What If Your Hands Are The Missing Piece

We sit down with Swedish PGA pro and former long drive record holder Marcus Edblad to dig into why so many golfers chase the wrong kind of speed. Marcus makes a case for clubface awareness, trail-hand acceleration, and a release pattern that helps average players lose the slice and gain real distance. 

• Marcus’s path from hockey and boxing into golf at age 30 
• Hand-eye coordination as the foundation for speed and strike 
• Why “no days off” matters more as we age 
• Rebuilding swing speed after dropping into the 115 to 120 range 
• How online criticism shaped his coaching journey and PGA qualification 
• Why hands and arms often fix what body-focused cues cannot 
• Trail arm extension and the trail hand passing the lead hand 
• Lead wrist extension versus the old fear of “scooping” 
• Using the body as a stabilizer instead of the prime mover 
• Clubface control first, then aiming and shot shaping 
• The speed “differential” between lead-hand braking and trail-hand acceleration 
•  You can find Marcus for online lessons and videos on Skillest and by his name on YouTube and Instagram.

Transcript

Welcome And Long Drive Context

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Hello and welcome to the Flaghunters Golf Podcast. My name is Jesse Perryman. I am your host, along with my esteemed co-host from the Hidden Castle Golf Club in Singapore. And just in case you are a first-time listener, if you're tuning into the podcast for the first time, his name is Justin Tang. He's one of the best coaches in the world, in my opinion. And our guest today is a man from Sweden by the name of Marcus Edblad. And Marcus is uh a former World Long Drive uh record holder from Sweden. In fact, he's 54 years of age at the time of this recording, and he's still swinging at it at 135 plus. Listen to what he has to say. Some things are out of the box, some things are conventional, but it all makes sense. So we recorded this a few months ago, and again, I'm I'm getting uh I'm getting some flack from my partner here to get some of these episodes out. So apologize to Marcus for the delay and and Justin as well. Um Marcus notably is a PGA professional, and he ha he actually still has the Swedish long drive uh record, and uh we get into uh a little bit of what sort of has been missing with the in the conversation as far as golf instruction, and and I'm gonna put my own two cents in here where uh some of golf instruction, I'm not gonna generalize it, has been trying to take the hands out of the golf swing. And uh uh those who know completely disagree with that. And we talk about that uh very phenomenon in this conversation. And Marcus goes down uh how he got himself back into shape uh as a middle-aged man who is now in fantastic shape. He talks about some of his background in Sweden, uh, ice hockey, boxing, and how these translate to speed and hand-eye coordination, especially hand speed. Um and one thing that he really emphasized was clubhead, club face, clubhead awareness, and what it does and how it plays this crucial part in hitting the ball where you want it to go. So, shout out to Marcus and thanks again for joining everyone. I hope everyone is having a great week. I'll make sure to have all of his contact information in the show notes, but you will find him under his name on Skillist as well as YouTube and Instagram. Cheers, everyone, and have a fantastic week.

Marcus Joins From Winter Sweden

SPEAKER_00 3:16

Just outside of Stockholm, Sweden, where I'm sure it's a little chilly up there at this time of year.

SPEAKER_03 3:25

It's gray, dark, and just sad for a golfer right now. It's uh today it's raining, it's just around freezing point, but it's actually raining. And uh uh yeah, I'm just dreaming my way to next spring.

SPEAKER_01 3:42

Thank you, Marcus. Thanks for my welcome. Yeah, thanks for for coming on. We it in the last two weeks we had two uh Swedish golf professionals. The first one was Carl Petterson, and then followed by Hendrik Lundkus. So it's it's really nice to have a third one, the third consecutive uh Swedish guest on the podcast.

SPEAKER_03 4:05

Thank you for having me. I mean, uh this is my first podcast, and and uh I really like the concept. I had the time to listen to uh Hovlan, Viktor Hovlan's podcast with you guys, and it was fantastic. So it was really good. You're doing a great job.

SPEAKER_01 4:21

Thank you. Thank you, Marcus. It's our honor to be your first podcast, and I'm sure you will be the first of many because you have brought brought much uh game improvement and joy to golfers all on the internet.

Why Golf Hooked Him At 30

SPEAKER_01 4:37

And could you introduce yourself how you got into the game for the benefit of our listeners?

SPEAKER_03 4:45

Oh wow. Um I started this silly game uh in the year of 2000. We actually had, I was in the fitness industry, and um one of my instructors in the gym, personal training instructors, he was called uh Daniel. Uh he was playing golf. Um and every Monday he came to to work and he was complaining about how difficult golf was. And I I was playing hockey, uh, and I I just thought that I need to try this. I need to just understand what is the problem with these golf guys. So I I I went and bought a seven iron. I tried it for five minutes. Three weeks later, I I quit my job uh in the gym, and I told myself, man, I can be a good golfer. So I I I started that way. It just felt like this is something I need to do. Uh, and that's 25 years ago.

