Finish First Golf Mindset. A conversation with Greg Jones

We talk with coach Greg Jones about building a golf game that holds up under pressure, where the swing supports scoring instead of chasing perfect positions. We dig into old school coaching principles, modern verification tools, and why wedges and decisions decide who actually wins. 
• Greg’s path from junior golf to D1 coaching to returning as a private coach 
• Lessons from tour school and why “good” is rarely enough to qualify 
• Floyd Horgan’s influence on pivot, finish, and athletic motion 
• Using launch monitors as verification while trusting ball flight and contact 
• “The swing is a tool” for predictability and decision making 
• Reframing strategy as turning holes into par threes after transport shots 
• Matchups, grip changes, and the goal of low clubface closure rate 
• Rejecting social media perfection and keeping a player’s natural shape 
• Why wedge performance correlates with winning and lower scores 
• Wedge matrix basics with clock swings, stock yardages, and variations 
• Short game Project 25 reps for tournament-ready scoring 

You can find Greg Instagram, it's Greg JonesGolf Official, and on YouTube it's Finish First with Coach Greg Jones. Greg is the director of instruction at Steelwood Country Club in Loxley, Alabama. Greg is available for in person lessons. You can also send an email to Greg at gregjonesgolf.com. Greg uses the Coach Now app and it's pretty easy to navigate.

Transcript

Welcome And Greg’s Golf Journey

SPEAKER_01 0:04

Hello and welcome once again to another edition of the Flaghunters Golf Podcast. My name is Jesse Perryman. I am your host, along with my co-host, Justin Tang, one of the great instructors in the world, uh a lifelong seeker, and someone that you really uh want to pay attention to. And this week, our guest is Greg Jones. He is in Alabama, longtime coach, former D1 golf coach, and uh his story will certainly help you and inspire you to uh inquire. Greg, thanks for coming on. Justin, always a pleasure, my friend.

SPEAKER_02 0:43

Thanks for having me. Thank you, Gents. So, Greg, can you share with our listeners how you got into golf, out of golf, and then back into golf?

SPEAKER_00 0:53

Yeah, that's a good story. Well, I I my earliest memories of golf, I was four or five years old. Um, my dad learned to play in the army, and then uh, and he ultimately became a longtime scratch golfer and he taught me golf at a young age. And I played every sport, and then at about age 13, I just decided to go all into golf, played uh high school golf, I played college golf, six years of pro golf, and then uh became a D1 head coach for 12 years. And then after that 12 years, I was actually a state farm insurance agent for 10, and then in uh 2018 decided that uh my gift, my passion, and my talent, my platform is in golf, and uh came back to full-time private coaching.

College Golf And Tour School Lessons

SPEAKER_02 1:39

So, can you walk us through a little bit of your college and pro golf days?

SPEAKER_00 1:44

Well, the college, uh uh I started off at the University of Kentucky. And um, I'm an Alabama boy where we wear shorts pretty much year-round, and I'll never forget my freshman year at the University of Kentucky. It snowed on April the 24th. And when I woke up that morning, I looked out the blinds and I said, no wonder they're so good at basketball because it's still snowing here in April. So I decided that uh Kentucky wasn't for me, a beautiful place, love the university, but uh I wanted to I wanted a little more year-round, better weather. And so I was trying to transfer from the University of Kentucky to Auburn. And back then you had to sit out a year. There was no such thing as NIL transfer portal, get paid to transfer. And even in golf, you had to sit out a year. Well, I didn't want to sit out a year, and the Auburn coach sent me down to Florida to play for a man by the name of Floyd Horgan at Brevard Community College. Now, Floyd Hogan was Hal Sutton's college coach. Mr. Sutton wanted Floyd to be Hal's college coach, and he basically made Floyd an offer in the university an offer that they couldn't refuse for Floyd to come be Hal Sutton's coach in college. And um, so I was very blessed to play for Floyd Hogan. We had Scott Gump, Steve Lamontane. He coached Bo Ball, Mike Smith, Paul Asinger, um, many others. And uh Floyd Horgan was just a fantastic, fantastic swing coach. I was pretty good when I went down there. And when I came back from Florida back to Alabama, they didn't recognize me. What he did for me was just unbelievable and uh taught me so much golf swing, rebuilt my swing and made it really good. And then my uh Auburn didn't work out, so I wound up back home here at the University of South Alabama and in my uh my junior year, I think I won four times, and back then there were no regionals, you just went straight to the NCAA championship, and so I got picked as an individual to go straight to the NCAA championship and played the final round with Steve Stricker. So that was um, so I was you know pretty good. I was a Sun Bowl all-American, like a preseason All-American that year, and then played one more year, and then uh played some pro golf for about six years. Um got really close to making the tour. I made it through first stage, uh, was on the bubble second stage going into the final round and uh played with a tall, lanky guy that nobody had ever heard of back then by the name of Ernie Els and uh at tour school, and I'll never forget warming up next to him, and I didn't know who he was, nobody knew who he was then, and uh I was just hitting some little like wedge shots, and he was by this time he was hitting full irons, and I just went, whoa, that's really different. Like I've seen a lot of good golf, but that's really different, and sure enough, that was Ernie L. So I'm kind of dating myself there. But uh, you know, I tell this story because you just never know how hard it is to get on tour. You know, there's a lot of great players that never make it because of the qualifying schools, but in that final round, my second shot on both of the par fives on the back nine made a ball mark. They landed on the green, and I turned those two holes into a six and a five and missed by one making it to finals. And I just think, you know, I hit the shot. I hit the shot. They made a ball mark on the green, and they both skipped over one back left and one straight away behind the green, and I turned them into a six and a five instead of a four and a four or a four and a five or a five and a five, and uh missed by one making it to finals, and then never made it after that. So kind of played the mini tours for a while and then then got hired at the University of South Alabama to be a to be a golf coach and just loved it, had a ball, and was very blessed to coach a young man by the name of Heath Slocum. So a lot of a lot of folks have heard of Heath Slocum, and he's had a very successful career, and and uh we won the we won the Sunbelt Conference Championship five times in my six years as the head coach, and I was named the uh conference coach of the year four times, and um LSU hired me in 2000, and so this is kind of to date myself. I was at LSU at the same time Nick Saban was at LSU, so I got to spend a couple years around Nick Saban, which was really cool. Learned a lot of a lot of wisdom from Nick Saban.

