#111 - Legendary Golf Coach: Jim McLean

In this week episode I interview my good friend legendary golf instructor Jim McLean, who is one of the most prolific golf instructors of the last 30 years. He is known for coining the phrase “X-Factor”, observing that the greater the differential between the hips and shoulders at the top of the swing, the more power the golfer can create. He pioneered the use of video for golf instruction and was one of the first adopters of radar technology used in swing analysis tools like TrackMan. 

He is also authored and sold over 15 different books and videos, and taught some of the greatest golfers of our generation. Including, Sergio Garcia, Curtis Strange, Gary Player, Bernard Langer, Al Geiberger, US Open champions Liselotte Neumann, Jane Geddes, Lauri Merten, Ben Crenshaw, Tom Kite, Webb Simpson, and Hal Sutton to just name a few. Actually, its over 100 PGA tour players but who is counting.

Jim McLean is CEO of the Jim McLean Golf School, which operates from eight locations.

Transcript

Speaker 1 0:00

Today we play golf. Let me show you how we do it in the pros. Welcome to Behind the Golf Brand podcast. I never missed with the Seven Iron , 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 rein from Pro Talk . You should learn something from each and every

Speaker 2 0:22

Single round. You play to fun from on and off the green. Why would you play golf if you don't play it for money? Just let me put the ball in a hole. This is Behind the Golf Brand podcast with Paul Libert Tore . What's up guys? Welcome to the Behind the Golf Brand podcast. This week I have probably one of the biggest stars I've had on the show. I would say that this week I have Jim McLean, one of the most prolific golf instructors around. He's been a top three golf instructor and for the last 30 years, like everybody knows Jim McLean. He has his X Factor books, he has a series, he has his schools. He teaches the pros . And I'm really super excited on the show and just kind of talk about his life and his career and what he's up to right now. So welcome to the show. Thanks,

Speaker 3 1:07

Paul. Nice to be with you.

Speaker 2 1:08

So where are you located right now?

Where are you located?

Speaker 3 1:10

Well, I'm out at my golf school in Utah. I'm in Park City right now. My , my golf school's right down the, from Park City. It's , uh, in Hebrew City. It's called Red Ledges. Uh, Jack Nicholas did the golf course. It was , it's the number one ranked course in Utah. Right . Cliff Drysdale does the tennis and I do the , the golf instruction. So I, I've got a great team of the teachers here and I really look forward to coming out here every summer

Speaker 2 1:36

And feeling the cool breeze and the pretty, see the pretty trees and the pretty mountains.

Speaker 3 1:41

No doubt about it. It's pretty hot back in Miami.

Speaker 2 1:44

How many schools do you have right now total? I

Speaker 3 1:47

Have six schools. I have three in the United States. I have one in Madrid, Spain, one in Mayakoba, Mexico, and one in Seoul, South Korea. Wow.

Speaker 2 1:58

Have two

Speaker 3 1:58

That's Yeah . Uhhuh ,

Speaker 2 1:59

I didn't know that. But the main school's in Miami, right?

Speaker 3 2:02

Yeah, our , my , uh, our international location is at , at the Biltmore Hotel, and then we have another one on South Beach at Miami Beach Golf Club. So we get to , uh, they're about 45 minutes apart. Uh, two really cool places in , uh, in Miami.

Speaker 2 2:19

That's crazy. I mean , just , are you traveling to all your schools throughout the year? Like even like the one in Korea or the , I know you're saying going to Europe this fall, but Yeah .

Speaker 3 2:29

Normally have to do my director of instruction and one of the teachers are meeting me in Seattle next month. So I'll be meeting with them there. And then I'm going to South Korea to my school there in 2024, May, 2024. So I'm really looking forward to that. Uh , golf is just huge. It's huge all over the world, I think right now. But it's really big in Korea.

Speaker 2 2:52

It's super big. I don't think people realize how big it is in Korea. It's like bigger than it's here. I feel like popularity wise , I know we have the most majority of golfers and whatever, but I feel like what I've noticed too in the last couple, even the last couple years, and I've been saying this to , is that the Korean companies are now coming here and breaking into our markets, but they don't, people don't know these names of these companies and these companies are like powerhouses. You know, like, it's like, oh , you even heard of them? And they're like, you know, they find out they're like the number one golf simulator company or they, or they, I learned a lot in the last couple weeks of how many Korean companies own American companies now, or have bought American companies. It , I was like, wait, that just happened? I didn't know that. Um, it's crazy. I mean , it's cool, but I just , I just didn't realize,

Speaker 3 3:37

Well, they have such a huge presence on the , on the L P G A tour and quite a few great players on the P G A tour and other tours , um, that, that part of the world is, is definitely a , a major player in the world of professional golf, no doubt about it. And , and they just love the game. Uh , so it's, I'm really looking forward to going over there. I was supposed to go during the Covid times and they were really pretty tough over there. So it's been three years of really not being able to travel to South Korea, but I'm be able to go over next year and I, I can't wait to go.

Speaker 2 4:14

That's really cool. I kinda wanna talk about your, your life, right? So when, how'd you first get into golf? Did you play with your dad or like how , when you, how'd you get into golf when you were a kid?

Speaker 3 4:25

Yeah, my dad was a good player. He was an engineer for Boeing in Seattle, Washington. Oh , that's

Speaker 2 4:31

Cool.

How did you get into golf?

Speaker 3 4:32

Yeah, he , uh, he grew up Cadding in Minnesota and then migrated out when he was 17 to Seattle and started at Boeing. He was in the Navy in World War ii. And, and then , um, you know, he loved golf. He played a ton of golf. And I would caddy when I was a little kid, 11, 12 years old. And, you know, we lived very close to a Rainier Golf Club in Seattle. Uh , not a , not a very fancy place , uh, little golf course. Uh, but a nice course. And I started playing there. I played all sports as a kid, but , uh, kind of in my teens gravitated to golf. I was having, you know, some success , early success. Uh, so yeah, that's where I , that's where I ended up playing and learning the game.

Speaker 2 5:17

So then you learned from your dad, I started caddying with your dad. And then at what point did you realize that like, you're actually pretty good? Is that <laugh> ? Well,

Speaker 3 5:25

Yeah. I started winning some tournaments and my dad sent me to a really great teacher and player at Tacoma Country Club , uh, Al Manger who had worked under Claude Harmon in, at Wingfoot in , in New York. And , and under Tommy Armor in Boca Raton , he was a runner up in the US Amateur. He played the tour off and on for 20 years. So he was a really fine player. He helped me , uh, more and, and then, you know, I got on an airplane when I was 16. Flew out to the Western Junior in Chicago , out in Chicago. I lost the semifinals there. So then I said, well , you know, well I can compete against kids, you know, in other parts of the United States. And then I played , had a pretty good junior career and I got a four year scholarship. Uh , I had a quite a few scholarships, but I took the scholarship to the University of Houston, which at the time was the powerhouse , uh, place to go. And I had a great time at Houston. Um, believe it or not, we had 40 guys on the golf team. We lived in the athletic dorm at Houston , uh, with the basketball team. And , um, it was quite something because 40 guys had only five guys play . So there was tremendous competition.

