StarTalk Radio - #ICYMI - Hole-istic Golf, with Craig Davies and Sean Foley

Episode Date: June 22, 2018

In case you missed this episode on the Playing with Science channel… The U.S. Open may be over but we’re still on course. Hosts Gary O’Reilly and Chuck Nice chat with Dr. Craig Davies and golf coach Sean Foley about taking the hole-istic approach to golf and the secrets that make the best players great.NOTE: StarTalk All-Access subscribers can watch or listen to this entire episode commercial-free here: https://www.startalkradio.net/all-access/hole-istic-golf-with-craig-davies-and-sean-foley/Photo Credit: Keith Allison from Hanover, MD, USA [CC BY-SA 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ on Apple Podcasts to listen to new episodes ad-free and a whole week early.

I'm Gary O'Reilly and I'm Chuck Nise and this of course is playing with science and today we're back in the swing yes we are it's golf and Dr. Craig Davis, performance optimizer. Yes, yes, absolutely. So we're here talking with Dr. Craig Davis, performance optimizer. Yes, and golf coach Sean Foley. And here we are in the Hamptons, no less, I say, for the U.S. Open Golf Tournament. And if you think it's quite simple ball on a tee swing and hit good walk ruined or whichever view you have um we might just be able to change your minds because they are two

incredibly interesting people two of the leading components that you will not hear a great deal about right because they are behind the scenes but the golfers themselves depend so heavily. And there's one calling. That's right now. Could be Tiger. That is Tiger saying, please, I need these two guys. I need them desperately. This is how important they actually are.

Dr. Craig Davis, who is a golf performance improver. Or optimizer. I like optimizer. Yeah, absolutely. And of course, golf coach Sean Foley Absolutely Gentlemen, how are you? Yes Good, thanks for having us

Hey, thanks for joining us Fantastic So, how many times have you been to the US Open between the pair of you now? 20 something probably Yeah, it's been We were very young when we got out there originally But it's been every year for me since 2007. Wow.

So 11 years. Nice. Biggest change. Yeah, I think the field's gotten a lot younger. Yeah. That's the big thing. The field's gotten a lot younger, and the field has gotten a lot longer. These guys are, you know, you get these young kids coming out.

It's not all of them, but you see a lot of them like 6'2", 195. Right. So physical specimens as opposed to just athletes playing golf. They're maturing sooner physically as well as in their game. Before you used to have a lot of people who were golfers.

And now you're having a lot of people who are athletes that golf. And so it's a very I think there's a difference now in the the person, the individual who's playing this sport. You know, before, I think historically you'd have a lot of people who are playing golf who didn't play other sports. And now you have a lot of people who are great in other sports who are playing golf because it's kind of cool now to play golf yeah well and you see that with uh many other major league athletes from different sports what they all love to do everybody wants to be a great golfer you know no matter who it is but before we go any further why don't we just get from both of you kind of a breakdown of what it is that you do with a player and what it is that you're looking for in terms of metrics to improve a player. And just to add to an extra dimension

that there are 101 and more golf coaches. What makes you so unique in this particular field? Sorry about that. No, no, that's perfect. Yeah. You know, it's a good point because there is a lot of people who do both what I do and what Sean does. I think the difference is not too many of them have spent the time analyzing all the components that go into being a great professional in our fields. All right. So I've been fortunate to have a roommate out on this tour since I started who is one of the preeminent golf coaches, but also one of the preeminent minds in golf, not just about the golf swing. So how Sean looks at performance is very unique

compared to other coaches and very holistic. So that's a great influence that I've been able to have that no one else has been able to have. I've spent more nights on the road with Sean than I get to spend at home with my wife. So it's a very unique relationship. You must like each other, I think. We've never had a single argument.

