Elevating Your Golf Game with Custom Fittings and a Sneak Peek at Exciting News

Speaker 1: 0:45

All right, chris, we're back and, as I don't know if you did, you ever listen to Mike and Mike in the morning.

Speaker 2: 0:51

Always I was a little upset when they decided to break up. It was like the Beatles breaking up or, you know, beyonce leaving Destiny's Child. It was crazy.

Speaker 1: 1:01

That was set all the time and then when they went off the air, I stopped listening to sports talk radio, you know, for whatever reason, but you know their opening was always. You know we're back and better than ever. You know, I think this episode we really are back and better than ever, because we've got some really good announcements. We got the two guests we have on one this week. We're gonna provide us with a lot of great information.

Speaker 2: 1:24

Yeah, I'm excited. I think you and me have been excited for this episode for a while now. Now that we finally get to let the cat out of the bag, it's gonna be exciting for not only the tours but all our memories as well.

Speaker 1: 1:36

Yeah, Chris, absolutely correct. So when we just go ahead and get this thing started, yeah, let's go.

Speaker 3: 1:49

Ladies and gentlemen, golf Week amateur tour the podcast Talking about all things golf week amateur tour, including interviews with tour directors, players and course pros. Now here are your hosts Atlanta tour director Tim Newman and El Paso Las Cruces director Chris Rocha.

Speaker 1: 2:16

Chris, like I said, we're back, and better than ever. You've had two days. Since we were last on, I had my first tournament. Let me just start with Atlanta, because we were at this high end private course on a Saturday right and had a great turnout. It was fun to see all the guys again and they're really looking forward to the season. So how about you?

Speaker 2: 2:41

Yeah, I mean we've been rolling around One major down, three events down. Quarter of our season is already complete. But we mentioned it before, a lot of tours, if not all of them, are starting up already and we're starting to see shirt pictures coming in a lot quicker. We're starting to get that going. We're starting to see a lot of exciting news come out from different tours. So it's been exciting to see this month for sure.

Speaker 1: 3:07

Before we go on to that, how was your three club part three tournament? Good times.

Speaker 2: 3:11

Oh great, it's always a great time to have it out there, just hang out and just have a good time.

Speaker 1: 3:17

Good, good, we got one week left in March. Next week is April. The Masters is right around the corner. We just finished another regional this past weekend. We're rolling. It's insane how quickly the season's going by so far.

Speaker 2: 3:35

Right, it's just insane, and being able to see my members go out and play on different events as well is nice to see that they're taking the Avenger, their membership and just even also having members from other tours come to play my events. I believe I had one of your members come to my two-day and have a good time, so it's going to be great to see for the rest of the year. Awesome, who was it? Brian Williams, d-flighter.

Speaker 1: 4:05

Oh yeah, brian's a great guy actually. He's quiet. He's really quiet. So when you talk to him he'll probably just look at you. But he's a nice guy Since the first of the year about a lot of things that go on behind the scenes and how excited we are about the season and things that go on that we can't talk about.

Speaker 1: 4:27

So everybody should have already gotten an email or some notification about this. Our newest sponsorship and this is one of the things that we've known about and you and I have been talking about for well. We're going on two months now, right, just chomping at the bit to make it official and get this thing rolling, because it's going to be. This new sponsorship is going to be huge for the tour and particularly for the players. The benefits that they're going to get out of this sponsorship is they're going to love it and our first guest is going to talk about it. But I understand it's going to take a little bit to roll everything out, to get everything to where it needs to be, but once things are rolling, our players are going to really love it.

Speaker 2: 5:13

Oh yeah, it's going to be great. I remember my first year as director. We had I believe it was TaylorMade as our sponsor and seeing them at Nationals and being able to do a fitting. And then we're going to bring that back now with an iron company that's just coming up like crazy. You know I enjoy using their irons every single round that I play. It's just going to bring that what we call a controlled circus at Nationals to a whole another level and I don't think the new members or any member that's been here post-2020, can even imagine what it's going to be like.

Speaker 1: 5:49

Right, and a good thing about the sponsors is they're not just an iron sponsor, I mean, they're a full golf equipment sponsor.

Speaker 2: 5:57

Right, you know right, clubs balls bags, shoes.

Speaker 1: 6:00

There's something else that's kind of going to be. I'm not going to I don't want to let the count of the bag on us, but something else is going to kind of be just mentioned in this with with our next guest. So why don't we just go ahead and bring him in? Let's go ahead and welcome to our president, dennis McCormick. Dennis, welcome, bud.

Speaker 4: 6:17

Hey, thanks for having me guys. Hope you're both doing well.

Speaker 1: 6:20

Doing great. I'm excited to hear the the the good news. I know we sent out an email to tour directors about a week ago, but what you tell the members about what's going on?

Speaker 4: 6:32

Yeah, so we work together with Golf Week down at the PGA show and we're able to get Dunlop brands on is our official equipment manufacturer of both tours, not just Golf Week but also the senior tour. Their brands include Shrixxion, Cleveland, ASUS Shoes and XXIO, which is kind of a PXG type club higher end club. Currently, our our goal is to promote strictly the Shrixxion bag for the beginning of this program. This is going to be a long term deal, it's not a one year deal. So Dunlop wants us to really push their, their new irons, their drivers, their wedges. Obviously they're golf ball. So we have started that process. It's going to take some time to get it all laid out in in full detail of how it affects the players, how it affects the tour directors, how it affects special events, but just know that you're going to have the latest and the greatest at all the players, all 88 hundred players disposal.

Speaker 1: 7:36

That's this is to me it's really exciting because you know in the past we've had some piecemeal manufacturers and it's been great. But to have the whole umbrella, you know the big picture of what it can offer benefits for our players. It's huge.

Speaker 4: 7:53

Yeah, I agree. It's that in 30 years I've never been able to get a manufacturer to say, ok, we're going to, we're going to give you the opportunity to reach across all of our platforms, all of our clubs, all of our accessories. They also purchased the Nike inventory. So that'll be, that'll be down the road, but that that was a caveat that they told me right as we were kind of setting out the plans after the meeting. So there's going to be a lot of great stuff. They're going to cross promote us as well, which will be great for all of our tours to increase membership, increase awareness. You know, and just have you know the tricks on name and don't lock brands attached to our tours is is just fantastic.

Speaker 1: 8:39

Yeah, it's huge and I know I've been really excited about it and have been asking questions and you know we're rolling it out and what people need to understand is when you have a sponsor this big, you can't just pop it down and expect things are just going to happen right away. So we've got to be patient and you know it's really going to be rolled out over the course of the year. Is that the accurate?

Speaker 4: 9:01

Yeah, that is correct. I mean we we did do a demo with Ken Rothman, who is one of their top club fitters, and we did it at the four ball. We had 120 guys. It was a double to start, so he was able to get there like six in the morning and he stayed till about the last time was 10 o'clock and he did reach some people yet he had an assistant with him. Obviously, in the future we're going to do these things where they stay during the event, after the event, maybe the day before. If there's a skins game where players are a little more loose, have more time, really can go through the lines. But Ken came back to me after it was over and said it was great, your players are dedicated, they know their, they know their equipment. There were two or three guys that are probably going to buy a set of irons from them and one of them being our national champ, joe Jaspers, is looking very hard at him right now.

Speaker 2: 9:58

Yeah, I mean me being a Shriksan iron guy. When I heard the news I got super excited, so can't wait to give you know, see what comes out of this, but also give their golf ball a try here in the near future.

Speaker 4: 10:12

Yeah, it's actually after the deal got done. I was surprised in my own tour I started looking in guys bags at the first couple of tournaments how many people were already playing Shriksan Irons or how many guys were putting on the putting your Shriksan balls. This will enhance the opportunity. There's going to be some play with that. You know we've already got Shriksan on the live leaderboard. We're going to try to do some things on like what's in your bag and if players are playing Shriksan then there'll probably be some award or prize if they win a tournament during the year or at least get some recognition and Shriksan may send them, you know, dozen balls or something. But we're going to work into a platform with with all their brains. But, like Tim said, we just kind of got to roll it out slowly at first.

