It's been awhile since we have added a post to this blog and I thought it appropriate to take some time and fill in the community with what we've been doing and accomplished in 2018. As we have always said, the information we provide in video download form and at our workshops is the information we use in our teaching with every level of player. This information is applicable to the club level player and the elite level player as it directly relates to their skill development. Yes, technique is a part of skill development as much as training practices to challenge their current skill position.

This year saw some exciting new endeavors and accomplishments. Probably the biggest one is the roll-out of James' Wedge Matrix Teacher Accreditation program (https://wedgematrix.com). This program is designed not just to certify instructors and send them on their way but to be involved in their teaching and guide through continuing education on the subject of wedge play. So far, 3 different meetings have occurred. One in the UK, on in Spain and the other in the USA. There is another day scheduled on Friday, January 25th in Orlando, Florida for those professionals attending the US PGA Merchandise Show. Information and Registration for this opportunity can be found here. 

James has also been doing some extensive research and work in the area of chipping yips. This research has helped James get a clearer picture of the underlying causes behind the chipping issues most often afflicting golfers. I've had the pleasure of watching James work with players that have the yips and to see him go through a fairly methodical approach is fascinating as he pinpoints the issue(s) to be addressed. So far, he is experiencing a 100% success rate in helping players with the yips. So, if you have them or know someone who does, it would be well worth your time to get in touch with him.

Lastly, James has been working with some players on the European Tour and US PGA Tour. He has been doing both full swing and wedge work with his players and has seen 3 wins happen to students of his this year. Congratulations James to you and your players. I hope to see him in the States more often as his stock rises and he's sought out by even higher profile players including major winners.

John has spent the majority of this year working with players on the US PGA Tour and some time on the LPGA Tour again. In an effort to generate some peace and refocus, John has backed away from his social media profile quite a bit as he needed to spend some directed time with his children. As things start to quiet down, he plans to re-engage on social media and put his website back up. One of the reasons James and I have remained good friends is our mutual understanding of the importance of family and that it comes first. I needed some time and James has been very accommodating and accepting of my break. 

John's stock is also on the rise as a putting coach on the US PGA Tour as some players joined the ranks and additional coaches brought him in to do assessments and offer advice on their clients. The year ended up a bang as one of the players he works with broke an 11 year win drought on the PGA Tour. It was a week when all the cylinders were firing and his putting was able to fully support his superb ball striking. 

I hope you enjoyed this year in review and appreciate the changes to the website. Our partnership in Short Game Secrets started with a text and has grown into the highest grossing self created and produced video series on the short game in golf. We appreciate all the support and will update you with future plans for seminars, workshops and new content coming 2019.

JG/JR

When James Ridyard and I sat down to discuss our brand, one of the main things that kept coming up is that the information we provide be equally useful for the elite player and the club player. Our videos were created with the club player in mind as the main market. Honestly, this has happened more from an education of instructors that have spread our ideas to their clients with fantastic success than direct sales to club players. This is good for golf and that's the important thing.

We often get the question, "How is this different than what you would show or teach a Tour Player?" or "How is this different than what you would show a beginner?"

The simple answer is that it isn't different. The information we provide allows for significant differences in ability and style to be successful. It was very important to us that this be true. It's not a one size fits all method but rather a deeper understanding of a spectrum of styles and how they work. This allows for adaptability to whoever you have in front of you. As a coach, we take great pride in the reviews and testimonials we've received from other coaches about how this information has helped them with their daily clients.

To that end, I want to share some information from a player I started working with full time on the US PGA Tour late last summer. This player is a top 30 career money earner (Charles Howell III) that needed improvement in his short game. We initially met to discuss AimPoint Express and it blossomed into a full short game discussion. 

Year to date evaluation 2016:

26th Strokes Gained Total
13th Scoring Average
17th Scrambling
63rd Strokes Gained Putting 
36th Sand Save Percentage
27th Season Money List
23rd Fed Ex Cup Points List
91st Official World Rank

Nice start to the year.

Early focus on short game and short range putting going well. Time to focus on mid range putts.

