A Good Golfer’s Arms Never Pass The Body with Tony Manzoni (RIP)

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Hey, this is Fred Green of Golf Smarter, with our sixth installment of Spring Back into Golf season

with the late Tony Manzoni.

This episode was part two of our conversation, originally, number 409, for members only, from November 2013.

His book, The Lost Fundamental, is available on Amazon, and his DVD, which we converted to a private link online,

is also available when you write to me.

For the most comprehensive information ever collected on Tony, please go to golfsmarter.com.

And if you'd like access to the video, please write to me directly.

Golfsmarterpodcast.gmail.com, or click on the Hey Fred button when you visit golfsmarter.com.

For members only, Golf Smarter, number 409, published on November 5, 2013.

A good golfers arms never pass the body, with Tony Manzoni.

This is Golf Smarter.

Welcome back to Golf Smarter, from members only, Tony.

Thank you, Fred.

Thank you again for sticking around and recording.

Forget the recording.

For sticking around and answering more of my questions.

I just love it, Fred.

Oh, that's very kind of you.

There's many things that you said in our last conversation that I want to bring back and get more detail from you out of that.

When you talked about being under pressure and hooking the ball,

you said when you were playing competitively when you were young, whenever you were under pressure, you would hook the ball.

Now, 40, 50 years later, and you look back on that, do you know what that was?

Sure I know what it was.

As I got into learning to be more of a connected rotating or having a connected rotating swing,

I realized that the moving of the left arm and the right arm for that matter,

but the left arm, when you go back into the back swing, no matter how you take it back,

your left arm goes somewhere across your chest.

It connects somewhere near the left arm pit and the right arm pit.

That's why you'll see a lot of tour players will put a towel across their chest and then put their arms on the top of the towel and hit shots that way.

What they're doing, you know, it's restrictive in a way, but they're teaching themselves that the body moves the arms.

The arms will move off the body and then back on the body.

It's not to say that you can't do that and there have been some good players that did that, but I don't think they had very long careers.

Without naming a lot of guys, there's a lot of guys on the senior tour now that can't play a lick.

There were champions on the regular tour and it's because their game was based on disconnecting and connecting,

swinging to the right and swinging to the left and so forth.

But in my swing, what I realized is that when my arms get to impact before my left side is cleared,

then because the head is heavier than the handle, if you swing the arms away from the body and just swing a golf club,

you'll see that the club had turned over prior to impact because of the weight of the handle,

the head will roll the club head.

So these people that try to teach people to roll the club head, if you just swing your arms ahead of your body,

it's going to roll. If I want to hook a ball around a corner, I just keep my back of the target from my arm forward

and that club face is closed before from the ball.

So I'm going to snip hook it.

Well, that's what I did under pressure because under pressure, we all get a little fast on the down.

You can't help it.

And I didn't realize that the faster my arms went, the slower my body went.

So they didn't correspond and they won't.

You throw your arms ahead of your body and there's a saying,

the good golfers' arms never pass the body, never pass the body.

Now you say, wait a minute, I see the club, but it's not because if you follow the turning of the body,

the club is staying in front of the body, but it's not going past it.

So this is how it works, real simple.

You stand up to the ball, I like you to set up 60-40.

You take the club back and it goes across your chest and it connects somewhere high on the left pectoral muscle.

But when you get to the top, instead of letting the arms come free of the body and pulling the arms down,

keep the position that you have at the top and rotate your chest area.

Now I'm not going to say hips because if you're on that left side,

you don't have to throw your legs first or any of that craziness.

Unwind which you wound up, unwind your chest and shoulders around your pivot leg,

pulling your arm through.

And if you unwind properly, you'll be unwinding to the left.

Just like on the back swing, you had to unwind to the right.

So when you unwind, your body's going to turn to the left.

So when you finish your golf swing, your right shoulder should be pulling at the target.

The center of your chest should be pointing quite a bit left of the target.