Speaker 1: 11:02

All right, we're going to have Ken on later in the episode and for those listening, you're just hanging on because Ken has a, he's got a wealth of knowledge and he comes at at fittings pretty uniquely, but he's very successful and some of the things he's going to talk about, you know, with technology and the clubs and the ball that goes into it, it's. It's crazy how complicated it is, but how how good it makes these, these clubs, and then when you couple in with playing the ball, to how much better you're going to be.

Speaker 4: 11:32

Yeah, that's. I got that feedback a lot, especially the next day because he was there on Saturday. So day two at the four ball at barefoot we were at the die club and we had a nine o'clock shock and so a lot of guys were making money, including myself because I was playing in the event so I didn't have to, you know, do tee times all day. I was shocked and a lot of guys came up to me and said I've never heard the things that Ken was talking about, about a shaft, about impact, about club at angle, and I've been fitted a lot and I've never heard anyone talk like him.

Speaker 1: 12:06

It's insane. And then you know, with the technology of these clubs, if you get fitted and that suggests if, from now on, I think, if you're going to buy clubs, you need to be fitted, that doesn't matter whether you're, you know, a low handicapper or you know a D-flat player. If you want to get better and you're going to go spend, you're going to spend all this money on clubs. Just go ahead and get fitted and make sure your, your, your, the clubs are going to fit you and your swing. Especially, listen to what Ken says. It'll change your old perspective.

Speaker 4: 12:36

Yeah, I couldn't agree more. I mean, the last time I got fitted was probably five years ago. I'm sure all my stuff is not up to speed with the way my swing acts now, but I do remember the driver alone. I went through like 37 shafts before and they said this is the one to give you the maximum distance and the maximum forgiveness, right? So Tim speaks correctly 100%. If you're going to spend the money, you're going to spend the time. Spend the time. Get a custom fitter to help you get in the best, the best possible product in your hand. Well, it does.

Speaker 1: 13:26

This is really exciting and I can't wait to see how how it all plays out and the benefits that it's going to be for our players in the tour. So you know, as we head into you know April, because you know this is it's the last week of March, which I really can't believe. You know it's the years flying by. The years flying by, we've already had, I think, six golf week regionals and we just finished the third senior regional this past weekend. You know the Florida senior regional. What else is going on in the tour and any comments on the regionals have already happened and moving forward.

Speaker 4: 14:05

Yeah Well, I ran three of the regionals. I ran the icebreaker here at Hilton. We had Grayweather went great. Jeff Long defended his title for the third year. He just he choose Harvard Town up. He just doesn't make any mistakes on Harvard Town.

Speaker 4: 14:19

And then I went out to Paiute and you guys came with me. We had a great regional out there. We had a great time in Vegas and once again I'm over basically just to sell out again. And then recently at Atlantic Dunes and Heron I ran the senior regional which was sold out because we could only cap it at 92 guys with straight T times in darkness and Tim was there to do interviews. So it's really all the regionals. You know, currently the St Patty's Day, both of those are sold out Moving forward into April. Innesbrook is getting close and then Sequoia I think Scott's already got that sold out. So you know we're the regionals. If you, if you're looking at them, you need to not look, you need to commit. Pretty soon All my summer ones will be coming around the corner Fripp Sea Island and Keowa, and I know those are all sold out, probably by the end of April.

Speaker 1: 15:19

Yeah, let's just go back to the senior regional at C Pines. You've been doing that for how many, how many years have you been doing that regional, the four or five.

Speaker 4: 15:28

I think it's the fifth. Yeah, yeah, I think it was the fifth.

Speaker 1: 15:33

And this year the weather was so much better than it's ever been. The courses were in great shape, you know, to be able to. For guys to be able to play those courses in good weather and really get the benefit of playing on the courses, I thought was incredible.

Speaker 4: 15:51

Yeah, it was. And you know, tim, the the C Pines staff treats us just tremendously. They give us our own private stack on the range, they give us tents on number one and number 10 with drinks. You know, pin sheets, scorecards, rule sheets, I mean they just really bend over backwards to make it even better for the players.

Speaker 1: 16:14

Say that they do, they do.

Speaker 4: 16:16

You know again, the players, for once, didn't have to mutter through cold or wind or rain. It's amazing. I mean I run that Arboretown event in January every year. It always has better weather than that February event, but not this year. Thank you.

Speaker 1: 16:30

Yeah, yeah, and I'm not. I'm not even going to try and jinx it, but you know the the icebreaker, you know the golf week icebreaker. It's generally the first weekend in January. Um, weather was almost always nice. It may be a little cold, maybe a little bit windy, but the sunshine and the courses are in great shape. Uh, but I was, I was really impressed with the uh, the turnout for the senior icebreaker this year, especially because the weather you know when the guy's coming off this year is very different than has been in the past. Right yeah.

Speaker 1: 17:01

That's soaking wet and and and you and you got actual scorecards you can look at and and uh uh, verify there was a hole in one. You know it was a great story, you know, with the D flight champions coming back from uh uh, heart replacement surgery means just. I thought it was just a um great, great stories all the way around.

Speaker 4: 17:22

It was. We had sudden death, playoff and champ flight. Um so yeah, it was, it was great. I mean it worked out really well and, like you said, for once I mean I have some veterans and it played all five years and probably a month out. I was like, why haven't you signed up yet? And they were looking at that monthly forecast, weekly forecast, and I go, it is going to sell out and they're like, yeah, well, okay. So, but fortunately I got all my veterans that usually show up in and we had finally great weather for that amount.

Speaker 1: 17:56

Chris, I've been talking about the next uh regional that we're going to and right now we've already booked for the uh back to back weekends for the Great Lakes Regional and the Cajun Classic. So we're going to have both Michelle and Gina one here real soon. You know we've got others coming up. Uh Florida regional at at Innsbruck almost sold out. Scott's almost sold out, whereas Scott actually Scott thinks Scott is sold out.

Speaker 4: 18:21

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 18:23

And then also the Morrill Day at PGA West, and I would suggest you know, if, if you, if you've never been out to play PGA West, that should be one of your, one of your bucket list courses as well.

Speaker 4: 18:34

Yeah, I noticed from the amount of players that he has that there he is representing most of the country. He's got guys from everywhere going out there.

Speaker 1: 18:43

I, so I'd say we go out there too, but I, you know, I don't know that I could do. You know, three weeks, three weeks on the road, like that, and that's hard.

Speaker 4: 18:53

I'd have to get a few more sponsors too.

Speaker 1: 18:55

Yes, so, uh, but we're, but we're looking forward to that, but what else is going on? That, uh, everybody should know about.

Speaker 4: 19:03

Well, again, it's just mostly. We're getting to that time of the year, so everyone season officially. Once April gets here, most probably 95% of the tours will be starting. Some of the tours, believe it or not, including my own, we'll already have had our six or seven tournament. So you know things are getting in line. We'll make announcements soon on the courses for nationals and you know what, what we have in mind and in store. The good news is, uh, the tricks on. I'll be there for basically all seven days. They'll be there for three or four of the golf week days and then the senior they'll be there two or three days. All custom fitting will have multiple, multiple fitters there, multiple reps there, all the possible equipment you can put in your hands shafts, everything. So it'll it'll really enhance the experience of nationals this year.

Speaker 1: 19:56

Yeah, I'm looking forward to that. Go, I do have one. One other quick thing for you. I've been over when you and Jennifer are shipping out to all the goodie bag stuff. How, how is that going, cause it's the end of the month. So if, remember guys, if, if you haven't used your coupon and you register for the tour in November or December, you only have a couple more days to redeem those codes and get your, get your goodie bags. So how's the shipping going at the? It's good I got.

