Eric 0:02

And welcome back to the Golf Intervention Podcast. Today, we're gonna have a lively discussion about short game skill. It'll be exciting. It'll be mind-blowing.

Rob 0:14

Dare I say life-changing?

Eric 0:16

Dare I say that I keep saying that on the intro. You know, every now and again, when you teach golf for a living, I, I know you probably feel this too, 'cause it's like every hour a new person rolls in, and you help them with their golf, and it's fun. But like, your wife is a nurse that saves lives.

Rob 0:34

Yes

Eric 0:35

You know what I mean? There's a, there's a importance to that that, like helping somebody with their launch angle on their driver maybe doesn't carry the same weight And so, no, this is not life-changing,

Rob 0:50

Yeah

Eric 0:50

it is, it is fun. It is how people recreate. It is how people compete. Some people it's their livelihood. And so, yeah, maybe not life-changing. It's a strong term, but it is fun, and we're glad to be on with you on another episode of the Golf Intervention Podcast. So, short game skill. This'll be fun. I should say, we do this to mark the date and time is we'll say like, "Oh yeah, yesterday Rory won the Masters." So, I guess this week Wyndham Clark won the US Open. Super cool, right? You and I are i- yeah, you and I are in a text thread with his coach, who used to be, a Mid-Atlantic PGA, director of instruction, and, he left, I don't know, what? Six, seven years ago probably and now he's off at Cherry Hills, so pretty cool, um, being on that thread where people c- you know, congratulating him with working with a major champion. Pretty, pretty cool stuff. So congratulations to Pat Coyner, his coach, and to Wyndham Clark for having exceptional short game. I did not watch. I have to say, I was traveling. I just didn't get to see it, but apparently he won it with the short game. I mean, was, that was, the thing. Today we're gonna continue our series on short game with a discussion on skill. And so we've discussed skill many, many times on this show, and we define it a certain way, and I think in the short game, we'll define it the same way with a slight little caveat, and which we'll describe a little bit later. But the The essence of short game, in my opinion, I think I've said this on the show before, and if you're gonna boil it down, short game skill in summation is learning to slow your ball down at the right time, right? And being able to predictably s- I should, I should probably say it that way. To be able to predictably slow your ball down at the right time. That's the summation, and if you break it into parts, which is what we try to do here, right? What does that actually mean? How do I do that? That's what we're gonna talk about, right? That's what we're gonna talk about, the skill of short game today. And so when you picture short game, you can picture short game not going well, where the ball does not slow down at the right time. Most of the time it's either like, if it's really not going well, it's like, oh, it went two feet 'cause it was really bad, or it went zooming over the green. And that's a d- that's a different visual that you get. The right and left dispersion, we talked about this with strategy last time, in short game, especially the closer you get to the green, not as big of a deal, but the long to short control is really what we're talking about as far as distance goes. And so what we wanna do is break that down into the component parts of the, of the skill, right? And talk about them and what level golfer you are is generally gonna lend to some things that you specifically probably need to work on. Everybody's a little bit different, but we're trying to make some generalizations here on a podcast to a bunch of listeners who we have no idea who you are, most of you, but we just want to try to make some generalizations so that you can learn and say, "Yes, that is me. I am this level golfer. I shoot this score, and I see this thing play out in my short game, and now I know what I need to do better." Right? So the parts of skill that we talk about all the time, whether it applies to driving or, approach shots, pitching the ball, chipping the ball, bunkers, there's a skill that we discuss, multiple skills we discuss, and those skills are... I'm gonna interview Rob Fails. Rob Fails, tell the listener what those skills are.

Rob 4:42

So we say the three skills are arc location, which basically if you picture the club head's travel, at the bottom of the swing, it exhibits an arc type of sh- shape, right? locating where the bottom of that swing arc is in space really the primary driver of your impact spot between the club and the ball. Right? So, the arc location can be place or out of place relative to really these three different planes of motion, really these six degrees of freedom. bottom of the swing could be too high or too low, could be too close to you too far away from you, and it could be too close to the target or too far away from the target. Right? So you... Those six degrees of freedom is really what we're trying to manage and predict to get our contact on the... between the golf ball and the face. Right. So that's skill number one. the variance between what is functional and dysfunctional when it comes to arc location is very, very small, we like to say these skills are always variable in nature, right? So there is unfortunately no set it and forget it when it comes to these skills, and they occur on a bell curve every single time you play a shot, right? So 68% of the time it's gonna be a little above or below average, so a, like kind of a little bit of a miss. of the time is it gonna be exactly what you want, and then 16% of the time it's gonna be nowhere even close. So the arc location, margin of error is typically about a half an inch on either side as far as height. Uh, you have usually about three-quarters of an inch too far away from you, and about an inch and a half, inch, inch and a quarter, inch and a half too close to you, so basically on the toe And then the towards and the away from the target is when it starts to get a very much an interesting conversation because that has implications on what arc height is functional for that chosen, proximity to target arc location. That's tricky, confusing maybe way to put it, but, um, hopefully you're able to follow me there. Um, and then it also has implications on the l- amount of loft you're gonna have at impact relative to the direction the club's moving. So that leads us into our next skill, which is face-to-path. Now we typically talk about face-to-path in terms of the basically the twisting of the shaft about itself or the spinning of the grip, right? However you wanna think of that as being the primary driver of whether the face is to the right or to the left relative to the direction it's moving. That's gonna give you your curvature of the golf ball, right? So if the face is close to the path, the ball's gonna curve left. Face is open to the path, ball's gonna curve right, assuming a center-ish strike. Right? Well, face-to-path is not just a right and left thing. It's also an up and down thing. So it's a three-dimensional, it's a 3D vector that's created, that is, that the ball is responding to at impact, Where it also i- is including the loft of the club. So basically impact, the club head can be moving up, it can be moving level, it can be moving down, then relative to that direction the club head is moving up and down, you're gonna have a certain amount of loft that that surface area of the ball is touching is pointed. Right? So if the loft of the face is matching the direction it's moving, assuming a center-ish strike, you're not gonna get spin. with pretty much all short game shots, you're gonna have more loft, The, the face is pointed up relative to the direction it's moving, that's why you're gonna get spin, backspin, right? And so that's managing how different the gap between the direction it's moving versus the amount of loft that you have. Again, this gets tricky because you start talking things about friction between the, the face and the ball and all sorts of stuff, but you can think of basically the wider that gap is between the face angle at impact from a loft perspective and the attack angle, the up and down movement of the club, the more potential for spin you have Right? The less of the difference you can think of as now more of like almost more like a solid hit, you're getting more energy transfer to the golf ball, or I should say less energy loss at impact, the ball's gonna be going faster with less spin. Right? So that's

