In this episode, Louis Savill breaks down variables for different short game shots, performance and different lies. This episode is filled with lots of gold for golf coaches and players! It’s an awesome listen to gain some knowledge.
Welcome to episode two of talking sense and golf this week we are joined by an absolute short game genius in leis Saville uh and not only is he a short game Legend he also is a bit of a player and for anyone that doesn’t know leis
I’m going to get him just to start off with a little background of how um he got into golf and his journey in golf at the moment so far away for us leis um so I got into golf a little bit later than most people I got into golf
About 10 years old um uncle took me down the driving range um in Graves end said give me over the 50 yard flag Nots over asked if I got my miles barar the response was absolutely not and then from there I was basically hooked so um it sort of like
Yeah realized why I was probably fat by the time I was 20 um so yeah just got really Addicted to Golf from there pretty much I got down I temper off with one handicap uh I was playing at Mid Golf Club very much a one track Pony though I didn’t that didn’t
Transfer at all I didn’t understand the skills that I needed to do to actually be able to play around multiple golf courses then you turn pro and every game is an away game like there’s no such thing as a home medal you’re trying to learn a different trying to apply your
Skills on a different golf every time so straight away you go from knowing every shot to knocking it around in 80 and trying to work out what you’re bad at golf um so I would say for me it very much was like an eye openening experience of like right I thought I was
Good and I’m really really really not um then ground out really hard I used to live at tandri so I stayed above the shop and there was a short game area that was probably 70 yards from from my bedroom and I used to to just live on it
So I found the lowest hanging fruit to make my scores better I’ve never been a long hitter so I was like well there’s no point being short and sucking with wedges so um I decided to get better short game wise started winning some golf events um sorry there is
Also um a lot of uh you shouldn’t suck if you hit it long you also shouldn’t suck with wedges so the common denominator there is be good with wedges yeah so I 100% agree with you and if you’re long you’re going to have more wedges in then if you hit it short um
Certainly so yeah so from there actually managed to somehow scramble around and win a few events in the South Region PJ and then had a real sort of change of Direction realized that I absolutely loved looking after people loved coaching loved just seeing the Improvement way more than I did grinding
For 10 hours on a freezing cold driving range which I I can’t work out why that would be um and yeah just I I still had this obsession with short game worked out who I thought was the most intelligent people that I could contact and annoyed as many as possible until they
Eventually talked to me and and that’s kind of where I am now I’m still annoying a of them um still trying to to wind some of them up um they will eventually talk to me I promise could you name drop a few that you have who’s who’s your who’s probably
The three that you’ve learned the most off of um so without a doubt obviously I think Alex Buckner’s brilliant yeah fantastic probably one of the better coaches I’ve seen live in terms of not just short game just an absolutely Mega golf coach yeah I must say yeah he’s a really nice guy
As well with it sound as sound as they come so he was really eye opening in terms of actually I went there and I ghosted Alex for a day and I it’s going to sound really weird and it’s the biggest backround of com I can give the technical knowledge didn’t
Blow me away there wasn’t any but the way he delivered it the structure of the lesson just everything was Mega it was it made me realize that there’s a lot being a great coach not just knowing different grip types and various bits and Bobs so that was amazing uh he’s
Been really really really helpful I think obviously James ridard making wedge Matrix doing all that stuff really as kind of the other end of the spectrum where I I learned a lot from um and then finally humar has definitely been a big help for me uh again more in terms of the
Organization and the structure of that information I kind of had a lot of stuff hiding in a lot of cupboards and there was no organization to it I sort of had to pull open every cupboard to find what I wanted and being able to categorize it
Um and find it and store it was a really big thing like you’ve done quite a lot of work with you as well right I have done a lot of work with you yeah yeah and what you’re talking about is almost like that tool box isn’t it it’s having
All those tools in the tool boox to be able to pull out on the right person at the right time yeah the art of coaching 100% I’d say that like if you look at my toolbox a year ago now it’s probably no more full it’s just everything’s organized there’s a
