It's episode forty five Off Course with Claude Harmon. You know, the Drill comes to you every Wednesday. This week's guest Dr Scotland, director of Research and Education for Swing Catalysts, which is a it's basically a ground force kind of measuring. Um, we're gonna talk about a lot of cool things, and I think you're starting to hear kind of how players work with their feet, how they're using the ground. You're starting to hear it more in the broadcast. Um, it's something that the long drive guys have been trying to work on for a long time. I've been lucky enough to work along time alongside Scott and this guy is really, really smart, and I think he does a really good job of taking a complex um subject like golf biomechanics like groundforce reaction and trying to dump it down to help all golfers. And there's definitely going to be some stuff that is going to help you play better. But first wanted to talk to you about a new partner of the podcast, Elijah Craig Bourbon. 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Um, I think there's a lot of confusion kind of about what it is. I mean, I think a lot of people associated us with measuring the ground reaction forces, so the pressures and forces between the feet and the ground but um our our CEO and a bunch of people. UM, we're basically a software company. UM. We really pride ourselves on our software that we use to do basic analysis of golf swings, whether you just do video analysis. We have a lot of people who just use the software to analyze videos and draw lines and do stuff that we've done for a really long time in analyzing golf swings UM. But then you can also sync your software with our ground reaction force plates UM. And that's where my work with Swingcaus has really come and is making sense of how the golfer interacts with the ground UM, and how we can then use that in golf instruction because you know, force plates pressure plates have been in academic labs for a really long time UM. But being able to take that information and apply it, you know, in a very practical setting in a golf lesson or UM with a golf instructor who obviously doesn't have background in physics and biomechanics and all that kind of stuff is has been kind of my task with swim Calis. So it's taking that kind of complex information and breaking it down in a simple way that we can use it to help somebody hit the ball better. Yeah, you're currently a professor of kinesiology and biomechanics at cal State Fullerton. I mean we're starting to hear Scott. I think we're starting now ground force reactions, the way players used the ground are. We're hearing it more on the broadcast now players talking about it. I think obviously, Um Bryson, the work that bryceon d Shambo has done to try and gain speed, He's looked at that. Um. I've always thoughts as an instructor, people ask me, what is one of the differences between people that you're watching play golfer living on television, elite ball strikers, great players versus the rest of us, right, the the average recreational golfer. And I always say that I think the best players in the world use the ground in ways that the rest of us just aren't able to use. And you know, am I am I right in saying that? Yeah, I mean we see some things obviously on elite players that we don't see in regular golfers in using the ground. Um, but is that being said, you do we will find some recreational golfers who put a whole bunch of force into the ground. They just put it into the ground in ways that don't match their body or their way of delivering the club. And so I think more often than not, you can you'll see people everybody because we have our little tour average graphs, and it's rare that I get somebody on the plate, even if they're a terrible golfer that doesn't at least get one of those graphs into the tour average, which means you know, they're they're putting some force into the ground, it's just they're putting it in the ground into the way that's not relaying into the club and creating speed. So I always talked about ground reaction forces as really tuning them to the individual or tuning them to the player. UM. And I find bad players generally have them completely mismatched, so they don't have it optimal for them. UM. But it is possible to be a really bad player and still put a lot of force into the ground. What we're what what swing catalysts and what a lot of these pressure plates um. But specifically, the three things that swing catalyst is looking at that a player does is how they're moving from side to side, right from their right handed golfer, how they're moving to the right, and how they're moving to the left, and then it's looking at their rotational how much they're able torque rotation, and then the vertical component of its their ability to push off of the ground. Um. Why are those three things so important for golfers at all levels? Um? Basically because that's and and the force plates do provide a lot more information than that. We we have a bunch of information in the background that we kind of hide from our users, or I mean, we don't hide it. You can go and get it if you want to. But to me, that that just simplifies things in a way for the users because if we think about how humans move, we can basically move in three planes. Right, we can move in the frontal plane, which is the first one, like a side to side motion. Right, That would be a face on kind of if you film me from face on, you can kind of see how I'm moving in the frontal plane or side to side. Right, So the frontal plane would be a right handed golfer, how they're moving and how and how much they're moving into the right leg, and then how much they're moving into the left leg. So that's that kind of lateral side to side motion. Actually we call that kind of sway or glide or whatever you want to call it. UM, And that would be kind of ye watching their prolis or their belt buckle move away and towards the target as they swing UM. And the other one, the second force we measure is the rotational force or how much they're moving in the transverse plane. That would be something like to really see it properly with the two D camera, you would need one A B from above right to see how much the rotation and so UM so the transverse So we have frontal plane motions, which is kind of that side to side or that glide or that sway. Then we have the transverse plane motions, which is the rotational force UM. And this would be you know, we see this a lot. And I mean one of your guys DJ, I would imagine, you know, we've never had him on the plate, but I would imagine he produces a ton of that rotational force. You know, guys where you see that belt buckle almost pointing at the target or even past the target sometimes that impact are the guys that are creating tons of that rotational force UM. And then the third force would be in the sagital plane. UM, and the sagital plane would be if you looked from the side or down the line kind of at the person and how much uh they're moving. And most of our movements general movements are in the sagital plane, if we walk, if we run, their mainly sagital plane movements. And and guys that use a lot of that, or players that use a lot of that in U in golf or be the ones you'd actually see like jumping off the ground. So you know, justin Thomas Lexi Thompson, UM, they're the ones that use a ton of that. And all the long drive guys now have really kind of focused in on that sag on that ability to kind of push off the ground. We hear a lot now that when we're looking king at UM force plate data the long drive people, it blacks out because they're pushing off the ground and effectively jumping into the air. Yeah, and that's something that you'll see a lot of kids do that as well. UM, Like younger golfers. I see a ton of younger golfers that are in the air when they're hitting the ball. UM and it is the simplest plane to create forces in the sagital plane. It's the simplest plane. Like we don't see little kids when they first start to move around, you know, get up and start twisting and shuffling side to side, right that sagital plane motion or simple it's the simplest plane to move in. And that's why I think a lot of young kids when they first take up the game, UM use that force primarily as one of their main ground reaction forces and hitting the golf ball. Um. And I think you know, when I was a kid, I remember going to little junior clinics where the teachers would be on their hands and knees holding people's feet on the ground and trying to keep them from jumping. I remember, you know when instructors saying, this isn't basketball, you don't jump, like how to keep your feet on the ground. And you know, had we done that to Justin Thomas when he was a little kid. Um, none of us may know who Justin Thomas is right now, because he uses that as one of his dominant power sources. So I think it's really important that we start to really understand what is what is our golfers dominant power source and and don't do anything to take that away from them, just match it up to make it work for them. So for someone that doesn't have the availability or has never been on something like swing catalysts or any sort of like you know, motion capture, where we're seeing how they interact in the ground, when they're looking at their own golf swing stock, when they're looking at how they're moving into their right