Flag Hunters Golf Podcast
Hello and welcome to Flaghunters ! It is a privilege to bring to you this powerful insight into playing better Golf. In all my years of being in the game of Golf from competing at a high amateur level, to caddying, teaching, and being a overall Golf geek, I have an insatiable, curiosity driven desire to get down to the bottom of what it takes to truly get better playing the game of Golf that we all unconditionally love. This has been one of the greatest journeys of my life and I am deeply grateful for all that Golf has given me. Thank you for joining me in this incredible journey. This is my ever evolving love letter to Golf. Jesse Perryman P.S. Please Rate, Review and Subscribe !
Flag Hunters Golf Podcast
Mastering Advanced Golf Techniques: John Erickson from advancedballstriking.com and Louis Brown on Club Transition and Mental Strategy for Championship Success
Feel free to text me at (831)275-8804
Join us for an insightful conversation with John Erickson, the visionary founder of Advanced Ball Striking, and Louis Brown, the reigning USGA Senior Amateur Champion. Discover how John's expertise on club transition was a game-changer for Louis, helping him claim victory after a year-long hiatus from tournaments. Lewis shares his incredible journey from the Junior World Tournament in 1981 to balancing a demanding career in investment with his passion for golf, illustrating the meticulous preparation and mental fortitude required to succeed at the highest levels.
Explore the fascinating world of golf swing techniques with us as we uncover the secrets behind transforming a good swing into a championship-winning one. John and Lewis reveal advanced methods inspired by legends like Ben Hogan, emphasizing the importance of understanding mechanics over feel. From the concept of "tripping the shaft" to video analysis, we break down the elements that have helped players like Lewis and Jesse achieve remarkable victories. Listen in as we highlight the profound impact of subtle changes and strategic adaptations in the pursuit of golfing excellence.
Beyond techniques, we navigate the vital role of mental strategy in achieving peak performance. Lewis shares insights from his collaboration with performance coach Bob Rotella, underscoring the power of staying present and the art of trusting one's skills under pressure. From overcoming health challenges to embracing the mental aspects of the game, our conversation celebrates the indomitable spirit that defines great golfers. Whether you're a seasoned pro or an enthusiast, this episode is a celebration of golf's passion, resilience, and unparalleled camaraderie.
To become a part of this incredible community, go to www.advancedballstriking.com
To find Jesse, please text (831)275-8804
To find Justin Tang, email him, justin@elitegolfswing.com
Lastly, Bradley Hughes is a Master ABS Instructor and his web address is www.bradley-hughes.com
Hello, this is Jesse Perryman, and welcome to this week's edition of the Flag Hunters Golf Podcast. This one's a great one, folks. I'm going to keep this intro short and simple. This intro or, excuse me, this podcast is with a man that I have a lot of respect for. That has been a very deep influence in my golf life. His name is John Erickson. John is the founder of advanced ball striking. He and Bradley Hughes have built the advanced ball strikingcom website that has forums about just about anything that you can imagine in golf, but primarily it's centralized around the methodology that John has taught us, as well as Brad and equipment and things like that. So we've got the founder of Advanced Ball Striking, john Erickson, and the reigning USGA Senior Amateur Champion, lewis Brown.
Speaker 1:Lewis's story is phenomenal. It's a great story and what's pertinent about this conversation is a little bit over a year ago, john started working with Lewis on his transition. Lewis wasn't really happy with the way he was transitioning the golf club. He wanted the club to come in a little bit shallower and John gave him a couple of tidbits to work on and it really helped him. It helped him get the club a little bit lower down on plane coming into entry, which we would call the 430 path. Those who are ABS students and familiar with the workings of John and Brad know this concept very well. The workings of John and Brad know this concept very well and Lewis took it to heart, worked on it for a year and then played in his first tournament in a year in the USGA Senior Amateur, which was on a tough golf course, and he won, beat everybody. So he beat the best amateur event in the world for men that are 55 and over. And Lewis's story is great.
Speaker 1:So I'm not going to bore you with the details here. The details really are enriched and alive in this conversation. It's one of the best conversations I've been a part of. We take it deep, so enjoy this episode, folks. I was an absolute proud participant. I'm humbled and honored to share this with you. And, before I forget, please rate, review and subscribe on any of the platforms that you may listen to this podcast on and also to.
Speaker 1:This episode is brought to you by Jumbo Max. Jumbo Max scripts. Are you curious? Thanks everyone. I hope your week has been great and the rest of your week I wish you nothing but the best and happy Thanksgiving, happy holidays to all and I pray that everyone has a spirit of gratitude and their heart is full of joy.
Speaker 1:Cheers, hello and welcome to a very special edition of the Flag Hunters Golf Podcast. This is a good one, folks. We're talking to the founder of Advanced Ball Striking, my good friend, probably my biggest influence in golf. His name is John Erickson. He's been on the pod before. His name is John Erickson. He's been on the pod before. Those of you who are members of the Advanced Ball Striking community know him well and those who have thought about it or seen it in passing and you're clicking on to the podcast, maybe this might be a tipping point, because our mutual guest is a very, very special man by the name of Lewis Brown, and he is the current USGA senior and champion who just recently won last month, in September, as of this recording. So once again, lewis, thanks for coming on and congrats to this incredible achievement. Not too many of those that happen on a yearly basis and you got one of them, pal.
Speaker 2:Well, thank you, jesse, and it's great to be with you guys. And John is nearly a lifelong friend of mine. We met at the Junior World Tournament at Torrey Pines in 1981. So he's a dear friend and great to be with you guys.
Speaker 1:Thanks Lewis, thanks John.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, it's great to be here.
Speaker 1:So let's, let's dive right in. I mean, lewis, you just won and you've got a story before that which I'm a hundred percent sure we'll touch on. But let's just briefly talk about that magical week and winning the Senior Am Championship. I mean, how did you prepare for it? What did you do? And in week, how were you feeling? How did you play? I mean, you obviously played the best, but was your ball striking great through every match? Did you have a cakewalk? Did you have some matches where you were in a dogfight? Let's get right into it.
Speaker 2:Well, lots of questions in there. Which one do you want me to address first?
Speaker 1:Whichever one you want pal.
Speaker 2:Well, okay, so you know, normally when someone plays in a big tournament, and uh, and this tournament started on my birthday, actually august the 24th and um, but I had not played a single golf tournament all year, um, I'm, you know, um, I do run a business, I'm in the investment business and I got a late start in my business, so, so I have no interest in stopping right now. So I didn't really have any tournaments on my schedule this year, but I play a lot of business golf. I do work on my game. I've always tried to not let my game deteriorate. I've always tried to not let my game deteriorate.
Speaker 2:But I did sign up for the qualifier because the US Senior Amateur was the one golf tournament that I knew could really move the needle in terms of my. You know what I've done in the game. I've. You know, my first USDA event was in 1981, the US Junior. I've won tournaments in the state of Georgia. You know quite a few, and I've won some pro tournaments, done some things.
Speaker 2:Obviously, I didn't do everything that I wanted to do as a competitive player, but had a pretty good record, did quite a bit. I was pretty proud of it. But at this point, you know I'm not really a tournament golfer, I don't go out and play a schedule like a lot of people, so but there was one tournament that I thought could really, let's just say, that motivated me and that was the US Senior Amateur. So I qualified for it on July the 8th. I did, you know, a few weeks before that start prepping and I will say I kind of found a little feel in my golf swing that helped me. And you know, my first competitive round was that July 8th qualifier to July 8th qualifier. And you know, when you haven't played a comparative round all year, you know you're not real sure how you're going to feel out there.
Speaker 2:There have been times I've gone out when I haven't played in a while and you know you get a little uncomfortable, a little unsure, a little insecure. You know, I mean we all feel that in golf sometimes. But this time, you know, I was just hitting the ball really really well, very solid, very straight, and I started making some birdies and I had a good day and I made it. So um shot 69 and of course called eagles landing here in atlanta. Um finished second. So and the way I played I just felt like man. You know, that's some. There's some pretty good golf in there, you know, like hitting a lot of real quality shots, putting really well. I've always had a pretty good short game.
Speaker 2:It was not always on because I don't play all the time, but you know, when it's, when it's good, it's, it's pretty good, you know it's. I can get up and down from a lot of places. So anyway, um, I, but the term up wasn't for six weeks. So you know, for over that six weeks I just tried to do a little something every day, maybe take one day off a week or something. But you know, I was out in California playing Pueblo and I played Cypress Point, where you were, jesse, and that was in June, let's see.
