Podcast Transcript
Josh Nichols
Does different levels of life difficulty, life experience, you know, if life is hard or things in life have a lot of pressure, does that take pressure off of golf? in your experience, has it made like, okay, golf is easy compared to life? If that was as hard as that, this can’t be that hard.
Andy Gorman
I mean that’s a really good question and point would be I’d say that there are times where life is really easy you know and it’s so easy to go and shoot a good score because you’re not, you don’t care.
And that would be in the moments of euphoria. A good example of that, I remember rightly, Greg Norman was playing in something we used to call the pro-celebrity golf here in the UK. It was back in the late 70s and the early 80s. He was playing at a Woburn golf club. I think was Men V Women or something, Men V Women. I think he was playing with Nancy Lopez. Anyway, his wife had given birth. He couldn’t be there because he got his commitment to TV.
And so he couldn’t be there, but he found out overnight that he was a new dad. The euphoria of that emotion that he went on, I think he shot 29 for nine holes. I mean, it was like, nothing matters. Everything’s great. Couldn’t be any better in the world. And yeah.
And then flip side of that, you get a tour player who’s struggling to reposition his card, that mid-season.
Josh Nichols
Yeah. Yes.
Andy Gorman
It used to happen, not so sure it happens now, but that mid-season sort of rejig, you know, and it’s like, right, you’ve fallen outside of that automatic qualification to go and play next week, and then it’s like six weeks before playoffs or whatever event it may be, you know, on the DP World, and they’re, yeah, they can’t cope with the pressure. They’re one round away, literally one round away from driving taxi for the rest of their life, and they can’t cope with it.
Others, then, coming to the fall needing three good weeks unless they have a win on the first one. know, they need three good weeks that’s going to be, you know, three top tens rather than, you know, three top 20s or just got to make the cut. And, you know, they finish third and you go, where have you been all year?
You know, so it’s almost like they can put themselves under the more pressure they put themselves under, the better they perform, the bigger the event, you know, the more. So there’s players that will collapse, just get destroyed and there others that are just made. And oftentimes you’ll find the guys that win one or two events in their career have won late in the season when they’ve needed to.
Josh Nichols
Yeah.
Mmm.
Mmm.
back against the wall.
Andy Gorman
Very rarely do find that they’ve won early in the season and they’ve taken the pressure off. They’ve come to the end of their season and there’s three events to play and they happen to pull off a win. And of course they might be familiar with or comfortable with or whatever but they pull off the win because they just give themselves that little bit of extra nurture.
Josh Nichols
Sure.
Hmm.
Yeah, they they laser in on it. Yeah, that’s you know that those those two kind of concepts sort of battle each other where on the one hand you know life life outside of golf is is amazing or something you know god forbid bad is happening so life on the golf course seems insignificant and lacks the pressure and it just doesn’t matter. could, you know, honestly, I could miss this cut and it just doesn’t matter because I’m dealing with this outside of golf.
So taking the pressure that would take pressure off of the round, which allows you to free up and play versus my back is against the wall and this I can have no other result but winning or top three or whatever. I have to and any other result is detrimental to my career and that focuses me and that amount of pressure is extremely high but it helps.
sometimes, I don’t know if there’s a question here but just an observation of sometimes pressure off helps, sometimes pressure on helps. Do you have a thought on that?
Andy Gorman
Well, I mean, a good example is, you know, last year, DP World, the race for the, you know, I don’t know, was it 110? I think it is, position. There’s a guy coming up the last who has driven into trouble and he needs to make, he needs to make three, sorry, I think he needs to make four. He doesn’t know he needs to make four and he’s par five. And he’s driven into trouble and has to wedge it out, you know, short of the green.
That’s, you you want to the green in two if you’ve got to make four, you know, give yourself a chance with a couple of putts. He goes and holds the wedge shot. He doesn’t hold the wedge shot all year. He holds the wedge shot. Now he knows he’s got to get it close. How close is close? You know, in the hole doesn’t get any better.
There’s another guy then that comes and knocks it on the green in two. And I’m not saying that, you know, that was last year’s DP World, but knocks it on the green in two, three putts, you know, and he’s probably 20 feet away and he’s got a chance for eagle and you know, three putts.
See Lee Westwood, great example in 2009, two putts on the 18th green, he ends up in the playoff. He tries to make the first putt from about 60 feet, doesn’t want to leave it short, thinks he’s got to make birdie, rolls it eight foot by, misses the return putt, two putts would have got him in the playoff. And would you have backed Lee Westwood in a playoff against Tom Watson, whose aged hips and legs and everything else was gone, against Stuart Sink?
You you would probably would say that he stood, look he’s going to a chance if you’re in the playoff. If you’re not in the playoff you don’t stand a chance. So you don’t know what the playoff would result in. But you sometimes we press when we shouldn’t. But we don’t know. You know, he’s finished an hour before Watson did and he did what he felt that he should have done.
You just don’t know. You know, you can only do, the thing really is you can only do your best in the circumstances that you’re in. So, you know, if you happen to hold a shot and, you know, and then finish in the top one, you know, 108, 107, whatever, and you needed to finish 110 and a birdie would have done that, you know, then great, but you’ve got to just limit what you can get away with really, and, you know, the damage that you’re going to make.
But at the same time, you know, if you press for it and you make six, then you kick yourself with five with a bullet. So you just, you just never know.
You know, and the game changes and it changes with flip of a coin because, you know, somebody who’s in there doubles the last and nobody’s expecting him to do that. All of a sudden, he falls out and you would have got him and you had just made part. You know, you can’t, you shouldn’t, the key is that you shouldn’t be at that point in the season. That’s what we all, as commentators, coaches, we never want to be in that position at the end of the season. How it happens, why it happens.
Josh Nichols
Yes. Right. Yeah.
Right, of course.
Andy Gorman
is actually irrelevant at that point in time if you’re in that position. So it’s difficult.
Josh Nichols
Yeah, yeah, right. You can’t know what other players are gonna do, so you have to act in your own dome, in your own bubble, as if no other players are playing. That is tough though. You think, I’ve gotta make birdie, so is playing aggressive the way to make birdie, or is playing normal the way to make birdie? And either, make myself get close to the hole or let the hole get in the way and I happen to make birdie so it’s it’s hard it yeah
Andy Gorman
Yep.
Yeah, it is. You know, I’ve had it, you know, back in my day as a junior pro, my last junior pro before, you know, I qualified, know, past my exams, qualified and went on to be a head pro. I was two under par with three to play. On a course I didn’t know, had prepared well and hadn’t had a practice round. So coming up 16.
you know, and I’ve got an in-between shot into the green, you know, into the catch, it’s just slightly heavy. It comes up short, short-siding myself, chipping up eight feet, whatever, missed it. Now I’m really pressing because I’m thinking three unders gonna call it, know, there’s only two places available. There’s 25 people in the field and I’m thinking three unders gonna be the number. So I’m thinking I gotta go birdie birdie. I play out top my tee shot, take double, bogey the last.
I failed to qualify by shot.
Josh Nichols
making double and then bogey? Bo- ugh.
Andy Gorman
making bogey double bogey. So drop four in the last three, finished two over, and one over, played off. At level par, I two under with three to play, at level par, I’ll finish second, which is fine. I’m in a playoff with two other people if I finish one over. And you’re just scratching your head because what you’re trying to do is you’re trying to put yourself in the place of somewhere else.
Josh Nichols
my goodness.
Ugh.
Yeah.
Mm.
Andy Gorman
You know, because you’re thinking, well, I’m just cruising here and playing really well, rolling the putts nicely, you don’t know the course, some of these guys know the course better than I know it. You know, and you think you’re gonna shoot something in the 60s if only two people are gonna qualify. And lo and behold, I blew that. You know, that was 1993.
And I’m not saying that I’ve had many sleepless nights since, but I can still recall all of those shots down the last three holes.
Josh Nichols
Mmm.
Yes, that’s 33 years ago and you know every single detail. Maybe because of the shock of the emotions of it.
