Roger Sloan Makes Major Swing Discovery

Roger Sloan is grinding on the Korn Ferry Tour, fighting to keep his status and has just made a major discovery in his swing. Sloan discusses his recent struggles, how he came upon the swing epiphany, and what it means going forward. Episode presented by Dad Water, a refreshing tequila-infused water with natural flavors. Go to drinkdadwater.com

here with Roger Sloan people are getting to know Roger if you don’t already prior to this through Dadwater who sponsors both Roger and myself it’s hard to see in this camera but they have a great logo right here dad Water on the side he has his mom water hat on it’s uh pretty sweet
raj how are you man
i’m good doing real good just uh home in Houston just
let’s talk uh we we just talked prior to coming on
about a lesson
you’ve been a pro golfer for multiple years
and you just said something that is like s from the nerd in me the golf nerd in me something that
I am not a swing like I’ve never had a real lesson in my life uh even in college when I played you know junior college golf our golf coach was like a partyier he didn’t do anything it was just like so You just said something to me that is like just a like just very interesting to me you said I’ve been thinking about the golf swing wrong my whole career i think that’s what you said
pretty much what does that what what did you see or feel or whatever that made you think that and then what you know what led to going to your coach and and working on things that you’re working on
yeah I think one I’ve swung the golf club very naturally my entire life so there’s a lot of fundamental things that you know I’ve never had to be introduced to or talked about and um uh so I’ve been working with my swing coach now for gosh the better part of 15 years and uh we were working together a couple weeks ago and the big the my biggest I haven’t been playing very well for the last 24 months and uh just been struggling and uh hitting a lot of weak shots shots to the right i’m I’m a cutter but n naturally I just I like to see the ball fall to the right well the ball is definitely falling to the right right now a little more than we would like right
it’s weak and right coming up short um all of a sudden I was at the Canadian Open a few weeks ago and I was like man I’m just I just got to feel like I’m got the club face closed just I got to feel like it’s closed like so I mean it feels like the ball’s going to miss left of the left field foul pole and all of a sudden I just start absolutely striping a couple four irons and five irons coming down the the final few holes ended up missing the cut on Friday but uh last few holes man I really struck some really good quality long irons so we go into the lesson and essentially what’s going on is in my down swing when when when the club comes down parallel to the ground I’ve always thought that the club face you want that completely perpendicular with the ground straight you know toe straight up coming down and come to find out that that’s wide open i’ve always swung the golf club like that i just thought you know and and I don’t know if this is old school thinking you saw something on the golf channel years and years ago and as a kid you know cuz that’s kind of like a maybe a guideline of some sort i heard at some point you know you want that club um and I guess square is actually actually parallel with your spine angle you know so for instance for some of your viewers if you were to stand completely straight up and down like a pencil and swing it completely around parallel with the ground yeah when you’re hip level over here it would be straight up and down but because we’re hunched over that club face also comes over
instead of the club face being like that
you kind of want it angled like that and I’m like wait a minute so I’ve been swinging a golf club with a wide open club face for all these years and you know what like everybody swings it differently i understand that you can certainly get away with it you know I think the athlete in me is always compensated for that big time um and so I think right now I’m just a little bit late on squaring it up and I’m trying to square it up with my body and because of that I’m digging it into the ground all of a sudden I just you know put a little bit stronger grip on the club kind of feel like it’s a little bit more shut man my body’s working through the golf shot again like it used to and it just to me is just absolutely insane that that can happen by just just a little too i mean we haven’t worked on setup we haven’t worked on any mechanical position it’s just so much as just a feeling you have in your fingertips on the club of just a little bit being closed and the difference between that and that just makes the body work so much better together so I just thought that that was interesting that I’ve been playing golf at a professional level for better part of 15 or 16 years and I’ve always thought that you know coming down into impact when that club is parallel with the ground at hip level that that toe should be straight up in the air and when you now that I understand I was like “Yeah that ball’s going to go straight right.” Um unless I do something to compensate for it so um just intriguing how that you know and and some people might say well what kind of a coach do you have and I was like to be honest with you I’ve got a I’ve got a great coach we would never have thought to have looked at that ever before because I’ve always swung the club natural it’s not something that’s ever been been addressed over the over the the time together you know and we have our other tendencies that we’ve always worked on so just the fact that that’s kind of fallen through the the cracks a little bit is is kind of honestly all you can do is really laugh um you know I’ve obviously had a little bit of success and I know how to get the job done but you know if we can find a way here to get it done a little bit easier then um we’re super excited about that
does it How unnatural does that feel does that like you play one way i know you’ve tinkered all pro golfers have some sort of tinkering in their in their swing but for the most part you have a the same swing your whole career does it feel super unnatural these changes Roger is it something you have to think about or is it just You definitely got to think about it it doesn’t feel super unnatural because it’s not like we’re making a huge fundamental shift in any type of swing plane or position or anything like that it’s just just a unique feeling in the hands um and sometimes when you have a different feeling like that you can roll with it pretty pretty quickly for me I think about a little bit too much there’s a little bit of doubt oh where’s this shot going to go cuz I’m it doesn’t feel the same way in my hands as it has for the last several years so um there’s a little bit of a of a learning curve a little bit of a just kind of get that confidence seeing the shot so you just kind of got to get the reps on a week like this where I’m home man I can go out to the golf course now put a bunch of balls down hit those different shots with the six seven eight iron and