And if you watch the tour, ladies or men, you'll see that that's how most of the players are finishing.

No one's tilted back with high hands.

Everything is around because players are finding that's a more effective way to play.

So when we're connected, and I mentioned that at the right arm, sure,

because the right arm can't come loose and go all the way from the body on the down swing

because the elbow will be out of position.

So that closed armpit of the right side is just as important as a closed armpit on the left side.

So with both of them closed, the right arm does in the back swing as you turn the right arm

full to a position.

And that's your position.

But that's how you get the club back.

You don't do it with your wrist cock.

You do the arm fold.

And it sets the wrist so that the club head or the shaft,

and you're left arm form kind of an L position.

Okay?

We don't want a V position.

That's too much a wrist cock.

We want this L position.

The club, your back is the target.

The club looks three quarters.

And if you look at the tour today, you'll see most everybody like that.

You don't see that past parallel look except for a few up there.

And they have one commonality.

They get wild with the driver.

You don't, they don't know if it's going to ride or left under pressure.

Okay?

The ones that are compact.

They're popping it in the center all the time.

Louis Lou Staven.

Oh, there's a bunch of them that are rotators.

But anyway, so we're at the top of the swing.

The left arm is connected.

High in the pectoral.

The right arm.

You can be holding a handkerchief on the armpit.

The elbow is not touching the body.

Just the armpit is closed.

You just take that and you rotate to the left around the pivot leg,

which is your left leg if you're right handed.

And you just keep rotating.

And the club comes last.

And it's kind of like a hockey player that the action of a hockey player

would stick to a puck.

It's a, it's a one piece action.

It's not a throw of the arms as a rotation of the body.

On live video, you can see that little exercise I do that makes you instantly feel this.

And if there's any one thing that you must do, it's that.

It's, and, and, and you know,

they're holding said you take all your natural instincts and do the opposite.

You'll have a pretty good ball swing.

And he's absolutely right because when the ball's down on the ground,

and we've got the club in our hands, the tendency for us is to hit down on that golf ball,

the throw those arms.

And we've been told, hit down on the ball.

If you have the club, let's say a shoulder heife,

and you swing it to the other side, the club has to come down to go up.

So there's no need to try to hit down because all you're going to do is you're going to create tension.

And you're going to, and you're going to get steeper than you should.

The swing has a shape to it.

It's, it's kind of a U shape.

So there is a bottom to it, but you don't need to do anything to get there.

It has to get there for it to go back up on the other side.

So I never advocate hitting down on a golf ball because then you're thinking about impact too much.

And then what we get into anticipating impact, which causes a tensioning.

And that's why all the beginners, you see beginners top the ball and you guys just, you'll look up.

Okay. And then you got their faces glued to the ground and glued to the ball and they still top it there.

You'll look up. That's such a bunch of baloney.

It's just you tighten up.

And so when you anticipate impact, you're, you're grabbing that handle tighter.

You're getting ready to hit something.

Okay. That shortens the muscle, pulls the club to the, to the center or top of the ball and you roll it on the ground.

So when we're playing golf and as I teach my, my, all my students, I'm teaching you where your body is in relationships with that golf ball on the backswing and on the fruitswing.

And that body has to be on the ball on the coil.

And then, and then the whole right side goes past the ball on the, on the thru swing.

And the balls in the way of that action.

If you focus on that back of that ball or hit down on that ball and try to keep your head down on that ball,

you're going to need a lot of shots behind the ball because when we start, when we put that ball up behind the ball,

if we bring it right back to that spot, we're going to go divot ball and we don't want to do that.

We want to go ball divot.

So there has to be a forward in this somewhere in that motion.

They hit the ball first and then take the divot.

That's the, that's the through motion.

So when, for all of you out there that hit the ball fin or hit, hit behind it, that's because you are behind it.

You're not supposed to be behind it when you hit it.

You're supposed to be moving through it. You're supposed to be on the left side.

So don't bind to that crap that I hear all the time.