SPEAKER_02 6:45

That's where uh David David Toms is from, no? David Thoms, that's right. And you must have crossed the swords with uh a gentleman by the name of Brian Manzella.

SPEAKER_00 7:00

Uh I know not really. Um, we never were in the same circle, I guess, because I was a coach and he was a you know a PGA professional at a golf course, but I know who Brian is. I don't know if he knows who I am, maybe he's heard of me. But um I followed him and I see his stuff and and I I respect his teaching quite a bit.

Floyd Horgan And Efficient Motion

SPEAKER_02 7:20

Let's go back to Florida, Floyd Hogan. Yes. So you mentioned uh Scott Gump and Azinger. These are two very, very different types of swings. Yet he managed to steer them to high places. Could you share a little bit about Floyd's philosophy and his influence on you?

SPEAKER_00 7:45

Well, as I as I got older and started studying the swing a lot under another great teacher by the name of Ron Green, as I started studying the swing and I looked back on it, I think Floyd was one of the first ones that really bought into the golf machine and was teaching the golf machine. But I think he changed, he changed his method several times. So if you think about Paul Lazing, a really strong grip, uh, you know, did things a little differently. Scott Gump's golf swing was a little more resemblant of what Floyd teaches. Floyd taught us, he taught us there was two axes. There wasn't a center axis, there's a right axis and a left axis. And in the backswing, you pivot around the right axis, you pivot down on the right axis, and then you pivot through on the left axis. So we called it right, right, left. Um it's almost like there's a little bit of Jimmy Ballard in there as well. So interesting that Hal Sutton worked with Jimmy Ballard and Floyd, and they kind of taught the same things. But Floyd taught me to early set it. He wanted me to copy Sevi. And um I raised my left heel, had a big backswing, and um I used to raise my left heel, and then you know, I still teach that to some degree. It's okay for people to raise your left heel because I think when you replant it, it's like turning on the jets. It's like turbo, it's like stomp the accelerator when you replant that left foot on the way down, and it's a great way to pressure shift from the back side to the front side, and uh it was really good for me. It really helped me. But uh yeah, he he had a way, he had an eye for motion. He came from the baseball world and taught pitchers. He uh obviously taught golf. He even taught professional basketball players how to shoot free throws. Yes, he um he's just one of those guys that had an eye for motion and studied it. And I'll never forget the day he took a he took a golf ball and put it in like a little sling and twirled it in a circle and said, This is the golf swing. And he's basically what he was focusing on was you know, that as long as I'm twirling this string, that golf ball is flying in a perfect circle around this in this little sling. And if I and if I halt the twirl, the golf ball flies away. Well, that translated into the the club head, the golf shaft, and your left arm is the string. The club head is the rock. The club head is the rock, your left arm is the string, and this is the twirl of your body is the twirl. If you stop the twirl, that club's flying into the ground, it's flying out of the circle. And so basically, what he taught us to do is to continue the pivot and pivot through the ball really strong. Well, one of my videos on YouTube, actually, it's the most successful one, is called Finish Like the Pros, and I talk about how to turn left and finish your swing. And so, you know, one of the biggest flaws I see is a pivot stall. Well, he hammered finishing, he hammered finishing the swing, he hammered pivoting through it and finishing your swing with both hands connected and not coming apart. You know, sometimes you'll see somebody's right hand and their finish come off the golf club. Well, that was a sign that the backside never got through the ball. So ever since then, if you ask me, Greg, you gotta hit this green to save your life with a seven iron from the middle of the fairway. My only biggest thought is gonna be finish with both hands connected. And that's gonna ensure that I finish the pivot properly and get off the backside and finish the swing. So I I can't even begin to tell you how much I learned from him. I cannot begin to tell you um what a great teacher he is and was. And uh my understanding is that he is now a fly fishing guide in Bozeman, Montana. He's probably teaching people how to sling a fly rod just perfectly.

SPEAKER_02 11:58

How old is Floyd today?

SPEAKER_00 12:00

Gosh, he must be mid-80s, upper eighties.

SPEAKER_02 12:06

You know, interesting. You mentioned that he taught baseball, thought uh, and and guys could play basketball. Yes, I think I think I think motion is motion. When you look at an athletic motion, you you just know. That's right. Right when you see someone sprinting, someone swimming uh efficiently, it it just looks correct, it looks fluid. Yes, which prompts me to say motion is lotion.

SPEAKER_00 12:36

There you go. I like that. Well, we we studied uh Nolan Ryan's pitching motion. Yeah, no and Nolan Ryan's pitching motion is one of the most efficient athletic moves in all the sports ever.

SPEAKER_02 12:48

We also 90 mile per hour fastball.