No, absolutely not. That's incredible. That's more than I can say for me and my wife. So good for you. So, you know, that's a massive advantage that I've had. Yeah, for sure. And then from there, I've just been fortunate to have a passion to follow the body and where the body is in all aspects of science and quasi-science you know like around what people can study so looking at how the body moves both from a micro

level and a macro level looking at the energetics of the body how do we optimize the geometry and physics of the swing by by tweaking how the body is able to move. So you're improving the game by not doing anything about the game. Yeah. You're going to the genesis of it all, the body. Absolutely. I'm trying to create an environment that allows Sean to have an easier job to allow his players to give the physical essence

of the golf swing. So can you give us kind of, because our listeners, of course, love the science and the sports. Yeah. And that's what both of you guys are, especially together. So can you give us kind of a look at the tandem effect that you have? Like you said, you may adjust a player's body. I would assume that would mean you mean positioning.

Right. And like, you know, in terms of contorting, I would assume that would mean you mean positioning and, and, and like, you know, in terms of contorting, I would say. And then Sean, can you tell us what that does for you and how you respond to that when you're looking at a swing? Well, I, I started out like very intuitive about all of this, uh, like way more creative. And then I met Craig in 2001. And he kind of blew my mind with a couple things that I'd never even really thought about yet. So I was just kind of an intuitive golf coach. I was young, really young, and just trying to make a living. But I knew, I knew I was really capable because it didn't, whether I knew or not what I was doing,

I knew I was really capable because whether I knew or not what I was doing, most people got better. So I knew how to get that. And then as I met Craig and he started breaking down like physics and kinesiology to me, then the things that never interest me until I realized that they could benefit what I'm interested in. So I started to learn it that way. And so basically any sports motion, period, is about applying force and torque through an optimal range of motion. So we could measure on force plates and 3D why Messi's low no-spin kick is so effective. But people say he's gifted from God.

I mean, okay, whatever. That's not, to me, that's not really accurate. Okay. Well, for us, science is God. No, I'm joking. I just had to say that. It sounded really good. You channeled your inner Neil.

Yeah. I think the word talent and all that, and the things that we hear like thrown around quite often just comes from like mediocrity being okay with itself is to believe that someone was born just like so much better and and i think that that's uh i i don't really believe that so i'm with you on that you know that no that's a i'm glad you said that because and gary will attest to this because gary's a former professional player okay so for instance what was the um um, um, free throw percentage? We,

we found that, um, um, who was it? Steph Curry has an 89% free throw percentage. That's not natural talent. No, he's grinded his way to that. Exactly. That's, you know, if you look at it though, right. So say, and this is kind of what happens with these like super athletes, right? The environment is so massive in the intelligence. So, Steph Curry grows up, his dad's Del Curry. Right. Yes. And brother Seth Curry, let's not forget.

And Del Curry is like close mates with Glenn Rice who can shoot. And Ray Allen is like his mentor. So you have three of the best three-point shooters of two generations. And then when your dad is playing in Toronto, you don't leave the court, and then you just sit out there with Vince Carter. So I just watched a documentary on Vince Carter that was really funny because it had like Steph when he was like 10 and they couldn't get him off the court. So when he went

to the McDonald's All-American basketball camp, he was sweating for two hours before they showed up for practice and everyone was early for practice. And so that's kind of it. So, you know, when you see, when I see what goes into justin rose is the third ranked player in the world and this guy coach that craig's worked with yeah okay at 12 and 13 he showed like a really interesting skill and if that was like a little bit of strength and balance and proprioception and hand-eye coordination right then he's a visual learner so he's watching his heroes. He's going from there. But to see how he's taken himself

from, I started with him at 28, he's now 37, to be the best player he's ever been right now at 37, when all the young guns are coming up and how much further he's hit it, how much better he's got at certain things that were weaknesses,

you see the work. So when someone's like, gosh, he's so talented, it that were weaknesses, you see the work. So when someone's like, gosh, he's so talented, it's like, no. Not at all. But if they're going that deep. Like if Michael Phelps was talented as a swimmer, when he came out of the womb, if they chucked him in a pool, he would have done the breaststroke out. I got a feeling he might have, though.

