first, you actually got to play some golf over our little hiatus there. Yeah. Some cold weather golf too, like the couple warm decent days that we've had. I've not been able to get on the golf course, and then when I have been able to get on the golf course it's been cold. So played this weekend. It was brisk 35 at the high probably, but came better prepared, had the cover on the
[00:00:59] cart, brought heat packs for everybody that actually showed up. Do you have a limit? Is there a... Screw that, I'm not playing. What is your limit on playing a route of golf? I don't think it's so much the temperature. It's like the other conditions. Like if it's really cold and rainy, I'm probably going to say pack it in. But I feel like the lowest I've played in... I've played...
[00:01:24] I remember in Virginia, probably like 10 years ago, I played as a snowstorm was coming in, and by the time I had to finish, the ball was actually collecting snow on the green as the putt rolled. So I was like, all right, you literally can't play in this. Yeah, that's going to make things tough. I played a round in December with my dad out at his place, and the green surface was crunchy to start the round. So there was a crust of ice, which made putting change drastically throughout the day. But I'm kind of with you.
[00:01:53] I don't mind the cold so much, but cold and windy is probably going to kill it for me. I don't even mind playing so much in the rain as long as it's not too cold and windy too. Yeah, yeah. And the other side, like, you know, go full golf nerd, right? You know, you really shouldn't be out there trashing the course in the cold weather. And if there's a freeze coming, like our weather's been just parabolic lately. We had 70 degrees on Saturday. I didn't get out. But then Sunday, the day that we did play, it was just freezing cold and then more rain
[00:02:22] coming and we're supposed to drop back into like the 20s. So, you know, that course is wet. Obviously, hopefully it's car path only. But if you're out there just trashing the course, you're going to pay for it. March and April. So my home course done an awesome job this year at Clarkville Country Club. Like they've covered and uncovered, left them covered, shut the course down for a week. Everybody just kind of get, you just get it because you know it's going to be better in, you know, late March and April.
[00:02:48] Yeah, I've gotten three full scorecards this year. Had a 78, a 83 and an 84. So still right around there. I know we didn't have that much of a break. I played all the way through December. I know you played some then. Let's get into what you're carrying over from last year and what your intentions are for this upcoming season. Yeah, man.
[00:03:15] Well, I know I have to be more consistent because I tinker too much. Like I've got a new set of irons in the bag now that I put in there in December. Had the new driver back over the summer. Wedges I'm going to swap out. You got to get Xan as a sponsor, by the way. But go ahead. Yeah. Just keep my bag stable. Give me some free gear. But I think that's fair. Like don't, don't tinker so much. But I finally gave up on traditional lofts and just went to, you know, irons with jack lofts.
[00:03:43] So that, that five iron is lofted like a four iron with the length of a five iron shaft. So not tinkering too much would be really, really smart for me to do. I feel like I've always played pretty smart golf. I avoid problems well. So I need to keep doing that. But my short game's got to get better. I've been doing the good off-season practice, just like rolling putts. I'll sit there in the living room and I'll roll 200, 300 putts a night. So I'd like to see my putts. I'd like 32 putts to be a bad round.
[00:04:14] Both of the cards that I had that were over 80 had 34 and 35 putts, I believe. And then my sub 70 was like 31. So you mentioned something there that I want to dig into before we get too far away from it. Playing smart golf. I'm not going to claim that I'm the smartest golfer in the world. But one thing I did get better at last year, and I think honestly it was a, probably a couple of strokes that it saved me over the course of the season is knowing when to take your medicine.
[00:04:45] And succinctly, I think if the phrase it's 90% air ever comes out of your mouth, you need to rethink your shot. You're probably wrong. Even if it is 90% air, the idea that average golfers, and I'll put, you know, I'm still myself, I think, in that time for the most part.
[00:05:11] But the amount of average golfers I see who hit a poor shot and then compound it by hitting a shot that would have to be absolutely perfect in order to recover from it versus just accepting that, okay, this is a one stroke penalty. I need to hit a punch shot back out into the fairway.
[00:05:27] But I think that is a point that, look, unless you're a scratch golfer, you're probably leaving some strokes up there that you wouldn't necessarily need to take just by not playing smart golf. So I felt that was an important part I wanted to just highlight and take your medicine golfers. Yeah, and avoid needing to. I think that the, well, I know the best rounds of golf that I've ever played are the most boring ones.
[00:05:57] Like there's no, there's no hero shot in a good round of golf. But, you know, one thing that is different with guys like you and I, like when you were just saying average golfer, that's always such a weird thing. Because like, if you are a single digit, low double digit handicap, you're not an average golfer. But the difference between like playing golf and going golfing, if you're just going golfing, then whatever.