SPEAKER_00 12:52

Yeah, he threw a no-hitter when he was 45 years old.

SPEAKER_02 12:56

Um, so it also reminds me of another chap by the name of Tim Linsicum.

SPEAKER_00 13:02

I know Tim, yes. Um, how about we also studied uh if you remember tennis back then, one of the great tennis players was Jimmy Connors left-hand. So Jimmy Connors two-handed backhand for a left-hander in tennis, his two-handed backhand was a perfect golf swing. It was a perfect golf swing. So he had this eye for athletic motion. And um man, I I know that was a community college. I was there for one year. We had 10 kids on the team. Every kid on that team eventually got a D1 scholarship somewhere.

SPEAKER_02 13:41

You know, you talk about good eye.

Old School Eyes With New Tools

SPEAKER_02 13:44

I want to ask you, what do you think about how golf is taught today compared to the good old days? Butch Harmon used to say, I use two track men, and he points to his right eye and his left eye.

SPEAKER_00 13:58

I you know what? I have that in me. I'm I'm that old school kind of guy that still uses the new tools. The you the new tools for me are verification. I've got to I've got to see the motion, I've got to hear the sound, and I've got to see the ball fly. Not only that, when I work with somebody, I tell them that everything we do here on the practice tee has to apply to play. It has to apply to play. And if you can't do this under pressure when the when the chips are down and the money's on the line, then it's not worth a damn. I mean, it's got it's gotta hold up. And so I think you have to hear it. You have to, you have to have some, you have to know this person and get to know them and their personality and their style. And it's it's what I call true coaching and not just instruction. So that's why I think I kind of have this unique perspective as um, you know, I played at a pretty high level, I coached at a high level. So with me, you're gonna get instruction and coaching. It has to apply to play. And um, I like the new tools, I think they're great for discovery. I think it helps to convince the student that the new move that we're trying to make is the correct move to make. Look, the numbers are saying so. So um I'm a little bit old school. I'm a little bit old school, but again, the only thing that matters in this game is that box at the end of the scorecard. And if it won't hold up, I don't care what the numbers say.

Score First Coaching Philosophy

SPEAKER_02 15:36

So flesh out your coaching philosophy.

SPEAKER_00 15:41

My coaching philosophy? Well, I coach a lot of tournament players, and so again, it has to apply to play. And so the golf swing to me is not everything. The golf swing is a tool. The golf swing is a tool, and we need it to be somewhat predictable so that you can go make great decisions, choose great targets, choose great start lines, so that you can go play golf and shoot a score. Now, when it comes to score and play, um, I'll walk you through this, and and I get a lot of dumbfounded looks sometimes because I'll tell my students, I said, now hang with me. This is some pretty complicated stuff. And I show them a scorecard, and I say, You see this box right here at the end that says total? That's the only thing that matters in this game. That's the only thing that matters. Now, there's nine boxes on the front, and there's nine boxes on the back, and I have this theory that the lower these numbers are on the in these nine boxes, and the lower these numbers are, the lower that total will be. And I get some of the craziest looks like, duh, of course. Well, what's the lowest possible number you can write on a scorecard? The lowest possible number you can write on a scorecard is a one and then a two and then a three. And the easiest place to make a one, a two, or a three is a par three. Well, par threes are huge. Well, what's different about a par three than any other iron shot? It's on a T. What does it do differently when it's on a T? It goes a little further, it spins a little more, and if you're right-handed, it has a tendency to turn right to left because the ball's in the air a little bit, and it makes the club in a more upright-oriented position. Most par threes are downhill or very front-facing. And so we started studying par threes. Well, my offense for golf, the opening line would be every hole is a par three. The object of the game is to make as many twos as possible from the three position. So on a par four, you hit one shot of transportation and then it's a par three. And on a par five, you've got two shots of transportation and then it's a par three. Where do you want to play your par three from? Well, the cool thing about par fives, when I was a college coach, a lot of coaches would go to the par threes and coach the par threes. And I just never did that. Um, I went to par fives and I went to the second shots on par fives because you have more options on a second shot on a par five than anywhere else on a golf course. The second shot on a par five is a free range ball. It's a free range ball if you want it or if you need it. You know, there's there's more than one way to get to this green in two shots from here. You can go nine iron, nine iron, or you can blast it up there by the green. But I want you to make a decision that eliminates the six, the seven, and the eight, even at the risk of eliminating the eagle three. And I want you to pressure the scorecard into either a four or five. I call it putting pressure on the scorecard. You make a decision that the only possible number is a birdie or a par. So uh that's how I teach the game. I teach the game, and then we go back to instruction. Now, what can you do that's going to make you predictable? Is it fade it, draw it, hit it high, hit it low? And I don't care how you do it as long as you know how you do it. You don't have to know how Tiger Woods did it, or Jack Nicholas did it, or Scotty Scheffler does it, or Xander Shoffley, or any of them. You don't have to know how they do it. You just have to know how you do it when the chips are down and the money's on the line and the pressure's on. And so that's how I instruct Dan Coach.

SPEAKER_02 19:40

That is that is very unique and very, very sensible.