Speaker 2 6:38

Oh , I bet. I bet every day . You don't ever get away from these guys either 'cause you live with them .

Speaker 3 6:43

No, we shot a score pretty much every day. You know, the sophomore year was rough, you know , um, the guys beat me up pretty bad. My, you know, my freshman year. And then , uh, I was able to make the team as a sophomore a little bit in my junior and senior years. We won the N C a my freshman and sophomore years. We finished second my , uh, junior and senior years because , uh, we, we played against Texas all the time. And they had Ben Crenshaw and Tom Kite on the same team. Serious and some other

Speaker 2 7:13

Good

Speaker 3 7:13

Players too. Oh . So we had some great battles with them, but we were very, very disappointed to lose , uh, that, especially my senior year. Very disappointed . Especially

Speaker 2 7:23

Because ut Right. <laugh> of all liket . We ,

Speaker 3 7:27

We didn't like it , man. It was really awful. You're like , it was a terrible

Speaker 2 7:31

Experience. No , it's anybody but them. You're like any other team. It doesn't even matter.

Speaker 3 7:36

Well, it would've mattered, but Yeah. Especially losing to them. But, but you know, Ben,

Speaker 2 7:41

Tom , the wound ,

Playing golf in college

Speaker 3 7:41

Ben and Tom Kite were such great players. Ben was such a phenomenal , uh, young player, and he's just supposed to be the next Jack necklace. He wasn't, nobody was the next Jack Necklace until Tiger. But Ben had a great career. He is a Hall of Famer and , and Tom Kite's , a hall of Famer. And I ended up working with both of them later in my life, but mostly with Tom Kite . Mm-hmm . <affirmative> . But that, you know, my college years were great. I lived , uh, with two guys that won major championships. I lived with Bill , uh, bill Rogers is still a great friend of mine. And John Affe is a great friend of mine. He won the P G A and Rogers won the British Open and Fuzzy Zeller was on our team, and he won the Masters in the US Open. So we had all four majors , uh, on, on the team and

Speaker 2 8:23

Your class <laugh> . And now you have to compete with at least 40 dudes. And they're all like, like, you know, if you look back and they're all like, major winners and stuff

Speaker 3 8:30

Like that . Yeah. We didn't, you know, you don't think of it that much when you're in college. I mean, I knew they were good, but , uh, you know, the big teams back then were Florida and Wake Forest, Oklahoma State's always been great. Uh, Arizona State's always been great. University of Arizona , um, U S C U C L A , but now there's so many great teams. There's so much more competition. Um, you know, I don't think anybody's gonna dominate golf. Like when I left school, I , uh, Houston and won 12 outta the last 16 NCAAs and finished second and the other four. Uh , I , I don't think that's gonna happen again because , uh, you know, our coach was a huge recruiter. He recruited all over the United States. Um, that really wasn't , yeah , it doesn't really happen much now either. So,

Speaker 2 9:17

Yeah. I mean, 'cause I already, I think, I mean , then it was so much harder to recruit. Like, how would you know if somebody was super good unless they played a tournament. You know, it's like now it's like they look on social media or they can look on the internet and be like, oh , okay , that guy's doing good and Arizona let's recruit him or talk to him . Mm-hmm . Or whatever it is . So when you graduated college, what year was that?

Speaker 3 9:34

73. And then I played for a couple years. It was mini tour golf. Really? I, I missed the tour school twice. Uh , I was very disappointed. I missed, we played eight rounds , uh, in 1974. And I missed it by, I missed by four shots. So it was really close, you know, over that many rounds of golf. Pretty depressing to me. I've been playing competitive golf since I was pretty much a little kid. And I had took a job up in , uh, I , I didn't know what to do. I , I got offered a great job in Houston in a real estate company with a guy I played a lot of , uh, golf with at Houston. And , uh, you know , he said, look, you know, when you're gonna come over here, you're gonna learn the business and it's not gonna be much golf, you know, you gotta bear down. And then my other opportunity was to go to New York and teach up there. Uh, and which gave me the winters off. And I wasn't, I just wasn't ready to give up golf. And I ended up going to Westchester Country Club , uh, which had , we had 1800 members , uh, 45 holes of golf, a hotel, and we had the tour event. I went up there and I love , I really loved it. You know, I was in charge of , at the beginning mostly with the junior golf. I worked a little bit in the shop, but mostly I was just teaching. And I hadn't really thought about being a teacher until that time. But I, I enjoyed it a lot. Uh, and , uh, you know, I, I ended up teaching and then I'd go play in the winter.

Speaker 2 10:58

This is like what year? 71. So

Speaker 3 11:00

Yeah , I started up there in 75 and I was <crosstalk> .

Speaker 2 11:03

So everybody, but hold on. What did, people are like , they don't know this. They probably do, but you played at the Masters , right?

Speaker 3 11:12

Yeah. You know, yeah. I played in a , I played ,

Speaker 2 11:14

Yeah. You skipped over that part. <laugh>

Speaker 3 11:17

Well, I qualified , I played in the US Junior, I played in three US amateurs. I finished fourth in US Amateur. It was medal play back then. And I played in two US opens when I was young. And I made the cut in the Masters . Yeah. That's

Speaker 2 11:30

Amazing. So

Speaker 3 11:30

I was, you know, I was playing . I , you know, and those were my big ,

Speaker 2 11:33

You were right

Speaker 3 11:33

To play .

Speaker 2 11:34

Yeah,

Playing in the Masters

Speaker 3 11:35

I , I was right there as being, you know , uh, somebody I thought for sure I would play the p g A tour at that time, but, you know, you had to go through the tour school and I missed that. And I think it turned out to

Speaker 2 11:47

Be , so back then the Tour school, was that just like, I know it's different now, but like, what was the tour school like? You had to like win so many things, or how did that work back then?

Speaker 3 11:54

Yeah. Well, they really don't even have a tour school now that, that ended about, I don't know, five or six or seven years ago. Yep . Ry and they just , you just go through the Korn Ferry and then the top, you know, for a while it was the top 15, 20, I think it's the top 30 maybe now get a p g A tour card. They play all year. And then the top 25 or 30 players , uh, go onto the P g A tour, which is a good way to do it. Not just one week or, you know, it was two weeks. But we would start with a , a regional qualifier and you had to get through that. And then sometimes there were, I think I had to go through a regional and a local. A regional. And then you went to the finals s so that finals was, you know,

Speaker 2 12:38

Like literally the best of best, right. That we're not,

Speaker 3 12:40

Yeah. You had to , you know , we didn't have too many spots. I know when I missed, we had 18 spots. Um, so, You know, it was, you had to play really well , uh, those eight rounds for sure. To, to make it , um, yeah. And I just didn't make it. I went up to New York and started teaching and , uh, I , uh, really started to delve into teaching and the , um, the mechanics of the golf swing and teaching beginners and intermediates, juniors and advanced players. And the , the good news for me is when the , like, when the tour event came to Westchester Country Club, you know, I knew all the guys. I mean, those were , they were good friends of mine. I played with 'em all. You

Speaker 2 13:19

Played 'em a million times. Yeah, with

Speaker 3 13:20

A million times. So they would ask me to maybe watch them a little bit. And I they

Speaker 2 13:26

You too, because they already kind of knew, like you had a relationship already with these guys.