[00:06:24] Like swing your noodles into the pond and just hit it out of the trees, do whatever you want, right? But you're not playing golf at that point. And like avoiding those situations where you're stuck in that hole, like, oh, I can split these trees. But yeah, when you get there, like you said, just punch it back out in the fairway and get out of there. Probably going to put it in the sand trap anyway on your second one. But at least it's on your third shot putting into the trap, not your fifth shot putting into that trap. Exactly. Yeah.
[00:06:52] Except that that is a one stroke penalty and you are bringing bogey on the table as a good score for that hole. You've already hit one bad shot thinking that you're going to suddenly be able to salvage it and make bar still, I think leads to more double and triple bogeys than anything else. All right. So we'll go through mine here in a second too. But so you laid out a little bit about what your goals are for this coming season. But maybe this should have been the question first. What are you carrying over from last year?
[00:07:22] From a performance point of view, I did good on greens and regulation. I sit at about 40, just over 50 percent greens and reg. Fairways are good. So I want to keep doing that. I think on my, the mentality of it, just keep doing that. Not letting myself get distracted away from the things that I do well. In college, we were just saying not stretch myself too much, but I really don't make too much of a habit of that.
[00:07:49] So just keep putting the ball in the fairway. Good choices off the tee. Give myself second shots that are within my wheelhouse. Taking medicine is just always going to be a good thing. Playing conservative when you can. But my short game has to get better. Those putts have to keep staying low. I can't have 36 putt rounds. But keeping that ball in the fairway, or at least, you know, just five foot off of it,
[00:08:18] and that's going to be a huge difference maker. All of my, all of my worst rounds are when I'm not on the green in regulation. Just put it on the green and make it boring after that. So more boring golf. I think that that's a fair way to sum that up. More boring golf. I like that. Yeah. More boring golf. What do you think? As far as things that I'm going to carry through, I finally found some better tempo last year, pretty much across the board with my eyes.
[00:08:45] And if I can hold on to that going into this season, that really feels like the biggest improvement I made last year, all along with, I think, playing smarter golf. So two years ago, I put a lot more work into it. I was getting more lessons. I took more putting practice. And probably had a better idea of my golf swing two years ago than I did this whole season. But I scored better and I played better this past season.
[00:09:16] Because I think I was actually doing a little bit less anchoring while we were playing. And I think that's going to really be my focus moving forward. So I got fitted for a new driver the other day. It had been a few years, what, three and a half since I had a driver. I was hitting the Titleist TSI 3. And all the research that I did, all the digging I did, and it is kind of roundly accepted. And I want to say Titleist almost admitted to this,
[00:09:43] that they have not produced a top flight driver in quite some time. While the TSI 3 was an upgrade to the old Relic that I was hitting before that, I got fitted the other day and ended up going with a King 430 Max. They have a low spin version and a standard version. And I actually went with the standard version because I was getting less spin on it. But getting a new driver is exciting in and of itself. I'm probably a couple of weeks from that being delivered.
[00:10:12] But I got maybe the best swing lesson I've ever got in the course of being fitted for a driver. And you and I have played round after round. And I've kind of always just felt something is off with my swing. And it makes it inconsistent. You know I'm brutal off the tee from one round to the next. And what was essentially pointed out to me is that I have a ton of club head speed, as you know. But I am swinging almost entirely with my upper body.
[00:10:41] And I'm getting almost no rotation with my hips. And that was pretty much stemming from the fact that I was starting my sequence improperly. So I was basically starting my backswing. Yeah, I was starting my backswing with my arms. And that was leading to no rotation at the hips, at the top of the swing. And then every bit of the speed through was coming through with my arms, which led to a lot of balance issues. It's going to rob you of distance. It's going to make your strike patterns. And it's inconsistent.
[00:11:09] But I never considered that because I had so much speed, even with being just primarily arms. And so basically the cue I got, which is something I give to my athletes all the time, is just to be an athlete. And the analogy that the fitter, who's also a swing coach, basically put to me is, you know, he could tell kind of from my swing that I used to be a baseball player.
[00:11:37] And he put me in the mindset of when you're swinging at a pitch, it happens so quickly. You don't have time to react. You don't have time to think. You step and you swing through the ball. And baseball players line up to hit a tee shot. And you've got seconds to stand over the ball to think about it. You've got all the time when you're taking the club back. And all of those thoughts tend to just get in the way. And I think if I'm being honest, I don't remember the last time I stood over a driver
[00:12:05] and just tried to be an athlete. And so my entire goal going into this year is to work on my swing when I'm working on it, if I'm at the range or in a lesson. And then when I'm playing golf, I'm just going to try to be an athlete. And in service to that, I actually went to the range today and got a massive bucket of balls and tried to kind of be agnostic about the results because what I realized is that changing the sequence of my swing changes the entire timing.
