Tales from the first tee
Stories about my life experiences and others . Interviews with golfers around the world that have one thing in common...the pursuit of excellence on a golf course and everything else that happens along the way.
Tales from the first tee
(Re-Release): Billy the Kid Strikes Again: Tales of Presses and Putts
A golf journey through St. Simons Island, Georgia showcases both travel recommendations and insights into match play dynamics against memorable characters. Thoughtful putting drills examine perception challenges and alignment solutions for better performance on the greens.
• St. Simons Island offers excellent biking, dining at Dorothy's, and nostalgic ice cream at Frosty's Griddle and Shakes
• Capybaras in Argentina create unusual hazards despite being protected species
• Match play against Billy the Kid reveals the psychology of presses and how to make them fair
• Restomod (The Tin Man) maintains a four handicap as a septuagenarian with numerous replacement parts
• Alignment lines on golf balls only work for 15% of golfers due to parallax effect and stereopsis
• Three effective putting drills: the gate drill with tees, alignment rod technique, and putting while looking at the hole
• Jordan Spieth's 2015 success demonstrates the effectiveness of target-focused putting
• Both success and failure in golf are ephemeral - what works today might not tomorrow
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You're listening to an episode of Tales from the First Tee. I'm your host, rich Easton casting from St Simons Island, georgia. In beautiful Charleston, south Carolina, we spent a few days this week at St Simons Island. It's a barrier island off of Brunswick, georgia, midway between Savannah and Jacksonville, florida. The island is populated with all of these live oaks, with Spanish moss, and it's like riding down River Road on John's Island near Charleston but a lot more to do. We actually made a day trip over to Jekyll Island and spent just the right amount of time at this Tortuga Jack's Grill sipping margaritas on the beach, until Tracy just called me off, which is really a smart move on her part. I highly recommend traveling down there with your bikes or rent them when you're there. It's a great place to ride bikes. Our favorite cocktail and small plates restaurant on St Simons was a place called Dorothy's in the small little strip center on Market Street. We were in town for three nights. We hit Dorothy's twice and if you want a nostalgic ice cream and burger experience downtown St Simon's is a place called Frosty's Griddle and Shakes. They will take you back in time with incredible soft serve ice cream. Anyway, we had a great three days Again. This was one of those trips where I didn't bring my golf clubs. It was a time to explore the area and have some fun. Highly recommend it. But now I'm back in Charleston Charleston.
Speaker 1:In this week's episode I'll talk about another cloudy, grave story A match with Billy the Kid where he continued to prove who was boss of the moss. Should you mark your golf ball with a line to better line up your putts? A new character, restomod, and the duality of his existence. But first a story in the news last week that caught my attention the Caliberas infestation in Argentina. In Argentina, cali Berris are a part of the rodent family. They can grow up to four feet tall and weigh up to 200 pounds. The story that I read took place in Argentina, in the North Delta district, where the Cali bearis move in tribes. They, typically their entire families, move together. They're actually a protected species, so it's unlawful to shoot them dead, but that's not stopping people from doing it. They're not harmful and less provoked. But they will fuck up your garden and leave these rat dumpings twice the size of your Great Danes. So they're kind of cute until a family of them decide to feast on your garden and take post-meal dumps all over your yard, then they're not so cute Cali bears who knew. They're not so cute Cali bears who knew.
Speaker 1:A couple of weeks ago, cloudy Graves and I took on Billy the Kid and his partner, a new character to Tails, restomod the Tin man. I'll share my thoughts on Resto in a few skinny minutes, but first a story about Billy the Kid. Billy's the commissioner of many of the golf games at Charleston National. Rumor has it that he has a supercomputer in his office that basically calculates every player's handicap in the Carolinas, along with their performance at every match played in the low country. It's that, or he has the Ginn app on his smartphone. He has a unique way of balancing matches to make the competition as fair and balanced as possible. Some would suggest that he balances some of these games in his favor, but I would protest that accusation. Billy just tends to project his better self when the match is on the line.
Speaker 1:Cloudy and I were behind in this match against Billy and Resto. We started off down in the match but luckily it turned in our favor after Cloudy birdied a few holes on the front nine, just a few holes before we got to the ninehole match. That provoked Billy to throw out their proverbial press. He likes to do that with at least two holes to play to allow he and his partner two holes to win. The press, which basically nullifies the front bet, get this. One or two holes could have the same value as the previous seven. One or two holes could have the same value as the previous seven. Now, I've always had an issue with presses because presses basically will have the same value as almost the entire match. So you're basically, if you do a $5 bet for nine holes and you're down by the seventh or eighth hole, you could press for $5 for one hole and if you win that, everything that you've done up to the first eight holes gets nullified. No odds maker in Vegas is going to make that bet.