with that feeling and then have the confidence that the the the ball shape is actually going to do what you want it to do so I’ve seen it you know I spent the last two weeks out on tour fun you know kind of fiddling around with it uh saw some really good results i saw the speed coming back with a lot of some of those longer irons so I you know it was nice it’s just a matter of just trusting it a little bit and not having I assume it’s I assume it’s hard rock like you you have you notice something you need to change your coach and you identify it but then the corn fairy tour has these long stretches where you got like there’s and you have to find that balance of you would love to go beat balls and make that feel natural but also you got to think about Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday and not be exhausted though this is why I assume that off weeks are just so vital especially when you’re going through something like this yeah exactly it’s like any chance you can get now in that off week to go hit some balls you got to go do it cuz you’re right i mean I’m at I’m obviously a little bit older in my career so yeah I don’t have the energy and stamina that I did as a 25-year-old to go beat balls on Tuesday and Wednesday you know cuz I still I got to conserve the energy and make sure I’m prepared to play four solid rounds for the tournament um so yeah you got to find that balance and in a week like this yeah let’s go let’s go carve it out and and uh you know get that feeling a little bit more implemented and so we can can we roll what’s the timeline Roger for something like this because swing changes just don’t produce good golf right away you have to it you know for pros there’s been pros who’ve changed their swing and they’re like “Hey this year is a throwaway until I get used to this.” Uh and you’ve struggled this season so is it hard mentally to just be like “Yes I know I’m doing the right thing and I know I need a good finish but this is this is what I have to do for the betterment of my career 10 years five years whatever that is.”
Yeah that’s that’s the crazy thing with golf right because you have this this overhanging um standard where you’re playing for your job every single year and so what that does is that provides this uh pressure to succeed immediately and sometimes it can feel like well I don’t have six months to to to go through something like this and and get used to swinging it like that that is definitely the downside of it however I’ve been around long enough to understand that you can go out and search for band-aids but if you’re searching for band-aids every single week it you know you’ll just that’s all you’re going to do your entire career you’re just going to be searching for something every single week and there’s always there’s always checks and balances you’re always going to be working on something a little bit here a little bit there a little bit here just kind of keeping everything in balance that’s a little bit different than trying to find a band-aid every week trying to find that that secret sauce or what was that that swing thought or what was that that feeling so that I can play good that week i mean you’re going to it’s I think that’s an exhausting way to play golf so for me it’s more long-term orientated and it’s like hey you know what if that means I got to go back to Q school at the end of this year to get my cornfairy tour status back that’s what that means i mean I’m looking more in the long game and you do you have to be okay with that because it means in the short term yeah not going to be making a lot of money might not be making a lot of points but at the same time I do have a lot of belief in my athleticism that it this this this change is not massive it’s not going to take but a few you know finally hitting that shot when you when you need it oh there it is yeah got it boom now we’re away to the races um yeah I and I assume Roger that’s it i remember talking to Michael Kim about this right and Michael Kim went through a lot of swing changes and he said and I said “Do you remember a specific shot that it kind of clicked?” And he’s like “Yes.” And he like mentioned this drive on this tight hole he was working on struggling with his driver and he’s like “I didn’t.” He said “I was way off the cut line i wasn’t going to make the cut but I just remember I was like oh it felt natural and it went natural and I was like oh this is you know we’re making the right moves i can feel it.” I assume that’s part of it right it’s like you’re going to get in certain positions and you’re going to feel okay and then that just becomes more and more comfortable
yeah and it’s interesting that Michael said that because I’ve had so many times in my career too where you’re kind of working on things working on things and here’s the big conundrum because you show up at an event and you want to play well you know you got to we got to make money we got to support our families we got to support our lifestyle whatever it is um you want to make FedEx Cup points if you want to make points in the corn ferry list whatever there’s always that pressure every single week i want to put my best foot forward so naturally you are going to figure out how to make the best of what you have that week you know so you might be working on something and you just figure it out you’re going to figure out how to manage it right and so when you get in a scenario where all of a sudden you’re coming down the last nine holes on Friday with no chance to make the cut there’s a you kind of you let go of all of that pressure you let go of all of that manage managing and now you’re just playing golf and and all of a sudden there’s the looseness to it there’s not as much tension and bam you hit a shot here cuz you know you’re not trying to manage it you’re not trying to It doesn’t matter and now it literally doesn’t matter if you hit it 40 yards out of bounds you’re already missing the cut so it doesn’t matter and all of a sudden that looseness provides a few good swings and you’re like “Oh I like that feeling there it is.”