Andy Gorman
Yes.
Yeah, yeah, I didn’t want to drive home. You know, it wasn’t that far, but I just didn’t want to drive home. You know, I was angry, disappointed, upset with myself. You know, mean, all the emotions are ripping through me at that point in time, except for joy and happiness. You know, everything else, it’s like, well, I don’t know why I’m bothering.
And this was the last time I’d ever get a chance to do it because of me graduating to, you know, to the next level of golf. And, you know, it was a significant event.
The first, the two qualifiers were all expenses paid trip to Spain, playing around one of the best courses in Spain, playing with just 12 people. So you’ve got a one in 12 chance to win in a tournament and guaranteed, I think it was about 3000 pounds for last place with about 10,000 pounds the first. And you’re there going, not life changing money in grand scheme of things, but at that point in time, that’s a good chunk of money to get you started in your head pro position.
Or maybe you go Q-School. You just don’t know because the joys of the challenges are playing the game.
Josh Nichols
Yes. Wow.
Yeah, your past video, the posture alignment speed strike video, it’s kind of your, maybe this is the core philosophy of what you do. This is, and I’m curious if that’s true, but this is like kind of canonical video, Andy Gorman video of here’s how to putt well. Two thirds of it is about posture. Why?
Andy Gorman
My, if anybody asks me what my USP is, it’s posture, posture, posture in that order.
If you don’t get good posture, you cannot make an efficient movement.
we get stuck around the fact that here’s a 34 or 35 inch putter, get on with it, because that’s all the manufacturers seem to make and put on the shelf. And if you’re a little bit shorter and you’ve got to go for a 33, and certainly if you wear a skirt and play from the forward tees, you’re going with a 33 inch putter. And terribly, some people say, it doesn’t matter if you’re six foot one like Lexi, you’re six foot one like Michelle Wee, they’re bent over a putter that’s way too short for them, because that’s the only thing the manufacturers make for ladies.
Now of course they’re playing with men’s equipment ordinarily and as a consequence they will probably play with something longer just because they’re taller but therein lies the problem. How much longer? Who’s fitting it? So posture is postures are given like your shoe size you know so you don’t get to argue about I want smaller shoes. If you’re a 12 you’re a 12 you’ve got to wear 12s you know.
If you’re an eight, don’t think about putting the boats on because you’re going to sink in a hurry. There’s just no way that we would ever argue with that. And yet we give somebody a putter and say, that’s it, based on manufacturing tolerances. It might be within half an inch of whatever it is. And then bend over that if you happen to be six foot four.
If you’re six foot four, stand tall and proud to the ball because you’ve got a posture. If you can get your chest moving, ideally.
then great, but if not, you’re going to struggle with your putting. Obviously then we flip to the other factors and the other factors are important, but nowhere near as important as posture.
Josh Nichols
So posture, get posture right and everything else flows from that length of putter, length of stroke, type of putter, all of that, but posture has to be set first.
Andy Gorman
Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And then, you know, when folk talk about the style of a putter, there’s a massive trend towards mallet putters now. know, spiders grabbed a lot of attention, hasn’t it? know, and it’s a great product. They give you, I don’t know, 200 different variations with dots and lines and, you know, neck shapes and, you know, there’s so many variations around nowadays, but it’s a…
It’s a mallet putter, it’s the whole sized head with a flat face at the front ready for you to go and hit it. But it’s how you align a putter. Sometimes you can’t align a putter if it’s that shape, whereas you can better align it if it’s a blade.
If you’ve got a release pattern like Tiger’s got, then you can’t release a mallet in the same way because you’re going to start it squarer.
will be an alignment factor on the blade that tends to favor a slightly more open or in a right-handed instance, a less left aim in the setup. Now, if you’ve got a release pattern like Tiger’s got, then you better start with the face a bit more open. So, you know, don’t go for a mallet. You know, if you’re looking for an alignment aid that’s gonna help you to release the club to get it square impact, because we all know that it’s gubbable. If we don’t, we do now.
If it’s not square at impact, then you’re not going to roll the ball relatively straight towards the target. So putting is not difficult if we know what the factors are. There’s still a four and a quarter inch hole, which is the smallest target on the golf course. There’s still going to be a factoring in of speed based on the distance of the putt and we’re going to start the golf ball on an appropriate line relative to the speed you want to hit it at. If we get those factors into place,
speed is taken care of, the start line is taken care of and as long as we can then process our movement through good chest rotation so that there is no brace of the hands and release of the club then you know as long as everything can keep moving through the ball then there will be no compromise to the club face.
Josh Nichols
Should everyone have the same posture?
Andy Gorman
in principle very similar and the reason why I say that is it needs to facilitate movement so there will be some characteristics that have to be there so if we look at walking as a characteristic oftentimes walking is never thought of once we get past that initial sort of 12 months of age we learn how to do it it’s we had to learn so it’s not first nature it’s second nature
First nature would be breathing, eating and drinking. We don’t have to learn to do that. We do it from the moment that we come out. the eating element is more liquid to start. It doesn’t take long to progress onto something more solid. So we know how to, we don’t have to learn how to use those functions. The breathing is obviously the natural one straight away. we don’t, well, okay. We’ve signed off. But ultimately, once we recognize then second nature, walking, throwing, catching.
that we learn to do those, skills that are based on dexterity or movement. Walking is probably the earliest thing. We can’t communicate with our parents at that point. We’ve got almost zero skills at that point. Yet we can learn how to do it by watching siblings of similar height or with the encouragement of parents, grandparents, uncles and aunties, all of those that are going to step in there and do the encouraging to start. But at the age of 12 months without any…
cognitive comprehension of what we’re doing, we figure out the one thing that’s going to get stable most of our lives, you we would have. So there’s a posture to that. We stand in a certain position, fairly erect. Now, if there’s a physical condition that stops us and we’re stooped over or we get on later in life and we’ve taken on some ailments as we age, then there’s going to be a compromise to the way we walk at the age of 90 versus the age of 18 months. you know, those things, they’re adjustments.
ultimately, that life’s thrown at us. But if we start at what are we designed to do and how are we designed to do it, we’re giving ourselves an instinctive behavioral movement that gives us an opportunity to be able to just keep that movement going. So I’d say yes, but what have you got to work with?
Josh Nichols
And if you could describe your philosophy on posture, it’s obviously much better visually to see your video of it, but describe a good putting posture right now.
Andy Gorman
Yeah, so an athletic posture would be shoulders in line with toes. So we just tilted slightly forward with our arms hanging from the shoulder with the elbow directly underneath, which positions the golf ball slightly further away.
The biggest challenge we’ve got is that for the last 50 years or so, we’ve been told we’ve got to get our eyes over the ball. And it’s become a doctrine with no grounding. Why? Because you can see the line from the ball to the hole.
Well, you know, I mean, I’ve got the most incredible imagination, but I’ve never seen a line like that from ball to hole. And that hole wouldn’t be, sorry, that line wouldn’t be curved either. It would be straight at the aim. So every putt straight, all I’m trying to do is hit the ball on a straight line. If I’m trying to maneuver the golf ball from where I’ve aimed it in order to the hole, I’m taking the greens job away from the green.
You know, I’m the golf ball in a straight line to a reference point, right or left of the hole. and that’s where I’m hitting it. And letting the ground do the rest of the work then is what it does. So my primary focus is can I create the measured stroke to hit it the distance I want to go, relative speed, on the line that’s appropriate, or what I believe is going to carry the ball over the top of the hole in the ground.
So shoulders in like my toes, that doesn’t compromise my balance. It switches my brain off from conscious thoughts of trying to retain balance. If I go too far forward, I’m now not consciously, but I’m going too far forward. I’m now out of balance. It may be just gripping in with the toes, create some tension in the lower body, legs, hips can’t move the body now, chest can’t move, hands can’t get past the chest. And as a consequence of that, the club head will. There’s all the speeds in the club head.