SPEAKER_01 5:51

Look, Marcus, I don't want to assume that you started off ice hockey. Is it ice hockey or field hockey?

SPEAKER_03 5:58

Oh, it's ice hockey, uh NHL hockey. Uh so that's that was my biggest sport. I I did some martial arts, I I uh I love boxing, football, not the American football, the soccer part. Um Martin, Thomas Brolin. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I play golf with these guys today. Um wow. Brolin is is uh keen golfer. So so uh most of the stars when I grew up, uh hockey stars and football stars, they they play golf today. So I have a chance to to actually meet them today. Golf brings people together.

SPEAKER_01 6:42

How about Slatan? Does he play golf?

SPEAKER_03 6:44

No, no, no, no, no. No, not at not that I know of, at least. Um, I mean, the day he starts playing golf, the whole world will start playing golf because he has that kind of aura around him. But he I don't think he started yet.

SPEAKER_01 7:00

Well, you guys share the same hairstyle. Yeah, he's got a ponytail too.

SPEAKER_03 7:06

It's the simplicity that I love. Uh, I haven't been to uh a hair hairdresser for uh 30 years. I don't need to, I just cut the ponytail every six weeks.

SPEAKER_01 7:20

Very nice. So you said you started golf uh at the later age. So what what was that exactly?

SPEAKER_03 7:28

I was 30 years old. Um and um when someone tells me they think that something is very, very difficult, uh I just need to try it. Whatever it is, I need to try it. And and um I'm really glad I did. I I tried it um uh maybe at 18, 19 years old. Uh behind a gas station in Stockholm. Uh a friend just brought his clubs. He's still playing golf. I don't play with him, but he said this is the most difficult game in the world. And I said, it's just a silly game. And he put out maybe 10 golf balls. I know, I remember he hit it really, really bad. I I took the club, that was a right-handed club. I hit one ball, I hit it really, really good. That pissed him off really bad. Um, but I just gave him the club back and said, This is silly. That was 10 years before I really started. Um so uh golf is is interesting. You only need to just find that feeling. When you get that feeling too many times, you're hooked on it, and that's that's why we're probably here. Yeah.

Sports That Built Elite Hand Speed

SPEAKER_01 8:49

So you you said you started in the fitness industry, and you obviously are a long drive champion. So could you talk a little bit about your fitness background, your your hockey background, boxing, martial arts, how how that kind of worked together to make the game easy for you to pick up and speech. Well, make the golf string easy for you. The game is difficult, but the golf string is easy.

SPEAKER_03 9:19

Yeah, um, yeah, I could agree with that. Um I mean, trying all kinds of sports. I have some my brain, if I see someone do anything, dancing or or boxing or hockey, whatever it is, I can I can fairly easily copy what they do. That's something I I was born with. Um and that helps a lot in golf. I see everything in three-dimensional. Um normal people see it in two-dimensional. So uh I see things a little bit different. I know that because when I was studying engineering in university in Stockholm here, uh they were actually almost thinking that I was cheating because I I could see solutions mechanically when people needed to really mathematically uh do the solution. I could see what's actually going on. And doing all kinds of sports, I I just think that my hand-eye coordination uh was really helping me with everything. Uh, and I think that's the if there is a foundational goal for any sport, uh, I think the hand-eye coordination is so important, how to practice that. And uh we we in the society today, we we think about quick fixes, fast solutions, but we we still need to take care of the body, we need to teach the body to move correctly. And I think that hand-eye coordination is some of the things that we we uh are almost forgetting today. It's more technical, and and uh I got that from all kinds of sports. Boxing and martial arts are are fantastic. I I started, if someone is listening and and um uh actually follow my channel, I started doing speed bag training this winter. And three days ago, I had the highest swing speed I had with a standard club 44-inch driver that I had in 15 years. So bringing back some of the bottom. Uh now it's 136, 135.9. So it's not really fast, but it's pretty fast for a 54-year-old guy.

SPEAKER_01 11:46

Uh he's saying, guys, he's saying this with a straight face.

SPEAKER_03 11:53

But I I I I I think the limits uh I I think I can do better because uh bringing back and finding that's that's with all kinds of training, understanding your own body and um what you can do and what you need to do, and find the pieces that are missing. And I haven't done serious boxing training for many, many years. Bringing that back was also bringing speed back in my body, and so it helped a lot. All all the sports I did, I think helped me uh hit a golf ball longer.

SPEAKER_01 12:27

I know you were in the fitness industry. Did you lift weights seriously?

SPEAKER_03 12:34

No, no. Um I I I I was more like trying to look good. I I probably didn't, but I I for some time I thought I was looking pretty fit. Um, but actually working in the fitness industry wasn't the best. Uh the hours were crazy, and and opening the gym at seven in the morning and and closing it at ten. You actually I I was training less when I was working in the fitness industry than I did before. So I I think that was that was not the best thing. It was good for me to leave that.

SPEAKER_01 13:14

And could you share with us your physical dimensions, how tall you are, how how heavy you are?