And now I’m hitting that feeling in a tournament setting
and you’ve just removed the pressure of performance now you’re going to have a sports psychologist that’s going to listen to this or or a mental performance coach and be like “Well you know they’re just ding ding ding ding ding ding ding.” Like “Why don’t we try to play golf like that all the time?” And it’s like “Well that’s a complete that’s that’s a different set of that’s a different scenario than what we’re talking about as far as like feeling the the swing.” And yeah don’t get me wrong feeling that and being able to reproduce that from a mental standpoint is definitely a secret sauce in and of itself for sure but a lot of guys that’s where they can figure it out because they lose that that pressure to perform and they’re just now I can just play golf again so that’s cool that Michael had that and I’ve definitely had that in times in my career i think just recently you know we had on on the Friday we were playing there’s a weather delay and because of the weather delay we got delayed due to darkness and I had three holes left um so I warmed up Saturday morning to play three holes needed two birdies to make the cut first hole I’m playing is a relatively short par five you know you can get home in two with a four or five six iron depending on your drive and again I’ve been working on all of this and so you know there’s a bunker out out there in the left um in the left rough and you just kind of faded off that i aimed it at that bunker and I mean if I didn’t hit the straightest laser drive right into the right edge of that bunker you know and it’s like ah that’s not the shot I wanted and under the circumstances I want to make birdie but holy smokes the the feeling that I got out of that drive was like whoa there it is you know wasn’t that weak to the right like I could have hit that standard weak and to the right got it in the fairway had 240 yards hit my three iron on the green i could have done that for sure but no I’m working on some things and I hit it i hit the shot and now all of a sudden once you hit that shot a little bit now that line can be five more yards into the fairway
mhm boom now I’m hitting that missile right down that line or into the right so that’s kind of how it all works so yeah I missed the cut this week but man that that last drive that I hit was just I mean it was
and and I think
for the for the fans watching that judge whether a player is playing well or playing poorly judged on a score it is so vastly different you I mean Roger obviously knows this better i just know it from talking to players there can be a 72 where you walk off the course and you’re like “Oh that could have that should have been a 77.” Or there’s a 77 that was like “Man I hit some really good shots some swing changes are working.” Yeah they could you know we’re not too far away from being 69 68 consistently again so it’s it’s just I think a lot of fans just look at scores and go “Oh that guy’s struggling that guy’s struggling.” But they could be going in very opposite directions struggling uh
yeah as as far as like for me I’m concerned like yeah once my swing is in an area where it’s like wow okay it’s within the it’s within the parameters that I like my swing now we’re just managing all of it right it’s all about management um and your score fluctuates based on some of the breaks you get or anything like that but you just know there’s just that confidence like okay my my swing’s where it’s at and some days I’m going to shoot 67 and some days I might shoot 72 whether a few putts drop or Right now where I’m at is like I don’t really like where my golf swing is at i’m not hitting those consistent shots you have those go-to shots i’m not hitting those that’s when the alarms are sounding off that’s when it’s like okay we need to go back to the drawing board we need to get those fundamentals back in place we need to you know make sure that we’re hitting those standard shots so that when we get into competition you know now it’s just a difference of okay did I make that putt did I not make that putt did that drive go in the fairway or did I have to lay up you know and those are all things that are the different those aren’t the differences in making cuts and those are the differences in finishing fifth and finishing 15th or finishing 15th and finishing 25th and that’s a very good state to be in but where I’m at right now is like okay I there’s a few shots out there where it’s like when I need it it’s not there
and so where has it gone what type of compensation have I done over the years that that has led me to this point again let’s address that let’s get it back to where I can hit those standard shots because yeah I’m going to swing a driver at 95% but there’s a couple times where it’s like hey finding the fairway is quite important i’m going to hit my fairway finder might be at 80 80%
well when I’m hitting that shot and it’s not even coming close to the fairway that’s when those yellow flags start rising up and hey something is off and we’re going to have to figure it out and that’s the point where I’m at i’m got just trying to figure figure those things out right now and um once I start seeing those shots return boom now we’re going out and just a difference of whether a few putts make it or you know
yep roger dad waters over my uh shoulder uh mom waters on his hat uh awesome company who have been great to both of us so we’re gonna if you listening to this for the first time there’s one that kind of introduced Roger if you didn’t know him before and uh and we’re going to do this a couple times through the season here as we go through and g give us great insight like he just did we have access to someone who’s kind of like hey good like there’s good days there’s bad day bad weeks there’s bad stretches there’s good stretches so uh Roger I appreciate as a golf nerd this is the kind of stuff that I absolutely love i know you wish you weren’t going through it but uh it’s part of the part of the deal and I’m appreciate you giving us insight on it thanks yeah no it’s uh it’s fun it’s fun to be part of somebody like Dadwater that that’s willing to do this because we’re getting some really good content and I’m you know trying to be as raw as I can for you and your your followers there um but it’s uh I’m at the point in my career too where it’s I’m not freaking out i’m not hitting any panic buttons you know you know it can it can come and go as quick and can come back and it’s it’s uh it’s a fun game that’s why we love playing it you don’t always ever master it so going through a little bit of a tough stretch right now but um I’m pretty resilient and and I’ll battle through it
awesome thanks Roger i appreciate it man
yeah you got it thanks