So the posture allows us to be able to then let the arms and the club just literally swing through with the lumbar spine facilitating each rotation, thoracic spine moving from side to side. So it’s rotational, not rocking through the shoulders.
Josh Nichols
Yes. Okay, right. You talk a lot about chest movement. I’ve also heard a lot about kind of I guess, lats, the big muscles of your back movement. Do you disagree with kind of that thought and it’s all chest? Okay.
Andy Gorman
Yeah. No, no, don’t, we’re just using the thought process slightly differently. And there are times where I’ll get a player to engage the lats because they’re too rounded. So, you know, using the lats to create that. And it’s great that folk are using that reference now because it then aligns with my posture. You can’t get eyes over the ball if you’re engaging the lats. It pulls you back, pulls the chest up.
Josh Nichols
Got it. Yeah.
Yeah.
Yes, right. I was right. was messing with the, I was messing with your putting, the posture, your philosophy of posture just earlier today and doing the kind of setup and letting my hands hang down can and hands straight fingertips pointing towards my, like the tips of my shoes and
Once I got in that position, then I would grab the putter and kind of wherever the putter ends up at that point, that’s where the ball needs to be. Is that how you think of it?
Andy Gorman
at a very athletic position.
Yeah, and again, presuming that your putter’s long enough that allows you to do that without compromising. Because if the putter’s too short, you’re gonna, the beauty about a pair of shoes is there’s a fixed size. Your feet go in. Can’t go any further. If they don’t go in, they’re not big enough. Right, get another pair. If they’re too big, they can go in, right, but they’re gonna slop around, so you can just go, right, okay, well, I need a smaller pair of shoes. These will do for now, but actually I could really do with half a size smaller.
That, but with a putter, We just keep bending down, bending down, bending down until we get our hands on the grip. That means that the putter’s too small, but we don’t know, we just keep bending over it because we fit onto a putter, not into it.
If we got locked into it from where our arms were and we weren’t allowed to take our arms any further down, then we’d be gripping halfway up, we’d got the butt end of the club halfway into the palm. We’d know it was too short, but what are we gonna do about it? That’s all we’ve got and we just bend further forward.
Whereas if we get a putter that’s more appropriate, and it could be, you when I’ve lengthened clubs five, six inches. You know, because you get a guy coming at six foot six, he’s been compromised with a 35 inch putter and you might need something closer to, you know, so 39, 40 inches, because he may be short to ground with his arm length. You know, we don’t, know, somebody is this wide.
I mean, most of us have probably forgotten, but at school, you know, I remember being told that your span. fingertip to fingertip is equivalent to your height. I would get a nosebleed at six foot six, I’m only five eight but I’m using a putter that’s 35 and a quarter inch long, a five foot eight.
Many golfers over six foot two, six foot three are coming in with 34 inch putters. Well they’re not coming to me to edify them, they’re coming to fix it. There’s a problem, why you’ve got a problem?
Josh Nichols
Sure. Yes.
Right.
Right, yeah.
Right, yeah.
Andy Gorman
Why is it you’re always pulling the ball when you’ve got a putter that’s too short? Because you can’t get the putter past your chest. You can’t move your chest because you’ve locked your lumbar spine. If your lumbar spine hasn’t got its appropriate curve, you can’t move your chest over the lumbar spine. Because it’s the lumbar spine that does the twisting. The chest is the on block movement that goes over the top of the lumbar spine. If I’m moving here, I’m sat with my feet down like you are. And my lumbar spine is doing the twisting, not my thoracic.
Now if I take it one step further, that’s my maximum range, reasonably flexible, it’s about 20 degrees. Now if I push it further, this is thoracic stretch. That’s continued thoracic stretch, which will start to ache if I keep it there. you know, and likewise here, we’ve got range, but ultimately this movement here is lumbar rotation, or lumbar flexion if you want to, you know, in terms of twisting. So that’s the, you know, that’s the tolerance that I’ve got, which is quite a bit, and allowing me to swing the arms and the club.
a reasonable distance and I can roll the ball 40-50 feet without having to apply any wristing in there to assist the speed there because I can get the putter moving two feet comfortably.
Josh Nichols
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah. So then something I’ve struggled with over my golf career is I’ve always thought, it’s me. If I’m putting bad, it’s me, not the putter or I’ve, you know, I’ve, I’ve, I’ve since added in a couple of putters that I’ve tried, to, to put better with, but for the longest time,
probably for 15 to 20 years of my golf career, I used the same exact putter. And it was, if I was putting bad, it was never the putter’s fault, it was me. And a lot of other players, almost every other player that I knew, if they were putting bad, it was the putter’s fault, not them. And they would change putters. And we know the serial putter purchaser, but the…
The difficulty that I have is with your, you know, let’s say, okay, you’ve got your posture right and you’ve got the length of the putter right. At that point, does the putter matter? I know you talked about the style of head as far as release pattern, does, can, if someone has those things right, posture and length of putter, can they putt well with anything? Okay.
Andy Gorman
pretty much. There are changes, and the release pattern’s based on how you start the putter. So if you start with the putter two and a half degrees open, you’ve got to close it. Which, know, a 10 foot putt, five inches right of the target. So you’ve got to understand your release pattern.
Tiger’s a great example of that. He’ll have putt that data that I’ve seen in the past, and they all vary. So the stuff that I saw 15 years ago, was 2.6 to the right, 0.9 closed the impact and I think it was 1.2 or something into that. When Tiger missed the putt, you heard him sort of talk about release it, release it Tiger. You he self-talked that through to the next.
I remember him doing, walking off the 14th green at Augusta one time, you know, across to the back of 15 and he said release it Tiger, you know, really agitated because he pushed it. Well, he’s pushed it because his set up’s really extreme and it was possibly a little bit left to right putting across the green from the left as you play it. So maybe probably sloping a little bit from the back of the green to the front and so a little bit left to right just didn’t release it back on the start line.
I agitated him, did it cross him the tournament, can’t remember but I can remember him shouting to himself about release this putter but if you start with a putter that’s really about a cup right of the intended start line and you’ve got to release it. he’s, you know, would he be pulling putts onto line? Yeah, probably. Yeah. It’s my observations, you know, open championships that I’ve been around has been, yeah, he’s aiming right and he’s pulling it online.
But he can calibrate that because he’s 98 % consistent to what he does. So he doesn’t matter. And in fact, actually, the caveat to that would be the backstab statement up would be Charlie, a couple of years ago, said of his dad, when dad tells me to aim right edge, I have to aim at the center.
because Tiger sees a putt coming in off the right hand side of the hole. Whether it’s to right or right to left, his visualisation is that the ball is moving this way into the hole because he works with the slightly open right aim bias and releases the putt. He doesn’t play golf like that. So it’s not a movement pattern per se that is locked in from 300 yards out down to the shortest putt. But it’s the way he rolls the golf ball and as a consequence of that. rolled it extremely well and I’m sure he’d have that one back on 14 that I’ve just mentioned but ultimately he didn’t mess many putts that he needed to.
Josh Nichols
Hmm.
Yes, right.
Huh.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So then with a player like that, if they showed up to you…
Would you say you need to set it up square? You’re two degrees open, you need to set it up square.
Andy Gorman
In principle you would want to, but with a player like that who’s always done it that way around, no you wouldn’t touch it. Would you teach it? No. Would you change it? Absolutely not.
And you would enhance the awareness maybe of the player. They probably already know, I mean, you depend on how long that data is. If they come to you at the age of 15, now you’ve got a chance to work with them. Come to you at the age of 35, having won 12 majors, you know, you’d be a … very peculiar coach if you then took the player and rebuilt everything.
Josh Nichols
All right.
Yes. Yes. Yeah.
Andy Gorman
tried to. We look at players that in their early 30s, late 20s, early 30s, like Faldo, throw the book at me, we’ll change everything at that point in time because it’s not working. I can’t win majors with this swing that’s not working. So Ledbetter took on the task and did everything necessary to build a swing that we know was as robotic and bulletproof as a swing had ever been. And over a nine-year period put six majors in.
