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
Power, Speed, and Finesse: The Three Games Within Golf
Bernie Najar, PGA Director of Instruction at Caves Valley Golf Club and coach to World Long Drive Champion Kyle Berkshire, shares his individualized approach to golf instruction that respects each player's unique physical capabilities and natural swing tendencies.
• Working with Kyle Berkshire since age 10, respecting his strong grip and upright swing rather than forcing conventional changes
• Focusing on player assessment before making swing changes to ensure physical capability
• Learning from mentors including Wayne DeFrancesco, Mac O'Grady, Jim Hardy, and Mike Adams
• Understanding the body-swing connection through physical screening
• Increasing personal clubhead speed from 96 mph to 120 mph in his 50s through targeted training
• Viewing golf as three distinct games: power, speed, and finesse
• Creating simple home practice drills that require minimal equipment
• Developing distance control through measured "leapfrog" drills
• The importance of helping students trust the learning process
Find Bernie's new book "Speed, Power, and Finesse" on Amazon and connect with him at bernienajjar.com or @BernieNajarGolf on social media.
Hello, this is Jesse Perryman of the Fly Hunters Golf Podcast, welcoming you to another edition. I want to give a shout out to my man, justin Tang, for being with me on this journey. Without him I don't think any of this is possible. So I just want to give a special shout out to my podcast partner for connecting us with this week's guest, and his name is Bernie Najjar. Bernie is the lead instructor at Caves Valley Golf Club in Maryland.
Speaker 1:Bernie currently resides in Bethesda, maryland, and notably for the low-hanging fruit information kind of give him a shout-out here for this. He is Kyle Berkshire's coach, the world long drive champion, who also has a pretty competent golf swing, and he seems like a nice young man and he's got some great information out there and has done some great things in the world of long drive and I'm sure he's going to have some continued success. So we have his coach on. But Bernie is not just Kyle's coach. Bernie is also a longtime instructor, student of the game. He is formerly educated in the golfing machine Morad, which is Macro Grady's stuff, and has learned from some of the greats out there that have been stewards of instruction. Quite frankly, in our game and when you're seeking an instructor and you want to put a lot of your faith and your trust in he or her. You want to make sure that this person is competent. This person has the requisite education to help you with your own unique pattern and to help get you to build something that you know intimately, something that you can rely on, that you can trust that is going to be a repeatable pattern and Bernie is that guy to do that, because he's not a method teacher. He's going to take a look at what you have, he's going to take some inventory of what you already have going and then he's going to improve on that.
Speaker 1:And it takes time. It takes time, it takes some patience, it takes a lot of repetition and the willingness to uh, ascend in the journey and go through the process. And the journey is not linear by any stretch of the imagination and Bernie has the overall wherewithal and physiology to help his student relax into this process. And I think that's important. When you are diving into whether it's an overhaul or whether it's touch-ups or whether it's quick fixes, it's important to have a coach that's going to help you to trust the process, because I know for me I get pretty impatient and trusting when your body is going to receive and accept the data and then spit it out on the other end, subconsciously, and that's what we all want.
Speaker 1:So shout out to you, bernie, thank you so much for joining us and, once again, everyone just give thanks for to be able to play this game that we call a golf. That is in our DNA, it's in our soul, and just make sure that you look up into the sky and you give thanks for the ability to play this game, the ability to learn and grow and all of the great things that it has for us, and have a great week everyone Cheers. This is Jesse Perryman from the Flag Hunters Golf Podcast, welcoming you to another edition. Thanks for tuning in along with my partner, justin Tang, who's an instructor at the Tanamera Golf Club in Singapore. We've got our friend and somebody who has not been on the program yet. His name is Bernie Najjar from Bethesda, maryland, correct?
Speaker 2:That's correct.
Speaker 1:Yeah, bernie. Welcome Justin. Thanks, pal.
Speaker 3:And thanks, Bernie, for making time to speak to us. For the benefit of our listeners who have not had the pleasure to listen to you, could you just give us a quick introduction of yourself and how you got into the game?
Speaker 2:Sure happy to Thanks guys for having me. So everyone, I'm Bernie Najjar. I'm the PGA Director of Instruction at Caves Valley Golf Club. That's in Owings Mills, maryland. That's just outside of Baltimore, maryland. I've been the Director of instruction there since 2012. So that brings me to my 14th season, which I'm in right now.
Speaker 2:I got into golf right around middle school and fell in love with the game after playing a lot of other sports.
Speaker 2:Growing up to get better as a player and to play decent enough to make my high school team and eventually play in college led me down that road of learning about the golf swing and learning how to play different shots.
Speaker 2:And fortunately I could do that still today and I can use those experiences to help a wide range of players. So I'm very lucky. I get to spend time with golfers that are as young as let's see my youngest student right now she is six, and then my most mature student turns 90 in December. So I have a wide range and I you know it's always cool to spend time with new golfers, experienced golfers. I get to spend time with professional golfers that compete on the major tours, but you know, you, as a coach, get the opportunity through golf to spend time with people of all abilities and different interest levels in the game and I and I love doing that and you know, to me the the game each and every day brings new uh questions, new challenges that help me wake up the next day fresh and ready to go to learn and do some different things to help my players.
