Martin Chuck, while answering questions as a podcast guest a while back, had one himself. He was curious about the podcast host’s career, as Hal Sutton’s was memorable.
Chuck, though, wondered about potential regrets.
“I said, ‘Hal, what would you have done differently?’” Chuck said. “He goes, ‘I definitely wouldn’t have hit as many balls as I did. … I probably would have made more thoughtful swings, probably chipped and putted more. … I probably would have made more sense of where I was going with the club, like little half air swings kind of thing, then hit a shot and evaluated it more.’
“He goes, ‘I just kind of hit balls to hit balls because I thought that’s how you do it.’”
To Chuck, the story is helpful. Recently, while on “Please Let Us Golf,” another podcast, the GOLF Top 100 teacher had been asked to name the thing that amateurs do or don’t do that frustrates him most, and his answer brought to mind what Sutton had told him.
Amateurs, Chuck said, hit a shot on the range, then another, then another.
The hitting is OK. The method isn’t, though.
“They’ll hit a shot,” Chuck said on the podcast, “they’ll keep their hands on the club, they’ll reach for another ball and they’ll hit another shot. …
“And I’ll say to them, on the golf course, you hit a shot, do you get to reach for another ball on the golf course and hit another one? And they say, ‘Well no.’ I go, ‘Well good. Of course not.’”
So what should players do?
In short, soak it in. Chuck said he’ll even ask his players to club-twirl.
“I say, ‘When you hit a shot, that’s when you go ahead and holster the golf club,’ Chuck said on the podcast. “Meaning the club is going to go around you and then rebound and then let your hands come off it and twirl it if you want to — I teach all my students how to twirl the club like Tiger Woods because I want them to twirl the golf club when they hit a good shot to have the expectation of this impact, how the club slows down in style in a finish, rebounds. …
“Whereas the newbies will stand there whack one, drag one, whack it, drag it. I’m like, whoa. And then as I’m coaching them, I feel like I’m Neo, you know what I mean, trying to avoid the ‘Matrix’ bullets because it’s like, they don’t realize what they’re up to.”
Chuck said there are moments to learn.
“Whether it’s a heel hit, toe hit, skinny one, fat one, whatever,” Chuck said on the podcast. “Don’t just disregard it right away and go for another golf ball. What did you feel, what can you learn — there’s a residue from that moment. Take advantage of it, good bad or indifferent.
Nick Piastowski is a Senior Editor at Golf.com and Golf Magazine. In his role, he is responsible for editing, writing and developing stories across the golf space. And when he’s not writing about ways to hit the golf ball farther and straighter, the Milwaukee native is probably playing the game, hitting the ball left, right and short, and drinking a cold beer to wash away his score. You can reach out to him about any of these topics — his stories, his game or his beers — at nick.piastowski@golf.com.