Did he let a few go? Yeah, but we don’t win them all. But he was extremely competitive and the reason why he didn’t win them all because he was in a position to win more. But he wasn’t before that, his nickname was Foldo. He just didn’t get it over the line in 82, 83, 84. And then obviously went through the rebuild, back end of 84.
took him three years to have another win but you know he was secure in Europe, secure on the PGA Tour, 87. You know we know what happened there you know and that sometimes you know when we make swing changes when players make swing changes, Tiger was no different. Made the swing change at end of 97’s majors. was 99 before he was back in the winners field. know Doug won out I think if you remember rightly in 98, won the first tournament of the year.
And then it was 99 before we saw him compete at the US PGA and think he’d won by a Nelson or something beforehand. But he’s back on the major run from there and of course the rest is history. But player generally is gonna take a long time.
So if you’re trying to change a movement pattern with a swing and it’s taking a couple of years, you can change a movement pattern with the putter a lot quicker because the movement is relatively small. But ultimately, Yes, you can get good results, but it’s the feel under pressure that is under pressure. That’s because the instincts that you’ve had as a kid, releasing the putter and how changing those movement patterns are going to be a challenge to ingrain under pressure.
Can a player do it? Yes. But only really if they’re missing putts is the reason to do so. If they’re not holding putts or they’ve got the yips, you’ve got to do things that are going to fix the problem. And that’s it, ultimate.
Josh Nichols
Right. So then better to be consistent than correct or technically sound better to be consistent.
Andy Gorman
Yeah, Yeah, if you want the golf ball to roll nicely and let’s say we work within a tolerance of half a degree, you’d want the face square, the path moving into out slightly by up to half a degree, those would be reasonable tolerances. Those will be the technically correct. You wanna hit the sweet spot, you’ve gotta deliver the right amount of loft, et cetera, and rise angles.
But ultimately, if you’re consistent, at what you’re doing, can calibrate the consistency. If you’re inconsistent, you end up with a bunch of numbers that float around zero, but they float because they’re averaging out over a couple of dozen putts and you go like, yeah, that looks really good. And you find the inconsistency is down in sort of below 50%, you can’t calibrate that. You don’t know whether you’re gonna miss right or left out in the golf course.
So you’re better off knowing your pattern. What’s your movement pattern? release pattern, what you’ll miss, because then you can factor that in under pressure.
Josh Nichols
Yeah, better to know yourself than to know what’s right.
Andy Gorman
Yeah, but we’ve only got a four and a quarter inch target so you can’t be a long way out either. It’s great if you’ve got 40 yard wide fairway or 40 foot wide green but you’ve got a four inch target once you get there so there’s not a lot of tolerance for it.
And we know that really peculiar putting strokes have won tournaments, Billy Mayfair, great example. If a putting stroke you wouldn’t, you just didn’t want to look up that low and figure out how he did it.
somebody had a tinker with it and he lost it. The things he did really well just disappeared and players do do that but there’s got to be a good reason to make the changes until it’s falling apart and falling apart is that you’re not holding the putsch you need to hold.
Walking off the green thinking, right okay well I’ve let another one go. Right why is that? Is he down so I just don’t know how to read greens? is it down to I can’t start it where I’ve intended it. So if you can’t start it where you intended it and you’re a really good green reader, doesn’t make any difference if you can’t start it where you intended it.
If you’ve got poor speed control, that’s going to throw your curveball at it as well. mean, players can’t read greens. With all the technologies we’ve got out there, tour players are still under-reading.
Josh Nichols
Hmm. Is that right? The average is an underread?
Andy Gorman
Yeah. under read and over hit, because you can get away with it.
Josh Nichols
Hmm, what do mean you can’t get away with it?
Andy Gorman
If you’re under reading 20 % or so, and I’d say that tour players probably somewhere between 10 and 30 % under reading, generally. Recreational golfer 70 to 80 % under read. That’s a significant number.
I get guys look at me and they’re going like, know, what? Got a 2 % slope on this putt. Okay, great. Drop the level down. Really good. Now where you aiming it? Right edge. What? It’s 10 inches of break on that putt.
Josh Nichols
Under read.
Hahaha.
Andy Gorman
How do you work 10 inches out? Just hit it there and see how much that ball’s gonna move. Oh, oh, I’ve missed that by six inches to the left of the hole. Of course you have, because you’ve under read by 10 inches. How do you see that much break in there? know, which we could do a whole nother show for, but you know, when you start to look at the numbers, yeah, when you start to look at the numbers.
Josh Nichols
Yeah.
Mmm.
Right. Yes. Yeah, green reading.
Andy Gorman
So a player looks at numbers and even when they get in there and they’re starting to do, I’m not saying aim points wrong, but what I’m saying, know, seeing players and they’re trying to then factor in the feels. So they might get some numbers, they get the right numbers, they get the right distance, they’re going in there and they’re lining their fingers up and then they’re going in, well, what’s the feel?
Have you got an allocated feel for this putt? And that lies in a problem. You’ve got a downhill putt that might be 10 feet in length. but it plays like it’s gonna roll the golf balls 2 % down, let’s say it’s 2 % down on the 10 speed green for a few numbers, you know, there are variables to all of this, but let’s just throw a few numbers.
That ball’s gonna roll 17 feet if you just roll it for a 10 foot putt. So you put a 10 foot stroke on that on the flat, it’s gonna roll at about 17 feet. So to roll it 10 feet, cause that’s where the flag is, you might only need a six foot stroke length. but you’ve got to put a 17 foot break length on there.
So now all of a sudden, you know, this 10 foot puck might have 75 % more break on it because it’s going to roll and it’s the longer that takes the ball to get to the hole, the more break it takes. It’s running slower. We think it’s a fast puck, but the ball’s actually traveling slower. So you could have 75 % more break on there. You better factor that in.
Josh Nichols
Yes, right.
Andy Gorman
because otherwise now it’s on a low braking putt and it will get three or four feet past you even if the speed is decent because it never got high enough so you’re not putting it up the slope not using the slope to cushion the blow you know so you know it could just be falling away from the start but you know if you just you know if you’re 75 % out and look you’ll find tour players in that category as well with that kind of braking putt you know and we’re not that far away from the Masters starting the season again where we look at players with the turning their back to the hole and you go like, where are they aiming?
You know and unless you’ve been on there and putting on speeds like that you would never ever know you know what it’s like to do it so you know most of us are not fortunate enough to actually experience. There are courses out there but you know we’re not playing at Augusta to do it.
Josh Nichols
Yes.
Yeah
great.
Alright.
Yeah. Right.
What are we supposed to be thinking as we’re standing over a putt about to pull the trigger? What do the best players think when they’re standing over a putt? What do you think when you’re standing over a putt about to pull the trigger?
Andy Gorman
It’s not, don’t miss. I can tell you that. But players do get that way.
One of the best players, which is the question that you’ve asked, what are they thinking? When I stand over a putt, so I’m not going to say that I’m a best player, but I would categorize myself as a best putter. I can roll my rock. I can get it started on the line that’s appropriate. I’m looking for speed. because the speed’s what’s going to determine where the aim is. Yes, I’ve factored all the aim in.
What am I looking for? For me, critically, I want the hands to keep moving. If they keep moving, everything happens to be neutral at the clubhead end. So if I move the hand, keep the hands moving, the hands stop at clubhead. The speed’s always in the clubhead.
Swinging the putter, three points. everyish mile an hour on a 10 foot part tends to be green. If I’m moving then the hands are going to be travelling half the distance or should if I’ve got a very high pivot point. If I’ve got a low pivot point and my hands are doing that the face is rotating like that. So I’ve got to keep the hands moving to keep the rotation optimal but minimal. As in it’ll be opening in the backswing square at impact.
and trying to stay a square for as long as possible, I don’t want that. I’m not Tiger, I can’t manage that. So I’m going to keep that motion as neutral as I can. The only way I’m going to get to do that is to use the hands moving through the ball, which neutralizes the other bit 30 odd inches away from where I’m holding the club.
