What If You Stopped Chasing Perfect Swings. A Talk with Henrik Lundqvist

We sit down with Henrik Lundqvist to unpack why Sweden keeps producing elite golfers, and how constraints, competition, and multi-sport backgrounds build players who adapt fast. We also dig into quantifiable wedge and putting improvement, why on-course play beats endless range reps, and what honest metrics say about going pro.

• Henrik’s early golf life at a small Swedish club and learning through ball flight feedback 
• How Sweden’s short season drives winter technique work and summer scoring reps 
• Multi-sport training as real “functional fitness” for golf movement and mindset 
• Practice allocation with a heavy bias toward on-course play and competitive games 
• Trailblazers, local tours, and why belief spreads when someone “from your town” makes it 
• Lessons from traveling tours, reading grain, grass types, and adapting to conditions 
• Equipment evolution from persimmon and balata to modern drivers and low-spin balls 
• A measurable wedge framework including set distances and defining “low” by launch angle 
• Coaching principles built on science, quantification, and simple communication 
• What it takes to chase pro golf using stats, hours, support, and a realistic plan 
• Where to find Henrik: hlgcgolf.com and North Star Golf Performance on YouTube

Please remember to rate, review, and subscribe.

Transcript

Welcome And Big Picture Themes

SPEAKER_01 0:01

Hello, this is Jesse Perman from the Flag Hunters Golf Podcast. Welcoming you to a long overdue edition, one that we recorded a few months ago with our man Henrik Lundquist. Henrik is originally from Sweden. An amazingly small country that keeps producing world-class players. Incredible. Incredible. Anyway, Justin and I go into this episode with Henrik about his background and the country of Sweden and thoughts about growing up and playing different sports and and uh and how that applies to the game of golf. It's a great conversation. I don't even know where to begin in this intro because we cover a lot of topics on how to get better, how to understand technique, how to go out and actually play and do the majority of that majority of playing, working on wedges, working on putting, what it takes to play professionally, what it takes to coach well. We cover it all. This is one of my favorite conversations. I thoroughly enjoyed being a part of it. I thoroughly and thoroughly enjoyed listening to it, and I'm sure you will as well. And uh I apologize to Henrik and Justin for the delay in the release of this gem. So sit back, relax, enjoy. I'll make sure all of Henrik's pertinent info is in the show notes, and I hope that you're having a fantastic week. And please remember to rate, review, and subscribe. Cheers. This

How Henrik Fell In Love With Golf

SPEAKER_01 1:58

is Jesse Perryman of the Flag Hunters Golf Podcast. Welcoming you to another edition. Uh, along with myself and my co-host, my brother from another, my commiserator in this pursuit of wisdom and application. His name is Justin Tang. Justin has Hidden Castle Golf Club. Collaterally transferred to Hidden Castle Golf Club in Singapore. And our guest today is Henrik Lundquist from the probably the busiest place in California, Incinita's Golf Ranch. He is the instructor there. Henrik, welcome and thank you for coming on.

SPEAKER_02 2:38

Thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_00 2:39

Thanks, guys. Thanks, Henrik, for coming. Just to as by way of introduction, could you just share with our listeners how you go into golf?

SPEAKER_02 2:48

Well, I come from a small uh community called Strasbourg, just outside of uh ice hockey uh athletic town called Diablo. Uh in this little community, it's just by the golf club, and it's the only golf club in town. So instead of hanging out in town, what we did, we hang out at the golf club. So we started by, you know, shagging balls, looking for balls. Uh when we were like seven, eight, nine years old, we hit balls on the driving range in the evenings, and that's how it all got started. And after a while, instead of uh, you know, beating golf balls from the driving range in the evening, the instructor, the pro, said, Hey, uh, why don't you help me pick up the range balls and I'll give you some lessons? And that's how it all got started.

SPEAKER_00 3:38

So, what were your very first lessons looking like?

SPEAKER_02 3:42

Uh, the first lesson was more fundamentals, uh, very easy. He didn't spend that much time with us. But I mean, this golf club is quite interesting because we had, I mean, being up north in northern Sweden, we still had one player on every tour worldwide at the same time. That's quite unique.

SPEAKER_00 4:07

That's what I don't get. You guys play golf only like what three times at three months of the year?

SPEAKER_02 4:14

Yeah, the golf course opens uh late April, beginning of May, and uh depending on how the weather is, uh it closes down like October, sort of.

SPEAKER_00 4:25

Yeah, but you guys produce more successful professional golfers than probably any other country per capita. I don't understand that. Your climate is better suited to producing skiing champions. That part, that part I understand. The golf part bit we don't get. So can

Why Sweden Builds Precise Ball Strikers

SPEAKER_00 4:48

you unpack for our listeners what's so unique about the Swedish golf system that has been so successful in producing champions?

SPEAKER_02 4:59

If I take my home club, first of all, growing up, I mean, uh having players on every tour. Nobody played on a tour when we were growing up. It was my generation with uh Christian Hardim, Adam Mednik, Peter Hemblum, etc. I mean, uh, they played majors and such. At the time, we didn't know anything, but in the in the spring, we were shoveling snow, so we got some kind of spot that we can actually land our balls. So we stepped it up. Okay, 142, that'd be an eight-iron. So you hit your eight irons, and you better hit that spot. If you didn't, you lose your balls. So looking at our swings, uh, we didn't really know what we were doing, but we're looking at ball flights. So that's how it all got started. Looking at it today, uh we do a lot of technical practice during the winter and a lot of workouts. So it's technique and it's strength training in the winter time, and it's a lot, lot, a lot of playing in the summertime.

SPEAKER_03 6:01

So I think we get a little bit of exploration.