Speaker 2:No, I'm sorry, the qualifier was July, so it was like late July and I went up to see John, up in Northern California, and but I told him I was going to be there like three days and I said well, john, I kind of need to find a place to. You know, do a little work. You know I don't want to go three days without, without practicing or playing. So he helped me get on a course and I went and played Green Valley there in Fairfield, and then the next day I found a driving range within a driving distance of John's property up in wine country and it was like a little muni with a driving range. I drove 30 minutes to go there and hit off mats, grass on the range, but the balls were decent and, you know, for me it was just, I would just want reps, you know, I just want to do my routine, I want to see the ball going to my target and that's all I did, you know. And so all that kind of plays into. You know the ingredients that went behind me. You know being prepared when the bell rang on August 24th.
Speaker 2:And you know, in match play, you know, sometimes a player who's maybe not the best player can win a match play event because they just beat the people that are playing. But I am pretty proud that I finished one shot back of the medalist in the stroke play on a very difficult golf course, the honors course. Um, you know, 13 over made the match play top 64. So, um, I shot one or one under, um, you know, um, it was an interesting 36 hole.
Speaker 2:But I played pretty solid and every time I had hiccups and, you know, looked like something bad was about to happen, I would bounce back with something good and uh. So yeah, I mean, um, and just maybe to finish that part of your question, I I was only losing in one match and that was my quarterfinal match. I lost, I had the lead and I lost in the back nine and I was two down with four to go. I was never down in a match otherwise and I was able to win 15, 16, and 17. Now the fellow chipped in on me on 18 to send it into extra holes and I won extra holes. On 18 to send it into extra holes and I won extra holes. So, um, yeah, there were, there were tough matches, but, like I said, I was never losing, other than that one time.
Speaker 1:Wow, what a great week. Wow, that's awesome. The thing that really kind of trips me out, lewis, is that you didn't you didn't play any competitive golf for a year. So I mean you were. Well, if, if there's any two people that can pull this off, it would be you too.
Speaker 1:Um and and I'm not saying that sarcastically, I mean, given given the information that John now possesses, and uh, and him sharing it with you doesn't surprise me because, uh, folks who are listening, I'm not going to say this lightly. I'm I'm a proud member of the advanced ball strike community, so I have a pretty good idea of what my interpretation is of a good golf swing, and, and I mean, you don't necessarily have to play great or have a great golf swing to play good golf, but when you see a good golf swing that is structurally sound and doesn't have a lot of any moving parts that are going to go awry, there's a good chance that that person that possesses that golf swing is going to play well consistently. So within that year, you started, you and John started doing a little something with your transition. Let's get into that.
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, the last tournament I played and I still haven't played a real golf tournament I played a few member guests, you know this fall, but the last sort of real individual event that I played in was this our state senior amateur in September of last year in 23. So I actually visited John out in in this property and up in the Hawaiian country back in last year. I was at John's house in June of 23 of last year and you know we swung and hit some at his home in his practice facility and you know I told John what I was working on. I do have a teaching pro here in Atlanta and I mean I would consider that more of a collaboration because I used to teach a long time ago and I know a lot about the swing, I know a lot about my swing, but then you know, so I was spending time with John and he was watching me and so he you know, and just to kind of put into a nutshell what I have been working on really for a long, very, very long time, I mean back when I played professionally in my 20s I had a good enough golf swing to have won on the Australian Tour and got Rookie of the Year I won in Canada.
Speaker 2:I finished runner-up in the California State Open, I don't know. I think three or four times Lost a couple of playoffs. I mean I could play, but there were some things about my swing I didn't like and particularly I wanted to get my club on plane earlier in my downswing, and for me to do that I had to flatten it and I really had to flatten the shaft. For me to do that I had to flatten it and I really had to flatten the shaft. I used to always sort of have a vertical wrist cut right wrist at the end of my backswing, which I didn't know better as a kid. That would sort of send the club a little bit across the line at the top and so I could find the slot late in the downswing. But you know, if I got quick under pressure, of course things could go awry. When my rhythm was good I hit the ball great.
Speaker 2:But that was a tough thing to change. I mean, changing a golf swing after many decades is difficult. So anyway, for years I'd kind of been moving in that direction. So anyway, for years I'd kind of been moving in that direction. And you know, and I was in the past few years. Really I was working on it.
Speaker 2:So when I was with John we talked about the transition and he introduced to me this, this idea of what he calls tripping the shaft, almost pushing up on the handle to make the head of the club go down, which you know puts it into more of a for lack of a better term like a John Rahm sort of position, more horizontal with the shaft and and, look, I mean I have been trying to get the shaft to move in that direction, which was very foreign for how I had always played. But but you know, know, sometimes you just have to make it move a lot to get it where you want. And that's the beauty of having video, because with video you never have to guess, you can see it, because it's all geometry, you can just draw a line and so, yeah, for me to to get the club where I want it. That idea of chipping the shaft really helped me move it more, you know, move it more and get it over there. And you know, even now I'd say it's not something I completely own or feel 100% comfortable with, but I'm getting there.
Speaker 2:And so I played in the US Junior Amateur last year at the Martis Camp near Lake Tahoe. I did qualify for it. It was one of two tournaments that I playedateur last year at Martis Camp near Lake Tahoe. I did qualify for it. It was one of two tournaments that I played in last year. I'm sorry, three tournaments I played in last year and I played well. You know I was highly seeded, you know, in the stroke play and then in my first match I really hit the ball well.
Speaker 2:I was under par and lost to a guy who had a really good day and I was very much doing the kind of stuff that John talked to me about doing. I could feel it. I was sort of aware of that. I was turning to kind of get the club around me and then feeling the shaft, feeling that move to kind of.
Speaker 2:I don't know how much you want to get into this, but when I play golf and John and I have talked about this I'm not trying to do it on the golf course a whole lot. I'm aware of it and I'm feeling it. I'm not going to abandon the thought altogether because if I do, I know that club's going to start working back the way I don't like. But yeah, I definitely had that feel out there in Tahoe and so anyway, this year, you know, I kind of got going and I feel like I made a lot of progress with it. This year I saw some videos of my swing up there in Chattanooga and no question that the work I've done to get the club on plane a little bit better has has narrowed my window of my pattern of shots quite a bit, and and so, yeah, it's been a been a big help.
Speaker 1:Yeah, john Q, john Erickson, what's he talking about? I know what he's talking about, but my goodness, I mean, you know, I wanted to touch on one thing before you start and I wanted to just kind of lead into this with you, john, that, uh, that Lewis said something. You know, you gotta, you gotta move a mile to move an inch. I think that's important, you know. So thank you for saying that, lewis. Go ahead, john. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah Well, um, you know my journey has been similar to Lewis. You know I played on the tour and all that. People probably, you know, know my background a little bit. But getting into teaching I felt like there was a need for advanced teaching concepts. You know there's a lot of grip, stance and posture teachers out there and a lot of just kind of one swing gimmick stuff. But you know my experience on the tour I didn't really realize at the time, but I was.
Speaker 3:It was really prepping me to have a better understanding of the golf swing and I was always very curious about the mechanics and the details on. You know what great ball strikers are doing. So, that being said, you know, starting the advanced ball striking, um class and and the modules and all that, ultimately, you know it kind of comes down to Hogan at some point, because I think Ben Hogan was the greatest ball striker and I think in any sport that you would look at, or any position or whatever, you know at some point you're going to look at the person that was the greatest right. So you know I've had many good students over the years, you know, want to talk more about, you know, ben Hogan. So I basically thought well, you know, I should probably try and really break that down and do a module series based upon what I believe Hogan was doing swinging the club.
Speaker 3:Now, this isn't an easy thing to do because you've got to really get inside that kind of swing and while I had a lot of elements of that, I didn't have all the elements of that and it took me really, I've got to say, probably six to eight years to really figure it out what was going on. And there were a couple of things that happened where I just had these kind of aha moments of like, wow, this is, this is in fact what hogan was doing, particularly a transition and the way he moved laterally and tripped the shaft while the lateral move was going. And it's not something that I was ever taught, not something that I ever did while I was playing on tour, you know, and also the equipment and and everything too, and and the whole thing. It's a kind of a complete package. So, putting putting that together, I'm kind of in the finishing stages of, you know, this Hogan module course, which I'll be getting out here pretty soon.