Stay behind it. Keep your head back behind it.

There's no support that you do that.

You hit a tennis ball, you move forward, you throw a punch, you move forward, you throw a baseball, you move forward.

You got to move forward, you got to move through it with, with, with,

now I'm not saying that your head is going to go forward, but that's not the golf thing.

If you rotate past that golf ball, that club has come in the last and it's going to hit the ball with all the force of your core.

When you try to stay behind the ball, all you're doing is showing your arms forward of your body,

which is the worst thing you can do if you're going to try to not only hit it far but hit it straight.

The golf swing is supposedly circular.

Like if you draw, if you follow the club head around, it's a circle, correct?

Around your body?

It's a rotation move. That's the only way that our body moves when you walk, you rotate.

So it's a rotation move and rotation doesn't mean straight back and straight through.

That's why when people say take the club straight back, you know, that's really not, that's really not correct because the body's turning.

The club has to stay in front of you relative to where the body is.

So when the body's turning, if the club's in front of you, but it'll be inside the line of the,

it'll be inside the ball line as it must be.

You can't take the club back on the ball line and swing it down the ball line and I hear that all the time.

Oh, yeah, he kept that club going right down the ball and ball only.

You can't do that. The club, the toe has to be turning because you're turning, okay?

You've got to trap that golf ball.

The more you push that club down the line, the what's going to happen just out of the construction of the club.

The neck, because that's where the shaft is, the neck is going to lead that club and the toe is going to be back and you're going to hear everything right, you know, or slice the ball.

The blade's going to open up. The more you push it straight back at the target, the more the blade's going to open up.

That club has to come back, you know, the path of the swing is from square.

It goes inside, back to square, back to inside.

So that's the shape of the golf swing and that's that's what your body is doing.

It's like a hub in a spoke. Your body is rotating and the club is rotating relative to what your body's doing.

That's why good players connect the arms of the body and the arms move where the body takes them.

They're not trying to take the club back and put it in a position because it's then it becomes disconnected to the body.

And then they've got to reroute the arms back to where the elbow hits that inside of the hip area to hit the golf ball.

Well, that can do that consistent basis.

Am I making you crazy?

Yeah, absolutely.

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Am I making you crazy?

Yeah, absolutely.

There's so much going on right now in my head.

It's like...

If you were in front of me and I set you up.

And you had some idea of the golf thing.

You've been playing a while.

But, you know, I slice everything.

I look at everything.

Whatever.

I show you that when your arms go through the body and the downspin,

the club is either going to roll over or you're going to hang on to it and it's going to stay open.

And that's why you can get up and hook one ball.

And then you guard the next one.

And you pull it in.

Yeah.

So, when you're addressing the ball.

And you're setting up with the ball with the club face.

You're staring at the ball.

Your club face is sitting just behind it.

But when you come through on your swing,

that is not the base of your swing.

Right?

That's the base of it would be in front of the ball.

Right?

The bottom part of yours...

The bottom part of the swing would be, you know, when you're falling through

because you want to hit the ball and then hit the ground.

You want to make the divot after you hit the ball.

Yes.

Well, it's that turning through the impact that brings the club

so that the ball is being struck on the down swing.

So, it hits the ball, hits the turf.

When you're in the proper position, just prior to impact.

Okay?

The club is coming down.

It strikes the ball and it takes a little bit of divot.

When you get behind the ball, when you have too much weight on the right side

just trying to hit the golf ball, you're going to come down in behind the ball.

You're going to bring the club kind of where you had it to start with.

So, you're going to go divot ball.

And that's how most people hit it.

They keep real deep divots.

And even when they hit a good shot, they still hit them a little flabby.

Because they're in the wrong position.

They're behind the golf ball.

If you look at a picture at impact of a good player,

you'll see that his chest area is not in the same position

he's supposed to address, like some people try to say,

get back to the dress.

His left side is open.

It's turned open.

Okay?

And the right side is now driving past the golf ball.