Speaker 1:I mean, think about this. You've worked really hard to be up in the match. You're thinking about it. You know where the ninth hole is, you know where you are in the match and let's say you're up five holes. You just finished the eighth hole. You're up five holes coming into nine. You won the nine. You won the front bet. If it's five dollars, you won it. But then the other team goes press basically saying that this last hole is worth everything that you've done up to this point and most likely when guys are pressing, one or both of them have a stroke on that hole which basically makes their odds of winning that much better and psychologically the press is meant to put pressure on the team that has been winning to make them think more about that next hole so that hopefully you have a chance to get back in the match.
Speaker 1:So I think that you should give odds, I think, as many holes as you are down. That's the odds that you have to present the other team. If we're down, let's say, five holes coming into nine, the only bet that seems fair and makes sense to the other team that's winning is five to one odds on the last hole and sports fans, no one's going to take that bet Zero. So what I suggest is just double the odds, make it a $10 bet. I mean, it's not like Vegas. If you've ever played craps in Vegas and know a little bit about a craps table, I mean I still get brain cramps every time I think about it. There are different odds that you could bet on depending on the likelihood of you hitting that number with both dice. Hitting a 2 or hitting a 12 are much harder than hitting a 7, and therefore the odds are much greater. But we're not playing craps, we're playing golf. So just double the odds.
Speaker 1:Some guys play automatic presses when you're down two. And what I suggest? If you're going to do that and you're down two and it's a $5 bet, make each press $10. And then you're going to see some guys are less likely to throw out the press card because if they're already down, there's some kind of chink in the armor, there's something they haven't been doing right, and are they willing to put up $10 to bet that everything's going to get better in one hole? Try it. And if you're going to try it, that negotiation happens at the first tee, before you even tee off, to make sure everybody understands what all the bets are about.
Speaker 1:As I've said in the past, most golf matches are won on the first tee when there's some kind of imbalance of handicaps where the person that gets the most amount of strokes tends to have better odds to win. So if you're going to do it, do it on the first tee, get it all out there. So when somebody's down two and the guy goes press, you know it's $10. So back to the Billy the Kid match. We get to the eighth tee box and Billy calls press. That gives him two holes to basically get back, and I think we were up two or up three by the end of nine when we putted out. Billy had won the press. So he got his five dollars back, but we're still up in the 18. We won the front, we. We lost the press. So in terms of the five dollars, we won five, they won five, but now we go to the back nine and whatever we were up on the front carries over to the 18, because there are three bats front back and over nine. So now we're playing the back and we are just playing well, we're playing well. Well, we're up, we're up and we get to 16. And I think we're up two at the time, maybe three, and no presses yet, which I thought was surprising and we go out.
Speaker 1:We all hit shots in the fairway, we all hit shots on the green. All four of us are on the green with birdie putts. Now I have the first putt. I am 30 feet away and, quite frankly, have not been putting my best lately, haven't felt it. I've changed putters back and forth, black spiders back in my bag, hooray. So now I get to make my putt and this is the first putt 30 feet uphill to this pin and it felt great. I hit the and as I hit it the ball's heading towards the hole and I exclaimed man, that felt great and it might have been a little gamesmanship. But the ball goes up by the hole and veers off to the right. I'm a foot or so away now, maybe two feet actually, far enough, where it's not a gimme.
Speaker 1:Billy gets up. Billy is just a foot in front of me, almost on the same line, doesn't think twice about it, hits his putt and I'm not even looking. And as I look over to the hole, his ball goes flying in the hole. And within a second, even less than that, billy just looks up at me, goes hey, how does your putt feel now? Which is classic, billy the Kid. So they win the hole with his birdie.
Speaker 1:Now he comes to 17. Now he presses Two holes left to play. He presses, they win 17. So now we're coming into 18. And I think they're one up on the back, I think we're even on the whole match.