SPEAKER_00 6:04

So would you say back then there was environmental constraints that forced you guys to produce very accurate swings, precise swings that landed the ball on the number? And that incidentally relates to proximity to the hole. One of the key metrics to watch out for is you're looking to lower your scores.

SPEAKER_02 6:27

And also the golf course was uh not really that long, it was like 6,600 yards from the back tees. But that also made us make a lot of burbies. So playing the club championship, I mean, uh, if I shot uh 33 on the front line, and then I see Peter maybe shot a 31. Oh, I'm too behind. I really got to go after him. And coming around the corner, I I shot maybe uh 67 and he shot a 65. Oh, no good. I'm too behind. I need to go and get him. I mean, shooting on the par was no good. We didn't know how good or bad that was. But he, if he can do it, why not me? So everything created this environment of getting better and better and better. And I think that was very, very important for us, even though we didn't know what good was.

SPEAKER_00 7:19

So essentially you had no frame of reference, no labeling, good or bad. And because of that, you didn't impose limitations on yourself.

SPEAKER_02 7:32

You're absolutely correct.

SPEAKER_00 7:34

It's quite different from how instruction is done today. You you very quickly get labeled into certain uh a certain swing type based on certain anatomical uh measurements, for example. And then I I I suppose golfers, junior golfers these days, they tend to specialize too early.

SPEAKER_02 7:59

Yeah.

Multi-Sport Kids Make Better Golfers

SPEAKER_02 8:00

We we played ice hockey, we skied, we played soccer, and of course golf. So everybody had different sports. So a lot of these uh uh space awareness, 3D, uh working in a team, a lot of sports, endurance. We we did it all. We did wrestling training, we did the weight training, uh, wrestling was fantastic for us. And uh every time we had all these practices, everybody hated to lose. If we're playing a tennis match or whatever, you you rather want to break your racket, but you saluted the guy who won, but you hated to lose. So that brought up a certain mentality of uh it's like never giving up, just grinding it out.

SPEAKER_00 8:45

So, how how did you progress into a tournament golfer from North Sweden? What was your journey?

SPEAKER_02 8:58

For me, looking up to the pairs that I had on top of me, uh, for me, one of my best friends, Kristen Harding, who played the US Masters as the first Swede, I mean, he grew up one block away from me. So while I was walking to the golf course, that was like uh a driver a-dyne down to the golf course. So I was walking past his house. We always knocked on the door. Hey, you coming down? No, no, no, no, no, he's already down there. Okay, I better get going. You don't want to be last. So seeing him evolve, and I just was uh watching his back and try to get as good as him. So 15 years old, I reached scratch, zero handicap, and uh, okay, let's get going. Let's get out there. And we started to travel together and play together and try to do the best results possible from that.

SPEAKER_00 9:47

Were there any particular ways you practice, or would you say most of your practice was on the golf course?

Practice Ratios That Actually Lower Scores

SPEAKER_02 9:55

Now, this is uh interesting coming into a little bit of the philosophy. We played a lot of golf. If I'm talking about uh in my coaching philosophy, I want to see at least 45% of the time that you spend should be actually be on playing golf. We spent maybe 70% playing golf, playing 36 holes a day, that was normal. And we carried our clubs, and we were just running it around the course all the time. We had games. We had games all the time going.

SPEAKER_00 10:32

I I I always fondly remember the so-called Swedish uh invasion in the late 90s, early 2000s. You obviously had Annika Sorenstein, you had uh Jesper Panavik, Patrick Scholen, you had the spaceman, Yarmo Sandelion, Ulrich Johansson, you also had uh Robert Carlson, and obviously Henrik Stensen. Those are amazing uh times.

SPEAKER_02 11:09

Yeah, but it's the same generation, and what we tend to forget, dude, in that time, we actually had eight tournaments, I think it was eight tournaments on the challenge tour. Because the Swedish golf tour at that time was really evolving quickly. And so we had a playing ground that was fantastic. Back on my home course, I mean, we had Vijay Singh playing, we had Lee Westwood playing, Graham Marsh, Andrew Coltot, uh Jose Coseres, Ricardo Gonzalez, uh, all these good guys, Vincente Fernandez, uh, all of them came to our golf course to play the tournament. Besides Yes, Berenarmo, Pedro, and all the other ones. So it was a really good starting field. So all these good guys that came out to be radical players, et cetera, they were playing in our backyard. So we knew a little bit what this was all about. That was a fantastic uh period. At the time, it evolved into having three European tour tournaments. It was a PLM Open, it was a Scandinavian uh Enterprise Open, and it was one in Gothenburg that had different kinds of names. So at the peak, it was three European tour events in Sweden. So it was different. We had somewhere to play.

Swedish Tour Boom And Augusta Reality Check

SPEAKER_00 12:27

And besides golf, you guys also had a fairly established uh football league, isn't it?

SPEAKER_02 12:35

Yeah, you mean uh Hungary?

SPEAKER_00 12:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 12:38

Yeah, uh I mean uh it it it it's okay. Uh now uh Norway's taking over. It's better than us. But I mean uh a Swedish guy, if you want to have France, you better do sports.

SPEAKER_00 12:52

So what do you say, what we'll say, what we are seeing here is a sporting culture in Sweden. Yes. And and to me, sport is sport. When you're a multi multi-sport athlete, let's say you play soccer, you play ice hockey, the the the training that you've done in those sports will translate over to golf. This idea of like, oh, functional training, this and that. I I get what people are saying, but when you when you train your body the way it was meant to be used, it's functional. Right? When you do things that kids do, you run, you jump, and all that, all that actually benefits your golf swing.