Eric 8:58

Mmhmm

Rob 8:59

a, um, taking the face-to-path that we talk about, that second skill, and then adding in the loft component to it and the attack angle component to it. So that is a skill. And then finally, the last skill that we talk about is club head speed. So just to recap, arc location, and down, towards you and away from you, closer to the target, further from the target. Face to path, not only the right and left, but the up and down in terms of the loft. And then finally, club head speed. Those would be our three skills, and they are very much micro. They're happening in the one-two thousandth of a second of impact, and we cannot control them, but we can learn to get better at them and more predictable with them, for sure

Eric 9:43

Yes. So the, the description there, kind of the visualization on that description I would call like, can you control your contacts? You're not chunking, blading, toeing, shanking, you know, generally, right? That's that, you know, where's the arc location to lend a good contact. The, the face-to-path, and we're talking about basically what we're always talking about is where is the club head moving on its arc versus where is the face pointed, right? And in the big swing, so much of that curvature that you're s- that you're dealing with is on the face-to-path. Like, it's the, it's the horizontal movement of the club on its arc with the face, you know, where it's, the horizontal angle of the face, right? So what you're talking about here is adding in now a very important, you know, vertical component, right? Where it's like the up and down movement of the club on the arc, which we call attack angle, and then the what we call the dynamic loft or the, or the loft, which is the vertical component of the face. Um, this is where a lot of discussion in short game happens these days.

Rob 10:50

Yes

Eric 10:50

know I have my preferences, although I think you can do it a lot of ways. Um, and then, you know, obviously the energy, which you said, and then there's speed, you know. But that's like assuming that I can, A, hit it solidly, B, launch it the way I'm thinking with the right amount of spin and loft, and then through that, I probably produce some amount of energy to match that all up to, again, slow my ball down at the right time, right? That's it. I, I think that I wanna reiterate something about skill, which you said to me Maybe even on the podcast, and I can't, I can't remember what it was. Which-- But this goes back to people obsessing over what golf swings look like, right? And looking at Instagram videos or YouTube, whatever, you know, pictures of Wyndham Clark swinging, like Wyndham's Clark's swing is so much better, right? Okay. What does that even mean, right? So the point is skill is, you called it, you called it micro, right? You said skill is micro. Skill is happening in fractions of seconds. Skill is what you can't see is happening essentially, okay? So you can see the results of skill, like you might even see where the divot is or where the ball hit on the face. You can see the swing, right? Someone's, quote-unquote, "a steep guy in the short game", or he's a shallow arc guy in the short game, whatever, and you can see that. Then you can see the ball flying through the air. You can see the shot that they produce. What you can't see is the skill that's happening in your brain, and that's going athletic through, through your body, right? I say that a lot to my students recently is like, skill is what you can't see. Like you said that, and I'm like, it's exactly what it is. And this is why people focus so much on what you can see. This is why the commentary that we see on the TV is all about what you can see, all about what you can see. But the point is, you can't actually see the things that have improved in Wyndham Clark's game, okay? You, you can see the swing, you can't see the skill, and that's really what's producing the shot. So anyway, point being, when we have an episode on skill, I think it's really good to point out, that's what you cannot see, right? And as we get into the discussion about the different levels of player, I think it's important that we reiterate that a level one golfer, I call it level zero to level one golfer, they could, they could have the equivalent of the jump shot of Steph Curry when you look at it, but that doesn't matter.

Rob 13:32

No.

Eric 13:32

They're still gonna hit it all over the place looking like-- They could look like whoever, Wyndham Clark chipping it, but they're not gonna have the skill yet because they've gotta put in the reps to build, to build that up. You were giving some, some measurements, I didn't catch everything you said there, three quarters of an inch this way or one inch this way, or half an inch this way. Think about how hard it is to repeat that, and if you tried to do that consciously, you'd have a really hard time doing it. You can't do it, right? But you can practice it the way that we, the way that you talk about, right? Can I Can I, practice doing that to gain some parameter and some feel on that? So, so as we go into level one golfer, you know, what does that skill, what does that skill look like other than it's frightening sometimes? I'm not picking on you level one golfers, but I'm just saying That being said, I had a go- I had a, somebody I teached today, 18 handicap, okay? I'm giving a couple lessons, and I'm watching him hit two hun- he plays this forward tees, hits 250-yard drives, his miss is like a little push, just drawing these like missile rocket drives. And I'm like, "What's your handicap?" He's like, "18.7." I'm like,

Rob 14:44

Oh boy.

