Latest / PlayBetter's Golf Tech Weekly / #14: Cordie Walker: GolfWell
Transcript
- speaker-0: I get to go hang out with some awesome coaches and learn from some amazing people. speaker-1: that thing that separates someone from being a bogey golfer to being a sub 80 player. speaker-0: I think if I could choose anything to be world class at, I'd be like a world class. speaker-2: Welcome back to Golf Tech Weekly. I'm Mark Shaforgian. That's Daniel Fitzpatrick. And our guest today is Cordy Walker. He runs Golf Well, the YouTube channel, the podcast, the weekly newsletter. And he's spent the last decade interviewing the best coaches and researchers in the game to try to figure out what actually makes amateurs better. He just put it all into a new book called The Scoring Edge. It's 119 pages of what those coaches are actually teaching. ⁓ Cordy, welcome to the show. speaker-0: Hey guys, thanks for having me. speaker-2: Yeah, awesome. Thanks so much for joining. ⁓ You've called this a working manual, not just a book. Tell us about that. What is this intended to be? What's the difference between maybe those two terms? And why does that matter to you? speaker-0: Yeah, so the book idea came out of like my own necessity. So I'm super lucky, right? I get to go hang out with some awesome coaches and learn from some amazing people. But then I go to like do something on the range or practice or go play golf and like that all that info has disappeared, right? It's all gone. Like how to hit a wedge shot. I have no idea. I don't remember anything that I learned, right? And so it was out of this thought of like, okay, I did this video with Mark Blackburn on like wedge mastery and like how to hit wedges and he goes like step by step through it in the video, but I don't remember that when I go to the range, you know this spring to start like working on it again and like I'm going back through the video like I don't want to go watch it again. So I was like there this is I need just like give me the notes. What do I need to remember? So I was like, okay, if that's me, I know there's a bunch of other people probably like that too. And so, yeah, all these coaches were awesome to work with and they're like, great, let's make this like modern golf instruction magazine guidebook thing. So that's the goal of like, it's something for all of us to reference and kind of flip through and use as you need. And hopefully it's one of many. I'd love to make this every year and keep putting them out and try to, yeah, a modern way to get good like golf instruction. a variety of sources and ideas on golf instruction performance stuff. speaker-2: Yeah, and also a distilling, right? Because ⁓ one of the things that's out there for all of us is potentially too much information. And not all of it is necessarily appropriate or ⁓ applicable, or some of it is just junk, honestly. ⁓ Not all of it is from the top instructors in the world. And so this is a nice, nice digest of effective and yet kind of customizable, depending on where you are in your journey. ⁓ kind of digest, if you will, ⁓ of what actually works. ⁓ Daniel, you're somebody that's actually worked in golf instruction. You're somebody that, of course, is constantly grinding on your own game yourself. ⁓ What Cordy just said, do you see ⁓ the efficacy of having something that would be ⁓ something you'd return back to or potentially even make notes in? or regularly reference as opposed to a book that you read as a one-off and then try to retain the information and go continue to play poorly. speaker-1: I totally think it's something that is ongoing. It's not something you're going to pick up and put down and you're good for the rest of time. the one thing I, not just the one thing, one of the things I really love about the book is that it does give you some spots to put in some notes and take some... things down that maybe you'll forget later on. I mean, like Cordy and Mark, where you guys are, you don't have the privilege of playing golf every week outdoors. ⁓ So there is that time where maybe you're not going out to actually play around a golf on a real course. And as good as golf simulators are, it's not the same as, you can't get that feel for hitting those under a hundred yard shots and things like that. So some things do take some note taking. I like to think of it as ⁓ making a game plan. And when I was reading through, you know, the first few parts of this of this book, it made me think about how, you know, it's kind of funny to me how every professional sport, including golf, they have a game plan when they go to the golf course, ⁓ whether that's for a competitive round, whether that's for a range session, we as amateur golfers, we just show up and okay, maybe I'm going to shoot my best round today, that's likely not going to happen. ⁓ To have a game plan to have things to reference. It's huge and it makes a big difference. It makes you understand what you need to focus on, what you need to do to get better. But I also love how it's not just one piece of the golf game. It's not just, we're going to work on speed training. ⁓ we're going to work on, you know, short game. It's a full caveat of the entire golf bag and how you can focus on things to get better, which is honestly very unique in my opinion. And it's cool. I'm, I'm infatuated with everything that I've been reading through it. And It's going to help all levels of golfers. know, it's not just it's not just for high handicaps or low handicaps. I truly think it can it can help everybody. So ⁓ that's what I got out of it, at least in my first initial part of it, is that it's allowing people to just make a game plan ⁓ of how to focus. Even if you're playing the same golf course every single time you play golf, ⁓ the golf course can change. You know, maybe you're hitting the front pins, which take a different approach versus back pins or middle of the green. So. ⁓ Yeah, it's an ever changing sport that we're aware of. ⁓ We're never playing on the same golf course, even though it is the same course. Things change, the tees change, the pins change. So ⁓ I love that aspect of being able to write things down and reference it. And ⁓ the guys that you were able to reference in the book are pretty prominent figures in the game of golf, too. speaker-0: Yeah, I think what you said there super important right like too many of us just go in it Let's say you have a goal of trying to get better or like you have a goal that you're aiming for like but too many of us don't like actually think about what we're gonna do if we're gonna have some time training and so just kind of show up and it's great to it's great to swing a golf club right and go through the motions, but Not the most effective like if you're like, okay, just it made it's a quick list on your phone It's like in the notes app