We made it to Episode 49 of the Behind the Golf Brand Podcast. In this week's episode, I interview my good friends Jon Sinclair from TPT Golf Shafts.
TPT shafts change the rules. They’re made with Continuous Fiber, an automated manufacturing process that makes our shafts incredibly precise. Jon Sinclair is one of the most sought-after experts in capturing and interpreting cutting-edge golf swing data. Along with his experience fitting the best golfers in the world, Sinclair brings TPT the latest tools for quantifying performance, including how different design parameters change a golfer’s motion pattern.
We made it to Episode 49 of the Behind the Golf Brand Podcast. In this week's episode, I interview my good friends Jon Sinclair from TPT Golf Shafts.
TPT shafts change the rules. They’re made with Continuous Fiber, an automated manufacturing process that makes our shafts incredibly precise. Jon Sinclair is one of the most sought-after experts in capturing and interpreting cutting-edge golf swing data. Along with his experience fitting the best golfers in the world, Sinclair brings TPT the latest tools for quantifying performance, including how different design parameters change a golfer’s motion pattern.
Today we play golf. Let me show you how we do it in the pros. Welcome to behind the golf grand podcast. I've never missed with the seven nine a conversation with some of the most interesting innovators and entrepreneurs behind the biggest names in golf. My friends were the golf clubs. I lived on the golf course. I lived on the driving range from pro talk. You should learn something each and every single round you play to fun from on and off the green. Why would you play golf? You don't play it for money. Just let me put the ball in the hole. This is behind the golf brand podcast with Paul libertory behind the golf brand podcast is sponsored by OnPoint. The revolutionary three-dimensional dome golf ball marker on point provides alignment recognition as small as a degree of inaccuracy from the planned course of the putt face angle endorsed by Jim Furich us open champion and 17 time PGA tour winner on point alignment technology has been proven to increase putting performance and help lower your score. Visit OnPoint golf dot U S, and be sure to use code[inaudible] for a 10% discount on point, make more putts
Speaker 2:What's up guys, Paul from golfers authority. Welcome to the behind the call brand podcast. This week, I have a good friend of mine, a legend in the training and mental game. And also the part of the mind I would say, or part of the brain of the new TPT shafts, uh, TPT golf is one of the hottest shaft brands like literally blowing up right now. Um, I've been really lucky to test some of their shafts are amazing, and I'm really excited to have Johnson Clare on the show today to talk about his career, about what kind of, how he grew up in the golf game and then about the TPT shaft. So I'm really excited to talk about this today, cause you know, I just, I think he's the first chef called my a Pat on the show. You've met all the shop companies. So it's really kind of cool because I feel like shafts are, they don't get the treatment they deserve, uh, in a call club early. They're like everyone thinks about the head. So without further ado, welcome to the show. Well, I appreciate you having me. We've been trying to do this for a while. I know, right? Yeah. You're busy though. Man. You're training. You're meeting the players. You're you're busy, man. I mean, I'm just excited to have you here. So where are you located in the DFW area? Right by the airport in a city called ulous. So trading between Dallas and Fort worth and the city called us and I'm on a golf course called Texas star. So I'm buildings on the back of their driving. Oh, that's cool. So are you in your studio then? Right now? Looks like that's a nice video. I like this is the, uh, yeah, this is my, uh, putting area of the second day. And then I have actually you on that side, we can still hit out. And then the other room over there, we have a, my main teaching Bay and then offices on the other side. So it's a nice building that we built here and we're thankful that the city of EULAs allowed me to build this place and I've been here for 13 years and probably be retired. I love it for ELLs because I guess my like I'm in my garage. Right. But it looks pretty nice garage. Yeah. It's called COBIT garage. That's what happens like at home I'm like, I want to, I'm going to finish my garage and not park in there anymore. I have a big garage. So like I made half my garage and do like a studio and golf area. I don't have enough room for a simulator though. My wife will let me do that. I'm trying. But I think my dream is to have like a studio, like what you have at a golf course and like rent one out or I don't really know how they do that, but you know, like it's like a car wreck shields does it on YouTube. Like he has his own, you know, Bay and it's like, that'd be sick. That'd be really cool. But yours looks nice. I was like, Oh, that's probably the nicest backgrounds I've seen most people there. I was like, Oh yeah, I'm in my office. You know? Yeah. This one was nice. So we painted it up and if I show you the other side right now, it's a mess. If you look Nancy, I got, yeah, I got shafts everywhere. And you see bicycles and you know, attraction, but, so what, what's your first golf memory? Like how long have you been like playing? Like what do you remember was your first time? My first golf memory think back is I was my best friend when I was small. I don't really remember the age, but you know, fairly small, certainly in single digits he played golf and I didn't play golf and there was no way I was going to let him play golf and then me not play golf. So I remember he belonged to a club there in Dallas, we called it Glen lakes. And so I got to start playing there, Glen lakes. And that was, uh, lucky enough. That's where Trevino was at the time. And yeah, we got to watch him a lot. And uh, really the relationship from there still to this day, you know, I still see him occasionally and get to talk to him and he still plays over there. No likes is gone now, but I see him at different places that I go, you know, he's still bounces around here in Dallas at different clubs. I'll run into him and he's out at Palm Springs a lot. So I go out there, uh, quite often and I'll run into him out there. Some places, just different places. And uh, still, we still chat even to this day, still very giving of his time when I seen him just, just to chat with him for a little bit. And so he's always just been awesome. So that's, you know, he's the first golf memory of a pro of me watching with a real pro, like right, right. And he didn't mind if we sat there and watched him and uh, unlike some, but you just said, so that's a different time, right? Like, Oh yes. Like I wish it was like that