It's time for a new episode of “Faith N Fairways” with the founder, Brad Thorberg, who after more than 16,000 lessons taught to over 2,000 golfers has discovered the most forgotten and overlooked part of your golf game that is keeping you from playing your most consistent and confident golf ever.
Now, here is your host, Brad Thorberg.
Brad Thorberg: What is up, golfers from around the world? Brad here, back at it this week. So excited. So excited you're tuning in again.
This week, we are diving in to what you need to know, where your game needs to be, before we start implementing this secret code, “The Code of Breaking 90”—that's the series we're on.
So, today is all about where this golf game needs to be before we can really start utilizing this code, and what you're going to find as we dive into this, guys, is so many of you are already there. So many of you are. I mean, again, I've been doing this for a while, 15 years, and helped thousands of clients, and so many of you already have the game.
Regardless of where you think your mechanics are, you already are there with your golf game in order to start using this code to start breaking 90, and I can't wait to start diving into those pieces. Bu, today, basically it’s going to be a checklist to find out “Alright, am I there? Have I been doing these things? If not, what are a few things I can be doing to get my game tuned up?” so in the following weeks when we start diving into the code, you can start implementing it and really start playing some of the best golf you've ever played in your life. It works. I've helped several clients through this. It's amazing how it just unlocks something in your brain and allows you to start playing more consistent and, honestly, just more enjoyable golf.
I always relate this to living in Colorado. When you sit on the patio by the 18th tee having a beer, I could sit there for an hour, and I bet I maybe will see one or two people walking off 18 green happy, smiling and excited. But I can go up in the mountains in the winter and sit there at the ski lodge for an hour, watching just thousands of people cruising down a mountain, and it's rare to see someone unhappy. I mean, I've even seen people being pulled down by one of those ski slope guys where they're lying on a flatbed because they’re wrecked, one of those little flatbed sleds because they’re wrecked and jacked up their knee, and they're still smiling, because they're having fun—and that's what golf is. It's a recreational activity, and we're here to have fun and enjoy it. And as we go through this series together, so many of you are just going to start to have more fun enjoying the game of golf again, and that's what I love doing. It’s making it fun for you guys.
So, today, what you need to know before the code and there's three major things:
One—we're making solid contact.
Two—we plan the realistic tees’ distance, so isometric game.
And, three—where's your short game at? Where does it need to be?
So, number one: [03:00] are we making solid contact? We’ve got to be able to hit the ball.
So, if you're lining up 10 golf balls making 10 swings, and four times you're whiffing the ball and two or three times you’re topping and it’s not going more than 20 yards and, yeah, we're not making solid enough contact to be able to break 90, you should be able to line up 10 balls and relax, think, 80 percent effort, I don't care where it goes. I just want to hit the middle of face, swing, you should be able to advance the ball within 75 percent of the distance you expect it to go. And if you're able to do that, then you already can hit the ball well enough to break 90, and I'm not talking direction.
I mean, even if you line up 10 balls and you hit nine out of 10 in the club face, but nine out of 10 go 50 yards right and a slice, that's fine. We can still go break 90 with that. We’ve got to learn how to manage the course and maybe club down, but we're not swinging as hard creating as much sidespin. But you still are hitting the ball solid enough with the full swing to go break 90, because, realistically, when it comes to the full swing and solid contact—we talked a little about this last week—for the person who goes and shoots 90 or better, so we'll just say 88, if you go shoot 88, 60–65 percent of your shots come with a wedge and a putter. So, if you were to go shoot 88, realistically, you're making 35 full swings and out of those full swings 16–18 of those are going to be mishits because, like we talked about it, golf is a game of bad shots; the person with the better bad shots wins.
So, as we're trying to break 90, it's not about hitting a lot of great shots in a row. It's about making solid enough contact, advancing it forward, and keeping it in play and out of trouble. So, a lot of it has to do with, a) Can we just make solid contact, eight out of 10 swings? Then, can we get it forward in play out of trouble? And if we can start to do that, managing the course and trusting our natural tendency, you're already there. You're already there because, again, you're going to have 16 mishits.
Now, the number one tip I can give you to improving your contact right now, meaning you go to the driving range—I guarantee this is going to help—as you go to the driving range and pick a target, so maybe it's 150 yards and that's normally your seven-iron, so if your seven-iron is what you try to hit 150, realistically, if you make 10 swings, you're only going to hit one or two 150; the rest are all over the place.
Here's what I want you to do. I want you to go now at that same 150. I want you to grab your six-iron. Now, you know you have more than enough club. I want you to grab your six-iron and think 80 percent effort; take a big deep breath like, Ah… Eighty percent. Just give it 80 percent and now hit 10 shots, and you will be shocked as to how much tighter that pattern is than when you're trying to whale away with your seven-iron.