you like okay, I'm gonna do this one thing on short putting, got this on leg putting, I'm do this over here and then this. Otherwise you're probably gonna get lost because you're gonna hit a couple bad shots and you're gonna end up spending about 45 minutes trying to fix that even though you shouldn't have and then you're you're gone. You've lost that time to the swing change ⁓ debacle that we all go through. speaker-2: That sounds very common. mean, I know that that's ⁓ a scenario that every golfer can relate to. And there's so many golfers, Cordy, that are grinding so hard and that genuinely want to improve and are putting in real time, potentially even consistently, to try to improve. And yet for so many, the improvement ends up being very limited ⁓ or ⁓ even backslides on occasion. ⁓ Is that the reason that so many golfers get stuck? Is it that lack of intent or lack of a game plan? And if so, is that really kind of the nutshell of what this book hopes to address? speaker-0: Yeah, I mean, I think it's a few things. So let me work backwards. So I think when it comes to score, like, I think a lot of people got to figure out is my goal to score the best I can? Like, is that my absolute goal? And that might seem like a ridiculous question to ask, but honestly, you should probably kind of ask yourself. Like, I'm shooting 90 right now. Do I want to shoot 85? Do I want to shoot 80? The answer is like, yes, like I'll do that. Then, okay. That's good. Let's talk about like our course strategy, course management first. Let's look at that first. Before we get to like our change in our golf swing, right? What's been funny is that's been like honestly our most popular content over the last year. We've done a bunch of stuff with Coach Will Robbins. We just put out a series with Scott Fawcett. And like that part of the game is definitely picking up ⁓ momentum. And like people are realizing like, ⁓ I'm probably leaving some room out here and I should look at some of these things. So it's looking at your game that way of like, am I playing well at like, am I thinking correctly around this, having good expectations? Then I think it's working back and saying like, okay, now I need to work on the right things. you don't need to spend all your time working on technique, right? ⁓ You need to have a balanced kind of like practice schedule. We did this great video with Justin Kraft, awesome coach up here in Minnesota. And like, you would know him for people working on their swing technique. And so it's great to do this video with him, because you would say like, ⁓ he would just tell you to go like, put the video on and like grind on changing how your body moves. But that's like 100 % not the case of what of like, you know, how he views practice. So ⁓ we did this great video kind of breaking it down really simply as far as like you have technique, you have skill and performance. So you kind of need to work on all those aspects of, yeah, if you got something in technique that you're working on, great. but give it limits, right? Like you can't spend 100 % of your time there. You should work on some stuff with skill. ⁓ Like things like, can you like strike the center of the club, the toe of the club, the heel of the club? ⁓ Strike control is a great like skill that every golfer can improve at and work on. And then like have performance games as well. And like actual like training of, okay, I'm gonna do something on a simulator where I'm going to. sit myself in a hole and I'm gonna have 10 drives here, I need to get seven drives into the fairway, how am gonna do that? Otherwise I have to do this again and I'm gonna have to hit a different club until you do. So it's like, I think that would be kind of how I think about it of maybe why people aren't getting it is because they're not, they're coming at it from a way of like, I need to fix my golf swing and then they're working towards playing on the golf course where people need to go the other way. Like, okay, I wanna get better. I'm gonna start at the golf course, and we're gonna work our way over there. Like that would be kind of my perception of what I've learned over the years of maybe why people get stuck and just kind of plateau. speaker-2: Yeah, yeah. Well, let's back up for a second and talk a little bit about your background. ⁓ Lifelong golfer. You played some competitive junior golf, as I understand it, ⁓ maybe experienced just some frustration in terms of didn't quite feel like you ever unlocked your full potential in it potentially led you down a road of of wanting to discover ⁓ what's what's out there, what maybe was left on the table and what's available. ⁓ for others, including yourself, to really actually maximize your opportunities and your potential. Tell us about how you got started in the game and how we got to here. speaker-0: Yeah, no, played competitive as a junior, kind of just played my whole life, played in high school and ⁓ was fine. ⁓ You know, it was fine. I had some golf instruction, not a ton. Just kind of like looking back, I was just kind of doing my own thing as a teenager, right? Like no real like, hey, you should. think about this maybe, or like, let's do this. And kind of wish that there was someone with some ideas of like, okay, maybe you should go work on this. You should train this way or do this or that. so looking back, was some of the thoughts that I had. And I got into golf instruction because I had, was trying to do a software startup that didn't work out, but I was, met a bunch of golf instructors and so was like, this is fun. good group of guys to hang out with and gals. And so it was enjoying just kind of like talking with those people. I started a podcast called Golf Science Lab, because I there was a bunch of research happening in golf. We did some really interesting seasons on learning the brain, biomechanics, swing. ⁓ That was great. That was super fun. I really enjoyed that. And then eventually pivoted, started doing more video, and then we rebranded because I didn't resonate with the name anymore. So Golf Well. So that's like That's how we landed here. And like my goal is I just like, I just chase interesting instruction stories. Like what am I genuinely like, what am I interested in? What am I curious about? And I go like, try to find people and talk to them about it. And so it's taken me some really interesting places and people. ⁓ I try to, we try to bundle those up and like good entertaining videos for y'all and launch them out. So that's our idea. And that's what we work on every week. We got stuff going on that we're. we're working on. How's that? Does that tell the story? speaker-2: Fantastic summary perfect and for those who haven't checked it out the golf ball content on YouTube is absolutely first-rate outstanding Just as Korty mentioned ⁓ rebranding what a