Josh Nichols
Yes.
So you’re thinking about hands. That’s your primary thought. Right.
Andy Gorman
But I’m not putting with the hands. I just want to keep the hands moving. What keeps the hands moving is the motion through the shoulders.
So for me, in practice, the emphasis in my backswing, I’m right handed, so my right shoulder is going to move in rotation, which then the putter’s only traveling a relatively short distance, so it will travel straight. And the straight part of it is the plane of the shaft. That’s the bit that’s traveling straight.
The putter goes up in the air and it’s tilted at 68, 70, 72 degrees, whatever that optimum shaft plane is. As the putter moves up then, it moves inward. Nothing else brings it in. We’re not swinging around the body. And putters that have strong arcs, tow flow, whatever term the manufacturers put on them, don’t swing any differently. There’s a torsional aspect to it. So we’ll, know, that for the time being.
but ultimately that putter’s not going round the body because I’ve got a strong arc, I’m swinging the putter in straight line. I can use my Anza style blade with 45 plus toe hang and still swing the putter in a straight line from side to side because the shaft is what stays in plane. Yeah.
Josh Nichols
Yes.
Sure.
Mmm.
Yeah, the grip and the shaft and the arms, the hands are going straight back, straight through, but the head.
Andy Gorman
Yeah, the head lifts and because it’s projected at 20 degrees or so from the perpendicular, then that’s going to lift the putter and bring the sweet spot inside.
Josh Nichols
Yes. Yes.
Yes. Okay. So the thinking there, I know it’s different than what should we be thinking over the putt, but maybe it’s related, but a lot of people think, I need to get this putter head to go straight back, straight through, and that is overly head focused instead of hands or, yeah.
Andy Gorman
Yes, and complex because now you’re also moving the putter against forces of motion.
Josh Nichols
Right. Because then you’re moving the grip away from you. Yeah. Yeah.
Andy Gorman
Yeah, so now we’re starting to pick the shoulders up to try and allow that, the hands, you know, imagine now straight back and straight through, you put the putter up against the wall of your room, you know, up against the board that’s, you know, nice and flat.
Now you’ve to keep it on the board, your hands have got to move away from your body. That’s just not conducive to human movement because ultimately they would move behind you, not a way out in front of you. You can get away with that with a long swing because this… time to rectify the angle of attack into the back of the ball, the path direction into the back of the ball. You can’t do that with a putter. Which is why the principle of straight back and straight through is flawed.
Even if your eyes are over the top of it, because you’ve got a 20 degree tilt to the shaft. So it just doesn’t work, it won’t work naturally. It goes against the laws of physics if you’re trying to do it.
Josh Nichols
Right, yeah. If you’re kind of rotating around your lumbar and there’s the plane of the lumbar and the plane of the arms, hands, shaft, and those two are kind of perpendicular to each other, if that system stays in sync, the putter kind of does what it needs to do.
Andy Gorman
Yeah, but because ultimately as it’s tilted there, everything comes inside. So we know that once the club gets above the hands, the club head gets above the hands, the club head is now behind the hands, which means that with a putter it starts about 10, 12 inches in front of the hands.
With a driver, of course, it’s three feet or so in front of the hands with this 45 degree tilt to the shaft angle. But as soon as he gets level with the hands on the backswing and he gets above the hands, the club head starts to move behind the hands as he goes up.
But we’re not taking it round the body, unless you’re Sandy Lyle or something, even Harnell Palmer, know what mean? So the club whipped in behind them. But players now, the club’s out in front of them because they’re looking for width. And the putter should be moving in its natural width around the motion of the body.
So the chest is moving the hands to the right by Handy Golfer in the backswing. chest movement on the way through will move the hands to the left of the golfer, know, back swing and forward swing.
Josh Nichols
Yeah. Yeah.
So, do you think your mind needs to be quiet over a putt? Or there needs to be a stroke thought of some kind, but you’re thinking quiet?
Andy Gorman
Quiet as much as possible. When we’re going through changes, obviously the quiet has more noise. Where are the triggers? Right shoulder going back, left shoulder coming through. Is that too much? Some players that’s too much.
I remember having a conversation with Brett Brunford, seven or eight years ago now. And he said, what’s your thoughts for the movement? And he was using the broom handle putter at the time and we’re moving away. at the time they were just about to start to move away from the chest.
And he said, what’s your thoughts? And I said, well, the right shoulder takes it back and the left shoulder takes it through. I remember him looking at me going, nah, too complicated.
But his whole swing philosophy, short game especially, was all based on left shoulder. Whatever the left shoulder did, the left shoulder would do. And that’s all he did. That’s all he said. So his thinking was based on the simplicity of why he was the genius with a wedge.
And you know, he thought about it, probably three, four, five seconds. It didn’t take him long to figure it out. No, I could do that with my left shoulder. So his consciousness of what he was trying to do then just centered back to what he would normally do.
And he liked that thinking process because he could simplify it. And I thought I’d simplify it with right shoulder and left shoulder. Yeah, you know, so, you know, if I’m doing a static motion drill, in other words, get to end the backswing.
Josh Nichols
It’s pretty simple sounding.
Andy Gorman
Now I’ve got to understand the trigger for the fall to me. That’s left shoulder. Left shoulder moves up, pulls the arms chest, and rotation follows on from there, but I’ve got to get it from a low point to a higher point, back to where it started, and then bring the putter back in motion with an upward strike.
I don’t want to go from where it is and then thump the right shoulder down on top of it, come over the top and hit down on the putter. So bringing the left shoulder up through the motion helps to bring the putter back through the ball.
So that’s a conscious thought that I’m aware of, but not when I’m actually out there putting unless you know I’m pulling, you know and I’ll go from time to time where I just feel like it’s just closing down or the path’s a little bit across the ball and I just want the emphasis to come into the left shoulder.
You know I’m disciplined enough to know that I’m not going to leave the face open when I do that, but I’m just trying to that may be my swing thought for you know two or three holes. you know three or four putts maybe you know and then I can just dismiss it
I’m only ever focused on can I hit it in straight line where I’ve aimed it good I’m hitting my start line can I hit it at the speed I want so stood over the ball really I would say the best putters are thinking speed because they’ve already lined themselves up to where they want to hit it
Josh Nichols
Yeah.
Hmm.
Yeah, that’s decided. That box has been checked. No more thinking about that. No need to.
Andy Gorman
Yeah, yeah. And then, you know, it’s just about what speed, you and speed’s going to set the aim anyway. you know, going to roll it in a little bit. Yeah, yeah.
So at that point, we, you know, what do we need to do? And set up’s taking care of the ability to strike it out the sweet spot. Postures allowing us to create the motion. So now we’re getting into a place where we can just literally visualize the puck moving into the hole.
Josh Nichols
Yeah, that’s kind of been decided a little bit too.
Andy Gorman
and that might be a foot or two before or might be the incomplete distance of the puck. Create a visual however the player sees it.
Josh Nichols
Yeah, kind of consolidating all of that, all of those kind of all these details that can go into making a putt. Once you get over the ball to make it simple and clear is there needs to at some point you need to transfer to a feeling and there’s there’s players like Bryson who might not be thinking feel as much as this far back this far through. It’s still very mechanical but for the most part, most players are, there needs to be a feeling, kind of a consolidated feeling that they’re trying to tap into before they pull the trigger.
Andy Gorman
Yeah, absolutely. And you know, with Bryson, he’s using measurements. You know, he’s going a specific distance back in order that he can release the putter coming through. And you know, he’s already, we know how complex his mind is when it comes to it, but he’s calculus is his field.
So, you know, it’s complex for us because we’re not doing it. But you know, if I want to make a full swing with a wedge, I don’t think about it. It’s up here somewhere. hands above the shoulders, but if I only hit three quarter, I know that three quarter, my thumb and shoulder have to be in line with each other.