So, starting today, I want you to start thinking 80 percent. You will not hear a tour player say, I gave it 100 percent effort, when they hit a golf ball in competition. It doesn't happen. But so many of us are wrapped around [06:00] “I need to hit it as far as possible,” and the last time I checked, there's no long drive seven-iron contest. Each club has a specific distance and tour players...I mean, I remember watching Tiger years ago, PGA Championship, on 17 he hit a nine-iron 124 yards and then on an 18 he hit a nine-iron 175 yards. I mean, they use these clubs for different yardages by controlling their tempo and the rhythm.
So, for you, I want you to get the mindset of “This club goes this far when I swing real hard” and start thinking 80 percent effort and clubbing up one. That's going to help you with your contact if you feel like it's not quite good enough there to break 90, but I guarantee you for most of you it is if you learn to just relax and focus on hitting the middle of the face instead of how to swing the club, which we talked about last week—stop thinking how and start thinking where—80 percent effort. Boom. Contact a lot better instantly, instantly, for so many of you.
So, that's going to help and that's where it needs to be. You need to be able to line up 10 balls; make contact with eight or nine out of 10 and get them going within about 75 percent of your total distance, because that's good enough to go break 90 consistently.
Number two: are you playing realistic tees?
This is so important. Tees are based on, a) how we score, and b) how far we hit the ball. So, you may be able to hit a ball 300 yards, but if you're only hitting one ball out of 10 300, and the other nine are averaging about 220 and off the reservation, you're playing the wrong tees if you're playing from the very back. So, we need to understand, Am I playing the right tees?
What I always tell my clients, you should be able to swing 80 percent hardly trying and you should be able to hit a driver seven or eight-irons. So, if most of your approach shots on par-4s, either it’s now with a seven or eight-iron—you're playing from too far back—or if you're playing par-3s where you're having to hit a lot of four-irons or hybrids, four or five hybrids, I mean, if you're up in that four or five range a lot for approach shots, you're playing from too far back. This is not the U.S. Open. This is us investing money in a recreational activity that we want to enjoy.
Even though Brad has cracked the code to consistently breaking 90, there are still three major mistakes he's found from working with over 2,000 clients that will sabotage your round before you get to the first tee. Head to www.MyGolfCode.com now to receive your free guide where he outlines all three faults and provides you with some easy action steps to start playing more consistent golf today.
Back to the ski slope analogy, guys.
So, why are you creating more frustration? Because I can tell you, even as a pro, if I had to hit four and five hybrids into greens all day long, I would not play much golf, because that would be incredibly frustrating. So, for a lot of you, you need to start kind of go, Alright, am I playing the right tees? And it doesn't matter what your buddies play and don't give into whatever ridicule they give you. You're out there investing hard-earned money to enjoy your afternoon. [09:00] You need to play realistic tees that allow you to score better.
When you're playing tees so far back that you're having to hit a lot of six-irons, five-irons or hybrids into par-4s, or you're having to hit long irons or hybrids into par-3s, you're playing the wrong tees. You're basically playing a U.S. Open setup with a goal of shooting your best round and it's not going to happen. That's just a fact.
So, we’ve got to start realizing, Alright, am I playing the right distance for tees? And the way, again, to go out there is just kind of pay attention to, Alright, am I hitting a lot of seven or eight-irons, or am I hitting a lot of hybrids, four or fives? And that's where you want to be kind of judging, Should I move up at tee or not?
So, pay attention to the realistic tees you should be playing.
And, then, number three: where's our short game at?
This is crucial and you'll find as we dive into the code, and I’m starting next week—we get into the secret code of breaking 90. 30, 30 and five. That's the code. I dropped the bomb right there.
30, 30, 5—the secret code.
You have no idea what that means? You're about to find out. Stay tuned for next week when we dive into that—but when we get into that, short game is a huge component of it.
So, we need to go, Alright, where's my short game from 30 yards and in? Am I able to line up 10 balls from 30 yards and get all 10 somewhere on the putting surface or close to it? Can I make decent enough contact in 10 chips or pitches from 30 yards and in where I’m making contact and getting it pretty much on the putting surface nine out of 10 times? We’ve got to get our short game there. This is a huge, huge piece of it.
And putting. Am I having 36 or less putts in 18 holes, or am I having 18 or less putts in nine? So, start tracking when you get out there this week and play some golf. I want to know, alright, How many putts are you having? How well is the short game been? Alright? So, you need to start focusing on it and start practicing, a little more attention to practicing in the short game.