year ago two years ago, speaker-0: Yeah, something like that. I think it's January of 25 or something. speaker-2: Yeah, so what was the golf science lab became golf well, the current flag that he's flying. ⁓ And just as you said, ⁓ varying topics having to do with ⁓ golf improvement, oftentimes very, very deep dive and oftentimes very scientific. ⁓ And one of the things, Courtney, that I think is is cool about this book is for those, you know, sometimes the content can be quite dense in a very positive way for people that are interested in really going deep. ⁓ However, the book kind of gives us a bit of a reprieve or a little bit of an opportunity to get a little bit more surface level with some of this stuff, ⁓ which I think is valuable because ⁓ not all the time do we have, do we necessarily have the bandwidth to go down ⁓ a deep dive on the science behind ⁓ why the changes that we're trying to affect are advisable. ⁓ We just need to know what to do. You know what I mean? Does that make sense? speaker-0: Absolutely. You nailed the hardest part of our job that we work on as a team is like, we take these content cuts, which are like an hour and a half or something. And it's like, okay, now we got to get this down to 40 or 30. What do we do? And so like, that's genuinely the hardest part of this whole thing is like, we've learned some incredible stuff from these people. And like, we have these great ideas to share. Now. how do we condense it down and make it so like you all can watch it and like try to keep your, keep you engaged and try to keep you watching and. speaker-2: It is very engaging and it's good storytelling and what's cool too about the book is for each of these instructors and each of these pieces of instruction you've got a QR code so that you have that opportunity to what resonates with you when you do want to go deeper and you will ⁓ then you can do that and so is that how you envision this working? You know I hit on a topic that I'm working on. I look at what you've put out in the book and then I potentially can go to the video to get more and to get all of the context and to understand kind of potentially the science behind it and really kind of get a more holistic look at what I'm trying to address. speaker-0: Yeah, no, absolutely. Like it's gonna work both ways, right? Like for me, I've watched the videos, but don't remember it. So I need the book. People grab the book and maybe they haven't seen a part, but they're like, ⁓ maybe it's, ⁓ you know, like we got this putting green reading system from Ralph Bauer. It's phenomenal that he showed in a video and like kind of outlined it roughly in the book. But like, you're like, ⁓ I kind of want to see him like do it. Like then you can go that way. anyways, yeah, it's kind of both ways of just like trying to make things accessible and easy for. for like whatever you need today. Just skim, find the thing, learn it, go try it. that's what I'm just huge on that of like you gotta go do this stuff and go try it. And so hopefully you throw that book in your bag and ⁓ take it to the range with you next time you go. speaker-2: I love that. It's very portable. It's a thin book. You can certainly get it in your bag. It's meant to be marked up. I've already got some markings and some earmarks. So a lot to work on here. ⁓ Daniel, ⁓ anything jumping out here to you ⁓ potentially for your own game or just what you see is ⁓ relative to ⁓ common golfers. You touched on a good amount of it before that there's ⁓ speaker-0: Good, good. speaker-2: There's a lot of great information in here that really can help people with whatever they're meaning to do. And I should say, ⁓ Corda, you intended this to be something that you can jump around in. It's not necessarily a read-at-front-to-back type of book. Daniel, after consuming it once, is that how you envision using it? Is jumping around or addressing it kind of topic by topic? speaker-1: Yeah, totally. honestly, I think it even goes back to ⁓ I recently saw some of your content you did with ⁓ with Alex Fitzpatrick. And I think that that relates perfect to it. Mark is, you know, Alex said it best. It's like you can play golf a couple of days in a row. One day you drive the ball great. The next day you can't find a fair way. You know, one day you're hitting your irons great. know, golf is so hard because we're never perfecting everything all the time. you know, there's there's periods of time where we go through and we're, you know, we're really struggling with our with our driver and find the fairway. There's times we're really struggling with our approach shots. And that's where you can jump right into this book and say, OK, I'm struggling here. Let's work on that or let's find a way to to find some margins where I can I can practice or find some drills where I can practice and make things effectively practicing. So that's where I definitely agree with you, Mark. I don't think it's just a. you know, read through it and be done or, you know, I agree. I think it's a place where you can reference certain things here and there because golf is ever really changing. You know, our bodies are changing, hopefully for the better. For me, getting into my mid 30s now, I'm I'm starting to struggle. And the bad night's sleep means, you know, I'm typically tighter and it's tougher to get the turn on the golf ball every day anymore. But, you know, I think it's something where, yeah, like things in my game struggle and it's not always the same thing. So. For me to be able to reference different points and go in and work on different things that way I think is hugely valuable. speaker-2: Yeah. And Cordy, this is volume one. You titled that very intentionally. I'd imagine ⁓ you've got plans to build this series out. Tell us about that, speaker-0: Yeah, I mean, I'd love for this to be every year of, you know, we're putting out, we're putting out a guide a year and it's just kind of the content from that last year. So this one ran up to I think about the start of 2025. So I've got, you know, a whole year and year and a bit here that we're going to start producing shortly, which will be good. It reminds me, we've got to get started on that sooner and later if we want to get it done by next January. Oh, boy. speaker-2: You talked about kind of ⁓ the challenge of ⁓ you do a video shoot, you've got so much content, and then trying to condense that into a usable portion ⁓ that's going to hold your viewers' attention. What about creating the book? ⁓ Even to then go from kind of that condensed version that ended up as your 40-minute video to now then put that into what might be two pages of kind of more bullet point style kind of instruction or ideas or concepts was that challenging to refine it down to really kind of its finest points. speaker-0: Yeah, mean, same same thing is, you