And I also think he has gills. I'm just saying. I got a feeling he would have been in the bottom of the pool. When you talk about an athlete. Except for theirvana baby on the cover of in utero when an athlete goes deep never mind sorry that's right gotcha sorry no no no that's good good so catch thanks i'm here for when an athlete goes deep into their career and shows their best form that must really please you as a coach because you're thinking, all right, they were good before.

The body is beginning a downward slope because that's the way it goes depending on the sort of sport you're involved in. Absolutely. But they're still able to buck that by bringing their best game. So it has to have some... Is it just about you beginning to be knowledgeable

about your game and how best, or are there other factors that come into play? So do we know more? Well, with the science... Yes, exactly. Well, with the ability to measure it now, right? So I have a bunch of devices. I have a 3D unit from KVEST.

For analytics? Well, you Just kind of, it's like, for example, you put it on the player, and then you set it, and then they move, and then you can look at the range of motions and the amount of rotation and side bend and all these different things. And a lot of it is the things you're seeing come so much from effect that the causes aren't many right

principles there's thousands of styles but there's only a few principles that matter in the whole deal when it comes to almost anything right right and so i think what happened is that being able to measure force in the ground and 3d and then using a radar like a track man to follow the ball to give me all the information from impact. That was something that I sort of pioneered on the PGA Tour. I remember having that track man out there years ago, and it was like one of the first ones. And the next thing, it was like 65 to 80 of them. Every coach now.

And almost every player, right? Why shoot a video when I can get really a thumbprint of what happened at impact and then problem solve from that point? Right. You can reverse engineer a swing. You can actually take from the point of impact, go backwards and correct, right?

But the thing is about impact, where I've gone in the last couple of years is so much into the loading and the movement of the center of mass on the way back and the backswing, which is kind of a linear movement, a rotational movement, a vertical movement. You're doing that. And then you just I'm just saying, say someone's not really limited in their movement because if they are now, I've got to skin the cat the other way. OK. But I'm still going to get to what I want because there's other ways right just say no cats were hurt during this yes but they were delicious but that's that to me now it's all about how i'm

setting up that moment in transition because as soon as the the grip and the hands start arcing back down uh-huh impact is a thousandth of a second away. So once it starts coming down even more than that, there's not really a torque or a force that you could do to change an angular. That's going to be more the vertical force and the rotary force creating torque in the body at that point. So if you go back really and look at the greatest ball strikers of all time,'ll see the center mass of the golf club which is close to the golf head you'll always see it trailing behind the net force vector from what the hands are doing so so the hands are

twisting upon the shaft they're pulling and pushing so it's been really interesting especially amongst power is like we'll hear ground forces but i seem without a doubt where the center of mass of the golf club comes down based on where the net force is in the hands right you're gonna see completely different ways that people hit the ground cool and so i think that to me is where golf is now where we'd never been is that sasha mckenzie who's a physicist and biomech uh out in um nova scotia okay all right uh is the person to have like detailed and create the algorithm to show this and so now all those things when i was 25 that really worked for me i now understand why they do so when i didn't understand it was easy to go away from them because i didn't really realize

why they were so good but once you recognize why it's so good i think the goal of a coach a technique coach in any sport is you're trying to get your understanding to where you guarantee the person in front of you that you won't harm them nice because it's not about how much you can help them it's about how quickly you can harm them in so many ways interesting oh so there's a there's a fear bump oh you've got it you've really got to get over and make them feel it's okay it's okay it's it's it's psychologically more than anything else but it's just having enough knowledge to know like i've worked with a couple new players lately and being able to like what i really want to see them do that guy's shoulder can't do that. Gotcha.

So you've got to find another way. So now, is this where you come in? There we are. Both in the same place. We're like, so Greg, now, tell us. Is this you? How do you do that? Yeah, absolutely.