Speaker 3:So you're a Golf Digest top 50 teacher, a Golf Magazine top 100 teacher and I believe you've done the grand slam of majors as an instructor. Interestingly enough, your most famous student, I would say, has not played on any professional tours. His name is Kyle Berkshire. Yes, Could you shed some light on what it was like coaching him when he first showed up on your practice team?
Speaker 2:Sure, well, kyle, you know, for example, he's someone I've worked with since 2009. And we still talk, probably I don't know every week, two, you know two, three times a week. In fact, he's in town, so we'll get some work done this week on his game and he got into long drive. Well, after the fact, in terms of when I started working with him and so when he came to me at first, he was roughly 10 years old and a good junior player in the making, and we trained him to become a good junior golfer, which led to high school golf and college golf, and along the way, he became a very good ball striker. Kyle's unusual in that, unlike a lot of the kids I was coaching at that time, he was actually smaller than his peer group, and so he was a, a, you know, a long hitter for his size. You know. If somebody said to me hey, you're working with a junior golfer here who's going to have 160 plus club speed one day, I mean I would never forecast that, but I can tell you that he was making sure he could keep up with the other players, and as he got bigger and stronger, he started hitting it not only with them but beyond them. And then there was an inflection point where nobody he played with in high school could hit it as far as him. I mean they'd come close but it was really exponential as far as when his distance jumped. It was really exponential as far as when his distance jumped. And when I say that to you, you know when you work with someone like Kyle Kyle's unusual in that he came into golf with probably the perfect background to be a pro baseball player.
Speaker 2:Whether he knew it or not, I mean I can say that to you guys now. His older brother was a really good baseball player and as a young baseball player he was really talented, but he just decided not to go with baseball. But his hitting style, his grip, so many characteristics made him someone I had to teach a little bit differently. And so he came to me with a strong grip, an upright swing and someone that had a lot of leg action. You know you could really see him doing all the things that you hear and see when people talk about ground force application to the max, because, again, he's a young player at that point trying to keep up with kids that are bigger than him.
Speaker 2:So I had to be very thoughtful of this is his power source and we weren't going to do anything super conventional that you might've seen with other students I coach, so his his grip remains strong.
Speaker 2:It's still strong today and you know some of those swing characteristics if you see his swing for when he was 10, 11 years old are still in his golf swing today. But Kyle's got a great work ethic and he's focused on getting better each and every day and he's really working hard on his game and he's been someone that's made me a better coach. I've learned more from him than he's learned from me, but we still talk about a lot of things today that we talked about, you know, say, 15 years ago and you know when I say that to talked about you know, say, 15 years ago, and you know when I say that to you guys. He's the kind of guy that's very curious. He's very ambitious and ultimately driven beyond, you know, what you'd ever imagine, and that's why he's a world champion. So he's been great to work with and someone that's pushed me to get better at my craft.
Speaker 3:So at the age of 10, did Kyle do anything that was different? That led to his amazing acceleration with the club head?
Speaker 2:Well, first things first. You know when you take someone, especially junior golfers, usually guys are going to hit their growth spurts 12 to 15, yeah, and there's a period of time you'll you'll hear about speed windows and you are trying to. You know if you, if you know enough about their growth velocity, meaning you know, if you happen to be someone that charted growth on these players and you happen to know, okay, right now they're not really growing a ton, but all of a sudden they start getting in that pattern where they grow three, four, six inches in a year At different points. There's research out there that would tell you you train differently during speed windows and when you're not in speed windows you do different things. But what you would see with kyle is, again, he would be doing things to try to hit the ball out of your range. You know whether it was me saying, hey, hit it over that tree at the back of the range or at his range growing up, where he plays golf at Crofton Country Club, he was trying to hit shots well beyond where they were going. So in other words, seeing shots that would induce that type of golf swing. Also, again, we didn't put governors on his swing swing. So we didn't restrict his hand height, we didn't restrict how strong he held the club. Uh, we did a lot of things to work on shot shaping. And I think what you have to understand about kyle genetically, thanks to his parents especially I'll give his mom the credit he's got some hyper mobility, um, but he'll surprise you in that in some parts of of movement patterns he's he's not super flexible. Um, if you see kyle's, the way he's built, he's actually double jointed so he can. If you do a wingspan test with him, his forearms will actually sit below his elbows. Uh, the way his carry angle is, it's, it's definitely, you know, perfect match for a strong grip. And so those are some of the things.
Speaker 2:Like, when you look at golf swings or people say, you know you should swing like this, I always tell people just be careful getting pigeonholed into a model, and that's why it's really important to know who's in front of you and be aware of, like other players that have had success with non-traditional whatever you want to call it setup mechanics or swing characteristics. Right, because the Hall of Fame, if you look in golf, you have Jack Nicklaus, obviously, tiger Woods, you have Phil Mickelson, you have, you know, fred Couples, bobby Jones I mean we could go through 50 different players, men's and women's tour. You'll see the club in different places. At the top You'll see different grips and they're all great players. Lee Trevino he would aim way left of where the ball was starting. If you watch Sam Snead, he was aiming to the right, and these are all great players because they figured out their geometry to hit good shots and under pressure they were able to do it.