Speaker 4: 20:25

I got probably another hundred in my car right now, so the post office knows me very well. So, uh, it's great. Jennifer does a tremendous job on it. She stays right on top. We probably already shipped out a couple of thousand units, um, and obviously we try to do 50 or under the day so we don't get overwhelmed. Sometimes you can't do that and we'll do two hundred and one day and take a couple of days off. But it's incredible. I mean my the under the underside of my house. As you know, it's a warehouse, right, full blown warehouse. It is what it is. Yeah, I'm not going to pay a fulfillment company to the cost. Go to the players If I do that. So I tape boxes and tape them up and ship them out.

Speaker 1: 21:09

Well it's. It's funny you say 50 to 100 because you don't, you don't want to get overwhelmed. That number right there, 50 to me would would my head would explode. But you got to get a packet up and put the invoice in there. Make sure you got the right label on it. It's a good thing you and Jennifer are are are detail oriented and squared away with that, because if it were me doing it, forget it Nobody would get anything that they want to.

Speaker 4: 21:31

Yeah, We've been working side by side now for 30 years, so it's it's pretty crazy. But yeah, the guys at the post office, I know every one of them now and I don't buy up their line. What I do is I bring them in these large garbage bags and I literally just they see me coming and they open this like side door and I just slide them in and say, okay, Charlie, I'll see you tomorrow. So we got it down. We got it down.

Speaker 1: 21:56

Oh my God, it's like golf week claws. Yeah, yeah, I haven't even asked them.

Speaker 4: 22:16

I need to probably ask them if any I'm play golf and bring them some gear, you know so yeah, there you go. It's, it's, it's, it is what it is. It's. We enjoy doing it. Hell, if nothing else, it gets me out of my office, right. So you know, other than running tournaments is pretty much where I live.

Speaker 1: 22:36

That's it what, dennis. Thank you so much. It's. You know I know the players, you know they, they, they listen to me and Chris, but they really want to hear from you. So it's good to get you on and hopefully that you know they're, they're. The players are excited, as I am about to the Shrix on deal and and was coming down the line. But again, thanks so much for taking some time with us today and I guess get off the phone and go ship some boxes.

Speaker 4: 23:01

Yeah, absolutely, and also the local directors. Your local tour directors should be sending some emails out announcing it as well. So we'll be. We'll be updating through your local tour director as well, so watch for those emails that you always get.

Speaker 2: 23:17

And read them please. We've talked about this before on the podcast. Read your emails.

Speaker 4: 23:22

Chris, yours was one of the best I ever saw. When you put that little, it was like a dog or something and it said read below, read. Thinking about it was great, that was a creative idea.

Speaker 2: 23:35

You got to be creative with those things. Yes, that is correct.

Speaker 1: 23:40

All right, bud. Thanks so much again. Take care, and we'll talk to you soon.

Speaker 4: 23:43

All right, thanks guys.

Speaker 1: 23:45

You know, chris Dennis only comes on on the show, you know, two, maybe three times a year he's like Santa. Yeah, well, he is, especially when he goes to the post office. Right, that's true. I know he's been waiting to come on and announce this sponsorship with Strixlion and Dunlop and everything that's gonna be involved in this. All I can say is, once again, once this thing gets gets rolling, it's gonna be a game changer for the tour, and when I say that I really mean for our players.

Speaker 2: 24:20

Right, right, it's bringing everything to a whole nother level. I'm excited, you know you and me have talked about it, but as a director and as a player I'm I can't wait to see what comes out. Luckily, as directors we kind of get to see it beforehand, because then we have to announce the tour tours. So I might be a little more excited than the rest, but I just I mean, this year has just evolved like crazy for both tours and can't wait to see where it goes from here.

Speaker 1: 24:50

Yes, it's gonna be great. We're gonna go from Dennis and him announcing sponsorship to Ken Roman, who is a club fitter for Strixlion. You know he's based out of Murdoch Beach and he'll get into his story when he does here in a second. For those players that have never been fitted for clubs you know I mentioned this when we talked to Dennis I'm of the belief that at this stage is, if you're gonna spend money to buy clubs, take the extra time and get fitted, because it's really a game changer.

Speaker 2: 25:26

Right, right it is. You know from personal experience it changed my game from night to day. If it's something that you're even on the fence of or you're considering, definitely find one number one. Find a fitter that you can trust, right? Not just someone you know from PGA store Dick Sporting Goods. You know a guy that's good there to sell you clubs so I wonder you can trust. But, like Ken's gonna mention you know in his interview, somebody that's gonna have a pre-fitting interview with you to see what you want, because ultimately, you know what you get fitted into is what you're gonna use for the foreseeable future.

Speaker 2: 26:04

And you don't want to get fitted to something that's not gonna work out and then you hate the game more than you start enjoying it. Exactly, I mean, I could just see getting fit into the wrong clubs and just hate in every round. And you know, you just spent so much money on getting these new clubs that you thought were fit towards you and it was just a guy trying to sell to get his extra bonus. So you know if you're on the fence. I would suggest take the time, listen to this interview because it may open some eyes and I'm pretty sure if you're on the West Coast, I'm pretty sure we could help find a good fitter for you. I'm pretty sure Ken knows a lot of other fitters across the country.

Speaker 1: 26:41

So, again, you know Ken's gonna tell a story and you should listen, because he goes about the fitting process differently than anybody else I've ever seen or heard, Right, and he comes at it from a research and data perspective and what he says makes a ton of sense. So, okay, let's welcome our next guest, and this is a guy we've been waiting to have for a long time. Christian and I have been waiting on this for a while Ken Roman from Strixon. Ken, welcome to the show. Well, thanks for having me out. You know we talked a little bit offline and we've been waiting for this announcement for a while and I'm really excited, you know, for the whole partnership, but also, you know, I've seen some of the other things that you've done and just really excited to talk to you about. You know your whole philosophy when club fitting. Well, I want you to tell our listeners. You know what your role is with Strixon.

Speaker 5: 27:36

Well, I'm a territory manager for Strixon Cleveland golf and essentially I handle from, I think, hilton Head to north of Wilmington area. I have a unique role with the company where I strictly are handling hard goods, so woods and irons and budges and all that stuff. My specialty is in fitting and customize and golf equipment and that's been my role with the company. I've been with this company for almost five years.

Speaker 1: 28:06

How long have you been a club fitter? I know you were in the golf industry in the 90s, stepped away and came back.

Speaker 5: 28:14

Yeah, I was in the. I actually, you know, I went to the golf academy of America, which was golf academy South. Back then I jumped right into equipment I was doing, you know, club or fair building and also like custom fitting, and this was in the early 90s 96 area, just before it's higher, blew everything up and you know, obviously we didn't have advances back then.

Speaker 5: 28:38

You know we had to kind of work with what we had and you know we'd have a watch modders and we certainly didn't know what we know now. And I left the golf industry. I want to say was around 2001. And I came back in 2016. You know, when I came back I decided that you know, I really wanted to work with equipment again and I really enjoy working with. But even throughout those years when I wasn't in the industry, I still it tore Vansile setup in my garage. I work on club all the time. I'm constantly tinkering and playing and so forth, and I've enjoyed the advancements in technology, especially over the last 10, 15 years. So when I got back in I just decided I wanted to try and do things a little differently.

Speaker 1: 29:22

Yeah, you talk about the advancements. You know you can buy launch monitors now for relatively cheap and guys have their own. You know, obviously they're not the same quality as Trackman or some of those other things, but even just having some of that information is really beneficial.

Speaker 5: 29:38

I remember the first launch monitor that, like I even heard about and was like shout to me and it was in. It was Titleist, they had it. It was a building. I mean it looked like a large shed, I mean it was substantially large, I think it was like Rhode Island Country Club or something, and the information was pretty permanent, obviously. But I mean, yeah, it's amazing. Now, right, you know, for 500 bucks you could buy, you know, a launch monitor as an individual and actually play golf on it, simulated golf. And I just recently seen the new, you know, the Apple vision and what's coming.