Speaker 3 13:29

Yeah. So I had a, one of the things I've had great in my life is opportunity, and I , maybe we'll get into some of the people I've worked with, but I had the opportunity at Westchester where we had a tour event for the five years I was there. So I, I mean, I was able to videotape and actually it wasn't video, but I could use a camera back then 'cause it wasn't videotaped until, what's

Speaker 2 13:51

Really cool though , two people understand, is like, you're like, you're a very advanced instructor. Like you're one of the very first to use video until like start really started doing that. 'cause before Jim , like, I mean, even no one was doing that or even trusted it. And I even later on, like you, you even use like, you know, you're using Launch Monitors before you even knew what a Launch Monitor was. Right. Like the data, the data shows, you know, and like, I think that's a huge differentiator with I'm just telling people of the audience like, it's you.

Speaker 3 14:18

Yeah. Well, like with TrackMan

Speaker 2 14:20

Now it's the norm.

First to use the Trackman

Speaker 3 14:21

Yeah. At Doral , I own the , uh, club fitting as well and the golf school . So we, we started using TrackMan actually was for fitting golf clubs. It wasn't really the real thing in with that Launch Monitor was not for teaching. But then we started realizing, hey, you know, there's a lot of good things you can use for teaching. And then now it's mostly for , you know, obviously for the last 10, 12 years, it's been for teaching mostly. Although obviously they use it for club fitting too. But a big part of teaching

Speaker 2 14:50

Is it's like , yeah, it's like the gold standard, you know, for I feel like Launch Monitor .

Speaker 3 14:54

Well, and , and also Foresight. I'm using Foresight right now. I do

Speaker 2 14:58

You see Quad?

Speaker 3 14:59

Yeah. There's a lot of, yeah, a lot of tour players using that. It has some advantages , um, for going on the golf course. So we do a lot of teaching on the golf course and, you know, you just, you bring out the monitor and it gives you the yardage Exactly

Speaker 2 15:12

Right at the ground, have to worry about it. You don't worry about crap happening out in the driving range or weird numbers . So

Speaker 3 15:18

There's some advantage, obviously they're both great. I mean, there's, there are other launch monitors, pros also that

Speaker 2 15:23

Are pro Yeah,

Speaker 3 15:24

There's, yeah , there's pros and cons both. Sorry

Speaker 2 15:25

To interrupt you with that story because I , that's why people like that . Like, you're, like, he was geeking out on this stuff when like no one was geeking out and he was figuring it out. Which is cool because now like everybody does that and that's just like, it's all about data. It's about the technology and what you can see and like what's happening. But So you started teaching in the mid seventies and what happened then? Like when it comes to figuring out the body and mechanics?

Speaker 3 15:49

Yeah. Well, I was very fortunate up in Seattle, a guy I , I got to know , uh, a guy named Carl Welty . And then Carl had later had the , uh, golf school at LaCosta and I would go to see Carl and he was absolutely fanatical about how to videotape. Uh, I think we had the first video units. Sony had 'em in the late seventies, a beta max . And then you could start buying them for not so expensive. <laugh> . I bought mine in Crazy Eddie's down in New York City, crazy

Speaker 2 16:21

<laugh> . Uh ,

Speaker 3 16:22

And , uh, you know, Carl showed me so much and he'd been taught on video and some other things in research by a guy named Bill Glasson in San Diego who had graduated number one out of m i t he worked for Howard Hughes Missile, and he was a golf fanatic.

Speaker 2 16:41

I

Speaker 3 16:41

Love golf. And Carl taught him. And then later he went to Golf Craft after he retired from Hughes and helped them build the , uh, a , uh, iron Byron machine. Kinda the first one. Really?

Speaker 2 16:53

Wow . And

Speaker 3 16:53

Then golf , golf craft was purchased by Titleist . Um, but anyway, Glasson showed Carl some great ways to research, and one of them was putting the camera in exactly the same place every time. Now, when we first started videotaping at La Casa , the Tournament of Champions, you could videotape right during the tournament. I mean, it was no big deal. Nobody cared later, like , uh, you know, tour events, you , they were very particular

Speaker 2 17:22

Unhappy

Speaker 3 17:22

If you, you know, you could do it in the practice rounds, but you certainly couldn't do it in the tournament. We even got really in trouble and

Speaker 2 17:28

Really

Speaker 3 17:30

Be , because yeah, they sent me a letter from the p g A tour. They were gonna sue me , uh, and do, you know, do something because for

Speaker 2 17:38

What

Speaker 3 17:38

I had

Speaker 2 17:39

Copyright or something.

Speaker 3 17:40

Yeah. I had, yeah, they set thought that there was a tremendous value in , in having a picture that we'd use to teach people. But I had over 20 teachers and we were had every one of 'em out on the golf course for the practice rounds. And it was particularly bad probably with Tiger Woods because we filmed every shot he hit from with about 15, figure

Speaker 2 17:58

It out with , with

Recoding tour players swings

Speaker 3 17:59

Magic , with 15 , 15 guys, you know, we , we would always get a good spot. 'cause at a tour event, you know , people walk in front of you and you know, there's always something that happens or they don't hit a good shot. So we'd have to throw out those. A lot of , uh, videos , they weren't framed correctly or whatever.

Speaker 2 18:13

You're like the paparazzi back then, huh? <laugh>?

Speaker 3 18:16

We were bad. Yeah, they , that tournament man . We were, we were fanatical about , uh, you know, trying to , we , but then from that, every year we did studies. So I would give e each of my teachers one thing to look at. So head movement, for example. Like how, who , who moved their head the most? Did anybody not move their head? Did the head move up and down? How much side to side? And then from down the target line, did the head move out and back? 'cause you know, one of the old myths in, in golf is that the head's gotta stay in one position.

Speaker 2 18:51

Oh yeah. I've been yelled at about that. My dad's my dad, my dad's just scream at me from across the fairway and I have people telling me this. They'll be like, Hey, remember your dad would scream at you, keep your head down. And I'm like, no, he's, that was so messed up. And I'm like, dude , he did that every single time I hit a golf shot . Like that hasn't changed. And then like a week ago, a couple weeks ago, my , my instructor, he was like, you , your head has to follow the ball. Like, what are you doing? I'm like, I keep my head down. He's like, no dude. That's not how it works.