[00:12:34] And it's going to be a pretty big overhaul for me. So I banged probably 175 balls today. I get what you're saying with being an athlete. And one of the things that I like to do, and this isn't really good advice, because if you take it the wrong way, it will wreck you. It's not so much about mimicking other player swings, and especially the swings that we see on TV or what you think you're supposed to do.
[00:13:02] But I love to look at the fluidity and the timing and the motion, the mechanics of the elite swings. And I always like thinking of Adam Scott's swing. I think he has one of the best swings on tour, same with Nelly Korda, where as I stand over the ball and I'm on the range, I want to imagine more of the things that you would not see those elite swings doing, real jerky motions off of the ball and trying to all of a sudden at the top of your swing,
[00:13:31] just rip at it, trying to imagine, like, yes, put it in your head that I'm going to swing it just like I see on TV to catch those highlights that won't break your result as much as the ones that we always create, you know, like to your point of, you know, that split-second reactionary style of a baseball swing. You know, you, a baseball player is already moving their body and shifting their weight as that pitcher's winding up. You know, they have to react to where the ball is going that they're trying to hit,
[00:14:00] but they have already started their movements. So that sequence that a baseball player has where they know they're just trying to generate speed, they're trying to match up the flight of the baseball to their bat, I think it's more like you could think of it as an active reaction to the pitch, whereas with golf, that's a stationary ball. Of course, on the tee box, you know, you start getting into, you know, your lie conditions and fairway versus rough, you know,
[00:14:29] fescue versus Bermuda and that whole different level. But I love the thought of, hey, don't just keep doing what I've always been doing in terms of like, you know, shifting your weight or getting your legs too stuck, like move like an athlete. It's still an athletic motion. Even if you don't have Adam Scott swing, it's got to be athletic or else it's going to be just all janky. Yeah, I noticed for sure.
[00:14:57] I noticed for sure when I was able to do it right today that I was getting to a position at the top of my backswing that I never get to when I'm too armsy with the takeaway. And just being able to load the whole front side now and having that sequence right, there were a couple of balls today that were flying different even than what I'm used to when I center a ball up. So I'm not going to lie, I'm pretty excited about going into the season with,
[00:15:27] I like to have major things to work on. And I think this is going to be a change that's going to take me a little while, but I like to have something to work on. So my primary thing going into this season is number one, be an athlete. There's obviously forethought that goes into that. You can't just go out there blind and swing away. But how that's going to translate to shots other than on the tee box is planning to, when I am playing golf,
[00:15:55] to be playing golf and to try to deal with the swing I have that day and not tinker. I know there were rounds last year where if I hit seven drivers, I probably had seven different swings because you're just out there searching for anything that feels good. You don't have to be a great golfer to know that that's not going to get good results. Yeah, and if you start tinkering with too much, like some of the rules that I give myself, don't change anything from between the first and the 18th. Like, don't do it. It's not the time.
[00:16:26] If you are in a course management situation where you're like, no, I think I know the feeling I need to have to produce that ball flight. Well, sure, that's different. But if you're not at that level, don't even do it. I'm talking, okay, I'm going to try to, you know, load my left leg a little bit more on this one. And we're talking a standard stock par four. You don't need to be cute. It's not the time to do that. But when I'm on the range, especially warming up, I want to get to the golf course at least an hour before the tee time. I love being the first one there.
[00:16:56] You know, the guys are just bringing out the balls on the range and I'm getting there, put my shoes on or whatever. Get a little warmed up. And then I do like to almost produce a fault purposely where if I have that takeaway and I'm really steep on mine, like I'm pretty shallow and laid off on my backswing on a driver, I will purposely try to work it up to A, feel my range of motion, stretch, get some mobility going.
[00:17:20] But then also I want to have a flaw that I can reproduce consistently as well. So I don't mind going out there and being like, all right, I want to hit like the other day. For some reason in my mind, I was like, I want to hit just like nasty, thin runners, just worm burners with my driver, like terrible tee shots. But I want to do it on purpose on command. And I was actually being able to, I was purposely lifting my body and getting early extension in my hips.