Speaker 1:And now I look at Cloudy and I'm like, okay, there are no more presses, but Billy goes, we're pressing you on 18, the total 18. Maybe we're up one and I'm like I guess they can press us. I go Cloudy, let's press him back. Now. Cloudy's wheels were kind of falling off, but they weren't fully off and I know what he's capable of. He's a far better scorer than I am. So we get to 18. I'm like come on, cloudy, press him back. We press him, we win this. We win a bunch of bets. We all hit our shots up. Cloudy gets the closest and everybody else and everybody else has to hit their second shot. Three of us are on the green and Billy the Kid somehow overhit his shot. He's in the back bunker. He's making sand castles back there. One shot, two shots. He ends up getting up and down for a bogey and now it's Cloudy's turn. Boom, hits the birdie, wins the hole, wins a bunch of presses and we get off 18, and they have to open their wallets. Cloudy Graves man, do I know how to pick a partner?
Speaker 1:Now, earlier in the round, when we had a minute or so at one of the tee boxes, cloudy tells me this story and he goes Do you know? There was this highway patrol officer and he was on 26 and he's just watching all these cars go by and there's one car he clocks at a hundred miles an hour. So he stops the car and he gets up to the door and the window comes down and it is this teenage boy. And he's looking at the boy and he goes son, do you know you were going a hundred miles an hour? Now you better have a real good excuse for that, and if it's a real good excuse I might let you go. Now he was just playing with this boy. He was going to give him a ticket. So the boy gives him his license and his registration Police officer comes back and he goes. Okay, so what's your story? And the boy goes. My girlfriend just called me and she said her parents are out of town and if I get there in 15 minutes she is going to put it all on me. Well, the officer just looked at him Son, why don't you just slow it down a bit? Have yourself a nice day? And he walked back to his car.
Speaker 1:The best part of that day wasn't winning with Cloudy, although I gotta tell you that was sweet. Anytime he could beat Billy the Kid. It's sweet. It wasn't watching Billy the Kid pull a rabbit out of his hat, although that's inspiring, it was actually playing against Restomod or, as I call him, the Tin man. Resto is like a rebuilt classic car. He has more metal in his body than Steve Austin. His continuous remodeling is a result of years of hitting home runs, coaching kids in multiple sports and playing more golf in the last 20 years than most people play in a lifetime.
Speaker 1:As a septuagenarian, he holds a four handicap. That means that on most days he could easily beat guys in their 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s and even 70s, as long as his medals don't rust. The Tin man rides his bike daily to keep his parts lubricated and most every Friday morning, if he's not playing, he visits me on the first tee to share his story. Now I've known him for around three years. As I'm working the first tee. He comes over and practices quite a bit and actually we had a day where he was chipping and there were just no golfers coming out. So I challenged him to a chipping competition, which I handily beat him in. So I'm thinking when I go out and play with him, I'm going to beat this four handicap. Well, quite frankly, that didn't happen. As a matter of fact, when our match was over, there were 10 strokes difference between his 76 and my piece of crap. So Resto is a good player.
Speaker 1:The day we played he had a pretty good round and I think it's because all of his parts were oiled. His drives were in the fairway over 220 yards. His approach shots were like throwing long darts and when he missed the green if he didn't chip it in, he got really close. So despite the fact that he was beating me, it was good to see him play his better self. But secondly, the most fun was his dialogue during the match. I mean, it was basically all about these gallant shots that he had recently made on each of the holes we were currently playing.
Speaker 1:When you play with the Tin man, you get to play with two people the golfer you're playing with that day and the narrated history of Restomod. You get to hear all the great shots eagle putts, eagle shots where he dunks it from the fairway, hold bunker shots, chip-ins and 40-foot snaking putts. It would be like playing golf with Tony Romo. While he's talking about Tony Romo, I joked with the Tin man about his uncanny ability to recall great shots on every hole. He laughed and just said hey, it's my way of avoiding early onset Alzheimer's. And I joked and I think I said something like I think it's a little too late for early onset. And then he laughed and proceeded to sink a 20-foot sliding putt to win the hole. Hole, motherfucker, I mean this guy. He said he does this to just keep his memory fit. I think he does it to be his own cheerleader, to root himself on to hit the same shot he hit the other day and you know what it works. Yeah, so if you get a chance to play with the Tin man, I think you'll really enjoy his company. Just, whatever you do, don't ask him about his ankle.
Speaker 1:Should you put lines on your golf balls? Matter of fact, two putts would be good for you. But here's the thing. That's just a passing fad. There will be a time in the near future where I am training one putts. I just got to be like the tin man and talk about the last time I puttered on that hole and made the putt. But the thing is, should you do it Now?