Speaker 1: 30:12

Oh gosh yeah.

Speaker 5: 30:15

That's going to be a whole. That's going to start a whole another thing, and that's pretty neat.

Speaker 1: 30:21

So is there any data you know when these launch monitors and again they come up with new data all the time. Is there any data that you think is just we don't need, it's just too much.

Speaker 5: 30:32

Well, in all honesty, there's an enormous amount of information that's being provided. So when you look at a launch monitor, you know you want to break it down. There's two real big key pieces of information that's being provided. There's a ball information, so how the ball is flying, and then also the club information, and usually you have to get into the more of the higher end units to find out. So the radar is watching the club had come through impact. You know, think, waist high through waist high through impact area. So you know, and that information is a whole separate entity itself.

Speaker 5: 31:04

The one danger is launch monitors. I watched a very good player this is a, you know, a mini tour player. You know go up by the dry range and he was warming up and hitting it very solid and he puts the launch monitor on and he wanted to compare his to my track being real quick and I was fitting some folks I'm watch this guy for like go from hitting the ball very solidly to really poorly to be totally frustrated by time he left just because he was sitting there trying to, you know, make the numbers all add up and be perfect. You know, to be honest with you, I mean it's tech plus I be. I mean golf is out. It's a perfect game. All our bodies are different. You know we're not going to all zero out to it. You know our swing direction is zero. We're not going to all have a perfect launch, but you know what we can do is try and optimize things for us as much as possible. So I think we should try and avoid, in all cases with golf, trying to be perfect and just trying the best that we can be or trying being the best with it. Right, yeah, it's interesting that when you see launch wire information and how it's used and what's important, so I mean kind of getting back to your question, I mean what the everyday customer should look at some base things real quick.

Speaker 5: 32:18

So if we're looking at a driver, you know, we like to know. I think three big numbers that we look at would be the spin of the golf ball, the launch of the golf ball and the attack angle. And you know also obviously look at ball speed for optimization. You know how solidly you're hitting it. But those three, those three things right there the spin, the launch and the attack angle are really going to guide you where you're going to go If you have a negative attack angle to your driver, then you're going to need a whole set of different set of primers, and someone has a positive attack angle or even a neutral attack angle, and then with an iron, you know you're still looking at those exact same three things.

Speaker 5: 33:03

And you know the biggest thing we're looking at like the, for example, the vertical launch is the high of the golf ball coming off the base. I mean, like I tell folks, the easiest thing to look at if you're hitting a seven iron and you're seven iron waffles, just say, for example, is 30 degrees. You know you want to be roughly about half of that for coming off the face, so you'd be looking at 15 or 16 degrees. And then you know you're looking at the spin in the launch. Then the thing is, though, where it gets complicated is, as the clubhead speed changes, those numbers to be optimal will change. If you have a slower clubhead speed, then you're going to need that wash numbers going to need to be higher. That spin is going to also probably going to need to be higher, you know. And then, as the speed could go the other way, so if you're a higher swing speed player, you know now you might need to actually mitigate the spin and actually bring down the launch or vice versa.

Speaker 5: 33:54

But you know, the window does change. I mean, it's unfortunately the information that's out there is plentiful. But one good thing I will say Trackman does provide, you know, some there's a lot of free education. Also, too, I like to give kudos to Ping, just because I know they're a competitor, but they have done some fantastic research and they make the information available to the general public, which I think is important. They have a great chart for checking. You know what your driver optimal should be in relation to your attacking, at least in the customer can just like have a guideline before.

Speaker 5: 34:33

Like you're going to go fit, get fit. What I'm always trying to do is a big thing I'm trying to accomplish. I want someone to go out and play better and enjoy the game more and be happy to play. Obviously, the biggest thing that most folks do when they get fit is like they'll they might go out and play and then like they're not getting the same results that they got when they were fit. So you know, what we try and do is make sure that we're recreating the situation that they would come across, and so I like to definitely tell you this that if you're going to go, when you go get fit, we definitely do. That's how I do it If we want to make sure that we baseline first and you know you're using your own driver first to get started with and see what's really happened.

Speaker 2: 35:15

Yeah, I was going to ask, when you do your fittings, what do you prefer or what do you recommend off turf or off a mat, because I've seen fittings on both, and just curious on your perspective on that.

Speaker 5: 35:27

Definitely. You know real turf is better, is best. You know the mat you get bouncing to ball. I'm going to tell you like, with today's mats, there are some mats that are like they're pretty amazing and and, frankly, the audible sound like I I've done this a long enough where I could tell like if it was fat or heavy. But I mean ideal conditions and you can't always do this. Ideal conditions are turf outdoors, seeing the ball flying. You know weather conditions being relatively dry and clean In the sense of you know it's it's not overly wet, it's not overly extremely windy in one direction or the other.

Speaker 2: 36:05

Yeah, because that was one of my main things when I originally got fit was I wanted to make sure it was on turf and he used a track man and I mean we talked about this before we got in the interview, but it was basically I went in with an open mind. I was Callaway through and through for the first, probably seven years of my golf career. Don't ask me why, I don't know. It was just they were the popular brand at the time, so I'll go with them.

Speaker 2: 36:30

But getting fit, in my opinion, allowed me to get the best clubs. For, like you said, you know my swing, you know my arms, this and that. But it was a matter of OK, hit your driver first to see how that looks and then we'll adjust from there. Let's hit your seven iron, See how that looks, and we'll just from there. And luckily I, you know I picked tricks on from my irons which, like we talked about, I went from a 17 handicap before I got fitted to about nine or 10 now. So it did work for me and it's been great.

Speaker 2: 37:04

Tim's kind of seen my, my advancement, but it's a putting that's killing.

Speaker 1: 37:13

Yeah, we'll talk about putter fit here in a little bit.

Speaker 5: 37:18

Yeah, it's really important to get fit and just because everyone's body is a little different, everyone's going to swing a little different and get to that a little bit here tonight.

Speaker 5: 37:27

But, yeah, getting fit, optimizing it there's just so much technology out there, but when you actually do get fit, the results will be substantially better. And, frankly, I think there's two big keys to a fitting that should happen every single time and no matter how often you get fit, there should be an interview beforehand. There should be a conversation of, like, what you're trying to accomplish, what are your actual goals. My big thing is I really try and talk to the player beforehand, find out what they're actually trying to accomplish, try and get their feedback to what the real issue is and then use their equipment to set up a baseline, because everyone has preconceived notions of what's really going on and it's just, it's really good to compare the numbers apples, apples, the turf interaction, apples, apples that same ball, that same day instead of your speculation of what you actually do. It's just a lot. You're going to get a much better result.

Speaker 1: 38:22

I've seen you talk before about a case study that you did in terms of how our body reacts to clubs and really how quickly we react to a club. Tell me a little bit more about that.