[00:17:48] And I was missing the bottom of the driver face like bad. I'm like, cool. That's the feeling of a really bad tee shot. Don't do that. And then step back and just go back into your normal rhythm and those normal cues that you have. And bam, there it is. Great drive right down the middle. So I like tinkering with that, but it's like you try to do all of that in your head, like fixing a flaw mid round. It's just not the time to do it. It's so frustrating when you just lose like your driver swing mid round.
[00:18:15] That's when I just bust out free wood or take a long iron off a tee just to put that club away and not get those thoughts in my head. No, it's that's the, that is the absolute right way to approach it because neither you nor I, nor honestly, probably most anybody listening is consistent enough with their golf swing to know exactly what they did, especially in a single swing with a club. So you hit a driver, maybe you go two or three holes before the driver of the right club.
[00:18:43] Again, not being able to work on something and have to try to come up with those changes 15, 20 minutes apart, having not hit that club, you're asking for trouble. And that is primarily the thing that I'm going to try to avoid this year. So I'm saying that here now it's on video. So we are playing our, our rounds together this year. You can look back and be like, dude, remember what you said. What are you doing?
[00:19:12] Basically biblical now at this point. All right. So, uh, yeah, go ahead. Before we do that, what were some of your numbers in your fitting and where, where'd you go? So I went to golf exchange because I wanted to hit a bunch of different clubs. I hit the Callaway. I hit the new Taylor bank. I hit, um, a couple of different Titleist drivers. I had a couple of different paying drivers. And I think, you know, you can go and get driver reviews anywhere, but honestly, until you hit them, you don't know how that's going to match up with your swing.
[00:19:42] I was, I was getting somewhere in the 170 to 175, uh, ball speed range with kind of my stock swing, the way I had gone in there. And by the end of the session, when I was actually getting my lower body involved and what felt like swinging softer, I was actually getting up north of 180 on ball speed. Thick. Yeah.
[00:20:08] I felt a little bad for the guy who was fitting me because we had actually ended up being the same age and father time has been a little tougher on him, but he's also a scratch golfer. So he was able to hold that over me, I guess. But, uh, yeah, I mean, do you want to play golf or do you want to play swing speed? Two different things. Yep. So at the range today, um, now we're talking, it was 31 degrees outside. I'm standing under a heater.
[00:20:31] I'm hitting range balls, but, uh, I, I pretty much got dialed in to where I was about 175 ball speed and carrying about 290 to 295 with most of the shots that I, that I hit well with the range. Do you remember your, uh, smash factor during the fitting? So that's what I was struggling with. Cause I was still hanging out in the one threes, uh, because I was not centering the face up. I hit a lot of balls. And I think this is kind of typical for me.
[00:21:00] I hit a lot of balls off the heel side of the face and I hit a lot of balls high off the face. And the, the path of my swing now is not drastically different because the swing is not really that different. It's just the sequence, but it is going to take me a little while to get used to, uh, the clubs just in a different spot at the bottom of the swing. The sacrilegious that I would say is that you don't need more ball speed. No, what ball, more ball speed.
[00:21:28] I told, I told, uh, the fitter and then. Or rather more club speed. You don't need any more ball speed, not more club speed. Yeah. And I think a better approach angle. Um, I had some spin issues cause I had a negative approach angle on a lot of my driver shots. A couple of degrees down by the end of the session, I was three or four degrees up and my spin numbers were out of this world on some of those negative approach angles. I mean, you're talking 4,500, 5,000 RPMs and you want to be half that.
[00:21:58] Yeah. And so many little things that are going to affect that too. I mean, just the T height alone. I've always been a ping fan boy. I mean, that club is going to be great for you. That's where I wish, uh, either I was left-handed or you were right-handed. So that could hit whatever you're hitting. Yeah. Yeah. So let's, uh, let's talk now. Um, you and I have first, uh, the first golf trip, our first major, if you will, scheduled for this, uh, this coming March. It's you, me, and a couple of other boys who are going out to play.
[00:22:28] Yeah. Should we even, I don't want to say the name of it. The three people. It's the three people who listen to our podcast. What I'll do, I'm going to, I'm going to censor it on any of the little chop edits that I put on Instagram. So if anybody's going to hear it, they're going to have to actually listen to the podcast to hear the name of this course. That's how I'll keep it secret. All right. So, so talk about where we're going. Peninsula, man, Lancaster, Kentucky. I love this course.
[00:22:55] That was a, that was a shot in the dark last year after we went to Valhalla for the PGA. Heat die course, middle of nowhere, Kentucky outside of Danville. I already feel like I'm saying too much. I don't want the world to know about it. What I, what I loved about it, looking forward to it in March is that they don't have open, available public tea times. You have to stay there at the resort in those little cottages, get two rounds of golf guaranteed. You know, each day that you're there, roll up, get your golf cart in the morning, grab breakfast, which we won't have.