SPEAKER_02 13:38

Yeah, because if you're looking into the windows of opportunity of the 13 windows that you have, look at who's the last player from Sweden that actually took his scorecard? Fontus Newholm. Where's he from? Yeah. And which team ice hockey did he play at? Well, in my son's ice hockey team, his dad was the green keeper, he's the greenkeeper at Yavley Golf Club. I mean, why why did he turn up well uh in his uh uh how do you say environment was also very good competition and he grew up playing a lot of sports. So finally, instead of going hockey ice hockey, he went golf.

SPEAKER_00 14:17

I suppose it's not just solely uh environment, right? Because Finland also has the same environment, but it doesn't throw out uh the numbers of uh professional golfers you guys do. Although uh Valimaki uh won, I think, two weeks ago.

SPEAKER_02 14:35

That's fantastic. But uh Finland has started to have more tournaments uh in the country, so they started to pop up more. We had players coming out a little bit, we had Gunnar Miller and uh some other guys playing very early out on tour in the 70s, and that showed us a little bit what we could do. Then it was all the cell about it, Matslan, Christi Chinel, and all them, Magnus Parson, who also played, and that showed us if they can, we can. Svenland just needs somebody like Velemaki to go out there and show them, and I think it's gonna be a snowball effect.

SPEAKER_00 15:10

Yes. Uh it's it's like the when the village sees that, hey, one of my own can do it, everybody starts to buy into that. If he can, so can I.

SPEAKER_02 15:22

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 15:24

You just need one trailblazer. And I suppose for Sweden it was Christian Hardin.

SPEAKER_02 15:32

Yeah. So I mean, when we practiced for the U.S. pastors, because we were down in the basement and we were chipping over a little piece of wood, you know, on a hard carpet, and we looked at the VHS cassettes, try to figure out the game plan. Nobody's ever been to Augusta. So it was just chipping. We didn't know how fast the greens were. So it was all uh, I mean, uh trial and error. He's coming out there and he's knocking it pretty close, but he didn't get any pause. He didn't know how badly situated he was on the green. So it was no way he's either gonna make the putt or he's gonna putt it off the green. That's what he did. Shot 85, 85, but I mean hitting the ball great, but in the wrong spot all the time.

SPEAKER_00 16:20

Must have been an eye-opening experience.

SPEAKER_02 16:24

It was fantastic. But he came home with the, I mean, some great memories, and he he learned tons. I mean, he spent, I don't know, eight, ten years on tour after that European tour, so but I mean, being the first one out, it was always a difficulty, and we didn't have these kind of fast rings to Sweden.

SPEAKER_00 16:42

But he will always be in the history books as the first guy.

SPEAKER_02 16:45

Yeah. Absolutely. And his dad played uh World Championship and won the World Championships in 1968 in in the Colorado Springs ice hockey for the Swedish team.

SPEAKER_00 17:00

So you're for yourself, what was the catalyst that made you want to play golf for a living?

SPEAKER_02 17:09

Uh this is all I've I've ever been uh doing. It's all I ever wanted.

SPEAKER_00 17:14

Uh it's been a fashion. I mean I I suppose were you familiar with the concept of yeah, you know how to play golf for a living, or was this just for your natural progression to more competition?

SPEAKER_02 17:29

Yeah, and for me, I I'm I'm a curious guy, and I want to understand if it's the golf swing or if it is something else. I want to understand what's going on. Uh and the more I played, I try to find out about uh what makes these guys being better than I am. What what can I practice? What do I need to practice? How much, what is good? And for me, I I didn't have the knowledge. That's what for me was like a mission. I want to understand what are they doing? How are they doing it? What is good?

SPEAKER_03 18:05

What'd you come otherwise?

SPEAKER_02 18:07

Well, it's gonna be quantifiable, first of all. So for me, I coach by two references. First of all, it's gotta be scientifically proven. The ball, I I know this just it doesn't matter what I think and feel. The ball's still gotta have its way. So it's gotta be scientifically proven, and then it's gotta be quantifiable. Even though I'm a technical guy, I love technique, I love to understand all these kinds of angles. But the more I understand, like everything else, we've got to be able to explain it and communicate it to the person in front of us in the most simplest manner. And it doesn't matter how much I know if I cannot communicate it. And at least uh I sort of know what is going on.

SPEAKER_00 18:54

We will get back to communication. That is, I think, one of the most important skills that an instructor should have. But let's let's just take a few steps back to the twirlg of.

Tour Travel Lessons From Grain To Legends

SPEAKER_00 19:07

Like, where were you playing? How long were you doing it for? I played four years. What was the overall experience like?

SPEAKER_02 19:15

Uh, this comes in a little bit about quantification and understanding, playing in different places. Uh, I played Asian Tour, I played uh Chalashore, and I played a little bit in South America, and the Asian Tour really opened my eyes. Because uh in the beginning, with something called grain that I've never heard about, asked the caddy, okay, what's the line? And the caddy shows me the line. I'm like, no, no, no, no, stop drinking. It cannot be that line. Okay, you put Henrik. Uh, hold on. What tell me again, where was it? I thought I could eyeball it and see it, but well, I didn't know what I was seeing was grain. So that was the first experience. Then the different kind of grass, how the balls would react on the green, the rough, how to play the golf course. It's it's a totally different game to play it in Europe. So uh I I thought that was fantastic.

SPEAKER_00 20:14

I suppose it made you a very uh well-rounded uh tournament professional.

SPEAKER_02 20:20

Yeah, but it took a lot of beatings, but it it was a lot of fun. It's uh it was amazing trying to see the other ones what they were doing and uh how they actually got away with it. But I didn't know, as I said, what I was seeing.