SPEAKER_03 13:21

I'm 1.84 meters. I think that's just about six feet tall. Yes. Uh and uh my no, and my weight at the moment is just about a hundred kilos, so 220 pounds.

SPEAKER_01 13:37

Uh so at 1.8 meters at 84 meters, six foot tall, 220 pounds, you at 52 years of age. 54. 54. You generated 136 miles per hour of top head speed with a 44 inch driver just two days ago. Yeah, that's crazy. Because the people that I know that can generate that speed are at least six foot three. Your weight, 220 pounds, with a 46-inch driver, and probably what 20 years younger than you.

SPEAKER_03 14:22

Yeah, I hear that about age.

No Days Off: Training Past 50

SPEAKER_03 14:24

Uh I stopped competing. Uh, I think I was the world finals in in Las Vegas. The last time I was there was in 2014. I think that was my last year. It didn't go well. I I ended up around maybe placed 50th or something like that. So it wasn't a good year. Uh, and I I I I wasn't really good at the world finals. I think my best position was around 20th, something. But I was pretty fast. I was uh as fast as I was 146, 147. Um, but that was with a long drive driver, which is actually around 47 inches. So so that's that's much harder to swing. Uh and I was much younger coming home from that and saying that no, I'm done. Uh everyone was telling me that, oh now that's good for you because now you're gonna hit 40, and and when you're four years old, you get slower and you you you have no chance of competing. Uh and um I listened to that. I was stupid enough to listen to that. So of course my swing speed went down for years. I was down to maybe 115, 120 at the most. And then one day, I don't know why, I just decided to try to just practice like I did before for a few weeks. And I I hit 120, I hit 125, I hit 130. Uh, and just within maybe two months, I was back to 135, uh, and that was probably in 2018. Um, and I realized we are all getting old. We can't stop that. But getting lazy, that's actually a choice. I was getting lazy. I was listening to people that said that uh when you get old, you get slower. No, when I get old, I got lazier. I was I was 30 kilos heavier. It's very sad that I can't show you that picture. I was do you guys know that there was a club, uh, Orlando PJ show more than 10 years ago. It was called The Little One. Yes, the little one, yes. A small seven-iron. I loved it. I thought it would be a really big success, but nobody wanted to buy it. Um, and I was in the commercial they did on the PJ show. Oh and when I came home, you can find it on the internet. When I came home from that, I watched that commercial and I saw myself, I hardly had any muscles left. I was I was fat as a pig. And I came home to my my girlfriend and said, no, no, no, this isn't me. I don't want to look like this. Uh and I just started training, and and uh I said it's gonna take five years, and it did. It took me five years to come back in decent shape, and that you can find on I have an orange uh shirt on. I look like an orange whale. Uh uh and and uh no, I just it's it was enough. I had listened to all the people that was telling me you're gonna get weak with age, you're gonna get slow with age, and and now I'm here uh 10 years later, much, much better shape. Uh and and uh still as fast. It's uh actually a little crazy. So it's fun. I I want to lead by example.

SPEAKER_01 18:21

How did you get hooked up with uh the PSP or the little one?

SPEAKER_03 18:26

No, they were at the range. I I just loved the idea. I I always tried to do I always try to do my own practice as tough as possible. Uh if I practice hard, uh it's not gonna be hard to execute it normally. So uh I have always been hitting old drivers, early 90s uh tightless driver with uh uh 48, 49 inch shaft. So it's really hard to hit. Uh and I love the idea. I still use them, I use them every week in lessons. Uh sadly, yeah. I think they they went bankrupt just a few months after that. I don't think it was a big success anywhere in the world.

SPEAKER_00 19:14

It should have been. I have one, I still have one. Yeah. Yeah, the PSP 7 arm.

SPEAKER_03 19:21

So what exercises I love the idea. I love the idea.

SPEAKER_01 19:25

Yeah. What exercises did you do in your comeback? When you were old and lacy, but now you're old and dangerous.

SPEAKER_03 19:38

Uh I I just looked at what I did before, uh, and um I started doing that again. Uh just basic, simple uh weight training. But I what I realized by age is that uh you can't take any days off. If I when I was 20 and I I really tried to look as good as I could on the beach, uh, I could train really hard during the winter and I could quit for a month or maybe two months, nothing really happened. I didn't lose muscle, I didn't uh I was still a strong. If I'm gone now, if I'm gone for two weeks, it takes almost two months to come back. So so I can still do it, but I need to keep doing it. I mean, if I'm if I'm traveling, uh I just do push-ups. Uh I don't want to be going backwards again. Uh someday I will. I mean, I I uh someday we can't stop it anymore. Or you can get uh you can get sick. Uh then everything just stops working. And then uh but I I but with age I I realized that no days off. So actually I I do weight training in some sort every single day. Not much, but every single day.

SPEAKER_01 21:09

So you said you did a lot of uh speed back work. What other forms of speed training do you do?