SPEAKER_00 19:45

Yeah, I mean, it's all about here's here's the thing. And Coach Horgan put this into us. Um, there's only one reason to enter a tournament, and that's to finish first. That's why the name of the golf, my YouTube channel is finish first. Yeah, that's what I want my kids to do. All of my trophies are in storage. I don't care about my trophies. I want my kids to have trophies. And if you look at my Instagram page, I've got a lot of kids holding first place trophies. And so we um, you know, I I that's part of one of my programs, I call it Finish First Coaching. That's where we pick a tournament about two or three weeks out, and we just decide we're gonna win. I just convince them they're gonna win. And we start preparing for that golf course. We prepare for the last three holes, the first three holes on each side, and I try to put them in situations. What are you gonna do on 16 when you're up by one? What are you gonna do on 16 when you're down by one? You know, and we start preparing for those situations, and so you know, my high school kids are getting a lot of, you know, I would say upper level college coaching at a young age. And I'm hoping that when my juniors and my college players go to a tournament, that they're the most prepared, they're the smartest decision-making person on the golf course, and they've got a razor-sharp short game.

SPEAKER_01 21:12

Wow, Greg, I'd like to chime in on that. I mean, that that's uh when it comes to instruction, I have a big bone to pick with a lot of instructors because there's no symmetry between learning the X's and O's, myelinating your golf swing, and then applying it on the golf course. And that the way that you just stated it is like the most common sense thing I've heard this year. Uh so, so deceptively simple that those who are listening may hear those words and it might just go over their head. But the point of creating a functional golf swing, like you said, a repeat doesn't matter what you do. If it repeats and it's predictable. you're you're stacking the deck heavily in your favor.

SPEAKER_02 22:03

Hey I I disagree. Shouldn't the golf swing look nice? Follow some some guy on Instagram, Robert, what have you?

SPEAKER_00 22:14

Let's look at some of the others. How about some of the other sports? All right. So we mentioned Nolan Ryan, fastball. What about Greg Maddox?

SPEAKER_01 22:23

My favorite.

SPEAKER_00 22:24

What about Greg Maddox? Greg Maddox wasn't necessarily fast, but he could pitch. And there's a young man playing college football right now at the University of Alabama named Ty Simpson. He's not the biggest. He's not the fastest, but he knows how to play quarterback. So it's not necessarily how well do you hit it in practice? How well do you hit it on the driving range? It's how well can you play the game. And you've just got to have the right tools to play the game so that it's basically comes down to decision making and you know putting or short game you know how do you score at the end of the hole? So my my philosophy is also is like how about this? I call it my offensive coordinator system. So in football every Saturday and Sunday we see a guy on the sidelines. He's got on reading glasses, a headset, and a chart that looks like a Waffle House menu. He's the offensive coordinator. Okay. His job is to move the team down the field without penalty and get into the scoring zone and either kick a field goal or score a touchdown and either of those is okay. And he can do that a number of different ways. He can change his personnel groupings. He can put a pant man in motion he could run the ball throw the ball throw a deep ball throw a short ball run reverses. He can do all kinds of things as long as he scores points. Well that's our job as golfers is to move our ball from the team ground to the scoring ground and turn three shots into two that's the guy that wins every Sunday is the guy that turns three shots into two more than everybody else.

SPEAKER_01 24:08

Well that's what Scotty does.

SPEAKER_00 24:10

Oh he's unbelievable. I mean I got a little bit lucky that that was my first video but that's what was going on and Floyd Horgan taught me a long time ago that we should always grip the club right here in front of us when it's in its lightest position not when it's laying down on the ground. And so I started watching Scotty and I was like golly he and I have the same walk-in and like here's and not only that he's using a trainer grip. He practices with a trainer grip on a seven art here's the world's best ball striker that some say might have the best face control we've ever seen and he's working on grip fundamental number one he's working on grip every single day. And I just think it's beautiful I think it's beautiful that the world's best ball hitter and the best player is always working on his grip.

Grip Matchups And Clubface Control

SPEAKER_02 25:03

To that point Greg can you talk a little bit about the trend of matchups where yeah you know you've got a strong grip it's okay if you match it up with something else. Can you talk a little bit about that?

SPEAKER_00 25:15

Well I think that's something you have to study within every player and that's something that track man can't necessarily decide all the time I have to have a Flight Scope X3 so I mean I think if launch monitors are it's kind of like a soft drink is a Coke it's like a you know a launch monitor is track man. Track man can't track man can't identify athletic ability hand eye coordination and movement the way we can see it with our eyes. And so you know I am very reluctant to change a grip unless it's functionally necessary. My if if you ask me what my swing philosophy is I want you to have a the lowest rate of club face closure you can possibly have when pressure is on. So can you keep that club face still? I don't care if you do it with a weak grip or a strong grip. And I don't know if you've ever seen Heath Slocum's grip but my God he was a four nickel four knuckle left hand grip. And I had coaches say what are you going to do about that grip? I said I'm not doing anything about that grip. He's an all-American his daddy's a PGA professional and he's never changed it. I'm not changing it. I'm watching his ball fly and he gets it better than everybody out here. So you know there's you can talk about matchups but every individual is different. Every athlete is carved and moves a little bit different and that's what I call them. They're athletes and you know and it's a hand-eyed sport but it's still a very athletic motion and it's what can you do to keep the club face still through the hitting zone so that you have a low rate of club face closure. So I think I don't think there's anything that you can say is textbook anymore. What's textbook? I don't know uh what wins you know what's winning who would have ever thought that the Scotty Shuffle with his feet would produce the greatest face control we've ever seen so you know we talk about matchups all the time and I just how do you deliver it? How do you consistently deliver it squarely and how how can you consistently deliver it squarely when the pressure's on there is no one size fits all to that point so golf is not gymnastics where you you get points for style why do you think people are so caught up with how their swing looks and this concept of symmetry the head's got to be centered the ball's got to be in a certain position the feet have to be square the the takeaway path has to be square can't be too inside can't be too outside that's just don't you miss the days of Ed Fiore or Curtis Strand and Miller Barber and Don January and like if if these guys could see these golf swings back how about Bruce Litsky where is today where is today's Bruce Litsky you're not going to see one unless he is an absolute he would have to stay as far away from a golf instructor as he possibly could to be a modern day Bruce Litsky because every instructor in the world is going to try to change that. And it would take a very special coach to say you know what that little inside over the top move works pretty good. I'm not messing with it. And not many not many instructors can stay out of that can stay can keep their hands off. And um I guess I was blessed at a young age in my late 20s to have a guy that had this big strong grip that was a three time all American and has won five times on tour and got a battlefield promotion that I never messed with his grip. Why would I mess with his grip?