Compartment um and I know what tool should do what job or at least have a better idea of that now and I think that’s really really important especially when we talkinging about getting people better quicker 100% 100% where do we start with short game
Then most uh so if we were to have uh a trackman or a GC quad whatever on a Chip Shot what would be your most important data point to look at so I think this is really interesting so um I would say if I was going to go most
Important I think when we’re talking a lot about chiping noways we’re talking about lowo depth right so lowo location that gives you on a trap man before and after the only thing it doesn’t give you at the moment obviously is how deep that
Is so I think if I was going to use a trap I’d be looking at low Point location definitely um and I’d also be looking at smash Factor so someone a lot clever than me that I can’t remember who said it so if I quoted you I’m so sorry they
Said the art of good golf is to speed the ball up in the long game and slow it down in the short game so I think realistically when I see a lot of people day to-day doing short game stuff that’s they’re too efficient they’re too good
At compressing the ball so I kind of frame it as like I’m about to give you the world’s worst long game lesson like right now I’m I would be the world’s worst long drive coach because we’re going to be so inefficient we’re gonna get the ball speed so low relative to
Club and speed and then that’s going to give them the confidence then be able to hit these shots that travel no distance with a relatively aggressive or confident motion we did just on that we did some um we did a little bit of testing at
Rygate Hill when we was on H Mars course and um we found out that it was about you had to double the club speed literally about double the club speed when you wanted to almost hit a a shot with a more open Club face which I mean
Who thinks about that how much more speed if you’re hitting a 20 yard shot you’re probably wanting about 20 yards on a normal Chip Shot you’re probably wanting a 20 m hourish swing but as soon as you jump up to hitting that 20 yard
Shot that has to be a flop shot you then have to swing at 40 miles hour which is nearly which is probably half of someone’s normal Club speed with a seven six on which is just crazy yeah it’s nuts and and I just think that and I’m sure you see it as
Well when we’re we’re on the short game area like we just get these people that are so good at compressing it and that’s great but that means you know if we’ve got say a smash factor that too efficient they’re going to swing the club slower therefore they’re going to produce less spin lower
Launch suddenly they’re going to need a wool at the back of the green to stop it whereas if we’ve got something coming in where they’re able to like you say double the club head speed well the bull still traveling the same distance with double the club head speed there’s going
To be more spin there’s going to be a higher land angle so we’re going to stop the ball that much quicker so there’s your control element of it yeah if you got um on a stock Chip Shot from the Fairway do you have a smash fact range
That you’re looking for or does it vary from player to player I’d say it varies dependent on the player to player from a they I like people to have a favorite shot so same way someone might particularly prefer to play a draw off the tea I think people have a window
That they like to see I’m really lucky to coach some truly phenomenal players that I’ll never admit that they beat me in a chipping comp but they probably would um and I’ve got a lad who’s great but he hits it knee high to a grasshopper and therefore we’re
Probably going to see a higher smash Factor on him so he’s going to be able we’re gonna have to be a lot more careful about swing length and those sorts of things and I’ve got other guys that like to fly the whole way to the pin so I think from that
Perspective I can’t have a preference because I can have a preference from shot to shot like obviously if we want it higher definitely lower smash Factor if you want it lower definitely highest smash Factor but I don’t want to let my prefer outweigh what the student wants
To see because at the end of the day they’re the one that’s got to stand there with their medal on the line with a check on the line and try and get up and down like I want them to be able to play the shot they see it yep would you
Uh would you vary smash Factor uh from lie conditions or would you still want to see a similar smash coming out of from a fairway to a rough to a bunker to whatever the LIE may be I think smash Factor will vary in terms of the more
Interference I get in the way of something naturally the ball’s going to start to come out slower so I I think that the the variance will be in the lie and and adjusting and adapting to the LIE is the is the key so you know from rough we’re going to lose