Speaker 3 19:14

Yeah. It's funny though . There's a lot of things that the greatest players in the world are not doing. So , um, you know, I , for me, we dev we developed a , you know, a series. What , what Carl and I started to do together , uh, with , with the studies was to try and we took , uh, all the guys that had won two majors and we decided to , to find out what do they all do the same. And that's really hard to do, to find anything that they do the same. And that's how we started doing the studies to see, okay, like what is everybody doing now ? What that would , and to me, those are the real fundamentals in golf. So like a grip is not the fundamental and lining up dead straight is not the fundamental because there's so many great players that don't do that. There's all kinds of grips on the p g A tour. John Rom's got one of the weakest grips you've ever, ever seen. And Jordan Spieth and Justin Thomas', super weak, top hand grips. And then some guys like Freddy Couples would've probably the strongest left hand grip or Matt

Speaker 2 20:17

Grip. Yeah .

Speaker 3 20:18

And yeah. And tons of guys, well, they're all over the place as interlock grips, 10 finger grips , uh, double finger overlapping and grips like Jim Frick used and to be one of the greatest players of all time, you know, a reverse, double over overlap grip. Did he used his whole life. Now, who, who would most teachers would say if he was a young , young kid, they'd say , you can't do that. You gotta change it

Speaker 2 20:42

And keep your head down

Speaker 3 20:43

And keep your head down. Don't move your head at all. Yes. And , uh, keep your left arm straight. Those things <laugh> .

Speaker 2 20:52

So you're, so, so when you're in New York and you're working with like, or seeing friends, at least , you know, there are tour players now or whatever mm-hmm . <affirmative> like, were you working with them too, like out when they're there for the tournament and they're like, what happened then? Well,

Speaker 3 21:05

You're working with them as a friend. Uh, you know, unofficially,

Speaker 2 21:09

Right? Unofficial. Yeah . Oh ,

Speaker 3 21:10

No . Un unofficial. I wasn't their , I'm not saying I was their teacher, but I'm

Speaker 2 21:13

I saying

Speaker 3 21:14

They would , they would , you know, I'd come over, I could talk , what are you working on? What are you doing? What if you're working with a teacher? Not that many guys were working with teachers, you know, back then, you know, and we , we kinda all did it ourselves . We might talk amongst ourselves or they would have

Speaker 2 21:29

Somebody take a look at em , your teammate or , yeah , what we're doing wrong much Figure it out.

Speaker 3 21:32

Yeah. Much more self-reliant. Jack Nicholas had a teacher and he was, you know, Jack Grout was his teacher that he would start the year for 10 days with, with Mr. Grout. And he was very organized. You can tell with Jack, you know, he was very organized with everything he did. And , um, you know, so he was way ahead of his time. Now everybody's got a teacher , uh, almost

Speaker 2 21:56

Multiple teachers. Yeah,

Speaker 3 21:57

Yeah. You have a teacher for , for the short game. For

Speaker 2 22:01

And

Speaker 3 22:02

For , for your full swing. A physio, sports psychologist, you know, one of the

Speaker 2 22:08

Big things , whole entourage of

Speaker 3 22:09

Things in my , in , in building my schools, which we maybe we'll get to how , how I got there, but, oh

Speaker 2 22:15

Yeah. We'll ,

Building his schools

Speaker 3 22:16

Is total game teaching. So I, I try to teach my , uh, instructors , uh, this circle of teaching, which is , uh, the full swing, which most people wanna do. The mechanics of the full swing, the safety zone. So how we teach beginners versus intermediate versus advanced players. And then there's the short game, which is short putting , long, putting , chipping, pitching, lob shots, all types of bunker shots. That's a , that's a big part. And then there's the , uh, management game, which is OnCourse teaching, learning how to teach OnCourse, teaching people the percentages where they are, they , and the percentages change from day to day , how you're hitting the ball. So we try to be able to go on course instruction. And then the other part, which we're not really sports psychologists, but I've worked with most of the top sports psychologists. I do a lot of reading. So I, I feel like I have to be , I have to be a sports psychologist for almost everybody I work with. So the mental part of the game is important for everybody. But when we are with tour players, it's the most important thing because I'd say a tour player would say, if you ask them which of those four parts are the most important, every one of 'em would say the mental part. 'cause they all hit it pretty good. And they all chip and putt pretty good.

Speaker 2 23:36

Yeah . They're all , and they

Speaker 3 23:37

All can manage the game,

Speaker 2 23:38

Right .

Speaker 3 23:38

But yeah ,

Speaker 2 23:39

But

Speaker 3 23:39

Who, who can, who can stand up there with Scotty Scheffler and Roy McElroy in the last day and shoot 66 again, you know, very not

Speaker 2 23:48

Crack buckle under pressure or , you know .

Speaker 3 23:50

Yeah. Because you look at the P g A tour, everybody looks great on the tour. There's no way if somebody didn't know the names to look on the in detail, watch him on the , on the , on the range and say, this guy's the best, and that guy's the worst. You could , it's impossible to do that.

Speaker 2 24:09

So you, when , so you started using video and then what , when you started using video in the eighties, was it the eight , the early

Speaker 3 24:16

Eighties, seventies , or 1979? We got the first , uh, video unit. Yeah. Started using video, but very seriously using video. So then we would go to tournaments and we would tape everywhere we could, but it was mostly me and Carl at that time. I, I got my first head professional job in 1979 in New York. And then I moved, that was at Sunningdale Country Club, a beautiful place in , in Scarsdale, New York. And then I went from there to Quaker Ridge , uh, which is , was a , it's still a , you know, a top 100 courses in the top 20 at that time. And Great Tilling has golf course right adjacent to Wingfoot.

Speaker 2 24:54

Oh , nice.

Speaker 3 24:54

And then I went to, to Sleepy Hollow, and we had a senior tour event, my , all my six years there. Um , but I also, in between that, I did Quaker Ridge and RIS in Tamaris , in Rancho Mirage, California. You might know of that course , um, not too far from where you live. Um , I , I did two courses there for a while , and then I went to Sleepy Hollow, which was a fa fabulous place. Finally, the people that Don't , go ahead.

Speaker 2 25:21

Go ahead . Oh , no , about , I was like, when you, so you stayed in New York for how many years then, would you say?