If you look at it, you want to see a great swing.

Look at Anika Sornstein.

That girl had more birdies of two and three inches

because she hit it so dead at the hole.

Because she was turning towards the target

and the arms were being pulled.

So, she was trapping that club dead square.

So, she unwound properly.

The ball went right where she unwound to.

And that's what we're looking for to learn to hit the ball

without a lot of side spin.

Now, when I want to cut it or draw it,

I do it by memory.

I just set up to the ball and feel like I'm going to do it.

But there is a process to doing it that I practiced for a lot of hours

as a young man.

But I primarily hit the ball with very little movement on it,

especially with my irons, because of this action.

I could remember in the past,

near the pin, I had to aim a club or two

to the right of the green and draw it in.

I don't do that anymore.

I can build pent-hunt, pent-hunting,

because of this action.

You know, I'm not going to put it very much side spin on the ball.

Side spin comes from the club face closing and opening at impact.

That's all it is.

It's not a big secret.

So, when you swing a free arm swing,

that club is going to roll.

I mean, anybody that's listening to me,

you know, just think of golf gloves and swing it

with your arms a little bit away from it,

and you'll see that the weight of the club will turn the club over.

And it's going to turn it over generally before you hit the golf ball.

And then the next time, because you're scared of death,

that's going to happen.

You're going to hang onto it tight,

so you're going to hold the blade open.

You're going to need a one of them on your good.

You can't call them off.

So, you've got to have a golf swing,

that if it's tight as heck,

and you've got trouble right and trouble left,

that you can get up there and free swinging,

and no, absolutely no,

that you're not going to touch either bad area,

that you're going to carve it into the free,

into the fairway one way or another.

You're going to power slice it or soft draw it,

but you're going to put it in the fairway.

And I can still do that.

I just can't, you know,

I just can't get it far enough to really, really compete.

If they put me up on that lady's cheese

or old ice cheese,

I'll play with anybody.

Dude, you just told me on the last episode

that you're hitting the ball 265 on your drives.

What do you mean?

Yeah, but that's short compared to what people hit it now.

I mean, I'm well,

yeah, for the 30 yards of you,

but you're 30 yards behind if you're playing

with 25-year-old PGA tour play.

They play blue cheese, I play white cheese.

And so I'm at least a little bit up with them

or sometimes a little past them with the drive.

You know, when I created a mixed team championship

that was on television for what, 16 years,

what we did is we figured out what women would need.

Professional women would need to compete against men.

They need 75 yards,

because they not only needed distance on the drive,

but they needed on the second shot,

so that they could hit into a par four,

a drive and seven or eight iron,

because most men are hitting those kind of clubs.

Prior to that,

prior to that, the gals were playing the club

that course was so long

that no one was reaching par five in two,

and they were hitting long irons into par fours.

And when we came up with this concept,

as many years ago,

that tournament kind of changed the way

the girls perceived the golf course should be,

because the hard line was to know,

no, you're making it too easy.

And I said, look,

men are shooting 19 or 20 under par every tournament,

the winners are,

and you're shooting six and seven,

the perception,

then from the general public is,

well, you're not playing as good,

because you're shooting higher scores,

but you're playing a lot tougher golf course.

You know, they were set up,

like they would be,

it was like setting up a men's golf course of 7,800 yards.

That's the kind of golf,

but the women played it for a long time,

and we changed that,

but we found that on the average gala,

that pops the ball out there,

they need about 75 yards,

and then they can compete.

Well, that's the same by going up, you know,

when I go up on a tee,

you know, I go up about 30 yards,

well, that makes it,

that has 30 yards of my tee shot.

And now I'm in the game now.

So in the history of golf,

we don't play,

we don't play championship t's,

and you know,

you play,

you play to have a good time, right?

You play the white t's,

and it's like so proud to be playing the whites.

I'm proud to be playing the whites.

Play up, I mean,

I love it.