Eric 14:45

I'm like, "What?" And I just, I was so confused, and he's like, "I think I lose eight to 10 shots a round in my short game." I said, "Could we do that next time?" He's like, "Yeah, we'll definitely do that next time." So anyway, I'll keep you updated on that. But I think there's different, you know, different strokes for different folks kind of thing. Like not everybody's the same. Um-

Rob 15:05

funny, but so many leveling golfers just don't care about their putting and short game. They're like, "You know what? I don't really care what I shoot. I just wanna hit the ball better. I just don't wanna get clowned on by my playing partners for

Eric 15:17

I, I think that

Rob 15:18

the tee I'm like I get it dude I absolutely get it

Eric 15:22

Yeah, I think it's funny, people play for different reasons. Correct. We're gonna have some fun with it, and I'll help coach you out. That's why, that's why you hire a golf performance consultant, right? We're, we're gonna help, but, I totally agree with you. So as we look at level one, back to level one golfer, um- It's easy to visualize what they're doing wrong when you picture their shot pattern, right? But, give us a sense of the skill,, and what you think is the biggest focus areas there.

Rob 15:51

Yeah So I think a good way to to visualize this is imagine you have a level one golfer who hits 100 short game shots just like standard like a 15 to 20 yard little pitch right What is that scatter plot of shots likely to look like and what I would say is that for almost all level one like every single level one golfer that dispersion is going to be four five X longer front to back it is right to left And so why is that the case Why is the long to short dispersion so incredibly huge It's likely not face to path All right It's also likely not club head speed You're not gonna see their club head speed very much as much as that dispersion varies from shot to shot to shot to shot What is changing is the ball speed which changes the most for them due to arc location variability Right So it's gonna be this is where everyone's different I see plenty of level one golfers who manage the arc height okay but the proximity of the bottom of the swing arc toward away from them is not as predictable Right So they're hitting it off the heel and the toe quite a bit so again everyone is different I would I I would say I more often see arc height issues where the bottom of the swing is either too high or too low for these golfers So think about what that might look like Well if the if the bottom of the swing arc like I said earlier is more than a half an inch higher than like the level of the grass if you will you're gonna be basically hitting it in the f leading edge of the club which doesn't have loft and that golf ball's going screaming over the green be surprised how slow you can swing your wedge and if it hits on the front edge of the club that thing's going over the green All right

Eric 17:47

Right

Rob 17:47

versa Again sometimes depending on the playing conditions but if the bottom of the swing arc is more than say a half an inch lower than the grass if s as as we start to get to three quarters to an inch lower that's when we're getting meaningful ground contact prior to ball contact And depending on the conditions it's either gonna bounce into it and you're gonna hit leading edge again this thing's screaming off the green or you're gonna get The club's gonna essentially dig and you're gonna get a massive slowdown in the club and you're gonna get too much stuff between the club and the ball and that ball's gonna come out very very slowly Right So it's managing the arc height for level one golfers that we're primarily looking at And then in terms of how we're training that I would still say we would start with awareness first right so many golfers aware of just the fact that the bottom of the swing is an arc right And so can you feel the weight of the club head as it's swinging in space back and forth And then can you just start to play around with where the bottom of the swing arc is located Can you go a little bit higher Can you go a little bit lower and experience that changes the sound and the feel and the visual of what the ball's doing against the club And then can you also use those uh ends of the spectrum reference points to teach you where the middle is right So that'd be our differential training idea that would be on the front end of every level one golfer's practice plan which would be awareness of the bottom of the swing arc Can you then change it Can you adapt it differently And then can you start to predict hey for this ball position because every shot you're gonna get is different The ball's gonna be a little above your feet a little bit below your feet a little bit on the downhill lie a little bit on the uphill lie For this new shot that you've never seen before you feel again you're making a feel prediction You're you shouldn't really know how you're making the change That's the part that's it's exactly what we said earlier This is stuff you can't see It's my preference actually that golfers can't describe with their words how they're changing it Cause just think like what are all the things in your body that could possibly make up the difference of a half an inch Your ankles your knees your hips your spine your shoulders your elbows your this could be anything So it's more about your awareness and the external focus of the weight of the club head and then are you making a feel prediction and then able to identify hey was it in my dispersion right Was it close And if it was off was it either too high or too low too close to you or too far from you And then once you're able to detect a pattern of that can you then make a little bit of adjustment to get it kinda back inside your dispersion

Eric 20:27

I think the key term you just used was awareness. You'll see this, I would say mainly in level one golfer, but it can, it can infiltrate level two golfer at times too, which is when they hit a shot over the green 'cause they, 'cause they didn't control the arc height well, right? So you picture the shot that's like not crazy o- not crazy hit poorly, but just like a little bit high on the ball, right? And it goes, you know, over, right, or just pa- 20 feet, 30 feet too far. They'll go, "I hit it too hard. I hit it too hard." Right? Or they catch it a little heavy and it's, "Ah, I didn't hit it hard enough. I didn't hit it hard enough." It's funny that they use the term hard too. Like, that's interesting. Like, I'm hitting...

Rob 21:13

where did

Eric 21:13

What-- So what I train them to do is I say, Here's what I want you to do when you assess the shots that you hit." Your first level assessment is did the contact feel, to your point about the awareness that we're training, did it feel right,

Rob 21:28

In

Eric 21:28

right?