SPEAKER_03 21:18

At the moment, just hitting golf balls. I'm trying to kill my pitching rats. And I actually did. Same day I I hit that 136, I broke my most favorite club. Uh the head flew off in the simulator. I got it on my Instagram. Uh I was I was sending a video, I was um challenged by one of the other instructors in Sweden uh to swing as fast as possible with a pitching winch. And when I tried to do that, I first had one hundred and six plus something, and the shot after that, uh the head flew off the club.

SPEAKER_01 21:57

With the pitching winch. Okay, that's insane. Because I've seen your swing many, many times and it doesn't look like you're going after it. Yeah, but I am. I promise I am. As hard as I can. Here's the funny thing, Marcus. I know of people who would be happy to have a driver's speed at 106, and they really look like they're trying to go after it.

SPEAKER_03 22:25

I and yeah, I see that every day.

SPEAKER_01 22:28

And that's and that's because they are not fulfilling the magic circle of speed as you teach.

SPEAKER_03 22:37

My method is one method. I mean, you can use violence to hit a golf ball far. But when you look at Ernie Ells, Fred Kuppels, or some of the guys on the champions tour that still have speed, they are actually doing very close to what I'm doing. They can't kill their backs anymore hitting golf balls. Uh so they needed to invent something else. Looking at Fred Kuppels when he was like 30, 35, he was 125, 128 club head speed. It looks like he's sleeping. But he's still, I mean, he was called boom boom for a reason. Uh and he just needed to find a safer way for his back to hit golf balls. I'm not even sure he understands how good it is. He just needed to do something that was a little different from the norm. And he ended up with uh definitely very close to what I'm doing today.

SPEAKER_01 23:48

So could you segue into how you got into coaching and becoming PGE qualified?

Teaching Against The Grain

SPEAKER_03 23:57

Um I I got a phone call from uh one of the biggest driver agents here in Stockholm. Um I just had an article in in the biggest magazine in in Sweden that I I was teaching two persons how to hit it further. And they uh haven't heard anything like that before and and uh was actually writing some bad things online that it can't be true. Uh he's doing it the opposite way that we are doing it, and and that can't work. But it did. It did really, really, really good. And so this guy who owns the range called me and said, I got 10 guys who want to try your method. And I haven't been an instructor before, I did some tips sometimes. So, okay, give me a week, I'll figure something out. And um I was stupid enough to think that people actually understood how to hit a golf ball, uh, but they didn't. So 10 guys, I met 10 guys a Saturday in May. That was in 2009, I think. Um I think nine of them were were huge slicers, and and one of them were just not hitting the ball. Uh, we did three hours, um and and they did so much better. And I was so surprised that they they didn't understand better. Um and everyone was happy we we said goodbye, and I thought that was that was fun. Um and one week later he said, Okay, you realize that these 10 guys have 10 friends. Oh, yeah. So we want to do this again. Okay, when every week. So that was in May, and in August that year, I needed to stop everything else, and uh I was just doing instructions. Telling people simple things like I talk a lot about today, I talk a lot about timing, um, that we're actually are we can use the trail arm for a lot of speed. I wasn't, I didn't, I didn't have a good package, I didn't have anything uh prepared, but it worked really well. And I filled up my my uh schedule with lessons and it was a big success. It took a long time before I internet can be a very and social media can be very cruel. Um and being a long drive professional and not a golf professional, trying to do something different in a golf environment, uh people were pretty mean, I can say. And um I I was thinking about quitting so many times, but then many years later, uh I'm at the club right now, I'm living at the club that I'm working, and they asked to uh they asked me to to uh take over, be an instructor, and I said, then I need to be a PGA professional, because in Sweden you need to be that to be the yeah, head pro on a golf club. Even though I'm now I have an assistant, but I was alone then, you need to be a PGA pro. So um I needed to do that. I needed to become so it took three years, three or more years, and now I'm a PGA professional. And it's all the things online are much more quiet today. So it was good.

SPEAKER_01 27:57

Yeah, but you know, going back to it being a cruel place on social media, my take is always this if you're not doing something different, innovative, that's helping people, you won't get attacked. If you're doing nothing, you won't get attacked. That's that's me looking at it with the half half the glass half full.

SPEAKER_03 28:23

I would I I agree today, but being fairly insecure uh uh in the beginning, it was really hard to take these comments and and try to ignore ignore them. I I knew what I could do. I I was this I'm still actually the Swedish uh long drive record holder, 432 meters. I hit that in 05. Uh and and uh it still stands today. So so I knew what I could do, but going into especially when someone came from a club maybe two hours away. They had 20 lessons on the home club. They go for one lesson at uh Shista Golf Center, the golf center I was working on, and they go home two hours later without the slice. Something they tried to get rid of for years. They come back to the club and they tell people things that is absolutely forbidden. You can't do that, you can't do that, you can't, you will slice it more. And they realized that oh no, that was that wasn't true because I had no guidelines. All I wanted to do was solve the problem. I I didn't know what normal instruction was, I didn't know that. I I just saw a mechanical uh problem and I I solved it. I didn't know it was wrong, I just tried to do it as good as possible, and that's how it started. And then hearing that uh oh, you don't have the right education, you don't do that. Today, if someone is stupid enough to tell me that I don't know what I'm talking about, I just laugh. I mean, go for it, man. I I've tried it on so many thousands of golfers. So I know it works fantastic. I don't care anymore. I'm just enjoying the ride.