SPEAKER_00 20:36

Did you ever get to Singapore? The Asian.

SPEAKER_02 20:39

Play Tanamera and I play the country club.

SPEAKER_00 20:42

Uh that's where I I teach.

SPEAKER_02 20:44

Oh, fantastic.

SPEAKER_00 20:46

Yeah, but yeah, the the golf course has gone through renovations. Uh yeah, so probably a different one.

SPEAKER_02 20:54

There was one called Rolex Masters, and the other one was Singapore.

SPEAKER_00 20:58

That's yeah, those were the ones. I I believe Greg Norman played uh in those events.

SPEAKER_02 21:04

Showed up some events for me. The one that really stood out was uh somebody called John Jacobs, not the John Jacobs, the it was the yeah. Uh it was hilarious.

SPEAKER_00 21:17

Why would you say it's hilarious?

SPEAKER_02 21:20

Because uh every time he won, he threw a party for everybody. Uh but he didn't care that much about, you know, he loved golf and he hit it so well, but he was uh maybe not at his best mind whenever he was playing, if I may say that way. He was kind of thirsty sometimes.

SPEAKER_00 21:43

So about like our uh our friend John Daly.

SPEAKER_02 21:48

Yes. I mean, a fantastic golf player, could play any kind of shot. You can see the cigarette going from one side of his mouth to the other one while playing, and whenever the cigarette was up, okay, he threw it away, and in comes the next one. As he was playing it, it was all with that gray hair sticking out of his white top disor.

SPEAKER_00 22:06

Oh, who are the other characters that you met on tour? This was the time when Savvy Balsteros was still playing. Was at his peak.

SPEAKER_02 22:18

Yeah, this was uh '91 that I'm talking about now. And uh uh James Seekman played it.

SPEAKER_00 22:25

Uh oh, James Seekman, yeah. Yeah. James and Tom, yeah. Tom was more on the US tour, and then James was plying his trade in Asia.

SPEAKER_02 22:34

Yes. And Paul Dennis Paulson. I remember he won the 15 open putting with the railer.

SPEAKER_00 22:42

Interesting character. He used to be a power lifter, no.

SPEAKER_02 22:46

Maybe. I just remember him from his putting, putting with the railer because it was so much terrain. So he putting with his railer, and I was like, What is putting with his railer? Still beating me?

SPEAKER_01 22:59

I think Dennis didn't Dennis won the uh World Long Drive Championship.

SPEAKER_02 23:04

Maybe, yeah. You know that better, yeah. And it was the Osaki brothers, they did some appearances.

SPEAKER_00 23:13

The three, the three Joe, Jumbo, and Jed.

SPEAKER_02 23:16

You know it all. I didn't get to play with any of them, but yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:25

Back then, right? To me, okay.

Persimmon, Balata, And Modern Distance

SPEAKER_00 23:29

This was the golden time of golf. If you recall, right, these Ozaki brothers were sponsored by Bridgetone Golf. Yeah. And then they were using this uh small drive back then, I think it was 190cc called the JS Weapon. You remember that one?

SPEAKER_02 23:46

I played it.

SPEAKER_00 23:48

You played it.

SPEAKER_02 23:49

Yeah, with the green shaft.

SPEAKER_00 23:51

Green shaft, they tee it up real high, eight degrees of loss, just hit up on it, and boom, it goes. Like I I feel I feel bad for the current generation of golfers. They will never experience what it's like to hit a specimen wood and hit a small metal driver. The game has changed dramatically. Both the professional game and the amateur game.

SPEAKER_02 24:18

When I went through my PGA training at the Belfry, because I did one of my diplomas at the Belfry for their British PGA, I had to do a whipping and a sole plate.

SPEAKER_00 24:27

And when I told the youngsters that nobody understands what whipping is.

SPEAKER_02 24:32

No. What do you mean? Well, in the old day, it was like a thread that held actually the neck of the wood onto the shaft, on the to the steel shaft. Oh. Well what about this sole plate? Well, you have to cut it out and you have to fit it in. Okay. 45 minutes on each job.

SPEAKER_00 24:53

And that was it. And what about, Henrik? What about the cryolette insert on the face?

SPEAKER_03 24:59

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:00

That's another one altogether.

SPEAKER_03 25:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:02

And then after that, you're going to laminate the whole thing. Like people, people won't understand, get to experience that kind of uh artistry and workmanship.

SPEAKER_02 25:12

It's like the the old saying when they say hit it out out of the screws. Well, today there ain't no screws in there.

SPEAKER_00 25:19

Exactly. You're gonna hit it like northwest of the club face to get a high launch and low spin. It's a different, different world.

SPEAKER_01 25:29

The whole the whole club face is a sweet spot now.

SPEAKER_02 25:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 25:34

So it's 1993 when it all changed. Last time a persimmon would ever won a major. Berner Langer.

SPEAKER_01 25:42

Oh, wasn't wasn't that Davis love? No, Davis was the last one. 97 PG. 97.

SPEAKER_00 25:48

97. He had a persimmon? Yep. He was the last one. Okay. I think that year, Justin Leonard won with uh titles uh 975. And that the titles was a game changer. The 975. I still have my old one, seven and a half degrees. That was a great driver. Just tell how crazy it is. It's not it's not that I I swing the club fast, right? I'm like 107, 108. But back then, when you when you were using Balata balls and that thing spun like mad, you needed like less loft. I think these days it's hard to find a driver that's below nine and a half. Again, it's it's to do with the ball. The ball spins much less. You don't need like seven and a half to counter the high spinning, high launching uh ball.