Rob 21:29

right Was it in the ballpark

Eric 21:31

Correct. Did it feel right? Second thing is gonna be did I, did I hit it kind of the right height that I was looking for? Okay. Which we'll get to, right? But that part. And then third would be if I got those two right and I hit it too short or too long, then probably either I didn't have the right club or I didn't have the right energy and then I'm just trying to figure that out, right? So Blaming everything on I swung too hard or not hard enough is something you see a ton,

Rob 22:01

Yes

Eric 22:01

right? Because they haven't developed the awareness of what a good strike feels like. To be quite honest, I think that's just what it is. And so training that becomes absolutely imperative, right? And, and when you're in a lesson, you and, you and I do this every day, it's like when they, when they experience what it's really supposed to feel like, it's like, what? Like what was that thing? Like, what, what did I just do?, It's not like a little different. It's mind-blowingly different, like, whoa. And that ball just spun, and it sat down softly, and it went the distance that I thought it would. I always felt like if you can get those first two parts of the equation right for almost everybody, the energy piece becomes really pretty natural, right? But if I cannot make good contact and I cannot get the launch to be consistent, then I'm never gonna control the distance, right? So don't think of it as a distance control issue, right? Think of it as a contact and launch issue. Distance control will come naturally that way. At least that's the way I look at it for mo- for most people. Super good. So level one go- what else would level one golfer

Rob 23:18

Yeah So aside from just the skill training of it the differential training that we outline and there's like different levels of differential training that we can talk about maybe in later series What are some ways for level one golfers that we help with that arc location And this might start to bleed into swing I'm sure we're gonna probably get into a little bit of this next episode when we talk about short game swing stuff and this hearkens back to strategy is like well those metrics I shared with you like hey half an inch high and low that's true for a wedge like 56 or 58 or 60degree wedge As you soon as you start to go down in loft well guess what That margin starts to increase a little bit right So now if I go down to like a nine iron s in in most sets now pitching wedge I can probably go a little more I can probably go like threequarters of an inch high and low and probably still be okay because of the fact that now that leading edge relative to where the sweet spot is right is further down and further back further away from the ball I think you said this

Eric 24:22

Correct.

Rob 24:23

one of our first

Eric 24:24

Yep

Rob 24:24

first podcast and and I really like the way you described it is like the leading edge just gets further from the ball The sweet spot gets

Eric 24:30

Correct.

Rob 24:31

the ball right

Eric 24:32

Correct. Yeah

Rob 24:32

down in loft and then ultimately that's why we say for level one golfers like putting is oftentimes a great strategy because there's so much less spin loft because the there's so little loft relative to the the direction the club's moving you're gonna get quite a bit of ball speed the size of swing required is gonna come down and the variability in the ball speed from hitting it high on the face versus low on the face is is minimal right It's it's there it's different but it's it's not different enough for you to start missing greens because of it Whereas with a wedge if you're a little if you're a half an inch high or low you're missing a green Whereas with a

Eric 25:06

Yeah

Rob 25:06

an inch high or low yeah it's not coming out exactly what you want but you're probably still on the green And

Eric 25:11

Yeah

Rob 25:11

same way with h like putting a hybrid which I think can be great sometimes putting a a fairway wood can be great sometimes just delivering less loft in general And we're gonna talk about some of our swing preferences that reduce loft in general um that that make that arc height stuff a little bit more manageable cause there is some skill to th uh skilltechnique That's where kind of the the swing technique and the skill kinda get coupled when we talk

Eric 25:36

Mmhmm

Rob 25:37

where the bottom of the swing arc is either closer to the target or further from the target But just know like for a level one golfer for many many many cases like a club that that gives you a little more margin for error oftentimes can be helpful with some of that stuff

Eric 25:52

Yeah. Go back and listen to strategy episode short game if you haven't yet, right? So yeah, well said. Well said. Level one golfer is the one that has, just has a long way to go to develop skill, right? If you, if you've gotten to level two and especially level three, and obviously level four, like tour player, you have skill.

Rob 26:14

Yeah

Eric 26:14

level one, it's maybe not there.

Rob 26:16

and that's why

Eric 26:17

And, and-

Rob 26:17

with arc location first for every level of the game Like for driver irons right for everything we're starting with arc location Yeah

Eric 26:24

And I, and I d-- I use that example of like the Steph Curry jump shot because it's like I can stand there and create a Steph Curry-looking jump shot that you could look at from across the... You could look at it from across a gym and be like, "Wow, that's great technique," you know? And maybe make none of them, right? 'Cause I don't-- I haven't shot a basketball in 25 years probably. So the skill that even-- whatever I used to have isn't there anymore probably. It's probably buried. You know, so you have to sort of... You have to develop it. It takes time and it takes work. And your point that you made a little while ago, and we'll move on to level two here in a second, but level... We tend to spend a lot of time in level one. It's like,

Rob 27:04

Probably Yeah

Eric 27:06

it's the biggest room for growth and we spend a lot of time describing what we're, what we're discussing for the topic. But, um They wanna hit the ball better. That's essentially the story. They wanna hit the ball better with a full swing, and they darn well should to be able to get in the game and play it, right? Especially if you're not even keeping score, you're not competing, you're not keeping a handicap, and you're, like, comfortable. Hey, if I three or four-putt, takes me two chips, as long as I'm keeping up, I'm happy. Keeping up with the gals, keeping up with the guys, playing with my son, playing with my dad, like, whatever it is. And but you never get to that next level until you start really counting your score and really starting to understand, like, "I need to train these skills or I will never get better at this game." And also, in your mind, realize that there's a lot you cannot see. So when you play with other golfers who say every time you hit a bad shot, you did this, this, this, this, this, and this, they're actually wrong.

Rob 28:10

Yeah

Eric 28:10

they're actually wrong. There could be things they've seen, but a lot of it is in what they cannot see, right? And so, oh, you moved your head, oh, you lifted up, oh, you, you know, you did this, you did this. Like, maybe, but, but probably not,

Rob 28:24

Right

Eric 28:25

right? You just don't have any skill yet, and it's, and it's okay as that level one golfer to just be like, in your mind say, "I don't have skill. I'm working on it. I'm working on it. I don't need, I don't need advice on every shot I hit. I'm doing the best I can."

Rob 28:39

We need to do a whole episode on how to handle that

Eric 28:42

We're gonna do an episode. I think there's some episode topics, I was thinking about this today, that are just not quite, main feed-worthy

Rob 28:52

Yeah

Eric 28:53

but are really relevant, so maybe we start feeding those to the substack., You know, not even behind the paywall part of it, but just, here's a bonus episode. Go check it out on the sub. It's gonna be 20 minutes on being a good golf mentor for your friends or you know? Or, you know, one I've seen recently is some real issues with club fitting. Like, we're just gonna have to discuss at some point. That's just killing people, and actually really good golfers are getting struck with this a lot, so that's a teaser we'll talk about at some point. But anyway, anything else with level one?