Speaker 3:I've been saying that for a while, but I am actually almost done with it now, one of the things I wanted to do is just kind of test out some of these concepts with some good players, because this is really advanced stuff at this point. This isn't just you grip it like this and you extend back and swing through. This is real technical, very advanced stuff. And I believe that Hogan was very technically advanced and I think a lot of people just don't understand what he was doing, because I think to understand what he's doing, you've got to be able to do it to some degree yourself, you know, to really get inside it. And, um, you know, I had some big breakthroughs in my own ball striking. So you know, I ran this by Lewis and you know I I knew what he was trying to do and I thought, well, you know, maybe I should share this with them, because I think this is pretty, pretty important stuff. And I showed him, you know, the Hogan transition move and, being a good player, he understood. You know what it was. The thing that's nice about it is it's actually a mechanical trigger rather than a feel thing. It's not like you're, you know you're trying to transition the club with some kind of a kind of a feel or, you know, just letting the club. You know, drop by gravity or something, or you know taking it way outside and slinging it down behind you. I mean, there's a lot of ways to flatten the shaft, as we know. But hogan's method was different and while while in the ABS course I don't particularly teach a specific kind of backswing, because we've seen every kind of backswing work and, you know, win major championships, guys taking it outside and inside, whipping it in and out and upright and flat, and you know just about everything. I don't really focus too much on that, but with Hogan, hogan's method it's very specific about how you have to take the club back and I didn't really understand that as much as I do now. Now I'm completely convinced that you have to have an earlier handset to trip the shaft properly. Lewis already had that. So, knowing that he had that backswing, he took it a little bit more to the inside, like George Knudsen. I thought that would be perfect to apply. He'd have the perfect swing to to. You know, work on this. So so we you know I'd shared that with them and we spent some time to quite a bit of video and and just worked on it here, spent a couple of days, and then we went out and played out at Richmond country club and played some golf and just had a good time, played one out and knocked the persimmons around and stuff. But I think, you know, it was a good thing that Lewis was able to have that information and then to apply it and he had quite a bit of time. So I think he played you said he played the one tournament, but almost a year between that and this tournament, a time to just kind of work on that, and you know, let it do it the right way, not be in a rush but just work on it, work on it.
Speaker 3:And you've really got to exaggerate things a lot. You know I do that in the teaching. It's like let's just take things to the extreme to try and get the club shaft to maybe move an inch. You know you move it a, you move it a foot. You know you exaggerate something by a foot to over time and after a couple of months now you've actually moved the shaft maybe an inch or half inch or something. But golf is a very precise game and moving it an inch meaning you don't have to think about it this is just your natural swing. You just take it back and you swing through and it's actually, you know, you move the needle. You know, so to speak and that's my approach towards teaching is to try and really exaggerate things, get the feel, and then you come back somewhere. So I think you know it was clear that that's what was happening in Lewis's swing because throughout the year he'd sent me, you know, every month or so he'd send me some things and I'd take a look and I was like, yeah, I could see that it was happening and it was improving and he was getting the shaft and the club head and the club face to where he wanted to have it.
Speaker 3:So, that being said, to go out and just win the US Senior Amateur Championship, I don't think I was expecting that, but it's an incredible accomplishment and I'm not really here to take credit for it or anything, but I think it probably had some maybe little effect in just helping Lewis get the club to where he wants. There's a lot more to winning tournaments than just having a great golf swing. You still have to process things, think well, strategize, you know, be prepared and play smart and position the ball correctly, and you know there's a lot more to just playing golf and then winning tournaments and stuff, so. So that's kind of kind of it. And then I know, jesse, you, you know I shared this with you too and then you know you go out and win your club championship by seven shots and wipe everybody out or whatever. So I think it's encouraging.
Speaker 3:Moving forward just in the kind of a beta testing really, of the Hogan modules. I think you know some pretty pretty good results just right here. Both of you guys have, you know, done pretty well. I mean, even for myself. You know I hadn't through the pandemic. I didn't play golf for two years at all. My first round of golf was playing with you at Cypress Point and I hadn't played in two years and went out and hit, you know, 14 greens and a 20-mile-an-hour wind. I mean I don't think I would normally have done that, but I think good technique is really important for someone that maybe doesn't play all the time.
Speaker 3:I remembered when I was on tour I was always impressed by the guys that didn't have to practice a lot. You know they practiced some but you'd see, a guy that wasn't a ball beater, you know, didn't practice a whole lot and the traveling is tough on the body and all that, especially on the tours. We were playing a lot of driving, you know, doing like 12 hour drives, 18 hour drives between tournaments, and it's pretty tough on your body. Having good technique, I think, can really help you through that stuff too. So it doesn't surprise me you know that Lewis could go out and play some very good golf. Does surprise me when I won the national senior amateur um just without playing. But but then again, you know having good technique right. So that's really really helpful.
Speaker 3:I think if you don't have good technique, you can practice your way into being a good player, right. You got to keep on it. You know you got to really be a ball beater and hit a lot of balls and all the timing stuff. You know the golf swings that are all real timing based and you know you see more ball beaters kind of doing that with, I think, more like swingers releases. You know I've talked about that over over time, but I think you know Lewis has a real hitters hitters release and holding shaft flex and accelerating the club through the strike.
Speaker 3:So all the stuff that I like to teach, I mean I early on the abs um course and the form and all that, and maybe 2009 when I started it 2010, I put lewis's swing up as a model. Really, you know, it's like this is really what I teach, you know, and, uh, we put some videos up of him and we had a lot of discussion about that, you know, back in that time. So, um, yeah, it's, it's, it's good stuff, it's good, good golf swing and, um, you know, it's just I feel blessed to just be a tiny little part of that, I suppose.
Speaker 2:I'll say yeah, like I said, john, that did help me move in the direction I'm going to move into. I'm in a lot of progress this year on it and I do think that concept that you showed me definitely contributed to it. And I do think that that concept that you showed me definitely contributed to it, and you're right. I mean, look, it's only one part of being able to perform and go out and play, you know. But having good mechanics, I look at it as every golfer and every golf swing has a window of success and some are so bad that that window almost doesn't exist.
Speaker 2:But you know, but I used to teach a way long time ago before I went into business, and I was like, ok, what is this guy's chance of hitting a good shot? But you know, when you got really good mechanics, it just means your window of success is much wider and makes it a whole lot easier to hit the center of the club and hit the ball straight. It still doesn't mean you're going to do it, because you do need to hit the sweet spot and you know it. All it takes is a little bit of deviation with the club face and you're hitting it off your, off your target. But so much of the game is mental, as we know. You know you gotta, you gotta have your head in the right place to play your eight ball.
Speaker 3:Yeah, probability, like kind of what you're talking about. You know I think golf is really increasing the probability, you know, of success, whether it's driving the ball in the fairway, hitting greens, putting, and I know we talked a little bit about. You know of success whether it's driving the ball in the fairway, hitting greens, putting, and I know we talked a little bit about. You know what I call the pie chart, you know, and basically if you put a pin in the middle of a circle and you have a, you know you divide that into four quadrants. You know long and left. I would call that quadrant the red, usually a place you don't really want to be, because if you're in the red zone your putt for a right-handed golfer is going to be left to right and downhill, so it's harder to make left to right downhill putts than it is uphill, right to left putts. So I'd call the green zone would be, say, short, right, and so if you can set up your gear and your swing so that your misses end up more in the green zone, more often than the red zone, then I think you're increasing the probability for success. And this move that we're talking about here, flattening the shaft, then it starts to take that left vector of possibilities and you start moving that to the right and usually when you miss hit a shot it's because you're not hitting it real solid. So then that ball would tend to fall short and right, which would leave you in easier up and down. Typically, if you miss the green, you're chipping uphill right to left. Or if you're on the green and you've got a 20-foot, 30-foot birdie putt, you're putting right to left. So this is something that's talked about.
Speaker 3:You know a lot in golf but I think it's a real reality. And uh, to set your game up to where your miss is, generally, of course you know if there's water short right or something, again you can play away from this and you could play up towards the left part of the green and your miss might be stiff, you know, right by the pin or something. But but uh, you know this is all strategy and ball positioning stuff and I'm a ball control guy. That that's, that's what I like. I mean the distance thing it's. You know it's good to hit the ball far and all that. But really the way you play good golf is is uh, with with controlling the golf ball, especially with the wedges, and short game, putting and keeping the ball in the fairway, especially in a tournament like you just played in a USG event where there's some rough and you know it's big premium on getting the ball in the fairway.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, for sure.
Speaker 1:Lewis, how was the course set up in terms of that? Was there some pretty nasty rough?
Speaker 2:Yeah, there was, um, you know it. Fortunately there was a chance you could get a decent lie. But you could also get a really bad lie. Um, you know, I I did drive the ball well, but you know I missed some fairways and I remember, and I remember one day on the fifth hole I hit one right and I just had to oh, this was during the stroke play and I just had to hit a wedge out. I mean, I only probably hit 80 yards down the fairway and I hit another wedge in there to three feet and made par, you know. But there were other times I drove it in the rough and was able to, you know, get a pretty clean lie. You know it was sitting up okay. So they I think they were a little bit generous from that standpoint. It could have been worse. Like I say, you can get some really bad lies, but there was a chance you could get a good lie.