Speaker 2:And so with Kyle, we had to really make things work around that strong grip and we also had to make sure we weren't worried about accuracy. We weren't worried about swinging smooth. Okay. Now, strangely enough, now is when we're working on those things. We've got all the horsepower in the world. Now he's learning to tone it down and it's kind of a. You know, part of the book I wrote, which we'll come back to at some point, is learning how do you shift from full power to your finesse mode, how do you hit off-speed shots, and that's what's so. You know, when you look at the game of golf, the great ball strikers they control their distance. Scotty Scheffler is the king of distance control right now. I mean, you ever see those tailor-made YouTube?
Speaker 3:Oh yeah.
Speaker 2:Where he's calling it out within a yard. It's insane.
Speaker 2:Ben Hogan same way you know these guys are. So I mean, nicholas, they know off the club how far the ball's going and you'll see some great ball strikers in terms of, wow, this person flushes it every time at the range, right, but they can't control it under pressure the same way these elite players do it. So I mean, you know, look, it's a hard game and more than ever you've got to be so good at controlling distance. But you know, again, kyle, he was programmed to hit it far and then, of course, when you go into long drive, it's like all right, let's see how far we can hit it.
Speaker 2:Now, as he's playing more and more golf as a regular golfer, if you can imagine that he's learning the importance of of taking speed off so that you can control the ball better. So it's it's a very challenging situation for him. Just imagine, you know, like someone going 160 miles an hour with a driver not that he does that with a normal driver's swing on the golf course, let's say he's usually swinging 135 to 140. You know what it's like to try to sit there and hit a 60-yard wet shot when you have that going on. I mean that's like driving your car three miles an hour around the neighborhood.
Speaker 3:Especially if you're driving a Lamborghini or a Tesla.
Speaker 2:It's just such a different vibe so we are doing different things in his case to help with that. So he's the most extreme player I've ever worked with and uh, look, I'm sure I'll get someone else. But you know when I say that he comes to the lesson t with opposite issues of of% of the golfers.
Speaker 3:First world problems. Yeah, different. You know. All golf coaches who are listening to this and aspiring to be like Bernie Neja should re-listen the last five minutes over and over again. What I'm hearing is a person who's so curious, who's so intellectual about the golf swing but delivers it in a manner that's suitable for the golfer in front of him. You know you mentioned the word curiosity. You also mentioned that you taught Kyle differently. I'd like to take a step back and kind of understand who were your main coaching influences and then come back, talk a little bit about your anatomical screening template and then your book, your brand new book power, speed, power and finesse.
Speaker 2:Okay, no problem. So when you ask me about like who who's influenced me as a coach, I mean I've had great mentors and got really fortunate early in my journey in learning golf to be around some good players and and see what they were doing. And Wayne DeFrancesco, who is a great player coach Wayne D oh.
Speaker 3:Wayne D.
Speaker 2:Yes, wayne D, wayne D is. He's from the Mid-Atlantic section and when I was in college I took some lessons from Wayne and when I got into the golf business he helped me a lot early on with number one getting a job. Number two I used to caddy for Wayne in tournaments. You know like I caddy for Wayne at Q School. I caddy for him in tournaments. You know like I caddy for Wayne at Q School. I caddy for him in the Kemper Open. But we used to hang out and spend a lot of time together and actually worked.
Speaker 2:Wayne and I both taught at the same club for 10 years. Before he left and went to Woodmont he was at Wood Home Country Club, which is where I worked before Caves. So anyway, I spent a lot of time with Wayne. Wayne taught me a lot about Ben Hogan swing. He taught me a lot about the golf machine, helped me understand how to use video and what he was looking at, and obviously I had done my own stuff as well, independent of him. But you have someone that can play at that level and practice with intention to be really good, because he was always trying to be the best he could be. That helped me a lot. Um, I learned a lot from mac o'grady early in my career. Um, you know, back in college, for whatever reason, there were these bootleg mac o'grady tapes that were going around and that really helped me in the golf machine.
Speaker 3:They are still going around.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. So I used to watch these Mac O'Grady videos and he'd go through the 10 sections of the swing and he talked about all the geometry and that way when I got to the golf machine it made more sense to me. But putting these early influences to the side, they were huge. But what Wayne really taught me more than anything is that you have to look at what someone's doing on video to really know what they're doing. And look, I had been around some other coaches. I got a chance to spend a little time with Jim McLean. I got a chance to spend time with Mike Bender. I wanted to go see Mike a lot after I spent time with Mac because he really knew Mac's information, probably better than anyone at the time. And Mike's a great coach and what a teacher he is in terms of the way he sets up his academy. So he was a big influence on me, definitely has a system to to have everybody swing for his preferences, likes to hit a push draw and then I um, you know I spent time, a lot of time with Mike Adams. Mike's been great to me. Uh, greg wrote the TPI before TPI existed. He was in Rockville, maryland, and I spent a lot of time with Greg but did a lot of stuff with him, learning about the body swing connection. Outside of those guys, jim Hardy's been a great friend and mentor to me. You know Jim really helped me understand communication at a high level and, more importantly, different aspects of coaching so that I wasn't pigeonholed in a system.
Speaker 2:You know Jim's from the era of working with John Jacobs and he played the tour. He was an all-American college player but Jim really helped me understand ball flight at another level. I mean, we all as players understand ball flight, but he helped me understand how you can teach off what the ball is doing in the air without technology. And so in my role at Caves, you know, look, I've got a beautiful building, I've got a lot of technology in there. I've always purchased whatever tech I think is going to help me do my job better.