Social Media Perfection Trap

SPEAKER_00 29:00

I don't want to change his average so you know and I think I think I think social media YouTube and and Instagram and all of the access to information has um has has built this culture of perfection like we want it to look perfect. But that doesn't get it in the hole that doesn't get it in the hole and I think there's I have to call uh coach my high schoolers and my college players a lot on this expectation of perfection that does not exist. Tour players only hit 60% of the fairways they only hit 62% of the greens they only get it up and down out of a bunker 48% of the time they're not perfect. But if you're going to play on tour I always felt like this was my belief that if I ever got out there, I'm going to get hot five or six weeks a year and make most of my money in five or six weeks I am not going to be perfect every week. And if I keep chasing perfection I might just chase myself right off the tour. So how many times has that happened well I've seen it here locally you know when somebody's a a draw style hitter and then they get out on tour and everybody tell hey you've got to hit a fade out here you got to hit a fade out here where you just drew you just drawed yourself right off the tour. You know you're not who you are anymore. That's the guy that won 12 times in college and was a H A G A all American and now you get out on tour and you're going to change it.

SPEAKER_02 30:32

So um I think there's speaking on that Greg that happens more often than people think.

SPEAKER_00 30:40

That's right. There's so many they get out there and they feel like they have to mold with what everybody else is doing. And I get it you know TV the networks when you watch a a championship anymore you're going to see so many shot tracers and you see most of them are left to right. So everybody thinks they got to play left to right left to right left to right well if that's not who you are then don't be left to right. Who you are is probably good enough to get in a hunt five or six times a year and make most of your money five or six times a year. So do you want to fit in with everybody else or do you want to win? You know it's you have to make that choice. And I think there's numerous guys that get out there and they start looking around and going hmm this is I'm not like these guys they're a little bit they all hit it left to right and I hit it right to left or they all hit it high and I hit it low. Well hit it low and play good in Texas.

SPEAKER_02 31:37

Like Lee Trevino and Hubert Green.

SPEAKER_00 31:40

Yeah where are those guys I mean we could make a list of the legends of the game and none of them even fit in the same box at all. Not even close how about back then when there was Tom Pertzer remember Tom Perzer oh yeah what a great swing. He didn't win very much he won a few times but not very much yeah he hit it hard too long.

SPEAKER_01 32:04

Yeah I think of I think about great strikers you know Nick Price is probably my favorite and he was a big drawball guy. That's right and and and and then the opposite is I mean today my favorite is Scotty Scheffler and Scotty borderline hits a slice and uh but that's what's natural to him. And I I think that what's missing gents a lot is taking what a student a young man a kid does naturally and just expanding on that. I mean Justin and I talk about Jim Furick and his dad all the time. I mean all the time.

SPEAKER_02 32:43

What a great example Mike should be inducted into the Hall of Fame along with Randy Smith. For what they didn't do.

SPEAKER_01 32:51

Not so much what they did but what they didn't do is interfere.

SPEAKER_00 32:55

Well here's you know that and there's also a big difference between I'm I am blessed that I am just old enough that I played a persimmon driver in college and then now we've progressed in today's modern equipment. Well golf used to be a spin game it's not as much a spin game as it used to be and I will say that for me to hit a draw these days feels like yesteryear's hook swing. It feels like a hook swing for me to make it turn right to left. And so I think when the ball quits spinning as much and the equipment quit spinning as much we took a lot of natural gifts away from a lot of players well said I agree. The uh the skill the skills of the players yester of yesteryear due to yesteryear's equipment was I mean incredible absolutely incredible well you couldn't get uh how about Paul Azinger and Lanny Watkins what if those two played in the same group today like my gosh uh they're the Bruce Lizkies of the world you know just you just don't see it anymore and I get it we're building better athletes they're stronger they're more swing educated at a young age um they get they get they don't they really don't have five minutes to make a mistake anymore or to get into a bad habit because they're so closely monitored but I think at the same time we're we're manufacturing we're manufacturing players and we're not we're not allowing athletes to become athletes like we used to Justin thoughts on that I think I think it's a case of knowing too much and then not understanding the factors of success right you think the golf swing leads to success then you look at guys like Jim Fury are like gosh maybe you don't need to be perfect.

SPEAKER_02 35:03

Maybe it's not just the golf swing maybe it's the short game maybe it's strategy maybe it's something else and I think the problem with the proliferation of social media you you get flooded with examples of what you think are barometers of success.