Rob 29:27

No like we said like it's kinda starts and ends with arc location a lot of the times Um we I still will train facetopath so don't get me wrong a lot of that for them is club selection as we said earlier and then obviously still train speed but a lot of times it's gonna be like macro changes in speed hey you give it not enough to where it doesn't get to the green Can you give it too much to where it goes over the green Then can you give me one in between where it's just somewhere anywhere on the green right So in many ways like I um Brian Bailey used this analogy I really liked where you think of a sculpture right So like the first thing for level one golfers you gotta knock off the biggest pieces of the sculpture first is gonna be arc location for for many many cases yeah And like you said you start to manage arc location you start to play around with different club selection Like a lot of like the energy stuff does um come just through experience a decent bit of it comes just through experience But I do still think level one golfers need to have a good frame of reference for how they're managing speed maybe we'll get into that with level two and level three

Eric 30:32

How often do you take a player who's never golfed, like an adult golfer, never really pl-- like I'm a brand-new golfer, put them four or five feet from the hole with a putter in their hand and just say, "Hit it, hit it and roll it in the hole," and they hit it

Rob 30:51

Oh

Eric 30:52

feet?

Rob 30:52

yes Yeah

Eric 30:53

Okay, the very... What would you expect? Like they have no frame of reference. It goes forty, thirty, forty feet

Rob 31:01

Yeah

Eric 31:01

for a putt that was three or four or five feet

Rob 31:03

The

Eric 31:04

to the hole.

Rob 31:04

typically doesn't

Eric 31:06

The next one typically doesn't, so then they start getting cl- right? And on putting, it's like, because the impact for what you described a little while ago

Rob 31:13

a

Eric 31:13

is much easier,

Rob 31:14

analogy

Eric 31:15

to get better and better and better and better and better.

Rob 31:18

That's

Eric 31:18

So that's, that's a visual I want you all to take. If you are a golf mentor with someone, you should take that role very seriously, right? People that are trying to learn golf, whether it's kids or adults, they need a coach and they need a mentor, at least one. And a lot of times it's like the little kid's dad or mom that they play with, or grandfather, whatever. But sometimes it's just a friend of yours who you play tennis with or pickleball, who's trying to pick the game up, and they don't have a husband that plays or a wife that plays or whatever, and they need someone to help them get around, make a tee time, know where to stand, know where, you know. And then have them get little bits of encouragement and help along the way, and that role is very important. Okay, let's move on to level two golfer short game skill.

Rob 32:02

So entry level two we'll say like level level one is pretty much from complete beginner all the way to averaging 88 And so once you get lower than 88 let's say you're an 87 average you're pretty much a still level one golfer You're just like barely into level two Arc location is still gonna be premium All right So once you get pretty much down into the middle of level two when it starts to flip a little bit in terms of hey arc location is still gonna be the number one thing to manage It's never not I will say that But in terms of where you're how much time you're spending on each skill when I would say that the time spent on speed is gonna go up Um and then starting to be a little bit more strategic in terms of how you're managing the loft the face to path AKA the spin loft skill is gonna So really all three of them really in the middle of level two they're all very equal importance and then once you get to the end of level two again arc location's still a premium but now you're spending proportionally probably more time now on speed and launch spin type stuff

Eric 33:16

Right, because we talked about in the last episode how as you're improving through level two, you've gotta start hitting the ball closer to the hole more often, right? It's not

Rob 33:25

it becomes

Eric 33:26

correct. It's not about getting it on the green. It's not about making three, you know, every time you're inside 30 yards., You have to start getting up and down every now and again and stop giving away shots, where you're missing the green or even putting yourself in worse locations than you were when you started. Like, you cannot progress through level two, and that's kind of the visual we're trying to give you is like here I am as someone that's, you know, under bogey golf and trying to get... Level two is a big level, right? Like we talk about that going all the way down to almost basically scratch golfer, which is like shooting 75 or 6 on average, right? So you're, going like way down, and so you've gotta start making a lot of pars, right? And so by making a l- if you're gonna progress all the way to the, to level three, you've gotta make tons of, tons of pars, right? And that is gonna require you to get the ball up and down at times and especially, not make too many double bogeys when you're inside 30 yards or inside 40 from the hole. So controlling that part that you were just talking about, the heights of the shot and then the spin, that's where it starts to get kind of fun in my opinion, right? Isn't that the fun part of short game?

Rob 34:39

Agreed

Eric 34:41

So what do you, what do you, when you've got that player and you're really trying to dial 'em in, what are you thinking about skill-wise? Like how do you get them working on it?

Rob 34:48

so managing launch and spin I still f for these golfers don't think club choice is off the table Like really all the way down into again you're averaging end of level two you're averaging 77 76 So you're basically scratch I still see plenty of scratch players who switch up clubs a decent amount around the green right So we're hey you're gonna have high option you're gonna have a mid option and you're gonna maybe have a low option So now you're landing it on the green more often because really think of it like club selection for level one golfers is more about managing arc location Like hey how do I how do I change the c the club to to manage the contact against the ball in the face Whereas with level two now more changing the l the club selection more to get the ball closer to the hole So hey if the pin's in the back of the green that might behoove you to choose something a little bit less lofted so you're able to land it in a similar place and have it kind of skid and and and kind of scoot back to the to the back of the green Whereas with a middle pin maybe you land it in a similar spot with a little bit more height so maybe your mid option And then for a front pin that's when maybe you go for the high option understanding that you have again within your dispersion 12 feet beyond the hole to stop it so you don't have to stop it right on the flag We just need something a little bit higher than stock to be able to land it on the green and then keep it from rolling more than 12 feet beyond the flag is really what I I take a look at So club selection is on the table plenty of level two golfers I go ahead and switch them into hey let's choose a wedge like our 58 Like I love 58degree wedges for a lot of g for a lot of these golfers let's learn how to manipulate setup variables to give us something a little bit lower something a little bit more mid and then something a little bit higher right So for these level two golfers I like for them to have like really three main shots you'd be surprised that carries them very very far as far as short game goes It's really into level three and into level four where you gotta have the almost the entire spectrum of those shots to be able to pick a very specific launch and spin for this specific shot to because you're trying to get it inside six feet But for these level three for sorry for these level two golfers I just think having a very general lower than stock stock a little higher than stock I think is is the way to go for for a lot of them