Friction so therefore Ball’s going to launch higher with less spin also Ball’s going to come off softer so we’ve got a ball that’s launching higher coming off softer we’re already we’ve already lost the batt and smash Factor yeah therefore we’re going to have to swing it quicker
Whether we like it or not um it’s just whether we double down on that and try and then try and stop it land angle because we can’t with Spin and then that that’d be the really interesting one because then I’d imagine that you’re probably going to start swing seeing a
Swing 60 miles hour for that 20 20 yard shot yeah yeah yeah 100% yeah interesting because we never did we never tested it we we tested it off of a fairway condition she so yeah would be very true so um difference in variables between Fairway and broth well played opening a kind of
Worms so I think again I’m gonna be that guy and say it depends it depends on the rough it depends on the grass type you can certainly see from the guys on TV like they get into rough some weeks and it looks absolutely fine like they can
Miss the green and then there sometimes they miss the the green a foot off and it’s toast so I think we’ve got to come up with a better explanation than Fairway and rough I think that certainly from the understanding that I’ve got and again from someone who’s
Who’s traveled a lot more than me and stealing some ideas off bark here is you know Li reading such a big part of his process and I think that’s the biggest thing that I learned about I put a story out on my Instagram maybe about two weeks
Ago it was really good it was it was Ian Porter um hitting a bit of a flub shot and he leaves it in front of him and I sort of ask why this happened and I think I got about 20 replies all of them were leaning back
Technique d d d that every short game coach that messaged me was like oh it’s beuda grass that week it was into the grain it was like this and suddenly you know we it was uphill they were coming up with all the kind of the environmental Factor reasons
And suddenly all that everyone else was getting lost in the technique and the camera was so far zoomed away I couldn’t have told you what his technique did if I wanted to it’s amazing that level techniques got to be pretty established you’d argue pz is a pretty good short
Gamer wouldn’t you you know a guy who’s maximized his ability and talent um and does things right A lot of the time I think you’ve got to go with okay he’s probably made a Mis assessment on reading the LIE he had to high shot that was bll first which as you probably know
From your like testing with and stuff like that that’s really quite hard to do if you’re really trying to get it up in the air and I think that when we look back and when we problem solve a lot of the times we can rot back
To misreading a lie just same way we would misread a part but in the answer to a short game it’s always been ah my technique wasn’t good enough I did this I did that I think our feedback loop in a lot of golf has been
Pretty poor to say the least you know I I I try and perform I didn’t perform the way I want okay well I’ll go back to my technique is my technique good all right okay it looks better on camera right I’ll go and perform all right I still
Didn’t perform the way I want must have not done my technique right when realistically we know there’s so many different parts of it right what was my read like what was my environment like how was my process on that shop did I take enough time did I did I stick to my
Routine was I really specific with my landing spot did I pick a gray flight window and you know once you start asking these questions like I’ve started to just make a wedge diary for students to just go away and they can just write down key shots and things they thought
About and we can start to identify that actually some of the worst shots they hit they fill in the least amount because they’re just kind of going through the motions they’ve hit a bad shot it’s like a a deer in the headlights have sort of come on they
Sort of standing there they don’t know what to do they try and just figure something out and they haven’t applied kind of like a logical process like they would for a 7 on out the Fairway right it’s 15 I’ve got my number wins into right okay Club up that sort of stuff y
So um let’s go let’s try and answer that question in terms of um what variables would change from a fairway a decent Fairway light to a relatively rough light like what what for question I just kept going um so I think when you look at it we’re g to look at
Okay so what happens with contact first if I was to make two identical swings from the same position what would be the outcome of the rough like well okay I and this is just going back to it so we’re going to probably enter the rough before we hit the ball so that’s going
To slow Club down so we’re going to have to think about a way of comb in that so simple answer for me is option one can you just beat the club up or is the rough too thick to do that like is there just like no point um in which case we
Have to look at can I change where I enter the rough okay can I steepen the angle that the clubs comes down so I enter the rough closer to the ball so there’s less of an interference factor and do I need to then therefore if I’m then steepening the angle of the