SPEAKER_00 35:24

And when we talk about tournament golf the average guy watching only can only see highlights of a swing highlights of putts that's all they see attract so I don't know if if um I have YouTube TV and that's kind of like my cable provider these days and like Saturdays and Sundays if I don't get to watch the coverage I'll come home at night and watch highlights and there might be 43 shots that they're gonna show here's 43 highlights from today's coverage 33 of them are putts or short game it's incredible how social media is flooded with swing swing swing swing but when you watch the highlights and what wins it's putting it's short game it's wedges um I'll never forget when Jason Day Jason Day won the Bahill Classic seven or eight years ago he hit it in 12 bunkers that week he got up and down 10 times one time he didn't get up and down and then the other time he holed it he played those 12 bunker shots in 24 shots and one by one everybody wants to look at his swing so you know maybe maybe swing gets you in position to take advantage of short game but I think it here as we sit here today in October of 2025 swing is overrated short game is underrated pitching and chipping and distance wedges is underrated and perfection is overrated get the ball in the hole however you have to do it so boys are well said one thing I I will mention about Scotty is how good is Scotty's wedge play I mean it is a joke how good his wedge play is nobody really talks about that.

Why Wedges Decide Tournaments

SPEAKER_00 37:24

It's face control oh it's face he keeps the face so still that he can control the distance better than everybody else he can move it left to right he can even draw a wedge when he wants to but his face control is impeccable but we go right back to the fundamentals of grip when everybody else is working on transition and pivot and pressure shifting like it's still a fundamental he is keeping the face still that face is still through the hitting zone and basically I guess short game distance wedges is almost like ball in hand. If you had the ball in your hand you wouldn't be flipping your hand around all over the place you'd be lobbing it with your right hand still an extension you'd still be an extension and he does that better than anybody but I think a lot of that success is attributed to the fact that he hammers grip all the time and he does whatever his his body does whatever his body has to do to keep that face still. As I well said I'll tell you what a little bit yeah sorry go ahead I'll tell you what made a difference for me as a coach is I was in my fifth year at the University of South Alabama and I had this beautiful team and we're going to these 15 team fields and we're finishing sixth or seventh and I'm wondering like what in the world like we're the best looking team out there. We look like pros with the way we go about our business the way we do our routines and just you could just tell by the way my team walked down the fairway that that's a pretty good golf team right there. Well I got frustrated one year we're playing in the University of Tennessee's tournament in Knoxville and after two days we were in seventh place and I'm thinking there's not two teams here better than us. Why are we in seventh place? So I went to the bookstore I got frustrated took them back to the hotel after dinner went to the bookstore and I was going to go in this bookstore and I'm gonna buy something like it's gotta be me. It's got to be me there's something I'm not giving them and uh how to coach golf for dummies or maybe it's the psychology of golf. What is it that I'm not giving them well there wasn't a great selection but I did walk out with Dave Pelp's short game Bible and I thought I was going to find out how important chipping and putting was which I already knew and about two thirds of the way through the book he finally said it he said the only part of the game that correlates directly with money one is wedge performance. The best wedge players are winning the most money and at that time that could have been Tom Kite Paul Sevi people like that Calvin Pete and I went you know what that's the part we're skipping. And it's kind of like you know when you go in a casino the best bet in a casino is the one you can't see you know the best bet in casino is the one that's not available to you. It's on the craps table when you play the pass line with odds it doesn't tell you that that's available you just have to know it. Well every driving range there's not a 50 yard sign there's not a 75 yard sign. The first sign you ever see is 100 and then 150 usually and so we were skipping those distance wedges so when we came back from that trip our conference championship was in two weeks I told my team we're gonna hit wedges for 16 hours a week because it's a D1 level you can supervise practice your team for 20 hours. I said look my practice is from one to five I have to leave at five it gets dark at 730 you can hit all the drivers you want after I leave we're hitting wedges we're hitting wedges we're hitting wedges well the conference championship came around and after round one we're trailing by two after round two we're trailing by two round three all that wedge work hit we shot 18 under and one by 17 shots well the very next year guess what we're hitting wedges and at little old South Alabama over here I had two and a half scholarships or everybody else had four and a half my recruiting budget was $192 $192 was and basically that was three rooms at the Hilton as part of a basketball advertising package it wasn't even real money um we hit wedges and we hit wedges and we hit wedges well if you play in a 15 team tournament and you win it you just went 14 and oh that week if you finished second you went 13 and one we led the nation in wins we led the nation in tournament victories we led the nation in birdies and that's when LSU came calling and then when I got to LSU they were number 84 in the country and in 20 months we were in the top five yes I added a player but we hit wedges after wedges after wedge after wedge after wedge we had an answer for every number and it got to the place that if I had you for about six months if you had a distance wedge in your hand it might sound like Tom Brady calling a play in the huddle it's a it's a grip down 56 uh it's a grip down slightly open 56 nine o'clock with a one-to-one rhythm well we got so advanced at hitting distance wedges that if we hit one outside 10 feet we were disappointed and I think this is an area that all golfers across all levels are too satisfied with an 18 to 20 footer from 75 yards. They hit it on the green 15 or 18 feet and they're okay with it. Well I think we are gifted enough as humans with a club in our hand that we can control the distance a little bit better than 15 or 18 feet. Now if you got east-west problems left and right problems with a wedge then we need to go back to the practice T. But we have 14 clubs in our bag for distance control and these wedges are the area where we can control the distance and get it to eight feet. This is where Pell said or this is what we know back then that on tour if you make an eight footer you pick up half a shot. Well that means they make 50% of them so as soon as you get it to eight feet there's a 50% chance you just turn three shots into two and eight feet's not really eight feet because you got short and long. So now you got five and a third yards of distance if you can get it in that five and a third yards from 50 60 73 84 92 There's a 50% chance you just turn three shots into two.

Building A Wedge Matrix That Travels

SPEAKER_02 44:05

So what's the practice routine for this wedge matrix?