Speaker 5: 38:36

Yeah, I did. When I got back into the golf industry I wanted to go about fitting in a different way. Everyone was still like taking all this information and I felt like we were still doing it kind of like we're just hit this and a lot of people are fitting to just ball flight, and I felt like there was just some more scientific approach that needed me to take in. So I did a case study. It took me a little over two years. There's nine owner golfers and I was lucky enough to have some tour pros in there, some PGA, lpga actual one of those players I'm living now. But first thing I want to find out is how quickly you react to the golf club. So, for example, if I change the length of the club, the line of the club, the balance there's multiple things how quickly do we react? And the reality is tour pro to 30 handicap it's four to six swing it's very quick. And I was really shocked because I was like, wow, that's quick and I really, when I peel back the only look at it. Imagine us just throwing a ball back and forth. Right, we do a lot of those things subconsciously. Sure, in the golf swing, we have swing thoughts, but we're collecting the golf ball, we do a lot of things subconsciously so, for example, the club's not coming through impact clean, the toe isn't high or the heel is low, so forth, like there's a lot of different things that what we will actually do is compensate. And then, kind of, the next thing I wanted to see was okay, once I found out I was like what makes one person swing shallow, one person swings deep. So he really came down to leg length, torso length, arm length, and I was using cameras that had we were able to digitally measure. So we were digitally measuring different lengths and so forth, how the clubs are coming through impacts. It started getting really, really in depth. I really kind of, once I started looking at it and seeing things in action, I started kind of put together the theory of how to fit with this information and I put it into action. But the neat thing was so, for example, I'm six foot tall, but I have short legs, I have a long torso, I have about standard arms. I'm always going to predicate to be a little shallow. That's just the way my body will always be. My spine is kind of set low to the ground, so that's just how it's going to, your body is going to turn and there's other factors of it in this whole thing. But I'm going to tell you that that base information is huge. It's making a big part.

Speaker 5: 41:09

I watch folks that I've been working with instructors. I had a guy come out to me and he had been working with a very expensive instructor, very good instructor. He was trying to shallow his plane out. For about six months at $150 a lesson, they had only achieved like a couple degrees of shallowing and in six minutes I got him five degrees and I didn't say anything to him about a swing I know we'll talk to someone about their swing I accomplished what he was trying to do, what it was. I set the club up to give him the ability to do that. The reason why he was so steep was because he was adapting to the golf flow, because he was coming through him back. The toe was high but he had to swing left. So and it's the vice versa Someone has very, I think, good examples of Fred Cubbles.

Speaker 5: 41:57

I think he was interesting because I got to see him play in person when I was younger. He has really long legs, he has a really short torso, his arm, like this, is kind of mid and if you look at his swing it's like a kind of a homemade swing and so forth. But essentially it was a compensation to be able to swing at just a standard golf club that he could buy off the rack. And the reality is he was always going to predicate to be steep and always predicate to have the golf club swing to the left after impact. So he kind of made a swing that did that. And Portialli, he was extremely gifted individual and made an unbelievable career out of it.

Speaker 5: 42:39

But most of us what I see a lot is most folks get into golf. They get a little bit better. They get down into, let's just say, the 10 to 15 handicap range and this is really the danger zone from where I see folks get extremely frustrated and liquid. And really the whole reason why I came up with this was I was seeing these people. They were throwing money at this or trying their buying equipment and they weren't getting any better. So there had to be a better way. And when I was able to peel back the onion and look at it, I've been doing this now since. So I've been fully inactive on this, been doing this since 2017. I mean, I've fit thousands of golfers.

Speaker 5: 43:21

Last year I tried to figure out how many outliers we would have. So, for example, if we have fit 10 people, how many of the 10 would fit into this system? It got to the point where there were so many that fit into it Last year I only had three total outliers, three people that did not that this system did not make a benefit to. So you figure I probably fit. I can't count. I guess it's a lot, but it was probably north of a thousand people I fit, at least just last year, and usually the people that are outliers that the system doesn't work for are usually someone that had started the game when they were very young, they had compensated for the golf club and that is.

Speaker 5: 44:04

It's just ingrained and there's no kind of no point in fighting them.

Speaker 5: 44:07

Like especially the player that I was thinking of right now in my mind, if he had been playing golf for 50 years and there was no. But he was funny because I explained to him the system and showed it to him and all that stuff, and he's like, man, I wish I had you 40 years ago and I was like, yeah, it would have been a little different thing, but yeah, it's so. It's something that I've proven. I've seen the results and my biggest thing that I love is the feedback I get from golfers that I worked with that you know, reaching out to me and tell me the consistency that they're achieving from it and how much more fun they're playing and have playing golf, and how much easier it is when the clubs are, when the club is set up properly to your body. It just makes it like, listen, golf's a hard team. You're going to go out, you're going to have bad days and good days, but it makes those bad days not so bad. It makes the good days that you all a bit better.

Speaker 1: 45:03

Yeah, that just shows you how amazing the brain is, that it can compensate that quickly. You know and again, like you said, when throwing a baseball we don't even think about that that our brain is making those compensations. But you know, with the complexity of the golf swing, all those moving parts, it's amazing.

Speaker 5: 45:23

It really is. I actually got to talk to this neurologist and this conversation was the conversation that gave me the idea. I actually haven't told anybody this, but he talked to me and he goes. Oh, we were talking about how quickly the mind and body react. He explained to me he goes. You ever driven down the road and all of a sudden you're like whoa? You didn't even realize where you were. You were on the phone, you were doing something else or you were certainly thinking about something else. Your body was literally driving the car just through your reaction period. You've done it so many times and it's amazing. Good example too if someone threw something at you at a very high rate of speed, you just react to it. There's no thought process that, just your brain does it. The body's amazing. It's an ease of equipment. It's also a complex piece of equipment as well.

Speaker 1: 46:22

I wonder if Freddie Couples had used your fitting system when he was younger, how much better he would have been, because he was really pretty good.

Speaker 5: 46:35

Yeah, he was one of the best out there and it would be interesting, I guess. Obviously we'll never know. I could tell you that his golf swing would look a little different than it does, and not that his swing looks heavy. There's a lot of people that say, well, I love to have Freddie Couples swing in tempo, the way he takes the club back, where the club picks up and he has to use a lot. He saves it with a lot of shoulder churn and then he drops it in and is able to with his leg length. He's just not really ever going to be able to get that club, that the kind of really shallow, super shallow out. He gets a club, that kind of swing left and he made a very repeatable action.

Speaker 1: 47:18

When people come and get fitted with you and I'm just guessing my guess is the high handicappers will be the ones that, because they have the largest margin of error, we'll see probably the biggest improvement.

Speaker 5: 47:33

In some cases yes and in some cases no.

Speaker 5: 47:38

It's strange because it depends about how well the equipment like the better player, how well the equipment was, was fit to them or, you know, are. It's very common. I will say, though, like I think that honey hole golfer, that that 15 to 20 will seem enormous, like an jaw dropping, you know, like holy cow, like what was I doing before. But then when I will say, like what, like the funnest, some of the funnest golfers that work out with that 10 to 15, they're trying to drop in that single digit, right, and you know they've learned to kind of swing from the inside, you know they've had some instruction, and so when you're able to kind of unharvest some of that for them, to where they're able to accomplish the things that they've been trying to do and they're able to do it subconsciously, where they're not like working so hard and thinking so hard, instead of playing swing, they're just able to kind of play golf, seeing those results are a lot of fun too. Right, it's the really low single digit handicappers are. We're all pre-medias and I can see that.

Speaker 5: 48:52

I'm not waste, sorry.

Speaker 1: 48:54

But again, I'm kind of an analytical person. I kind of mentioned the story about you know when you know back in early 2000s, 2001, 2002, you know going through kind of a similar process and set up you know measuring feet, width, distance from the ball. You know per club where that ball would be. You know in the stance, you know again for each club, for each different type of shot. My guess is that pretty much outside of you most people probably aren't really in using the right clubs for themselves anyway.

Speaker 5: 49:31

Yeah, I mean I've heard of people that I've run into some fitters that are very few and far between that are using a system that is similar to mine or like using that same kind of thought process. But I mean, most unfortunately, what I've seen, most folks like you know, you're just, you know, kind of walking in and again they're kind of hampering on more of that ball flight. In my opinion. In my opinion is, you know, I'm more of a physics guy, so if reaction has a reaction and if we're watching the ball fly, well that is just a reaction of the club make contact with the ball, and then they say, okay, well, we swung the club with the way we swung the club was the action or the reaction of how the club was set up. So it's kind of getting to the heart Absolutely.