2015 (year end)

59th Strokes Gained Total
88th Scoring Average
151st Scrambling
143rd Strokes Gained Putting 
161st Sand Save Percentage
77th Season Money List
79th Fed Ex Cup Points List
147th Official World Rank

The information and drills that we have worked on are the very same ones available in our videos. James' short game info has helped significantly and my putting ideas have done the same. Work with his full swing is also coming along nicely which plays a role in these statistics as well.

Thank You again to all of our supporters. Those that have purchased our videos and those that have come to our Schools. It means so much to us.

JG/JR

As we approach the beginning of the new calendar year, I thought it would be a good time to share with everyone some "secrets" from my time out on tour this year. I'm sure for many of you these will not seem that surprising but I hope you will find it interesting.

1) Professional Golfers are just as neurotic as your club players. When I say this, I mean they are trying things, lots of things, to get better. Standing on the range at a tour event sounds nearly the same as standing on the range at your member-guest or any junior event. Some have headphones in, some are talking about cars and girls, some are telling stories and jokes and some are talking golf. That last group, is talking about grip changes, new clubs they are trying, swing thoughts and the like. It's the same stuff. I found it quite amusing listening to the stories and the golf talk and it made me very comfortable. The difference is in their talent and ability. These players are just better.

2) Time flies by. This one was a big surprise to me. Going to events and being part of practice rounds, pro ams and then tournament days gave me an insight into how little time players really have to spend with their family or "work" on their game. Include in this fitness time, interviews and other sponsor responsibilities and it's just amazing how quickly the time goes. Working in this environment has helped me greatly to discover new ways to maintain or gently nudge performance in the direction we want it to go without diminishing the state of their game currently.

3) Performance rules all. The large majority of my time working with tour level players has been at tour events. It has not been back home away from tournaments. This is a very different environment than most of us have back at the range/course where we do our coaching. There are things you just shouldn't do at a tournament site that you may attempt back home. This being said doesn't change the fact that our job is to improve performance regardless of the environment we have to work in. As I mentioned in number 2, many players simply don't have time to wait to go home for a few weeks and then work on something. They are working and traveling and some will want coaching in the environment they are dealing with. The best part is, as a coach, the aesthetics of things goes away quickly as they need to shoot lower(not look better). You really get to test yourself and your ability to think on the fly in this environment. Critical thinking and a deep understanding allow for very simple ideas to flow that create that evolution from where they are now to somewhere that produces lower scores. Figuring out ways to improve performance without "working" on things has been a great puzzle for me which I thoroughly enjoy and thankfully have done well with so far.

4) Opportunity comes for visibility.  This one is less of a secret than a confirmation. What I mean by this is if you are out teaching on tour, there is a greater likelihood of players asking your opinions or thoughts than if you are not. Again, because of number 2 above, the amount of time players have to really investigate a coach is highly limited. So, just like at home, referrals play a huge role. Also, players are looking at other players. Players seem to have a general idea or history of where they stand relative to others and with which part of their games. If players see another player improving in an area they wish to improve on there's a good chance you may end up with some questions. From there, number 5 rules the day.

5) Performance improvement builds loyalty. This is where the rubber meets the road. Coaching on tour is inherently a short run gig. There are many reasons for this like time, the ebb and flow of golf, personality differences, etc. But, if you produce increased performance, you will have the best chance for sustained relationships on tour. I've mentioned this in other seminars but for me, I need to be me to produce my best. I used to have this idea that I needed to be someone else when working with high level players. That didn't work for me. If I was more me, I never had to worry about dropping my guard or saying the "wrong" thing because I was acting. I love knowledge and understanding. I mean I love it. Imparting ideas that increase performance is what it's all about. It's not about being right or wrong.

James and I have been lucky enough to have the opportunity to work with some of the best golfers in the world. Our goal at Short Game Secrets is to help players and coaches in this area by informing you what the best players are actually doing. Then it's about helping players improve. In my case, putting is really varied in terms of how the best players are doing it. Trying to find a model for everyone is absolute folly. That being said, we know what has to happen for putts to go in. We know what the pieces of the puzzle are. Our videos are designed to help you understand those pieces and all the ways they can go together and ways they generally shouldn't. I hope you enjoyed this post and please take advantage of our anniversary sale. It includes our original 5 video(download) set and 2 bonus videos for the price of $99.99.