know, started with way more and then narrowed it down, trying to figure out, you know, what what were the key points? And ⁓ definitely with all this stuff, I feel like and you probably heard this from a lot of creators, but like I am the audience that I try to be like, all right, what do what what do I'm am I interested in? And I try to make it maybe bit wider than that, right? Like just not me. But like I'm just trying to think, what what is going to be most useful if I'm standing here not knowing what to do? on the putting green or if I'm standing here with a wedge in my hand and I'm struggling, like, you know. So it's just kind of, yeah, always narrowing down what are the things that I can do and like try and experiment. And then like, are the core concepts that are gonna make a difference and the big picture items that they're gonna make a big change for me. speaker-2: Yeah. ⁓ Let's talk about kind of ⁓ how technology maybe plays into this. There's just so much available for golfers today, for instructors as well, fitters for all of us. And really that's what Play Better is all about. ⁓ You've spent a lot of time working with some of the best minds in the game. Curious to know ⁓ what you've seen. Are they using tools like golf launch monitors? ⁓ And if so, ⁓ how regularly or to what effect and in what ways? speaker-0: Yeah, no, mean, tech is everywhere, right? mean, especially in coaching now, it's, I mean, everyone has force plates, launch monitors, 3D, whether it's wireless ⁓ or it's, you know, actual ⁓ with the markers on. So, I mean, yeah, it's totally everywhere. I think what I'm excited about is I think like at this point, if you're listening to this or you're watching some of my stuff, you probably have a launch monitor at this point, right? And it definitely wasn't that way three years ago or five years ago. And it's super, it like, it's great because I think one of the things that we realized about learning is like without feedback, you can't learn. And not saying it's like we need feedback of path and contact and all that stuff, but even feedback of like that wedge went 102 yards. Like that's important feedback. ⁓ Wedge gapping is so important and just the ability to do that now for way less than we ever could is great. yeah, what do you guys think? I don't know what the metric is, but serious golfers, I don't know what a serious golfer is, but of serious golfers, what percentage have a launch minor at this point? Is it like 40 %? Is it 20 %? Is it way less than that, like 3 %? And I'm totally off my. speaker-2: Yeah, well, one one interesting thing ⁓ is, is whatever that percentage is, it's probably more than it was yesterday. You know what mean? It's a it that that's that answer is changing so dynamically. And I don't think that you're very far off base if you suggest something like 40%. I'm hesitating to guess. Daniel, you're hitting you're talking to customers all the time. Got a guess on that? speaker-1: Yeah, I think you're probably pretty close. I think ⁓ that number has gradually or exponentially improved just in the last like two years alone, three years alone, because like Cordy said, like five years ago there, you it was still kind of a new thing. And honestly, they weren't really affordable. I mean, for they were maybe for three or four percent of the golf population, they were affordable. Otherwise, you'd go to a coach, you'd go to a golf tech facility to get some feedback. ⁓ But now speaker-0: It took off with MLM 2 Pro and then the R10, right? Like those are the two that probably just like straight. speaker-1: $7,000 with useful data and not not that all parameters don't have useful data, to have what these devices have and also double as a golf simulator, that's where the versatility and it was like you said, it just took off and it actually, if you look at it now, now there's like 30 launch monitors that you can buy under $6,000, $7,000 and they're all pretty dang accurate at the end of the day. I mean, they're all pretty comparable. speaker-2: Yeah. Different launch monitors give you, of course, different data parameters. think some of the kind of general common use cases that people might be familiar with when they think of how to use a launch monitor to help them improve. ⁓ The first one that maybe kind of rightfully people go to is the idea of bag mapping, just kind of really getting a full understanding of your carry distances with your 14 clubs or even deeper than that with your varying length swings with each of those clubs, specifically your scoring clubs. But some ideas that jump to my mind in reading your book, Cordy, is things like launch angle with wedges. So some really cool insights in this book. I'm going off memory here, but I believe you say in the book that your research has indicated that the launch angle with wedges for tour pros is always between 27 and 30 % for the top wedge players. ⁓ So there's an idea for launch monitor use, right? We all have the ability, if we have a launch monitor that gives us that data and does so accurately, we've got the ability to check out that information for ourselves and see how far off we may be and try to work towards that optimal range. speaker-0: Yeah. Yeah. You're talking about my, my kryptonite metric personally, that just keeps me up at night trying to keep a wedge launching appropriately. ⁓ yeah, no, that was, so Johnson and Claire gathered all this data on like the top 50, ⁓ pitchers and like of the golf ball and like, every one of them, stock shot he saw was below that 30 degree mark, ⁓ on, on that. And then we did, ⁓ the separate thing with Mark as well. He had that similar data point. So like there's, you you look for clues, right? Like what are multiple people saying around some of this? And so, yeah, that's an easy one, right? Like go hit some 50, 70 yarders and look at your launch angle and like, can you consistently, like how good are you at that? Is a great one to go do. And so that's some of that like skill practice, right? And that skill practice you're gonna find like, okay, I can do this. I can keep it around, you know, 25 to 35 or, you probably need a little tighter tolerance than that, but like I'm decent at it, then great. But if you're bad at it, you probably need to say like, okay, can't do this, let's try changing our setup a little bit, let's try a different swing feel, and maybe you need to work on your technique based on that. that's one those things of like, launch runners are so great, ⁓ and I think the ability now to, well, like taking it outside I think is super important. I don't know, I think, don't think enough people do that, and you guys probably know better than I do, but the majority of people are buying these for their indoor sims, right? And not, I don't think enough people would take them out to the range. I don't know