Is that when the phone rings? Yeah, so exactly. So you have a coach will say, hey, I have this player. This is the technique. This is the movement I'm trying to achieve. This is where I want the club to be delivered from and then you have a player who either has a gifted amount of internal external rotation of the hip you have internal external rotation of the actual shoulder joint but if they need to squeeze out an extra 10 degrees of shoulder

external rotation you know kind of what we were talking about before the show yeah right how can you do that if you're not going to get any more out of the actual shoulder joint the glenohumeral joint well now we can look at how does the scapula the shoulder blade how can we change the movement patterns of that shoulder blade in conjunction with how the ribs and the spine are extending and rotating to all of a sudden elicit or just a 20 to 30 degrees increase in shoulder external rotation without actually changing what's happening at that joint because you've changed the rest of the joints in that chain or sequence so at the moment i'm hearing the knee bone is connected to the shin bone and it is basically quite simply without being rude you kind of go back to right if i can't move that particular joint let me work with the places around it and then ease that out. So maybe then you,

you pick that area from other, from some, some other areas. I've seen, I've seen though with people with like, say a shoulder issue that Craig will focus like mainly on their left ankle and, and really work through that area. And that,

I mean, it's not just so it's not, it's not just seriously, it's not just connecting. It's, I mean, this could be, I mean, this could be connected all the way to the epicenter of the universe, right? Oh, yeah.

Absolutely, yeah. So based on what you just said, Sean, correct. Yeah. So I have a friend who basically told me he was working with somebody kind of like you, but on a more personal basis. kind of like you but like you know on a more personal basis and he said something about ankle knee hip shoulder is is there is that an actual like zigzag connection or there's some kind of connection there's connections that go literally so you everything like you said everything's connected our body is made out of a tensegrity model of connective tissue right so if you're looking at we all know

connective tissue being you know tendons right right it's a very obvious one the outside uh component of the bone the periosteum is continuous with the tendon it's the same tissue right it is literally the exact same thing we just call it something different so geography wise we can communicate right it's the same so the capsule so the periosteum or the outer covering of the bone continues as the joint capsule continues then as a tendon which then spreads out into the connective tissue that goes throughout the entire body literally from every single cell's dna out to the skin it is all connected as one and that is the model of where our electrons or energy moves through the body it's where movement comes from it's where force transmission comes from everything is

connected it's it's so much more than saying you know the ankle the knee you're connected i know man you just went you went down on a microcellular uh level two i asked about ankle knee yeah and hip and you were just like no brother i gotta break this down on a microcellular level why why why why do you think i said these are the two secret components of the major golf tours? All right, so we're going to take a break now, but we have more golf with Craig Davis and Sean Foley when we get back. If you've enjoyed the first bit, you're going to love what's coming up next. And welcome back to Playing With Science.

I'm Gary O'Reilly. And I'm Chuck Nice. And we are still stuck in the rough with Dr. Craig Davis and, of course, golf coach Sean Foley. We are talking about the sort of tactile issue of I need to loosen up this muscle, so therefore I can massage that into, let me be very basic. You're talking on a microcellular level

where we are playing with electricity yeah absolutely so yeah if we're looking so you know if you go back to eastern medicine they talked about chi or energy moving through meridians yes right yes so we've now been able to look at the body and say okay the connective tissue which is made out of collagen that is where our electrons move through the body okay so if you're sitting on the grass wet grass or the edge of the ocean and you have salt water kind of coming up and lapping at your ankles you are taking energy from the ground right which was put there by lightning strikes right put into the ground and goes into your skin up through the connective tissue up through your entire body

and literally powers your body right each cell so now now now mind you yeah right now you gotta you gotta understand our audience yeah and so i'm gonna there's guys right now and women sitting listening and they're just going hey shirleyLaine, keep your chakra stuff to yourself. We want some science. What are you talking about? Perfect. So go on. I just want to let you know, that's what's being thought right now. You may well have heard that before.