SPEAKER_02 26:38

Do you remember someone who won the master's? Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:40

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_02 26:41

So do you remember what he played, the highest lofty club?

SPEAKER_00 26:45

Highest lofty.

SPEAKER_02 26:46

53 degrees.

SPEAKER_00 26:49

No long birch. Back then, no long birch. I remember the clubs you're talking about, Henrik. Maruman conductor blades.

SPEAKER_02 26:55

Those were like it's the golf ball, the spin of the golf ball, that makes it possible for him to play the 53 and open it up so he gets enough spin to stop the ball.

SPEAKER_01 27:07

Yeah. Well, it was a different re it was a different release pattern back then, especially with the driver. Yes. Yeah, it was it was different. We were doing everything we could not to spin it because the ball spun so much.

SPEAKER_00 27:22

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 27:25

They were never understood. They would not understand. You know, that's interesting, Henrik. That's a that's a wow, I didn't know that about Ian. His highest lofted iron was 53 degrees when he won the 99 Masters.

SPEAKER_00 27:38

Yeah. Wow. Henry, I want to ask you, since you brought about uh equipment, back when you were out on tour, were there tour trucks and were you an equipment junkie?

SPEAKER_02 27:50

No, uh not equipment junkie. Uh I was not trying to understand the golf swing. Uh I liked equipment and everything, but uh yeah, I was not that much into it more than I played with it. Uh for me, it was trying to understand the golf swing, and uh I got a funny story

The Poor Man’s TrackMan Wedge Study

SPEAKER_02 28:07

for you. Yeah, it's uh because uh when I uh approached the Norwegians, I tried to introduce to them because everybody didn't have a trackman, of course. So I introduced the poor man as trackman. We were down in South Africa practicing, and I brought the badminton net up and I said, well, did I done a lot of studies, and I think I had over 600 players that I did a study on, and how they actually hit it. And uh I come into that later. But anyway, I put up the badminton net and I calculated with a mathematical formula how far away, like two and a half meters out, and then meter 60 up. That's the lowest rim. If you can hit it under, you know you got a launch angle of under 30. Yeah, exactly. So that was the poor mass trackman coming out. And uh that that's how that thing started. Because uh, I wanted to know a little bit about uh these angles. So for me, I did a study on these 600 players on different tours, on uh different players, and I just had 45, 60, 75, 90. That was the jotta just that they have to hit. If it was meters and yards, I didn't care. Anyway, I came up with some numbers and they seem to be hitting it pretty close every player. They hit the ball in a certain manner. So I thought, who knows this? So I called up Roger Cleveland and asked, well, you the guy who actually produced this for the moment, then, and the caliber wages. So I said, I've got a question for you. Is it okay if I ask you? Yeah, sure. But I have to ask you in person, not on the phone. Yeah, but you're in Sweden, right? Yeah? And I'm in California. Yeah, can I come and see you? For one question. Yeah. Uh okay. So I went over and I saw we met up at LA Country Club, and I brought my track pen and I said, well, I just got one question for you. How does a good wedge fly when it flies low? That's an easy question, Henrik. Why why can you ask me that on the phone? Has the low penetrating ball fly? Okay, me being a little bit stupid, being a little bit white boy from the northern country up here, not knowing anything. How low is low? Is the Californian low lower than the Swedish low? In that case, how high is low? That's a pain in the ass, question Henrik. Thank you. Can we quantify that? Uh, how do you mean? Let's go outside and hit some wedges. You can hit him, I can hit him, doesn't matter. You tell me whenever that ball flies, as you say low. Because I want to see, I want to quantify low. So we went outside and we started hitting some uh wedges. And then after a while, oh, that was a good one. Okay, I think that's about 29, and that's gonna be a launch angle that's gonna be under the 30 as per 10 to 29. It's gonna be this high, 8.8 meters, if it's like a 45-meter wedge, and this is the thing you're gonna have on it, more or less. How do you know that? Well, I got track and eyes, I know that. So why don't you go and see on the track map? I mean, you're damn right. Well, I know, I I I know what I'm seeing, but I just wanted to know how low California low is. Oh, uh have you got all these measurements of these players? Yeah. Do you want to go down to the Callaway Performance Center? Yeah, sure. So we went down there and started fishing around with all these numbers and whatever he had in there. That's why it functioned. Don't say that everybody should hit it like that on all the shots, but that's the way that I saw it. If like the US PJ tour was hitting it like one to two degrees higher than the European tour, why of the density of the greens? And then you see the landing angle of the LPJ is hitting it like landing angle 43 compared to 48-52 on the PJ, density of the greens. So you know that it didn't matter where I went, they all hit it the same way according to the conditions of the golf course on that particular day. But that can change it from day to day. Did the players know it? No. Did they adapt to it? Yes.

SPEAKER_00 32:11

Interesting. So the good players are adaptable.

unknown 32:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:15

You know, you mentioned those yardages that you tested the players. Could you just repeat that for the benefit of listeners?

SPEAKER_02 32:22

Yeah, 45, 60, 75, 90. I just picked up like a 15-meter increment. And for me, it was like uh uh little bit, I don't want to go under 30, because that falls into the category of short game for me. So 45 starts to be like a little bit of a distance wedge from the building after.

SPEAKER_00 32:41

That's interesting. And you know, you mentioned the low launching wedge shot. If you look at club design, so I'm putting my hand up 4 iron. You see, see the sweet spot, let's call it the the the fifth and a half groove. You don't need much sharp lean to get it to contact the side of the ball. But then with a six 60-degree wedge, you can't uh get the fifth line to touch the ball unless you have significantly more shaft lean. Let's call it 10 to 15. And when you uh lean the shaft that far forward, what's that gonna do to the loft? It's gonna take away loft. And I find that once you understand how to get the sweet spot to the ball for various clubs, the game becomes a lot easier. And for the wet shot, it results in a low launching type shot instead of one that kind of just doesn't grab the grooves and just spins up and launches too high.