Speaker 2:But the golf course there is hard. It's a Pete Dye course and it's not. Maybe it's not classic Pete Dye, like maybe some of the Palm Springs courses. You do see some of the Pete Dye stuff, but I mean it is a classic golf course for sure. I mean it's some of the Pete Dye stuff, but but I mean it is a classic golf course for sure. I mean it's one of the I believe it's ranked in the top 50 in America. But the green complexes are very difficult and, like I said, 13 or over. Well, I told you earlier 13 over may match plays. So you know, I mean bogeys were really easy to make and doubles.
Speaker 1:Wow, you know that's. That's so cool. What a great story, what a great conversation, y'all. I'm just thinking about all of this and and, and. You know I'm going to go ahead and kind of segue in and put it all together. I mean, good technique is going to give you a. It's just, you know I'm going to go ahead and kind of segue in and put it all together. I mean good technique is going to give you.
Speaker 1:It's just, you know, taking what you've always told me, john, what you've said all along is stacking the deck in your favor, and I think that mentally, that correlates to a level of surrender. When you know, from balls to bones, that you've earned your technique, you've earned the right to strike it solidly. There's a part of your golf consciousness that lets that part go. You know, that's just like one less thing to worry about, because you know what you got under the hood is going to hold up. You know that for a fact and I think that's very valuable and I mean, hey, that's what all the greats did. I mean, you know, john, and I, john, you and I talk about this all the time as far as great technique and how it holds up under the gun and we're celebrating lewis here and and he's certainly a part of this but it it seems to me that men and women that have had great technique throughout their careers, they never really disappear. You know, like Nick Price, for example, if he disappeared he would finish middle of the pack, primarily because he didn't putt well. But if he putted well he probably won. But he never went off the radar for weeks at a time. You know, same with Nick Faldo, same with a lot of players. George Newton we celebrate and talk about a lot. His ball striking was a joke because his technique was superior. It was really really, really good. And if you have that and you've built that within that's just another part under competition that you know, especially coming down the stretch, Whether it's stroke play or match play, you know really in your spine that you've got it under the gun. It's really powerful.
Speaker 1:I felt it this year for the first time. Or I knew coming down the stretch in a few tournaments that the fear of losing a ball, right or left, didn't even enter my mind. It was a matter of I'm gonna hit this thing as hard as I possibly can. And uh, that has a hundred percent do with. You know what we're talking about here. I mean, I've been a ABS practitioner for four years. I know what it's like to do a lot of work off the golf course, to beat on a bag, to think about it, think about how to follow this instruction and train the pressures, and this year it just clicked.
Speaker 1:And then, adding on to tripping the shaft, uh, the hogan modules are. I've I've been fortunate enough to have sneak peek, to start to work on them and I can already tell that there's something different back there in transition, that there's something different. I mean, john, you and I talked about it the other day. Lewis, john and I had this conversation where I I felt tripping the shaft in real time, not thinking about it, I don't think about it, I don't have a swing thought, but I felt it real time. And what was interesting was but I felt it real time. And what was interesting was how much more time I had from the top of the backswing to actually hitting the golf ball I guess that's the best way I can describe it Like whoa, my body's tripping out, going. What do I do with all this time back there?
Speaker 1:Because the transition and tripping of the shaft and getting it back down to. You know, golf machine, speak, the elbow point, or the original shaft, plane getting it down, that that you have at address, that, combined with the gravity drop, you know the, the free ride down in this, it's now the shaft is coming down into a position where you can hit it as hard as you want, you can let that thing absolutely rip. And now that part of, at least for me, being a student and having this conversation and basically trying to figure out how hogan did what he did and how is that, even in the sphere of applicability, now we have that bridge. And now actually Hogan's swing to me makes the most sense out of everything, even though for years, for years, it was shrouded in this zen like Star Wars mystery that it was just you, you couldn't, you couldn't quite get what he was doing.
Speaker 1:And then, and then, on top of that, the importance of the equipment too. Like John told me, point blank, he goes hey, dude, when you start working on this stuff, you're going to want your clubs to be heavy, heavier than they already are. Well, I get that now I, I get it. It's to me. It's, uh, the more complex that my interpretation of hogan was versus, as it is now in the applicability of this technology, of this information, it makes the most sense and it's the most simple. And it seems to like John I mean you and Lewis can probably really edify this a lot more than me, because I'm just at the beginning of this journey that it just goes with nature, like everything about it just goes with nature. Like everything about it just goes with nature, like, oh, this is how it's supposed to be, oh, okay, well, no wonder ben hogan would never really hit it bad. He never really would hit it bad. Maybe he might miss hit a shot or something, but but but as I see it now, it makes the most sense.
Speaker 3:So boys care to touch on that well, um, you know I'm a big believer in, you know, holding shot flex through the strike. So what is that For one? It's putting feel in your hands. It's putting pressure in your hands. So if you were to take a club and push it against a door, jam and flex the shaft, all of a sudden you'd feel a lot more in your hands than if you didn't do that right. So it's that feel that's going to give you the awareness of where the leading edge of the club face is at, and also your low point control, club face control and your path and all that. So that's really critical. Also, the ball tends to respond better when you're holding shaft flex, because now you're hitting it not just with the weight of the club head itself, but you're also hitting it with the shaft. It's like if you hit somebody with a two by four right, you're hitting it with a whole board right. So you're hitting it holding shaft flex.
Speaker 3:I think that's the. You know, that's the secret of great golf and that's the holy grail. So a lot of great players have done that in a lot of different ways to do that. So the question is, is there a best way to do that? You know, we've seen a lot of different ways of doing it. But when I look at Hogan's technique, knowing what I know now, I actually think that from a technical standpoint it's actually the best way to do it because it's not relying upon other things that are more difficult, like trying to time certain things or trying to use just a gravity drop at the top, you know, because it's easy to interfere with that. So when you have the this mechanical motion and again it's not just one thing, because you know, that's why I'm not a Hogan secret guy because if you do one thing you have to do it affects something else, right? So for you to trip the shaft, it's not just that, because you've got to move laterally at the same time that that's happening to make that work. Because now you're starting the downswing, you're moving the club towards the ball, but the shaft is flattening and that's done by the lateral move. And then it's like well, what's the lateral move? How does that happen? Then you start talking about, you know, stance width. You know Hogan had a pretty wide stance, as did Trevino and Moe and Knudsen I mean a lot of these guys are great strikers Started with a little wider stances. Well, wider stance is going to allow for more lateral movement, right? So why would you want to move laterally? Well, if you move laterally, then you're allowed to save the rotation so you can start the downswing, start the club and the arms towards the ball, but you're not opening up your torso, you're not opening up your shoulders yet.
Speaker 3:So we see a lot of that early opening stuff in the modern swings now where it's. You know, people are really chasing the velocity thing and just trying to get as much club head speed. You know that that's all good for hitting the ball far, but the ball control stuff, that's, that's all. That's a different, it's a different avenue to that. So that that's what interests me is, you know, ball control, how going to Hogan would be. You know one of the great ball controllers and I would say that you know.
Speaker 3:People have asked me you know, who do you think is better, hogan or Moe? I mean, I never saw Hogan play personally, I did Moe. I spent a lot of time with Moe and I think Moe was certainly the greatest straight hitter. You know, just straight. Moe didn't work the ball, he didn't shape the ball, he didn't draw and fade, he just hit it straight. He just said, oh, I don't need to draw and fade the ball, I just hit it straight every time, you know.
Speaker 3:So you know there's an argument for that. But then you know the argument against that would be you know, let's say that you know, in the Bellotto ball era, when we into the green have it hit and then spin back, and then you can access that, that pin placement, and I'm talking more with like mid irons and that sort of thing, of course you could just throw a little wedge in there. But you're coming in there with a five iron or something and you really need to get it close and your pins tucked behind a bunker and you can't just go straight at the pin it's. You're not gonna be able to, you know it's. It's kind of too risky that way. So you would just sweep it in, draw it in, have it hit and spin it back. Or a front right position where you hit it. Uh, you know, cut the ball in, or if it's into the wind, you're gonna hit a lower shot. If it's a back right pin placement, you can skip't. Skip it in or into the wind.