leg, moving into their left leg, how they're rotating. And then the footwork, because I see a lot of players um that I've worked with that one of the easiest ways to clean up contact is to have their footwork be more stable. Whereas when we look at a guy like Justin Thomas, when we look at guys like Bubba Watson and the long drivers, they're actively trying to have that jump mechanic part of their golf and they're trying to push off the ground and jump. I think there are a lot of higher handicap golfers that aren't actively trying to do that. They're in the air with both feet and they're getting absolutely no benefit out of it. So how do you kind of balance the footwork Because when I look at golf swings, historically and it's changing a little bit. But one of the things I always look at is footwork. What is the player's footwork look like? And I know that we have the availability now to measure and we know that some of that can be really, really good, But it just seems like the average fifteen to twenty handicapper, their legs and their feet are all over the place and they struggle to get the good contact, the good quality of strike that we're looking at. So for all the recreational golfers that are listening, what are some of the things when we're looking at, Let's go through them, the side to side, the rotation, and then the article. Because I was we we we've spent some time together, and we were looking at a player that I worked with who plays on the LPGA Tour, girl named Marina Alex who when we looked at what she was doing on swing catalysts and we were measuring her with her driver, she had almost of her weight on her right leg she's right handed, to her right leg or her trail leg at the top of the back swing. Now, I think most golfers historically have been told the more turn and the more load you can get the better. But one of the things that I'm starting to see and that you've helped me kind of come to terms within, is if you get way over on your right side, you can get so far over there that you just can't really get back. And there's a gentleman and older gentleman who's a member at my club who's a you know, it's a big lesson taker. He doesn't have a lot of great body movement, but he's always trying to get big onto that right leg. And it was after you and I spoke, it made me really realize he gets all his weight on his right like almost makes this big turn, but then he gets lost and stuck back there and never really gets through the ball efficiently and just basically throws it casts it. The impact position is bad. So that balance of how much is too much in the turning part, in the moving from right to left. Yeah, So that's something that I've found in really good players, they really dial in um. So if we talk about like how much pressure we get maximally into the right side during the backswing, out of the couple PJ Tour players, I've measured the averages around eighty, which kind of corresponds with you know, I think Hogan's book way back in the day said you want to be in the back swing, which so it was a really good guess that by Hogan in you know, way back when we didn't have access to any of this technology. Um, but that is the average, But the standard deviation is a massive because we see guys ranging from about where they hardly get any pressure to the right at all more than that set up to all the way up into the nineties. And so dialing that in for your particular player is really important. And what we find is that has to kind of how much you get into your right side has to kind of correspond with your ability to produce the proper ground reaction force. So if I get nine percent into my right side, I better have a lot of that horizontal force where I need to push into the ground with my right foot and get myself moving back to the left, because if I get nine percent and I get stuck back there because I can't push off my right leg, Um, you know, I'm kind of um, that's not going to be very good for me. So that's not going to be an optimal matchup. Um. Whereas I've seen a lot of players where it can work. You can get into your right side and you can push off that right foot effectively get moving back to the left, and you can hit some good shots there on the other side of the equation. If I kind of like stack on my left leg and so I don't get a whole lot of pressure ship to the right, that can still work too, But then I got to produce vertical forces from there right because if you right down, I got to come back up. And one of the things that I think that I've seen a lot with the higher handicap golfer is they make what what is the big sway move off the golf ball, get a lot of that weight on the right leg, and then they come over the top of the golf ball. So they're actually creating a lot of rotation. But because they've put so much weight on that trail leg on their right leg, they rotate, but they don't get any sort of power because like you said, you have it's it's about trying to do one of the things that when you and I first spent some time together, you said, listen, if you look at the way players are moving side to side, if you look at the way they're moving rotationally, and then if you look at how they're working vertically, that jump part you said, basically all we're trying to do it's a little bit like a radio. We're just trying to dial in how much is enough of each? So for that player that makes that big move that's being told get into your right side, get into your right side, makes that big shoulder turn, if they don't have that corresponding move back to the left, it doesn't really matter that they've made this big turn and they have a lot of rotation. And I think a lot of times, you know, players are getting information from magazines, from YouTube, and you know, my dad used to always say that being a golf instructor is like being a doctor. You've got someone and they come in and they've got a cast on their arm, and you say to that person, as a doctor, how did you break your arm? And they say, well, I don't have a broken arm, but I heard that if you had a broken arm, putting it in a cast would be a great thing. When we see that a lot, right, So as a as just a regular golfer who's just trying to hit the golf ball more solid um, is there an optimal that you've seen in all the data that you've looked at. What would be the ideal mix or is there an ideal mix of all of these components. Yeah, I think there's an ideal mix for each individual. And so for me, I think Golf Digest and Golf Magazine and stuff like that needs to start doing and kind of choose your own adventure golf tips where you have a little assessment you put your body through, and I think we can come up with some these simple ones and and and the one test that I you know, I think I did with a bunch of your players when I was there, and and it's a super simple test and it's not ideal. There is no perfect test to determine what's optimal for each human. But I get you to hit with your feet together, really close together, and you just evaluate, like how far are the ball is going. If you have a launch mon and you can look at club at speed and ball speed, that's great. If you don't have a launch monitor, you can just kind of evaluate how solidly am I hitting it? How far is the ball going, like is it curving a lot? And you could pick a target out, you could pick out, you know, a flag measure, you know, you know, measure how far away from the flag you are, laser it and then say, okay, I'm gonna hit a nine iron. Is there an optimal club that you would choose for this task with the feet together? I like to use a mid iron, So like a seven eight six somewhere in that range I think is fine. Um I, you know, obviously you're not going to use a driver. It's just because teeing it up gets into some different strategies. Um. So yeah, So generally a seven eight sick seven eight and mid iron is probably the best one. So you hit with your feet together, and what will notice with your feet together is obviously you can't move side to side very much with your feet together, right, because if you do, you'd fall over, And so that kind of limits the amount that you can go side to side. And often when you put your feet really close together, you're not going to see people jump off the ground because there's no real base of support. Yeah, and so what do they do? They have to learn how to spin or rotate. And so if you're really good at rotating and you're a centered player, kind of we call that a non long uh, a non leg dominant player, So we don't have one that's one leg that's super more dominant than the other. UM. So if you're if you hit the ball best in that situation, then you'd say, Okay, I'm probably a centered player, and I gotta learn how to rotate better and keep my pressure shipt kind of in that mid range. And then what you do is you drop one foot back and so you kind of hit like I've seen people do drills like this forever right where they're standing on one foot, the other foot's kind of back with their toe into the ground. UM. And you do that on your right foot and hit a few balls, and you do that on your left foot and hit a few balls, and you used to evaluate which of those conditions is the best for you. UM. And you'll see it often where people get, you know, on the right foot. So I'll measure them on the force plate and they'll be getting their pressure into the right