SPEAKER_02 33:43

Yeah, and it's got a lot more to do. Uh grooves is one thing, and that's one way of measuring it. Now I think that's very quantifiable, but it's also in relation to C or G. So the lower uh below C or G we can get. I mean, if you if you drill some holes from the back of the wedge and replace it with some lead tape a little bit higher up, you're gonna get a C or G that's higher up, you're gonna get the ball to launch a limit lower. You can get some more spin on it if that's what you're looking for.

SPEAKER_00 34:09

That's really interesting. Back back in back in our time, remember Tytalists had this line of wedges that they made for Brad Faxon, they made for David Duval, Elkington, Davis Love III, and all of them had holes.

unknown 34:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:27

And you could actually buy them back then. You remember those wedges?

SPEAKER_02 34:31

Yeah, remember the COG.

SPEAKER_00 34:33

Yeah, that was amazing. And then you could like back then it was like, uh, let's just slap on as much let as we want. These days, it's all in the manufacturing process.

SPEAKER_03 34:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:45

So uh moving on, Henrik, what's what made you switch from tour golf to coaching golf?

Coaching Without One-Size-Fits-All Fixes

SPEAKER_02 34:54

Well, first of all, I gotta put bread on the table. So I hit the ball pretty good, but I didn't score that well with my uh wedges for the putter. The putter was tricky and the wedge wasn't as good as it has to be. And finding out a little bit with this uh interest in uh how the ball is actually hit. Interviewing all these players, for me, I found out I'm not good enough and I don't know how to solve the problem. So for me, going into teaching was the natural thing. Because I want to find out where am I actually lagging? Everything that I was learning was from the people that actually gave me the most out of what they had. But we didn't actually know what they were doing. Some people can do it, but some people cannot. And the ones that are doing it, it doesn't matter how much we will look at it. Uh, if we don't really understand what's happening, well, how can I reproduce it? So for me it was a curiosity, and uh, the money wasn't coming in as much. So teaching was a more safe haven, and it also was an appeal for me in my curiosity to better understand what was going on.

SPEAKER_00 36:04

So you said you learnt from the best on tour. Can you give us a few of the best tour lessons that you had?

SPEAKER_02 36:13

Uh one thing was just watching Sevi uh tipping. This was when he came to Sweden to play the Scandinavian net price open, and uh, you see him tipping. Uh, I mean, he can just hit wedges and no divots, good or bad. It's not that I'm judging, but it was no divots. I mean, it was like he hit like 40, 50 balls, and it's no divot. And then he heard the the jumpsters around us, it's like, oh, simply doesn't put a lot of spin on it. And then he turned around, picked the ball, put it forward, it's gonna hit it, looked at us again, hit it, put a lot of spin. Then he looked at us again, and we're like, okay, try it. I mean, it could do anything, but what what did it do? But it was just showing, okay, I don't want too much spin, I want the ball to roll out, in order to be able to make it. So looking at Sevi, I mean, a fantastic player. He could spin the ball, sure. But uh played more with a little bit of run, like in any else. And I think that was a fantastic lesson for me. Sure, he could spin the ball, but he wasn't interested in it. He could have it, he has it in his toolbox, but he played all these balls to have a little bit of a runner.

SPEAKER_00 37:32

Quite interesting. Savvy had probably the biggest toolbox of anyone on tour, but yet he chose to play a running shot.

SPEAKER_02 37:41

Yeah. I mean, uh, for me, he can do it, he could do anything. I mean, uh, I don't know when he played Landon Watkinson to run a cup down in how I think it was down in Florida and uh hit this uh out of this fairway bunk, a big hook landing. He thought, well, he had him and he had his big hook coming out of nowhere, and he came back going to the green. Nobody saw the shot. Set him aside. But I don't think he would be able to play it if he wasn't on the beach at Padrena trying to hit different shots starting from the three-iron forward, trying to be creative in order to do all these shots. So I think he dumps a little bit from the environment from the beginning, no matter who it is.

SPEAKER_00 38:23

Indeed. And you're not gonna develop that vision, those skills if all you're doing is practicing in the driving range, trying to drill perfect seven irons one after another.

SPEAKER_02 38:38

Uh well, there's a game to be played, it's not just a ball striking competition.

SPEAKER_00 38:43

Any other interesting lessons from the tour?

SPEAKER_02 38:48

There's so many of them. Uh okay, uh Billy Mayfair. Playing with Billy Mayfer once. Uh how was his stroke? Do you think it's a nice yeah?

SPEAKER_00 39:03

You like it? It's square to the target when it matters.

SPEAKER_02 39:12

Yeah, and that's got more percentage than the pass, right?

SPEAKER_00 39:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 39:17

So, I mean, no matter what you say about that stroke, or you say uh Steve Stricker uh aiming right, putting the the the toe down, cutting across the ball, he's the only one that gives Tigers lessons. With the putting one of the few anyway. Uh Peter Mayfur uh beating Tiger in the playoff, quite amazing in as well.

SPEAKER_00 39:38

It was the mistake open.

SPEAKER_02 39:40

Yeah. So fantastic. So when I played with him, looking at that stroke. Now we we're playing actually the Orange Ball down in Miami. And I was hitting the ball so much further, so much better. We come up to the green, he's just training it, and I'm looking at, excuse me, what was that all about? So uh seeing people coaching uh juniors or players, we gotta be careful what we say. And whenever you hear somebody teaching lesson after lesson after lesson saying the same thing, for me it's like, oh, this is dangerous, run the other way.