now, now it's like, you have handlers and it's a business I'm before a big bubble, you know, like keep you at Bay, which, you know, and I understand being a tour coach too, is, is you gotta keep all that bass player just for the distraction, you know, used to now with today in all the different social media and you know, the time demand is, is really huge on these players. So, um, they're all pretty much always on camera, right? Like always right. It was like that 20 years ago. No, they could, they could escape. Even if people were there watching them, they were recording them. It wasn't gonna be live and be like, Oh, so-and-so is doing a bad job of the range today, you know? And no one knew, but maybe some kids watching them. Yeah. I think he touched that ball. I know he touched that maybe one double or something. So when you, did you like, like play in high school and then in college and like did the whole thing, or I played in high school, uh, Burtner high, uh, graduated in 83. I think the dates be pretty good and, uh, didn't really care much for college. I was more of an outdoors guy, so I had a chance I could have played at a couple of places and just turn it down and, and really just wanted to go work. So, and I wanted to be a professional golfer and the way I could do that was go earn money and work and then play. And then I could go play. So I became like an electrician and HPAC licensed plumbing lines. So, you know, when I was 20, I was an electrician. So I worked for a company and then met my wife and got married and woke up one day and I said, it's time to go play golf. And that was in 1991 or something like that. I think that was 92 maybe and started playing professional golf and learn a lot about clubs and stuff like that. And then I remember I wake up in 2000 and said, ah, I don't want to do this anymore. I'm sick of traveling and going to all these places and seeing golf course. So one of my goals was to see all the States in the USA and to go to all the different continents. So we set out on that little track. And so I've been all the 50 States now, and I've seen things instead of just playing golf in these, these places. And you know, here in Texas, we got great golf courses. So I want to go play golf. I can play golf here. And then I'm at one of the best golf courses in Texas now. So as far as the public facility, so, you know, I can go play here. Even when I'm on the road. Now people say, Oh right. You went to Augusta or you went to there and I'm like, yeah, it was on the driving range as grass tree. Cool places. Yeah. I go down to, I visit my buddy, uh, Jeff, Leesman a lot in Florida and he's at this great golf course, dive preserve. And I think I've been on the actual course, like one time, the front nine or something and the rest of, and we've, we've known each other for, I don't know, 12 years or 13 years. I've been working together with him. And most times I just see as driving room and then I fly home. So that's not fun. I want to go, you know, look at the places, see different things. And, and now I've got two continents left and our wife only has the one, Antarctica is one of them where we're trying to plan out one out. And then, uh, Australia she's been to Australia. I haven't. So you were an electrician and then like, were you like playing just for fun or were you doing like Pro-Am stuff or are you doing, you know, like, uh, amateur I was working. I was certainly, yeah. I was still playing and playing amateur stuff and no, I always loved golf. That's what I wanted to do. So I just had to yeah. The family and make money. Yeah. I make enough money to, uh, you know, to actually do it on my own. I didn't want to sponsor or anything like that. So I just saved and saved and saved. And as soon as I got fully invested in the company that I was working for, I said, well, it's time to go. And, uh, cashed it out. You know, we just went and played golf. Then when I quit playing, we built a driving range here in Cleveland, Texas, real 10 cuts, kind of a thing. And you really build a driving range. Yeah. We bought some land there. No, just me and my wife at the time, my dad was still alive. And so I said, well, would you come and help us? And he was just kind of retired most around and, and that's the sad part about it. We built it. And then just when we opened it, he passed away. And so that all that fell on us. So we had to do everything for seven years and teach and pick the balls. And we sold tons of clubs out of this little, literally it was a 12 by 12 shack. I mean, 10 cups place was pretty nice compared to what we were dealing with. I probably had better grass than he did, but he had a nicer building, but that's a tough shed. You're like doing like literally, yeah. It was like a, like a little barn[inaudible] Oh yeah, yeah. A little note, a little window unit that we had in there. And I remember that very hot, the Callaway rep. I remember the first time and we've become great friends to this day, but he came by to close me down and he pulls up to the little shed, this, this little white building. And he's like, you know, Callaway, can't be in here. This is ridiculous. Then he walks in and we got like$40,000 worth of inventory. And he looks at the sales and he's like going Holy cow. And so we've been friends every time because we were selling the crack golf clubs there. Why, why do you think that is? Maybe I was good at it. You're honest, you're a straight shooter and recommending stuff that actually worked for people. And I was willing to, we invested in the demos, you know, back then you had gluten heads. So, you know, I might have 15 drivers of one brand with different chests in it to try and really do the fittings. The way I felt was proper. And I would go down and learn. And, and the time when I was playing golf, I would go in the vans to the, to the, uh, club builders and talk to them and try to figure stuff out. So I was always interested in learning and figuring this stuff out. And, uh, that just led me down that road to fitting. And I could see as I started teaching that if that club's not right, why do I want to fight it as a coach? You know? And I still have that to this day. You know, somebody comes in here for lessons. If it's a, club's not right, we're going to get to a new club or I'm not going to teach because I'm not going to sit here and teach you a swing. That would be good with a club that doesn't work, you know, for that swing. You know, we feel like, you know, my friend, Colin Swanton is Jason. Day's coach forever. He says it, you know, I need you to have a race car to drive it on the NASCAR track. I know, you know, you're not going to win in a VW. So at least let's have a finely tuned car that you can drive and use your skills, you know, to win. So the old adage of, you know, tour pros can hit anything just doesn't, it's not right. You know? Yeah. They'll figure stuff out. They'll