side. And then I'll try to have them hit only on their right foot, and they'll be all wobbly and they like can hardly even stand on that foot, and they hit the ball all over the face and and are swinging much slower. And I'm like, and it's a really good eye opener for most players. It's like, Okay, well I can hardly even stand on my right foot and let alone hit a ball off it. Why am I getting of my pressure into that leg? That's that's not so good, not so strong, not so stable. UM. And you're like, whoa that that doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Maybe I shouldn't do that. UM. And so I think that's a really good eye opener for a lot of people. UM. It's not a perfect test, but it's one that's very simple. You can do it on any driving range. UM. Even if you just have a cheap little launch monitors, swing speed measuring device. UM. It can give you a lot of good information. So if you have a player that hits it really good with their feet together right and their feet are really really close together, and they catch it really solid, they hit the golf ball a pretty good distance, and then they go and they test off of the you know, having all their weight on their left foot with the with the right foot kind of toe, you know, resting on the toe, and that kind of goes not as good, not as solid, and then you have the right foot test and it dozen goes up. It's you're able then to think, okay, rotation is probably the thing that I'm really good at, because I'm not really good at being able to balance and hit off my back foot or hit on my front foot right. And then you will have players that don't hit it solid with their feet together right, No, for sure, then you'll have players that stripe it off their right foot. I was in UH. I think it's a little bit more rare that you get people, especially UM in the US, I don't know why, or in North America, I think you'll find less people that hit it really well off their right foot. But I did a seminar once in um. Where were are we Thailand? I believe in Bangkok, And I think of a room of twenty or thirty people, what like fifteen or like a good percentage fifty or six of them hit it better up their right foot. So so these people were try and to get more pressure ships off the ball, get them more into the right side so they could use their strongest, kind of the most dominant leg um. So yeah, that's that's a good um starting point. And and what we find is too when people hit it really well. I've had it in the past where I get a you know, a baseline of their normal golf swing, and I have their club speed and ball speed and all that kind of stuff, and then I do the test and they put their feet together and their club speed goes up, and their ball speed goes up, and they actually hit it further with their feet together. And sometimes they look at you and like, should I play it this way? And I was like, well, maybe not this way, But that tells me we should probably narrow your stands, um because what you'll find is, I mean, if you look at a figure skater, right, no figure skater is going to get their arms and legs really wide to try to rotate. It makes it a lot harder. And so if you yeah, so if you are a rotationally dominant player, let's make it a little easier on ourselves and and there our feet a little bit, because that can allow us to rotate a lot better. So let's take a quick break from the interview to talk about our friends at Cobra Golf. I've been a part of the Cobra Golf team for a number of years now, and they have three new drivers out for the l T D X, The l T D x l S and the l T d X max lt D longest total distance. It's a great combination in these drivers of speed, distance and forgiveness. They've got an l S model which is low spins. If you're trying to get that spin down, you can bring it down with that driver l T d X Max. That's got to weight in the heel. So if you're looking for a little bit more of a draw bias driver, that's going to be the one that you want to try out. But I put it straight in my bag when I got it. I like the way it feels. It's got a lot of forgiveness on the face, it comes out hot, it looks cool, and I think Cobra is really onto something with these three new drivers. If you want to learn more about them, you can go to Cobra golf dot com backslash l T d X. I don't think you'll be disappointed. If you're looking for more speed, more distance, and more forgiveness, give these drivers from Cobra try in your bag. Now let's get back to the interview with Dr Scott Lynn. Do you think, um, we're at a stage now with all of the technology that's available that for all of the negative things that you know, I think there is a much negative out there about what Bryson D. Shambo is trying to do with hitting the golf ball further all the long drive. Obviously, he's currently injured right now, so he's an easy target of everyone saying, Okay, yeah, it was never gonna last. It wasn't sustainable what it does to your body. But do you think that the information that we're able to pull out of what these guys are trying to do is long term going to change the way that people teach golf. You know, ten years from now you play this out, we're gonna have more and more data. Um, what do you see golf swings looking like ten years from now versus the way that they've looked today, or that the way that they've looked in the past. Because so much of of golf, I think golf, more than any other sport, spends an enormous amount of time in the past, We're always looking backwards, and we just don't seem to do that. I mean, maybe we do that a little bit in basketball, where we look at players like Michael Jordan and we look at him being the benchmark. But you know, in tennis right now. You you look at the great tennis players. Yes, you know John McEnroe is a great servant, voluer, Stefan Edburg and stuff like. But the way the modern tennis game is played today, you watch old, you even watch old, you know, Bjorn borg Um, John McEnroe, you know, the Great Finals, it looks like they're playing in slow motion right relative to the way the game is played today. And I just think so much of golf, and so much of golf history is tied up in looking backwards, and we look at these old swings, and we look at this, and there's this segment of the population. You know, I think from a journalistic standpoint this as well. You know, back in the day, they didn't need track man and they didn't need force plates. You know. Brandle is big on that, you know, anti this, anti that, But I think the gains that are being made not only at the elite level, but it can help us so much with regular golfers who are just trying to hit the golf ball more suld. I mean once that that gentleman I told you was probably in his late sixties, early seventies. He doesn't have a lot of flexibility He's not in great shape, but he loves golf. He's trying to get better, and he reads all these articles that says, I've got to make this massive, massive shoulder turn. I've got to get behind the ball to get power. And in that way, the information that we're able to have now can help him by saying, listen, let's cut down how much you're moving off the golf ball. Let's maybe keep you a little bit more centered, keep you almost feeling like you're over the bowl, which is going to make it easy. I just think that the role of technology, the benefits long term are going to four outweigh the negatives in what we're able to look at and measure and help players with. I agree. I mean, I think if you think about, you know, ten years ago, I mean I started at Call State Fullertons in two thousand eight, and I believe it was shortly after that I flew to Orlando to hang out with Sean Foley and he pulled this little orange box out of a bag and put it behind me, and I was hitting some shots, and like, in two thousand eight, how many people had tracked man, I mean it was a rare number. Now in two thousand twenty two, I don't know a golf teacher that doesn't have some form of launch monitor. UM. And if you walk down the range at I mean in two thousand and eight, if you walk down the range and put the players, you would have thought you would have seen zero launch monitors. Now there's there's not a player that doesn't have one behind them. It's it's cheating, I mean, it's it's giving you information that you can't get in another way. UM. And So I think fourth plates are going to be the same way. I mean, I think right now they're in the hands a lot of high end golf instructors. So, you know, really high end places have them because they're expensive and they're you know, they're not easy to get your hands on. But I think, you know, ten years down the road, they're going to be in every golf instructors because the price, I mean, we're already seeing the launch monitors now launch monitors. The price of the launch monitors are coming down and and and they keep every year. There seems to be one that isn't you know, financially unattainable for someone that really wants to dive into this. UM. Your background in biomechanics. Um, what made you try and get into that type of field and what made you want to try and look at that because I read somewhere that you were in two thousand and eight, you were doing your PhD in biomechanics and you played golf with an insurance salesman and it really kind of changed your life. Can you tell that story? Although I think it's a fascinating