why, but. speaker-1: Yeah, it seems to me like the conversations that I have is 90 percent for golf simulator. But the guys that want to use it on the range are typically like lower handicap or guys who really want to work on specific things like you're talking score or according there like scoring or skilled type practice sessions where they're you know, they really want to work on scoring clubs or they really want to work on ball striking or something that's very specific, ⁓ which. You know, all golfers should really, you know, aspire to do things like that, but it definitely feels ⁓ that it's the better players that want it for that driving range use, ⁓ because I think they know that it can it can unlock some things and take them to the level that they want to get to, because that's that's the difference. You know, once you learn how to control your golf ball, then it's getting into hitting different types of trajectories, different types of ball shape or a ball flight shaping. So it just. ⁓ Yeah, that's my take on it. I definitely think that you're right. I think most people are buying them for entertainment value and being able to use them when maybe they can't get out to play golf in half the year where it's cold in winter. speaker-0: Well you gotta do wedge gapping on grass, right? Like, I don't know, I don't know, like doing it on, doing it on mats is just- speaker-2: It's an interesting idea that you bring up is the, you know, there's so much opportunity available to us with launch monitors. And I wonder if there are some potential pitfalls and I wonder if you've encountered any of them, Cordy, or have any comment on that ⁓ for something like wedge gapping ⁓ or ⁓ is it appropriate to do these things ⁓ indoors? on our sims or is that a potential ⁓ bad road to go down for improvement? speaker-0: Yeah, I don't think it's hurting you. I don't think you can like you're not going to hurt your game, but I don't know. I've deceived myself that I'm that I'm better than I am too many times sitting off mats. So ⁓ you got to get out on the grass, right? Like I love simulator golf. think it's great. But some of these things like if you're trying like performance minded, score minded and you're trying to do something, you got to get you got to get on grass and do some of these things because things change. Contact, you actually have to hit it a little bit better than you do. speaker-2: Yeah, I've made the same shout out before on other episodes, but I'll say again that I do think one of the most overlooked components of indoor golf is the quality of that hitting mat. And people may think in terms of durability or injury prevention. But I also think that that club turf interaction and the realism of it is really what the better player should be chasing. And they're not all the same. ⁓ In fact, they are ⁓ incredibly variant. And so if you do want accurate numbers that best mimic as close as we can anyways what you're going to actually encounter in the real course. ⁓ Something like Fiber Belt, that's a brand I've mentioned before. ⁓ It does make a big difference. It really is important if you want ⁓ feedback that you can actually trust and use to improve. But I want to go back to kind of just ⁓ how this book kind of works. I think, Cordie, please correct me if I'm wrong, how it's intended to work is... You know, have something like a launch monitor. You have that opportunity to maybe see your launch angle with ⁓ your wedges. And you have the insight in the book about kind of the ideal that we should be trying to achieve. Well, then the next natural question is, OK, OK, great. I'm not there. Now what? Well, that's the book then. Now we see, OK, I need to work on my launch angle with my wedges. Well, right there. We go right into the book, and we get into the fundamentals of our setup, our shaft lean, all of those things that are going to change the launch angle that we're trying to change. speaker-0: Yeah, you nailed it. That's exactly what I'm trying to do is it's that thing that you can just have there ready to reference if you're not pulling it off. speaker-2: Yeah, yeah, totally. By the way, do you have a favorite launch monitor? speaker-0: ⁓ boy. ⁓ So my setup at home is I have the SkyTrack Max and I have the whole studio. That's what I've had that thing set up for like probably three or four years now. ⁓ So for me, it's like the software is a huge deal of every launch monitor and it is super easy to use and just like drag the SkyTrack over. It's really simple and then I just. drag it back and kind of put it away when I'm done. yeah, that has been really consistent for me. And then, you know, kind of outside, I've bounced around. The MLM 2 Pro is always in heavy rotation. It's just like pretty unbeatable, in my opinion, for value and price and their app has improved, you know, vastly over the years as well. like you can do anything in there now. So always use that a lot. playing around with the Mevo Gen 2 right now, which I've enjoyed as well. Getting that out on the range has been really nice. Like tons of features in that thing. Holy cow, so much data. It's nuts. speaker-1: Wait till go down a rabbit hole with the speed acceleration profiles. That'll get your head spinning a little bit. Yeah, I don't look into that. What is that? So it's actually it's a unique feature to the FlightScope products. So ⁓ it's basically like an MRI for your shaft and tempo. And it tells you if your clubs are reacting consistently. It is a club fitting tool, but it's a great tool to check on your tempo and some swing characteristics. speaker-0: Tell me more. speaker-1: It's really cool. It's a really deep dive on understanding what the shaft specifically is doing. It shows deviation in the shaft flexing in the force you're putting into it. as much speed training as you're doing and chasing and stuff, shouldn't say chasing and what you're going after. It can be hugely helpful just to understand if your equipment is faulting you or if there's a tendency in your tempo or something like that. It's really cool. speaker-0: Got it. So that's just in the app? It's just like one of the app? speaker-1: Yeah, you have to have the pro package add on for it, but it is within the ⁓ within there. It's under charts in the the club in the club section, I believe. But it's really cool. Yeah, it's really cool. So basically what you look for is consistency there. ⁓ But it's basically every swing shows a line on the graph. And if you see if you see the basically on the on the speed profile, if you see the lines kind of jumping all over the place, that's the club had loading and releasing, loading and releasing. speaker-0: Bye. speaker-1: So for a player like you, who swings a club head over 115 miles an hour, you're going to want to see a very straight line going into impact or where the