SPEAKER_00 44:11

So first we we have to get beta numbers first. So I do believe in the clock system. And basically every everybody's got a full. Everybody knows their full numbers. The first one we master is the nine o'clock position.

SPEAKER_02 44:28

Nine o'clock in relation to the club shaft, left arm, left arm.

SPEAKER_00 44:33

Left arm at nine o'clock. And for most people, that's just a nice full hinge. That's the L shape, you know. Um, so let's master nine and get your nine. So what we do is we just hit balls into an open area, we and we get to where we they're starting to stack up and and get into a nice little circle, and then we go shoot those numbers, and let's say it's 55. Then we go out on the golf course and we drop a ball at 55 yards, and then we hit a few. And well, is it 55 or 54? We need to know that. Is it 55 or 57? We need to know that because that's three feet or six feet, and we want to get it inside eight feet every time. So then we start building this chart of numbers, and so that you have, let's say you got a pitching wedge, a gap wedge, a sand wedge, and a lob wedge. There's four. You've got a nine o'clock swing, then we teach 10:30, and everybody has a full. You've got four wedges times three swings. You've got 12 stock numbers now, not four.

SPEAKER_02 45:34

So you got okay. So nine o'clock, 10:30, and 12 uh and full soon.

SPEAKER_00 45:40

And full.

SPEAKER_02 45:41

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 45:42

Um, no, I'm not not everybody can stick their left arm straight up in the sky like Davis Love or Scotty Shefford. You know, right? So sometimes our full is actually about 11. You just need something between nine and full. I call it for me, myself, and I, just past nine, because my backswing's not as long as it used to be. I've had some shoulder work done and it just doesn't stretch as far. But basically, I've got three swings, four wedges. I've got 12 stock numbers. Now we go grip down, I get 12 more numbers. I go grip down slightly open, I get 12 more numbers. I go burner, which is move it back, and I go firm, which is increase the grip pressure, say from six to nine or six to eight. And that firm will beat an elevated green, a slight breeze, or maybe a bad lie. It just gives it a stronger hit in case you need it. So my guys had a chart, everybody had a chart, but their stock wedges and their grip downs, they're slightly opens and they're firms. So basically, you had 60 numbers that you had an answer for specifically for a number. But let's say you've got 61 yards and your nine o'clock 56 goes 60. I'm not changing that. I'm not trying to, I'm not going to try to pick up one yard by making an adjustment. You know, I want to I just want to make sure I get it to 60. And over the course of time, I just think that anybody that can stand up and hit a golf ball has enough human, God-gifted ability that we can control the distance and get it closer than we ever thought we could.

SPEAKER_02 47:27

Will that be the subject of one of your future YouTube videos?

SPEAKER_00 47:34

Yes, that's uh I think I want to do that one as a live lesson. Um, because I could do this one, I could do this one for a long time. This could be a long, it could be a long video or it's gonna be a series. But we have it, Greg.

SPEAKER_02 47:50

YouTube produce a short game video that you can put up for sale.

SPEAKER_00 47:56

I think that would be very well received. Well, see, if you watch my turn three shots into two, um, I basically gave everybody three techniques. I gave them the chip button, and I'm I'm gonna make this shot famous. I call it the rib rider. You gotta watch turn three shots into two to learn the rib rider, where basically you just put your elbows at your ribs, you turn right, and you turn left on a one, two beat, and you can hit every pitch, every chip, you can hit lobs, you can hit, I can hit a 60 degree that goes three feet in the air and goes all the way across the green, and it's in control with that same technique. So it's a pitching and chipping technique, the the chip putt, and then the bunker technique. And if you have these three, keep in mind I'm trying to prepare tournament players. Like I need you to be able to get, I need you to have these three techniques so you can go on the road and play. And so the rib rider is going to be famous one day. Good to hear. So short game, you know, again, you look around the internet, you look around YouTube, you rarely see a putting video unless it's Brad Faxon. You rarely see a putting video. You'll see a few short game videos. You'll see Bob Mayo out there a little bit. And, you know, maybe every teacher or every instructor puts one out there.

Short Game Project 25 Homework

SPEAKER_00 49:24

But if you come see me, I um, especially if you're a tournament player and we work on a short game, your homework is what I'm gonna call short game project 25 for the year 25. I want you to hit 25 bump and runs, 25 pitches or chips, 25 lobs, and 25 bunker shots. That's a hundred reps that'll take you less than an hour. And if you do that twice a week, that's 1,600 reps in two months. How good would your short game be in two months if you did that twice a week? And it covers all the bases. I don't care how good you hit it because I don't care what they say, tour pros are still only hitting 12 greens around. They're that number has not changed, they're still only hitting 12 greens around. So, and and and we're never gonna achieve perfection T to green. So you may as well learn how to score. It's old school coaching. It really is old school coaching, you know, muscle.

SPEAKER_02 50:28

We love old old school, old school coaching. It it's it it you know, when when we listen to guys like Pete Cowan, Butch Harmon, Claude Harmon, these are some of the most some of the winningest coaches on tour. And yet they still teach in an old school fashion, just like how you described. I kind of feel that golf instruction is coming back full circle. Yeah, we've gone down the route of radar, uh, pressure plates, but you know what? PGA tour average kind of still the same. Players are not shooting 58, 59 regularly, despite the advances in technology. We know everything there is to know about the golf string, but that has not really translated into a lower lower PGA tour average. Sure, I get that golf courses are getting longer, but I could also say that equipment is getting better.

