Latest / PlayBetter's Golf Tech Weekly / #12: He tracked all of Bryson DeChambeau's data, Alex Trujillo from JumboMax Golf Grips
Transcript
- PlayBetter: I met John the first day on the job with Bryson because John has been making Bryson the grips since Bryson was 15 years old. When I left FlightScope, I was going to be completely out of the golf industry. You know, he started talking to me about grip fittings. I really want to go down this avenue and that really piqued my interest. Back once again with another episode of Golf Tech Weekly, your hosts, Daniel Fitzpatrick and Mark Schiforgian. Joined today by our guest, Alex Trujillo with Jumbo Max Golf Grips. As always, we're talking all things golf tech and our guest today has a very interesting inside the ropes perspective to share. Daniel, I know Alex has been a friend, mentor, former coworker of yours. Why don't you tell us about who we're visiting with today? Yeah, thanks Mark. Really excited to have Alex join us today. As you said, me and Alex have a long history together. both, we went to college together. We've worked together. We've, we've traveled to tour events together. So it, was pretty cool to, to be able to bring Alex on with us today and just talk a little bit about technology, about one of the most important parts of a golf club fitting the golf grips. And then just talk about, ⁓ how he got comfortable inside the ropes and getting tour players to trust what he's trying to ⁓ help them with. So yeah, Alex, thanks for joining us today. Really, really appreciate you being here. Thank you guys for having me. I'm excited to ⁓ get to talking and see where this goes. Golf talk is awesome. I mean, anytime you can talk about golf, I'm all in. Awesome, awesome. Alex works pretty much a full schedule on ⁓ all the top tours around the world. Busy man on the weekends, Thursday through Sunday, I'd imagine are pretty jam packed for you typically. ⁓ We're recording this on a Tuesday, so definitely appreciate you giving us a little bit of your day off time. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Well, cool. ⁓ So Alex, of course, is now with JumboMax grips and we're going to get into all of what that product is about and why grip fitting is very likely the most overlooked and potentially most important part of shooting our lowest scores. ⁓ But we're also going to talk about all the amazing golfers that Alex had a chance to work with in his years in the industry. ⁓ We're to get into how the best players in the world are using golf technology like launch monitors and how what they're doing translates into the opportunities that are available for all of us. ⁓ And first of all, Alex, you were country before country was cool. ⁓ You were on the front lines of launch monitor technology on tour. Really before that was quite the thing that it is today. ⁓ As I understand it, you were one of the first guys to ⁓ bring launch monitors out onto the golf course during practice rounds with guys like Bryson DeChambeau. ⁓ Why don't you tell us a little bit about those early days and kind of how this has all evolved to the point where we're at today. Yeah. So ⁓ when I was at FlightScope, I ran the sales department and ⁓ I also was in charge of all of the reps throughout the country. And one of our reps in California, his name is Mike Shy. That's Bryson DeChambeau's junior coach. You know, Mike had told me for many years that he had this kid that he thought was really special and, you know, brush it off. But, you know, there's a lot of great talent, right? So it's, you know, once the kid won the US Sam and the NCAAs, I started paying attention. ⁓ But I got to meet him. Mike had me come out to Bay Hill when he played as an amateur. And he kind of put me through an interrogation process for like four hours on the range to just kind of... He wanted to know what I knew about technology because he wanted to know if I could be an asset to him. And, ⁓ I guess I passed a test and that day, as a matter of fact, the first day I met him, ⁓ we got done on the range and, ⁓ Mike said, Hey, why don't you just come walk the course with us? And can you, can you track shots? And I was like, I don't see why not. I just put it down and I connected to the app. And at the time we were using a fly scope, had an excite tour. and it had auto leveling feet. So it was a little funky to get everything going because you know, the feet are moving and you're walking with it and the iPad and all these things, but we got it done. ⁓ you know, it's kind of cool to see how the industry has progressed as you know, the, we were like the early guys doing, we were really the first ones to do it, Mike and I, and to gather data. And that data became very important for him, for Bryson and now for players because the, You know, one thing is to get data on the range. Another thing is to get data on the course where you're gonna actually be playing. ⁓ know, adrenaline's different, striking's different, the turf is different, and so it's really, really valuable data. Yeah. Yeah. mean, so like what in the, those kind of those early sessions, what was Bryson looking for? What kind of metrics was he, was he studying? Was it just carry distance? Was looking at spin rate? What, was he honing in on and how was he using that to translate to, to better performance? Yeah. So in this early part of his career, he was, You know, he's he's a golf. was a golfing machine guy. He was very much on one plane. I have a screenshot saved somewhere of him hitting a three iron on the range. He hit five balls with a three iron and the grouping was three feet. So his accuracy was three iron. Yeah, three iron. I mean, his accuracy was unbelievable. So. You know, it was we were were looking at everything, but. what we developed was we just started logging information and it was almost like a tether, right? Because Bryson is going to go down all kinds of rabbit holes. But one thing that Mike would always tell him and his coaches throughout his career have told him is you have to be tethered to something, right? Like you got to be able to go back to something that you know works. so I think that's what the asset that I brought to him was that I was able to log all the information and we could always go back to a session or a particular swing or whatever ⁓ tournament where we can go back and look at that data. So it's almost like when the player is hitting the best, that's when you really want to get data because that's your tether. You can always go back to that. And ⁓ I remember one year, I don't know if Daniel