If sometimes I play with clients,

they say,

look, we're going to play with a senior tee.

I love it.

I can't wait.

You know, I don't have an equal about that.

Good for you.

Because I know what my limitations are.

But if you put me 150 yards from the green,

every hole,

I'm going to make a lot of birdies.

In the history of golf,

are different sets of t's,

a relatively new thing?

No, no.

No, they've always had that.

Most golf courses have lazy t's and men's t's,

but most golf courses.

Now they're introducing kids t's.

I've been on a lot of golf courses

where the lazy t's were 20 yards further than the men's.

That's a joke.

To be honest with you,

they should be pretty close to 100 yards on every single hole

for the lazy t's,

enjoy the game like men do.

You see,

Gals out there with a driver on the par three.

Well, you put guys,

you make the par three long and up through the half-year drivers.

You wouldn't see very many cars,

even at the big boys.

So,

I mean,

it's just that it becomes an oversight.

When people design golf courses,

they design for the men,

and they don't consider the gals.

They put OK,

put the red Gs here,

but they don't do it.

They don't do it mathematically,

based on how far most of the gals hit it.

So, you know,

when the gals shoot break 100,

they go crazy.

They pop the champagne

and give everybody a pin.

That's a joke.

If you put them in the right place,

they're going to be shooting in the 80s

and the good ones are getting 70s.

Well, when you say that the courses are being,

when you say the courses are being designed for men,

I think that the courses are being designed for PGA tour events,

because they're just making the courses longer and longer and longer,

which is playing into their hands

of these guys who have,

who can hit the ball in my own hand,

and yet they don't have the short game.

There's a perception,

and it happens at our own valley where they'll build

with a college championship team,

and they'll put them back in the corner

where they, you know,

the designer didn't even want them to be.

OK,

because they think that by doing that,

they're going to bring more members in.

But typically, these clubs,

the membership is 300,000.

Well, how many young people do you know that

will plunge down $300,000 to join a club?

So it's usually older, successful people

that don't hit it very far.

So they make these teams

so that they can,

so that they can say,

well ours is a 7,300 or 7,400 rated course, blah, blah, blah.

Meaningless, doesn't mean a thing,

because nobody plays them.

Right.

And it makes the game slow,

and you get these guys

that are 18 handicaps going back there,

and they run the game

for the people behind them.

I'm not advocating that we put the cheese up

or you're on the fringe of the green tea and off.

But you've got to put,

you know,

we know there's a mean average

of what your membership hits the ball.

We know what they hit,

and that's what the golf course should be played from.

And for ladies,

you know,

come on, how many gallons do you have?

How many gallons do you have 175 yards?

Okay.

So you can't put them on a 370 yard hole

or a 400 yard hole.

That's crazy.

I mean,

they're beating a 3 with another shot.

You know,

what kind of fun is that?

That's why I say,

I'm very sensitive to this issue

because I work with a lot of

lady professionals in my life.

And I've given them

zillion lessons to gals.

And the big majority,

I mean, you know,

80 percent,

you know, can't hit a 200 yards.

Can't.

No.

Okay, so now they get on a golf pole that's 390.

You know,

I mean,

if they get it on in two,

it's, you know,

they might have a heart attack.

It shouldn't be that way.

They should be,

if they hit their good drive,

they should have some kind of an iron

or a rescue club to hit.

But some kind of an iron.

It's unfairly set up.

And again,

I think it's a responsibility

of a golf course

and the management

to understand these things.

And then sit down

and come up with an idea,

okay,

what do we think our gals hit the ball?

And then plot out a hole

so that they can hit some kind of a mid-iron

into that green.

And that's where the tea should be.

Okay.

And then you'd see

that the gals have a lot more fun

and the game is more playable for them.

You look at the scores.

I mean,

I give lessons at a lot of clubs

they invite me there to teach.

And I,

every now and then there's a tournament.

You look at the score.

120, 150, 110.

Every now and then you get somebody

in the 90s.