Speaker 2:But when you're out in the field and you've got two minutes with someone at a corporate event, you're not taking them back to measure on a force plate or on video or 3D or whatever you're doing. You've got to be able to do something in that moment, help that player in front of you. And the same thing goes true if you're on the golf course with people, you've got to know how to see what that ball is doing, understand the impact, understand how to work off of ball flight in those situations. So I learned from Jim a lot of important things. Plus, jim helped me understand different swing characteristics of what he would call one and two playing golf swings and hybrid swings and look, there are a lot of ways to describe things. That's what we do for a living and he's a great communicator. And he helped me just look at things so that I wouldn't mix and match and make that mistake, because sometimes you know you get people come to you. They're like, hey, you really help, so-and-so, I love the way they swing. I want you to show me how they swing and you know I'll do the work. Well, that could be a terrible matchup for that player. So, long story short between those guys. Jim and Mike especially helped me a bunch in terms of understanding different characteristics. But really, what goes with what?
Speaker 2:And you know I was very lucky early in my career when I worked with players. Before I had that information, my instincts kept me from doing some things that I could have gone in the wrong direction with certain people. Um, kyle's a good example. I could have ruined Kyle Berkshire as a junior golfer. I'm glad I didn't change his grip, I'm glad I didn't move his arm down from his high backswing position. But you're always learning and you know again, like we're just talking full swing stuff, short game stuff. Kevin Weeks, a very good friend of mine, james Seekman, josh Gregory I mean, I can go on and on. But I'm always trying to learn from the best um in the world of putting. You know, mark Sweeney, who developed Aimpoint, spent a bunch of time with him. So you know, look, I'm, I'm blessed. I've had a lot of great people around me. Mike Malaska, great guy. You should have Mike on your show, if you haven't already.
Speaker 3:We have. We talked about the Malaska move. That's awesome, yeah, and Joe Nichols.
Speaker 2:Yeah, mike's a good friend and great. He's a great player. But you know I love his passion and I was on TaylorMade staff for about 10 years and we had a pro-am every year in Mexico and he and Jim Flick would be at the range helping everybody and I would watch them teach as much as I could. So, anyway, I'm rambling on here, but the truth of the matter is that's a big part of who I am today. It's because of all those great people. I'm probably forgetting some, but, um, you know they all helped me out a bunch. And you know there are guys like Mike Jacobs, who's a good friend of mine, who I spend time with and try to learn from, cause he's got some measurement stuff that I don't have and I love what he's doing with his players.
Speaker 2:And again, I could go on and on. But if you're a coach and you're trying to get better at your craft, make sure you travel and spend time with other coaches and watch what they're doing. You don't have to agree with everything they're doing, but you'll get better when you get outside of your world and just see what's going on. And on the body side, when you talk about assessments, you know, obviously Dr Greg Rowe has been a big piece of teaching me body swing connection. I've had some other really bright people around me in this area that are fantastic physios and treatment professionals that I try to learn from. Michael Romatowski was really good to me early on and he's now in the Dallas area, but of late, dr Joe Lacaze from Rotex Motion he's an incredible person on many levels. He's been very helpful to me. He's a good friend of mine. We're doing some collaboration on some things and if you haven't seen Rotex Motion, I'd check it out if I were to get better with your movement patterns and understand how you can do some things and what I love a short amount of time. They're really good for injury prevention but also learning how to apply forces with your feet and also your hands. So if you think about golf, we've got a connection to the ground with our feet and a connection to the club with our hands. So it's good to train those things and he's coming up with so many wonderful applications with his stuff that you're going to learn how to move in all the planes of motion. You need to move in in a short amount of time and get a lot done, which is great, but yeah, all that stuff's important.
Speaker 2:So when I assess players again depends what someone's come to me for A lot of the time they're going to tell me with a little questionnaire I sent a new student and when I say that to you guys, you know, if someone fills out their questionnaire and they're they're trying to get better at a certain part of the game, I'm going to see whatever I can do to help them get there. You know, I think one of the things that happens a lot of times people come in for a lesson and, yeah, they want to get better, but they don't really have a specific area of the game they're targeting. They're just coming in to get your opinion. So my questions will lead to them answering some things that help me understand a lot about them and that helps me direct that first session and, if it goes well, we'll keep building on it. But you know, I'm gonna ask them if they have any injuries. I'm gonna ask them if they work out. I'm gonna ask them different parts of their game, what is their strength, what is the area they need to get better in if they compete, what did they learn from their tournaments recently? So I'm gonna find out about them and build around what makes sense for that player.
Speaker 2:But when you get people that want to do stuff under swings and you know you could have someone that comes in and says, you know, look, I'm really sick of my hands being low at the top of the swing, you know, I want to get them up higher and you check them and you find out they have a shoulder impingement or they have. You know, it could be just weakness or it could be they've had the concept of swinging around more, okay, and they want to get their hands up higher. Well, there are ways to help. But sometimes they're doing what their body will let them do until they address the physical stuff, will let them do until they address the physical stuff. But you know you will have people that have patterns where they've learned and developed a movement pattern based on a theory they've been trying to do and that might not be the right program for that player. And so if you can help them understand where they're going to perform better, as long as they can do it or they're willing to do the work in the gym to do it, they can make some big strides.