Club comes down how do I then stop the golf ball because of now hitting 15 20 down on something I’ve lent the Sha forward to make that happen how do I then for the love of God stop the thing because can’t do it through spin because we’ve already
Established the rough get in the way so in terms of variables I’d try and pick the simplest one first which is if it’s a low or medium rough lie can you do it just by simply accelerating the club and playing kind of like that bunker shot deliberate ground interaction first
Because we’re going to see the ball pop up more because we lose friction and then that’s still going to give us that stopping option without changing a million variables and I’d say for most rough lies especially in the UK because we don’t have a grass that’s
That grabby tends to work a lot then you’d start maybe moving pieces around moving certainly low point forward moving angle of attack down but I kind of see everything like gonna sound like Hugh H like a spectrum okay okay so I think um in short game in
Particular most people kind of come and they go right I’ve got sort medium flight chip I’ve got a bump and run and I’ve got a flop shot and I’m like right so you’ve got Zer five and 10 yeah yeah realistically should you ever need 10 if
You do we need to talk about course management first because that’s really high and then they pour on all these like ingredients that make it high when realistically if we just change one ingredient at a time we’d end up with just this lovely graduation and we’d be
Able to go up and down the scale as we see fit so I kind of think about the same thing in terms of steepness and angle of attachment to about rough like we go okay well first thing we can start to do is we might just lean your chest a
Little bit forward that might be option one so if you’re in rough that you can’t quite get out of start by trying to get your sternum in front of the golf ball from there okay if that doesn’t work right why out your start and now really
Leaning into your left side like max out that first before you start messing around with swing Arc because that’s really hard to manage when we’re talking about juggling and spinning all these other plates that we’re talking about because you’ve still got to somehow stop that golf ball
We’ve still got to figure out where we want to land it we’ve still got to figure out where we sit on in the round that day because I know we’re told not to think about score but hav’t said anyone completely forget about it yet yeah you know and I mean bogy is way
Better than double right so oh is this a smart shot that’s another question so I think the best way that I’ve come up with is getting people to grade shots and lies as red Amber or green y so green like easy go for it you should be trying to think about hitting
It to a certain proximity or holding it or it should be just like your bug standed up and down this is you you’ve got this Amber is okay we better be a little bit careful with this we’re maybe not in the worst position in the world but certainly this
Needs a bit more caution and then red is like okay you’ve hit this in position said maybe shouldn’t have hit it here if we had our time again we might not hitting this to 15 to 20 feet is a great shot just take your medicine let’s figure it out and we’ll we’ll probably
Try and learn that shot another day or learn why we shouldn’t hit it there if that makes sense like just knowing when to go okay I’m GNA hit us to 15 feet and that’s going to be absolutely acceptable and take a bog instead of a par yeah
Yeah 100% I mean I I got a few of the few of the bits of the data and if you’re hitting it to about if you’re 25 yards in the rough and you’re hitting that to within nine foot I mean you’re you’re basically tour average so you
Know it it’s not it’s it’s something to look at when you think about when you’re grading the shot as well is knowing people should know these Strokes gain these shots where if I’m hitting that to three foot i’ I’ve hit a seriously good shot if I’ve hit that to 13 foot okay
I’ve probably lost out there but it’s not the end of the world and I think people people see on tv that you hit these these guys are hitting these shots to 3 2 one foot holding it every time and that’s one in their that’s you know one in four they’re probably missing one
In uh four greens around so that’s one in four shots that they had that round but that’s one in 12 shot uh 16 shots that they’ve had in that tournament and yamps in the rest of them the rest of them could be to eight foot and people don’t see
That no I sort of tell people that essentially there’s always 70 guys on the in on the field at any time yeah so it’s quite easy to find one where they hit it and then there’s a reason why it’s called a highlight Ro is because
It’s it’s out of the it’s out of the norm it’s a highlight right so um if they did that every time it wouldn’t be in the top five shots of the week that’s simple as that um but yeah I got the start which was really good uh which was