And that's the field.

And these girls have been playing a long time.

You know,

because they're over.

Yeah,

you get the, you know,

the young members,

21 or 22 or 23,

that marriage and guy.

Well, some of those gals

can play their fresh out of the college

and they can pop the ball.

Most of the gals are in the 50s and 60s.

We're really getting into golf ball, you know.

And a lot of them,

a lot of them were taught at that age

because their husbands played golf

and they were,

come on,

and you got to learn,

we'll play golf together

about kind of stuff.

Tyler Reddick here from 2311 Racing.

Victory Lane?

Yeah.

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Do you have the same frustrations that I have when you go out and play with people

and they, especially at a course, they've not played.

They go, well, what's the distance?

Let's play from this tee because it's 69.

They want to do yards and they don't look at the rating slope.

Yeah, exactly.

I know that a lot of courses, even the men's, let's just say the white tees

because they have so many different colors now.

But let's say the back is the blue tees and the middle is the white tees.

A lot of times the white tees are 10 yards ahead of the blue tees,

which is crazy.

It's ludicrous.

But again, there's no thinking done at the start of every day

when those tees are set.

Someone should be setting them based on what the club professional,

you know, the game that he set that golf course up for the superintendent.

You can't expect the superintendent.

And in most cases does do not play the game.

And the superintendent's not setting the tees as his workers who probably don't play the game.

So they just cut it down and put the team markers there with no thought

that somebody's got to play from here.

So we go, of course, we go, of course, plays way beyond the slope rating.

Way harder.

Right. Right.

And that's, that's, you know, we talk about slow play.

That's one of the reasons we have slow play.

It's because people play from there with a long iron on the third shot.

Right.

And there's nothing to do with their ability.

It has to do that.

It's too long.

Yeah.

People are playing from the wrong tees.

Their egos get in the way.

They slow down the pace of play.

They're scoring high numbers when they shouldn't be.

It's just, it's just this endless cycle of garbage there.

Right.

And it's rooting the game for a lot of people.

And it's costing, it's costing a lot of money

because, you know, if you have a lot of slow play,

you can't get players on the golf course.

But a lot of it goes back to management and the planning of where those tees should be.

There has to be calculations made based on where you think the majority of people hit the golf ball

so that they can enjoy the sport.

You know, when you're a successful man and you've worked all your life,

you don't want to play golf as beating the heck out of you all the time.

And you're never going to say, this is too hard for me.

No one wants to do that.

You know, no one wants to admit to that.

So what management has to do is put them,

put that and make that a golf course.

Not a sense of easy, but fair.

It's not fair if you can reach a par four and two.

If you can hit the ball, let's say 210 yards.

You should be able to hit that green and two.

Okay.

So you can't put a high handicap or on a 470 yard hole or 460 yard hole.

That's a par five for them.

And that doesn't take away from the golf course being a great course.

Because the greatness comes in the design.

It doesn't come in the length.

Right. Right.

Because a short course can be very punishing.

Yeah. I mean, I've played a course that was 6600 yards long.

That'll give you a battle every time you play it.

Right.

But it's because you have to be accurate.

You have to hit the left, the right or right, the left.

And those kinds of things.

But it's not because you can't reach the green.

I mean, that's just stupid golf.

I mean, that's stupid golf.

It really is.

And unfortunately, there's so much emphasis on distance today

in today's world that, you know, I get these kids at young ages.

And they're all swinging out of their shoes.

They say, what are you going to do when you're playing a 20-yard fairway?

I mean, you're done.

So that's part and parcel of the problem.

We're exposed to everybody hits a 330, 340.

And some guy out there 50 years old, you know,

you feel impotent for God's sake.

But it's because we've been solubility of goods.

And the game has never intended to be a driving contest.

You know, it really wasn't.

It's a game of strategy.

It's a game of ball placement.

And to me, I think they're ruining the game

by making the courses longer and longer and longer for who?

I mean, for who?