Speaker 3:He had a low trajectory shot and Hogan, you know he, he talked about, you know he wasn't a yardage guy, right? So he didn't didn't play with yardage, it was always about the shot that he wanted to hit. And you know they asked him well, what club do you hit from 150 or whatever? And it's like, well, it depends, right. I mean he could hit an 8-iron, he could hit a 5-iron, it depends upon the trajectory. Hogan pulled the club based upon trajectory. So if he wanted to come in low, he'd hit a 5-iron and he would just take a little half swing and just fire that thing in there low into the wind or something with a 5-iron, higher with an 8-iron or 7-iron. So it's a different way of playing golf and not being as obsessed about yardages. And this is the club you know that you're going to hit.
Speaker 3:And so my point here is that I think this is what separates the really great ball strikers are the ones that can really really shape, shape the ball, curve it left to right. I Tiger didn't? He talk about the nine windows or something when he would practice, you know, through the different panes of glass in his mind or whatever. So, and you know there's technical reasons why Hogan's swing, the way it's set up, would allow him to have that kind of ball control and so, as compared with, say, mo, where it was just hitting it straight all the time, so both great strikers, but I'm going to say that the ball control guys is going to ultimately come out as the greatest. The greatest ball control is going to be the greatest TD Green player.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, shuffler's doing that today. Yeah yeah, big time ball control. Yeah, lewis, I'm curious about um. You know we're talking about hogan and we're talking about this methodology. We're talking about tripping the shaft, um, did you, did you really notice? Um, I mean, were there, were there things that really stood out when you were working on this and as you were getting it ingested into your own swing nervous system, that was really, I mean, did the ball do something differently than before? Did you have more control? Did you have more low point control, like what was sort of the manifestation that, one of the manifestations that really stood out to you?
Speaker 2:Well, I had been working on getting the club flatter and you know, on plane earlier in my downswing, like I said before. So I think that you know the way John was explaining it to me. The idea was that it was a transitional move and you know he talked about the way you go into the left. But I already did that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you did.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I did that. So, yeah, I mean for me, I mean it's not like I found new positions. I've never been in before I've been able to get the club flat. But this was just an easier sort of trigger maybe or easier thought for me. It just helped me.
Speaker 2:Like I said before, it helped me make a bigger move in that direction. It helped me make a bigger move in that direction and I liked it being more of a transitional feeling right at the very end of the backswing, because you know, if I tried to flatten it out too much on the backswing, it would almost want to steepen back up a little bit, you know, in the transition. So, yeah, that was kind of the yeah, that was sort of the feel, and I can relate to what you said earlier about how you know it feels like you've got time, you know, because that's a transitional move. You know the club sort of drops and that sort of transitional move and then you move into your down turn, you actually start rotating towards the target and accelerating and, um, yeah, so I, I can, I can kind of feel those those dynamics in there, um, and and you know it, and it felt good, I mean I, I like, I like what john showed me that it was. It was really helpful.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's been, uh, john, I mean it's it's uh undoubtedly starting to take hold and and my action and uh, like I said, one something that and John, you and I have spoken about this, but getting the club and slotting the club, you know, to me slotting the club and getting you know, coming in from what we would call the 430 and coming from the inside, rotating through the strike, I think working on tripping the shaft has allowed me to get it down there even deeper. And how that correlates for me is I now have permission to take a rip at it and I mean to really accelerate how as hard as I possibly can. There's an element there of I can completely let go of control because the club is now in a spot where I can do that. There's no compensatory moves that need to be made. I don't need to because I'm coming in shallower. I don't need to slow down my pivot to shallow the golf club as a compensation.
Speaker 1:Or am I going to do more, hip thrust forward and get the club behind me and stuck and then pivot, stall, you chuck your hands at it and then it's potluck, like that is all gone on a deeper level for me and like, as I said before, I mean having. I mean I'm sure that people that listen have had those sensations before, where you know you're getting it down there deep and in your, in your downswing and and it's like you can do whatever you want to do with the golf club. Working on has actually allowed me to feel more of holding shaft flex, because my shoulders seem to be infinitely more closed because of the transitional move. John, you mentioned wide stance. It's almost as if my feet want to get a little bit wider. Um, you know, just by nature to support this really athletic killer move. I mean it's wild, um, and I'm sure that if I saw my swing on video right now I probably wouldn't even be close to how it actually feels it doesn't have to move much.
Speaker 3:The thing is the objective I'm having, working with students coming up with the Hogan module stuff. It's not trying to get everyone's swing to look like Ben Hogan, it's basically taking the core, fundamental principles of what he was doing and apply that to each individual's golf swing. And I would say you know one of, if we were to start at address. I mean, there's a certain way you'd want to set up to the, to the golf ball there, right, and then there's a way that you would take the backs when you definitely are not going to be taking it outside. You know you're not going to do that. It's, if anything, it's going to be a pull to the inside because that makes tripping the shaft easier. George Knutson's a perfect example. It was always a mystery to me how these guys would pull away inside and they get to the transition and then they'd flatten the shaft again. You know it's like because most people when they take it inside they want to come over the top, they want to go inside and steepen Right. So that was kind of a mysterious thing for me until I had the aha moment of like oh, oh, okay, this is what it is. You know, it was just, I was just experimenting with some stuff and all of a sudden it was just like wow, boom, that's, that's what it is, and um, and applied that and then tested it out, you know myself, to make sure that it was legitimate. You know, kind of discovery at least a personal discovery, obviously not a discovery because people like hogan and newton already knew this a long time ago, right, um, you know it's like unearthing, these, uh, artifacts from the past or something really is more what it is. But, uh, so that you know that fundamental, there's a certain way you got to take the backswing and then you got to flatten the shaft of transition and then the hands are moving. You know they're moving down to the right hip pocket.
Speaker 3:When you look at Hogan, his hands were very close to his body. You know, when I call it P3 or the parallel before impact, his hands are just grazing his right thigh. Newt's in the same thing, trevino, the same thing, right. So you know that would be a fundamental there, right, and holding shaft flex and accelerating and the delayed you know the delayed rotation, staying very close and then accelerating the torso pivot rotation. So that's all moving through the strike, right. So the hips are opening through the strike shoulders, through the strike right, not what's happened? A lot of the stuff that's happening now, where it's just like a big race from the top and then everything stalls and you see people's hips going backwards and stuff the strike with all the you know the jumping and leaping and all the stuff that's going on to try, and you know, uh, use a swingers release to increase you know clubhead velocity stuff. But this is, you know, this is ball control stuff.
Speaker 3:So stabilizing low, hitting into a firm left knee. Hogan never had his left knee locked up at impact right. It was always flexation in the left knee and then it was straightened later right into the finish. Knudsen never even really straightened it right, just keep it flexed right on through. Same with Mo right. That's really good for stabilizing low point right.
Speaker 3:So. And you know, turning, turning this around so that the hip clearing is really motivated more by the rotation of the torso. The torso turns and then it runs out of room, starts pulling on the hip and then the hip goes right. So a lot of people are teaching, you know, slam the left foot, dance, lock up the left knee, get, you know just anything to just get velocity going, but what happens is the velocity gets too fast, there's over acceleration. As soon as you know, acceleration itself as a mathematical number reaches zero, then the shaft's going to release, right. So that's happening on the downswing for most people. What we're trying to do is get that to happen all the way down to impact or beyond. Right Hogan talked about, you know, he felt like he was reaching maximum velocity with 18 inches past the ball or something. You know. Gary player, every video you see him talking about it's like accelerate, accelerate, accelerate, accelerate, accelerate. It's like, yeah, it's not. This is nothing new here, right, I mean, you know this isn't some new discovery or whatever. It's just looking back and saying you know, what are these ball control guys really doing? What? What do they have in common? So so when I, you know, when I see Gary Player swing, I say very Hogan kind of swing. I see Knutson, I see very Hogan kind of swing. I see Nick Faldo very Hogan kind of swing.
Speaker 3:Another thing would be, you know, not a lot of activity with the right elbow going through the strike, that right elbow stays pretty rigid. You know, through the strike it's not straightening. Because you start straightening that right elbow out, it starts closing the club face down. Now you're opening up the left side of the golf course when you do that. So so keeping that right elbow rigid through the strike now you're going to lose a little bit of power that way for most people because it is a power source. But then you have to substitute that and that's what we do in the advanced ball striking classes train, what we call module three, increasing the post impact pivot thrust through the strike. So you exchange that, you pick up the rotational speed and lock up the elbow for the accuracy, because we want the ball control. We don't want to give that up right. So that's basically. You know those fundamentals that you would want to see. And then, of course, you know moving through the strike.