If they are, both back and through, I get three quarter. My feel is can I hit it there and there? Can I hit my marks? If I can hit my marks, that’s my 75 % swing that’s gonna give me 75 % total distance. That’s my numbers that tells me that my position on the clock face, if you will, or the position relative to my shoulders, giving me the numbers, that’s giving me my feel.
So it’s feel by numbers in effect. So this is how I would then illustrate to a player, if you’re on a three quarter shot, try with the hands there first.
Notice I said, try with your hands there first, what do the numbers give us? We don’t have to go and paste them out like we used to. Quad or track manual will tell us in a nanosecond. Putting just exactly the same, because we see the relationship to the whole. that ball moves towards the hole we know immediately where the feedback is always too quick.
Josh Nichols
Sure. Sure.
Yes.
Yeah.
Yeah, your 10-10 drill where you get the pieces of tape and say, here’s my 10 inches back, 10 inches through. And that is kind of decided already. Now based on this green, where does that roll to? You’re saying do this and then what do the numbers tell us instead of how can you get it to roll 10 feet or whatever? Do this and then see how far it rolls and there’s your calibration. That’s how you think of it.
Andy Gorman
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, and 10-10 is incredible because once we’ve matched the tempo to roll the golf ball a given distance, if we don’t know what 10-10 is, it’s take the putter back, face away from the ball 10 inches, through the ball 10 inches.
Grip lengths typically are 10 inches, so we can use that as a marker without carrying the tape measure with us. So it’s roughly, you’ll find most rubber grips are around that 10, know, sort of the PU grips are sort of 10 and R to 11, so just kind of measure them out.
But ultimately you’ve got a marker that you can put down a couple of tee pegs, a bit of tape, tee pegs, whatever it is, that gives you that mark.
once that got you get used to swinging the putter, if you go to the greens committee and say, what’s the green speed for this tournament, know, this competition, whatever, greens for the day, and they say it’s 10.2, and you roll the golf ball and take three steps and you need a, you know, your next foot to grab another one, you know, it’s like, well, there you go, it’s close enough to 10.
I’m not saying it needs to be exactly 10 or 10.2 or 10.4 or 9.3, know, whatever it is, it is. But then you’ve got to be consistent with that. So if you can then optimise your tempo and your speed for that, as long as it’s nice and level, you’ll be able to roll the golf ball out a given distance.
And whatever that distance is and it matches to the speed of the green, then you can start to calculate speed very simply using a formula that you’ve spent time practising. It’s not going to happen immediately.
We’re going to practice it. We’re going to practice it so that the formula becomes instinctive as well. any time somebody says to me, I can’t get good distance, well, have you thought about the length of your backswing? No, no, I can’t do that. Well, you can’t do good distance with the formula that you use it.
So what are you using as a formula? I don’t know. I haven’t thought about it. It’s just feel. So let’s try a couple of inches add-on and see how far the ball rolls out. And all of sudden, you find that wow, I can actually hit it where I want it to go. And find the difference.
We can see a couple of inch difference. Enough. And we can see the difference as it rolls out and then we can start to look at it and go, yeah, but what about if it’s uphill or downhill? Let’s focus on flat puts to start with and then you can start to calibrate the differences. At least you’ve got a start point.
And what I’ve found is folk will go, it’s not for me. And then they’ll go, that’s really good though, isn’t it? They come around to thinking because now there’s a formula. It’s something that helps.
Every other shot we tend to hit, there’s a full swing involved and we’ve got maximum number. Then we try and fiddle it in there and take five yards off it. Five yards is 15 feet. It’s a good shot when you just hit it full. We try to be fiddly around five or six yards, half a club. Just hit it the distance and don’t worry about it because it’s only going to be.
Josh Nichols
Yes.
Hmm.
Yeah, a calibration.
Andy Gorman
15 feet away anyway and the chances are you know it’s going to be a yeah you know it’s 15 feet now if you’ve got your calculations wrong you don’t know how far you eat clubs and get that done first it’s typically between clubs even if you go somewhere like you know Bryson there’s 15 yards difference between each club it’s seven yeah well it’s 20 feet not 15 you know I’d like to have more 15 footers than 20 footers but ultimately you know gives you an idea of you know
That’s a full swing that’s got the elements out there that’s going to affect the golf ball. So if you’ve done all your calculations right and you throw the ball up in the air 90 feet in the air, or 140 if you’re a Rory, there’s going to be some variables that you’ve got to take into account and some of them you can’t see or feel.
The putting green, actually we can be quite calculated and work it out and be quite methodical in the way that we go about it.
Josh Nichols
Yes, right. Yeah. It’s okay if you’re a little long, a little short. Yeah.
Right, but getting that baseline. Right. Yeah.
Andy Gorman
and then it becomes quick quick quick. Even if you have to write it down to make it quick quick quick you can just go alright ok 12 feet. So 15 feet, 12 inches of stroke, 10 feet, 10 inches of stroke, I’ll go with 11 then.
The only reason why I’ve had to calculate that and it’s took me three seconds to do it is to explain it. I know that 12 feet, 10 speed green, and that’s all I do when I go and play, find the speed of the grid.
Josh Nichols
Yeah, you calibrate before the round, every round.
Andy Gorman
Oh, every round. Yeah. Yeah. And it takes me three to six pucks. So it doesn’t take 20 minutes.
It only takes 20 minutes if I’ve gone from a 12 speed green in tournament Thursday and then I’m playing in a program on a music course that’s running at six and a half on Sunday. The 20 minutes is now to get my head around the visual and the feel of the length of stroke when I’m looking at a puck that’s 10 feet and the ball, I’ve got to it like a 15 footer the other day. Yeah. It’s like bang. You know, it’s like.
It’s just not going to get there. you know, otherwise you come up short, a foot short all day round and get frustrated and come back in shooting two over par and you’ve played really nicely. You haven’t old anything. Spend 20 minutes calibrating with the change of speed.
It’s really easy to go from six to 12. know, it’s in relative terms, you might take instead of five minutes, it might take 10, but it’s not going to take 20. But if you go from…
Josh Nichols
Mmm.
Yeah. Yes.
Yeah, to go from fast to slow is hard.
Andy Gorman
Yeah, but if you’re going from reasonable medium to fast down to slow, you’re to have to take time because you’ve got to get used to the visuals and how hard you have to hit it.
When it’s quick, it’s quick, you know it is. And you feel heightened, interestingly. You feel always heightened when it’s quick. That’s why the best players and best putters look quick green.
Josh Nichols
Yeah.
Mm. Mm.
Yeah, they focus in, kind of pulls more, it pulls their focus out of them. They kind of tunnel vision into like, really have to focus here.
Andy Gorman
Yeah. Yeah, so they just play by feel, you know, and it’s that emphasis of, right, okay, I can feel this ball going into the hole. But all they’re doing is feeling how hard they’re going to hit it. They know it’s going to roll because the greens are so pure.
Josh Nichols
Mmm.
Mmm. Yeah.
Andy Gorman
Yeah, it’s kind of scary. As recreational golfers, they speed the greens up for championship weekend, club championship and final medals and all those sort of events that you’re to play. And ultimately, know, they’re going to be really quick. Actually, they’re going to roll really nicely.
Part of the reason why they’re quick is because they’re rolling nice. They might not be rolling that good, you know, for the other eight, nine, ten months of the year where the greens are decent.
Josh Nichols
Yes.
Yes.
Andy Gorman
or three months if you’re in the UK. But you get nice greens to play on that weekend. Embrace it, enjoy it. You can be more creative. Because we want to put like a child.
When we were kids, I was like, how old were you when you were playing? I started when I was eight, nine years of age. be childlike when you’re on the greens.
How much break can actually put on this putt before it’s too much break?
Josh Nichols
Mmm, yeah, don’t let it freak you out. Yes.
Hmm, I was 12, yep.
Maximum, yeah, right.
Andy Gorman
Yeah, you so now you’re playing by feel, you’re playing by visualization and feel and it’s like, yeah, that works. And then, you know, it’s like, how hard can I hit it before it’s too hard and it jumps out?