Who can 73 hundred yards is a long golf course?

Who plays it?

Yeah, maybe a kid that beats it out there.

But the average guy, man, I mean, you know,

you can't get home in two.

What the heck, you know,

time and time again, sometimes, you know,

there'll be one of those holes out there that you say,

oh, well, this one, I just got to be whole,

be happy with the bogey.

But you can't do that for 18 holes.

Right.

A question about, um,

and I know the obvious answer as well,

because the club is longer.

But is, do you,

should you have a different swing,

and that's a loaded question,

with your driver versus your nine iron?

No, it's going to be, oh, it's going to be flatter,

because the balls farther away from you.

But no, conceptually and feel wise, no.

And the difficult part is tempo,

because we want to swing the driver faster

than we do a full swing, let's say,

with an eight iron, and it shouldn't be.

The club head will be moving faster

because the swing is wider,

because the club is longer,

and the distance is going to be derived

by that longer lever.

But you don't try to swing harder.

I mean, I, one of the great things I ever heard

was, Chavino was saying that, you know,

he said, when I played with Nicholas,

he was so long, I didn't want him to hit it.

And he said, I used to try to hit a 238,

and I would hit a 270.

But when I tried to hit a 270, I hit a 238,

which I just thought,

man, that should be in the Bible, for God's sake.

I mean, it was so absolutely correct,

because when you attempt to try to hit the ball harder,

your swing gets faster in the back swing,

shorter in the back swing,

and tighter at impact.

That's why a lot of times, you know,

we have a shot and we think,

ah, that's a six hour,

but I'm going to hit an easy five hour,

and we fly the green.

We say, what the heck?

I hit that five hour way farther than it,

because you relax,

and you let yourself get that club all the way back

and all the way through,

because you weren't trying to hit it.

You just swung the club.

You know, there's a lot to that, you know,

and unfortunately,

when you get that driver,

and I had all of a sudden,

you see either Chavino's tightening up,

and that's not,

it wasn't intended that.

When I tell my boys,

the driver is a placement club,

not a distance club.

It's a place,

it's a club,

the place, the ball,

and the fairway,

where you've got a good angle to the green.

That's all it is.

Don't buy into,

you've got to hit it 350,

or 340,

or 330,

or any of those numbers.

Let that happen.

Fine.

If you can do that, fine.

But you don't try to make it happen,

because you're just going to,

you're going to get hands-y,

you're going to get your arms ahead of your body,

and you're going to hit it all over the place.

And, you know,

without naming guys on tour,

there's a couple of guys

that win a tournament,

the next week,

they're at the very bottom,

because they're all over the place.

So, when they're timing that big swing,

they're okay,

but they can't do it every week.

And then you've got the same guys,

in the middle of the pack,

every single week,

and then they break through,

but when they don't win,

they don't drop to the very bottom.

They're always up in contention,

and those are the guys

that are in control of that clubhead.

They're not out there trying to hit it 350.

Right.

No, that's an excellent point.

Pick a spot in the fairway

and get there,

and be fair to yourself.

Don't try to crush it.

Just try to get to your spot.

Yeah, you're just,

all you're trying to do

is set the whole up.

That's what the driver does.

It sets the whole up

for the next shot.

Put it a little bit

on the left center of the fairway.

So, you're coming in at the right angle.

You're not hitting over a bunker or whatever.

I mean, a hole didn't,

looked at the fairway in quadrants,

and you picked out a quadrant

and put it there.

No, you know,

he was pretty special

while hitting the golf ball.

But if you've cut everything,

then get over the far right of the tee,

and aim it to the far left of the fairway,

and let it cut back into the fairway.

That's why you're using the whole fairway,

aim it to the right edge of the fairway,

and let your draw work into the fairway.

Now you're using the whole fairway.

What a lot of people do,

they stand in the middle of the tee,

and they're trying to hit it right straight down the middle.

So, if they push it,

it's going off the fairway.