Eric 37:16

There's a shot I've been working with a lot of my players in this level from more like the 30-yard, like outside the right off the green short game area, and, uh, you know, we don't use the term on this, we don't talk about chipping versus pitching vers- we don't really... It's really confusing to do that because people will call things different thing. Like even just watching golf telecasts, you'll see someone hit a, a pitch shot and they'll be like, "Oh, he chipped that really well," and you're thinking like, "Okay, I know it's a term." And like it's almost like everything's a chip in a way, and like pitching doesn't exist anymore or, um... But anyway, chipping to me is the low, is the low shot and the, and the pitch is the high shot. So d- it d- it doesn't matter to me how much it rolls or anything like that, just a trajectory thing. So In level one, we work hard with those golfers on what we call, a chip-and-run shot, like, with a-- with that middle iron, eight-iron, something like that, that can land short of the green and it can roll on from twenty or thirty yards or whatever. And in the level two, I've been working a lot with, like, a gap wedge or pitching wedge and getting them to hit a pitch-and-run shot,

Rob 38:27

Yeah

Eric 38:27

which I think has, like, been a lost art for whatever reason., A lot of the pitch shots you see have a lot of height and spin to them.

Rob 38:32

Mmhmm

Eric 38:33

Like, everybody's using sixty-degree wedge. When I was a kid, the sixty-degree wedge was, an anomaly. You didn't really have it. Like, Phil Mickelson started using a sixty. Everybody wanted to use a sixty. But pr-previous to that, everybody used fifty-six-degree clubs. Like, that's just what it was. And so we hit these shots we called pitch and runs, where it would land, like, I could land it on the front of the green,

Rob 38:52

Mm-hmm.

Eric 38:52

you know, from forty yards, and it would roll ten or fifteen yards, right? It was always landing on the green, so it had some middle trajectory to it, basically, without a ton of spin, and then it could roll. It's a really easy shot.

Rob 39:04

Hmm.

Eric 39:05

Like, it's not a hard... It's not. But anyway, so the skill of being able to, change the trajectory of it using the different clubs, c-controlling my speed, and then hitting these, having these skills come out to produce these shots is, like, you gotta just kinda gain control of that in level two and, really be able to see what you're trying to do and be able to change it, right? I wanna hit it higher, but roll it a little bit more. I wanna hit it higher, but stop it a little bit faster. I wanna hit it short of the green and roll it on. I wanna hit it on the green and, and stop it., There's all these things that you start to play with, and to your point, you have this variance of almost, like, quadrants of the green still, right? 'Cause if you're talking twelve feet, you're talking twenty-four-foot radius circle, right? That's a big area.

Rob 39:48

Um,

Eric 39:48

Twenty-four-foot radius is a huge area, right? It could be a third of a green, right? Almost a half of a green. But as you get into level three, you've gotta start, you start making that, like, a lot smaller. And you start looking at trying to hit it inside of six feet more often. Whoa, that circle shrinks in a hurry. And so that level two is a fun level to really work on. I see a lot of... Like, if I was making a general statement, I would be like, "Yes, the level two golfer that really wants to improve should have a baseline of full swing abilities and then just start grinding out that short game, like, really trying to get it where it's a little bit better." And I, and I think that really helps the full game anyway, right? 'Cause a lot of that stuff that you're doing really helps you learn skill of arc height control or whatever, you know, just arc loca-- excuse me, arc location.

Rob 40:40

three skills are universal

Eric 40:42

They're universal, but working on short game, it really does help infiltrate the other pieces of the, of the game for sure.

Rob 40:49

that. Yeah

Eric 40:51

What else for level two golfer, Rob Fails?

Rob 40:53

we'll go ahead and get into speed, I think. For certainly end of level two, this is gonna be, um, you know, for again, every golfer is different. That's the thing. For p- for, for some golfers, I put more of a premium on the face to path, um, the spin-off stuff. And then for some, it's gonna be more of the speed, and then ultimately, it's gonna be a, a combination of both. But, the biggest thing for speed that I tend to see is when golfers change the rhythm of their swing to try to change speed. And that's the big thing is, is I, I do not want the, the freedom of the swing changing much. I don't want the rhythm of the swing changing much, um, to change speed, right? Which, what does that mean? Well, again, if we, if we just talk about the club and the amount of time the club is taking in the backswing relative to the entire downswing and follow through, good rhythm would be roughly symmetrical, right? So, if it's taking a three-syllable amount of time going back, it's taking about a three-syllable amount of time coming down in, in the entire follow through. So when golfers struggle with speed, you can think of the club rhythm starting to change, right? So they might take it back still with three syllable, to try to hit it further, they'll go down to a two or a one syllable coming down.

Eric 42:08

One.