get it around the golf course. But they're, you know, that engine is missing a few cylinders, but when you can get them, the proper club and the proper shaft and the proper Potter and the proper everything, then that's when you know that at least the car is good. Now, if you go drive, then we can work more on the little nuances of the swing or their mental capacity to get through four rounds and one, a golf trip. So you quit the HPAC company or you retired from whatever. Well, it was all one company I was working for. Actually, it was a catering company and still love them to this day. It was called industrial catering. We had like 500 trucks. So there was five of us in the maintenance idea. And there was a carpenter there, there was, I was electrician, there's HPAC guys as welders and stuff like that. And we all worked as a team and we build these places, build the boxes that you see driving around all the industrial plants. And it was like self contained. So we really got a chance to learn all kinds of stuff. And if we just wanted to build something, we'd just make it up. So we had a full machine shop and it was like probably one of the best places for anybody to ever work as a young person to go in there and have the freedom to learn and make mistakes. And you know, when you up, especially in that world, right. And we, you know, we worked, our rear ends off and, uh, I learned a ton and I learned a ton from the other guys I was working with. And hopefully they learned a little something from me. And, you know, I studied a lot, you know, going to school at night for being electric. And I didn't want to go to college. That's funny. And then I'm probably one of the most educated people outside of college, of different trades. You know, they get into shafts. I like to learn what I want to learn. Not necessarily what somebody tells me. College is overrated, man. I'm being straight. Like I went to college, I went to law school. I was like, I had a conversation. Somebody I'm like, if I was 20 years younger, I would be like, I would know I would have done any of that crap. But like you learn by doing colleges gives you opportunity. That's it? Right. It just opens a door. I don't know. That's my opinion. Well, I think that's probably true. I mean, having that degree helps not having to agree sometimes, you know, keeps me from being to go do something, but probably something I don't want to do anyway. But, but certainly, certainly just being able to have learned all, all different kinds of trades. I love that. I think it gives me pretty balanced and you know, unfortunately it also means that I'm the guy that's got to always fix the lights. I can't just call anybody. So I went, I went to college and I always do a pilot. Right. But I was like, well, I want to be a pilot. I didn't know how to be an airplane mechanic too, because something breaks. I want to know what's happening and how to fix it or whatever. But when I graduated college, I ended up getting my, like all my air, my mechanics rating for being late mechanics. So I look I'm the same way. Like I just, I like, I'm a nerd, you know, I want to learn stuff. I want know that things work. So that's just like me. Yeah. I'm definitely going to tear apart your TV and check it out. I would definitely do that. I'm not afraid to put it back together. Well, I'll get, you know, I like to put it back together. That's the hard part because you know, my favorite YouTube channel is I just found this guy. I think it's much do, but like I haven't lately, this guy will take like old electronics. It he'll like refurbish the old electronics, like a 30 minute video, like an old Nintendo or an old. And it's like, it looks brand new and it's done. And I'm like, Holy crap. And he gets millions of views. I'm like, yeah, because every person out there is like, that's what I wish I could just go do. Like, he'll break it down to all the components and clean'em. And like, I don't know. It's is really, it's interesting. Isn't it charming guy or something. I don't really know, but that's so cool. You had your own driving range. Did you sell it or what happened to it? Sold the property and, uh, they were going to turn it into something. I don't even know. I haven't been back probably houses. Yeah. And I don't know if they were going to, they were going to put little cabins and stuff on there. Cause we had a nice little pond and had 52 acres and I put some horses on there and they, they did some, some different things, but I hardly ever drive by there. So I don't even know what they actually ended up doing, but so, yeah. And then, you know, they had back then they had some oil and gas, so we kept the minerals. Thank goodness on that. So they put a gas paid on that, still oil and gas. Now that's all, I'll let get shut down pretty quick. That's a, that's a pretty quick, you know, it was nice to get it right. And then it's gone. And then the other biggest thing, the acid I'll tell you right now, because I do a lot of like trusted estate stuff and I'll have these clients that pass away and I'm always a mineral gas rights in like Oklahoma or Texas. That's like the biggest pain in the to get that retitled. Like, because it's like a one, 1 million share, you know, but underground. Right. And they make like$14 a year and it's gonna cost them like$5,000 for us to do that thing. I'm like, he's a little less, like they can find oil and gas. There's a bit like, no it's tapped out, like just deal with it. So then when did you really start getting into the mental game or is that something that you, that happened when I was playing then and met Dr. Graham and John Stabler 1997. And, uh, they were actually, I did better in my last three years of playing professional, made more money than I ever did in the first four years. Shut up for real cause she, you know, and John helped me understand. I mean, you know, here I was a really good ball striker. I would hit it. Great. And then, you know, make eight birdies and shooting them and, you know, good, that's great if you want to gamble, you know, but that's not so good if you want to win tournaments. And so they taught me how to think better, how to control my emotions better. And just, what do champions actually do? What is their tiger shuts it all out? And they actually have a system that you can be tested in a simple personality profile. You've probably taken stuff somewhere. And she earned her doctorate and wrote her thesis on this study. And that's how she earned her doctorate and it was on golf. And so she tested me and I got really interested. The most mental game they're ever made. Right? Like the promotion was, he found eight traits that the champions hit in the 95th percentile. So eight personality traits that all these champions on tour her hat and they were thinking a certain way that was different than your average PGA tour player. The comparison was done only on tour