was with me or one of our other colleagues, Tyler, but I was in Vegas. And I got a call like, dude, like I, it's like two years back. he's like, I need this session on this day from this tournament. you know, obviously I was able to go into the fly scope app and, I can backtrack all that. And, ⁓ and I got him the information he needed. So I think that's where it's valuable. Of course, you know, they, you're looking at spin and you're looking at launch and you're looking at path. And, ⁓ I have some interesting stories about that. that we can talk further down the line. But yeah, it was, we were really just looking to tether his data. Yeah, I remember that day pretty well. We were we were traveling for America's Golf Fest and I'm pretty sure he was working on like a new driver build and and he called and it was it was the most miraculous like detective work I've ever witnessed. You know, is because you could imagine how many sessions in a two year period you know you had done with them and and it was something you were able to locate. And you know, that's something where I think you'd built that trust and. he knew that you were going to be able to locate it for him. That was just like a really cool full circle moment. that, you know, he you think that these guys are going week to week. Sometimes they're trying to find something they had maybe a couple years ago and build off of that building block instead. So yeah, I remember that that very vividly. Yeah, I mean. Both of you guys have worked with a lot of the top players and a lot of the most analytical players. Daniel and I have talked about Matt Fitzpatrick, obviously just won this past weekend. He's another one that obviously goes super, super deep and another one that know you guys have worked with. Jason Day, Bubba Watson. Who among those? Bryson and Matt are cut above in terms of obsessive about studying, tracking, and compiling data? or are all these guys like this? ⁓ Matthew Fitzpatrick is on another level when it comes to data tracking. yeah, he is he's well ahead, way ahead of the curve. ⁓ Obviously Bryson is not far behind but Matthew is I mean, I tell people all the time from the experience that I had working with him. He tracks everything and if you notice ⁓ you know, when he's playing on the golf course, he's taking notes of every shot that he hits. And ⁓ he has a company that he works with that helps him kind of track all that information. ⁓ yeah, Bryson, Bryson was just as far as working, practicing, ⁓ obviously that was like long, super long days. ⁓ Matt was more of, I didn't get to work with Matt as long as I worked with Bryson, but Matt was just everything. was every single shot it was tracked, whether it was on the range or on the practice course or in the tournament. He tracks everything and that, you know, it's pretty cool. So, and then you got, you know, guys like Bubba who, who is more of a field guy. And when I worked with him, he was just trying to understand, ⁓ you know, when I hit certain shots, what can I expect? He was just trying to match a feel with what the reality was. ⁓ know, Bryson also used to always tell me this. People think that he's obviously very technical, but he was actually, he was ingraining a certain feel for what it produced. like it was instant feedback on, I hit this shot a hundred yards. Yes, it looks very technical and rigid and everything, but he's actually trying to match a feeling with that. And so, ⁓ You know, he says, I'm actually more of a field player. Doesn't look that way, but he'll tell you, like he feels that it's that he's just trying to match up the fields with what is actual. Would that be applicable to everyday amateur golfers? Is that something we should be chasing? And if so, in what way can we use launch monitors to achieve maybe the same sorts of ideals? Yeah, I think in today's day and age, with all the technology that's out there, ⁓ I mean, when I started at Flyscope, was really just Flyscope and Trackman. There wasn't really anybody else. And ⁓ now with the accessibility of all of it, and how really how a lot of this stuff has become very affordable and it's very accurate. And ⁓ I think it can help everyone. Something as simple as you go to the range and you just try to understand how far do I just hit the ball? You know, how far do I carry the ball? How far do I carry every single club in my bag? I don't think the average golfer knows that. You know, the average golfer has a guesstimation of, okay, I hit my driver 250. Well, did it carry 250 or did it carry 225 and it rolled out 25 yards? You know, or, you know, what if you're, you know, I'm in Florida. What if I'm going to go to Colorado? You know, how do I understand that correlation? Cause there's a big core, you know, big difference. So I think something as simple as just getting some type of technology that can just help you understand how far you carry the ball is a great starting point. And then of course from there you can go down all the rabbit holes you want to go to. What's my club path? You know what's I'll give you a perfect example. I was playing with a good buddy of mine the other day. We were warming up on the range and I had my GC3 out. I was just getting some numbers on some new wedges and He said, hey man, let me hit a few shots on there. I got a new shaft. had just gotten a new, you got a Newton ⁓ three dot fast motion. And he's a little bit older guy and a really good player. And he's hitting some balls and I'm like, hey man, I'm like, the shaft is one thing, but you're hitting down on it like five degrees on a driver. So spin-loft was through the roof. He's spinning it. You know, he's hitting it low and he's spinning a ton. I'm like, let's just try to get that angle of attack closer to zero. So like, you know, just try to hit up on it. made some adjustments in the setup. And I mean, he gained 20 yards just from one change, just from trying to hit up on the ball. And so I was explaining to him what spin loft was, you here's angle of attack, here's dynamic loft. And just giving him that awareness is like, wow, that's the coolest thing ever. Like I didn't even know that. I'm like, well, that's what these devices do for Yeah, I mean, we talked so much about the entertainment component of it, you know, the sim golf opportunities that are available to people, which is one side of things. you know, just exactly like you said, Alex bag mapping, understanding your carry distances for all the clubs in your bag, starting to understand that marriage of face and path and how it, how those things