Rob 42:09

Yes. And the problem with that is a lot of times you don't train a ton of arc location with that rhythm. You don't train a ton of face to path with that rhythm. So the club might be going faster, but the other skills start to be compromised because you're changing the rhythm that much. so, yeah, you might get more clubhead speed, but you might not get the ball speed you're looking for, And then vice versa. Let's say you give it a same three syllable going back, but you're like, "Oh gosh, I got way too much energy in the system. What do I need to do?" And then they go to a four or a five syllable coming down, right? So it takes way too much time. They slow things down a ton going forward, And then again, you're gonna see variances in that arc location big time. Usually is the arc location and it's, and plenty of times face to path stuff as well that gets compromised when you're trying to change the rhythm. So it's just how you walk. We want the arms and the club swinging freely. and then we want a very sort of symmetrical rhythm in terms of the energy that you're putting into the backswing relative to what you're doing coming down. that would be my main thing. So keeping the time the same is generally like a, a nice thing to try to do. can I keep the time the same, but then scale the size of the swing? And then naturally when the, when the swing gets bigger the same time, by definition, it's going faster. So you're, you're

Eric 43:36

Mmhmm

Rob 43:37

the speed, but you're doing it in a very, a much more predictable way in terms of managing the other skills, So that would be my strong preference, for how we manage speed.

Eric 43:49

I think that rhythm so much lends to both a repeatability in contact and also a repeatability in the face or lo- you know, whichever part of the face you're talking about, both face angle, horizontal face angle, vertical, being the most predictable, right? To, to your point. It's so hard to be predictable with the club face 'cause it rotates so much. In the short game, a little less than in the... well, probably a lot less than in the big swing, but it's still rotating. And it's like, to be pre- to be somewhat predictable is difficult, and if the rhythm isn't right, it's just almost darn near impossible.

Rob 44:35

agreed

Eric 44:35

why I think that when you look at a go- again, the things that you can see, rhythm you can see, right? And when you watch the best players, and I'm not talking country club golfers, I'm talking really good players, tour players, their rhythm is so... Like, everybody goes, "Oh, it's a beautiful swing." It's... What are they watching? We love symmetry. We're attracted to symmetry, right? So when we see something that is symmetrical, we think it's beautiful. Does anybody describe Cam Young's swing as beautiful? Not, not really, 'cause it's kind of a funny rhythm, right? I'm not making fun. What an amazing golfer. Like, there's nothing wrong with his rhythm. I'm just saying it's not necessarily symmetrical, and so he doesn't get that like, "Oh, he's got a beautiful swing," right? Whereas when you watch Rory, who's very symmetrical, it's like, "Whoa!" Like, that's a gorgeous golf swing. So again, it's stuff that you can see.

Rob 45:25

Yes

Eric 45:26

We love symmetry. Our eye is attracted to symmetry, so that's why... You know, that's a, that's a human trait. So, but for us to make consistent contact at the bottom of the arc and have some chance of delivering the face in a predictable way, we have to have rhythm. We have to have that balance and that symmetry that you're talking about, period. Full stop. Don't try to argue with me about that, people. Okay?

Rob 45:50

No arguments here.

Eric 45:52

Just saying.

Rob 45:53

gonna be an echo chamber of that, that's for sure.

Eric 45:55

No, no, 100%. 100%, Rob

Rob 46:02

All right, are we ready for level three?

Eric 46:04

Yeah, it's getting late for me here on the East Coast.

Rob 46:07

All right, we can make this simple. They do all the same stuff, they just, just better.

Eric 46:10

just do it better. They just do it better

Rob 46:13

it's, uh, uh, I'm joking, but I'm not joking. They just do it better.

Eric 46:18

They do everything better. And I would say this, that as you get to the level that like you and our- you and I are with short game, which is pretty dang high level, right? It actually looks more simple in a lot of ways because our control of it is so good, and this is what you see with the best players. They control the contact, and the face, and the spin so well that they're basically just hitting kind of one thing over and over again, and then just adapting it a little bit to the situations, right? And so that's what we're talking about in strategy. You've got to adapt to the, to the, to the situation, but to, to make a good prediction. But the fact of the matter is it's not typically played with tons of different clubs. It's not

Rob 46:59

not.

Eric 47:00

typically played with tons of different trajectories. It's like you hit a lot of low spinners that just put the brakes on by the hole, and that's like the end of the story, right? Um, and even the ones that you see in extreme situations, like again, I didn't get to see the US Open because I was driving. But when you watch a major championship at a venue like Shinnecock, you're gonna see the ball rolling across greens more, but that's just 'cause there's tons of slope, right? So they're still playing shots that spin. They just don't stop as quickly, right? So it's still the same stuff over and over again. Um, but yeah, it, it almost looks more straightforward with really good players in three and four, right? It just does. But to your point, you just can't miss. So you don't miss, right? You just, you just can't miss, so you don't miss. And, then it's like there is some pieces of that puzzle that, you know, creativity and all this stuff that does play a role. It's undefinable, but it's like, it's really about being able to control the ball and visualize, and execute, and predict, right? The strategy piece is still huge here.

Rob 48:06

It's the thing, the thing that separates the level three golfer is their ability to predict prior to what's the speed of the ball coming out of this particular lie? What's the spin of the golf ball coming out of this particular lie? the ball lands on the green, how is the slope of the green gonna kick it? And then when it's rolling across the green, how is, how is the slope that it's rolling across gonna affect it? not only are they ex- are they expert readers of the situation when it comes to like the lies of s- the slope and the, and the weather condition stuff, but then they also have full range of those three skills to be able to call upon the specific shot that they're trying to hit to get it within six feet. Because like you said, when you go from 12 feet to six feet, now the requirements start to shrink Like there, there starts to become a much smaller window of the direction you can start it, and that launch spin speed combo in terms of how you can stop it to get it within six feet. so a much... it starts to become more of like a putt sort of mentality for them, in terms of stopping the golf ball within six feet. they have to bring those skills up while also bringing their, prediction process up with it, and that's typically the thing that is going to separate those level three golfers. Yes, they do all the skills better, talking about our strategy episode from our last one that's the stuff that typically is going to accelerate their short game performance the most.