players. And she started on the LPGA and then 88 and 89 went to the senior PGA and the PGA and the results were the same. So it didn't matter if you're male or female, the thought process. And so I got super interested in that. And when I decided to teach, the first thing I wanted to do is become an instructor. And so I still laugh because I say, I'm, you know, I'm their apprentice now of what is it now, 20 whatever. I don't even know what year it's 21, 21. So 24 years now, I'm still learning from them. I'm one of their master instructors. Um, I've, uh, I think there's three of us in the world that have reached that level. And so that's kinda how I got involved in the middle of game. And I, I really, I think I'm a mental game coach first, and then I'm a technical coach. Second. Although most people know me because I have this huge database of professional players in my 3d AMM system. So I've been looking at, you know, three-dimensional swing stuff since I guess, 2007 ish when we did the beta testing for the AMM, uh, with Dr. Phil T them. So it's kinda just been, uh, a transfer over to most of the people knew me from 3d when I was always a mental coach first don't you have a course, like a mental game course. We put, uh, uh, players through it. We call it the, uh, you know, it's a level one school where a player would come in on a Friday night and they'd stay the weekend. And it's about 14 hours. I don't have time to do those so much anymore. Um, but when John and I were working on these schools, we wanted to be able to coach it and teach it very similarly. We obviously both have our different styles and I come from a playing background and he's from the business and the psychological background of it. So that part, you know, we have our own styles, but I can easily send my players down to San Antonio, Burney, Texas, and know that that's going to be good. And when they come back up here, they're ready to go. And so I just don't have enough time to do it in hours in the day. Yeah. And the weekend that, you know, what's that course you have on, on your, on your website though, like the Johnson Clare website is that like the mental game, like they did like a video course or something. I thought, Oh, I have a wrist angle video. Now that, that the one on my actual websites are risk tangled video. And then yes, the mental course would be on there as well. And it's still advertised on there, but usually if you call me, I'll say, look, you know, John has one every month. If I put it together, we got to find six people and then go through it. And I really don't have, you know, I don't have any weekends off. And so I think right now, September, yeah, the next time I have a weekday that's and that'll be full before we get to September. So, uh, and yeah, because you're meeting with guys and gals that are getting to either on the tour or Korn ferry or Symmetra or LPGA, like you're meeting with like, you're busy as hell P T a on top of all that I do all the beta testing for them and all that. So, you know, but I, I, you know, I have handicapped guys in here from, you know, 30 handicap ladies to guys down to scratch famine too. I'm not just a tour coach. I have, it's probably fairly equal. And to be honest, the pros to the amateurs. So it's probably, it's probably a 50 50 split. Um, but I still, I enjoy it. You know, I had a guy in here yesterday, you know, uh, broke 70 or not broke 70 broke 80 for the first time shutting in the seventies. And you know, he's 65 years old. Oh yeah. And that's a lifelong goal, right? Like, that's right. That was a huge deal for him. And, you know, I have a player when the players, when the Korn ferry tour last week and both of them were just as excited. So it's just as cool, you know, that he shot his, you know, 78, that one day of his life and he's, he's lagging. And then, and then of course, uh, uh, on a bigger scale, you know, then you, you know, earning your PGA tour card is a pretty big deal. Right? So those types of things, but if you put the players, their emotional feelings that they have from succeeding on this goal is probably exactly the same. Exactly. The same and the gratification. Yeah. Coach, right? Yeah. It's, it's, it's, it's gratifying on both sides. You know, you, you get one, you might get a little notoriety for, and the other one nobody will ever know, but it feels good. Wait, but I, Oh, it's like a teacher, right. You're a teacher at heart. And it's like, you know, when somebody achieves their goal or learn something new, that's huge. Right. I mean, so tell me about the 3d stuff. Like when you started at the, what's it called? AMA system. Mmm, yeah. Advanced motion measurement. Yeah. That's a, uh, that's still, in my opinion, the gold standard in 3d collections. There's some other things out there now, but I got involved in that. It's a pretty simple thing. I started driving range, like we talked about and I was the guy that would go in there. I don't need cameras. I don't need this. I can see all this stuff with my eyes. And I was teaching people in the truth is and teach them some stuff, probably terrible information, but your passion. And, and I still tell this to young teachers today, if you do believe in your ability and you have passion, their clients are going to get better. You know, they're going to feed off of that. So if you're wrong, sometimes it's okay. Placebos work anyway. So especially in golf. So as you're learning, you know, I just didn't feel like I needed that. And then I went over, I was at Jim McClain's when he built this place in Texas for a little while and got introduced to cameras for the first time, I was like, well, that makes kind of life easier. And then I started looking at these two elements on cameras, Tali, you know, that's just, I don't see the golf swing that way. And I thought, am I wrong? You know, I, I started getting confused is like, cause it doesn't look like what I see. You know, when I look at it, you look at your face right now that doesn't look like what I truly see in my mind and different things. And then I was introduced to a gentleman there at the MacLean center called Dr. Rob Neal and he's a 3d specialist. And at that time we used a system, his system, uh, there was a snap align system. So what that means is when you measure something out, you stand still and you're supposed to stand at attention and, and you hit the button and zeroes everything out. Right. So I didn't really understand that at the moment. And I've collected quite a bit of data on that machine. And one day I'm sitting there and I'm, um, I had some ladies in there and I can see that on the screen. I could see her reflection. And as I hit the zero button, she was standing funny. And all of a sudden I saw on the screen, she's zeroed out. And I was like, Oh, you know, how many times did that happen? You know, we're now her, body's the only way she can look good on the screen is