[00:23:24] That kind of sucks for off season, but I can live. And then just having that cart all day. So I thought the course was a ton of fun. Kicked our ass first couple of times. And I love the last one. And you're like, we're good. Let's tee it up a little bit. And it was both of our best rounds, of course, like humble yourself. But, uh, I, I love that course. I'm really excited for it. And it'll be fun to play it at the time of year that we did. Cause we went in, uh, it was May, right? Last year. Yeah.
[00:23:52] So yeah, the course is like, like you said, it's absolutely this little hidden gem. I'm not, I'm not going to lie. The combinations are pretty rough. Um, the blinds were like falling apart in my room. Oh yeah, dude. Like the toilet ran the whole time. So what you, you go down there, the course is far and away the best part of the entire thing, which if you were going to pick one thing to be the best, you'd want it to be the course. You're kind of sequestered there. You're 30 minutes from anywhere to go to get something to eat, or you want to go get a drink.
[00:24:19] So everybody kind of stays self-contained on this one little street where they've got a bunch of duplexes. Their average customer, I think is groups of 10 to 20 people who go down and play for the weekend, but I'm pretty excited about that trip. It's our first time returning back to a place. And I'm looking forward to talking about that trip here when we figure out the format and how that's going to go. Because you and I have a tendency to be close enough together that we can get a little bit competitive.
[00:24:50] Yeah. And we could, I mean, we can skin that cat multiple ways. Um, cause how many rounds are we going to get in? Uh, we're going to play one round on Friday, two rounds on Saturday, and then an early round on Sunday. They've got a tournament going off on Sunday that we're going to get out of that. Yeah. So we could skin that cat a few ways to, cause that's a thing like on golf trips and even just weekend rounds. It's like, I always want my own score. Uh, and I think most people do.
[00:25:19] Unless you're just like, you know, like this weekend, actually, when we had all the cold weather and played on Sunday, we actually just did a break a number Bryson DeChambeau style. We played from the very forward tees. We just wanted to break 60. We shot 62 cause we could not make a putt. But you know, if you're, if you're just, everybody's committed to doing something like that, like it's okay. But I want my own score every time. And I like the formats, you know, even like best ball is great because you know, me and
[00:25:46] you against two other dudes, we're just taking the best one of our scores. We're both going to walk away with a full scorecard that day. We can actually look at what we do. Yeah, I think best ball is, best ball is, is one of my favorite formats. I, I do enjoy playing in a scramble, but I'm with you. I like to, I'm enough of a, of a stat nerd that I like to keep my own score. Uh, if I'm out there playing around. Yeah, it's going to be so much fun. And then, uh, I'm going to be going to the RTJ, uh, for Memorial day group of us are
[00:26:16] going to head down to Alabama and play some golf. They're similar. Like, I think we've got four dudes. Um, but just like getting out of winter and looking forward to some golf. I am so ready for it. So ready for it. I I'm sick of winter golf. Uh, yeah. Lancaster, Kentucky. And we, we both drive, you know, Tesla's I I'm still just laughing at them. Thought of us having cords running out of like the utility room. Yeah. That's going to happen. These hippies.
[00:26:46] Like, what are you doing? Yeah. That's going to be a good time. I'm excited. And we're only like a month out basically. Yeah. We're basically a month out. I think March 21st is, is the first day that we're there. So moving on, speaking of winter golf, let's wrap up because honestly, I'm not sure how much I'm going to watch it. Let's wrap up kind of our thoughts on TGL. Oh my God. Shoot me in the face. Yeah. Thought on it. Uh, I, I was pretty excited about it going in.
[00:27:14] Uh, I was optimistic that it was going to be something that could kind of get you through the season. And now if you're a golf junkie, you can turn on the golf channel and you can watch tournament on pretty much any, any weekend at the corn fairy or whatever else. But I think the overriding thought was that TGL was going to be the off season thing that kept everybody interested, that kept everybody plugged in. And what we found out is that it's not that interesting. No, no.
[00:27:43] Uh, it's, there's been some articles and some of like the, the major golf outlets talking about more on the business side of TGL too. Like, how is this going to make money? So if I stadium only seats like 1500 tickets, the majority of is going to be, you know, high dollar, uh, spenders and just, you know, the locals down in Palm beach that can afford it on a regular basis. But, uh, if they're not getting sponsorship deals and getting on major broadcast TV, they're not going to make money.