graph says zero. And you want to see that repetitive with every swing. That means that your club is reacting the same. You're swinging the same speeds and you're basically presenting the club to the ball consistently. ⁓ The acceleration profile is a little bit opposite. It actually shows you G force on the club from the top of your basically from hip high. ⁓ on the downswing through hip high following through and it shows if you're losing a tremendous amount of g-force before impact So basically if the shaft weight or if something isn't correct in the kick point So again, you can kind of see how this really goes into club fitting But it's a really cool way to kind of check on your equipment as you go through swing changes or even just in your practice to see is my equipment reacting the same way am I doing something weird it's kind of cool to see like ⁓ I hit this shot that I fanned 40 yards right and you can pull it up and be like, ⁓ I swung completely different there or something flex different or my tempo is different. So it is kind of cool how you can work it into some instruction at the same time. speaker-0: Really cool. It's a forced acceleration or speed acceleration profile. speaker-1: Yeah, the speed and acceleration profiles. Yeah, it comes with ⁓ the pro package on on mevo plus mevo gen two. So a little bit of background. You can tell I worked for flights go for for seven and a half years there. ⁓ speaker-2: the ⁓ speaker-0: Figure that out now. I'll be busy. speaker-2: Yeah, let's talk about that topic of speed training. ⁓ Cordy, that's that's been ⁓ a big kind of cornerstone of a good amount of your content is ⁓ chased for 180 ball speed and tell us how it's going. Tell us kind of what the journey has been like. And I'm also interested in knowing your your opinion on is speed training something that's appropriate for for all golfers or close to all golfers? speaker-0: Yeah, well guess I'll start big picture. I think golfers should set more things on the date or things in the future. Here's a date, here's a goal, here's something I wanna do. And so for me at that point, this was two years ago that I started, ⁓ maybe a little under, it was just like I needed something. ⁓ Just chasing it, trying to go play. That summer I was like, all right, I might try to play some amateur qualifiers or something. Put something on the calendar. But that's one of those things of like, can't control the score, might have a bad day, I don't know. ⁓ And I was like, what is something I can control that I am in charge of? I can do this. And so that was one thing. I was like, I can make a number on a launch monitor change. It's gonna be my fault or my reason if I'm able to do it. So that was the start of it. And so I put this, yeah, I wanted it at 180 ball speed. I think when I started my top speed was like 176 or something like that. And so I was like, I don't know, can I do it? And I did it in that first year. I think I got up to 182 that year in 2024. And then last year I got up to 188, which is still where I'm at through the beginning of this year. But yeah, it's just been this thing of like trying to figure it out. So the first year I just learned from a bunch of coaches of like, technique ideas and like here's what needs to happen in your golf swing. These are the factors that are gonna help you with speed. And then kind of, I feel like I've maxed that out. And now it's just kind of like my body is not strong enough to do this. And so I just have to get stronger. ⁓ I need legs, it turns out, to support this speed and these forces. So working on that. And yeah, just putting in some speed training sessions. I've track, like I've tracked 35 sessions over two years, which so like, like obviously I haven't done a great job of consistently doing this. And like, don't do it. I haven't done well with that, but that's what I've tracked. Those are like at least 50 to 70 golf balls, hitting that many golf balls. ⁓ And it's just kind of been like ramping up. It's like probably. Not that impressive to sit here and say that it's been two years and you know, I went from 176 to 188. Um, most would say it's probably a waste of time, but like it's the biggest change has been my floor has come way up. Um, so like now I can pretty easily swing over 125 during, during a session. Whereas before it was like, that was my absolute top speed that I'd hit like twice maybe, or once, you know, if I was lucky. And so it's, it's interesting to to see that kind of come up over time and. ⁓ speaker-2: How is that how is that translated into scoring? Have you improved your scoring as a result of faster speed? speaker-0: Mark, we're just talking about speed here. We're not talking about scoring. We're not, like you said, we're separating goals. What I can control, what I can't. No, it's a good question. Unfortunately, I don't have a good answer for this. I had like my worst year last year of trying to play competitive golf. So that wasn't great, but I don't know. We're still, we'll start grinding. We're figuring it out. But it's just one of those things, like everyone asks that. It's like, I don't know. I live in Minnesota. We're inside for who knows how long. It's a fun thing to do. And I'm like, really enjoy it. It's like super fun. It makes me work out, which is a positive because I hate I've never gone to the gym my whole life. ⁓ But I need to figure out. Yeah, shooting lower scores would be great. speaker-2: Well, maybe, you know, there again, we'll get back to the book and to your content in general and just kind of the holistic how it's all kind of tied together is so speeds one thing that's one silo and maybe in a vacuum or it on its own doesn't equate to better scores necessarily until you apply the wisdom you learn from a Will Robbins or a Scott Fawcett. Right. And then we learn like when we have a green light, maybe my speed is going to really benefit me at this point. ⁓ versus when I need to ⁓ favor accuracy or decision making and it's not just swing it as fast as I can. ⁓ Fair to say? speaker-0: ⁓ yeah, for sure. The driver, my gamer speed has gone up, right? So my distance has definitely gotten a lot longer just swinging normally. So it has helped a lot. ⁓ Unfortunately, I still have to hit a lot of wedges into green, which needs work. ⁓ That's a problem. I'm always learning. We got lots of stuff to work on, but. I try, I try to apply all this stuff. I'll play in five or six qualifiers and do all that this year, it's great for figuring out what to work on, what to go ask people, all that kind of stuff. my realization, you guys will like this, my realization so far this year, kind of into late last year, was the value of practice swings. This might seem like a ridiculous concept, but ⁓ practice swings can actually be really useful. during a pre-shot routine of like actually