And, for a lot of you, it’s there. You can go to the practice screen and throw some balls out from five to 20 yards off the green, and you hit them just fine, but when you get out there under pressure, you start to flounder and hit some horrible chip shots and wonder, Where the heck did that come from?—I mean, that has more to do with the mind and the routine, which we’ll dive into in later episodes—but, for most of you, you can go to the practice screen and hit it nine out of 10 very solid chips and pitches just fine with no pressure.
So, the mechanics are usually there. We just need to practice it more, so we trust it more. We need to see where our putting is at. I mean, if we're having four, five or six 3-putts in a round, we need to start working on our putting and then start working on some 2-putt games where you're just putting around the putting green and you should be getting it in the cup and two putts all the time, or working on a lot of 3-foot in putts trying to hit 20 or 30 of those a week here in the next couple weeks, but we’ve got to get the short game tuned, because, guys, again, 60–65 percent of your score, whether you shoot 75 or 95 [12:00] or 85, will come with a wedge and a putter.
So, news flash: so many of us are so frustrated with our full swing and our driver, and slicing and poor contact, and we can't get over the fact of how bad our shots are with our full swing that we spend very little time in the short game.
Well, think of that. If you if you have 60 minutes to go practice, you should be spending 40 minutes in the short game area, 20 in the full swing, because that's how it breaks out on the golf course when it comes to scoring. So, for so many of you, you're doing it the opposite. You're going out there and spending all your time on the driving range, most of it with the driver, well, you go play golf that day, you're only going to make 12 or 14 driver swings, maybe. Probably shouldn't even be making that many, but you're going to go out there and have 36, 38 putts. You're going to go have another 15 or so chips or pitches, the par-5s. You might have some in-between wedge shots from 50, 60 yards, but you don't put any time into that area or very little and it needs to be flopped for so many of you.
So, the number one thing there is you’ve got to start putting more time into the short game practice here in the next couple of weeks, and you'll find out why as we dive into this code in the following week.
So, this week: where your game needs to be—we need to be making solid contact. You're going to have mishits and bad shots. We’ve just got to be getting the face of the ball and moving it forward in play.
We’ve got to play with what we have and not with what we want to have where we’ve got to be focusing on just hitting the ball solid and getting it out there within 75 percent of the actual distance. That's all you need. Most of you are there, but you’ve got to just start relaxing and thinking 80 percent effort instead of 110. That'll help you so much.
We’ve got to start playing the right tees. For a lot of us, just because our buddies are playing the back tees, why on earth would we play back there if we don't have the game to do it? You're just setting yourself up for frustration and failure. So, are you playing the right tees? Pay attention to that this week and start practicing your short game. Start spending 60 percent of your time when you go, practice, putting, chipping and pitching from 30 yards, and then you'll find out why starting next week when we talk about the secret code to consistently breaking 90—30, 30 and five—when we start diving into it. And it gets real, but it's going to be groundbreaking, lightbulbs going off left and right. It's going to look like an airport runway here over the next couple weeks for so many of you to help you play better golf.
But you’ve got to start practicing your short game, because as long as you can hit the ball somewhat solid and forward, we’ve got to get the short game tuned up and we'll get you breaking 90 consistently here by end of summer, early fall.
So, hopefully that helps you guys to give you a few things to start working on this week. Hopefully, some light bulbs are going off to help you in that area. But so many of you are there, guys. I just want you to know so many of you are there. You don't need the most beautiful-looking golf swing to go, break 90. You don't.
Yeah, my swing was ugly, [15:00] ugly when I first started when I was 18 years old. I was already able to shoot in the 60s occasionally, but consistently in the mid–70s, low–70s, a high-level high school golfer. I went to a golf school. It was at Mel Sole, Phil Ritson Golf School in Kansas City, Missouri. I went there, and we had to use VHS and I saw my swing, and it was ugly. It was over the top, casting out to in. I played what I always called a “power fade,” but it was a slice. I could just hit it long ways, but I played it. I didn't know no better. I played my slice and I had a short game, and I could go out and shoot in the 70s. So, even with an ugly swing where I hit the ball solid and a short game, I could shoot in the 70s.
And, believe me, most of you have that same over-the-top swing, but you're thinking of all the wrong things and you don't have the short game, and you're just getting so frustrated out there. So, for most of you, you're there. You have the ability to consistently break 90. You just need to learn how and that's what we're going to dive into. We're going to get into the meat and potatoes next week, so stay tuned for next week.
Until then, start implementing those things. Get out on the course. Enjoy. Enjoy, enjoy the game. Have fun. Don't be a Negative Nancy. Be positive. Be happy that you're out there, getting to enjoy the great outdoors. Have fun. And I can't wait to start diving into the code next week.
Have a great week, y'all. We'll talk to you soon.
This is ThePodcastFactory.com.
