00:00I have to clear my playbook when I work with, you know, when I go from Patrick Reed to J
00:05.J. Spong,
00:06polar ends of the opposite of the spectrum. J.J.'s a cutter, but I've helped J.J. become a shallow
00:11cutter. So he's not a digger. He's not a leaner anymore. He's learned to, we're matching with
00:16what he and Adam Schreiber have done for so long and been an amazing plush or an amazing ball
00:21striker. He's a pivoter. He's a rotator. He's a chest guy. So I got him a little wider. I got
00:27his left shoulder working around the corner to match with what he does in the golf swing
00:31because, and so now, you know, you've got video of him as well. He's now a shallow cutter.
00:35There's nothing about his, his, his motion where arms are dragging left. His body is working
00:41left, but the arms, you know, I say this all the time. I think the best pitchers in the
00:46world, their arms look like they're drawing it and the body's cutting it. Like look at
00:50his arms. That looks like almost a draw, but his body, but his body is actually opening and
00:56cut. And whenever the chip, so if you could, if you could take that back a couple of frames,
01:00this is one of my favorite things. If you, if you look at like post impact, the best chippers
01:05in the world, the club fast, the club face will match their spine angle. It'll round the
01:10corner on the arc and it'll, it'll match their spine angle. Too many guys, if they drag the
01:14handle left, the face will be way too open and run out to right field. That's a deflection.
01:19That's a ride to face. That's a tumbler or the right shoulder lowers and they chunk it.
01:23So, um, JJ's, uh, become a shallow cut, a shallow, a shallow cutter with his pitching
01:29to match his full swing, man, Josh, you know, JJ spawn obviously in a, in a, such a good
01:35ball striker, but I think earlier this year, you know, he really started to show off a little
01:40bit with the short game. And by the way, congratulations. Uh, of course, you know,
01:43if you go back to, uh, the U S open, it was the first week that you guys have worked
01:47together
01:48in the, in the fact that he's able to, uh, to lift the, that big trophy at the end of
01:52the
01:52week is in a tremendous accomplishment for you and him. But, you know, at the beginning
01:55of this year, like I said, you know, at the hero there, there he's, he's doing things with
01:59a wedge. I've never seen him do. He's starting to throw the club head at it for a guy that
02:03never felt like to me was a guy that can kind of give it a little bit, uh, you know,
02:08with
02:08that right arm at the bottom. Cause he'd probably be worried about contact. Just talk about like
02:12from almost being a year away from that win at the U S open, how much you think he's improved
02:18his technique, uh, since that U S open win? Well, I'll give credit, credit, credit where
02:24credit's due. He had, he had pretty darn good technique. Uh, obviously he had his full swing
02:29coach Adam Schreiber have done a phenomenal job with his golf swing. His chipping motion
02:33pitching motion. Wasn't that far off now? It was far off in the rough. He did not understand.
02:38And as most guys, they don't understand that rough is so much lot lie base. It's so much angle
02:43of attack. So he was way too steep, way too cutty, uh, on, on shots out of the rough, which
02:49almost all guys are anyway. So I remember when we first got around Oakmont teaching him that,
02:54Hey, when these lot, these balls never go to the bottom lies in the rough, even when they
02:58look like they're buried, you're still probably an inch above the ground. So therefore, if you're
03:01too steep on it, you're going to hit it on top of the face. You're probably going to hit
03:04off the toe and it's just going to go nowhere. So I remember the first time we were showing
03:08this stuff about, Hey, you've got to move the ball more forward. You got to let the club
03:12pass. We got to almost feel like we're hitting up on it. Almost like we're hitting a high draw,
03:17for example, because we're trying to find the center of the face. So if the ball is an inch
03:23above the ground, we better be swinging it more, much more level, much more up on it than down.
03:30So he looked at me like I was crazy. He goes, I'm just going to go right under that. And
03:33I said,
03:34honestly, it's the opposite. You're going to go right under this. If you keep swinging more down
03:38and left, you're going to whiff at some point. So we did that. He trusted it. He bought into it.
03:44We changed it with a little bit of tilts. Like he's not, don't really, he doesn't really want
03:48to change his release pattern a whole lot. So we moved the ball more forward out of the rough.
03:52We got his pressure a little bit more on his right foot so he could release it.
03:55A lot of guys get too far left. And the only time you want to be left is when that
03:59thing's all the way
03:59on the ground, which very rarely happens. So fortunately, he chipped it on the first hole
04:04at Oakmont. He left it in a dead spot to the right of one. And he had that same shot
04:07that we talked
04:08about in here. A little high floating passer is the word we use. Let the club pass. And he hold
04:13it.
04:13So I think that helped my job security.
04:18Yeah, Schreiber texted me on the first hole and he goes, that was a pretty good audition.
04:25So where he's improved, look, have we changed his motion a little bit in his basic pitching?
04:31Definitely helped his bunker. He needed some higher, softer bunker shots.
04:34And he most importantly needed to understand lies. That is 95% of my job with what I do with
04:40him
04:40is each week and all guys. But with, you know, getting on property, understanding are the bunkers
04:45firm soft? How's the turf and the fairways? What's the lies like in the rough? And then trying to put
04:51them in situations so we can go through our playbook. Randy Smith told me this one time, which is pretty
04:56cool. I was helping Cibu last year and he said, Josh, you ought to get a, like the quarterbacks do
05:01in the NFL,
05:02you ought to get one on your, on your, you get an armband so they can, they can look and
05:06understand what lies are, you know, what they're supposed to do with what. So I don't use fancy
05:11terms. I use a lot of speed, throw less speed here, more down, more up. That's how I talk.
05:17And I think that resonates with a lot of players.
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