feeling what you need to do on the golf shot. I think prior to probably last fall, like I'd just gone through the motions on practice swings and just kind of swung a club. ⁓ But like we did this video with Will on like pre-shot routine and talked about like really like what's the shot gonna feel like? Like what is that swing gonna feel like? Like how are you actually gonna swing the golf club? Okay, swing like that. Okay, got it. And then I did this, it's not out yet, but we did this ⁓ perfect putting routine video with Ralph Bauer. And he was like, okay, hit the putt. Your practice swing is like, just hit the putt and watch it. And that's your practice swing. And it's like, these things are really hard. Like I suck at that. Like I've been having to actually grind on that this year of like taking a practice swing and like actually trying to do it, how you're gonna do it when you go execute the shot and watching the putt go in. Really difficult. So anyways, I'm always. learning and do that's just example of this year that's been like his practice swings like trying to figure that out. speaker-2: I noticed you mimicking the broomstick there, is that what you're using? ⁓ speaker-0: ⁓ yeah, yeah, you got that. Very good. It gets ingrained in all my habits then, that is putting. speaker-2: Yeah, yeah, Cool. ⁓ Well, you know, one thing I think is important to clarify and I think is really makes this content ⁓ uniquely useful is is Courtney isn't portending to be a golf instructor. Rather, he's like us. He's he's wants to improve at golf. And what he's done is gone out and found the best and most interesting golf instructors talking about ⁓ topics that interest him. ⁓ And then his kind of collected that information and presented it for all of us the way that he would want to consume it as a golfer. ⁓ And I think that's important because if you are in fact a golf instructor, ⁓ you know, you may have, ⁓ you know, a mixed bag of how effective your instruction is or for which students it's effective. And you're kind of locked into your way of thinking about how to communicate or. ⁓ or what things are specifically most important to work on. And potentially, you can get lost in the weeds somewhere, and some of this stuff is lost in translation. I don't know, that might be a topic. Daniel, you might be able to comment on is there value in having ⁓ what amounts to a golf instruction book or a collation of golf instruction from somebody that's not trying to claim that he himself is a golf instructor. speaker-1: Yeah, totally. Totally agree. And I think that's like no offense to anybody. But I think that's a big reason why YouTube golf has been so popular is we can resonate with these people a little bit. You know, they're not perfect golfers. know, they encounter the same things we do. And it's cool to read through something like this book and say, OK, I was struggling with the same thing. Maybe I should try this drill or I should try this approach. So I totally agree with that. You know, and also like. for me, I was a guy who I've never taken a real golf lesson before. ⁓ But I've referenced things just like this book throughout it and kind of surprised myself. Like I told Mark, like reading through the book, I kind of surprised myself about how many of these things I actually do, but didn't realize it. And then it actually made me think, well, maybe I should take it the next step further and perfect some of these things. You know, maybe for lower handicap golfers, a lot of the stuff they're doing, they don't realize it. But for golfers who are struggling to get over that next level, breaking 90, breaking 85, breaking 80, ⁓ some of these things might seem really minimal, but they can make a huge difference. ⁓ it's stuff that, like you said, Mark, like we're everyday golfers, we're here, we're struggling with the same things. Let's help each other. You can obviously turn to golf professionals for for serious changes and work on your game. But it's awesome to have things like this to just go grab off Amazon and reference. Because you're not with a golf instructor every time you play golf or every time you practice. And golf isn't something that you're going to get better just by practicing once in a while. It's a full blown approach. If you want to get better, you've got to work at it. You've got to work at every part of your game, unfortunately. speaker-2: Yeah, and I go back to what Cordy said at the outset is is just trying to remember all this stuff is You know is why a book like this is so valuable to me when I read through it It's so there's a lot of stuff that's familiar or stuff that I've come across before a lot of it on Cordy's channel ⁓ That I've come across and concepts that I that I I know I should know and I know I should have already in practice or in place and yet somehow, you know, I still am struggling to retain that information ⁓ and so Again, that's what I really like about it being such a digestible format. 119 pages, some really nice illustrations. There's charts, tables, there's margins and opportunities to take notes for yourself. ⁓ And so it's very much a kind of a living, living, breathing document meant to grow with your game and address what it is that you might be ⁓ struggling with or want to refine or optimize. ⁓ And so, Cordy, very well done. ⁓ Congratulations on what, what is this your first book? speaker-0: Yeah, this is the first one we've ever put together. So thank you. Appreciate it. Lots of kind words on the books. speaker-2: ⁓ From just a meager youtuber to now distinguished author. Yeah, it's quite a jump So yeah, no anyways awesome stuff ⁓ Why don't we fellas ⁓ why we hit ⁓ Korty with a couple of rapid-fire? ⁓ Questions here to to get us out of here Daniel you want to want to take it away? speaker-1: Sure. Yeah, I think we touched on it briefly and I wanted to ask you what the concept is in the book that instantly lowers or what you feel instantly lowers golfer scores. And I think we touched on earlier and I agree with you is the course management aspect of things. that what you believe there, Korty? speaker-0: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Go, yeah, the chapter to kind of start on if you're just like, just play golf, like go, go see the Scott Fawcett and the Tiger five, like the five mistakes and then read it and then track it for a couple of rounds and see how many of those mistakes you're making common. And then you when you're next time you're in that situation about to make that mistake, you can hopefully recognize it and say like, OK, I can I can can avoid this. speaker-2: And just the, I mean, an invitation to the reader, like there is some scalability opportunity in there too, right? Like the Tiger V would be a good example because some of those core things might not apply to somebody that's shooting