story. Yeah. So I was doing my PhD in a place called Kingston, Ontario, Canada, So that's just worth of Syracuse basically, Um, And I was doing it an orthopedic biob mechanics. I was looking at how people with knee ar threatis walk and all the forces and torques they put on their knees and how that could be related to, you know, wearing a way of cartilage. And Um, doing a PhD as a grind. I mean, it's four years of just grinding away. I always kind of equated to a marathon, like the process of running in a marathon is not inherently enjoyable, right, the process of running twenty six miles there are points, I'm sure when you run a marathon you're like, oh, that's a nice view or whatever. But it's a physical grind to run twenty six miles, but then when you finished, there's that sense of accomplishment, right. I think that's kind of the greatest analogy I could relate to people in doing a PhD. But um and so I was doing this PhD in orthopedic bob mechanics, and I was studying the knee arthreatis and the gate patterns. And um, I was a member at a golf course called Weston Western Country Club in Toronto, Canada. Um it's known for, or it's kind of famous for it hosted the Nadian Open, where Arnold Palmer won for the very first time profession So there's a big statue of Arnold Palmer by the first team. And so I had this membership in Toronto, and I was two and a half hours away doing my PhD. And so in the summertimes, I would work till about Thursday afternoon at around noon, and then I would get in my car and drive back to play golf weekend. And I would show up at this course around three pm every Thursday to just get a get a game in. And all my buddies were working in their jobs. You know, they're nine to five jobs, so they couldn't join me at three o'clock on a on a Thursday, UM. And so I would just show up and try to get a game. And there was this older guy who would show up every Thursday around the same time, and so we played together a bunch, um. And he was a retired insurance guy. UM. And I remember, you know, we chatted a bunch coming around the golf course and at one point, you know, he had made a lot of money. He was remember at a night's private course. You know, he'd he'd had a really good lifestyle in insurance. But we're playing golf and he looked at me, said, you know what, when I look back at my career, I hated every minute of working. Um, the actual working part I couldn't stand. He's like, it gave me the lifestyle and allowed me to do the things that, um, that I wanted to do. But if I could look back on it now, he is like, you got to find a way to make work less like work. UM. And he hit his shot and he walked up and I was like, m And I went back and worked the next week on my PhD, and I was like, this is way too much like work this this knee arthritis stuff. And so after I finished, when I finished your PhD, you have to turn in your keys to the lab and all that stuff that they can graduate you. And and so I snuck into the lab at night to do a covert mission UH, golf by mechanics study. So I was I was playing on the golf team at the university at the time. So I brought all my buddies in and I put markers on them and I quantified the knee loads during the golf swing. UM. And I presented this at the World Scientific Congress of Golf UM, and I published it in a journal article. UM. But it was actually Bob Weeks, who is the editor of Squore Golf Canada magazine. It's like the Golf Digestive Canada. UM. I was playing golf with him one day at Weston actually, and I told him about my study and he got super interested in it. UM or actually wasn't that interested at the start, because you know, I told him, but and he's like, yeah, that's science nerds stuff. I don't really understand it. And then it was like a week later the tiger blew out his knee at Torrey Pines, um. And then he became super interested in it. So he's like, oh, we gotta talk about this, you know, knee loads and golf stuff. And and I remember when I started working on that project, I was like, Wow, this doesn't feel like work, this is like fun. Um. And so I decided I wanted to do golf biomechanics as my you know, profession um. And so I wrote up all my job applications and submitted them to a bunch of universities saying I wanted to do golf byo mechanics. And it wasn't a thing at the time, like nobody in the world was doing golf biomechanics. So and I read every you got turned down everywhere, everywhere, well everywhere in Canada, my own country, didn't want any part of me. Uh. Then I came down to the States and I interviewed at a couple of places, and I came to cal State Fullers and they have an unbelievable lab facility here that's a big, massive facility where you can hit golf balls and um. And luckily they were open to that type of research. UM. So I came down here in uh two thousand and eight and through Bob Weeks. I got introduced to Shaan Foley, um, because you know the Canadian connection, and Shan had just moved to Orlando and had just started to work with Steven Names and a couple of those guys. So um, that's kind of how I got into the Golf by Mechanics. And it was Sean who connected me with Swing cattlest actually back in I think it was because he's worked with the company for a long time. So um yeah, so I think that was that was a big moment where you know, and I think it's it's true we spend how much of our lives working, and if you can be doing something you find enjoyable, um makes the work less like work and and it is fun. I mean I love even the little consulting I do with guys like you and Tony Riggeriro and Sean Foley. And you know when you see you get to work with some really good players, and you know, I work at a bunch of college kids and I'm following their scores on golf stat all the time and seeing how are things going, and I'm talking to them afterwards. So um, yeah, I'm inherently a scientist, but um, you know the the I don't know, the motivation to publish research articles that sit in academic journals that nerds like me read and barely anybody else has kind of waning a little bit. I much enjoy much, or enjoy solving these practical problems UM. And so taking complex biomechanics and putting in the hands of people that can actually use it, I think is a is a worthwhile use of science for sure. So for for everyone that's listening that that you know that aren't in the world that you and I are in biomechanics, to dumb that down for a golf for what is golf biomechanics and why is that important for golfers? UM. I kind of break it down to my students as being the physics of the human body. UM. So there are these physical laws that govern our world. UM. And most of this was developed by Isaac Newton a really long time ago. UM. And so it's applying all of the same you know, theories and principles and formulas that an engineer would use to build a bridge and make sure it doesn't fall down, and all of those things are you know, build engines and cars, and all of these physical laws that governor universe and applied them to the human body and allow it to one. And biomechanics generally looks at the structure and function of the human body. So you know, I was looking at cartilage structure and how it's changed with forces and torques, and how we can apply different forces and torques to our knees. UM, whereas you know, you're mainly worried about the function of the human body. How can we use physics to allow this body to function better? And UM. I had a really interesting experience as well with UM. I sat down with a bunch of the Club engineers from paying at a conference several years ago, and I was talking about all the little assessments I like to do on people to figure out what's optimal for them in terms of UM. You know, they're swing biomechanics and UM. Club engineers are UM. You know, they're working with steel and graphite and you know, titanium. They're working with things that aren't human beings, and human beings have nervous systems they have. There's so much as I was talking about all these assessments I like to do on people to figure out what the optimal golf My mechanics and one of the the ping engineers looked at me. He's like, oh, it's like I hate working with humans. They're so messy. And I was like, that's brilliant, um, because human beings are messy, right, we have we have think about Like I was just working with a girl yesterday who's on my my girlfriend's golf team. She's a college golfer and she had hit a couple of shanks in competition, and she was deathly afraid of the shank, like she hit one and it looked like her world was ending, and she was just in my garage hitting into a net. I was like, dude, whatever, it doesn't matter. But you think how much emotional investment people have, even people that play for just a recreational way, in the outcome of their golf shot. And how afraid we get when we get over that shot and there's a right to left wind and there's water on the right or out of bounds, or there's a couple of people watching. Um, it's amazing how much you know. And people talk about mental issues and golf. I think mental issues and golf come from a bunch of bad shots that we don't know how to fix them right. Um. And if we do know how to fix them, then you know a lot of those things can almost take care of themselves. But um, yeah, So that Um, it's basically the physics of the human body. And it's complicated because I don't think we