work together and seeing it for yourself and through the numbers is just so, powerful. And, you know, when we think of, mean, in this case doesn't have ⁓ club data, but what basic ball data, you think of something like the shots go up LM one for $200, a tool that's super portable, incredibly accurate. Daniel just did a bunch of deep dive content, just showing how accurate it is for 200 bucks. It's kind of crazy. I mean, it's really kind of, I think probably at this point, if you're not if you're serious about the game, if you're serious about improving, and you're not using something, you're kind of leaving money on the table. Yeah. For sure, I think for amateurs, it's the quickest way to get better, to lower your handicap, is just understanding your game. And you can start with something as simple as carry distance, and then you can really dive into, you guys start getting into path and face and how to hit different shots and different shapes, how to ⁓ raise the launch, lower the launch. It can really, really help you. And what's great about today's day and age is that Even if you buy one of these launch monitors, one of these tools, and you don't understand the data, there's a million YouTube videos on everything that you can learn just by sitting at your house and just learning what the data means. it's funny, I did a video with TrottyGolf not too long ago, went out to Cali to see him, and he was telling me, he's like, dude, I used to watch your videos to learn about the data stuff. And I'm like, Wow, like Trottie was watching the videos I did because we used to do videos at Flyscope about the data and Trottie was watching that stuff and learning from me. was I was taken back by that because you know, Trottie is like, you he's been he's a very big fit. He's been known for so many years out on tour and it was just really cool. And it's it's all available. It's all on YouTube. I mean, it's it's ⁓ you can get the information from anywhere now and doesn't cost you much. Yeah, totally Alex. So I think I mean, it's really cool to hear about obviously the evolution of launch model technology and how the pros use it. The consumers can now use it and how it's all tied together. I think that's it's really become like you've talked about. I I think it's become a game changer. think it's it's something that everybody have like Mark said, if you're not using technology, I'd probably ask you why aren't you? Because it's it's so affordable now. I mean, as much as we invest into the game of golf. It's definitely not a cheap hobby at the end of the day, especially in today's world. But if you take some time to invest in launch smart technology, maybe a lesson or two here and there to help maybe know what you want to work on, it's pretty cool how you can improve your game in a short amount of time. But I think it's one thing to note. I you seem so comfortable working with these professional players. mean, did that take time? Because for me, mean, I think that was one of the fastest things I learned just through osmosis being around you out there is how comfortable you were around some of these guys. mean, it's easy to go up to amateur golfers and help them with technology and help them with data. But what was that like, you know, like getting involved with tour players and getting comfortable and not getting starstruck in certain moments? Yeah, no, listen, I it took some time. ⁓ I come from a military background. I served 10 years in the US Army. I was a tanker. ⁓ so I have a little bit of experience in high pressure situations, ⁓ which helped. And then when I started at FlightScope as an intern, I told myself that I was going to become, if I was gonna do that job, I was gonna try to do it to the best of my ability and I was gonna learn all of the data inside out. So I was always picking. ⁓ the CEO's brain, Henry who invented Flyscope. And then there was a gentleman at the time that worked there, his name was David Nell. He was like one of the top reps in the company. And I literally would call this guy every single afternoon and I would, hey man, what's spinloft? ⁓ How is it measured? Why is it measured that way? What can you do? you know, in the golf swing to affect it. What's club path? Like I dove so deep into it and that really helped me when I got in a bat with players because, and I think it was kind of a godsend that my first one was Bryson because I feel like that was the hardest test. You know, I got interrogated. I felt like I was getting interrogated for a top secret clearance and I felt like, okay, I did really good on this test, right? Like everything he asked me, everything Mike asked me, I was, I had a ⁓ pretty good response and I felt very, very confident that the answer was right. And so ⁓ I just, I mean, I just studied, I just worked hard at it. And, and then other than that, then it's just, you're just talking to the guys, right? It's just, building a relationship. You know, I mean, ⁓ I was fortunate enough to get to do some practice rounds with Bryson and Tiger and you know, talking to, chatting it up with Tiger and it's just another guy. Like it was, you know, once you get inside the ropes, it's, it's, ⁓ it's a little friendlier. know, once you can get inside the kind of I don't want to say inner circles, but once you kind of get inside there and you become they know that you're out there working and you're trying to help guys that the conversation becomes a little easier. But if you don't know your stuff, you'll get called out real quick. Totally. I even remember, ⁓ you know, my first few months working there and being so overwhelmed with all the the amount of data that there is there and what what these devices are capable of and ⁓ It was as simple as Alex telling me, just make some flashcards, just study because you never know when somebody is going to ask you, what is this data parameter? And if you can't answer that question, they're just going to go find someone who can. So yeah, I've always admired that about you, Alex, that you've just been so ⁓ status quo and so comfortable in all those situations because it's easy to ⁓ buckle and. turn the cheek and run away and hide. And it's just, it's always so impressive how, how you've been so comfortable out there. And it's obviously it's, it's led to being why, why you've been so successful out there. So it's just really cool to, to know somebody that once in a while when you're watching, you know, the, driving range coverage a few days before a big event and you see the flat bill out there with Alex and there he