SPEAKER_01 30:33

Like what Jesse and I would say, you are an enlightened man. Oh, thank you. You know, you your whatever you shared, your age, your clubhead

Hands First: Release To Lose Slice

SPEAKER_01 30:47

speed. I think our listeners are chomping at the bit. They want to know what we can do right now to increase our clubhead speed. So, with that in mind, I'd like to talk a little bit about your concepts and how different it is from modern coaching. So, the first one would be your focus on hand speed and how it is so different from the modern body-oriented mechanics. So these days, most people say, oh, let's turn more and sit down, squat, and all that.

SPEAKER_03 31:22

It's all about balance. I mean, I had a really smart question online the other day. If Rory McElroy would come into my studio, would you tell him the same thing as you tell us? No, of course I wouldn't. His arms are already in balance with the turn he makes. I mean, if if you're a 25 handicapped, that's a normal golfer in Sweden, uh, and you have a big slice, which is 90% of golfers. Uh you can't train like Rory McElroy, who can hit a draw or a fade high or low in his sleep. He's already in balance. Uh, I talk a lot about hands and arms because it's hands and arms that are missing if you have a big slice. I don't want people to stop using their body, but I want them to balance what their upper body and the lower body is doing. And still, I thought my ego was pretty big a few years ago starting YouTube. I thought that, man, I am going to make this a slice-free world. You only need to do one thing, you only need to release the club much, much earlier, and the slice is gone. I mean, people are smart enough to understand that. And now, I think it's eight years later, the percentage of slicers are still the same. Nothing happened.

SPEAKER_01 33:02

Because we are so golf instructors like yourself and myself.

SPEAKER_03 33:07

Yeah. Uh, but but it's it's just I'm not trying to sell anything else. I'm trying to sell a very balanced, very good golf swing. I'm just seeing missing pieces in a different way than than other instructors do. Uh and and um I I also today, like I said, I don't really care what people think because I will tell if they are missing arms or hands, I need to use them more. I will tell them, no matter what anyone else is saying. And it's very successful. I I I love uh reading the comments on my very small YouTube channel, but still uh it's growing a little bit every day. Um, and and um the concept is that I explain it differently, but you can find everyone who hits a draw. If Rory McIlvoy hits a draw, he's also doing a circle inside of his backswing. He's swinging inside of his backswing, going back to the ball. You could call it a loop, you can call it whatever you want, but still he's doing exactly what I'm trying to make everyone else is doing. The benefit of it, you don't need to be in the gym every day to do it. To swing 135 to 140 miles per hour, yeah, you need you need to do some training. But to do a fairly effective swing with your driver and get every every single meter or yards out of that driver, you don't need to be stronger. You just need to understand it. But that's that's tough when when so many are telling us to turn more and more hips, more legs, and and uh um, I just think we many, many years ago went the wrong way, and we are giving advice to the average golfers that are actually fitting the pros and not the average golfers.

SPEAKER_02 35:15

So, when you talk about the release, what do you exactly mean?

SPEAKER_03 35:22

Um it's two parts. Um, the first part is just to be able to do the important part, uh, we need to start extending the trail arm. Everyone, even if someone is selling a body swing, they all bend the trail arm going back. If you they if you don't do that, you don't you you don't get any backswing, nothing really happens. And if that move doesn't happen in balance with your body, you have a late release. So the first part is the extension of the trail arm. When you do that, if you do it aggressively, the club actually goes back to straight. Uh and if you don't want to stop that, many people say you need to swing through the ball. Yeah, that's when the trail hand passes the lead hand. We can do that around our body, that will become a hook, or we can do it up over the lead shoulder, and that becomes a very good draw. Uh, so it's a very simple move that we do in hockey. I I just the other week I had golfers coming here for I'm very close to the sea, and we went out to um just have a day of fishing, and and uh I gave them some fishing rods and I I told them let's go practice some golf. And they was just looking at me like I was a complete idiot. And then, okay, if you do a side throw with your fishing rod, what are your hands doing? And they were looking at it, oh man, they're doing exactly the same thing. And we do it in tennis, we do it in land hockey, we do it in ice hockey, we do it in yeah, so many sports when we have the hand, two hands on the tool we're hitting the ball with. So it's a very simple move: one extension and one passing.

SPEAKER_01 37:22

Yeah, and just to add to that, I remember watching one of your videos uh sometime back, you always advocated that post-impact the lead hand actually slows down so that the trail hand overtakes, and that's what creates a cracking speed. And you also showed us a hockey grip drill where you hit balls with a hockey grip on the golf club, and that really accentuates that A acceleration of the lead hand and B, sorry, the deceleration of the lead hand and the acceleration of the trail hand. And you also said it should feel very scoopy.