Speaker 2:And you know, like I had a gentleman who came to see me and he's about six four and he was swinging so flat that I thought for sure he must have had a torn rotator cuff. Swinging so flat that I thought for sure he must have had a torn rotator cuff. I mean, I didn't say anything to him, but you know my questionnaire. I asked him any injuries, whatever? No, no, what's? You know, we get to talk and he played college basketball.
Speaker 2:Let's do a workout. Yeah, you know, tell me about your workouts. What are you doing? I move him around. He's got all the range of motion to move up and he's pretty strong, but he's swinging way under his trail shoulder and he's hitting a duck hook and I took him through a couple of screens just to make sure before I would move him there. Make sure I had a green light and I said all right, here's what we're going to do. And I've moved his hands up literally 20 inches from his first lesson. He's picked up two and a half clubs of distance. Most importantly, no more duck hooks.
Speaker 3:I suppose you did the thumb test with him that Mike teaches.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, you can definitely do that. Yeah, I mean, you know the whole no matter, no matter what you do, you got to just figure out what, what they can do before you push them in that direction. I mean, and again, this is someone who was just so far away from where he should have been, right, and then you'll get people that are, you know, they're in a pretty good spot and they might be maxed out. And then you got to say to them hey, you know what You're actually doing pretty good here, let's get your short game.
Speaker 3:Let's get your putting back. You know Jim, jim Hardy, who, who has been so kind to us. Every time I text him, he texts me back with a very, very well thought, a very thoughtful answer. He said this on our podcast the next ball should be better, yes, and he's got that fantastic matrix which I keep to, which I use a lot when I coach my students, and I find that a lot of coaches today they make their students go through swing hell and say, hey, you're going to go through this before you get better, without really understanding the cause and effect of a golf swing, the pieces of the puzzle, so to speak. And you know, you shared with us so much of who you learned from. And we see further, because we stand on the shoulders of giants. And what's really interesting to me is you today become one of the giants and coaches like myself from overseas want to be like Bernie Najjar. That's quite interesting, isn't it?
Speaker 2:You're very kind to say that and you know my goal with golf has always been to remember the game. Games bigger than all of us, right?
Speaker 2:It's been it's been something enjoyed by people all over the world, you know, and it's becoming bigger and bigger. And we're so lucky to be in golf now and I think about every day when I when I, you know, before I go to bed there's something that got my attention relative to golf and it's keeping me motivated to get better. And sometimes you're going to spin your wheels, you'll be frustrated, whether it's with your own game or you're trying to sort something out for one of your players, or you know what You're on a hot, you're, you're just nailing it. Every day you're, you're having lots of success. But no matter where you are, whether it's with your game or with your players, the ups and downs are just part of it and you know, sometimes those uh, thoseottle times is when your your best stuff comes about. You know, and you just have to, you have to realize everybody out there, you know as much as we're trying to help people performance wise, play better. Sometimes it's not all about the scorecard. You know they they might be just tired of miss hitting a certain shot, just tired of mishitting a certain shot. They might be tired of not being able to execute a tee shot on a specific hole, and so the better you get to know your players, the better you understand what really they're there for. And it could be. Look, they're there for a social interaction.
Speaker 2:I have one of my students. His name's Jeff Gettman, he's 65, loves to hit it hard, he always wants to do speed contests with me and he's, you know, a guy that he can still move it pretty good. And so, long story short, we usually play golf a handful of times a year and he's a good player, still moves it plenty far. He played college golf and he's a good player. Um, still moves it plenty far. He played college golf and he's so competitive and he's he's a pretty big guy. He's about six, four and, uh, he was over.
Speaker 2:A couple nights ago we were, we did a little cookout and, of course, then we had a little speed contest, but I happened to nip him by a tenth of a mile an hour on a particular shot we were doing. He was so fired up, but you know what I'm saying like he had more fun hitting balls at my house into the net than he probably had playing golf in Ireland the week before. I mean, you know, and he loved playing golf in Ireland, but you know, like golf. What's so cool about it is we're part of this game that consumes people, and sometimes it could be the person at the range that finally hit a good one. It could be the little junior golfer that shows up, that makes a 10 foot putt and you just see that glow in their face. And to be a part of that and to help people enjoy it.
Speaker 3:Special.
Speaker 2:We're so lucky, you know, and no matter what you do as a uh, a coach for those of you out there that are doing this for a living, remember who's in front of you, because they might have different expectations than you have for them, but find out what's really important to them and and try to bring them joy through golf. Because, you know, sometimes I can tell you, going back early in my career, I had some, some folks I taught and it was more about it was almost like therapy for them to come to a golf club. It wasn't about their golf, it was about they wanted to hang out and, you know, tell me about their world or bounce stuff off me outside of golf. It was about they wanted to hang out and, you know, tell me about their world or bounce stuff off me outside of golf. So we, we wear a lot of hats but technically speaking, we're in an exciting time. You know there's a lot of measurement technology.