[00:28:12] And, uh, Roy McIlroy actually took some shots this week, uh, about, you know, participating in TGL and it kind of being like, Oh, a distraction from the actual big tour events. And he retorted with, Hey, well, don't forget that PGA is a 20% partner in the TGL. So you are supporting the PGA by participating in TGL, but it is so boring. I mean, as soon as that first hour is done, I'm checked out, it goes to singles and it's just blah. But did you watch this last week?
[00:28:42] I haven't watched this last week. Cause I did hear something come out of it that I think I was aware of, but I'm not sure how much of the golfing public is aware of. Didn't Rory make some kind of comment about the ball was like a retail ball. Yeah. He was talking about the switch that he made. Yeah. Yeah. His tailor-made, uh, TP five. He, what he said was true, but it is more common than people think because they will have
[00:29:10] tour only or prototype balls that the PGA guys and any of the tours really, but, uh, the teams will have access to a different ball than what you think would be your pro V1. One of the examples of pro V1, uh, left dash great ball. You can buy it. It's the same price as any other one, but most people cannot hit it. So you don't find it in stores and everything that the, you know, PGA guys have, it's all
[00:29:40] USGA forming. You can get a version of it, but the tour players have access to specialized equipment. And what I think he was really saying there was he was like, no, it's the same one as you get off the shelf. So, but he did great. And he, he won out in California two weeks ago. He didn't play this last week. The, the ball change with the turf, the artificial turf at TGL is kind of interesting.
[00:30:09] Like, I wonder if he's like trying to tinker with that too, to somehow create a better outcome or make it more competitive somehow for TGL. But God is boring. No, I think that the big thing this last week was Tommy Fleetwood had a shot that didn't register. Right. The launch monitors didn't pick up his shot. And he hit a shot just as you would expect. Tommy Fleetwood should flies off into the air as you can see it hits the screen.
[00:30:35] But then the actual video just shows kind of like this dribbling worm burner run down the fairway and the look on his face was just like, like you could tell he wanted to be like, what the fuck was that? How did they deal with that? It wasn't allowed to. People are betting on that shit. Yeah. So you get, you get a reti. There's a couple of different situations because they have the ref there on the course or the field, whatever you want to call that. But in that case, it's a, it's a total reti. So he probably hit the same exact shot that he was going to.
[00:31:04] But if, if they have those types of issues with TGL over and over again, like they've had the long approaches where Tiger Woods and Matt Fitzpatrick are missing greens by 30, 20, 30 yards. And then you have tee shots that don't register. Like who's going to watch that? Doesn't make sense. And also when you went and got your fitting, how many times did that happen? Yeah. That's, that's kind of a part of the process. Yeah. Like it just, the, that, those launch monitors, there's no, there's no excuse for that to be
[00:31:34] happening for that dollar amount. And, you know, my tinfoil goes on because Tiger Woods has a financial interest in the full swing launch monitor. And that is what they're using. Come on, like just put a track man out there. So I'm sure track man is just loving watching this happen. Just being like, you'd put, you know, a dozen of your own sensors out there and none of them picked up that, that information, right. And correlate it onto the screen. TGL has got to get that figured out. I, I, how do you sell that product to Fox?
[00:32:03] How do you convince people to watch that on, you know, a Saturday in October? You're not going to, you're not going to be college football. You're not going to beat the NFL. You're barely going to compete with NCAA, especially right now going to March Madness. I think random Joe is going to watch that. How many weeks do they have left? Sixth. Wow. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. That's going to be interesting to see how that plays out. Can we talk real quickly?
[00:32:28] We spent a moment on, on golf balls there and early last year, I think it was early. There was a really big kind of dust up in the golf world about potentially changing balls or retrograding them. So they go back to flying, not as far, things like that. Is there anything new on that coming up? Is that still an initiative or where are you at with that? I haven't heard anything lately about it.
[00:32:56] I'm, I think it'll still be a conversation. I'm actually pro roll it back only because bifurcation doesn't seem to be getting any kind of support. I know what that just basically means where tour players are playing one standard and then everybody else is playing another. Exactly. Exactly. I would compare this to the equivalent of, you know, an NBA height hoop verse, you know, whatever you want to put in at the gym.
[00:33:23] So everybody can still play the same game, but they have a different standard. You could compare it as well to, you know, the hash marks on a college football field versus an NFL field. So bifurcation exists in sports already. Metal bat versus wood bat is another great example of bifurcation. The, the entertaining thing. Entertaining is a fair way to, to put my opinion on it is the uproar from, you know, the internet
[00:33:50] Chad golfer that thinks that getting the ball rolled back is going to make that big of a difference for him. Um, it will, for some players, you, you would get punished more with a rollback golf ball, but also with all of this, the people are forgetting. There are golf balls that cheat already. And there are golf clubs that are non-conforming. Like this already exists on your local courses, amateur round. Yeah.