the stand weird. So, you know, that one bothered me. Do you understand kind of what I'm saying, an arm like that. And I hit the zero button. The screen looks like that. Well, my arm looks like that. And it was just like, Oh, I didn't investigate this enough. And you know, Dr. Rob Niels is one of the smartest, you know, doctors out there and biomechanics. And so I started investigating and he then started changing to what we call digitized. And he only does the upper body. He doesn't do the legs. And I kept pushing. I want to see the legs. I want to see the whole body. You know, legs are only 20%. That's a big 20% in my opinion, bottom muscle in there. And somehow or another, I think maybe he directed me or I don't even remember how it happened, but I got introduced to Phil Cheatham. Who's now Dr. Phil Cheatham. And so I went out there to see him and he does the whole body. So, you know, same system that Dr. Neil had, except he would do the whole body. And I started really investigating on how these things work. So he'd go back to the original thing. I'm gonna start tearing apart this machines. I figure out how it works now that I've seen that something wasn't exactly right. The two dimensional camera, then I saw the snap snap align system. Not exactly right. I was going to make sure that the next time I had it as right as I could get it, and he was doing a beta test. So I was all in I'm like, okay. And he gives me the same end machine what's I bought. And I'm now all into technology. At this point, I went from my own and do anything to the 3d system was the way that I would see the gospel, you know, that it wasn't 2d. It was 3d. I was seeing in 3d, I kind of look at a two dimensional thing and I see all these YouTube things at that time or books, and they're going through all this stuff, swing, doesn't do that. You know, there's no way that's right. And I looked right. And so I went out there and I actually bought a AMM system, 3d man. Then I think it was a billion dollars. Yeah, no, it was, I can only remember 20, maybe 30,000, 25 back then was like, I think treadmill. I remember that one 27,000 when I bought my first one. So I bought all this then a week and a Sam PuttLab and your wife's traveled around. Yeah. So I just went crazy. My wife's going to, Whoa, what are you doing? I'm like, I got to learn. So I just went to 2000, what, four or five? Maybe six, not a hundred percent sure. Something somewhere around plus or minus on the six, I think 2006. And, uh, so I just, but Phil showed me how to do it and pretty much said, Hey, go capture some players and let me know. And so you have all these graphs and you're looking at all this stuff and I don't even know what tech I'm looking at and I'm running the avatar. Right. I'm just running the avatar, but basically I'm tearing apart the machine and I'm asking questions, well, how does that sensor work? You know, where does the information come from? Why is this better? Why is this worse? And so I just started to asked the right questions. And so to this day, if I buy technology, drives them nuts, because I want to know how it works before I buy it, because I've been duped so many times on stuff that ends up not really work. And, uh, so I mean, I make people mad because I'm like, no, you need to tell me how it works or I'm not interested. You know, give me the sales pitch of how it works. I want to know, I want to know how it works. And I, and I'm okay with errors, as long as I know, if I can live with them, fine. If I can't, I'm not going to use the product. So, you know, everything has some amount of error to it because it's not nothing's perfect. So we just got to get it as best that we can. And so all, that's how I got into 3d. And then, uh, you know, I, I met Jeff Ben OSAC, who's out on tour as a physio. He's a PT. And I started capturing all of his tour players. So that's how it started. So I was working with, uh, different coaches and PTs capturing their players to get the data, to see how we can help them both with their swing and medically. And this is like high tech stuff. They're like, Oh yeah, sure. We'll do it. And then, you know, after awhile, I remember one player that I'd captured for probably 12 years. He goes, Oh, I remember when I used to look forward to seeing you. And I just say, I gotta get all wired up and do all this stuff. And it becomes a bother, you know, especially when they made tons of money and their time constraints, or, you know, it gets tougher and tougher and everybody thinks, you know, you bring in, you'd do something on 3d every day. I've had, you know, amateurs come in here. I thought you were going to put me on the 3d. I said, are you kidding? I only do that. Like once a year, unless you know, there's injuries or something that we just can't see. And there's a problem we put them back on, but we want to capture you once a year, see where we're at, usually in the off season. And, uh, that's how, that's how we do it. But people think you go jump in there and you're in 3d. Every time you take the lesson. Well, that's crazy. Well, number one, I'm a mental coach. And the last thing I need you to think about is all this when you're hitting it. And then that gets pretty technical. When we're measuring what 220 rounders of the body at 240 frames, a second, that's a lot of information. It takes me. You still, and I'm slower than some others. I'm sure that takes about three hours to go through a data collection. You know, so I've still got two sitting on my desk right now that I kind of tid collected over a month ago. And I'm sure they're waiting on me and I hate that. But, uh, I, I make sure I go through every part of the swing before I give my opinion. It's unbelievable. So what tour players have you done? Um, I don't ever talk about that. That's up to all the big ones I've got, I've got one of the best databases in the, in the world for sure. Um, I know that I have the strongest one, but the, um, I don't, I don't, you know, if the player wants to say they're here, I know I've been referred to on the TV. We laugh all the time. He gets his David is data collected somewhere in Texas. So my wife and I thought we were just going to put a big sign up. Right, right, right. But, you know, I, I keep all that stuff private. I don't, uh, even when I do my seminars or I go speak and I show the data and I think if somebody wants to sit there and say, Hey, I did this with John and this is what we're working on. That's fine. But I don't really like to, to do that. I think that's privacy of the player. And maybe that's because that's the way I would have felt. You know, I've seen some players that get their 3d data out there, let's say on a YouTube. Right. And I feel violated dissected. Cause I mean, you can't find a swing that you can't find problems with, but they get so dissected, you know, one, the one that can really handle it. And I can say his name because he