can treat the human body as a machine because we're so different. All of the are so different, We're all built differently. All of us have different anatomical structures. And that's something that I'm getting into some research with a doctor orthopedic surgeon in Little Rock, Arkansas, UH named Lowry Barnes. We're working together to start to start to quantify the anatomical structure of humans because I think there's certain things about our structure that could dictate, Hey, you're better able to rotate, and you're better able to move side to side, and you're better able to to produce vertical forces. Because my little test, you know, on one foot, other foot and be together. I mean you might have just practiced the one with your on your right foot for a while or you know whatever. There could be so many reasons why one could be better than any other. So um, and that's ultimately my goal for my career is to become to be able for you to walk into a facility and I can say, Okay, I know exactly what the optimal combination of these forces are for you, and I know the optimal um way that you need to deliver the club. UM. And I think a lot of this stuff, a lot of the work that I started, I would have never gone down this route if it weren't from my atoms. UM. Doing some work with him is where I kind of really started, because he was the first golf and teacher that that really started to put golfers in little groups and and try to quantify, you know, what, what makes your swing need to be different from somebody else's which um, And so that's kind of our goal. Um. But there's so many things that you need to think about. So UM. That's why I think you know that if you just read Golf Magazine or Golf Golf Digest and you pick up a tip that might be based in science, but it's not for you, right, it's not applical for you. As That's why I think, UM, And I've tried to do a couple of articles for Golf Magazine and Golf Digest that or like a choose your own adventure. Um. I don't remember if you remember those books when you was when I was a kid, right, you'd get to you know, you'd read along and it'd be like, if you want to go down this hallway, go to page nine or whatever. So, UM, do this little test and if if if this, then go to this drill and if that, and then go to that drill and um and eventually I think, you know we're talking about three swing cattle is coming up with almost an AI golf teacher that could put you through drills and you know, get the data back from the fourth plates and from the launch model and say, Okay, that was pretty good. You know where that wasn't so good. That's gonna be great. They're not gonna need people like me. Thanks, Scott. I really appreciate that you. They will never get rid of the coach. You'll never ever get rid of that part of it. Um. But I think you can kind of direct people along just so they're not going completely down the wrong path right where. I think it does happen often and that that probably creates some business for for a lot of golf teachers for sure. But yeah, we were just walking around the Players Championship together down it's up at sall grass and when you look at golfers and when you go to golf tournaments, when you watch golf on TV. As someone that lives in that kind of research biomechanics, but is there anything that you've kind of seen that you could put your finger on that great players or great ball strikers do. There really isn't. There's so many different ways to do it. I mean, obviously, if you look at impact factors, there are some things that I mean, I don't you don't see too many great ball strikers with low points, not in front of the all like obviously that if we talk about that pure interaction with the club in the ball, I think you can definitely come up with things that are that good ball strikers do. Um. But when it talks about the feet in the ground, it it's it's so different. Everybody's completely different. And and I try to guess, um, you know, if I'll watch a player on TV and I'll like, like I did earlier, I guess that DJ is a big rotational guy, probably has tons of torque on the plate. But multiple times I've been wrong, whence I when I've actually able been able to measure that player. Um. And one example of Jordan's speek. So, Jordan's speef, you know how he rolls on the outside of his ankle kind of through impact, and and that to me looked like a horizontal pattern. Right, if I'm going to roll on the outside of my ankle, it looks like a majority horizontal pattern. But all his forces are vertical. Um. So once I saw his forces, UM on the plate. You know, Camera McCormick has one of our plates at at Trinity Forest, and I was like, I couldn't believe it. It It was all vertical. And it's so that's the thing about force plates is um. I know I've heard some people claim to be human launch monitors, Like I don't need a launch monitor. I can tell from UM. I don't think you'll ever be you'll ever find somebody who's a human ground reaction for his plate because it's it's just impossible to see those things with your eye. Yeah. And I think the ability now to measure what players are doing is so so important. This matchup. I'm fascinated by the matchup of you know, as as a player, you know how much because I think golfers are so deathly afraid of a swaying right. I mean, if there's one thing that I hear golfers when you know, sometimes you need a player to say, listen, you know you you don't have any power. You're kind of reverse pivoting. You've got all this weight on your left side. Let's try and get some more weight into that right leg if you're a right handed golfer, that trail leg. And you'll hear players say no, no, I don't want to sway, I don't want to swear, I don't want my head to move around and stuff like that. I think golfers over the over the years have read so much. It's not misinformation, but it's just all of these terms that they've kind of come to know. And that's why I was asking earlier. Do you think that we have an opportunity with all of the technology and our ability to measure what players are actually really doing that in the future the terminology will change, right you know? Uh? I lift? You know forever everybody thinks they top twive. I mean I still to this day, Doc lifted my head and I'm like, that's got absolutely nothing to do with anything. Oh I I swung too fast at that one. I'm like, actually, if we could measure what you were doing, you're swinging slower on that one than you do when you hit a good one. Do you think that there is an opportunity for the future of of golf terminology and golf instruction to change through being able to measure what all these players are doing. Yeah, I think that's a huge opportunity, and I think that is a big issue. I feel like the pendulum and golf instruction always kind of sways back and forth, so you know, swaying was the worst thing ever. And then stack un tilt came along and a lot of people jumped on that because there was no swing involved with that. That must be good, right, And so some players got better with that, some players got worse with that because it doesn't match everyone. Um. And then the cardinal sin and golf became an early extension, right TP I made early extension kind of like the cardinal sin or you gotta keep your butt on the wall, you gotta. And I saw somebody post something about Scottie Scheffler after you one last week, and he's got a significant amount of butt off the wall, and yeah, right, and so that works for him. I don't think there's anything that is. And that's why you know your question is there's something that all good players do or is there something that all bad players do? There really isn't an answer. I mean, early extension could be that could be awful for me, and it could be actually good for you. You might need some because to get a vertical force you've got to extend through your joints and extend through your hips and so um. Yeah, so there. I don't think there is anything that's that's really death move for golf in general. Um, but there could be for each person. So I would more to have people start talking about, well, you know, I'm kind of a glider so I need this, and I'm kind of a spinner so I need this. And I'm kind of a launcher so I need this. So if we start anything that people do to put golfers in little categories or little groups, which we call in in science, that's cluster analysis, right. So if we got a graph and there's dots all over the place, what we have to do is put a little circle around these dots and say, Okay, what's similar about these people? Why does this work for these people and not for these people or those people, and so anybody who's doing any kind of cluster analysis and trying to put golfers in little groups and and identify what differences they need, I think that's where we need to start going. I mean, I think the three terms that you use just now are really really accurate and powerful. So people that have a lot of right, if the right handed golfer that kind of right to left, that lateral, that would you call that more of a glider glider horizontal player shure, And I think, you know, we talked about Pat Perez, I would say he's he's a pretty horizontal player. And and if you took away his way, so I've watched some of his wings in his belt buckle moves a good distance away into wards the target. If you took that away from him, you know, he starts