[00:34:18] Um, why I'm a fan of it though, is these golf courses have had to change their layout so much that they are no longer the same course. So to me again, entertained is, is a really fair way to describe my opinion. It seems as though the golf world is more angry about their golf ball getting changed, even though it changes anyway, than they are Augusta not being the same golf course that it was 30 years ago.
[00:34:41] So I'm a fan of it just from, you know, sustainability and long-term sustainability of the game as it is, but also, uh, the average scratch golfer in America hits a normal Pro V1 only 250 yards. You're not hitting it that far in the scheme of things. Like you could move up three tee boxes and still use the 2023 Pro V1. And if you get the 2030 and it rolls back, like it's, it's not the golf ball guys and got bad news for everybody. It's not the golf ball. Yeah. I'm not going to lie.
[00:35:11] I personally am fine with, with the golf ball being rolled back. I felt this way several years ago when I used to play a bunch of softball and bats were getting so absurd that little tiny dudes without any swing speed at all, we're still able to hit home runs. And that kind of changes the game to a place where I think it loses a little bit of what it's supposed to be. And I feel that way a little bit with golf now.
[00:35:38] And I know it doesn't maybe impact other people who don't hit the ball quite as far, but clubs are going to continue to get better. It's not like that technology is going to stop. And I think there needs to be something that's consistent because you're going to wind up whether it's two years from now, 10 years from now, if things just continue to progress the way they are. And I guess you would probably get some people to argue who've been playing for a lot of years that the game is no longer the same as it used to be now.
[00:36:06] And so I don't necessarily have a problem with it and it causes a lot of less issues. Like you said, golf courses are having to be changed. How many courses have you played on in the last couple of years that have made holes longer out of the tee box? Oh yeah. Yeah. That was one of my big problems at the, my course that I was a member at last year. It's too short. They have par fives where the original tee boxes are shut down or there literally was no more room for it. And when it was built in the, it was like mid eighties, I want to say maybe like 1990,
[00:36:36] you could tell that they were just trying to fit a golf course into this really nice part of middle Tennessee there for some of these tee boxes, there is no more room, but there's par fives on there. They are par fours, 100% par fours for anybody that are out there. But those par fives, you are looking at them like, I'm going to get an Eagle on this hole. And that just defeats the point of it. Like what, what's the point that it doesn't make sense. It's just a driving range at that point. Instant gratification, man. Yeah.
[00:37:04] It's, I mean, that's a bigger issue than just golf. So there's no reason for you to not expect it to carry over into golf. Um, yeah, that's human nature. Yeah. Let's finish up by talking about what are, what are the immediate things you have coming up? Do you have range sessions planned? Do you have any lessons planned? I know we talked about the trip already, but what do we have coming up and things that we might be covering on the next episode? Uh, for me, I've got a fun thing in March as well.
[00:37:32] Before we go to peninsula, my club is doing night golf. They've got a shamrock scramble. Uh, so I'm excited for that. Me and the wife are going to play together, but I don't have any lessons planned. Uh, drew my head coach and my course would love to see me get in there and learn how to chip properly. So I should probably pay him to help me with that. But well, one thing I did just start, just did my baseline on it is the stack swing speed system. Pretty cool product.
[00:38:00] You know, satisfies my tech nerd side where it's got a radar launch monitor, Bluetooth to your phone. And then I think you would like the actual weight system on it rather than having a different swing stick of different weights. So the stack has little donuts that fit over the shaft. Is that correct? Basically. Yeah. I would, uh, they're, they're more like tiny little plates with different combinations of weight, uh, that I think it gets up to 300 grams.
[00:38:28] Uh, but they give you a training regiment. Of course they label it as, yeah, we're using AI powered software, blah, blah, blah. Okay. It's just computerized. We know you got an algorithm, uh, but they take your baseline. They take the swing speeds that you are registering with their shaft. Cause it is shorter than a standard shaft. You tell it what weights you have on it. And so it's taking your results and then tailoring your sets to it.
[00:38:54] And it actually forces you to, you know, rest for, you know, a minute and a half in between swings. They try to replicate, uh, how long between driver swings on a course you would have so that you were actually forcing your body to come down. Uh, and then they tailor the level of resistance that you need to put onto that swing stick. Uh, so I really like it so far. The user interface is good. The internet, you know, just raves about its results. So I'm excited now. I'm going to do my first real workout maybe tomorrow. Yeah.