Speaker 5: 50:17

And also too, I mean, today's shaft technology is advanced. I mean it seems now that, especially with the Reboom and Golf, that we have now some tools and things that we didn't have in the arsenal years ago. I mean we used to. It was funny, you know, even 10 or 15 years ago we would have to give something to get something. Like if we wanted someone to have a stable driver shaft, we would have to be super heavy and super stiff and super rigid and low launching, and today that's not the case at all. I mean, today we.

Speaker 5: 50:52

It's amazing the products that have been brought in, and you know I worked a little bit in the marine industry so I got to see what the matter fabrics like there's stuff that's still available and it's just like it's cost aspect that if it makes its way into the golf industry, will continue to expand it. And I've seen some products, that some of there's some stuff in Japan that's started to work its way over into the US where they're using titanium, nylon and things like that, and they're still a long way to go. And you know there's a lot of conversation too with the ball rollback. Is that going to happen? All that and I could tell you, working for an OEM, and especially one that we make golf balls the biggest thing that all OEMs are working out right now is their biggest concern is the impact of the everyday golfer and I think that if there is a rollback, which is still a question mark the R&D that goes into this equipment and how it's made and so forth, it's extremely impressive.

Speaker 5: 51:58

I think some folks they hear oh my God, I have drivers $600. And why was that shaft 300 bucks? And if you look at, really, what goes into making the products I mean it's the crafts I ship and also to the materials that are being used, the practice that are being used to assemble the product and the consistency of it and so forth, it's amazing. I mean, it's stuff that you would find in, frankly, in the aerospace industry at this point.

Speaker 1: 52:27

Yeah, and I just you take clubs away for a second. Just the difference in the golf ball between now and 15 years ago, oh yeah, I mean, I mean it's not even close. You know, pro-v1 now is not even close to a Pro-V1 15 years ago.

Speaker 5: 52:43

No, no, and you know the solid core and then you know the biggest advancement to a lot of people realize that it is the big thing, that the big fight is over the dimple, the aerodynamics of the dimples, and patents, and you know sorts on. They have more golf ball patents than all the other golf ball companies combined. So I mean that we're all by the same boat of rubber industries.

Speaker 5: 53:12

I mean we are some people think, if you want to think it back, but we were, you know, done love sports America's. We used to make the match fly ball back in the 90s when it was the number one golf ball in the world. It was played by Jack Nicholas. I mean you know that unfortunately, a brand name was sold off and so forth, but yeah, we made that product and then when they decided to break back into that industry and started SRI sports and you know, Strixxile became a brand, they took that same practices to the balls that we have now, which is, you know, they look for excellence. So it's amazing.

Speaker 2: 53:47

Now you do bring up, you know, golf balls. Do you do golf ball fittings or you just strictly stick to the equipment?

Speaker 5: 53:54

Yeah, I do golf ball. You know, in reality, if I get a fitting, if I work with someone on irons or woods, I'm going to be able to make a golf ball recommendation. I'll be able to make a very specific recommendation, Like it won't be close, it'll be. That would be the right ball, at least for us, obviously our products. But yeah, just because I know I've worked with our balls so intensively, it's I know exactly how it's going to react under the conditions that I could create for it. So here's the reality.

Speaker 5: 54:25

I tell people this so they think I might be a little arrogant or whatever, but it is what it is. When I have my track band and I have all of my fitting equipment that's in front of me, I truly have more control over the golf ball than you do. I also had the ability to you know, control all the clubs coming through, impact and all that stuff. So I have a vast control over the situation. It really gives me the ability to not only be able to make a recommendation but know that it's going to be tested and true and it's got to work Right. We'll try to get our like a proven results, so to say Okay.

Speaker 2: 55:04

So I may have to ask you golf balls after we get done with this podcast, okay.

Speaker 1: 55:10

Well, Chris, I think you need to fly out here and get a proper fit.

Speaker 5: 55:13

Yeah, definitely Come on down the Myrtle Beach.

Speaker 2: 55:17

Yeah, we can definitely make that work.

Speaker 5: 55:18

Yeah, it's fun being in the golf capital of the world. I will say that.

Speaker 1: 55:25

So this question I've had for forever and then nobody has ever really been able to answer it. You know, when we look at irons, who are always looking at you know, is it, is it upper edges, is it flat, whatever we can be and we can really play with that, right, sure, but we can't really do that with drivers. So what's the compensation that we make when we build the driver, if the shaft is the same, for if the shaft angle is the same for everybody?

Speaker 5: 55:50

Actually the shaft angle is not the same. So kind of to clarify that. So we offer. So we have three different heads with shirts on, with our shirts on brand, with ZX7, 5 and 5 LS. All three of those are at 59 degree lying on. Then we have the ability to go in increments of one degree but as much as two degrees flat. So then, you know, you're able to go down to 57 degrees. And then in the Cleveland line we have two driver head models, a XL2, an XL2 draw, and both of those are set at a 60 degree angle and they also have the ability to go a couple degrees flat.

Speaker 5: 56:33

Now why they're not made to be barber. So there was a big trend for a long time where drivers were, you know, being made more upright to the anti-slice steel. But also two drivers have gotten so much longer. I mean, a driver used to be 43 and a half inches, you know now it's at the. You know almost all the OEMs are because of the way the grips are, they have a little different put caps and so forth. We're going 45 and three quarter inches and that guarantees that we're under the 46 inch requirement by the USA. So that length, think, as we've added that length on these clubs get more upright. You make a club longer, it's more upright. But also to another control I have is so if you look at the shaft and you take the three parts of the shaft the tip, body and butt as the club's coming through impact, the shaft is deflected forwards and the tip is dropping down, so that changes the line a little bit off the club as well. Also, the, if you go up to the butt of the shaft a lot of people will realize this and when I was doing my case study I really saw this. I learned a lot about shafts and how much they flex and the butt of the shaft is actually the feel I love when people grab a club and they just go up and they waggle it real quick and like, oh man, this thing's a telephone pole and the thing would be like a Tor X, you know, and the feel of the shaft is in the butt. You really don't ultimately feel the mid point of the shaft and you don't feel the tip ultimately, I mean at impact. Yes, you feel those things but when you were swinging the golf club, the load and everything is done in the butt section, shaft, however, that area just below the grip shaft.

Speaker 5: 58:13

Companies play around with that and they either add or subtract flexibility, depending upon what player they're trying to make the product for. I'll throw an example out there. There's a product we use, a shaft called the Ascent. It's made my Alboa and they use a piece of tungsten that is about one third up on the tip of the shaft. So what they're trying to do with that product is create stability but without losing launch. So they're using this four inch piece of tungsten that's about one third up. So instead of making the tip really stiff to create stability, they know that that shaft is dropping down and deflecting forward. So what they did was they created an area of stability that was a little higher and that shaft will still maintain a nice file launch but give you stability. That would not be found in a product Again until that product came out it was a very unique piece. Another example graphite design. When they came out with the IZ, they started really changing the taper in the shaft. So they have a fast taper design and that fast taper design creates what we call a whip rack.

Speaker 5: 59:26

If you watch some of those products come through impact and if you're looking as a whole. So that impact where the hands are and where the clubhead are and how the shaft is dropping or tip dropping or drooping, so to say, all those things like bring different aspects to the table. So there is a lot of things we can do. Also to the weight If a driver is a little bit lighter and have less tip drop if it's a little bit heavier, there's a lot of things we can do to make. Getting back to your original question, sorry I long winded on this one. Getting back to your original question, but you can or you have the ability to use y-angle. But then also to the shaft profile, the weighting of the head, there's the multitude of things that you can do to change or make the club come through impact clean, even though it's a driver. So I was saying not to tire, that you could just change the y-angle on.

Speaker 1: 1:00:15

Because to me, in the past you had the adjustable heads, but it's not really change. I mean you're just twisting the head, You're not really. It's a cone.