in the hundreds, you know, they may, ⁓ I think, you know. One of them is making bogey on a par five. If they're in that boat, they might be thrilled to make a bogey on any hole. ⁓ so, you know, it's all relative, right? I mean, it's ⁓ depending on where you are. ⁓ speaker-0: Yeah, no for sure. I think you'd scale the concept for where you're at. ⁓ But definitely, definitely still apply. speaker-1: Awesome. Yeah, I totally agree with that. ⁓ And obviously, as we get better, we we sent these benchmarks for each other or for ourselves more and more likely. ⁓ You know, what what do you believe truly separates someone who shoots, you know, an average score of 90 to 85 or what? What is that that that thing that separates someone from being a bogey golfer to being a sub 80 player and really can change the game of golf and an outlook for their career? or recreational ⁓ enjoyment of golf. speaker-0: Yeah, yeah, yeah. The biggest things that, the biggest differentiators. Like I think it's a little bit different for each person, but I'd say if we're generally speaking, it's probably blow up holes, right? And those lost balls and your ability to, instead of having a seven, can you have a five or seven or six? ⁓ And so like, honestly, ⁓ Going back to another coach, Will Robbins, just how he kind of, you've seen in some of videos we've done with him, but kind of breaking the game down and understanding, if you want to shoot bogey golf every time, there's two games, there's entering the scoring zone and down in the scoring zone. So can you get the ball within 100 yards each time? And then can you get down in three each time on a par four? Guarantee a bogey every time. So you could go, you know, you could go five, you can go seven iron, seven iron. wedge to putt. know, like, if you have the ability to minimize blow up holes and keep your ball in play as like you're shooting 90 or above, there's a great chance you're gonna lower your score really quickly if you can do that. speaker-1: Totally agree. And I think it even references in the book, if I remember correctly, that like, The harm on your score with a double bogey versus a bogey is like detrimental. I think it's like it's like a 1.5 versus like a like a point one or two, ⁓ like strokes gained or something like that along the lines of that. ⁓ Or like a double bogey or worse just destroys your round of golf. Whereas, you you can make a bogey and you know, you just whatever. It's not that detrimental. But once you start stacking up the big scores and then your score adds up a lot faster. ⁓ So totally agree with you there. think it's, you know, course management obviously is huge, which helps with those big scores. ⁓ But being able to make those eight foot par putts or bogey putts to avoid that double bogey. mean, those are the things that save around and allow you to break 80. I know I personally experienced that myself, you when I can play without a double bogey, ⁓ I'm typically shooting, you know, below 75 every time. But as soon as I start losing a couple golf balls, well then I'm just trying to break 80 or even worse. it's ironic and it's again, like you said, it's not the same for every golfer. Maybe some guys just need to work on not three putting, you know, because that can be a huge difference too. So ⁓ yeah, really cool. ⁓ Last question. ⁓ You know, ⁓ if you were to go out and practice today. ⁓ and you instantly wanted to work on one thing in your golf game that you knew was going to make it better after the long winter layoff, what's the first thing you're going to practice? Are you going to the putting green? Are you going to work on your golf swing, your wedges? What are you going to after that long winter layoff? Because I think there's a lot of viewers who are going to be in that same boat. speaker-0: Yeah, I mean, it's leg putting. I think if I could choose anything to be world class at, I'd be like a world class leg putter. I know it's the lamest thing ever to say, but like, if I could just two putt every green that I ever landed on, that'd be sick. ⁓ So no, that's what I've been doing. Like I've been doing, you know, four footers, 30 to 50 footers and like stock chip shots. Just like normal chip shots and just like those three things if I get. 45 minutes to run out to the course. I'm just gonna start there. And then if I have more time, then we'll build on that. yeah, that's my one desire, to be an incredible leg putter. We'll see if that happens. Which leads me to a good point, which is up your guys' alley. So in my simulator room, I have the well putt, 20 footer something maybe. And yeah, like. Not enough people throw those in there and hit some putts and try to like land on different numbers. like my son loves playing. We play games on that all the time of like trying to get different scores and stuff. But like not enough people practice distance control with their putting. But you totally can. And it's like, it's pretty easy. there's a little simulator guide for you there. I was thinking that. speaker-2: Love that. Absolutely love that. Well, fantastic. The book is The Scoring Edge. ⁓ It is volume one of the Golf Well guidebook. ⁓ More to come. ⁓ Cordy, Amazon, ⁓ where else will we find The Scoring Edge? speaker-0: Yeah, just Amazon. Super easy to get. Most countries should be there. ⁓ Kept it simple so you can go grab it there. speaker-2: Yeah, wonderful. encourage everybody to check it out. As Daniel said earlier, it is something that would apply to every type of golfer. And so certainly encourage beginners all the way up to very serious players to consider adding this to their collection and making it a real regular part of their golf journey, because it can be potentially a pretty powerful companion, I think. We'll see. Cordy will report back as to how it's speaker-1: Yeah, and honestly, too, Mark. I Father's Day is coming up. So you're looking for a good add on, like if you're looking for some technology for your dad, maybe throw in ⁓ throw in a copy of this book. And it really helped change everything up, too, because ⁓ there's nothing better than a gift that keeps on giving. And that's that's what this is. speaker-2: Good call. Good call. Very affordable as well. I can find Cordy Walker and Golf Well on YouTube under the Golf Well brand. ⁓ Same title, same name on his website. Cordy, you've got a weekly newsletter, a podcast as well, all branded under Golf Well. Very, very good content. I'd encourage everyone to take a look and ⁓ really appreciate you joining us today, Cordy. speaker-0: Thank you guys for having me. Appreciate it. speaker-2: Yeah, right on. Well, Daniel will be back next week. Really thank everybody for watching and listening, following along with us. And stay tuned and join us again, please, as we continue on talking about all things golf tech. Thanks, everyone.