[00:39:24] We're going to get some rain gears. And so this is all in service to adding club head speed. Yep. Yep. So I want to, I want to stay above that good, like 110 mark. I want 110 to be my cruising. So your, your stock driver swing is about 110. Uh, the stock is like 105. Okay. When I reach it, it's yeah, 110. Uh, so I want my stock to be 110.
[00:39:50] So if I could just gain five to six miles an hour on that stock feel, okay. I'm not talking about like an all out. I want to just have my, my cruising swing do that. Cause I want to sit, if I could get to 270 to 280 average T distance, I would be happy with that. And of course that's any, any par four, par five, any club. I'd like to set average.
[00:40:20] I'm sitting at like 155, one start 255, 260 right now. So do this, do the swing speed for the next couple of weeks, do that program. And then, yeah, just keep rolling putts and keep my putts per round low. So yeah. So I'll take this to, uh, to kind of piggyback off of that. Uh, one thing I will be talking about more on the pod later as I get this developed and finished up as I am, uh, starting my club head speed program myself.
[00:40:48] Uh, it's called, uh, long game golf, and it's going to be a fitness slash explosive movement routine for golfers to be able to add club head speed because, uh, I don't know how to make you a better golfer per se, but I do know how to build strength and power and speed in your swing. So stay tuned for more on long game golf. Definitely going to be talking about that as we move forward. What do you think?
[00:41:16] Uh, we think the real selling point of it's going to be like, if you're just a regular 40 year old dude who just doesn't want to suck, doesn't go to the gym or anything. Yeah. So again, I, I will not claim to be a professional swing coach. I would never, never pretend to be able to coach someone on, but what I do coach regularly are athletes. And I have trained, like I said, I think I mentioned on the last episode, I've trained
[00:41:44] professional athletes, but I spend more, much, much more of my time working with everyday athletes, anywhere from 25 to 65 years old. And of all of the club have speed programs that I've looked at, because I've been doing quite a bit of research on them. It seems to me that most of those are designed to sell golfers on the complexity of the movement
[00:42:07] and all of the quote unquote lifts or, or training regimens and protocols that they use are too focused on being golf swing oriented. And much of that I think is just to sell to a golfer. And so maybe I have a hurdle to overcome, but what I do know is that the same things that make someone strong under a barbell or doing a box jump or running or all of those things go up in a golf swing. We talked about earlier it being an athletic movement.
[00:42:35] And so the primary difference in what I'm going to have in my program is I'll have a lot of different levels for people who are going to do this at home and don't have equipment all the way up to someone who's got full access to a gym and ton of equipment. And I'm basically going to focus on stability, balance, or strength, and then the big explosive movements that will be tailored to kind of the level of whoever that athlete is. But we're going to focus on the same things that NFL players focus on, that NBA players
[00:43:05] focus on, that Major League Baseball players and professional golfers focus on. All of those guys have a trainer that travels with them, or at least the top guys do. They have the tents and the trailer set up on site. A lot of those guys get a workout in after their rounds. But I see a big gap in the club speed product industry, which is using standard functional movements to produce more power. And I'm pretty excited about getting that out there. I've already got a couple of fellas who I'm talking to up here who are going to be some
[00:43:34] of my beta testers who live close enough and can come see me personally. But it'll be a program that largely you can do on your own at home if you have access to equipment. Well, and you've had such good success with your gym, and you understand that. The person that walks in the door could be from a dozen different backgrounds and their injuries and where they're currently at and what their goals are.
[00:44:00] And it's incredibly difficult to, I don't want to say like tailor an approach, but have an approach that is tailorable, I think is so important. So, I mean, it'll be so cool to see. I know it's going to be good. Yeah, that'll be, I won't go on too much more about it. But that'll be one of the big differences I see in my program and others is that most other programs are a single solution to a multifaceted problem.
[00:44:27] And they try to shoehorn people into that one problem, which is constantly talking about rotation. And while that is very important, and it is certainly going to be a part of my program, I think they're missing the boat with a lot more broader functional movements that will translate to the golf swing. Yeah, but do I have to do burpees? You do not have to do burpees. And I can't promise you that you're going to be able to hit 135 on the club head speed when you're finished with it, but I can guarantee it'll be faster than what you're hitting.
[00:44:57] I love it. It's going to be rad. Yes, sir. All right. All right, dude. Yeah. We'll do this again in a couple weeks. More to come. Thanks for listening. Thanks for listening to this episode of the Easy Game Golf podcast. Remember to visit us at easygameradio.com. Follow us on Instagram at easygamegolf. And subscribe to the podcast on both Spotify and Apple Podcasts.