Speaker 2:There's a lot of history in golf that I think people forget. You know, they think they've invented things, but you know, as my good friend Martin Hall would say, you know everybody comes in and says things, but you know, as my good friend martin hall would say you know, everybody comes in and says, hey, you know, I've discovered this. I'll be quick to point out you know, actually, so and so wrote about this in 1913. You know, and and so and so did this, you know. So it's great when you you think you've found new things. But be respectful of everybody before you, because we've had some great professionals and, yes, we're discovering things that might be, we'll say, showing why things were misinterpreted in the past. But but remember we we've had great golfers for the history of the game.
Speaker 2:I mean, go back and watch what Bobby Jones was doing. Go back and watch what Ernest Jones was teaching with his first well, I'm sorry, not his first book, his book Swing the Clubhead. I mean there's so many great instruction pieces out there and we're just a microcosm of it. So it's fun to be a part of it. It's fun to share stuff with folks like you. And I would say to everybody out there you know, it's just a an incredible opportunity. Every time you you hit a golf ball or play on the course, whether it's the people you're with or the shot you're trying to play or where you're playing, it's, it's just an incredible experience you know you mentioned speed.
Speaker 3:I want you to tell our listeners how old you are and what's your clubhead speed and how you managed to string it faster than you did 10 years ago hanging in there for another.
Speaker 2:I'll be 54 in December, but I would tell everybody, you know, when I was getting around 40 years old I had a couple unfortunate injuries which I don't need to get into other than I'll just share with you. I did get hit by a student in my right shin and that set me back pretty good, actually set me down the path of learning about ground forces, because I had a major power outage in my golf swing. Um then I had some other complications from that injury. But long story short, I remember being out on the course in my early 40s getting tracked around uh 96 miles an hour with the driver. I couldn't believe it. I warmed up, I was on our six hole and I thought I hit a good one. I looked down at the track man numbers and I almost threw up. I was like are you kidding me? What is this? You know like cause. You know I used to be in. You know the one, oh five range to to one 10 range. Now, back in early two thousands, before we had track man and I had a swing dynamics launch monitor. I could take that up to. You know 112 to 115. I don't know what that means relative to radar and all that. But I would say back then I could fly it 275.
Speaker 2:For someone my size, but fast forward, I was struggling to hit it 250. And you know, when I say that I mean it was not pretty. You know I had lost power. The problems were physical. And also, you know, when you don't take care of your game enough as a coach a lot of times you don't make time to practice Well, guess what you get get worse. It's very simple.
Speaker 2:So, anyway, I I've had that moment where I was like, all right, I gotta do something about this or just accept that I'm gonna be slow. And so, um, around that same time, you know, kyle was was pushing some heavy speed getting ready for college golf, and also Kyle was, you know, getting more and more in that mode of, you know, poking at me a little bit not to not to be slow. So I use that as a little accelerator for me. And you know I did some good things to get my speed back. And then, as I got closer to 50, um, you know my goal was to get to 115 club speed and you know I'd gotten back to like 110 ish, right, and then I got to 115, kind of october, uh, before my 50th birthday, which is in december birthday, and kyle said to me oh, you gotta, you gotta get to 118, so anyway, you did hit 120, right, if I recall yeah, yep, I did hit 120, so anyway, it's very short.
Speaker 2:Got to that number um, which you know was incredible. But the training you do to get there and and the swing adjustments, let's just say that you got to push past your comfort level. And when I say that, you know, let's just say I was swinging at 100 miles an hour to just keep the numbers easy here, to gain 20% off. That number is pretty insane, is pretty insane.
Speaker 2:I can tell everybody listening, if you came to me for a lesson, I can get you 5% faster in session one, no problem, from wherever you are, some people I'm going to take you up 12%, but almost everybody, I can get you 5% faster.
Speaker 2:Now there are going to be some people that 3% is all we can do, but there's always some little thing I can tweak to 5% faster. Now there are going to be some people that 3% is all we can do, but there's always some little thing I can tweak to help you go quicker. You have to understand if you're going to go faster, you better be doing the work in the gym to support it, because you will get injured. And you know right now what I'd say to everybody out there I don't swing at 120 because I haven't been training to go that fast, but I'm pretty comfortable swinging 105 to 110, but I can. I can take it up to 14. I took it up to 14. Actually, in my new book there's a sequence of me hitting a driver and, uh, that one was at 114 um.
Speaker 2:I'm sorry, could you repeat that again?
Speaker 3:I said, the sequence in your new book of you before and after is like day and night yeah, so.
Speaker 2:So what happened? Incredible, yeah. So what happened to me is I had that injury and I also had a double hernia repair, and when you have a hernia repair where I got the hernias which was just below and above my belly button, when they do a ventral hernia repair, they're cutting the abdominal muscles that rotate your thoracic spine, and so what also happened was kind of like the perfect storm. I couldn't load my right side and I couldn't rotate my thoracic spine, so my swing got kind of flat. Now it didn't look that bad, it was just flat, and you know you get a flatter swing, the club gets heavier and my arms were not getting up enough.
Speaker 2:And I can tell you I'm you know I'm able to swing past parallel now still, but I used to before I had these injuries and what have you? My driver's swing was never short of parallel. Afterwards it never could get to parallel, and so you know everybody's different. But I need a longer runway to pick up speed. So, in other words, for me, having my hands travel in a longer path gives me the opportunity to go faster. I couldn't go that fast from where I was in those other pictures, and I think what you know more than anything doesn't mean everybody's got to put their hands high, but you got to know what works for your swing. Fast, from where I was in those other pictures and I think what you know more than anything doesn't mean everybody's got to put their hands high, but you got to know what works for your swing.