Speaker 5: 1:00:25

So you are changing the y-angle, the other, but on ours it's that way. On the other brands I mean R-Creeblon 1, it gives you a loft change and then on the other side it gives you a flat change. Some of the other R competitors have either similar to that or when they go up and loft it'll change it to a little bit flatter or vice versa more. But yeah, most again, a lot of the stuff they keep little, somewhat hidden because they're afraid that the consumer can get dangerous with it. Biggest mistake that a lot of folks make is, especially with the length of drivers today being as long as they are. If you start making the driver more upright and you're trying to stop slicing it, and if the club is not coming through clean, then you are going to compensate for that. The club is going to have to swing left and there's going to be some things that you have to do. You have to hold on with both hands and you got what I call the steering wheel effect. That steering wheel effect is a real deal.

Speaker 5: 1:01:31

I watch people's club at speed jump up when you're able to, kind of when I call removing the two hands off. So I will Removing them when the club is coming through impact clean and you have the player where they could just swing free, just let one go and they're not worrying about right or left Ball just flies. It has a ball flight like draw or fade, but it's like controllable, like they're not sitting there going wishing it went straight or holding on for dear life. You know I've done a lot with speed training. I learned a lot about you know the level of intent and how, like if you swing two hands of the steering wheel all the time or swinging kind of slow and trying to steer, you're telling your body to swing that slow and you're you will slow down.

Speaker 5: 1:02:13

Your club at speed will come down and you swing free and you're able to swing at the golf club and swing faster and have the ball go straighter. Your club at speed will go up and you'll also be able to swing harder and that actually tells your muscles to swing faster. It's also another unique thing about the body, sasha McKenzie. He's done some amazing things. The stack I personally use that myself. I didn't get paid to plug it or anything. I could tell you that I had an injury and I lost some speed. I just think that was one of the most amazing and most innovative products ever offered in golf, next to the modern day launch monitor.

Speaker 1: 1:02:52

So I'm a steerer. I'm just telling you that when I play I'm a steerer. You know, I sweet, I sweet. It called like six times and my hands are so sore and tired. You know, my, my, my shoulders hurt so but I'm a steerer.

Speaker 5: 1:03:06

Yeah, and again that you're doing that because you know when you come through, impact right, it just it doesn't want to. Clubs are not clean. There's something going on there that's not being square and not disallow. You should be able to swing free and hit a relatively straight shot All right, chris, and you can start getting getting on me on that.

Speaker 1: 1:03:24

If I'm I'm still getting on your on your potting.

Speaker 2: 1:03:26

I just gave you some, some ammo.

Speaker 1: 1:03:30

So, ken, how can, how can guys set up an appointment with him?

Speaker 5: 1:03:34

One way I could, I could recommend is is folks DMV on Instagram. So it's, it's, it's my name, it's K and then it's. The last name is Roman R O H L M A N, the number 74. And if they could just send me a direct message on on Instagram, I'll respond back and then also to I'll be able to let you know either set up a fitting, a personal, the process of setting up a personalized fitting, or one of the fitting events, if you'd like scheduling an appointment at one of the fitting events that we have. Like this time of the year, we have fitting events, you know, four or five days a week. This from March, april, may and then part of June. We stay very consistent here and I do events from all over Charleston, all the way up to north of Wilmington.

Speaker 5: 1:04:31

I have a gentleman that I have actually trained my fitting system, danny Bartlett. He's down in Hilton Head. You know we've been working together for about a year and a half. Am and I met each other at a fitting event years ago and he just we were just sitting there talking one day and he's like man, I want to learn how to, how to do this, how do I do it? And I said well, you get to come work for me. I was that sound, so he's doing a great job and he's he's really learned how to apply it and and under understand the concept and and using it and applying it and providing a good result.

Speaker 1: 1:05:03

That's awesome. Can I can I appreciate you spending some time with us tonight and hopefully we can have you one again as as the season goes on.

Speaker 5: 1:05:12

Yeah, definitely love to do that. I'd really enjoy talking to you guys and, you know, looking forward to hopefully, maybe one day working with you in person so that that'd be great.

Speaker 1: 1:05:21

Okay, all right, bud Take care, tim.

Speaker 2: 1:05:24

What a great interview with Ken. You know, when we scheduled him I told you how excited I was to speak with him. I don't know what it is about getting fitted with clubs and the technology that they use behind it and the statistics and been rate and club speed and club angle things that I never thought of and they use that to figure out what club is best for you Just fascinates me and it was just great to be able to talk to him about it and kind of get what his perspective is and how he does that.

Speaker 1: 1:05:54

Yeah, and so we just heard the first half of the interview. We'll play second half of the next episode and you know, when you talk about the technology you know I mentioned in here, I'd like to be in the room. You know where the engineer comes in and says you know what I've been thinking about this let's use locomotive steel springs, right, right, I think that'll be a good idea. And it's actually a good idea, right.

Speaker 1: 1:06:20

You know that takes a different mindset to think about things. When you talk about being creative, a lot of times we talk about content creators and how like Nicole, how creative Nicole is with what she does with all the social media stuff. Right, you don't even think about that stuff in terms of engineering, but that's exactly what you have to be. You have to be creative to find new ways to improve on technology, and now, apparently, we're using locomotive steel springs.

Speaker 2: 1:06:51

Right, right, it's going to be nonstop and who knows where the club industry or the ball industry, especially with the rollbacks and things like that, where that innovation and imagination that some of these people have is going to come into play. And I mean, just you know the study that he went through, years of information collecting and the results he came up with. Just just it's crazy, it's mind blowing.

Speaker 1: 1:07:20

So, like like I said before the interview, it's things that nobody else is doing or thinking about it, but obviously it works Right and obviously it's producing better results than than at least from my perspective than standard fitting. That's being done.

Speaker 2: 1:07:35

Oh, I completely agree. I will speak to having a good fitter to anybody that asks me, because I've been through the process. I think mine, you know I got fitted for the whole bag we took. I think it was two hour sessions for two days, wow. And one day was just irons and then the next day was driver woods, hybrids and putter and he's like, because you're going to swing so many irons right now, I don't need you tired. When we get to the drivers we're going to rest and come back. You know, rest a day and then come back and we're going to have a perfect not perfect, but a good fitting for the rest of the clubs. You know, not all the fitters will take the time to get you in the right stuff.

Speaker 1: 1:08:16

Yeah, you're right, like like I said earlier, I mean it's a lot, a lot of times it's you know, it's. It may be a you know, pj certified pro and a certified club fitter, but ultimately they're they're trying to sell you clubs, right, right, you know, ken's approach is not selling you clubs. It's trying to figure out what's going to be best for you and fit your body type and your swing.

Speaker 2: 1:08:41

Right, I, I, we may have to find, or talk to Dennis about finding another sponsor so I can go out there and do an iron wedge fitting with him, because I think we're getting to that point and you know I'm turning 40. I'd be a good 40, 40, 40 birthday.

Speaker 1: 1:08:58

That's an excellent, you know birthday present. Maybe you come out for the frip regional and just get it done.

Speaker 2: 1:09:05

We'll figure it out.

Speaker 1: 1:09:05

And for your, for your 40th birthday, you'll get one of these. What in?

Speaker 2: 1:09:09

the world is that.

Speaker 1: 1:09:11

Or maybe some of those balloons.

Speaker 2: 1:09:14

I really so for your viewers who can't see this, I introduced for you Mac users. You probably know this, but I introduced Tim to reactions with his webcam that he's been using and he just sent me confetti balloons and he had a little firework show and a laser dance party. So this didn't get interesting. If you become a guest on our show, you might get some reactions from us on our webcam. Now.

Speaker 1: 1:09:47

And see, this is, this is just what I need, like I need another toy technology toy to play with as we're, as we're doing this, doing these interviews. But you know, when you guys listen to this, you obviously can't see, you know the behind the scenes and the videos and stuff. But every once in a while and I couldn't figure out what was going on you can see bubbles, you know, fly up with, you know thumbs up or whatever. I'm thinking what, how's that happen? And and now I figured it out. So now we're going to do lots, lots of fun stuff. Way to Christmas.