is. It's cool. It's, it's certainly something I've always, like I said, I've always admired and been a little jealous of at the same time that you've been able to brush your elbows with all those guys. Are those guys talking numbers with each other? Alex, are they talking data parameters and metrics? Are they ⁓ is that kind of shop talk that's out on the range in the on tour? ⁓ You know, I don't really know. They talk amongst themselves about that. They definitely are talking to their reps, you know, you know, they're talking to the guys that are building for them. They're definitely talking, hey, this is too spinny or, you know, and then obviously with their coaches, they're, know. A lot of these guys, when they have it, they're not really tweaking much. They're just gathering data just to be, like I said, be tethered. Then there's other guys that might be struggling that are doing some more refinement. what you'll see out on tour most of the time is if they're going to make any big overhauls on data, they're going to probably do that on an off week at home, ⁓ which is why you see some of the combinations of... Like a lot of these guys have two launch monitors. They'll have like, they'll have a foresight, they'll have a track man. ⁓ because you know, sometimes they'll use, like they'll use the four sites just for quick numbers when they're, when they're just trying to gather data and then they'll have the track man out for at home use, ⁓ to really dive into the numbers. Sometimes they have both of them out on the range if they're trying to get, you know, actuals versus normalized, or if they're trying to get, you know, ball numbers versus club numbers. ⁓ so But you know, they they the big overhaul stuff they typically do on off weeks. Yeah. When they are on the range, when we're watching them on TV, we turn on the golf channel and we see them. They all have launch monitors pre-round. ⁓ What are they looking at pre-round? Like you said, they're not they're not making swing changes at that point. What information are they trying to confirm? Is it is it carry distances, spin numbers? What are they looking at? Carry, launch, spin and then ball speed to see kind of how, you know, if they're warm, like if their bodies you know, in the right place. you know, Bryson used to do a lot of ⁓ speed training as well. So he would just kind of see where ball speed is at, right? And cause you can pretty much guarantee that your ball speed will be a little higher in tournament conditions just because you know, you're, you, got adrenaline flowing and you know, so they're, just looking at that. They're just, they're just dialing in yardages, ball speed, launch, spin, just making sure everything is good for launch. Yeah. Do you think it's something the caddies use just as much in that warm up, especially leading up to the week as much as the players do? I mean, obviously, they work hand in hand with each other. But ⁓ I mean, know guys like Teddy when he was with Bubba loved it, I'm sure, trying to understand how much these balls are carrying with how much curve he had on the ball. But is that something where the caddies are writing down and paying just as much attention to it as the players are? I think sometimes the caddies pay more attention than the players do to it, especially pre-round, because they it's a good indicator for them like, today we know we got 10 out of the Northwest. And so they start trying to correlate some, if they're on the range and it's blowing 15 off at the one o'clock, they're kind of logging all these things down. Timmy Tucker used to be with Bryce and he logged that down religiously before round, because he just wanted to know, hey, is my guy at his speeds, right? Is he ready to go and then and then hey we do we need to let's hit one into the wind to see what we're getting today Let's maybe hit a crosswind one. They're just they're just trying to gather as much information as possible So I would say for caddies pre-round is probably even more important than them for the player Well, ⁓ so yeah now Alex of course you're working with with jumbo max and you're still out there on the range with At these tours around the world ⁓ doing grip fittings. And that's something that I think that, you the average consumer at home has started to get hip to the idea of how launch monitor data can maybe help them, but in how all the pros are using launch monitor data to play their best. ⁓ But also all the pros are very conscious of what grips they're using. And yet most amateurs, well, first of all, are playing oftentimes with worn out grips, but probably are putting no thought at all into grip size, grip type. Tell us a little bit about kind of what might be kind of the next frontier when it comes to optimizing performance as it pertains to the grip. Yeah. So my good friend, John Mazenobo, who is, he is the president of JumboMax. He has, he has this great line that he always says. He says, you know, some, some dude 500 years ago wrapped leather around a hickory stick. And that became our standard for grip size. Like, damn, man, you're kind of, that makes sense, right? Like now we all have different hand sizes. We all have, ⁓ we're different arm lengths. We all swing the club differently. We all hit different shot shapes. We all sequence differently. So how could we all be playing the same size grip? Doesn't make any sense. So, you know, when I, when I came on board, I'll be honest with you. I'll tell you a little backstory to this. When I, When I left FlightScope, I was gonna be completely out of the golf industry. ⁓ I was gonna go do something else. ⁓ I was talking to John one day, John's been a good friend of mine. As a matter of fact, I met John the first day on the job with Bryson because John has been making Bryson the grips since Bryson was 15 years old. And ⁓ we kind of hit it off because John... has some ties to the Miami Dolphins. I'm a Miami Dolphin fan and long story short, we kind of hit it off. We became good buds. And so when I left Flyscope, we were just chatting it up and he said, what are you doing? was out, I'm going to go do something else. He's like, no, you can't leave the golf industry. you talking about? And he's like, we're going to figure this out. So, you know, he started talking to me about grip fitting. He's like, man, I really want to, I really want to go down this avenue. And that really piqued my interest because obviously I want to help players be better. So we developed this, we have over 35 different sizes, or we have over 35 different variations of