Speaker 2:And again, you need maintenance. Like you know, I'm as guilty as anyone for not putting enough time in on my game, but, like in the past two weeks, I've had a bunch of time to practice compared to usual and my speeds are up. Right now, like I'm, I'm feeling pretty good. But if I don't put the reps in and this is just like anything else it'd be like if you went on a diet and you had this really good diet for three, four months. You're feeling good, you lose weight or whatever, and then all of a sudden you go back to your other ways with eating.
Speaker 2:Okay, it might not catch up to you right away, but eventually you're going to fall right off. So if you want to go faster, you got to figure out your best opportunities. But you do need to do maintenance and, like right now, feeling like I'm going to have a good fall, but again like. Even though I went all the way to that level of 120, I don't think I'll get to 20 again unless I put on 20 pounds. I might be able to do it if I get heavier. I'm a little lighter right now than I need to be to go that fast, but I'd like to be healthy at 114 because I can fly it 285 and that's just fine for my enjoyment 114 is average anyways.
Speaker 2:Not anymore. You can forget. Forget that those days are over.
Speaker 3:Uh, there's some young guns coming through and you're going to see that 180 is going to be the new number standard you know you mentioned uh, you use the word maintenance a lot. So I think there's an appropriate time to kind of segue into your book and, starting from the back, you've got a section where you talk a lot about home drills and I think that's such a fantastic segment because there's no excuse for the golfer that's looking to get better. Even simple things like putting your butt against the wall and practicing your short game shot or trying to get your left hip flexion so you get more rotation, get rid of early extension stuff like that. I think a lot of golfers kind of underestimate the impact of home drills and simple repetition.
Speaker 2:For sure, and you know what I tell everybody is look, you have no excuse from the standpoint of saying, oh, I couldn't get to the golf course, Because today, if you have your phone, you essentially have, you know, your personal video camera to audit what you're doing. You also have the opportunity to look at what you're trying to do, to motivate yourself, right, or write yourself some notes. No excuses, right, If you want it bad enough, get it done. So my comments in the book, in the chapter that you're talking about indoor practice, is hey, look, you can do these things to get better at home. You don't need a simulator. But like, do you have a wall? Yes, okay, we can use that wall. Do you have a little resistance band? Or can you go to the hardware store and get a couple cabinet bumpers to learn where the sweet spot is on your club, I mean?
Speaker 2:So there's lots of practical things you can do, but the thing that you have to realize more than anything is that little bit of time you're dedicating to think about your golf needs. That's equally as important as the physical movements, right? So you've got to be able to picture what you want to do and have ways to remind yourself what to do. It's the little stuff. Sometimes, just sitting at your desk, you pick up a club nearby and practice your grip. Ben Hogan was doing that 70 years ago.
Speaker 3:Oh, yes. So what was the motivation for this new book? Speed, power and finesse.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So here's the thing. Obviously, kyle Berkshire and I have spent a lot of time together and as his coach and someone that's been around him a long time, I've got some pretty good insights on how to hit it far sections in the country for the PGA, about how to hit it longer. Or I'd get asked to talk about the I don't want to call it research, but the. You know I've captured a lot of swings on swing catalysts, so a lot of people refer to me as someone who knows a lot about ground forces and how you work with force plates. So I was getting into those discussions and again people were asking me you know, what are you doing with Kyle? Or what do you work with force plates? So I was getting into those discussions and again people were asking me you know, what are you doing with Kyle? Or what do you see with Kyle on these things? Blah, blah, blah.
Speaker 2:And so originally the book was going to be how to hit it longer at any age, as in Kyle, you know, and I could use myself as someone older that could hit it longer, or whoever it might be and started with that idea. But then I got to thinking about the real game of golf and it's not just about hitting as far as you can. You have to control distance, so you need to understand how to make adjustments to the power you're going to put into the swing, the speed that the ball is going to leave at, and that requires an understanding of finesse. And so when you start looking at speed and the speed's pretty obvious, okay, we could be measuring your club speed, we could be measuring the ball speed. If you're looking at 3D motion, the ball speed, if you're looking at 3D motion, you could be looking at a velocity for how fast the pelvis is rotating or the trunk rotating or whatever segment you want to track right. But that's not really telling you too much other than hey, this just happened. How do you train it so it's more efficient with a player? And that's a lot of what I'm challenging people to think about when they read the book. I'm helping them understand.
Speaker 2:Look, you know what when by the green and put the softest short game shot on the field on the 17th hole at the BMW championship two weeks ago and feather it in there beautifully and it trickles into the hole. Now Tiger Woods the same thing for 20 plus years. You know, that's why Tiger was so good he could drive it further than just about everyone, controlled his irons better than everyone. Oh, by the way, probably a really good putter, if not the best putter Round the green. Beautiful touch, great imagination. So I mean, to me the complete player has both the ability to go and bomb it and then the ability to have delicate hands, finesse.