Speaker 3 25:28

19, but I started teaching tour players at Sunningdale. And the , who was

Speaker 2 25:34

The first , like who were the people that started coming seeing you? The most

Speaker 3 25:36

Important guy for me was Peter Jacobson. And , uh, Peter came to work with me over at Sunnydale , and he finished second at , uh, Westchester. And they had him on tv, and he mentioned that he'd been over to see me. So, you know, as soon as you get that kind of national publicity, that's, that's good. Um, and, but I was working with most of the, the best players in the metropolitan area. Some really top amateurs. One was George Inger, I've worked with Forever, who, you know, made a Walker Cup team , uh, living in New York City. So that , that was a pretty incredible thing to do. Um, and I had other, and I worked , worked with , uh, Kenny Baxt who won the mid amateur also. And , and he owns Breer said now in New York, one of the top clubs in the country. Anyway , so there was some really good players

Speaker 2 26:24

In <crosstalk> . What differentiated you then? Like back then you were , were you the only person using like video and like, big picture stuff? Not just the basics, right? Not the basic , but you know, like, this is how you teach, you know, like you're kind of, you're outside the box, right? And you're showing

Why you hit a draw

Speaker 3 26:39

People like , well , I think in , in New York, we had a lot of really good teachers and , and I think , uh, definitely a lot of guys were using video, but a lot of , a lot of guys not really knowing what they're doing. They didn't really know when drawing the lines on there , where , where to draw, draw them and why to draw them there and , and how to look at swing plane . Um, there's a lot of, and there still is really a lot of random videoing. It's just not detailed. Um, so people are, you know, they , a lot of people film from low, they get up low to the ground, like at the level, the grip of the club. But I don't teach on my knees, you know, that's just how I look at most people don't do that. I, I stand up and teach when I teach, and I, I have a camera up at , uh, more right here, chest height up, up at this level, so that, you know, that's how you see the game. And , uh, we film straight down the target line. And the reason Carl showed me that, and the reason Bill Glasson talked to him about it was that's the only place you can see where the ball starts. So like, where is the ball going? And that's, you know, maybe the most important thing in teaching could be like, where's the ball starting? And then why is it starting to the left or starting to the right? And then why is it curving from, from there? So we had to, our eyes had to be our TrackMan back then. And you learn to see trajectory. Um, you learn to see if the ball's spinning too much, but you have to teach a lot to do that. Um, I , and I think because I played a lot, that really helped me to, to see the windows that you hit the golf ball through, and if that, if the ball was up shooting at all, or, or, you know, not spinning enough what the land angles are. But now, you know, on, on foresight or TrackMan, we can , it shows you exactly what the tr the land angle is. And we pretty much know what it needs to be to play on the p g A tour, that it's , we need a steeper landing angle to stop it on really hard greens. But that doesn't apply so much for the average player. And they're not, they don't have enough speed to do that. So we , I think a big thing for me, and , and our , and for me in , in my golf schools and all the people that I've trained to teach is you have , you , you have to have safety zones and corridors. That's the way I looked at it. 'cause there , there , I don't teach one swing to everybody, which is by, by the way, the easiest thing to do to teach a perfect swing to everybody. But we're all different. There's 8 billion people on the planet. We all have different acuity. The way we see things, the way we hear information, you have to be able to talk to that person in front of you and, and see what their limitations are and which could be injuries or whatever. But with the average, average golfer, I am teaching the average golfer to draw the ball, to hit the ball out to the right and draw the ball to the targets and most powerful way to hit the ball for the average person. But when I taught on the p g a tour , uh, mostly I taught the other way , uh, a fade . So when I worked, say a lot with Gary Woodland , uh, in mid 2015, 2016, he'd been hooking in . We went , he went back to that fade . Uh, so that was a lot of fun. I did it with Russell Henley recently in, in 2020. And I did it with Keegan Bradley. So Keegan hit a gigantic hook when I first worked with him. And, you know, that's something we took out. Lexi Thompson, when I worked with her, I taught her a draw. We just stayed with a draw . So you have , you know, that's a very comfortable shot for her to hit. And she's very accurate doing it. And then you , some people are very good. You might have 'em move the ball both ways. And I think it's good to be able to move the ball both ways. But I think you need a , a shot that you can depend on. And I learned that

Speaker 2 30:34

A , a butter shot , right?

Speaker 3 30:36

Yeah . A

Speaker 2 30:36

Shot you can rely on every time. I know I can hit this target now , I think.

Speaker 3 30:40

Absolutely. So that's what I see Scotty Scheffler doing. And John Rom and Awa , they're all hitting the fade. Now. The exception of that is Roy McElroy's hitting and draw , and obviously he is definitely one of the top , uh, three to five players in the world. No , I don't think anybody's gonna argue with that. So you can't teach everybody the same thing. Uh , but Rory's got one of the flattest left arms on , on the, on in professional golf, and he's comes from the inside. And that's the way he is played since he was a little kid. He's not tall, you know , it works , works

Speaker 2 31:15

Perfectly. So ,

Speaker 3 31:16

So yeah , obviously. Yeah , he's the one of the most amazing players I've ever seen in my life. I love

Speaker 2 31:22

Watching . Is he , when his drives , I mean, you see how far over, he's like, so far his swing is so far back and then he is able to get it straight and he comes back around and just blows my mind. Well, he,

Speaker 3 31:30

Mel r only, he only maybe gets it to parallel. He doesn't go really not . No ,

Speaker 2 31:35

I don't like that part . Well , I

Speaker 3 31:36

Know that <laugh> , I know those things because we study 'em every year, but it , it is easy to get an opinion because you might see something and it's , it happens in a flash, how fast the golf swing happens in one second. So there's a lot going on. I think you can be a really great teacher and teach without video, but it's tough. I like to use video to verify and just to make sure what I'm seeing outside, I, I wanna be able to look at it and make sure that I can be confident in what I'm telling the person.

Speaker 2 32:08

When did you move down to Florida and start the school down there?

Speaker 3 32:12

Yeah, I that in 1991, I , a person up in New York, well , the Castell family owned Doral and Jimmy Ballard left, who was a very famous teacher.

Speaker 2 32:27

Yeah . And ,

Speaker 3 32:28

Uh , Ballard left. And , uh, Howard Castillo said, I want you to , to come down and do the , to run the school. And I said, well, Howard, you know, I , I think I probably have the best job in the Metropolitan. I'm pretty sure I did have the best job in New York, which had a lot of good jobs too. But I mean, I had a great place. Sleepy Hollow is hard to explain how, how beautiful it is. And it's a big move. I had two, two boys , uh, and he made a great offer. So I ended up doing both jobs. I did Sleepy Hollow and Durrell for two years. But then I saw that I could do this , uh, I could go to to Miami, I could do very well, and it would give me the summers off. And my boys were young. I said, Hey, you know, have , because when I was in New York, I worked really hard. I mean, seven days week , I taught, I taught a lot of nights because when I taught the outside people, I generally taught them from about five to nine at night. So it stays light till nine , uh, so

Speaker 2 33:30

Far north.

Speaker 3 33:30

So, you know, I'm grinding it out pretty hard. And then on Mondays, I , or Mondays, Tuesdays, I might, I play like seven tournaments a year up in the New York area, but I love competing still.

Speaker 2 33:42

You love it. Yeah. You're hungry.