And it’s, we don’t do things like that when we’re adults. And it’s a lot of fun. Yeah, you know, probably be in the seventies when Jack Nicholas was asked, you know.
Crikey, know, Jack, should we put a on you? And he’s gone like, why? He well, you haven’t hold anything. So I’m not trying to hold anything. I’m not trying to hold anything.
Well, what are you trying to do then? He said, I’m not, I’m thinking. He’s just on the putt in green thinking. What he was thinking about, I don’t know, because that’s part of the story never came out.
But this, you know, heckler in the crowd, what are you doing, Jack? Should we put any money on you? You haven’t hold the putt yet, you know. Well, I’m not trying to make anything.
What?
Josh Nichols
Yeah.
Yeah, you’re not making anything, huh?
Right. Right. Us as, as, as adults, where we’re trying to make that when we’re trying to calibrate stuff and practice, everything needs to go in a missed put is bad. And so we’re just, we’re very perfectionistic and optimized with our practice. And that’s not always the best way to practice.
Andy Gorman
Yep.
No, mean a couple of stories would, you know, one certainly. coached when I was national coach in Jamaica, I coached the guy. Keith, he was a psychologist, sports psychologist, and I think he’d have got too much for him, so he decided to cut grass, it was a lot easier. Lost himself in the, you know, driving on a mower, he’s great because I did it as well. Yeah, if golf sucks, sit on a mower, it’s great.
Josh Nichols
Cool.
You
Mmm. Teach you about life.
Andy Gorman
And then, yeah, exactly. So, you and you turn around and you’ve made something straight and you go like, wow, that looks good. You know, there’s a reward in that, you know, but, ultimately, you know, I asked him a question with, you know, it was one of one of my top players and I said to him, said, Keith, can I ask you about your putting? said, you can ask me anything you like about putting.
I said, are you trying to make it? and he’d had gun, he must have had 30 balls on the green at the time and there was about three in the hole and the other 27 somewhere randomly positioned around the hole and I said, so you’re trying to make it? And he’s gone, What? Do you want me to make it?
You’re the one with the pressure, not me. You’re not trying to make it. There’s no why would I do that?
Josh Nichols
Mmm.
Andy Gorman
You’re not trying to make… I couldn’t get my head around it. You know?
Josh Nichols
Yeah. Yeah, if not that, then what? Right?
Andy Gorman
Yeah, exactly. So I was like, well, are you expecting to miss it? I didn’t say that.
So he is one of the best golfers who lived on the island and he’s not trying to make a putt but he’s not expecting to miss it. Now this gets deep but it gets quite profoundly simple as well.
He has no expectation to miss it but he’s not trying to hold it. So what words are we using in the last statement? Not trying to make it. Not is a negative word. The brain is a positive organism. not is preceded is the preceding word and trying to make it is the statement.
So he is trying to make it, he’s not putting yourself under any pressure to do so. By saying, I’m not trying to make this, he’s trying to put a good role in it.
He can control the outcome. His control of outcome is, I can put a good role on this.
And I took that away with me thinking, I’ve scratched my head for a while, in fact, I might have pulled the top off a beer if I think of it, if I can remember correctly. You know, I needed something a little bit more profound to help me get over it. you know, but it was like, oh my word, wow, that’s incredible.
Josh Nichols
Yeah.
I see.
Sure.
Andy Gorman
You know, and he said to me, he said, you won a big tournament a few weeks ago. said, you backed off a putt. And I said, yeah, I did. He said, I could see your knees were shaking through your long pants, you know, before you even pulled the trigger and you backed away.
What went through your head? I started laughing because I knew what it was that was the issue. I said, you know, I hadn’t three putted for 54 holes and I would hold every single putt inside a putter length at that point in time. and he said, let me tell you, don’t miss one now. And I said, exactly.
He said, so you walked away, he said, could tell by the reaction of your arms and club was, you know, get those thinking, you know, sort of nuggets out your head, just put a good stroke on it and hold one more. that one in that center.
Josh Nichols
Ha
Yeah.
Right, you turned it kind of in a pursuing, here’s what I want to do. Yeah. Not what I want to avoid. Yeah.
Andy Gorman
Yeah, put a good stroke on it. I put a good stroke on every other putt I’d had for 54 holes, so why not now in the playoff?
So that was my outcome driven conscious thoughts, something I could control, put a good stroke on it. If you put a good stroke on it and you miss, you still put a good stroke on it as a positive outcome in terms of you put a good stroke on it, there’s a negative consequence to poor aim or wrong speed or whatever.
but you’ve still achieved the task at hand that you were in control of, which was make a good stroke, put a good stroke on it, execute well. If you’ve chose the wrong line, it’s not down to the execution of the stroke then. You’re not thinking about why I missed it. You’re thinking about the reason why you missed it was actually, why did I aim it there? So you change your consciousness.
So when I stood over putts three years, four years earlier, not knowing which side I was gonna miss it on, when the yips hit me, that was then the big deal. I don’t know which side I’m gonna miss it on. My dad was caddying for me at the time. said, well, choose one. Well, this is 50 % of the errors gone, which was fine.
But then he also said, which was the smart play, which of course, never gonna listen to, because I was still a young boy in slightly longer trousers, but ultimately.
He said to me, why don’t you just roll the ball up to the side of the hole or the front of the hole and tap it in. You’re saving yourself a shot hole. 36 holes later, I’d have been nine shots better off if I’d listened to my dad and won the tournament. I ate, but I didn’t.
Josh Nichols
Yeah, yes.
Yeah. Wow. No kidding.
Andy Gorman
So there’s a lot of wisdom in the old man, he’s no longer with me but I can still recall the conversations. You know the challenge over that was that was my first round where I understood that I had the yips which ultimately really suppressed my ability to play competitively and so I didn’t pursue playing but I had to beat the yips and as many people as I went to try and fix the problem, big names, nobody helped me fix it. Posture. was the critical part.
beginners with poor posture, see, don’t get the yips because you miss putts. It’s the consequence of missing putts. Beginners don’t hold putts. They can’t hit the ball from any distance into the hole. They’ve got no idea. So it’s not the element of miss. It’s the reason behind it, the magnitude of what you’re placing on that putt.
the outcome that might happen, you might hit it four foot past the hole. ultimately you’re fearing, you then start to fear the outcomes because the outcomes are what you start to observe. But beginner never gets the ips, so it’s not, it doesn’t start there, it starts from poor posture and reactions.
Poor posture, miss left, miss left, miss left. Your brain says, how many more times Andy, you’re gonna miss left, I’ll open the face for you. In the midst of the stroke.
Now there’s other elements that kicked in at that point, ultimately, let’s just say it’s a left, left, left, left, left, and the brain says, hold on a minute, where are you aiming to? You aim more to the right. The more you aim to the right that’s not relevant to the hole or the line, the more your brain says, need a reaction.
Aim further to the right off the tee, shut the face down, because you’re going to hook, and now you have to hook it. Because the more you aim to the right, more the target’s to the left. So something’s got to react.
Josh Nichols
Yep. More and more and Yes. So you aim further. Yep. Yeah.
Right, so the yips kind of start, maybe it’s a combo of a consistent miss along with the strong emotional reaction of this was important and I’m consistently missing or consistently hitting bad putts. So this cocktail of importance plus missing all the time, your brain says, we gotta change something and it starts manipulating.
Andy Gorman
Yeah, because if there’s consistent miss left and if you don’t fix that, the brain will. We talk about the fact that the yips are involuntary reactions. They’re not. They’re just not conscious reactions. You’re not trying to do it consciously, but your brain is. So you say an involuntary reaction, but the brain’s very conscious of the outcome if you don’t. So the brain gets involved.
I mean, you know, we could do a whole thing on yips. It’s just, you know, the bottom line is if we don’t fix the fault which started in poor posture and the brain scrambling and, you know, guys come to me for 20, you know, had the yips for 20 years. I’m like, boy, you’ve got some stickability. How on earth have you stuck at it for 20 years? Cause I mean, I had mine on and off for 10. You know, I think…
Josh Nichols
Mm.