From 20 yards in the rough with at least 10 yards of green to work with on the PJ tour 50% of shots are left outside 8T and when you start to look at that and that is a pretty bog standard chip from the raft they’ve got at least 10 yards
Of green they’re leaving that outside 8 feet so that’s where you go back to the question and with short game you end up doing a little bit of pent coaching and bits and Bobs and it’s amazing when you ask people for made fit what’s a success and the amount of people that turn
Around you go oh yeah I’d like to hold like yeah me to but no what’s a success and realistically on the PJ tour that’s 50% holding half is great like that means you’re up there with the top half percent of golfers on the planet if
You hold half and 50% of up and downs if you’re if you’re hitting that shot to H and you’re up and down you are I mean unless you’re on T you’re pretty much bang above well above average yeah I’m pretty sure there’s about 20 tour guys
That would be happy with that and then the rest would be that’s okay you know Luke Don would being one of them but um yeah it’s yeah it’s certainly I think understanding I think to your point is great as what what success actually is like if you’ve hit it in a stupid
Position like that’s why I think just doing something like some form of diary where even if you just highlighted shots from your round where you picked out a certain shot how you feeling those little key moments of it yeah and I think that that would just be a really
And that doesn’t have to just be short game that could be putting that could be driving it could be anything and I think just trying it down how you where where the Miss was what you missed it like and then being able to talk that through
With a coach or someone is really really valuable because like sometimes you genuinely write it down you’re like oh no no that was just an impossible shot and and um so I do I get I get guys to do that when I get them to change their thought process on the course so
One I like using a lot is getting guys to find cues to aim at instead of just one endlessly aiming at nothing or two aiming at flags and every time they hit that shot is can you write down what your queue was okay it was bunker in the
Distance it was this tree this tree and eventually they end up changing the way that they think and you start scoring better purely because the cues are more external than they are emotional and you start building better rounds like that but writing stuff down getting an after
Action report on any round of golf is just gold because you take so much emotion out of it when you look at it back in terms of when you instead of when you’re looking in that round I mean someone hits a a tall player hits a a shot to 10 foot a simple
Chip Shot 10 foot they’re angry but they know actually it’s not as bad as I take a bogey here I move onto next par five and I try and push roberie whereas you know most amateures do not see it that way they a 15 handicapper hits it to 10
Foot they think they should be hitting it to three foot they’re already fuming then they gone three part the 10 foot footer and they’ve just compounded two errors instead of going this is okay and reframing it it’s crazy well I think that the um when you’re talking about
Amate I think amateurs react to shots and T proo react to patterns yeah and I think that’s like the biggest difference that I see is like you know when you talk to someone they’re like all right they’ll Duff one and like right well that’s it well show me how would you get
That better well hit me nine or 10 more and then we’ll talk and we’ll see what patterns emerge and realistically the the more Pros I coach and the more people that I get to work with in that environment the more they’ll hit 15 20 shots and be like right okay so that’s
What’s going on right well suddenly you can fix a pattern fixing one shot it’s one shot right I mean we can all hit that’s the kind of beauty of golf is that we can all hit a shot that a t bro is capable of and they can all hit one
That we’re capable of and just fixing that one shot that could be just that one thing and having the time and patience to be able to sit there and go okay hit tent chips whether you do trying to do the same thing all the time because most people when they come from
A golf lesson seem to want consistency that magic c word but most of them don’t have a consistent thought process they can’t even think about the same thing shot to shot yet they want the same outcome right so if we can’t do that if we can’t keep the input the same we’re
Never going to get some form of similar output then we don’t know what we’re fixing I do I do um so I probably see most of my guys once a month and they get what is called uh their tracker and on there is like a phase one which is
Four week of a of a plan and if they’ve been given something to work on they are working on that for four weeks minimum and if they come back in with the same thing then either one they haven’t worked or two they’re not doing it enough it’s it’s it’s crazy how they