Speaker 3:You know you'd see Hogan if you're from a down the line. But you see his hands just disappear real fast behind his body right and the club face stays looking at the target a long time. And you see that angle between the shaft and the left forearm is a big angle. Right, it's not. There's no handle raising right. His hands never go up like a lot of players do.
Speaker 3:You know? I'm not even talking about a dress, I'm just talking about the handles we're actually raising up through the strike, and hogan would be the opposite. If anything, it was doing the opposite of that. It was almost compressing down into what I call a heel heavy. Do it and feel like you're taking on. You know the heel would be hitting into the ground first rather than the toe raising, which then you know, then the whole flat line angle thing.
Speaker 3:You get into that and you know I've got a lot of discussion about the advantages. Again, it's not necessary that you play, you know super flat line angles but you're tipping the, the hand in your, uh, in your favor. You're definitely because you're again flatter line angles are going to help keep the ball out of the red zone right and as well as help you just engage the pivot rotation and the torso rotation, because the flatter the club is, the more your body just naturally wants to turn around that If it's upright you tend to start swinging up over your head and down and it's a lot of arms, arms and hands going on and not as much body right. So all these things combined, you know, if you look at what Hogan was doing, he kind of had everything really correct. I mean, I just look at that. I don't really think there's anything I'd change. You know everything looks like it was very well engineered, almost, you know, just the perfect kind of engineering job.
Speaker 3:And then you know there's an argument that Hogan was the greatest player that ever lived too, because if you look at the percentage of like even his major championship wins compared with other people, you know the tournaments that he won, majors that he entered, and also in that era with Hogan, um, there were tournaments back then. There were actually majors, like the world championship of golf at Tam O'Shanter. That was a major championship back then and it's not considered a major because, you know, people weren't really talking about majors that much back then. Right in the bobby jones era, you know, the us amateur was considered a major championship, right. So you have these different eras, right. So you have the hickory era and walter hagen and jones, and you know people could, you could argue walter hagen was the greatest golfer. You know with what? All the tournaments and major championships that he won, um, so different eras of golf.
Speaker 3:And you know things are different now. But I think the physics haven't changed. You know the laws of physics haven't changed. What mass does line goals? You know what we're talking about with Hogan, with shallower entries, what Mo was doing. The laws of physics haven't changed and I think everybody would do better with better ball control. So that's just some thoughts.
Speaker 1:I agree, boy Lewis want to add on that Masterclass.
Speaker 2:John's the guru. I'm not, no, but he's a smart guy and people should listen to what he has to say. I know that not, no, but he's a smart guy and people should listen to what he has to say. I know that he's studied these guys a lot.
Speaker 2:I do look at a lot of the modern swings and I know there's I do kind of like the idea of the three imperatives of the golf machine. I mean, I like to think there's really just three things you have to do. You know, really to be proficient, you know there are preferences for how to do things. But you know where I go to practice with the teacher I work with here. He's got some little sequence photos and he likes to show Raymond Floyd next to Miller Barber, because they were the opposite in their backswing. Floyd, he sort of tripped the shaft on his takeaway and then Barber was the other way. They were like 180 degrees difference, but then they ended up at the same place and so that's kind of how I like to look at it.
Speaker 2:But I do like I like the fact that John has studied this and he understands the physics and sort of the dynamics of what makes it work. And those are preferences, you know, but there are different ways of getting it done. I think, technically speaking, like we said before, it's just that you want to make that, that window of success, as as wide as you can, you know. So then you can just go to the law force, like you said, jesse, and trust it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I think it's very powerful. I mean, you know whoever's listening to this. I mean this really is. It's really kind of proof in the pudding that, yes, there's preferences that we have.
Speaker 1:Like you said, lewis, and the the possibilities and the work working on your golf swing in a way that you know has been proven time and time again. You know from the best you know. For me, at least as a student, that has been so valuable. Valuable because I could just keep telling myself, hey, I'm working on this stuff really remarkable and enriching journey of creating something that is not only unique to me but something that I can be very proud of. Um, and having it show up when you want it to, or you know when you need it to, especially under the gun, is, or you know when you need it to, especially under the gun is it's really a joy, it's.
Speaker 1:It's to me it's more fun to be able to hit a golf shot than get it up and down. It really I mean not that getting it up and down isn't isn't necessary, it certainly is but to hit like a five iron from however long when you need to and you just you stuff it because you made an incredibly proficient golf swing when you needed it to. You know, I think about how sudden be the right club today. Right, I mean, how good was that shot action was really good. And having that and working, you know, having the information and working toward that and then having it manifest, is it's really hard to put into words. I mean, I know that you can identify with that lewis as well.
Speaker 1:Um, yeah, um, yeah, it's worth it.
Speaker 3:It's worth it, 100 worth it one thing I'd like to touch on with lewis. I know you with Bob Rotella a lot and on the mental side of things, and we talked about that as well, and some of the things that he talked to you about are just really staying present in the moment, right Out there.
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, you know, I mean that's sort of a common thread probably amongst you know any sort of performance coach. But I mean I worked with Bob way back, you know, when I was playing in my 20s. And then, you know, and more just recently, or say the last six years, when I started back playing some tournaments, you know I've had some conversations and spent some time with him. Yeah, I mean, I think a lot of, especially for people who are, who are analytical, like all of us are, you know, I think it's if you really want to get the best out of yourself, out of your potential, it's learning how to turn the brain off and, uh, or at least learning how to make you know I'm not sure that was accurate, but let's just say putting it in the right place. You know, it's not like it's off, but um, but the con, but the conscious mind maybe goes into a place a lot like um.
Speaker 2:You know bob has about Steph Curry and you know he's such an amazing shooter from from way out. He actually does drills. He has some drills that help him react to his target. They sort of train him to react to his target and not have conscious thought, and so that's sort of the paradox of all this. It's like we're talking about all this stuff that we want to be doing technically, which is good. You know we're all saying it's it's the window of success, you want to have it, but but performance? But when you go perform, you know you've done the work. It's like, okay, that's the reason you do the work, so that when you go play it's there. And when you go play you have to trust it and let it go.
Speaker 2:And golf is a unique game in that you know there's a lot of time to think about things and it's not really a reaction sport like basketball or or tennis, so, um, so yeah, there's a lot you know to it. I mean, with performance, yeah, it's, it's it's being the president, but it's also about just not getting too caught up and worried about the outcome. You know which. We're all. We're all I mean that's just our human nature is everybody cares about the outcome. But you watch the best players in the world when you know they care about the outcome, but they're so into what they're doing that you know they're not stressing over the outcome. They're very much tending to their business. And that's what you said about staying in the present, just focusing on what's in front of you and not thinking about pars, birdies and bogeys and 75s or 65s.
Speaker 3:Yeah, thinking about. You. Know, I always go back thinking about Mo because I spent so much time with Mo. But you know, and you saw Mo Lewis when we were up in Canada, and remember how he would just rapid fire golf balls, right, he'd line up six in a row and just go. He'd have three balls in the air at the same time. You know, and I think that there's two of that.
Speaker 2:He was hitting golf balls like Steph Curry shoots basketballs. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, and I think he was training himself to do that exact thing, just to get the mind into a different place. You don't have time to think about anything If you're just, you know, ball target, boom, boom, boom, boom. You know, you put your brain in a different place. You don't have time to be thinking about standing over the ball and like, okay, what am I going to do here? Where's my backswing going? Or what am I trying to do? You just ball target, boom, the ball's there. There's a ball on the ground now. The ball's in the air, ball's on the ground, ball's in the air, ball's on the ground, ball's in the air. And Mo played very, very fast, right. So I think there's something to that. You know of the reaction sport kind of bringing that element into golf.
Speaker 3:I think Trevino looked like that a little bit. You know he'd get over and he'd just do a little foot shuffle thing, tap the club behind the ball, you know, and just send it on its way. He just made it look easy, right, as compared with some players who are just standing over the ball forever and you know they're making it look like it's a difficult thing, you know, as compared with the, you know the guys who just get up there and say, okay, time to hit the shot. There's the ball here I am, you know, step into it. And I know we talked a little bit too about, you know, mo was really.
Speaker 3:He didn't. He never stood behind the ball and looked at the ball to the target. He didn't believe in that. You know. He said golf is played from, uh, from the side, you know. So he would just come in from the side and hit the shot. He'd never get behind it and I get behind him, look, um. But you know, I think it's interesting these different approaches, right, like what you're saying, there's a lot of different ways to do it, and those commonalities are the things that I really try and focus on.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, go ahead, lotus, were you going to say something?