Speaker 3 33:43

Yeah, I like that. So that was a tough thing to give up. When I went to Drell , it was all teaching. You know, I played a few tournaments, but really, I , I focused my time on building a golf school. And, you know, once we did that, I saw it was gonna work. I hired some really good people to work with me. And , um, it started to grow. And then I, I , uh, expanded to P G A West where we had , uh, nine golf courses. P g A West was great. So we had that for 17 years. Then 2008 happened, 2009, 2010, Dora went bankrupt. P g a west went bankrupt. They were part of a, a conglomeration that Morgan Stanley Stanley that ,

Speaker 2 34:26

Oh , I didn't realize that. Oh , geez . Yeah.

Speaker 3 34:28

Say they all went bankrupt. So in bankruptcy, everything Bell Betts are off.

Speaker 2 34:33

Yeah.

Speaker 3 34:34

But , uh, the , uh, I

Speaker 2 34:36

Didn't know that. That's interesting. I mean,

Speaker 3 34:38

So yeah, 2012, the , the , uh, Trump family bought drought . So , man , I thought, well, this is gonna be , I, I taught Donald a few times in New York. I mean, I'm , he's new , New York guy, so I knew, I knew a little bit. Um, I knew it could be, you know, anything could happen. But I, I stayed there through 2018, and then I moved to the Biltmore. Yeah, it got , it got pretty wild through down there, through, you know, in the , in the election and all this , there was a tremendous amount going on.

Moving to the Biltmore in Florida

Speaker 2 35:10

<laugh> . No, no . We don't have to. I I can , I I think everybody understands with that. So you have a school in Miami, a your main school, right? Mm-hmm. <affirmative> . And how many instructors do you have in Miami?

Speaker 3 35:21

Y Yeah. Well, I was at Durrell for 26 years, 25 of those years. We had the P G A tour event at Doral . That's what I mentioned earlier on. Yeah,

Speaker 2 35:29

Because

Speaker 3 35:29

I was, I was very lucky because we had tour events at places where I was P G A West for 17 years. We had the tour event , um, at Maya Coba , we had the P G A tour event every year that I was, I was there. Um, so access, you know, when you have access to the tour players, to being able to videotape, to being able to do those video studies every year, I felt like that put us, you know, on the cutting edge, it's not that easy. For example, I, I go to all the majors right now for Sirius xm. My job's on the range, well, I'm on the range. I don't see any other teachers out there except the guys that are teaching the tour players. So I see the top players, the top teachers in the game are out teaching the best players in the world. But I don't see other teachers out there. Um , it's a great time for me because I can, I can get a lot of information watch . And so I'm trying to stay in the game. And I've got a lot of young teachers that work for me that , uh, right now at the Biltmore, we have 17 teachers and six assistants. And at , uh, at my other school, we have , um, six teachers and one assistant. Um, I'm out here in Utah. We have seven teachers here at Red Ledges. Um , can't wait . I'll be teaching starting next week there. So it's been lucky to be at places. Yeah.

Speaker 2 36:51

When did you come with X Factor and how'd you go

Speaker 3 36:54

With that ? Yeah. Well, through the, through all of the eighties when Carl and I were doing this work together, I was looking, the first book I wrote was the Drills book, because I, I saw that, I

Speaker 2 37:04

Remember that book.

Speaker 3 37:04

I used drills all the time, but there was no drills book. So I wrote the drills book myself. I took the pictures, I did everything. My was , took me a long time to sell it. But finally, golf Digest did the book.

Speaker 2 37:15

Oh, I remember that. Yeah . It

Speaker 3 37:16

Was very, yeah, it was very successful. And then in the , all that time, I was also looking at, well , like, what else isn't being done? So everything back then , uh, when I was first teaching was all hands in arms , uh, say the Golf Digest schools back then , uh, Jim Flick , um, mostly. And , uh, which is, I'm not, and I teach a lot of that . So I'm , and I'm not trying to say this in the wrong way. No,

Speaker 2 37:38

No, no, no, you're not .

Speaker 3 37:39

There was a lot of , there was a lot of teaching on what is the club doing is the foot's the face of the club and swinging the hands and arm a lot of stuff with your feet together. But I'm watching the best players in the world, and, and I'm thinking, well, there's no book on what the , what is the body doing Now, Hogan wrote a a lot about the , the body in this book .

Speaker 2 37:58

In the

Speaker 3 37:58

Bible,

Speaker 2 37:58

Right? Yeah ,

Speaker 3 37:59

Yeah, yeah. And he talked in detail about it. But, but, but there was a lot I didn't agree with like 45 degrees of hip torn and nine degrees of shoulder turn . Well, I've been doing this video stuff forever, and I , and I could easily see that a lot of, a lot of good players, tour players were turning more than 90 degrees , uh, a lot more so that , that got my interest in, you know, like, what's happening. And my first thing was looking at the turns and the swings. So I looked at the knees first, and I would look at how much the knees move. They don't really, you know, they're joints, they don't turn. But if you put a line across your knees and a line across your hips, it kind of turns out like it's a doubling effect. Your knees move and turn and, and rotate, and then your hips turn. So that's almost like a two to one ratio, and then your shoulders way out. Turn your, your should , your, your lower body. So I was speaking a lot to p g A sections. Then I would speak to three or four every year, somewhere around the country. And I started with , I started talking about, you know, these relationships, what the body's doing. And I, I had some , uh, shafts I'd put across my shoulders and my hips, my knees. And then I also said the fourth turn was with the head. So I, I kind of got this, I did get this from Johnny Miller in a , in a clinic we did together in Mexico. But he said, you know, the head goes with a swing back. It comes for a moment of stop, and then it releases to the target. So it , its head has its own golf swing. So I said , well , you know, that's four turns the head, the shoulders, the hips, the knees. And I presented that to Golf Magazine, who I was writing for at that time. They never even got back to me on it. And I finally called them and they said, it's just too complicated, Jim . You can't put that in the magazine. No . Nobody's

Speaker 2 39:49

Just do arms, arms and hands. Come on, <laugh>.

Speaker 3 39:53

Exactly. So , so I just <crosstalk> , we

Speaker 2 39:55

Can draw those pictures.

Speaker 3 39:57

So I , I called him , you know, I called down to the editor and I said, look, I got a really good idea. He said, yeah, we've looked at it , gem , uh, I'll tell you what , if you wanna drive down to New York, we'll , we will meet altogether with the rider here at Golf at Golf Magazine. I said, okay. So I drove down there and we met and I said, okay , I should point it out. I said, look at this guy . This is what's happening in a golf swing with the body. Forget what the club's doing, or the arms. This just what the body's doing. I said , yeah, it's pretty cool, but there's no way we can do four. That's too many. Pick two.

Speaker 2 40:28

Oh gosh.