Speaker 1:First of all, a lot of major golf ball brands already have some kind of alignment line on the ball. Sometimes it is somewhere on their side logo Like Pro V1s will have something on this above and below it. Now. It used to have one line, now they have two lines. Callaway have these balls with three lines two blue lines and a center red line, and so most every brand recognizes that it's become popular. And there are these stencils that you could buy that your ball fits in and it has different lines for you to use, whatever your magic marker is, whatever you want to mark your balls with. So obviously it has become popular and a lot of people are doing it and, particularly if you're watching the PGA on weekends, you'll find a pro that will line up his putt and you can see that line and they hit their putts so pure that when they putt it you could keep seeing that line. It's a straight line as the ball is rolling. Wouldn't that be nice.
Speaker 1:Some pros that are really good at teaching putting would suggest you don't want a line, you want a path, because most putts, particularly ones that are not straight, are going to go on some kind of path and depending on how much energy you put on the ball and how hard you hit it and the severe of the slope on the green, it can take different paths depending on how much energy you want to put on that and both paths lead to the hole. Now, when I play with some of the better putters, like Billy the Kid, he would say he always wants to be aggressive and take the most aggressive path because he knows he could always make that two or three footer coming back if he misses it. But a short putt never goes in. So there are different paths to get to a hole. Well, that being the case, why wouldn't everybody want to put a line on their ball and take the path that they think is the most aggressive to get it in the hole?
Speaker 1:Well, first of all, it has to do with alignment. Because of the parallax effect and the stereopsis of each person's eyes, very few can see a straight line on the ground from a tilted head position. Say what when you bent down and aligned your ball to what you believed was your intended target, looking at it straight on? And, by the way, the best way to see a path isn't behind your ball, it's to go behind, where the flag is, and look up at your ball. I mean, this way you get to see the slope, the severity of any angle, any undulation. So when you get back to your ball, it just confirms what you've seen the other way. So once you've done that, now you're ready to align. Now here's the catch what you saw from behind the hole and what you saw from behind your ball when you align it changes when you stand up and turn sideways. According to research, less than 15% of all golfers could stand up sideways and look at the hole and have the same path in their mind as they saw when they stood behind the ball or behind the hole.
Speaker 1:So you need some help. So alignment on your ball is not a bad thing, as long as you don't have conflict, from when you bend down and set it up in alignment to when you stand up and turn to your side. And according to Dave Stockton, to help you putt, you should always look for a point an inch or two in front of your ball on the path in which you want it to travel. So this fundamentally eliminates the parallax effect. Yeah, and if none of that works, I suggest to take two weeks off and then just quit. But if you're like me and quitting is just not your thing, I'll give you three other options.
Speaker 1:So here are the three drills. The first one is two tees on the ground, creating like goalposts. The second one is using an alignment rod and the third one is putting while you're looking at the hole. So with the two tees it's pretty simple. You put a ball around three feet from the hole and between the ball and the hole you put two tees down like goal posts where your ball has to pass through that and to get the feel of your putter head going back and forth straight, make sure that the tees are wide enough just so your putter can go through, and not much more room. And then practice stroking your putter head, making sure the putter is going through those two tees and the ball goes through. And then practice stroking your putter head, making sure the putter is going through those two tees and the ball goes through. And then, as you make 10, 20, 30 in a row, what you want to do then is move back and then move the tees back, and once you feel your putter head is going back and forth straight through the hole, you could make the two tees closer together so that it only covers the path of the ball a little bit more than the path of the ball, allowing maybe an inch or so on either way, and then keep practicing that. And as you're practicing, what you're thinking about is making a full stroke and having the ball pass through the tees. So that's it. And if you have an alignment lines on your ball, make sure they are pointing to go directly between the two tees and keep practicing that. And if that works for you, you don't need to do more.
Speaker 1:The next one is the second drill is an alignment rod. You put an alignment rod down on the green facing the hole, but not a direct line to the middle of the hole. It needs to be, whether you're a righty or lefty putter, it needs to always be to call it the bottom side of the hole. So if you're a lefty putter, it needs to be facing the right side of the hole. If you are a righty putter, it needs to be facing, pointing towards the left side. So think of railroad tracks. That is the bottom of the track. Your putter, the path of your putter, is basically the next line of the track, the second line of the track, and what you're trying to do is create a backwards and forwards motion with your putter head so that it never hits the alignment stick.