Speaker 2:And so I got to thinking about the game of golf as three games. And if you think about it, ben Hogan would say putting was a different game than golf. He didn't even consider putting part of golf. And so my thought was look, I'm going to tell people about how to go hit the ball longer, but I'm doing them a disservice if I don't tell them how to take the power off so they can actually play a decent wedge shot. And so for me, as a coach, I look, I love helping people that come to see me and they they're like hey, just help me hit it longer. Those are fun lessons, cause you know it's, it's like going to a football game. In a lot of cases you know it's going to, there's going to be a lot of adrenaline, there's going to be a lot of things going on and people love it. But I'm doing them a disservice if I don't help them with their wedge game or around the greens or with their putting.
Speaker 2:So the book, the whole idea, is look, if I'm doing a golf school somewhere, I want to be able to do it with the theme of power, speed and finesse, and if I'm giving a talk, same thing, because it's not just one piece. And you know, look, you'll find some great short game players that aren't good ball strikers. You'll find some really good putters that you know around the green and on the green. They're amazing, but you probably wouldn't pick them to hit a long drive. So it's a cool game you get. You can be really good at one area. If you're good enough in the others, you can play really well. But ultimately you got to know you need these areas to be a good golfer, and so, as a coach, I wanted to have something that I could give back to the game that's given me so much. By sharing that idea. Like, hey, we got three games here. Let me give you some thoughts on how to work on them and get better at playing them.
Speaker 3:And that's the really cool thing about your book it delves into very complicated concepts but delivers it so well in a very easy to understand manner. One of the sections that really stood out to me were the skill games where you mentioned leapfrog with a launch monitor. I think people don't do enough of that. They go like, oh, I want to hit my 7-iron 170 yards and they just keep trying to hit that number. But you're talking about taking that same 7-iron 170, dial it back and then bring it up up again, just so that your brain kind of knows how to vary the tension of the force in your swing to produce different yardages. That was a really cool drill I'm glad you liked it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's pretty simple but hard to do unless you measure what's going on. I mean, obviously you can go to the range and you could put down. Sometimes what I do is I'll put down little cones, little traffic cones that you can pick up at the hardware store, and I'll put them every three yards or every six yards depending on the level of player. But we try to see if you can hit those different zones, and that's what we're doing on the golf course. You know if you can learn that, and then can you dial it back. You know, like can you go all the way out to a number and then come back reverse leapfrog. That's pretty cool. So yeah, that's the artistry, that's pretty cool so, yeah, that's the artistry.
Speaker 3:So can you tell us where our listeners can find out more about your product and where to buy this fantastic new book speed, power and finesse?
Speaker 2:yeah, so it's available on amazoncom. If you search my name or the book title Speed, power, finesse you will find it on Amazon. It's available in paperback. You can also get it in a Kindle form and, more than anything, I would tell everybody out there. If you want to know more about what I'm doing, just drop me a note. Know more about what I'm doing? Just drop me a note. You can find me on my website, burningajrcom, or on Instagram and other social platforms at Burning AJR Golf and look forward to interacting with everyone at some point and there'll be some unique learning opportunities.
Speaker 2:If you're a coach out there and you want to be a part of an instructor networking program, I do have something in the works that I think you'll find interesting and something that, again, much like this conversation we do with other coaches that have been part of my development and so forth. But my goal again, you know game's been great to me and I want to make sure that I can connect people with all the incredible people I've met along the way, not just about instruction, but about you know how to be a better golf professional, how to be a better club fitter, how to be a better fitness professional, how to be a better student of the game, or or things that we can all do to help junior golf or whatever it might be. Or, more more importantly, if you work at a facility, things that, uh, I shouldn't say more importantly, but things that are often overlooked. You know you can get fixated on how to be the best, uh coach at analyzing what's going on in the swing. Well, don't forget, you got to be really good at your facility to keep your job. You got to know.
Speaker 2:Sometimes a perspective you're not paying attention to I have are directors of golf or general managers that give insights on how they are looking at teaching professionals, how they are expecting that part of the organization to handle certain things. Or you know, for example, if they were hiring somebody new, what are they looking for? And obviously, on the other side of the equation, things that get you in the wrong place at your facility. So we all love to coach. We all love to, you know, debate different things in the golf swing, but remember, wherever you're working, you have to be part of that team and you know if you can find ways to reinforce that all the time your club's going to be happy to have you. But too often in our business it goes the wrong way, and so I just want to make sure I can help in that department as well. So there's a lot going on out there and we're in a great time in golf. Let's just keep it going.
Speaker 3:Thank you, bernie, and how do I get on the coaching wait list?
Speaker 2:okay, so what I'll do is I'll drop you a note okay but you know, if you're listening as a coach, just, uh, drop me a note, send me um. If you go to my website, bernajarcom, and just put a note in there that you're curious about that instructor networking program, I will make sure you have access.
Speaker 3:Fantastic. I can't thank you enough, Bernie, for taking time out of your busy schedule to spend time with us.
Speaker 2:Thank you, bernie. Good to be with both of you, Jesse. Have a great evening and stay in touch if there's anything I can do to help you guys. Sure. Thank you, bernie. Good to be with both of you, jesse. Have a great evening and stay in touch if there's anything I can do to help you guys.
Speaker 3:Sure.
Speaker 2:Thank you.