SPEAKER_03 38:08

Yeah. Um if we look at modern golf today, and and uh I'm they they changed the name. Many instructors online. I'm I'm a YouTube junkie me myself, I I like to see a lot of new stuff. So uh scoop is forbidden, but extension of the lead wrist is okay, and it's the same move, yeah, same thing. So we can't go back and say that something that has been forbidden for 50 or 100 years, it's okay today. So we just changed the name and we hope that golfers are dumb enough to understand that it's not the same thing. So so we today, looking at our own Ludwig Lobarg, uh or or all the top golfers, when they hit the irons today to keep the club face from uh closing too fast, they all use a scoop or extension of the lead wrist, and they do it a lot more than I do it. So um I think if I live that long, uh if it takes 50 years, I'm in trouble. But uh one day it will be accepted because if you look at slow motion today, they are all doing it. I absolutely love it.

SPEAKER_01 39:37

Even Ben Hogan, if you looked at the videos of him just when his hands are at shoulder height after impact, the left wrist extended.

SPEAKER_03 39:48

Yeah, it's a speed generator at the same time as it actually makes the club face a lot more stable, so it's a great move. And uh that's that's also if I if I meet a pro golfer, their problem is almost every time uh a hook or a long pull. And and uh the opposite from an average golfer. And and uh when you really exaggerate the scoop, you hit it very, very straight. I think it was Dustin Johnson that made this, he started this trend, or uh and he did it with his driver, and he was hitting it very, very straight, and he's still doing it. I think he even calls it like uh uh he wants to feel a stop sign or a high five uh going through the ball. So he really he's really good at it. And now his wedge game is fantastic too.

SPEAKER_01 40:44

So, what then do we do with our body and our legs?

SPEAKER_03 40:51

Like we do in everything else. Uh I I get tired. If I if I hit a hundred drives, I get tired in especially my I'm a for you listening. I I'm a left-handed driver. Uh and I get tired in my left cob. I I I um because I lift my foot every time. I press my body forward. But I would do that if I if I put my hand uh on the back of a car and I want to push it forward, if I just push it with a very, very small effort, I will only use my hands, maybe my arms. And the more I try, the more effort I put in, I will recruit more and more big muscles. And I think that's the same in golf. Of course, you're not you can swing with a feeling of only arms and hands, but then you're so far away from what you actually can do, you you're probably half asleep. So so when your effort level increases, you will bring more and more muscles into work, and and uh uh it will be automatic, it will be natural. So I have never been forced to to uh get anyone to actually do more with their lower body, but it's a lot of fun when people have tried. I my hips are moving so bad, and I see it's a really, really bad golf swing, and we we change how they are moving the club, and then five minutes later they say, Oh, now I'm moving my hips really good. Yeah, but it's not because you instructed your hips to do it, because you did a better golf swing. So that's what I think. Uh I think we should focus on how we move the club, our hands and our arms, and that I can actually prove live. I can, if someone wants to move their legs or their hips in a special way or do a hip bump or whatever they want to do, I can make them do that, but not by talking to the hips or legs, by making them move their hands up or down or around. And we can we can make that happen just by how we move the club. So I think we should leave that alone. I think we should train it. Um sorry for just talking, but uh that's probably the point of a podcast. Um, but we need to have fairly strong legs, fairly strong back, uh, to hit good golf shots. To be accurate in golf, you can't be like you need muscles to to be able to deliver the club in a good way. Your big muscles will stabilize everything, and that will make you a lot better. But I don't think the big muscles will make you swing. Faster. That's a big difference. I I do uh some heavy lifting, not much, but some heavy lifting because my club, when it when I release the club, it actually weighs probably around 20 kilos when it turns. I need to be able to hold that. If I don't do that, I will hit the ball very, very badly. So we need core, we need legs, we need everything like that. I don't think it will bring much speed, but it will bring good golf shots. That's a big difference.

SPEAKER_01 44:33

So essentially, what you're teaching is the correct movement of the club hit via the correct movement of the arms and hands, and then the body will respond correctly. We want to use the body as a stabilizer as opposed to it being a prime mover. Yeah, that's a good way of saying it. That's a good way. That really hits home because you know, after this podcast, when we want to go down to the fridge to reach for something that's too high, we don't try to fling our body to get that object that we want. We aim our hands there, and our body moves to accommodate what the hands want to do. Yeah. That's what we do, right? But in golf, suddenly we throw logic out of the window.

SPEAKER_03 45:24

Yeah.