Think they can come in for that whatever it be 60 minutes an hour and an hour two hours or whatever it be and think that that is the magic fix there is I mean these guys I’ve seen you see Rose doing the same thing he’s done for the last
Five years in his rehearsal every time you see noren doing the same thing he’s done years and years and years you see fleetw doing the same drills they’re all doing the same things they know their pattern they know what they need to do to keep that pattern out of play and
It’s crazy to think one lesson job done fix it’s just yeah I mean I think me and you both have that kind of Ure moment in a few lessons where we go and we we fix something like strike and obviously especially in my world we we can go from
Yeah nudging in front of you to nudging it by the pin and that’s great but for you to then be able to pull that out of the Hat when you’ve got a tener with your mate the only way that’s going to be achieved is through reps right um and
Then from there okay so if you now got that shot well now’ you’ve got to play over a bunker to a short-sided pin and you need to work on what that worked out so then that’s practice and like you say I I think that I think I saw something
With Brett Rumford when I was on Coach cam with him and you know he said he used to get thousands of balls at just like the 80 yard flag and like he’d go 100 Balls to 80 yards 100 to 90 100 to 80 100 and it’s just like Mindless
Repetition well not mindless he was very specific about everything but that that pure dedication to just that Mastery and he’s still one of the best short Gamers ever seen live like I watched him at waren Heath and it was like the man was cheating it was ridicul ulous um magical
Literally like it was short sided was up against the lip on a bunker shot to like a long sided bunker you’re just like right no chance fizzes it to a thir and you’re just like okay right well there was a chance obviously obviously I didn’t see it that way and that’s when
That’s kind of what you know inspired you to think go okay I need to figure that out and then you go okay actually yeah it’s this this and this so it’s really interesting it’s interesting to see hear you say about you know what you do with your guys with plans and and
Especially I love that thing about qes and being able to specifically aimit a queue write it down because then you’re accountable to that que and I think the accountability for for everyone is key right y I do it every round I do it I do it as well because I will still get
Caught in a trap of seeing a pin that I like and then you go yep I’m having a bit of that when where’s that where’s that bit of the green that that at minimum gets you a part and if you H that mediocre part if you hit that
Part is online you hold it fantastic but mediocre comes first pars come first and then anything on top of that brilliant but you know people just want birdies they want the birdies way more fun um it is way more fun but then I put put a poll out last
Night saying 72 18 pars 74 um five birdies and the the I think it was like 2:1 ratio 728 pass but I don’t know whether that’s because I basically bullied that into everyone or sure it’s not Nick falo making loads of accounts yeah I wish um yeah 100% like I I think
Realistically we we all know that score at the end of the day matters taking a tener off your mate or a 20 quit off your mate is the best feeling in the world if if 18 pars guaranteed me taking 20 quid off some of my friends I
Definitely take it um I I think that’s I think that’s and I think we’re all becoming more educated on what good golf actually is like I think through stuff like decade and Scott foret stuff and certainly I obviously I think you follow the same guy as well L stagner who is
Just they talk so much sense and it makes us realize that Pros averages are just as human as they are right and the simple stuff like Tiger has missed on the high side of the P more often than any other golf on the planet and he Tiger Woods so little stuff like that
That starts to add up when you go well actually it’s a lot simpler to learn how to not make Bogies than it is to make birdies and I think even understanding that from a short game perspective it starts to feed into people’s biases when they aim at Flags like if if you don’t
Know how to hit a high shot you shouldn’t be shortsighted ever like if you go okay well I don’t like hitting up in yet okay well then you’ve got no excuse to go for any pin at any point just if you’re really really really good
At bump and running it and that is your genuine skill in life miss everything long sided and take as much money off your friends as you can because there’s a preference to that right um I got my eyes opened when I watched Alex nor around wton Heath in Us open qualifying
Because a lot of dog legs left around there and he fades it and I was like okay this be really interesting see how he draws it he just didn’t just hit Fades to every corner of every bway played his shot shape made every he made the course play to him rather than the