size, weight, and texture. And so what that means is that we can get a player into not only the right size grip, but the right weight grip. And that is extremely important. ⁓ You know, the studies and tests we've done with sizing and weighting is, it's wild. And it's why you're seeing, you're starting to see other professional players use these grips now. Obviously Bryson, know, Bryson is Bryson, know, that's he's, Bryson's the unicorn. He's very unique in how his approach to the game and his club setup and how he swings it. Bryson's the man. Well, let's put him to the side over there, right? Uses a big grip, extra large, 123 grams. swing weights like C5, right? People probably don't even know that. C5 swing weight, but it's club weighs, it's probably the heaviest club on the planet. But now you're getting guys like Jason Dayes, Sergio Garcia's, Ian Gilligan's, Ratif Goosins. You're getting these guys that are all, they're going down these rabbit holes of grip fitting because they're seeing benefits to it. So I love to go down, you know, the rabbit hole of what it is we do with our fittings. let's do that. Let's do that. Let's talk about the because one thing I think is really cool. You've got fittings in person fittings. You've also got for those people that don't have access to that or immediate access to it or just want to are curious. In fact, that's your tagline. Right. Are you curious that they want to check that want to check this out? You go to ⁓ Jumbo Max's website and you guys have a virtual fitting. I went through it asks you a few simple questions about your hand size, your ball flight, ⁓ maybe your your predominant miss, and then gives you ⁓ a virtual fitting. But tell us about kind of you mentioned all of those options that are available. Tell us about what the fitting is is all about, and why not all of us should be playing standard size grips. Yeah, so So yes, there is a fitting ⁓ app or a fitting that you can do on our website. There's also on your phone, you can download on the app store, you can download the Jumbomax grip fitting app free and you can go through it. It's gonna scan your hands. gonna, use, it's an AI platform. We measure over 200 points on the player's hands. Doesn't matter which hand unless obviously you have hand issues. ⁓ If you do have any type of hand issues, we recommend that you use the lead side hand. And then ⁓ we ask you series of questions. What's your ball flight? Do you hit it straight? Do you work it both ways? Do you draw it? Do you cut it? Do you hook it? Do you slice it? ⁓ How tight do you or how firm do you grip the club on a scale of one to 10, 10 being as firm as possible? And then do you have any hand injuries? ⁓ Because if you do have hand injuries like arthritis, trigger finger, wrist issues, we are going to push up the size. And the reason for that is because we've done a lot of tests and studies that when you get more circumference in the hand, you don't have to apply as much pressure. So there's less tension in the golf swing. for players, that's the easy one. Players that have hand issues, you gotta go to a bigger size and our app will indicate which size you should at least start at. ⁓ I can tell you that the app has about an 80 % success rate on picking the right size. And if it's not right, it's usually within one up or down. ⁓ what we do when we do an in-person fitting is we'll run you through the app and let's say it says extra small. Now let me give you a breakdown of our sizing, because everybody thinks we just make big grips. We make a standard grip all the way to an extra large. So our sizing goes standard, standard oversize, which is our midsize, standard jumbo, which is a jumbo. and then extra small, small, medium, large, and extra large. And in that combination, we have three different weightings. And then we also have non tapered. So like I said, we have a lot ⁓ of variety. So let's say that the application says you're an extra small. We'll have you hit the extra small. We have a fitting bag. We can screw on heads. We can put you in the shaft and the grip, and we'll have you hit some shots with that. And then we we go one size up and one size down. Now, once we find the right size, then we'll start tinkering with the weights. And so what we can do is with the sizing, we can affect right to left movement. With the weighting, we can affect launch up or down. So I'll give you an example. I typically hook the ball. ⁓ when I started in the Jumbo Max journey, I started in an extra small ultra light which is our lighter grip but the grip weighs like 35 grams super light. What was happening to me though was because I have a my sequencing is draw biased ⁓ I was kind of hitting the ball kind of flat and there wasn't enough draw on it so I didn't like it and so was hmm I was like well maybe I'm gonna go to the heavy one which now in the same size weighs 90 grams. And instantly what it did for me is it started, I started kind of getting more of a push draw, but I was launching the ball higher. so I was, in essence, I was affecting swing weight, but I was affecting the balance point of the club because I was moving weight more towards the handle. And so that, that's what we do. We put players through these fitting. It's all numbers bases, not opinion based. And, ⁓ and we make a recommendation at the end of, what size, size and weight they should use. Sure. So numbers based, Alex, like for my understanding, use the Foresight GC3 for most of your fitting processes. What data parameters are you looking at during this fitting process? it a few parameters? Is it kind of all of them that the device is capable of? Or what are your hot points for data analysis during the fitting process? It obviously depends on the player, right? If you have a player that, a high handicapper that is not striking as consistently, you're gonna look for just the big things that can make quick improvements. So can we get you a little more speed? Can we get you a little more launch? Can we control the spin rate? ⁓ Then when you get to a better player, you're gonna probably go dive a little deeper. You're gonna fine tune that, like looking at, what is heavy and light doing to path? Because it will change it. ⁓ What is it doing to grouping? What is it doing to carry distances? Like what is it doing to shapes? Can you hit your stock shot? But also can you hit... Can you create a shot? you able to hit the low cut or are you able to hit the low hook? So it's player dependent, but it's 100 % data driven. It's not like I'm not selling you anything. It is what it is. I'm gonna put you in the grip that performs the best. And so we did an event out at Cool Clubs in Arizona. It was really cool. We had 28 players come through. We had two bays and it was myself and John and our VP Chris Plummer and ⁓ players came in with their clubs. ⁓ We were running the data, cool clubs data on their track mans. So we got baselines on the players eight iron. They hit like 10 shots and then we ran them through the app and we put them through our fitting process. 