won't care as is grant. Wait, you know, we went to Dr. Quan's. We did the data here. He's released it to the teachers for learning purposes, which is awesome on his part because he has a great golf swing and all that. But at the same time, he's got the most dissected swing of any pro I've ever seen. And it's not always good. So, you know, I don't need the player here in a bunch of stuff. I don't need, you know, if I, if I'm the coach, I don't want all that stuff out, you know, floating around of this is my player. And then in this day and time on the YouTube, all you get is it's more than you get all he's doing. I'm gonna have to, Aaron has an opinion, right? Oh no. His opinion. Everybody knows everything. Yeah. Well, we're working with a player and then we hear all this stuff that, Oh, I can fix this or that with this player. It's pretty funny. Cause they have no idea. They actually have no clue. I don't have all the information. He'll be like, Oh, I could do that. Or add that by. And it's like, I don't see you doing it. Right. Like, I'll talk, I'll talk. You know, it doesn't bother me anymore. Like there's, there's two, there's two types of people are going to hate it. But it's somebody just trying to get attention by saying, you know, and stuck out for that, whatever. That's just the way it goes now. And so I do, I do try to protect that. So when did you start working with TPT then? Five years ago? Do they come to you or how that happened? I have another biomechanist, uh, that I work with in France. Jeez, rock river. And we would always meet at the PGA show and just have a 3d we'd always say meet. We do too much, you know, we would work together on some of the French fliers and stuff like that. They're over here in the States. And so we would have zoom meetings all the time and then we would meet each other in 3d. We would say once a year at the PGA show, well he said, Hey, come meet me at the Rosen from the PGA show. And I said, okay. So I went over there and he, he leads me down. This hallway, sits me down. These chairs, you know, these guys and said, we don't need to talk. They scared tap me on the shoulder. And he left. He goes, he needed to see them. And I never even saw he took off. So I had no idea what they were even there for. But we had had discussions that was shafts. He knew how disgusted that I was at that moment with shafts and how, you know, I'd had a player that shaft broke and play and we knew it wasn't a swing. And we couldn't find that fit again. Like everybody out there that might be watching this knows they've been to a fitting they've hit the driver. Great. And then they get the actual cloud and it doesn't feel distant and it just doesn't have time. And so that was something that was bugging me. And I was starting to investigate the shafts and these guys were sitting in front of me and I said, Hey, we're making golf chasse. And I'm very skeptical. I have to admit I was extremely skeptical. And they said, well, we can make this shaft and repeat it. And they can feel the same every single time. And I won't say the word, but it was BS. And I got up and I started to walk away. And the, uh, CEO of the company stopped me and said, no, no, we can really, really do it. And so I was like, all right, all of this. So after our meeting, I came home and I went and bought these two machines that, you know, I got one, you can measure every of the shaft that we do formation everything. And there's only three of them in the world and I have two of them. And so I would took some gamer shaft from some PGA tour players and I measured them and I take, took the other machine and sent it to Switzerland. And so they could, I could give him the measurements. They could then make a shaft measure to be sure that it was the same and then send it back. Well, we did five or six, I think PGA tour players. And when I brought the shafts in what the track man on the player hitting it, they couldn't tell the difference in their game or in the shaft that TPT had made. So I was like, that's the coolest thing I've ever seen ever. And so they asked me, they said, well, you know, are they going to play him? And I said, well, no, that was a backup. But thank you. You know, now we have a backup. That was the whole problem is now we have a backup. Now you can make it as long as the driver had done the prac, you know, we can actually put a shaft in there. It feels just like you're gambling. And he's, I said, until they're better, I mean, I gotta be better. And so he's said, well, would you help us? And so I started flying back and forth from Switzerland and we developed the first TPT shafts and it was, they came out straighter. They came out the time with the blue rains. They were actual sometimes a little faster. I'm still not a hundred percent sure why that happened, possibly because the club's not moving around and wobbling all over the place. And, and the player just can swing it faster. But we, we saw that. And so we've now developed it into, what's called the red range and that's the one that's out right now to the public and, and out on tour. And then we won lots of golf tournaments. Uh, I think now over 30 worldwide in the last two years, three, two and a half years and three of this last weekend players playing in that, at least in their driver. And so that, that was kind of how it started. And then as it developed and I started, you know, kind of helping design the shaft and they're using my knowledge in the golf business and they're great engineers that they have. Cause these are twists people. I mean, people don't even realize, you know, North fly technology, they wanted to win the America's cup and they got with Oracle and they got sales mass and they won the America's cup. So this is a big company and they do, you know, you drive a portion, you see the graphite in, lays on the car, that's it formula one race cars, you know, the boats, the flying ships, the sails, the mask that's dead straight. And it goes straight up there for 50 feet. So they're not, you know, this is a serious company. And I think Francoise is the CEO. And he told me one time, well, it was either fishing rods or, or golf shafts. And so they chose going to, I can't remember exactly why they chose golf Scots, but thanks thankful for us that they did. And so I just went back and forth and we developed this product and, uh, I'm still, I don't work for TPT, even though I designed the shafts. Obviously I have some bias towards that. But for my players, especially my tour players that have to make money. I mean, they're going either. They're gonna play the best shaft that they can, whatever goes along with Australia. So I don't care if it's a TPT or it's not a TPT. I still have that philosophy and I will try anything with them. If it's better, it's better. And I had discussion with the corn for clarity and he goes, well, I hadn't put my TPT shaft in the NSS. Fine. I