SPEAKER_00 51:35

Yes. Yes, I wonder, you know, today, if you're a pretty serious 15 to 22-year-old, you're gonna have a set of clubs that's perfectly fit for you. Back when I grew up, dad bought you a driver and said, Here's your driver. You know, you just had to learn how to hit it. And then you become an athlete and you learn how to go play golf instead of making trying to make perfect swings. And I'm glad to see it's coming back to full circle because coaching is coaching is also um, well, I'll tell

Knowing When Not To Coach

SPEAKER_00 52:09

you a story. When I was coaching in South Alabama, we won Augusta State's tournament one year in Augusta, Georgia. Big event. The number one team in the country was there. We beat a lot of SCC and ACC schools. And when I came back, my athletic director wanted to talk to me. He said, Well, well, tell me about it. You know, what what'd you do? I called him coach. I said, Coach, I didn't do anything. I just made sure they had a Gatorade in a Snickers bar and they were having fun because they were playing good and I just stayed out of the way. He said, Well, sometimes being a great coach is knowing when not to coach. And I think sometimes I think young instructors are so enthusiastic about communicating what they know that they don't know when to say nothing. And, you know, sometimes athlete doesn't need a grip change or a swing change. Maybe he needs to learn how to hit a fade or hit it high or hit it low. Maybe he needs to identify how he hits those shots. He needs to know how he does it. So he doesn't necessarily need to change to get perfect, he just needs to know how he does it. And to me, that's old school coaching.

SPEAKER_01 53:17

Sounds like common sense coaching to me.

SPEAKER_00 53:21

Well, it's it's it's filtered. I mean, and I tell my students a lot of times, lucky for you, I came along at a time when it was a little bit old school. All we had is VHS, and sometimes maybe you ran across somebody who knew how to draw lines on the screen to give you the elbow plane, the shaft plane, and the shoulder plane, or the spine angle and things like that. But um it is I I filtered through it. I have filtered through it. And and Justin, we you know, we mentioned off the air uh Ron Green, one of the most highly respected coaches in the country. And if you ever take a lesson from Ron and I love him to death, and he's one of my best buddies and my mentor, there's a lot of big time jargon. There's a lot of kinesiology, there's a lot of biomechanics in this, in this, in the swinging. And so I was blessed enough that I knew how to filter that down and dumb it down for me. I had to dumb it down for me. So that's you know, we're taking this really complicated game with all this science, all the biomechanics, and all the numbers, and we've got to communicate it to adults like they're in the fifth grade. We've got to communicate it on a fifth grade level so that they can retain it, remember it, and know how to do it.

SPEAKER_02 54:38

Well said. Any last questions for Greg, Jesse?

SPEAKER_01 54:44

No, this has just been a very enjoyable conversation, Greg. I really appreciate you coming on and your insights, and uh and it is we're uh we're big fans of old school. You know, we like to compare it to just common sense, and I and I'll make one comment before I close it out. That with everything that we have available to us, what how old was Jim when he shot 58? Jim Fuhrer was what, 48? 47 or 48, he won a PGA tour event. I mean he missed a putt for 57. Jim Fuhrer fired 58 out there and won a tour event in his late 40s.

SPEAKER_02 55:27

I think it was the RBC, I think. And then he shot a 59 again in another event. So he shot 58 and 59 in two separate tour events. No one else can say that that they've done the same, and that includes the pretty golf swings out there.

SPEAKER_00 55:45

I want to give you a crazy stat about Jim Furick, and I don't know what the number is now, but it wasn't too many years ago. The number was 192. 192 bogey free rounds on the PGA tour. 192 bogey free rounds in competition on the PGA tour. That's phenomenal. Now, think about that swing. 192 bogey free rounds.

SPEAKER_02 56:15

But but no one has asked me, hey coach, can you teach me how to swing like Jim Fury or Colin Montgomery for that matter? Yep.

SPEAKER_00 56:24

Right. Unbelievable. The beauties of the game. Well, I'm so glad you guys invited me on. Um I I know are you in the Pebble Beach area?

SPEAKER_01 56:36

I am. Yeah, I'm in the Monterey, on the Monterey Peninsula, Greg.

SPEAKER_00 56:40

I've never played there. I've got heaven. I have recruited out there when I was in college uh or college coaching, but I've never played Pebble, and that's a uh that is definitely a bucket list thing that needs to happen. Because I have a 24-year-old son that plays golf, and I keep telling him we got to go play Pebble while I can still hit it a little bit.

SPEAKER_01 57:00

Amen.

SPEAKER_02 57:01

Yep, we'd welcome you out. Hey Greg, I'm so thankful that you spend your morning with

Where To Find Greg Jones

SPEAKER_02 57:07

us. Can you tell our listeners where to find you on YouTube and Instagram?

SPEAKER_00 57:12

That's right. On uh Instagram, it's Greg JonesGolf Official, and on YouTube it's Finish First with Coach Greg Jones, and I am the director of instruction at Steelwood Country Club in Loxley, Alabama, which is about 30 minutes north of the prettiest beaches in the country that most people don't know about Gulf Shores and Orange Beach. So I'm here in South Alabama, it's still 70 degrees in late October. I've got a great teaching facility. If you want to come work with me, come on. If not, you can send me an email to Greg at gregjonesgolf.com. I use the Coach Now app and it's pretty easy to work together. Um, but would love to have you come down and um come see me and let's work together. My my goal is for everybody to shoot their lowest scores consistently.

SPEAKER_02 58:03

Amen to that. Thank you so much, Greg. Thank you.