28 out of 28 players switched to a different size grip. Wow. yeah, 28 out of 28 and the handicaps vary. Now, not all of them went to a big grip. Some of them were midsize. Some of them went jumbo. Some of them went extra large. But 28 out of 28 went into a different grip. So, you know, that's pretty telling. That's pretty telling. Daniel, I know you made some switches here. You're drinking the Kool-Aid and you've seen some serious results. Tell us about your journey. Yeah. So, you know, kind of how you got into it, Mark and Alex. You know, I live in an area where it's not easy to get to a club fitter. So I, I use the AI fitting app and, ⁓ and worked with Alex a little bit, just asking some questions and stuff. And, ⁓ I went through the fitting process, I would say. Close to a year ago, I think Alex is about when I, when I started kind of getting curious and, ⁓ yeah, it put me into the tour series. ⁓ the, standard jumbo, ⁓ like Alex, I tend to have a bit of a hook or an overdrawing type shot. ⁓ And I tend to hit it really low with low spin So I think that you know that the tour series really helped ⁓ make me feel the face a little bit more helps me hit the ball a little bit higher ⁓ And and it really has blown me away I mean first off the first thing I noticed when I switched to the bigger grips was that I immediately started striking the ball Better I was hitting the middle of the face more my shots distances were more consistent and If anything it made my misses consistent, too Which before I was missing left. I was missing right. I was missing short. I was missing long And as you know mark, we've been testing all sorts of different products I've been testing the Arco stuff which really tracks your game inside and out and I can see tendencies in my in my game round around that are that are the same so ⁓ You know, I've been blown away. I'm I've won through 14 I've got a jumbo max grip on every single club not just swing grips, but also a putter grip ⁓ I'm now averaging less than 27 putts per round of golf. It's blown me away by what the joining the ecosystem with Jumbo Max has done. And I've been trying to tell everybody I can jump on this app, even if you can't get to Alex or get to somebody on the team to get a fitting. Like Alex said, it's pretty remarkable how accurate the virtual fitting can be. And ⁓ if I'm not mistaken, Alex, once you go through the fitting, can buy like a one or two grip. pack and try it out and make sure you get the right size before you fully invest in the size that you get, right? Yeah, we have trial kits. ⁓ So on the app at the end, when it recommends the size, right now the app is only recommending size. It's not recommending weight. So that's why we have a trial kit. So you can buy that size in heavy and light and try it. However, we are working on updates as we speak ⁓ that the app will also recommend a size. after we ask you a few more questions. ⁓ yeah, the trial kits, it's two grips. And then what we do is let's say the counterbalance one is the right one for you. When you go to buy your set, we'll give you a credit for the other grip that you paid for. So ⁓ yeah, it's a great way to try it if you can't get to one of our locations. listen, it's the last, to me, I don't wanna say the last frontier, because the game's always gonna evolve, but it's really, It's, We fit for everything in golf, everything, except the one thing that connects us to the club, is, you know, it just didn't, it doesn't make sense. And that's why I was so excited to come on board with this team because I was like, man, we, got something here. Like this is, this is important stuff. And, ⁓ and, and we're having, you know, we're, having success with players, you know, big name players that are jumping on board. And, and, ⁓ and some of it happens organically too, with these players. It's wild. Ian Gilligan this kid that we have on corn fairy Ian played at the University of Florida He was number four in the PJ tour you PJ tour you got to the corn fairy and His story is pretty crazy. He He was playing Already, you know college golf and he comes home one day and his dad has Jumbo max on his in his bag and he like grabbed one and he was like, ⁓ man dad he's like this kind of feels pretty nice and They get some grips Kid goes out, he wins the Western, ⁓ finishes in top four in PGA Tour U, and now he's playing on the corn fray. I think he's in the top 10 right now. He's actually number eight, I believe. Maybe not after this week, because he didn't play Tulum. right now, he is on track for a PGA Tour card, and he came organically. It just happened because he literally grabbed his dad's grip, and he was like, whoa, this feels really good. so it's, like I said, it's... ⁓ grips are not one size fits all. That's a message that I want to put out. It's not one size fits all. You should be fit for a grip. you think club fitters are starting to understand this better? The clubs, of course, aren't one size fits all. And we're starting to understand that even down to the pretty base level of amateur play. But the club fitters, are they understanding now and seeing the importance of grip fitting? I think what people are realizing is that Jumbo Max is not just a big grip. We make everything. The advantage that we have or ⁓ what we bring to the industry is that we have different weighting. So if a fitter is concerned about swing weight, we have bigger grips that aren't heavy, but we do have bigger grips that are heavy. So you could have a player like a Sergio Garcia who loves a light swing weight. you know, in the seas. So even though he doesn't play a super big grip, his handle, his grip needs to be very heavy because he likes a light swing weight because of the way that he sequences the club. And then vice versa, you have a Bryson DeChambeau, heavy as well, but vice versa, you have a Jason Day who doesn't want a heavy grip. He has a lighter grip with a heavier swing weight. So we have options for the fitter to get the player in a bigger size or the right size and still be able to not throw off the swing weight. As