Speaker 2: 1:10:22

Oh no, like I told you guys, if you're, if you're a guest on our show, be ready, be ready, cause I just opened a can of worms. You did, you did.

Speaker 1: 1:10:34

Now not really all we need, you know, but I do FaceTime with my, with my grandkids, and I'm on my phone. You know they've got animal masks that you can wear right, right, like, like. So you know we always play with with the animal masks, whether it's a lion or a bear or, you know, cat or a dog or whatever. I think one time we should do our whole show in animal masks.

Speaker 2: 1:10:56

Yeah, I mean, I've used those reactions with my kids before. My youngest one likes them or something, something weird. So it is what it is, but let's see.

Speaker 1: 1:11:04

Oh, that means you have to keep doing it.

Speaker 2: 1:11:06

All right, so here we go.

Speaker 1: 1:11:10

Let's get back to talking about golf. So again, it's, it's the end of March. Yeah, I mentioned this when we had Dennis on. But remember, if you join the tour in November or December and you have not used your, your, your, your goodie bag code, coupon code, you only have until the end of the month, march 31st, right? So? And you know, there are no exceptions If you, if you don't use it. So so get on it. Oh, yes, cause that you know. Dennis, you know, doesn't make enough trips to the post office, so we got to get him up and moving some more boxes of stuff. Make sure you get him done.

Speaker 2: 1:11:48

Yes, yes, get your stuff. It's all great quality stuff. I know last year I got the hoodie. That was, I think. I stumbled on it and it was gone before before we knew it and everybody loves it. So keep checking. But use your coupon code, because there are no exceptions this year. If you don't use it, you lose it from one director to another. I apologize, but it is what it is. You know, tim, you know this. I enjoy hearing that Dennis takes bags of goodies to the post office than sending us everything, so we can give bags of goodies at the first event, cause once you're in the middle of the season you kind of forget sometimes when to bring a goodie bag out.

Speaker 1: 1:12:32

Exactly. It's so much better that they do it, Although you know I told you, not last year but the year before, I forgot to use my code. How was that guy?

Speaker 2: 1:12:42

Well, I'm getting close, so I'm going to use mine today and see if I can find something maybe a belt, or maybe we'll just get a bunch of hats to raffle off.

Speaker 1: 1:12:50

There you go. That's a good idea too, and we got to get some shirts in.

Speaker 2: 1:12:54

Yes, we have a couple of them and we have some that we've seen. That might still the show already in March. Just remember, have fun with it, don't think of it too serious. I've had some members ask how does this correlate with the course you're playing at? It's not the course you're playing at, but a golf course or a golf theme. We don't need anything crazy crazy, but have some fun with it. At the end of the day, if you post it and it doesn't follow the rules, we'll let you know. To me, 90% of the time I probably won't say no, because I just want to see some unique shirts out there.

Speaker 1: 1:13:36

Yeah, like I said, this is supposed to be fun. That's why we created it. Now here's the other thing, Chris. We've seen some shirts because we've had some members take pictures and send them to us.

Speaker 2: 1:13:49

That doesn't count. That doesn't count.

Speaker 1: 1:13:52

You've got to follow the rules. All those rules are posted on the podcast homepage because you said it to us. I've liked a couple of shirts. I said those are great shirts, but you got to make sure that you follow those rules. Again, part of it is we want members all across the country to be able to see these shirts. Right, we know we'll talk about it. Make sure you follow the rules.

Speaker 2: 1:14:19

Keep in mind we're doing this to make it fair for everybody. My members can send me shirts, or Tim's members can send them shirts, or if Dennis is at a regional and he sees a cool shirt and he takes a picture, we're making it fair across the board. Everybody's got to follow the rules. If you need help on how to post it, definitely reach out to us. We can walk you through how to do it, or get with your director, because hopefully your directors are listening and following us and they know. If not, let us know We'll get on them about that We'll help you out.

Speaker 1: 1:14:50

I'm kind of hoping that some of these shirts I'm hoping that the overall winner will be queued to us, each a matching shirt for us to be able to wear at the national championship.

Speaker 2: 1:15:05

You know what, if the winner, I'm going to throw it out there. If the winner does that, okay, when we do our welcome party podcast episode, we'll wear them on the shirt, or we're wearing on the live show, and we'll have the winner on there with their shirt on.

Speaker 1: 1:15:27

And how about this? I'll throw in something else. We'll cover their skins for national championship.

Speaker 2: 1:15:32

I like that. I can dig that yeah.

Speaker 1: 1:15:36

It's an even trade.

Speaker 2: 1:15:37

I can dig that All right.

Speaker 1: 1:15:39

So it's a little bit more incentive now too. Get that shirt, be the winner and your entire national's cover. You don't have to pay the $60 skins, as long as you get matching shirts for Chris and I and you come on the podcast and we'll take pictures and we'll have a good time.

Speaker 2: 1:15:56

Yeah Well, I mean, that's the whole point is to have a good time with it. I'll even wear it on day one of the tournament because you know I'm playing it. I'll wear it on day one.

Speaker 1: 1:16:07

I would say I'd wear it on day one too. I probably will. You know how it is with, how busy we get with national championship. You know a lot of times if I fall asleep in that shirt, at least in the morning when I go to the course you know, I end up in the same shirt. So if it's like a ring or a golf feature, nobody will really be able to tell right, but if it's one of these nice shirts, you know, tim you wear something short again, didn't you?

Speaker 1: 1:16:37

Because you know it's not out of the realm of possibility that we're going to fall asleep in a shirt.

Speaker 2: 1:16:42

So the concern would be, if you wore it on day one and day two, then we would know definitely you slept in it Day one. You can kind of you can kind of pass it happens. I wouldn't put it past you all, but I've been there, I know.

Speaker 1: 1:16:57

So, but if you wear it day one, day two and day three, I would say you have a real problem. You need to stop.

Speaker 2: 1:17:04

Yes, no, no day one. I'll only wear it on day one.

Speaker 1: 1:17:07

All right, my friend. Well, I hope you have a good week and I guess we'll talk again in about two weeks.

Speaker 2: 1:17:15

Yeah, it's going to be great, I you know. Like you said, it's already in the March and I can't believe we're already going to be in April. It's like April, may, two months, and then we're back at it on the road again.

Speaker 1: 1:17:28

Yeah, you and I are going to be on the road. It's going to be fun, Yep. So I'm really looking forward to it. I am I'm not looking forward to it like right now just because I got to get from here to there, Right. Actually, once I get through the next two weeks, I will really be looking forward to it. I got a real busy two weeks coming up, but once we get through that, I'm well number one. I'm really looking forward to going to the Michigan course to see that course and obviously see Michelle and those guys up there who we don't get to see a lot, and then to turn around and go to Louisiana, because Gina and Trey are fun to hang out with.

Speaker 1: 1:18:06

Oh and you know, and I know, it's going to be a first-class tournament too.

Speaker 2: 1:18:12

Oh it is. I actually talked to her about a week ago. I'm not going to put it out now because we will have them on the show and I'll let her explain it. But her tournament is going to have so many chances to win great prizes outside of just a tournament that if you're not there at that event you're missing out, because I can't wait for her to announce it on the podcast for everybody.

Speaker 1: 1:18:38

She's talking about casino prizes.

Speaker 2: 1:18:42

No, no, I'm not going to spoil it. You're going to have to come back and listen.

Speaker 1: 1:18:47

All right, so just for that you get one of these. Oh, no right, You're rating on my parade. All right, my friend, you take care of yourself and good luck while we're gone, and we'll talk to you soon.

Speaker 2: 1:19:02

Yes, sir, have a good one Take care.