If they pull it, it's going off the fairway.

Because they're only using half of the fairway.

You understand what I mean by that?

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

And so, in most cases,

you don't stand in the middle of the tee,

you either stand on the left side or the right side,

based on the shape of your drive.

I hit a little cut,

some people hit a little draw,

and if my typical shot cuts

or my typical shot draws,

then I'll play that with the driver.

I'm going to position myself on the tee

to take advantage of the whole fairway

instead of a half of it.

Mm-hmm.

So, early on in the last episode,

when we were talking about,

you know, that everybody's swing is unique,

and it's really all about being squared contact, correct?

That's correct.

Okay.

And so, there is no perfect swing.

Is this what we're saying?

Oh, absolutely.

That's not possible.

That's why fairways are 40 to 50 yards wide and so forth.

Because there are always going to be a little variance

at the impact,

a little open, a little closed.

The more connected the more rotational you are in your golf swing,

the more that you're going to bring the club fairly consistently

to the ball,

and you'll know what a club hit is.

That's a big key is knowing where the club hit is.

So, if you're rolling your forearms over,

trying to hit a golf ball,

there's no way to feel where it is.

But when you're rotating your body

and that's pulling the arms,

and the arms are connected to the body,

then the arms feel like a lever connected to a gear,

and as you turn the lever moves forward.

So, you're never swinging your arms freely.

All this stuff about a free arm swing

should be in the comic books because it isn't reality.

If the freer you arm swing,

the more the club has a chance to be open or closed,

we don't want that.

Well, Tony, once again,

you've been a wealth of information.

I so enjoy speaking with you.

Thank you so much for your time for these last two episodes.

And again, people,

if Tony intrigues you at all,

there's a lot of calls to action that we've gone through.

One is make sure that you check out the video

the Golf Smarter TV,

the video that we did together,

because it's going to teach you a lot in a short amount of time.

Well Fred, I'd like to just close with one thing.

Please.

For the people out there that have listened to this,

you know, there's a lot of pontificating going on.

But if you really want to get into this game,

find someone that really understands rotation and connection.

If they're not using those words to you,

and they're trying to get you to hoist the club up the air

and then bring it down, you know, just run.

Find somebody, just let them on to a doctor.

Find somebody that understands the simplicity of the golf swing.

It isn't rocket science.

It's really kind of simplistic.

Once you connect all the parts,

and then just move them in a rotational move,

if you find someone like that and that's patient,

you're going to grow in the game and you're going to start enjoying the game.

And then go to your golf pro if you belong to a club

and tell them a little bit about,

why don't we set this golf course up based on what the average guy hits it off the tee.

And I think your membership will be very happy.

And you don't have to say we're moving it up.

Just put the tee in a place where you were common sense, warrants it.

And boy, I'll tell you what, the game will be enjoyable for everybody at that club.

And you can make the golf course hard.

You can narrow the fairways with ropes.

You can put the pin in the funny positions.

So you don't have to worry about it being tough enough.

I hope your winter was tolerable

and that everyone in your circle is safe and well.

And now that most of us have adjusted our clocks

so that we have additional light every day,

we have more time available to practice and play.

My favorite time of the year is I've never been a huge fan of early morning golf.

Actually, I'm not a big fan of early mornings anymore either.

As you're now enjoying our annual spring into golf season with Tony Manzoni,

I am so excited to let you know that I'll be back in mid-April with an update

as to what my offseason has been like

and some big announcements about golf smarter for 2026 and beyond.

I truly appreciate your continued support and patience this winter.

It thrills me to no end that you're still enjoying our Mulligan's episodes.

Even though most of what we're sharing is at least 10 years old.

Two more reasons why I love evergreen golf podcasts.

You can hear them again and they're still relevant.

As always, please feel free to reach out to me

if you have any questions, comments or suggestions

as I'm still checking emails to golfsmarterpodcast at gmail.com

or just click on the hay-fread button when you visit golfsmarter.com.

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