SPEAKER_00 40:20

Could you elaborate on that? Same after one after another. I I think there's something there for a lot of uh parents who have decent juniors looking to take the step onto the next rung of the ladder.

SPEAKER_02 40:36

Yeah, I mean, I've got my philosophy, I got my my uh, how do you say, perfect model swing in my head, what I like to see. But that doesn't matter because that's what I like to see in my head, but the person in front of me might not be able to do it. It's not interested in doing it, maybe doing something that works really well for that person. So why should I change it? Have to find out a little bit more about what it needs, what we're gonna work on. And it's not about what I think and what I like.

SPEAKER_00 41:13

So let's let's go back to the days when you were just starting out coaching to date. What has changed from when you first started teaching golf?

SPEAKER_02 41:27

Well, uh, like I said, I teach by two things. It's gotta be scientifically proven and it's gotta be quantifiable. Today it is. In the old days, it wasn't. It was more that he's feeding a far, uh, he's having a lot of spin, he's using a lot of hands, they're using more legs, or they're turning, or they're doing this and that. And the weight, not the pressure, the weight at the time is more left and right, and that's what we're talking about, and not about pressure, not about any vectors or forces and motions. So we didn't really know what was going on. And uh it was more a crafty thing. So while we had success up in Sweden again, where we're coming from, the golf ball doesn't lie. I remember having a uh a little bit of a training session with my friend Christian, uh Kirk Kennedy, and we were hitting golf balls, and he said, I really love that backspace so good. What are you looking at? I don't know, I just like it. And the way the ball's coming out. And that's the way it was.

SPEAKER_00 42:34

I mean, as you say, it wasn't quantifiable.

SPEAKER_02 42:37

No. But we knew when the ball caught the golf ball went, and we knew the result, we know the numbers. How many shots did you have today? Did you shoot on the paro over par? How far do you hit it? Well, on number four, I hit it that far. But how far that was, I don't know. So that I think makes a huge difference. And I think it's uh dangerous to when you're coaching juniors or young players or any tour player that try to categorize too much and try to work more from the person himself and what we can do and how we can affect it. Try to map it out a little bit better, what's needed.

SPEAKER_00 43:18

So, what was your biggest coaching influence in your journey to becoming the great coach you are today?

SPEAKER_02 43:27

There's a lot of them. I mean, uh one that I really, really admire for his simplicity and uh the way of he's actually taught so many different golf swings and golf players, and you cannot say that that player is coming out of that coach. Because normally, when you see a swing, you can almost see uh a stamp, a brand of coming out of a certain academy or whatever. And that for me is Butch Harmon. Butch Harmon has taught so many different players with different golf swings. But you couldn't really tell that they all were actually working with Butch. I think that was good. The his simplicity and uh talking to them, the one-liners, uh, I mean, uh, does he know trackman numbers? Maybe, maybe not. I don't know. Is he a great coach? Oh, yes, 100%. Do I admire him? Yes, fantastic.

SPEAKER_00 44:22

You know, Butch used to say, pointing to his two eyes, that's my track, man.

SPEAKER_02 44:28

Yeah, you see. But I mean, you're looking at Greg Norman, you're looking at Olah Sabal or Darren Clark, or I mean, so many Africa. Yeah. Ricky Fowler, fantastic. Whenever he goes back to Butch, he's good again.

SPEAKER_00 44:41

Yeah, and and you know what? It's not just how varied the swings are, it's how quickly Butch gets results. Look, he he worked with Rory Mattelroy on his Wedge game, and we we saw like results fairly quickly. Yeah. So it's not just it's not just a a method. He knew what caused all your problems, and he went straight to the cause. And then you get like five five down the line uh changes almost for free, just by working on that one thing. But these days, I feel that a lot of coaches, they work on five different things so that you get one benefit out of it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 45:23

So I think that's uh uh really, really big strength. I mean, if you're looking at the uh the golfing machine or a Mo Rat or uh Cochrane Stubbs, if you're looking at Theodore Jurgensen, the physics of golf, and all these great golf books that ever come up. I mean, John Jacobs or both white laws and all that, fantastic. But having somebody in front of me, I gotta be careful with how I communicate and what they're looking for. Why do they come and see me?

SPEAKER_00 45:53

Indeed.

SPEAKER_02 45:55

So that's why I say I can't teach the same thing to everybody.

SPEAKER_00 45:59

Advice to coaches who want to be elite, like you. Any quick thoughts?

SPEAKER_02 46:06

Uh first of all, I like the the the physics, trying to understand. If you can quantify, if you can understand the physics behind it, it's just not about your thoughts. You're gonna be good at it. But you have to start to study, and you got two ears and one mouth. So it's better to listen more, talk less. Because whatever you're saying, whatever I'm saying to you, Justin, is things that I know. Whenever I listen, I learn something new. So going somewhere, shadowing somebody, listen, ask questions. Be humble in front of everything, embrace the moment.

SPEAKER_00 46:45

Do you provide that sort of uh training for coaches?

SPEAKER_02 46:49

Uh I mean, I've done a lot of short game, a lot of technique courses around Europe. I haven't done anything here in the States for coaches. If every anybody wants to come and see me and talk to me or shadow me, everybody's welcome. I got no secrets.

SPEAKER_00 47:07

We love secrets, I'm sure you do. Those guys who say they have no secrets have the most secrets.

SPEAKER_02 47:14

But I think that comes from the experience.