Clubface Control And Speed Differential

SPEAKER_03 45:25

That's one of the things I I uh I couldn't accept. Beginner's Course 2000, in June 2000, when I started playing golf, uh, I had I'd probably been to the range like three times. I was hitting my seven-iron feeling like still I was hitting uh hockey slap shots with a seven-iron. I was hitting it fairly good, very straight, and we started uh for uh the course for for a green card to to be able to play golf. And everything that instructor told me made me hit it worse. Everything. And after two hours, I said, this is this is kind of stupid. I started out actually hitting the ball where I wanted. Now I'm hitting it all over the place. And he started to tell me, no, no, no, if you hit it too to the left too much, we're gonna change your grip. I said, Oh, so you mean you're gonna compensate for a bad goal swing by changing the club in my hands? I I I don't want to do that, I want to learn how to hit it. I want I want to be able to hit it straight. And he was asked, how do you mean? He didn't understand my question because all he could do was compensate. And that's what we do in golf, which is for me very scary. If you have a gun, if I have my rifle and I aim at something, I hope that my gun will shoot where I'm aiming. But if it's not uh parallel to where I'm aiming, there's no idea to shoot. I will never hit my my target. It's the same in golf. If I don't first teach someone to actually be able to hit it more to the right, more to the left, or straight, if I first don't teach them to use the tool they have in their hand, there's no idea to do any aiming or anything like that. And he was the only thing I was good at that day was to feel the club face, like I did in hockey. I felt the club face and I aimed the club face at my target, and that's why I hit it straight. I didn't have a good golf wing. I wasn't hitting it long, I wasn't hitting good, but it actually was, and by changing the grip, he absolutely killed that feeling. So, of course, I changed it back two shots later, but but still, um, and still today, in 16 years as working as an instructor, I think I have changed two grips in 16 years. I I don't need to do it because first we tried to hit golf shots, hit it good with the grip they already have, and it works almost every time. Two very, very strong grips. I needed to fix that. Uh a weak grip, we just release more and they can hit it really, really far. But it's like we just turned everything around. We don't understand the tool we have in our hand, and if we don't understand how to, like I said, use a rifle, there's no use to aim because you're not gonna hit what you try to aim at.

SPEAKER_01 48:57

I I really love that rifle analogy and I'll use it going forward and give you credit for it, of course. Me too. A lot of instructors these days talk about matchups, but at some level, I feel that that's due to a lack of understanding of how the body should actually work. What do you say is compensating one error with another?

SPEAKER_03 49:25

Yeah. Um I I have just seen, um, and that's the most fun part. Uh someone who's actually thinking about quitting golf, and and um they they send me an email, and you're my my you're my last resort. I I I really don't want to quit golf, but I I really suck at it. And I've tried everything, and I just no, no, no, you haven't. You haven't tried me. And they have so many things uh to think about. They have 20 things in the golf wing. And we just start by feeling okay, an open club face, a closed club face. If you can hook it and slice it, you can also hit it straight. And after five, six minutes, we are playing around like we do in other sports. We we don't hit straight shots. Uh, a slap shot in hockey is never straight because it's a goalie trying to catch it. So we need to be very precise, a little bit left, a little bit right, a little high, a little low, between the legs, whatever. It's the same in football or tennis. We're trying to pass someone. So we learn to hit it in different ways, and just by awakening that sense of the club face, people who almost thought about quitting golf, they they just wow, I can do this. I can I can hit it in the direction I want to hit it, and I don't think about the swing. Yeah, but this is a part of the swing. But if you again don't understand open, close to straight club face, you can have the best goal swing in the world, but you will never find the ball.

SPEAKER_01 51:19

Yeah. You know, it's interesting that you mentioned about the slapshot. So the slap shot, when you look at it from uh a golfing perspective, is actually you're actually hitting it fat. Yeah. Right? Very fast. And then you you kind of release the uh the hockey blade into the shot. So when you were transitioning from hockey to golf, how how did the slap shot transition with you, if that makes sense?

SPEAKER_03 51:49

Uh I I actually did, I I still have it. I I I made um um a few weeks into my golfing career, I I I did uh go to a club maker. I asked them to do a four-iron with uh uh a double grip. So I had two grips on the club, so I could really hold it like I hold my hockey club. Uh and I probably looked very, very stupid on the driving range. But I started to feel uh, like I said, feel timing. Uh if I was late with the club, we talk about this in baseball. If you're late with the with with a baseball bat, you end up hitting a foul ball. Uh, if you're late with a bat or early with a bat. We don't talk about that in golf. I do, but I hear it very, very few times a year. And I just started to feel that okay, if I want if I want to hit it slow and hit it short, I just don't speed up the lower hand. Uh if I want more distance, I speed up the lower hand, just like I do in all kinds of other sports. The hand that's closest to the club head needs to be fast. And the it's not how fast I can move my hands, it's the difference between the speed of the hands. So if I can get a very if I can get a very slow hand, lead hand, if I can actually put a break on it, uh, I don't need a big effort to hit it far. And if you look at it, I know that my lead hand starts slowing down about two feet before impact. The best golfers in the world, uh, the fastest, and um he's called Borgmeier. I don't remember his German guy. Martin Borgmeier. Yeah, yeah. Uh I have his numbers. We have the same hand speed, but his breaking point is much later. His breaking point is half half, so he's one foot away from impact. He puts the brake on. So he's so much stronger and faster to stop the lead hand. So he gets that insane width through the ball. Uh, I don't know if he's a straight hitter. I haven't played golf with him. I've seen him in the competition. That was interesting. Um, but um it's all about the difference of speed, which means now I'm really never gonna have a lesson again. If you have a slice and you want to hit it longer, or you're actually gonna speed up the club, you can if you rotate your body slower, but you can keep the speed in your uh trail hand, you will hit it longer. So you can actually slow down your rotation, but you make the club head move faster because the rotation is speeding up the lead hand, it's not speeding up the trail hand. So it's really like please, Marcus, don't say that, but I need to do that because it's true.