Speaker 3 40:29

So I said, all right , well the most important would be the hips and the shoulders. So they , we do that and I write an article and then, then we have to decide what to call it . And I , John Andreani was one of the writers and he said, well, you know, if you looked down on this , it makes an X. What do you think of that? I said, yeah, that's a good idea. And he said, well, let's call it the X Factor . I said , so he really named it. But I said, okay. And they did the great

Speaker 2 40:51

Mark that <laugh> ,

Speaker 3 40:53

They did the article and it was the all time number one bestselling,

Speaker 2 40:57

Really

Speaker 3 40:57

Magazine. Yeah. So then, oh , you know, I was able to do taking the xti Impact and then, oh , and then it , right before that, I had spoken out in California and a guy out there who was the pro at , um, the Teaching Pro at Bel Air was working on a machine and it was, they could measure your shoulders and your hips. And he called me. And in 1992, we brought it out to Durrow and it was a gyroscope on your back, and it went around your hips and you could measure the, you could do the measurements, which was really cool. And then we put that in the article. His name was Mike Mcay . That was really cool. 'cause we could do, actually do a measurement. And John Daly had the biggest , uh, differential between the hips and the shoulders , uh, wow . On the , on the tour. And he was by far the longest hitter. Um , so that was really cool. And then that got me with some guys that read that Lenny Clements was one, I don't know if you remember Lenny, but he, he became a really top tour player. But he came and saw me based on that article. 'cause he was the shortest hitter out there. And he, and in this article, <laugh> , we , we showed the shortest guys, and Lenny was in there with a really small X factor , you know , uh, of the , of the hips and the shoulders coming close to matching up. Anyway,

Speaker 2 42:14

That's crazy. So I ended up , was grouping there, right. And his rolling .

Speaker 3 42:17

Yeah . Then from there, and then I started speaking all over the world , uh, to a lot , well, not all over the world, but in, but in Thailand and Australia, New Zealand , that's

Speaker 2 42:26

Over the world. Not , yeah. Like I didn't go Canada and Mexico or something.

Speaker 3 42:29

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So all over the place. And that was topic number one. You know, that's what people wanted to, and it all came from that first article really, really hit because

Speaker 2 42:39

You , you , you unlocked something, right. You saw, you saw that nobody was talking about this, and you're seeing it and you're like, wait a minute. Like, this needs to be talked about. Right. Because I think , uh, I think that's so cool. And then you pushed it too. 'cause they were like, oh , we're not gonna do that. It's too complex <laugh> , right?

Speaker 3 42:54

Yeah , yeah .

Speaker 2 42:54

Like, bro , it's golf, golf is complex. Whatcha talking about?

Speaker 3 42:57

Yeah, that was, that was interesting. I'm , I'm really happy that happened. And , uh, I actually , uh, I spoke last, last year at the World Golf Science Congress, which they, they go to different places around the world. And I, that was what they wanted me to speak about. And I, I went, kind of went through it and I told them, you know, I'm gonna be writing more , uh, I mean a second book, X factor two , uh, which I'm writing right now. But one of the things that , uh, we talked about ground reaction force where , uh, they use the kinematic sequence, which in, in golf, that would be starting with your pelvis, your hips, then the shoulders, then the arms, then the hands of the club in four parts . So in that, that talk, I've written about it before, but I said it should be five, five parts to kinematic sequence. It should be the feet and knees, then the hips, then the shoulders. Because in the X factor , as we start down, I , I talked about you lower into the ground so that you can move up out of the ground, you can rise up. Now, I didn't write nearly as much as they're doing now with ground reaction force, but I wrote all this stuff before there wrote biomechanics, you know, there , there was no biomechanics in 1990. In the nineties when I wrote in 1992, I wrote the first magazine article. So there was no golf biomechanics, but it's, it's much better now. But I did show the pictures in the book of pushing down and , and I , uh, one of the top biomechanics guys, Phil Cheatham was speaking there and I talked to him about it and he liked it. But I haven't seen anything yet, but I'm still going with the , that's, that starts the downswing, the push into the ground.

Speaker 2 44:52

It's interesting you say that because like, I know that you , um, we were in , I was interested the gym through Bob over at Squares. Right. And Squares golf shoes. Mm-hmm.

Speaker 3 45:03

<affirmative> ,

Why do you like Sqairz

Speaker 2 45:03

Bob talks a lot about that too with like how the square shoe works in terms of, you know mm-hmm . <affirmative> force on the ground. And like, I think it's very fascinating because I don't think people understand that and like why that works that way, you know, and why, I guess why those, even though those shoes even do what they do, because it's all part of the same sequence and you the right , and it all starts from , like you're saying, it starts to bottom up. Right. So it's almost like mm-hmm . <affirmative> , that's really, I mean, it's fascinating. I guess for the listeners, who have you worked with at , in the last like 10 years, like pro wise that people would know because you were with a lot of people, like famous people and pro players .

Speaker 3 45:34

Yeah, well, you know, you stop and talk to people and help them . And I've, I've kind of used, the people that I've, I've mentioned that I've worked with are people that I've come to my facility. Yeah . Not people that I walked up and down the range and

Speaker 2 45:49

No ,

Speaker 3 45:49

My keys to , but

Speaker 2 45:51

Yeah. You

Speaker 3 45:51

Know, in those years have been Lexi Thompson, you know, before that I worked with some other ones. But in the last 10 years was , was Keegan Bradley,

Speaker 2 46:00

Who's crushed

Speaker 3 46:01

That . And , um, Gary Woodland moved down to Miami when he , when I worked with him, I worked with him a long time. He came over pretty much every day . That's awesome. Um , he was really a hard, he is a hard worker and one of the greatest guys ever. Uh, I really loved . That's so cool . Gary . And then in 2020, I worked with , uh, Russell Henley that year. Russell , um, you know, I mean he's ended up being, he's always been a great player, but I think we really helped him with his driving. So those have been, and then Bo Ho's been on the p g a tour. I've worked with him. My son's working with him right now. But I covid changed things and I've definitely getting older, of course, I , I , I , I'm teaching so much. It's very difficult. You know, when I worked with Gary, I , I went to probably eight tour events, and then he would come down and see me all the time. Russell I would, I'd go to, I don't know , six or seven tour events with him. But you're on the road, you're, you're away, you're staying in a hotel. It's , uh, not all that glamorous. Another thing that always happens on the tour is the guy will say, I'll meet you at seven 30 tomorrow morning. And then you, you get up and you go there and , and you wait on the range for four hours until they get there at noon, you know, and <laugh> , you're like ,

Speaker 2 47:16

Ah , I don't wanna do this anymore .

Speaker 3 47:18

Yeah . Am I really doing this? I'm , I'm just sitting out here. I have loved working with SiriusXM though, and doing the range. Um, I , I really enjoyed . Yeah ,

Speaker 2 47:26

Just talk about that real quick. Like what is the range if people don't have Sirius, and maybe why they should consider getting it.