Other way around and he shot Seven under and I was like okay well that’s quite impressive um on anyone else would say never suits him no that’s yeah there’s so many dog leg glass like it was just ridiculous um but you know there was a certain hole I can’t remember I’m really
Bad at remembering holes at Wen Heath it’s my my sort of Achilles heel um and it’s slight dog leg left and everyone was trying to draw a drive around the corner here at four end of the corner flicked it 99 on walked off with pter
Made it just look like a walk in the park and that’s qualify for the US Open thanks very much and that hole that hole that day probably plays 4.2 4.12 and actually he made up1 two of a shot there when everyone else is looking at going this is birdie they’ve made bie
From trying to make birdie whereas he’s made par from trying to make par I think you know the the the best golfs I’ve seen and it’s the biggest compling of anyone is they look boring right and I think of that as like a short game thing as well right I think
If you watch the same guy trying to make the same shot over and over again it is like the same flight the same window the same strike very similar noise and you can just see this SP kind of go one two little spin release one two little spin release and don’t get wrong
I I’m very luy to hit gu see guys hit the hit shots that even I look at and go my God that’s a joke like um started just working with this lad from challenge Tre who hit the shot and come out of shin height and it was so well
Struck and this thing spun backwards from 10 yards and I’m just there like this is I I had to had to consider religion at that point it was ridiculous um it was really really good but the other nine shots didn’t quite match up in flight to that so I that’s great if
It’s one out of 10 I was like right what was your intent to same an over shot absolutely I was like right well actually unfortunately this is this is that’s impressive the other nine let say so like let’s figure out a plan to make you more boring
Um so I think boring is the best comp of anyone like when I watched Molinari on the range at wwth which is still the most hering thing I’ve ever seen it was if he had a top Tracer H H 20 shots and i’ have seen one top Tracer
It was just like I I still haven’t got over that that’s that’s one that’s got to been one of best things I’ve heard in a little while let’s make a plan to make you boring yeah be one of my new things I think I I just think that realistically good golf doesn’t belong
On a highlight reel nine times out of 10 I I just don’t in my opinion I think that smart shots even around the short game area and I know obviously the stuff that sometimes that uh maybe goes a little bit better on social media isn’t the such boring stuff it’s not the like
Slightly soft Landing one it’s the one that goes straight up your nose and that’s cool and it really is and I still enjoy playing it when I get five minutes around the short era I would say that if I had to pull one off in competition I’d
Have to have a word with myself about the shot that led me to that shot yeah yeah 100% right I’m gonna give you I’m gonna give you one more question because I know you’ve got to get away very soon um Fairway lie difference between and uphill lie and a downhill lie variable
Wise so I think it let’s uh no going yeah let’s go let’s let’s yeah that we can go to if you want we can go two more so um I think for me variable wise uphill is more interesting and I think gives you more variables than downhill so because you’ve got two
Options you’ve got the very traditional way of kind of matching everything to slope and then essentially playing it like a normal shot and when I say everything me matching shoulder tilts to slope playing it like a flat flat golf shot running the club almost up the hill
If you were and reducing dig Bull’s going to launch out slightly higher and that’s going to work out fine obviously you got option two where you lean into the slope trying to ball first I’d say option one’s definitely safer in my opinion I think it makes way
More sense but there is also option two and again the the whole I think my job as much as anything is to give people options and tell them how they could make them work and then go right go away and play with it you tell me how you
Like it right downhill less so because we have the fact that the Hill’s in the way of the club entering the back of the golf ball so then we do have to realistically start matching tilts to sort of the slope shoulder tilts definitely weight forward and then realistically you’ve got the opposite
Problem right you’ve got a high shot where the ball speed’s going to come in a little bit less we’re going to have more initial launch so we’re going to have to combat that some way simplest way can be sometimes to just use a lower lofted Club I think a lot of
People skip over that one and they start trying to full swing a 58 at it um they just forget that actually if the hills adding eight degrees they could just take eight degrees off the loft of their golf club and that would work um and then obviously with the downhill one