Speaker 2:No, no, I think John makes a good point. I mean, that's a lot of what I think Rotel and some of the others are trying to get guys to do. You do all your work and then there's a time to go trust it and let it go. It's tough in golf because even the best players hit so many shots that are not good shots or not what they want Right. There's no perfection. So you know you, just you have to.
Speaker 2:I mean, rotella's first book was called Golf is Not a Game of Perfect and it was very appropriately titled. You know. So, if we get, you know and I'd be guilty of it, I know that it's just by nature. And you know, I think that's part of what's making me better is not trying to be too perfect. Just, you know, that's why it's good to have a good short game. You know you don't have to. You don't have to hit great shots all the time and you don't have to figure out why you hit a bad shot. You know yeah, you know yeah. So yeah, that's you know. That's the beauty of it. We're still finding ways to get a little better, even after all these years yeah, such the allure of golf too.
Speaker 1:Just, you always want to get better. That's so well said. Everybody can identify with that. Were you going to say something, john?
Speaker 3:no, I was, yeah, I was just saying um, you know, one of the things that helped me out mentally, you know, was having good technique and being confident in that, and I and I did practice the rapid fire thing a lot. After seeing mo do that, working with mo a little bit on that kind of concept, I would go out and just line up five or six balls and just fire boom, boom, boom and just work on that, and doing that it really does put your mind in a different place. And then once you start realizing that you actually hit the ball better by doing that rapid firing and you just hit one good, then that feeling is right there. You just bring it to the next ball Bam Good, right there, bam Good, bam Bam. You want to have that approach. So you pull the club out of the bag. You know you've got your shot in mind, of what you're going to do, whether it's a little draw, a little fade, high, low, whatever the shot. And then, knowing what that feels like in the body, I know that if I'm going to hit this kind of shot it needs to feel like that. So I might take a little practice.
Speaker 3:Okay, that's, that's what I want it to feel like and then boom, get over the ball, tap, tap, tap, send it on its way, committing to that feeling of what it is you're trying to do A hundred and 10%, just completely commit to it and then just back away and so I just live with the results. Yeah, I gave it a hundred and 10%. It went at the pan, it went in the bunker, wherever it goes. But the best chance of a positive outcome is to commit 110% to the shots that you're going to hit. Commit to it, send that thing on its way and, more likely than not, that ball is going to end up more or less where you want it. The key to good golf is not having a lot of horrible shots. Right, it's the horrible ones that you know. You can get by with some miss hits, but you don't want to be just mapping it. You know two fairways over and stuff, right, yeah, Right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, you know what's what's really helped me. Gents, since we're on the topic of staying in the present moment and accepting, you know I love. I love that first Rotella book golf is not a game, perfect was just phenomenal book. And also like the sort of the credo in my head of perfect is the enemy of good, and sometimes a good shot might be a mishit and you only in retrospect did your subconscious maybe save yourself from from certain disaster. And but I think also too that you know one of the gifts of really trying to be in the present moment, just like you, what you said too, that you know one of the gifts of really trying to be in the present moment, just like what you said, lewis and John, giving yourself 110% commitment for that shot and living and accepting the outcome. One of the fruits of that for me has been to also recognize and notice that I mean, we're human beings, we're going to have negative thoughts, and not so much for me is to deny those negative thoughts but to not become attached to them. You know, that's been a big revelation for me and I really attribute that for me to my meditation practice and I really attribute that for me to my meditation practice, having that extra second for my conscious mind to say, okay, I don't need to. You know that moving on, it's just like a cloud in the sky moving on or changing the channel. I don't have to accept that thought and that's been a great gift to me, but it really has been a big part of working on. I mean, this whole thing blends together, gents, as you know. But the attitude, the awareness in the present moment, being 110% committed to the golf shot, if you could do all of those things, it's really going to allow all of the work that you've done to even come through even more, because you're not mentally interfering with your golf swing by either talking yourself out of the golf shot or making a dumb play which you know you shouldn't be making. And then you have some conflict there. And for me, this stuff while knowing that what I've been working on for the last four years is true and technically sound for me is allowing me to access both sides and have sort of a mind-body coherence, which has been probably the greatest gift for me and a big realization this year, just kind of adding on to it. But I still like, in closing, this thought I mean, tiger Woods has this process.
Speaker 1:I've said it many times and I just think it's so incredible that after he hit a golf shot, he'd give himself a 10-foot radius to do whatever he needed to do Throw a fit, throw a tantrum, draw an F-bomb, say some pretty derogatory things to himself, like he did. But as soon as he got out of that 10 foot circle of the previous golf shot, that shot was gone, his it was. The energy of that shot has completely left his body. So he's able to 110% commit to the next shot. And you can argue and say that Tiger and Nicholas and Ben Hogan probably were the greatest focusers of all time, that there's no way they could have done what they did without this level of concentration. But that's attainable. And, uh, you having a very technically proficient golf swing is also attainable in my opinion.
Speaker 1:That's my soapbox yeah, it can go deep, yeah, yeah yeah, and you know this, this conversation is more toward the better player. The better player is going to identify with this. You know, this is sort of an extension of ABS and you know, one thing I also wanted to circle back on in closing that loop is, lewis, you know, not letting the conversation go by the wayside of not only celebrating your incredible achievement a couple of months ago winning the senior amateur but also a couple of the personal challenges that you had to overcome. And you know, knowing you and knowing your story, of a decent amount it's, that's a, you've traveled a long way and traveled, and it's been a long road to hoe. And then here you are, coming out the other side of it Just kind of give us a little bit of a background and what you've had to, what you've dealt with over the last few years and what you've overcome and how you've overcome it.
Speaker 2:Well, okay, thanks for that. I mean, it is sort of part of the story of my recent success and you know, I guess in winning our state senior in the US senior tournaments Back in 2017, you know, at that time I wasn't really playing any competitive golf but I was still playing golf and, like I said, always sort of trying to keep my game from deteriorating because I enjoy playing and playing business golf. But anyway, I got diagnosed with like neck cancer and from a virus, hpv and it's not that fatal, so I was not too worried about it killing me. I mean, there was a chance of that happening. But the doctor said we know how to treat this and you're going to be fine. But you know it was seven weeks of radiation and then some little chemo and you know. So after that it's tough treatment, it's a lot of radiation, it does a lot of damage.
Speaker 2:I came out of that and we'll see that was January of 2018 and I won our state senior name in 2020. So that was really, I don't know, maybe probably one of the most gratifying wins I ever had. Just that I was able to bounce back from all that and win a tournament against a bunch of good players and the way I played had something to do with that too. I just I led it from wire to wire but then I had, you know, I also, when I came out of the treatment, I had a car accident that really could have probably almost injured my golf, and it would have. I had nerve damage from it and I couldn't lift my arm. I couldn't lift my arm. So I was saying to myself this is worse than cancer, because I was diagnosed with a nerve damage which caused my trapezius muscle to not function and so my shoulder blade had fallen, couldn't lift my arm. I could swing a little bit and play, but it was going to get progressively worse and it was painful. And the doctors in Atlanta I was seeing the best doctors at Emory Hospital they didn't have anything for me. So through my own efforts I found a guy at Mayo Clinic who had the surgery that you know it didn't fix the nerve damage, but it fixed my dysfunction with the trapezius muscle. It's kind of complicated, but anyway I bounce back from all that.
Speaker 2:And then you know, even last year or two I've had some issues from the radiation causing some other nerve damage. It's had some effects on me. It has some effects on my eating and so forth and swallowing, but I don't know. I kind of look at it like it. Just that stuff just kind of makes you tougher or I guess you can just roll over and let it get to you, um, but maybe in some way it has maybe a little more determined with the golf. I don't know that for sure, but I I do think it it's.
Speaker 2:It makes me pretty determined that I love playing golf and if I'm gonna go play a tournament I want to be my best. And you know, deep down I I've always kind of released. You know, since I quit playing many, many years ago, I'm competitive golf. You know, I've always thought well, I wanted, you know, I would love to go back and see how good I could get again. You know, and even though I don't play a lot of tournaments, I still am driven by that, by that idea of let's see how good we could get.
Speaker 2:And you really have to do it in a tournament. I mean, you know, it's one thing to go in a money game and make seven or eight or nine birdies or something you know, and shoot a low score, but, as a friend of mine said, there's a lot of guys who can throw in the bullpen, but you got to go do it in the game and so you got to do it in a tournament. I mean you got to go shoot the scores and you got to follow them up and you got to play under pressure and you got to follow them up and you got to play under pressure, and so that's. You know, for me I can sort of take back now and I'm not I'm not that I'm done or I'm going to wrestle my laurels at all, but you know I can be pretty proud and fulfilled of what I've been able to do. And you know, I said the health stuff. It probably just made me a little more determined. I mean I'm pretty good now. I mean the health stuff, it probably just made me a little more determined. I mean I'm pretty good now. I mean the shoulder works pretty good. I'm probably 80% there.