Yeah.
Yeah, that’s a long time.
Andy Gorman
You and you don’t know when they’re going to hit you. I was one under par having rolled the ball beautifully for five holes on the sixth hole. I stood over a four foot putt, not knowing which side I was going to miss it on. And done well to three putt. Because I rolled it four foot five, missed the return and the next one went in the hole. I dropped in, you know, I’m like, whoa, you know, but gone from one under, should be going to two under, you know, now I’m back to level.
stand on the next tee, knock the flag out on the par three, three-putted that one. And on that day, had 10 three-putts inside 10 feet. you just, know, 33 greens in regulation, knock it around your seven over and you go like, have I done that? 10 three-putts will do that.
Josh Nichols
Yeah.
Mmm.
Mm-hmm.
This this goes right along with a concept that another guest on here kind of said, you know, when things are going off the rails, when you’re really struggling, return to fundamentals, return to what you know, works kind of return to a baseline. So when you say posture is the way is this is the starting point to fixing your yips that that resonates perfectly because you’ve gotten off and more and more and more off.
as you keep missing and as you keep yipping. So you need to just kind of say, let’s start from scratch and let’s check the boxes off of fundamentals. Let’s get my posture right. Let’s get my alignment right. And then see what the ball does.
Okay. It’s still missing, right? Okay. I need to address the next thing on the list, but I’ve already checked this box. So I know this is right. So you kind of like really whittle it down.
Andy Gorman
Yep, and now get asked about, you my thoughts on claw grip and whatever they’re called these days, because there seem to be iterations of everything, but, you know, can you get your palm and your forearm parallel with the shaft?
So Scotty’s got his sort of iteration of whatever this grip is these days. He holds it nicely with the left hand, his right hand’s below, but his forearm is parallel with the shaft. That means the movement wants the working plane from side to side.
So straight away there’s a balance element to that. Did it work for him? The stats tell us it definitely worked for him. All right. So does he need to change it? All these putts from 30 feet, he puts conventionally. So does he need to change it? Or can you trust that these short putts could work with the normal grip? know, look, if, he doesn’t need to think about it. And because of that, sometimes coach doesn’t need to say anything.
Josh Nichols
Hmm. Yep.
Very much so.
He’s fine.
Yeah. Right.
Andy Gorman
So, you know, why does it work inside 15 feet with, you know, his peculiar right hand position and not from 30? I’m sure Phil knows, know, that will say, I’m sure Phil knows, but does Scotty need to know? No, because it works.
They haven’t changed anything because it’s not broke. It was broke before they fixed it. Yeah.
You know, whereas other players are then trying to get into all sorts of peculiar positions with the elbow underneath and… wrist angle you know wrist set behind the shaft and you know that’s peculiar that’s not natural and then they’re trying to kind of manipulate it if they’ve taken the twitch out then that’s okay it’s working who am i to say that you know
Tommy Fleetwood’s you know yeah i mean Tommy you know if i’m looking at Tommy and i’m you know i’m not criticizing what i’m saying is i’m looking at Tommy thinking i think there’s a slightly peculiar way that he’s doing it is working
Josh Nichols
Mmm, yeah. Yeah.
Yeah, it’s simple and isn’t. Right. Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Thanks.
Yeah. Yeah. Kind of a bandaid, but yeah.
Andy Gorman
So I’m not the guy to change that. I’m not criticizing the point, they’ve found a way to get the ball in the hole first, bang, gun.
If we understand the biomechanical approaches, why the body’s designed to move in a certain way and we optimize all of the characteristics of impact, by doing that, however they found a way to do it, go with it.
I’m not gonna get in there and say, you’ve got to do it this way. But if you wanna know how to optimize it and if you’re for another 1 % here and a 1 % there, then you can find those by doing it this way.
If you’re dogmatic about the fact I’m not changing anything, you stay where you are, your status quo is, don’t get throwing your toys out the problem if you miss a few puts you feel it should hold. What are you doing? You’ve gotta control the control rules.
And if you’re for fractions of percentages, mean, Brandon Shambly put a post out in 2005 and 2025 stats. mean, players are getting worse in every section. Why is that? The greens are better. So we’ve got greens are better, balls are better, putters are better.
Josh Nichols
Yeah.
Yes, I saw that.
Yeah, Lower make rate, yeah.
Andy Gorman
Like, now where do we go? Green reading? Yeah. So, you know, all of those other factors have improved. So what’s not changed? the golfer. It’s the only thing that could possibly change is the golfer. Why? Is it tempo?
Because ultimately tempo, these are one of the metrics that we can measure on. Put that. It’s the one variable that is changing out and from my perception in the wrong way. It’s getting slower and slower.
In terms of time it takes to make the smoothness of the stroke, it takes away the instinct. So if you take longer in the backswing, 10, 15 years ago we were taking that putter back at 0.6. of a second and making the ball putter back to the ball 0.6, 0.3. 600 milliseconds 300 milliseconds we have a 2 to 1 ratio now it’s going at 2.2, 2.3, 2.4 right it’s you know like golf swings are and it’s not improving the stats
if that’s a good reason to start to look at tempo and return it to 2 to 1 and then with a 2 to 1 you also get 10 inches back 10 inches through I know I’m not the only putting coach that’s saying that because you can see that on any of Phil Kenyon’s stuff.
He says that you take the putter back the same as you do through. Now there has to be some acceleration to do that because otherwise the impact the ball and the putter make deflects the energy on the putter so if you’re not taking it 10 inches through it’s going to come up shorter if your swing motion is without acceleration.
Josh Nichols
Sure.
Yes.
Yes.
Andy Gorman
So it’s a minor acceleration, so let’s just say you work on 10 % extra on the follow through, but the ball will absorb that, slows the putter down and away you go. So you get your 10-10 based on that.
So you’ve got a nice acceleration, you’ve got your speed timings and you’re working towards a metric around two to what?
But if everybody’s trying to work something a little bit, take a little bit time, know, 650, 700, 0.7 of a second back, you know, a little bit quicker on the way through, you know, that changes tempo and that tempo is not part of the human DNA. We’re going against the natural flow of movement. And as a consequence of that, then your field’s gone. These are the best players in the world, remember. So if that’s gonna affect them, it’s gonna affect recreational.
Josh Nichols
Mmm.
Okay. Man. Okay. Andy Gorman, this has been both detailed and over complex for my small brain, but also awesomely consolidated and simplified and some really, really cool stuff. So I appreciate you. Where would you send people? What do you want people to know about you and what you’re doing right now?
Andy Gorman
How deep do we want to go? We could be here for hours, couldn’t we?
The simplest bit is you can contact me at golfforandygorman.com. I am available for that. You can WhatsApp me as well. And I’m sure you’ve got details of my WhatsApp number, but I’m in the UK. I respond, you know, I’m more than happy to chat with folks.
You know, so if you want to WhatsApp me at plus 44-79-66-235-706, you can get ahold of me there. can golfforandygorman.com. know, Andy, can you help? then the answer is yes, I can help and we’ll find a way for me to be able to do that for you.
I coach online so there is no corner of the earth that you can’t be found or I can’t get hold of you and help you.
those are the best mediums really to get hold of me and I’ll be more than happy to help your audience.
Josh Nichols
Mmm. Mmm. And you’re out some good content on YouTube as well, so go check that out.
Andy Gorman
Yeah, Andy Gorman the pass. it’s, yeah. And you know, I’m just about to put, you know, not put out because we haven’t recorded it yet, but I’m just about to go and put a bit of vitamin D onto the top of my head and record some sunshine shots. So we’ll be doing it from a slightly different location, but yeah, look forward to getting that done and getting out there.
Josh Nichols
Okay.
That’s excellent, Andy. Thank you so much, man. This is a pleasure.
Andy Gorman
Josh, it’s a pleasure. Thank you. Thank you for opportunity.