We’ve got to work out okay how do I combat the eight degrees I’ve lost because of the slopes launching it that a little bit low and again then you start playing a very contradictory High shot with shoulders very Steep and you start trying to sort spin those
Plates yeah um just talking about 8 degree slope there are you talking we’re literally talking about the angle of the slope change that will change the angle of the launch the same amount will it if you hit the exact same two shots I think you’re going to have to because of the
Way you’re entering the golf ball you’re going to have to change your prit angle of attack by that much therefore that’s going to change the initial launch of the golf ball so those list you had if you had flat Li and it launched to 30 degrees if you’ve gone 8
Degre slope it wouldn’t it and you hit exactly you did the variables to to get the your shoulder tilts the same it would be 38 degree or we’re not we wouldn’t be out I haven’t done the testing yet yeah it sounds like a somewhat of a theory obviously when we
Look at initial wedge launch yeah we know that the launch is somewhere between the Loft and the angle of attack right the dynamic Loft and the angle of attack so um dependent on the friction requirement okay so the the more friction we have on a golf ball or more
Friction sorry the golf ball on the club face have the lower it launches that’s why we get that low launching High spinning shot it’s because of the friction not the other way around okay so the more friction we have the the more that’s going to pulled the launch
Down now if I’ve got a steep in my angle of attack to miss the slope I’m going to pull the launch of that golf ball down whether I like it or not yeah yeah so whether it’s a perfect one to one ratio is not to be seen um
But it’s certainly going to lower that launch um I can’t imagine yeah like for me if I I Chuck that Loft up and again if I then sort of catch it it’s going to sound weird but slightly heavy loose friction that Ball’s actually going to higher that’s the stupid thing about it
Um what about um what about uphill Li so this probably another that people won’t know about and I’ll let you explain about uphill lie uh high lofted so stay with the 58 more roll up the face or less roll up the face causing what sort of launch is that
A variable or is that not a variable so interestingly enough and this is where I’d want to see a little bit more data done so strike location doesn’t really change spin rate okay pardon would it change launch so the up slope because again we’re and again depends which option you pick
Right so option one where we slide that club up the slope we’re obviously shallowing out Ang of attack therefore we’ve got less of a downward angle Bull’s going to launch higher option two where we drive that club into the slope we’re going to see that lower long chain ball so again
That’s where you’re you’re playing a little bit of column A a little bit of column B and I’m going to be that annoying guy and say it depends on which option you’ve chosen it it also depends again on the friction component of the shot because if I have that ball and I
Catch it perfectly clean and there’s no interference again I’m going to really weirdly start launching it lower than if I catch it ever so slightly heavy and get a bit of grass between ball and have it pop up on the Loft yep yeah okay makes sense right L how do how does
Anybody that will listen to this find you uh so I am Lewis savel golf everywhere um so my website is ww. lewis.com and my Instagram is literally leou golf brilliant and skillist as well skillist yeah do online lessons on skillist it’s been really quite fun doing the online coaching stuff um being
Able to coach anywhere in the world from via an iPad is is pretty mental and I still I don’t know about you but I still find it weird when I’m freezing cold I’ve got four jackets on and I’m doing a demo for someone who’s in shorts yeah I can’t say I enjoy that
Part of it but it’s sort of a weird part of me that’s just like yeah this is really weird right now I’ve got a few guys that are coaching at alls and it’s it’s offensive at the moment like it really is if if anyone’s listening back
To this it’s currently the of January my God like I’m genuinely coaching these guys n like they’re in a heat wave and I I’ve genuinely just almost had to to get a pickaxe out on the chipping green it is a nightmare it is a nightmare anyway Louis I one I
Appreciate you coming on in very short notice because obviously unfortunate terms had someone pull out but appreciate it a lot um we will probably do another one that will go dive into this a lot lot deep hopefully at some point uh hopefully this will grow to a
Point where it will be pretty crazy but really appreciate coming on appreciate your time and uh we’ll speak very soon no thank you very much for having me it’s been awesome it’s been really really fun geeking out with you about performance short game um and everything
So cheers mate I appreciate it thank you