Eric 49:36

Mm-hmm. And so when you, when you're practicing to try to get to level three, it's, it's just like you said, it's a differential training. It's, it's the acquiring of being able to really control the I, I wanna say the energy and speed control becomes the bigger story. Like, because If you're hitting that basic c-crispy little short game shot, the trajectories are pretty similar. you're making slight adjustments to face angle and stuff to just change the trajectory a little bit, but it's really about how much energy you're putting into that thing and predicting where it's gonna land and what it's gonna do. So when you practice the short game, in my opinion, the better you get, the more you're working on, um, being able to land the ball exactly where you wanna land the ball in a pr- in a predictive way, time after time. And so your short game practice can be pretty varied from a, from a ver- from a random standpoint, right? Really working on a lot of different situations. Whereas level one golfers are kind of like, "I've gotta just acquire skill, so I gotta get some reps in. Like I just like, I've gotta stand in a spot and kinda grind that out a little bit."

Rob 50:55

Yeah,

Eric 50:55

Yeah. So you can see how it works through your practice as you go from level one to level two to level three. You're probably more varied in level three and probably more, repeated in level one, so to speak, more, blocked practice style where it's, you know, shot after shot kind of from the same... Like hoping to hit one good and then hoping to hit the next one good and not hitting 100 in a row, but at least five, maybe 10 in a spot. And then, moving to a slightly different spot and trying something else. But when you get to level three, it's a lot of shots. Give me one chance at this thing and see what I can do, and if I don't do it quite right, maybe I'll hit another one, but then I'm moving to a new spot and I'm, and I'm working on that. A lot more, in my opinion, competitive style practice or ch- or challenge, the challenge yourself, put-putting some competition in your practice in level three and as you're working through level two to level three. I gotta, okay, I gotta hit nine balls from nine locations around the screen and get seven of them within, you know, ten feet. But whatever, you pick your, pick your number., You know, 12 feet, six feet, eight feet, whatever you wanna do. Just like kinda pick a number and, you knowing that, you know, if you wanna be really good, six feet's the number. And if you wanna be a little bit nice to yourself, maybe not every one, but you know, say seven out of ten. Like give yourself a number to do, and work your way through that. And then if you don't do it, do it again, and then that way you're, you're working through s- a little bit. This is also probably the level where you're practicing with the golf ball that you play with as often as you can. Okay, does that matter to a level one golfer? Probably not that much. Does it matter to a level three and level four golfer?

Rob 52:28

Yes

Eric 52:29

one million percent. Does that even make sense, one million percent? But I'm saying it, one million percent. You wanna get out there, if you play Pro V1 and have a little bag of Pro V1s to chip with, you know, you, you wanna, you wanna be able to do that.

Rob 52:42

This is where having a brush and a towel in your practice and making sure that the friction you're getting is consistent, that stuff matters for level three, level four golfers. That,

Eric 52:53

It's very interesting. Yeah, that, and y- like, you're crazy. Uh, I ran a a practice facility for tour players for 10 years, and They literally have a brush. I would say, I don't know what percent, a very high percent, either them or their caddy, has a brush clipped to their,

Rob 53:12

yeah

Eric 53:12

to their pant, l- basically to their belt loop, and every shot they hit in the short game, every, at least ev- every couple, they're scraping the, the grooves out. Why? Because friction matters, and we didn't get into that today. That's, again, a pretty niche topic.

Rob 53:26

Yeah,

Eric 53:26

But it sounds to me like we're developing some, some nice topics maybe for the Substack, where we can do a couple, niche, niche episodes on maybe friction or, uh, differential training in the short game. We mentioned a couple topics that probably wouldn't be as interesting for the main feed, but would probably be pretty good for the Substack. So yeah, you and I will discuss. We'll discuss. Anything else for these great golfers that you wanna add, Rob Fais?

Rob 53:52

hit on it

Eric 53:54

Man, we nailed it. Well, thank you for being on with me tonight, Rob.

Rob 53:58

you.

Eric 53:59

That was really fun for me.

Rob 54:01

is

Eric 54:01

And, hope you have a great week. You got a busy week teaching this week?

Rob 54:05

week, man. if the weather can hold up.

Eric 54:08

Is it supposed to be rainy or what's the story?

Rob 54:10

kinda spotty this week, but we'll see. We've got some indoor options, so

Eric 54:14

Yeah. We, um, got some rain today, which we needed desperately. Yeah.

Rob 54:19

I'll see you

Eric 54:21

All right, Rob Fails, unless there's anything else you'd like to add, any sage words of advice for our listeners?

Rob 54:31

No, man, we hit on it. We'll, we'll cover the swing stuff. The swing stuff is gonna be a, a very fun episode, when we talk

Eric 54:37

Oh yeah

Rob 54:38

Yeah. Yeah. It's,

Eric 54:40

We're- let's get controver- let's get controversial.

Rob 54:43

Oh, it might get... Yeah,

Eric 54:44

Let's go Yeah, let's get We should take- Here's what we should do. We should pick a t- y- you pick a topic,

Rob 54:52

Yeah, yeah

Eric 54:53

You c- in case you didn't know that there's this big, argument about the short game. Steep versus shallow, right? And, um, so I'm gonna make Robbie be shallow, and I'm gonna be steep, and then we'll, and we'll, we'll pretend like we don't like each other,

Rob 55:07

that'd

Eric 55:07

and we'll, we'll argue both sides of the equation. All right, Rob, that was fun, man. Hope you have a great week, and thank you for tuning in to another episode of the Golf Intervention Podcast. We'll check you next time with short game swing stuff, so cool.

Rob 55:22

Cheers