Speaker 3 47:31

Yeah . Well , um, you know, you gotta be really interested . You gotta be interested

Speaker 2 47:36

In

Speaker 3 47:36

Golf, to listen to golf on the radio. But , uh, I, I just, they, they come to me periodically and , uh, I'm giving information on who is the player working with, what are they working on. I, I've probably talked to the teachers beforehand, so I know some inside information on what's going on. It's a great time for me to, you know, visit with the different teachers out there. It's also a great time for me. I, I'm interested on the short game. I go out and watch what, what are they doing with their putting, what devices are they using?

Speaker 2 48:09

What training,

Speaker 3 48:09

How many guys are using the line ? What training aids are they using? Um , what

Speaker 2 48:13

Putters, how

Speaker 3 48:14

Many guys?

Speaker 2 48:14

Right?

Speaker 3 48:14

Yeah. What kind of putters are they using? What kind of clubs are they using? How many guys are using TrackMan? How many guys are using Foresight? How many are guys , are guys using Foresight or TrackMan on the range? A lot of guys don't, are during the tournament, are not using anything.

Speaker 2 48:30

They don't miss their heads. Right. They just wanna hit

Speaker 3 48:32

Spots .

Speaker 2 48:32

Yeah . Yeah .

Speaker 3 48:33

And then a few other guys will get with a teacher and they're really working on stuff right before the tournament, which I think has always been a danger thing for me .

Speaker 2 48:43

Double-edged sword, right, because you think you're gonna solve the problem before you go out there. Yeah. Right. You're not

Speaker 3 48:47

Gonna solve that. Yeah . I guess if you're played terrible in the practice rounds, you know, it's maybe you feel like there's nothing to lose, but there's no game like golf Paul, you know, that, you know, some weeks you just can't, you just can't do it. Even the best players in the world Although I'd say Tiger Woods and Jack and a few, you know, the , the very top guys don't have Senator Schley . They're not having many bad weeks. They may not scored great, but there are

Speaker 2 49:15

Jim McLean on that list too.

Speaker 3 49:17

<laugh> , no, you can definitely see that the best players in the world are definitely better than the rest. And the guys on the tour are so good now. It is just mind boggling . I, I got there early at LA Country Club , uh, a few weeks, you know, a few weeks ago and, and walked around with a number of players. But I won two days with Cantley and Shale , and I mean , uh, and also a couple of the young, the youngest guys out there , um, amateurs. But it is just unreal how long they're hitting the ball, how great they hit the ball.

Speaker 2 49:51

I think Tiger changed. I think that's how I always feel like , I feel like Tiger changed the game like in so many ways. And that's another way too, just like now you're an athlete, like you're a trained athlete to play the game. Not like you're just good at golf and like, but like you're training every day to like be,

Speaker 3 50:07

You know, and then we're mentioning super

Speaker 2 50:08

A superstar

Speaker 3 50:09

Just before I leave, we're mentioning Squares. So I , I , I work with, and of course I know Bob very well, but , um, one of the great swings in the tour right now is Sep Straka really?

Speaker 2 50:21

And ,

Speaker 3 50:21

You know, people are starting to see that and won . I think

Speaker 2 50:23

He's gonna right . He ,

Speaker 3 50:24

I think he's gonna make the Ryder Cup team. I really think he's gonna make it. That'll be awesome. And , but I love watching him swing. Uh, Justin Thomas is struggling, you know, and you just, you look at that guy, he's

Speaker 2 50:34

Always

Speaker 3 50:34

Struggling ball . You think, oh my God , he's

Speaker 2 50:35

Always doing good. He's doing crappy. Like, it's always, I think that so off. Yeah, he's really good too. And

Speaker 3 50:42

My son lived with Ricky Fowler at Oklahoma State, so I'm really

Speaker 2 50:46

Happy

Speaker 3 50:46

To see , I'm really happy to see Ricky.

Speaker 2 50:48

I love Ricky .

Speaker 3 50:49

Yeah, Ricky's

Speaker 2 50:50

Just everybody does Ricky, like, he doesn't just , you know, it's not some show. It's like he's just, you could just, I don't know . I don't know him personally, but just, I think

Speaker 3 50:56

That's Well, that's true. He's, he's an absolute g he's

Speaker 2 50:59

Not hiding, you know, you're not, you're not doing a show for somebody like , oh, I'm this guy. It's like, no , everybody likes him 'cause he is normal, right? I mean, but Well, I really appreciate you being on the show. I could talk to you in three hours , uh, but Jim has to go play golf, so , um, thank you so much. Where can people find you , you, your content , um, your books, that kind of thing? My ,

Speaker 3 51:22

Well, we're doing more on, on YouTube. I , I did YouTube , uh, kind of ahead of time, but we we're getting back into it now. Uh, I'm doing quite a bit of YouTube and that's on McLean Golf , also Instagram's, McLean Golf we're

Speaker 2 51:37

Following than I do on Instagram. It's crazy.

Speaker 3 51:40

Jim mclean.com for our golf schools. That's the easiest way to, to find me.

Speaker 2 51:46

That's awesome. Well,

Speaker 3 51:47

I appreciate it, Paul. I , I really enjoy it . I feel like I could have talked to you,

Speaker 2 51:51

Like you said ,

Speaker 3 51:52

For another three hours.

Speaker 2 51:53

I get , I have like a million dollar question I could ask you too. I just, I was trying to like, hit all the main points about, well ,

Speaker 3 51:58

We're gonna one more thing. We're gonna do this big fundraiser for juniors again in the , in December. So I don't know if anybody's interested in that, but , um, that's gonna be a big thing for us. And , uh, speaking, I'm gonna be speaking in, in Paris, France to the French Federation in September. And in Madrid. I'm doing two days for the Spanish Federation in October. So we'll have a nice trip over to Europe. And , uh, I'm looking, you know, it's always, when I do any of these talks, I, I feel like I'm gonna learn a tremendous amount from the guys there. And that's really how you gotta keep going. It's like a continuous learning process to, you know, to stay at the top of the teaching game.

How to stay on top of teaching

Speaker 2 52:39

Well, I'm, I'm honored to have you on the show. Uh, like I tell him , telling Jim before this show, like, my dad had his like, video books when I was a kid. Like, I remember seeing it, so like, it's cool. I told , like, I was telling my dad earlier, I was telling him like, oh, guess what ? I'm on my show today. It's Jim Mcle . He's all excited. He's like, oh really? It's like, so I'm really happy you're here to join us. Um , thank

Speaker 3 53:00

You.

Speaker 2 53:00

And , uh, thank you for, for being with us. And you guys need check out Jim McLean . He is like, like I said, he is top instructor in the , in the world. So , um, thank

Speaker 3 53:09

You Paul. I hope I see you in Arizona someday . I'd like to come out and tee it up with you. Thanks for listening to another episode of Behind the Golf Brand podcast.

Speaker 1 53:18

You're gonna beat me, the golf stay connected on and off the show by visiting golfers authority.com. Don't forget to like, subscribe and leave a comment.

Speaker 4 53:27

Golf is always more fun when

Speaker 1 53:29

You win. Stay out of the beach and see you on the green.