spinning out of it, hitting wheat cuts, and and he hates that right where you get him gliding into it, he starts trapping those draws in there, and he loves it. And he loves that game. So guys like him, guys like Lucas Glover are guys that produce some side to side motion and or side to side forces and they're generally the drawers of the golf ball because generally that side to side drops the and that's a big generalization too, but I generally think those are the guys that are going to drop the climpity inside more and create a little more drop pattern, right. And so then the other one you talked about were spinners, people that have a lot of rotational move with that lower body. For for everyone listening, so you you just mentioned guys that that would kind of be your kind of you know, you can maybe classify them as as gliders, guys that have a lot of that kind of the knee kind of that left knee looks like it's going a little bit for then you have the rotational guys, the guys that you spind if if if you had to plassify someone that you kind of visually look out and go, yeah. I mean you mentioned DJ who has a lot of that rotation. Tiger was probably very much in that pattern as well, someone that had the ability to rotate. Yeah, yeah, those are those are two I would say very centered golfers. You know, Tiger in his day and and DJ and I mean there's a couple of things that I look at to kind of determine um the um what the pattern is. So one is like the belt buckle right, does the belt buckle go side to side? Does it spin and kind of point towards the target? So like an impact, if your belt buckles pointing at the ball, you're probably not a spinner, right. And if your belt buckles pointing at the target, then okay, that that gives us a bigger indication UM. And then I look a lot at actually the flex in the right knee or in the trail side knee. Um. And so if you're a very right side dominant player like a Pat Perez, you gotta keep a little more flex in that knee because you need flexing, the need to push off that leg right. So if I straightened my right leg and I get a whole bunch of pray, you're into that leg, then I'm not gonna be able to get off of it. So the flex in the right knee is another thing that can kind of queue you off. So a lot of flex would be a right right dominant golfer or a glider. A little less flex would be kind of more of a centered player. And if I'm a left sided golfer or or kind of a vertical golfer. I might straighten that that trail side legum because that tilts me towards that left side and gets me kind of more stacked on top of my left leg. So those are a couple of things that I look at. Their not perfect cues because again every time I try to guess, like I have guessed that DJ is a torque dominant golfer, but I don't know. We haven't measured him yet, so we'll see. And then you said, um, what was the last term that use a glider um spinner and launch art. So a guy that springs to mind, you mentioned a guy like Justin Thomas. Justin Thomas has a lot of that force. Do you think that that was something? I mean, it's interesting when we look at golfers, probably more than other sports, I think, because you know what Tom Brady does. Every buddy that watches Tom Brady that isn't currently playing high school football, college football, or professional football has no ability to try and match that. Right, if they look at what Lebron's doing, if they looked at what Michael Jordan's doing, if they're looking at what Novak or Roufa or anybody in these other sports unless they're currently playing competitively in that sport, you have no ability to match that. And I think so much of what harms golfers is one I think everyone in golf tends to find the outlier that can match what they do right, So the pure one outlier, guys like Justin I have so many duck have so many parents come to me and their their their son, their daughter. Their feet are all over the place, the contacts bad. And I said, listen, if we can just clean up the footwork, make them a little bit more stable through impact. And they always say, well, Justin Thomas foots off the ground. And I was said, well, yeah, but your daughter or son is not Justin Thomas, right, he's an outlier. Bubba Watson, the way Bubba's feet work very much of kind of an outlier kind of I think, do you think that we can have golfers start to say, Okay, what is it that I do right? What is part of because I think golfers are really inherently bad at kind of looking at what they do. They tend to focus on what other people are doing and then try and match that, as opposed to say, okay, what do I do? I remember going back in the early days of launch monitors when I was when I was with Titlists. We were out at at t p I and I was watching a guy, um get fitted for a driver, you know, fifteen handicapper, he'd never been on a launch monitor before, and he hit five drives and they gave him what the average clubhet speed was in ball speed. But the ball speed wasn't really that big of a deal as it is now, but they just gave him the club at speed and the guy, the player immediately said, okay, how can I get faster? And the fitter said, rather than try and get faster, why don't you just try and hit the same club head speed number all the time over and over. So if whatever your club head speed is a hundred and ten miles an hour, he said, on the bad shots you hit, the bottom basically drops out right. You go from a hundred and ten to you know, maybe at ten fifteen, twenty mile per hour club head speed loss and you hit it all over the place. So that kind of baseline to where you know, having players with I guess the question is without the technology, how do players Because obviously, as a golf instructor, I'm lucky enough to have, you know, a lot of technology. I use a lot of technology. It's it's it's it's a it's a massive luxury for someone like me. But for the average golfer who doesn't have a track man, who doesn't have force plays, who doesn't have you know, a biomechanics k vest, any of these things that are out there, how can the average golfer look at what they're doing from a biomechanics standpoint? Because everybody now has a camera, right, you've got a camera, how can the average golfer film themselves? And what are some things that the average golfer could look out in their own golf swings and say, okay, I'm doing this, which probably means I'm going to be doing that. Yeah, So I think less. I mean I think mostly. You know, I think a big problem in golf is we all try to to please the one eyed monster right the camera. We want to make our swing look better, but does that then equal better golf shots? I mean, the point of the golf swing is not to for it to look pretty right, It for it to get the ball where you wanted to go. And so, um, I heard you had Mark Blackburn on recently and he talked a bit about a good friend of mine, Will Woo, who's a motor learning expert. And I think one of the best things that amateur golfer can do is something I learned from Will, which he calls the Goldilocks drill. So what's the Goldilocks drill? Is like too hot, too cold, and then in between. So if you're not sure, um, what works for you. Let's say you're not sure if this vertical thing is for you, Well hit one and try to keep your feet glued to the ground and just evaluate the contact, evaluate speed, evaluate where the ball goes, Evaluate how comfortable you were. Now hit one and try to be justin Thomas and jump right off the ground. Evaluate the contact, evaluate speed. So you've gone to the two ends of the spectrum, and that which one was better? Okay? I kind of hit a little better with my feet on the ground a little bit more. Okay, cool, So now we we decided. Now we try to do in the middle and see is that was that good? Was that better? And so I think one that's a great way to evaluate what works best for you, and too it's a great way to practice. UM. I give that drill to a bunch of my really good players, Because what you find really good players do is if we get them on the forth plates and on the launch monitors, and we identify what's optimal for them, and they go and practice it over and over and over again, and then they get on the golf course and it goes over here, they're like, Holy, what happened? I don't Oh my god, and they freak out right. Whereas if you've practiced over and over again like this, and then you've done some of these and some of these on the range when it didn't matter, then you get on the golf course and the ball does a little bit of that, You're like, Okay, no problem. I can think that I just gotta bring it back a little bit. Iever it goes over here, No problem, I can just bring it back a little bit. So to me, that's one of the most powerful tools to one identify what your optimal mechanics are. UM is is a and this is you know, Will Woo and John Dunnigan have this. Uh it's an education program for golf instructors on UM motor learning principles. It's called the Skilled Coaching Alliance, and I highly recommend that every golf teacher I've sent to them has said that's been one of the most valuable kind of educational tools they've done. And I've learned a ton from them too, and so use it. But even if you don't want to go through all that, just using the Goldilocks principle to dial in your mechanics. So if you if you want to see if you're Pat Perezer, not do one where you're like way way off