SPEAKER_01 55:19

No, that's that's Marcus Edblatt's top golf secret. I've done this with a few of my lady members who were in their 60s. They started hitting this beautiful push-draw, they can't believe it. Say, hey, you know what? Just slow down your body, speed up the uh trail hand, and that's it. Initially they were resistant because they think that they they need hand speed through the shot. I said, Yeah, there's a differential, it's this slapping action. So even though they got it conceptually, they're still bound by oh, tradition says this. So, as you say, right? It's it's about breaking free of what we believe to be true and then going bravely to try it.

SPEAKER_03 56:12

Yeah, but I I I haven't I know I I've never been normal. Um I have a big sister who she's telling me that I can't I can't do anything normal. Um very short, funny story. I've been driving my car in 30 years in Stockholm, and uh February this year I actually hit another car. Very, very small bump. And a few seconds later I realized I hit a police car. Okay. So and my sister told me, Oh, I'm not surprised. You can't do anything like a normal person, you don't think like normal persons. Uh, and in golf, um it's just being normal in golf means that you slice the ball, means that you probably don't have a good impact, and your handicap is somewhere between 20 and 30. So being normal in golf should be something that we try not to be.

SPEAKER_01 57:19

Yeah, was it Ben Hogan or one of the uh legendary golfers that said, Whatever you believe to be true about the golf thing, just do the opposite of it and you become a good player.

SPEAKER_03 57:32

Oh, it was I haven't heard that, but I love that.

SPEAKER_01 57:37

Yeah, and I I've been doing that, yeah.

Lessons Online And Farewell

SPEAKER_01 57:41

Marcus, uh, before we we let you go, can you tell our listeners where to find you and whether you offer online services?

SPEAKER_03 57:53

I I do offer, you can find me on Skillist. Um just search my name uh on Skillist, you can find me there. That's an app for online lessons. It's more like a support lesson. I love live lessons, uh, but it's problem solving on video. I I think it's a lot of fun and it's been it's been good. Uh you can find my YouTube channel, marcusnbot.com. Or if you're a Swedish guy, it's a dot se. Uh, but if you search my name, it just comes up on on the internet. And um that's my that's my two things. I'm I'm on Instagram, but I'm really bad at posting on Instagram, so YouTube is probably the best place.

SPEAKER_02 58:41

And how can our listeners get in contact with you?

SPEAKER_03 58:48

Uh I have a web page. I'm not good at this, but I have a web page called powergolf.se. Uh powergolf.se. There you can find contact information. Um, I do I do want to travel more in in the future. I I uh but it's all like I said in the beginning, I'm a very small fish in a big ocean. It's uh we only have half a season, we have six months of golf, so it's it's not easy to make a yeah, a lot of money in in Sweden as a golf instructor. So I can't travel too much, but I I do some traveling. Uh I like to come back to the PDA show in in Orlando and maybe do a clinic, that would be fantastic. But I I sometimes you need a sponsor for that.

SPEAKER_02 59:44

So um come to Sweden. It's a very beautiful country. And you can have some herrings too.

SPEAKER_03 59:54

Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. Um I have, I mean, this year I had uh four guys from Canada, I had um five, six guys coming over from the states. They stay for two, three days. We practice. I have a lot of guys from Europe coming. So people are traveling to see me. So I I love that. It's it's just crazy that they're they're doing it. I I uh sometimes I feel ashamed, but we do good work, so it's it's uh it's just crazy that people want to do that. But I love I love when I do. I I'll make the time if you make the the travel.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:31

Yeah, and hopefully with this podcast, we will be able to showcase you to the United States. Jesse's based over in Pebble Beach, and let's see where this takes us.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:47

I just played Pebble Beach on my simulator. Uh it's a it's a beautiful place. I hope I have to I can see it someday.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:57

Well let's let's see where this podcast takes us. Thank you so much for your time, Marcus. This is this will probably be the first of a few conversations. We've not even gone into the short game, putting in the mental game, but I'm sure our listeners would very much welcome a second and third episode with you.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:20

Oh, I would love that. And and uh golfers giving me or or uh just giving me a life that it's just incredible. Meeting the people, talking to you guys, it's it's absolutely fantastic. So if I can do anything to to make golf better for anyone anywhere in the world, I I love to do that. Thank you guys. Thank you, Julius.