SPEAKER_00 47:17

Indeed. No, I'll tell I'll tell you, I'll tell you that for a fact. So I I speak to this coach by the name of Jamie Guff. His guys win every season on the DP World tour. Doesn't want to come on the podcast. I I I get it.

SPEAKER_02 47:36

Well, so his brother and I are playing together a lot. Because he lives in the news first. Richard, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 47:43

Richard, I you know the funny thing? Here's the funny thing. I knew Richard first, obviously from from soccer. Yeah. And I know that Jamie, Jamie was the brother. And I met him, I want to say, like three, three, four years ago in Singapore. And they're like, hey, you know who's who's that guy's brother? I like, don't know. Former uh uh Scotland and uh Rangers captain. I'm like, okay, I know Richard, Jamie, I don't know. And then we started chatting. I'm like, man, this guy, like, I want to shadow him. And he said the same thing, like about secrets and all that. You know, there's some things where you just have to stand there, as you say, keep the mouth shut, open your eyes, open your ears. You pick stuff up. And really, I picked up a lot of stuff from Jamie that I use with my players, like stuff that you'll never find online. And I'm sure it's the same for you, Henry.

SPEAKER_02 48:40

I don't know. Uh I mean, I'm open as a book, everybody's welcome. I mean, I I I don't care, and I think it's uh I think it's our duty to pass the knowledge on if we're gonna grow the game. And I think that's important. It's it's enough job out there. I mean, just go out here in Encanitas, have a look at who's playing out there. I mean, I'm not gonna be unemployed for some time.

SPEAKER_03 49:02

Yeah. Sorry about that.

SPEAKER_00 49:06

And

Am I Ready To Turn Pro

SPEAKER_00 49:07

advice to amateurs who don't really know whether they're ready to make the jump to professional golf. How do you how would they know they're ready?

SPEAKER_02 49:18

First of all, try to find out, okay, what does it take to get out and tour? How far am I hitting the ball? Uh, how many greens? Uh, how much do I have practice? Uh, VPEI percentage area index, how good am I? How far away am I? What do I need to practice on? How much time do I have? Do I have a network or a coach? Can I have somebody who's helping me out? Uh I mean, if you look at uh different tours or whatever, you will see this same sort of pattern coming out. They probably work 1800 to 2,200 hours per year. They probably play about 45% of the time. They work more and more on uh physics, meaning physical training, if it is uh mobility, stability, power training, strength, or whatever that might be, going into the physique bus and having a massage or whatever that might be, 15% for me would be at least putting. I would put down the short game down to 10%. And why would I put it down at 15, uh 15 for all the rest and 10% for the short game is if you got a good enough short game, let's say you're having a 60% up and down, that's what you're the stats for saying, then you're good enough to play, but you you need to spend more time hitting more greens and hitting it closer so you can make the puck. And how do you do that? Well, can you transport it far enough to have that approach? If you don't have good enough of a short game, you better make sure that you can have at least 60% up and down. Is that because you don't have it because you're missing the wrong places? Or is it because you're bad at short game? I don't know. Is it the assessment of the lie? Is it the strategy of the shot that you actually choose? That's the coach is saying. I mean, but that's uh how do you say uh uh base number for a little bit of uh how I see things, if it's for uh somebody wanting to get out on tour? 45%, go out and play. You have to play a lot of golf. You have to work on uh uh the putting 15%, you have to work on the strength 15% for longevity, being strong enough to being out there week after week, because it's gonna take a lot of toll on your body. It's actually more work than people think. Playing one round, two rounds is okay. You're being out there for three, four, five weeks in a row, oh, playing five, six days a week, that's a lot of work. So that's why the numbers, so now I think keep stats, get a coach, start to find out how far away you are, or if you're up there.

SPEAKER_00 52:14

What do you need to work on? And do you provide online lessons for elite amateurs?

SPEAKER_02 52:20

I'm gonna start. I will start for next year. I've been a little bit pissing installing me here in the States with everything. So it's been a fantastic journey and I'm enjoying it. And I'm gonna start next year doing online lessons. Awesome.

SPEAKER_00 52:34

Great. And where can our listeners find out more about you and your services?

Henrik’s Resources And Final Thanks

SPEAKER_02 52:41

Uh on the web is uh hlgcgolf.com, h lgc, Henrik Lungfist Golfcoaching Golf.com. And on the uh YouTube, then I'm gonna start my YouTube channel. It's North Star Golf Performance.

SPEAKER_00 53:00

And that's gonna be social handles.

SPEAKER_02 53:04

I'm starting out everything for next year. I'm getting ready with my video editor and everything, the guy who's filming me, and uh I'm not that tech savvy with doing these kind of things. I brought it into numbers, uh, force place, understanding the motion of the gospel.

SPEAKER_03 53:24

Right, so I'm learning.

SPEAKER_00 53:27

Great. Can't thank you enough for your time, Henrik. Yeah, thank you.

SPEAKER_02 53:40

No, thank you guys. I think uh the podcast there is fantastic. I mean, just listen to what it's not because it's a countryman, Carl Peterson or whatever, and the way he sees golf or whoever that might be. They're all talking about how they actually learn the game and what they're doing about it. If you look at Carl Peterson's swing, would that be a model golf swing? Could the guy play? Hey, fantastic. Did he win on port? Yes. Was it on top of the world? Absolutely, it was one of them the best. Did he hit it the furthest? No. Did he get around? Yes. I mean, look at that. That's such great stuff.

SPEAKER_01 54:14

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 54:15

You're doing a great job with that, just communicating it. So thank you, guys.

SPEAKER_01 54:20

Thank you, Henrik, for coming on. We'll have you on again. What a great conversation. Thank you. Yep. Cheers.