it and sway way into it, and then do one where you kind of stack over it and evaluate which one was better, Which one did I make more solid contact, maybe hit two or three of each one, and then try to do one in the middle and say, Okay, which one of those was the best. If I'm gonna make a mistake, I'm gonna go more towards Pat Pereza. I'm going to go more towards I don't like Henrik Stenson, who's kind of more of a stack stack on top of the type player. Um. And so I think that's one of the best ways that and I think that's where we we do make a lot of mistakes in golf, is trying to please the camera, right, trying to make the camera or the swing look prettier, um, rather than evaluating, you know, with the bald, because that's been way more important in my mind. You know, my uncle Billy, my dad's youngest brother, who's a fantastic teacher. He's been on the podcast before, you know, when my dad was working with Tiger and he was working with Adam Scott, and you know Tiger and Adam in the early two thousand's. You know, Scotty still has that beautiful kind of textbook. To me, Adam Scott has the most aesthetically pleasing golf swing, you know, just the way that his body moves heat. To me, he's very much like Roger Federer, and it looks like the motion is very very pretty, whereas someone like rough and adult, the motion doesn't look pretty right. And I remember my uncle Billy saying that, you know, right now, everybody's trying to have a golf swing that looks like Tiger or Adam Scott. And he said, the interesting thing is, he said, if you look at two the greatest ball strikers of all time, guy like Hailer. When Hale played a little bit, closed, took it inside, came over it and hit fades, and then you had a guy like Lee Trevino who hit draws very open stance, took it outside, dropped it under and hit draws from there. And he said, it's funny. You have two of the greatest ball strikers who could repeat their movement all the time, and we don't teach anyone to swing like that. We try and teach everyone to have these beautifully picture perfect golf swings. And it's like what you were saying, I think everybody wants to have their golf swing look pretty. One of the positives that I think that all of the technology that we currently have in golf instruction today is the function test. We have the availability to look at what players do and say, Okay, it doesn't matter what it looks like, you are one hundred percent functional. You can repeat what you do. You know, when my dad started working with Dustin Johnson, it was at a time in the you know, mid two thousand's, like maybe two th seven eight, everybody said club face, left wrist, you've got to change that. There's no way he can play from that position, right. And I think now because we're able to measure and look at what players are doing, and I mean this for the high handicap golfer as well for not the tour player, for someone that's a fifteen or twenty. I think they're always looking when you say dark for that big giant overhaul as opposed to dialing in and saying, listen, if I can just get this part of my golf swing better, I can hit the golf ball more solid and I can maybe hit a little bit straighter. The curve is going to be less and I have the availability to to hit better shots. Yeah, And I think it's being able to bring it back when it goes awry because the best golfers in the world. That why you have a job. That's why you're out on tour every week, because it goes awry even for the best players in the world. And that's why I think that that Goldie lobsterrill is so good, because if it goes awry in one direction and you have the ability to say, Okay, that's no problem. I know when the ball does that, I'm doing a little too much of this or maybe not enough of that, and I, you know, dial it back in again. I think that's that's super important. And I think ultimately my goal for my research is to have that be a much less trial and error process for you to figure out what works for you, because I remember, was it several years ago before Arnie died, there was that commercial where it's like swing ears swing, don't swing anyone else's swing? Swing ears swing, and everybody is like, the hell is my swing? I don't know? Right? How do I figure out what my swing is? Um? And so I think and and that I agree that is one of the biggest mistakes. I remember going to lessons in the you know, early or late nineties and having Tiger next to me and they're saying, no, you're here, you need to be there, and I'm like, well, and I just hit it like crap for a while after that lesson, right, and so, and I'm sure many people will be able to relate to that. So um so yeah, I think that that's kind of my goal is to come up with kind of chooser, own adventure golf lessons where you can go through a series of tests and figure out what's optimal for you and and and then dial that in because that's, uh, it's not easy. It's not simple. Everybody's been looking for the magic bullet and golf instruction forever. You know, if DJ wins, it's this. If somebody else wins, is that right? Like it's Um, everybody's always looking for that magic bullet, and there's so many smart people that have been looking at this game for so long. If there was a magic bullet, we would have found it now. Um there isn't. There's a magic bullet for you and for me and for everybody, and figuring out what that is and getting them closer to it is is ultimately my goal. Lastly, you live in the in the research kind of that kind of world where you're trying to figure things out from a biomechanics standpoint. All of this stuff in two in golf instruction, but also in golf um currently today, doc, how how do we as instructors but also for everyone listening as a player, how do you balance this this this information versus the art of playing. Because John Graham, who's a big putting guy who I think does some fantastic right have I on the podcast recently and he talked a lot about the art of putting right, And there is an art to the golf swing. There is an art to playing the game. And I think a lot of players who are trying to play competitively can go down the rabbit hole of technique, technique, biomechanics, numbers, all of these things, and it doesn't really help them get any better. So you see them bounce around from coaches to where they'll push all in on going to see someone whoever it is. But they're all in. They're pushing all in on it. They're trying all the stuff, and then they go, Okay, that's not working, so now I'm gonna find somebody else, and now I'm just gonna push all in on that. So it's this constant battle, and it's someone that that lives in the research world. But you are a golfer. You said earlier that that that golfers are humans, and humans are not perfect. How is how do we use golfers and as instructors find that balance between the data component and also the going out and playing golf and just feel Yeah, So I think technology is great, Like, I mean, I live in a technology world where I'm using force plates and lunch monitors all the time. But as a player, you want to use those minimally um because they're not there, right, They're not there on the golf course. They're not there when it actually matters. So, UM, using the launch monitors minimally. I have some kids that I've worked with where literally they've hit the shot and before the balls even landed looking at the lunch right, and so they become dependent on the technology, which is not a good way to do it. So I've had people on the quad where I put a towel over the quad just to get rid of that, or I turn off the TV so they can't see the ground reaction forces. So I think using technology minimally, the people who use the technology the best are the ones who use it almost the least. It's it's cheating. I get on it and I hit three shots if my game's gone off, and I'm like, oh, I'm not getting enough into my right side and that okay, I know how Okay cool? And then I'm off and I and I go to the golf course and and I think that's where optimizing the use of it and the so and the or minimizing the dependence on it, I think becomes really important. Um, we just had Matt wolf into the bay at at Sawgrass and and he's been struggling obviously with this game recently and he said something to me about that was really interesting. He's like, you know, when I was at Oklahoma State, I hardly hit any balls I go out on the golf person, I'd curve it around trees and I'd like, I get out there and throw it in the woods and play with my buddies and and and now I'm working on all these positions and like and uh and you know, so I think there's some there's some brilliance in that, right. And and I remember Sean Foley telling me he was working on some something with Tiger when he worked with him, and it wasn't working on the range, so he took him into the woods and hit put him behind a tree and said just curve it around this tree, and then he did it automatically. Right. So, um, yeah, I mean, ultimately the technology is a great tool, but I think used optimally, it's it's used very minimally. Um, you get your feels, you get what you need from it, and then you move off and you you learn how to apply that on the golf course. And I think the best people. So I was just working with a player at at wake Forest, um and that we he needs to get more rotational we think. So we've come up with exercise he can do in the