Speaker 1:This drill is best for mallet headed putters, where you definitely want to go backwards and forwards on a straight path, any other type of putter that is typically an arc. It might not work as well for you. When you start off, you're doing three foot putts, so that alignment rod could actually almost touch the bottom of the hole. And what you're again? You're just practicing a backwards and forwards and as you start moving back you bring the alignment stick with you and if there's any arc to the putt, any undulation, any cant, then you are now aiming that stick not directly at the hole but on the path of the hole, so it could be right to left, left to right, whatever that is. Practice it a few times Again. What you're trying to do is, whatever the path of the putt is, you are trying to point your putter head towards the apex of that arc, the top of the arc, and that's where the alignment rod should be and that's where your putter should be.
Speaker 1:You should never be looking at the hole, lining up directly to the hole and pushing or pulling your hands to where you believe the arc is. That's a low percentage stroke. It works sometimes, but it is low percentage If you're one of those golfers where that parallax effect is strong. In other words, it's going to create conflict. You line up your ball. Everything works when you have an alignment rod or tees, but when you take them away, you line your putt up and then, when you stand up sideways to the ball and turn your head, your mind sees something different than where that ball is facing, even though the ball is probably correct in the way you lined it up, looking at the hole. Now you're sideways and now you're confused. If that gets in your head and all of those drills don't work for you, this next drill, I think, will help you, and it is just like when you're shooting a basketball, just like when you're bowling anything, where you're just looking at a target and you're letting your body figure out how to get it there. This is what Jordan Spieth did in 2015, when he had his biggest winning year on tour.
Speaker 1:In this drill, you set up like all the other drills, except you have you don't have an alignment rod, you don't have tees, but you eyeball, you're looking at the hole, you get on both sides of the hole, you're looking for the path, you find the path, you align yourself and get ready to hit to the path and then, after making a few practice strokes just to get the feel of the distance. While you're looking at the hole you set up, you look at the ball and then you turn your head, look at the hole and putt towards the hole. While you're looking at the hole, you set up, you look at the ball and then you turn your head, look at the hole and putt towards the hole. While you're looking at the hole, you're not looking at the ball. It's awkward. You can't see your putter head go back. You can't see your putter head hit the ball, but what you can see is the hole. And practice that again three feet away, at three feet.
Speaker 1:Even if you take your putter head back and you're not coming pure into the ball because you're looking at the hole, your hands and your body will figure out a way to move that ball three feet, particularly on a straight putt that doesn't turn. Now you've drained five, 10, 15 putts at three feet, looking at the hole. Now move your ball back and keep moving it back and doing the same thing. If you keep practicing this, you will train your hands and your body to know exactly how to move backwards and forwards and hit pretty much center of the putter face. But, most importantly, you're going to be looking at how fast that putt's going. You're going to be looking for any turn, any angulation, and as you start moving back, your eyes are going to start looking for places on the green where the putt starts to turn. And while you're still target focused and knowing we're looking at where the hole is, you now also see a point in the green where your ball might start to turn and your eyes start looking over there and you start putting towards there, but yet you could still see the hole.
Speaker 1:I did this yesterday because I was struggling with alignment, had two birdie putts, had five par saves with slinking putts One was a downhill slider that I would have never made, but my hands just knew exactly what to do while I was looking at the hole. Now, this is like everything else in golf what works today might not work tomorrow. So I suggest practicing all those drills and the day that you're playing hopefully you have a few minutes before you're going to play to practice putting and when you're doing that, get a feel for which of those is going to be the most effective that day. And I would certainly spend at least half the time practicing looking at the hole when you're putting, because if you get out on the course and you are focused on aligning your ball and looking at your ball and hitting it and you miss a few putts and you're not confident. This might be the time on the course, while you're playing, to make a change, and that change might be looking up when you putt and if you sink a few, you're going to own that for the day. And if none of those drills works for you, then I suggest take some time off, maybe take a trip, do something where you're not focused on golf and then come back and try again.
Speaker 1:Success in golf and failure are both ephemeral. What happens today might not happen tomorrow. That is why golf is a four-letter word. You've been listening to an episode of Tales. I'm your host, rich Easton, in search of a better golf game, casting from beautiful Charleston, south carolina. Talk to you soon. Thank you, the Thank you.