Speaker 2:I don't have cancer anymore. I do have some effects from all that, but you know there's a lot of people worse off than me and a lot of people had a lot worse cancers than I did. And that's how. That's kind of how I had to frame it. It's like man, you know I could have. You know, I have colon cancer or brain cancer. I don't have that. I've got something I can. I can manage, so so so, yeah, that's that story. Hopefully I didn't drag it out too long. It's great. No, but that's that's. You know, that's a great. Hopefully I didn't drag it out too long, it's great.
Speaker 3:No, but that's that's. You know, that's a great. It's a great thing to come back from something like that. I mean, you know, and that had a little bit of a parallel with Hogan too, right, I had the car accident and came back and played some of his best golf. Even myself, when Vic Wilk and I were rear, ended up in Canada and sent us home for eight months, you know, back damage and stuff, and I came out and was able to win the next year. I think it does sort of give you an added little focus, like, okay, you know, you, it puts things in a perspective that you didn't have before, right, and I think when you go through some hardship and and you just sometimes it can help you just get a little more focused when you come back. So I think there are probably a lot of things here that are attributed to it, probably some things you're not even thinking of, maybe, like what you eat for breakfast every day or something. It's just a lot of little things.
Speaker 2:Well, there are a lot of elements that go into you know accomplishing something and and, uh, you know you can't. You can't go in and turn them out like I did, if you don't putt well.
Speaker 3:So but yeah, that's got a lot to do with it too.
Speaker 2:That's a little bit to do with it. So you know, that's a whole nother. That's a whole nother podcast. That's a whole nother podcast oh yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:Well, you've always been a good putter, so that's um.
Speaker 2:I've, yeah, I've always put it reasonably well. Um, I, I would say it's more of a. I would say it's really more of a. I feel like an advantage for me. I feel like I have an edge on the greens more than I used to.
Speaker 1:Yep, that's a good power to have.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's not there every day, though. Some days I just don't go in. It's kind of like we talked about with the full swing. You can't let a bad shot or a bad round or a bad putting round, you know, change your confidence or what you think of yourself, and that's what you talk about with the acceptance. When you hit a bad shot it's like or tired reacting. Well, you know, if you react in a way that's going to make you question yourself the next time, then that's not a good reaction, you know. That's why the best thing to do is just throw those bad shots away. They're gonna happen, geez.
Speaker 2:In golf it's like if you're half of an inch off or a quarter inch off or maybe even a centimeter off, you're probably gonna hit a bad shot. So you know, just accept it. And you know, you know, but if you're, if you're talented, you have good action, you're going to have some good ones and enjoy your good ones and and find a way to score when you hit a bad one, and then you know, when you get done with your round or it's your tournament, then you know, if you don't like how you're, how you're hitting it, then Go do something about it. You know, go get better, yeah, so, yeah, yeah, the mindset stuff is, you know, it's equally as important really. I mean all this stuff. That's why golf's a beautiful game.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what did Hagen say? What was his allowance per round? Seven bad shots. He said he used to give himself seven bad shots before he got mad, or something like that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah I've never heard that, but I kind of like it. You know, if you have seven bad shots then you can be pretty patient out there yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:I mean I mean, and if you're a good player, I mean, are you? Are you really going to hit seven full swing bad shots? I mean, think about it, if you're a good player, that'd be a pretty bad day if you hit seven bad shots.
Speaker 2:Hopefully not often. Yeah, hopefully not often, but you know, some days when you're off you will yeah. Yeah, Depends on how you define it as a bad shot, but you want to use it all in the first two.
Speaker 3:It depends on how you define it as a bad shot.
Speaker 2:Right, you saw it in the first two holes right? I mean, I used to play a lot with Alan Doyle and a bad shot for him was like left side of the fairway, yeah.
Speaker 1:Right, yeah, I kind of like that. I mean, I like it too. Hagan said he gave himself an allowance of seven bad shots and then the thing that changed for Hagen was he said he got better when he stopped trying to do many a perfect thing. I think that was his quote, end quote, something like that. So here you got two of the greatest players of all time telling you that you're going to hit some bad shots. You know that it's part of the game. Mistakes are part of the game.
Speaker 3:Newt's had the great comment. You know you got to give up control to gain control. There was a little bit of a. You've got to just be slightly reckless when you're hitting your shots. You know what I mean. You've got to give up control. It can't be just boom, just step into that thing, give up control, just take a rip at it and send it on its way.
Speaker 2:I like that so slightly reckless, you know, send it out. That's why I like that. So, uh, john, I've told you this, john. But Joe Durant, who plays on champions tour now, um, you know he he's a friend of mine and you know Joe's always been, you know, one of the top ball strikers wherever he played EJ tour, james tour, total driving. It combines distance and accuracy and greens and regulation and all that he told me I think it was maybe two or three. He said he figures every round he's going to hit maybe two or three shots that he goes.
Speaker 2:It's an outlier, almost like what was that? It was like an accident. It's like an's an outlier, almost like a. Like what was that? It was like an accident. Yeah, it's like an accident, you know, maybe it was two shots around and maybe overstating it. So I mean, I don't see him hitting me, that was a bit every now and then you know, like anybody who's hit one, like what was that? You know well, it's just an accident.
Speaker 2:So you know, most people, or at least human nature, will be like well, why did I do that? Well, it didn't do me good to do that. It's like. Well, it's just part of the. You know, it just comes with the game. You know, Like if you hit 100 shots with a 5-iron, a certain percentage of them are going to be shots. You would call an accident. It's like, well, that's really not what I do, that was just sort of like an ass, like a foul ball.
Speaker 2:So when it happens, you just have to put the club in the bag and move on. You know we're spending a lot of time now talking about the mental game, but you know it's, I think, for the audience that's very important, you know, for performance and and you know, hopefully that shot doesn't put you in a place, you know, know where you're OB or, or you know they could, though you know it could be something like that. But you just have to realize that that's part of the game. Everybody's going to do it and and you know, and you're never and that's back to the golf study game of perfect, no matter how much work you do, you're not going to prevent that from happening. You're going to have a, you're going to hit some of those, but hopefully it's, you know, hopefully it's a small percentage and not a big percentage.
Speaker 1:Well, um, gents, this I can't tell you how enjoyable this conversation has been for me and how enriching it's been. Uh, I can't tell you how enjoyable this conversation has been for me and how enriching it's been. I can't thank you enough for coming on and sharing your wisdom and your experience, and and and Louis you're you know. Once again, congratulations for your incredible accomplishment and thank you for sharing your story and your thoughts, and we hope to do this again. I certainly wouldn't want this to be a one-time conversation.
Speaker 2:Well, it's fun to be around people who love the game and and it's fun to talk about it. So I I I appreciate the invite and we kind of got down into the weeds, but for golf lovers, I think that's what they're like Absolutely.
Speaker 3:Just one thing real quick here before we go. Now you told me a statistic about yourself. You're the only player that you won the Georgia State Junior, the Georgia State Amateur, the Georgia State Open and the Georgia State Senior Am. The Georgia State open and the Georgia State senior amateur Is that correct.
Speaker 2:I've won all of those except for the junior. I did not win that, but I won the state amateur, I won the state open and I won the senior amateur. I was told when I won the senior amateur that I'm one of three people who've ever won the state amateur and the state senior amateur. I don't know that anybody's ever won those two and the state open. I don't think they have, because in order to do it you have to turn pro and then turn amateur again. I'm not sure it's something to not be that proud of, but it's probably not to me if people had a chance to do it. I've been at it a long time, so I had a lot of chances and was able to win some, thankfully.
Speaker 3:That's an incredible career down there in the state of Georgia. That's for sure Unbelievable.
Speaker 2:We're a pretty strong golf state One thing we didn't talk about tonight but I'm the fourth different Georgian to have won the US Senior Amateur in the last 11 years. Wow, I'm the fourth different Georgian to have won the state. I mean the US Senior Amateur in the last 11 years Wow. Yeah that's strong. Yeah, pretty strong. You've got a pretty strong state. It's a great golf state, as you know.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, all right. Well, gents, thanks again for coming on. Well, gents, thanks again for coming on and I'll make sure to put all the pertinent information in the show notes that, for those who are listening, particularly those who are interested in advanced ball striking, I'll make sure to put the forum support and website up. And, guys, thanks again. Okay, thank you. Jesse.