said, only if it's better, you know, I mean only if it's better and that's how we, we want it to be. And so I've quit fitting other shafts. I might buy some for the player or something like that to see if something's better, but it's just better. The way it's made. No other company can make them like that. It's a wrap instead of flag hand-rolled, it's made through a machine versus a hand roll, which is most other chefs out there is why they can't repeat it. You know, if you're doing it by hand and you're changing and putting all these different flags to get your AI curve or your stiffness profile, then how do you repeat that? When some of those flags don't go all the way around the shaft or some of them go around a bunch of times and don't always finish in the same spot, then you get fines in the shaft and the TBT wraps it and it's one start one stop. And then we sand the profile. So it's more like a milled shaft. And it would be for the people out there, then it would be something that's made through a flagging process. And so the consisting of it's through the roof, we can control it at one CPM plus or minus all the way up and down the shaft. So that's the frequency of the shaft. So anywhere on that shaft, you give me 20 of them. They're all going to feel the sec and the player and we've, we, you know, there's, nobody's ever not said that feels just like the other. So when you get fit with the TVT shot, you know, something happens to it. Their line just broke one the other day and I replaced it. And the guy called me and said, I didn't even know the difference. So tour players, sometimes they want to try a new driver head. It doesn't always work out that they're saying Shap will work in a different driver head. You know, if it's a different style or brand or they come out with a new one. So sometimes we have to refit it to get the right shaft and performance for that particular head. But once it's there, it's there. And if I've got one senior chore player that we have two different brands, his backup, cause he just, both of them worked, but they both have two different shots and, but they both perform exactly the same. So it's, uh, it's been, it's quite a journey that way. Once you start to understand it and it's very different than your normal Shas and then we've moved into fairway woods now where we've been able to make a shaft specifically for a fairway wood. And then when you hit it, you're starting to feel like, well, that feels just like my driver and that feel connection is really something that's been hard to do over the years. And now we've been able to do it. It's not necessarily going to be the same number, like 14 high and 14 high or F 14 high. Um, but you will be able to find the shaft that then performs and feels like you're driving. And now I'm doing that with hybrids as we speak. And I have hybrids now out on the tour already that they love. So that's kind of, it's amazing that what you guys are doing because I don't, there's no one really doing that, you know? No, I don't think anybody can, you know, and I know one engineer that was there, looked at it and goes, Oh man, I could never figure this out. So they've got something special. It works great for what I do, you know, to be able to know that somebody comes in here and I fit them in the club and when they get their club and actually, usually I just make it for them. They walk out the door with it and they test the one I made versus the one they were fit with and they go, okay, that's good. Sometimes the only differences would be if we use in our unit, we're using universal tips in the fitting. And then, you know, sometimes the tips are a little different and we have to make the adjustment to the head or something for the tip. But usually I have no problem. Now, if somebody wants to get fitted for a TPT shop or they have to go a TPT fitter, right? Like it's not just go buy them online and put them in yourself, right. Like, yeah, it has to be through a fit. I have to come to a fitter. No, that's, that's part of their deal. Cause we, I found out early on and if you look at a TPT shaft, you'll notice that they have no flex. They have no information other than the label says 14 high or 15 low or something like that. I didn't want the players to be restricted to what they thought they knew. And so I asked them right away, let's not put that on there because some players might play a different one and some players might play a much more flexible because I'm still in the camp of, I would want to play or to have a flexible shaft with a low torque. And I found out early on, the reason why most players wouldn't play a more flexible shafts is because the torque was too high when they made it. And so that if that's what they were feeling players, this is tour players were talking about. They would feel torque when they would say looseness. And they would relate that to the flex of the chef when they were actually just feeling the tour. It was almost a hundred percent. I think there was one that caught on to that knew right away that that's the torque and that's the Ben, but the rest of them all would think that, well, this shaft to lose, you know, is what they would usually say or to wippy or something like that. And then I would give them something with lower torque that was actually more flexible and say, Oh yeah, that one's different. And so they were feeling different things. And so when they come in to be fit and they say, well, I always play this way, this flax, this idea, that's too confining because you can't push them out of their box and really find something better. And so that's kind of the philosophy that we took is that you're not going to know. And, and I still to this day, I won't tell you what I'm giving you until after now. I'll tell you everything you want to know, but I want you to experience it. I want you to give me feedback. I like this. I don't like that. This feels like this. And I'll learn their language pretty quick and then give them what they want to feel and have it performed properly. Amazing. So like really when you, when they get fitted, they don't know what they're getting until the end. Right? Like tell them, I mean, they're good. It's getting, people are learning more about the shafts. They're getting a little smarter about it. Cause they investigate it. But they, uh, but no, I that's. That's what I want. I want you to have the shaft that's best performance for you. Not necessarily what your best told us best for you or that you just always thought, because you read that this shaft does this. And so that fits me. That's usually what I hear is so, Oh, can't you just send me, I've always been an XYZ. This and that. Just send me one. That's like the normal Mark though, right? It's like, Oh, this staff does X. And it's like, well, it might do it. Might do that for somebody, but maybe something else. Right? Yeah. And it's, it's, I've