far as installation, it like what we're all familiar with, the masking tape and solvent and you slide it on there just like any other grip that we would replace for ourselves? Is that the process? One strip of tape, solvent and off you go. Yeah, don't, there's no buildup necessary. Yeah. I think it's cool too to talk about fitting Alex. think like, you know, I think we've all been through a club fitting, I would assume. You know, in my past experiences, the you get through the club head and everything and they're worried about the shaft in the head and it would always come down to, OK, well, what what size of golf glove do you wear? And you would tell him, ⁓ I wear I wear a size large and I say, OK, you need a standard grip. And I will. Well, I've been playing mid-size like, ⁓ no, trust me, you need you need a small grip. Boom. They put a small grip and you go out and all of sudden you're hitting snap hooks everywhere. So ⁓ I think that's like you're talking about Alex. I think that's a big reason why. club fitters are starting to hopefully take notice a little bit here that you know the the one connection point you have with the golf club is honestly probably one of the most important outside of getting the right shaft flex. Yeah no and I 100 % agree and another thing I'll tell you guys is you you guys would be very ⁓ taken back by the amount of players that I talked to professional and amateur on a daily basis that tell me when I finish a round of golf my hands are killing me. My hands hurt. And that is because, and we've seen this in a lot of the testing that we've done with gears and other data collecting companies that if I give you a skinny rope and I tell you to up to the roof and I give you a thick rope, which one's gonna be easier for you to... for you to get up. It's going to be the thick one, right? it's the same thing with the club is we have to apply so much pressure and force to hold onto this thing and be able to swing it fast and be able to strike the ground that I'm applying so much tension and so much force because I don't have the right circumference. But once I get the right size, all of that, it's, it just, it goes away. And so also it's the only sport that we play with a skinny handle, you know, baseball, thicker handle, tennis, thicker handle. ping pong, the hammer in my toolbox, the screwdriver, everything we have is bigger handle with the exception of the golf club. And we're trying to swing this thing. You know, some, some guys are swinging at 130 miles an hour or more. Yeah. Yeah. Me. But as Daniel, yeah. What about what about durability? ⁓ How often should we be changing our grips? And is there any difference with with Jumbo Max? Yeah, so we have a unique, ⁓ the way that our grips are built are unique. So we have patents on our under listings, which is what makes them what they are. And then we have outer skins. So our skins are pretty durable. ⁓ I've have players that I have to tell, hey, like it's time for you to change the grip. it's, you need some freshies. But we are coming out with a really cool lineup, hopefully in next quarter this year. ⁓ leather type grip. They're not going to be cheap, but they're going to last like they're going to last a very long time. I'm talking about years, not months. ⁓ so we have, you know, we have wraps that obviously don't last as long, but we have poly blend, we have rubber, we have leather. So we have the whole lineup. I mean, when it comes to grips, ⁓ you know, we pretty much have, you know, whatever you need. And the other thing too is, and I think it's one of the advantages we have, you know, if we have tour players that need us for something specific, we can do it, we can make it, you know, we ⁓ were great people. That's what we do. I mean, there's nothing better than fresh grips. We all know that like you when you change your change your grips is the best you know that for I mean, ⁓ but for most of us, we're only thinking in terms of tackiness, you know, in that in that field, imagine if changing your grips actually could change things like ball flight, ball speed, mean, your face angle, all these sorts of things that I don't think people are even considering. ⁓ Talk about, talk about strokes left on the table. mean, damn, this, this really has the potential to really transform people's games in a way that they hadn't even considered as a possibility, which is kind of amazing. ⁓ Not that many things in golf that are, you know, that are available to us to, to make big differences, you know? So pretty exciting, very exciting. Yeah. And it's really, you know, obviously the success we're having, ⁓ you know, is a lot of the hard work that's been put in the background. But a lot of it's come from just technology that's been able for us. It's given us credibility because if if without these launch monitors and this technology, we wouldn't be able to prove to people that with data that, hey, this is helping you like this is better. And so we go back to the point of the launch monitors, you know, if you're really serious about your game and you want to improve your game, you can get it. You you might, you might not be able to spend thousands of dollars on something, but there's stuff you can get, you know, for a couple hundred bucks that can really help you to understand your game. And, and it could even help you with your grips. You know, you might get a trial kit, say, Hey, I want to try, I want to see what the differences are between my standard grip. And I'm going to try a jumbo max standard jump. You got the data right there. You can do it yourself. So, ⁓ you know, that's why technology is super important in this game. Yeah, that's what I did. Honestly, that's exactly I did the grip fitting Alex, you know, he sent me a couple grips and in the in the different weights and I, I went to the range with with the flights go mevo plus and I hit balls for an hour with that put one one grip on each club and I've It's funny how ⁓ how weird it felt going to the PGA show and swinging those skinny grips again because I felt uncomfortable for three straight days. ⁓ you know, so that it's funny how once you once you make the switch and then you try you try to go back to what you thought was the right choice before. And it's like, man, what was I doing? You know, so yeah, I think just like you said, Alex, it's it's great to have that power and the ability to see how it can it can transform your game entirely. And you're one through 14, right, Daniel? Have you made the change throughout the bag? Yeah, yeah. All 14 clubs. ⁓ You know, the putter grips. I know you guys have a few. We haven't touched on that much, Alex. I know you guys have a few different sizes, lengths. You make them for the broomstick putters. You make them for the counterbalance. I have just, you know, a pretty standard pistol grip on my on my spider putter. And it's the feel of it's amazing. I like the look of it. It's a big win for me. So. Yeah, we make pistols three different sizes. got straights, 1.2s, 1.3s. We got 15 inch counterbalance, 17 inch arm locks, 21 inch counterbalance grips. We got split grips. We got a full lineup. And the putters are nice. And to be honest with you, the pricing is really nice too on the putter grips. The putter grips are getting expensive, but... And they color selection too. You can kind of customize to make the colors look cool too. Even on the swing grips, you guys have some cool color options too. What's the move Alex? Jumbomax grips.com, jumbomax.com. Jumbomax.com. Yep. And then on the app store, you just search Jumbomax and that app will pop up and ⁓ just go through the fitting. It's free. It's not going to cost you anything. Download it, go through the fitting. you don't have an iPhone, because right now it's only available on iOS. Go to the website. You can run through the same exact fitting. The only thing different is you'll have to tell it what your glove size is and, ⁓ you know, give it a try. What do you got to lose? Right? Like it's, it's, it's, it's something that could really help your game and, help you with some, you know, knock off a few more strokes. Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, ⁓ that, that sounds like a, kind of a no brainer, honestly. We all want to play better. ⁓ That's why we're here. That's why we're talking about what we talk about. And this is probably one of the or probably the most overlooked thing that that not enough people are considering. And just like Daniel said, I mean, it's the one the one place where you're actually making contact with the club. Why aren't we considering that? So, ⁓ yeah, I would encourage everybody to check out ⁓ check out Jumbo Max. And I think you're going to start seeing more and more of it on tour. In fact, we already are. on all of the tours. ⁓ So very, very cool. Thanks for explaining it to us, Alex. Really appreciate that. ⁓ Before we get out of here, curious to hear a little bit more about what's in your bag. You've been kind of around the world here on the tech side of things. ⁓ When you're doing these ⁓ Jumbomax fittings, what launch monitor are you using primarily and for your own game? ⁓ Are you using launch monitors, rangefinders? golf watches, handheld GPS is what tell us about your tech stack. Yeah, for sure. So I ⁓ in the van for for my job, I have GC three, ⁓ I have a flyscope x three c and I have a flyscope Mevo gen two. ⁓ Then I also my personal I use a Bushnell, which I linked to the GC three to get my to get my data. I love that thing because it also it links ⁓ my data to the rangefinder. ⁓ I also have the fly scope rangefinder, which I'm getting ready to set up and, ⁓ and do that. They, they do a similar, ⁓ thing for the I four they, they do add, ⁓ weather conditions in, which is pretty cool. So I'm, I'm going to, that's going to be on the bag here shortly. And then, I, yeah, that's pretty much it. That's my, that's my tech for, for work. And, ⁓ No, watches. I just my Apple watch. Yeah heard you just got a Wingman Bushnell Wingman HD. So you're gonna have the you're have some tunes rocking in the the big hole map right up there on the cart post. Yeah. Yeah, I was playing I was playing the other day with a buddy and we were playing a new course I never played and he had it and I was like front back center and I was like man, that's awesome because I don't know how big this screen and I don't know how wide it is. So it's nice to have that and I was like, I think I'm gonna get one of those. And it had the tunes which was nice. Yeah. Yeah, you're gonna you're gonna love that you're gonna love that Well, Daniel anything else for our guy here No, I don't think so. You know, obviously it's it's cool to to really get some insight of what it's like week to week on the on the tour Whether that's PJ tour live tour champions tour LPGA tour, know I mean, I know Alex has traveled kind of anywhere and all and even the world-long drive tour You know, Alex has been out there, so it's really cool to get some insight to see what the pros are doing. ⁓ Kind of realizing that us as amateur golfers can do a little bit of the same and try to channel some of that in our own games. I think that's really cool, so really appreciative. Obviously for you joining us today. You know what's next for you on your schedule? I mean ⁓ where you traveling to next? Headed to Miami for Cadillac on Sunday. We'll be there Monday through Wednesday and then ⁓ pretty much I'll do all the live events in the US. I'll do pretty much all the PGA Tour events. ⁓ Corn Ferry, I have ⁓ a co-worker of mine, Marcus, doing, we hired him on to do the Corn Ferry. ⁓ we try to cover it all. John, our president, he's very active. He does a lot of the tour stuff with us as well. He'll do some senior tour stuff, live in PGA. We're just trying to get the word out. You we just wanted at bat to show players that, we might have something that could, that could help you ⁓ for those guys. If it can help them improve by half a stroke, it's a big deal. So, but I'm here to tell you that for the average golfer, we can improve more than half a stroke. So, get grip fit. Absolutely. If you're not thinking about your grips, you probably should be. ⁓ I know you've, ⁓ you've got me very curious. so we'll get you out. Appreciate that. ⁓ Yeah, huge, huge thank you to Alex Trujillo. Thank you so much for joining us. Please everybody check out Jumbo Max. Alex, thanks for sharing all that you've seen and learned from watching the best players in the world all the way down to the hacks like me. ⁓ It's a beautiful game and you've gotten a very interesting look at it from a lot of interesting perspectives. Really appreciate you sharing that with us today. Thank you guys. Appreciate you having me. Yeah. Daniel, next week we're we're on with the guys from Golficity. That should be another great talk. ⁓ Two of the top YouTubers in the golf tech space. So once again, we're here each and every week talking all things golf tech. Please do consider liking and subscribing and joining us next week. Until then, thank you everyone for watching and listening and we'll catch you next time.