drift in the gym, and we've come up with some little warm ups he can do before he hits balls to to get that rotational pattern down. And I think if we do enough of those and that bleeds over into your golf wing, you're not thinking, Okay, I gotta do this, this and this. When you're on the golf course, you're thinking, Okay, I'm gonna cut it into this pen. I'm gonna start at that line. Um. And so you're playing golf, you're not playing golf swing, but with all the mechanics that's kind of led over into your swing from what you're doing you know, in the gym or in practice and all those types of things. So yeah, it's a difficult it's a difficult problem to solve because I know a ton of people that they go get golf lessons and they hit it so well on the golf less and they're like, oh my god, I was hitting it so well, and the next day they got no clue. Um. And so to me that they haven't learned anything. Right, they'vementated very well, but they haven't learned anything. And I think that's where that motor learning science comes in. How do we then get that to stick? You know, when you're on the sixt t and that wins into your face and there's water everywhere, and you know, how do we make that that pattern stick? I think is is a is an extra problem, even beyond the biod mechanics problem. And I think being very smart about how you use technology is super important. Well, I appreciate you talk to me. Um. I will continue to pick your brain and call you because obviously, uh, you're a hell of a lot smarter than I am. And um, and and my brain definitely doesn't work the way yours does. But I think you're doing some fantastic work. And uh, you know, I think it's a really really exciting time m in golf instruction, and I think you're a huge part of it. So thanks for talking to us. And uh, good luck with all the uh the the education and the things that because I mean I had no chance at doing a PhD. So I'm glad you said it was hard, because um, I barely made it out of college. Well, thanks so much for having me. And I think that's the goal. I mean, my goal is not to create a bunch of stuff that only nerds like me can understand and use. I mean, I want to make sure that you know everybody can use it to. I love this game. I mean I've played this game since I was I always tell the story I was. I grew up in Toronto, Canada, and I think I was three years old, I believe, and my dad was a golf nut and he wanted to get his sons into golf so he could start playing somewhere. So he bought me a little three wood for Christmas. My mom always says, worst gift ever because I was running around the house for like four months and before I could go outside smash and stuff with my three wood. So I've been playing this forever. I love it, um and uh yeah, that's kind of my goal to make it easier to get better and uh hopefully we can get closer and close to that every day. Thanks do great to talk to you. Thank you man. So that was Dr Scott Lynn, And as I said in my opening, I think he did a great job at making all of these complex things sound a little bit more normal. Listen by a mechanics groundforce reactions. It's not maybe something that you're thinking about every day as a golfer, but the way that you swing the golf club, how you're using the ground, how your body is moving side to side, rotating, how you're pushing off the ground, can really really help you improve your game. And um, if you have the opportunity to get on a force plate and take a look at how you're moving, I really do think it can be something beneficial to you. I use it in my instruction and uh it's helping me make players um better and helping them improve their golf and have more fun. Uh. So I want to talk a little bit about the Players Championship. I was up there, um last week. I mean, what an interesting week. I mean, I think I got asked earlier in the week, um by somebody who I thought were the favorites, who I thought would do well, and given that we knew what the wind and the weather conditions were going to be, I said, Um, I think it was on maybe Tuesday or Wednesday. I said, listen, a lot of what happens this week is going to be dependent on which side of the draw you are. And I think that we saw that the guys that played early on Thursday and laid on Friday, UM to get that round in on Thursday. The majority of the guys got their rounds in on Thursday. I think a couple had to come back and finished on Friday, but then the rain came. And you know a good example, I know everybody knows I worked with Pat Perez. Pat finished in the dark on UM Thursday. If you get a chance to go back and look at it on social he was playing with um Ian Poulter. They hit their shots in the seventeen. Pouls hit it's about five ft and sprinted to the t and then made his pot and sprinted the eight because they knew they were gonna blow the horn. And if pols teas off, regardless of of the fact that the other two guys in the group hadn't finished, if Poulter ts off eighteen, they can finish even if they blow the horn. So they finished in the dark, and he saw if you watched it on TV, you saw I think it was Gary Woodland and Keith Mitchell were in the group in front. There's a huge amount of camaraderie on the PGA Tour every week, and those guys would have known that they were gonna try and finish. Find them, so they had just teed off and you could see it on the TV. You know, Woodland and Keith Mitchell, they were telling but walking scores to get out of the way. Ian Poulter rushed to the tee teet off, so they got to finish in the dark on Thursday, which means they didn't have to come back and finish one or two holes early Friday morning. So Pat Perez finished his Thursday round on Thursday. He didn't hit a shot on Friday, he didn't hit a shot on Saturday. The next time he hit a golf ball was Sunday. So it was really really He even wanted to come and try and practice on the two days that he knew he wasn't gonna be able to go out on the golf course and play. But the wind conditions, the rain, it was just it was really interesting and we haven't seen that. You know. It's funny every I'd say every three or four years there's a tournament to where you can just completely just get crushed by whether you played early on Thursday or whether you played late. Sometimes the wind conditions get up and see players go you know to other players, Hey, you know you get the better of the conditions yesterday in the morning, but it was just I've never seen it rain that much, and just kept raining and kept raining and kept raining. And I think you saw some of the players that that that had houses that we're staying, you know, pretty close by. They left the golf course on Friday, UM, probably with knowing that they weren't going to come back. They were close enough to where if they got called back, they give them pretty much a little bit of notice they could have gotten back. But it was a really really interesting tournament. And you know, with the amount of money for the first time, I mean, you know, almost lost like three and a half maybe a little bit over for first place. I think second places like over two million, I mean a twenty million dollar purse. So to have this kind of event, with this type of I mean there's five year exemption um, one of, if not the biggest prizes in golf of the FedEx Cup. UM. It was a really interesting week. And you know, golf is about adversity. I mean, the one thing that you can't control is the weather. UM. And I thought seventeen was just unbelievable. Theater again this week during the restart um, one of the first day they restarted, I think four out of the first guys that went through seventeen all hit in the water. I mean, and some of the best players in the world. Um. You know, you saw some of the talking heads on Golf Channel talk about, you know, whether they like seventeen, where they don't like seventeen. But it is an iconic part of the game of golf, the iconic hole in professional golf. Whether you like it, whether you don't like it, whether you think it's an island, whether you you know that guy that says it's not an island. And and remember it's a wedge for tour players, a hundred and forty yards and it causes players unbelievable problems. We saw some shanks, we saw some people hitted fat, we saw some people one bounce it over the green. But if you're gonna win that golf tournament, you've got to stand up there on seventeen and hit a really, really good shot. And I think it it's fascinating to watch that whole. Um. I like it. UM. I think it's a cool part of the game. And the players championship, UM, the move to March, they're going to get you know, every two or three years, they're probably going to get some bad weather, some cold weather, some rain like they they did this year. Um, when it's in May, they have less of a chance of doing that. But um, it's a cool golf course. Um it's certainly one of my favorite events on the PGA Tour. And um the golf course was in unbelievable shape. Unfortunately the rain caused um some problems. But um it's always I mean, I think it's the fifth Major. Um, I know we've got four, but I don't have a problem with their being the fifth major, the the unofficial fifth Major. But it's it's a great golf course. It's a great event, and uh it always provides a lot of drama, of course with Claude Harmingtons always comes to you every Wednesday. We will see you next week. These dat king