found it very rare that what a player or any player, tour player, not what they tell me their fit in or should have is what they end up with. It's usually not so down though. It's like, you know, black people have that. They just have acid, but they think they're dirty. They think they know they're talking about and they don't. And then they ended up not being happy with what they got. Right. And then they go into next year onto the next chat. I want people to be, uh, I want them to play the shaft for a long time. You know, obviously if people swing changes. So when we catch that, we'll change out the shack. But the, I want people to be able to play and, and have a club and use it and enjoy it. And then when they get another one that can do the same thing and some players just want the newest, latest stuff, and then we just refit it. And that's, that happens a lot on the tour because obviously the companies want them to play the newest driver when it comes out. And then that just starts the process over. That's cool. Like it just, Oh, you got to do something special. And that's why I wanted it. Well, that's one of the reasons I wanted you guys on the show because I feel like more people need to know about BT because it's like slowly gaining momentum from behind. But you know, what you guys are doing is just different right. And special. And it's working yet and it's not selling a dream, you know, to somebody saying, Oh yeah. It's like, I don't know. I just think it's cool. You guys are doing, and then your Shafir amazing right there. Yeah. And they feel different and you've hit them. It's like going to a restaurant or go to burger King. Right. It's like, you're going to, you go to a fancy restaurant, you know what you get. Yeah. And then as soon as people hit it for the first time they go, wow, that's the Korn ferry player last two weeks ago was in here. And he came in and he goes, Hey, my friend just told me to come. And you know, I'm hitting the ball really straight. And I really liked my driver, but I've just joined this cause my friend, Hey, you know, if something's out there a little bit better, um, I said, that's fine. I said, that's great. We'll just see. And it was actually the first shaft I pulled out for him. And his father is actually, his coach is standing there behind him and he watched the first five shots. He goes, that's the most incredible thing I've ever seen in golf. The dad, the dad, the dad. And he's just coached too. And also his caddy out there on the corner. And, and I just sat there and I'm like, yeah, I see that pretty normal, you know, all of a sudden he was just hitting it. I mean, it wasn't like he was hitting his driver bat his shot. But when I put that shaft in there, his dispersion just got stupid straight. And then he goes out there and he go with, it just went right in the bag the very next day. And actually there was two players in here when they came in and that's when I made the statement. Well, you know, I don't know if you're going to get, you know, if I get used to it, I'll probably put it in there and I'm like, no, you're standing there and you watch that clearly better. If you just hit one more fairway a day, what are you going to do? So it was a lot more than that. It's winning and not winning. You're going to be standing out there with this other shaft and you're going to want the other ones you're already used to it. Cause it was better. And that's, that's, that's pretty funny too. And then actually he ended up playing in front of the player that I was out there with. And so I would get ahead and I would, I thought, Oh, this is a perfect time. He doesn't know I'm standing here. I'm going to video him on this hole. So I was standing behind him and I video and hitting it driver. I mean, it was, it was, uh, you know, for him a very poor swing, you know, it was a poor swing. I never even sent him. I was going to send you the video. I was like, ah, playing the TPT shaft. And I was kind of funny and he made this terrible swaying and he tried to save it at the end. And I mean, it doesn't look like his normal swing that I had just watched several times a day before. And I saw that video and then the ball just goes straight down the right side of the fairway didn't even move that's TPT because it was a total save. You know, he was, and I know what he was thinking. Cause he'd said it in the Bay today, before too, when he had missed one, he goes, wow. I thought that would go way off the tracks. And it just went down the fairway and that happened right there. So at some point probably show him the video, but I don't want to maybe I'll show it to his dad or something. That's pretty funny. Yeah. His dad would be like, thank God we did that. Yeah. That was a pretty bad swing. I've kind of got that in the archives. I won't, I won't bring that out cause he probably wouldn't want to see that swing. I almost feel like TPT is like the silver bullet. Nobody knows it's like there, you know what I mean? Like a lot of people players know on the tour slowly and it's happening. But I think like the everyday player is like, if they just knew about it, like you guys would be blowing up, like you'd be dominating right now because essentially you're solving the problem of what everybody certainly solved the big one for me. And that was they, they definitely solved the one. That number one, what you get fit with, you'll play with number two forever. If something happens, you can have it back. You don't lose that feel, you know? So you know, like forever, I mean, golfers, once you get a club that works, you sleep with it, right. You gotta take care of it. There's something happens to it. It's never going to be the same. Well that doesn't have to happen anymore. That's awesome. I'm really happy that you're on the show today. And if you guys do you guys got to teach out, so you haven't yet also check out John Sinclair, just Google and you'll see what you can do in the Texas area too. Right? It, he has time in his schedule. He might be able to do a training with you, but I mean, he knows his stuff like seriously, I'm a month or two out at this moment. So we've got to make sure that we want to come just to make sure, let me know way in advance very quickly. But um, thank you for being on the show today. And I really appreciate working with you guys, TPT and working with you, especially, and yeah. Thank you for being on the show. Thank you. And then come see me and we'll get that fairway wood fixed up. Sure. Sounds good to me. All right. You take care. All right. Have a great day. All right. Bye-bye
Speaker 1:Thanks for listening to another episode of behind the golf brand podcast, you're going to beat me like stay connected on and off the show by visiting golfers authority.com. Don't forget to like subscribe and leave a comment. Golf is always more fun when you're winning, stay out of the beach and see you on the green.