Click here to purchase --> Anniversary Sale

At Short Game Secrets, we understand that putting is a multiple solution problem. For each situation, the player needs to come up with a solution they think is correct and that they can do. Because there are multiple solutions, there be some benefit and cost for each solution chosen.

Here's a quick little video talking about one of the costs of trying to die your putts in the hole.

Hope you enjoy it and please consider sharing using the buttons below.

JG

Mobile users click this link----> http://youtu.be/pfz1SPK4Q9k

Short Game Secrets would like to try and answer this question along with some others. How much of a role does technique play on creating that low launching, high spin shot?

One of the concerns mentioned by coaches is whether or not the low launching wedge shot is a better alternative for the club player than a higher launching shot with a steeper landing angle to stop the ball. It's a fair question and one that should be looked at seriously. Recently, information has been presented to suggest that the higher shot would stop the ball faster than the lower shot and we thought we would do a similar test to see what we could find out.

Our results didn't match as our data suggested that the lower launching shot stopped closer to the landing point than the higher one. This test is described in the video below but while we were testing for that, we found something we felt was even more interesting.

In our data, we really struggled to get the ball to launch high regardless of the technique (while not rotating the face open). A square face at address with forward ball position and fast overtaking rates couldn't produce a higher launch assuming a good strike. It required us to put something on the face to get a higher launch.

This got us thinking. Is the 30º launch something that just happens with a new premium wedge, premium ball, tight lie and adequate technique or did it require something special? How important is the lie to the final launch conditions and thusly the final outcome?

This short little video attempts to touch on these subjects. Hope you enjoy it and please feel free to share it around.

Mobile users: Click Here-----> Can You Buy That Elusive 30º Launch Angle with a Sand Wedge?

I recently posted a blog entitled "The Premium Balls Test" that included a video discussing the results of 6 premium balls tested against one another to determine if there really is a difference between the balls we are convinced to spend hard earned money on, if you'd like to refresh your memory on what happened you can view it here

This generated a lot of interest and I promised that by mid May I would reveal the wildcard ball that is not in the premium ball price range yet outperformed almost all of them.

So here we are, it's mid May!

And the surprise package is.... TaylorMade Project (a)

TaylorMade Project (a) - UK Website

TaylorMade Project (a) - US Website

So TaylorMade have produced a ball that is long off the tee & very soft around the greens, in fact they have produced a ball that should shake up the premium ball market forever and here's why..

I'm not sure why anyone would choose the more expensive balls (even from the same manufacturer) when this is available at almost half the price, what reason could there possibly be besides ego? Remind yourself when you next buy balls that this game is ALL about performance and this ball out performs the majority, if however you derive confidence from playing a more expensive ball then that is also going to enhance performance so that might be the way for you.

Just do me a favour and try these balls out, would love to hear your thoughts (you might even thank me!).

Is there a best trajectory and curve for a wedge shot?

Which one spins most?

Which one is more accurate?

These are very popular questions. At Short Game Secrets, we strive to present information as clearly and factually as we can. There's a lot of great information being shared in the world of golf currently, particularly about the wedge game. A good mixture of the purely theoretical and the practical but there is little consensus about this very complex field. One thing that is clear is that occasionally the theoretical and the practical do not match up. The only way to clarify what is really happening is constant measuring and testing but with equipment shortcomings even that has it's own issues.

This video aims to address the concept that a wedge shot hit with a draw spin axis will spin more than one hit with a fade spin axis or a straight shot. The results are not conclusive as it's only one player's data and this topic really comes down to the individuals tendencies which likely have an effect on which spin axis produces the most spin and or consistency.

We believe that putting and wedge play information needs to be individualized whenever possible which is why we present our ideas in a way to cover different players patterns and tendencies instead of blanket statements or ideas to be applied by everyone.

We're looking forward to having more players conduct this test to gain a more comprehensive understanding but for now have a look at the video and let us know your thoughts.

http://youtu.be/Q0ArFZAaKzU

Just wanted to share with everyone a little video case study on green side scrambling from James Ridyard. Very often, the common advice given to students to help with their chipping can have poor side effects that aren't explained to the player.

This video shows a comparison between the common advice given and advice given to produce more options than the normal stuff you might see in a magazine tip.

Hope you enjoy it.