So it's not even woohoo stuff that the connective tissue is literally where the energy, the electron transportation takes place. That's what they're showing. There's people out of MIT who are studying how our collagen works, um, to build faster microchips because they've shown that the energy goes through ourselves at like 10,000, uh, I think I can't remember if it's 10,000 feet a second or 10,000 meters per second, but either way, incredibly fast. It's 10 times faster than the faster, fastest microchips they have now. Our are an incredible conductor of electricity in essence right so what happens we are no longer getting energy the same way we did a thousand years ago

our food obviously as we all know is way less in terms of quality of food right if you take an apple now and it's grown gmo'd it's sprayed with chemicals it's grown in crappy soil that doesn't have the nutrient value that apple isn't as nutrient dense as it once was. That's why I like it. It reminds me of alcohol. Please, carry on. Our water's the same, right? Our water is not as clean, it's not as fresh, it's not as charged

as it once was. I mean, I was just in the city in New York on the weekend and I was sitting on the steps and I was looking around and wondering how many people in front of me have not actually touched the ground with their feet. No contact with nature, right? Period. Yeah. Period.

That is a serious concept, man. Well, that's where we're going. That is a really serious concept. Do you know what? I don't even know what made you think that. No, no. He told me that probably two years like that's what we're going yeah you just saying that honestly just jolted me a little bit well why do you think people feel better when they go on vacation to a

sunny beach it's not because they have rest they're with the same they're with the same people they're with their families so they're with the people who stress them out they're touching barefoot you know what i mean they can't leave work now because they got that yeah and they think it's the sound of the waves and it's just they're just sitting in electrical grid and charged and by the ground charging them healing interesting very interesting okay ground charge barefoot touching nature every every piece of nature has a magnetic field we interact with right but we don't have nature around us anymore so we're losing that connection we're losing the energy from the the ground because we're not touching with our bare skin. Most people never touch nature. As Sean just said, we're eating crappy food. We have water

that's got low pH and all pHs is an energy level, right? So if you have a pH of five, that's acidic. We're inactive. Yeah. It means it has less energy. Less energy in the body means that you can't hold as much gas. We know that a charged fluid holds more oxygen. If our bodies aren't charged, we can't hold more oxygen. And that's when chronic disease starts coming in. That's when our bodies start breaking down. So when we work with our athletes who are constantly degrading their bodies from doing such a high-velocity, high-force movement,

if we don't give them an environment where their bodies can heal, they're not going to heal. And that's our advantage. Have you seen from what you've done, have you seen increased oxygenation or oxygen intake on a cellular level, or if you're able to measure that? And secondly, based on what you just said, what kind of performance metrics have you seen in terms of improvement yeah do you have quantifiable yeah so you can use you can use different things so you can use um you know items like omega wave and different other heart rate variability monitors where you're looking at what's happening to the heart and the variability in the beats of the heart and other parameters that that measures you can actually measure using uh different devices like tenants

device where you can measure the voltage or the impedance of the body that that changes dramatically when you're getting in a more charged environment and by environment i'm talking all those things water food everything else and then you look at the tissue quality and the tissue quality changes dramatically and heal so much faster when you're in that kind of environment because you're changing how the body can act as a tensegrity model you know you're talking about overuse injuries the reason you get overuse injuries is because you've changed the stress and how it goes through the body which changes tensegrity which when you look at major golf tournaments you are playing for two to three hours six hours sometimes right and then you're going to do that again the next day. And if you go deep into the tournament,

you're going to play three rounds? Four rounds. Four rounds. Thank you. Yeah. You play four rounds, play 72 holes. Right. It's typically around this time of the year.

It gets to about 100 every day. So you've got recovery issues. You've got repetitive. You have neural fatigue. Yes. So many. Because every hole is a vacation right every hole is is stress yeah every single shot is stress and the thing is stress is like what people need to understand right like stress doesn't need to be like when we think of stress

we always think a negative right right but it's stress is just, just the activity and productivity of the brain. So it's, if, so a guy's sitting there and he's playing around 18 holes and say, we're at Shinnecock Hills. There's a lot of decisions that need to be made four or five hours. Like it's all a decision. When they go semi clear and then just become the athlete they've done, they've gone from, i like to call it like going from einstein to picasso like i do this simply with like my young kids just to kind of teach them a process i don't necessarily believe in routines because i know a lot of people are the greatest who actually couldn't even tell you what their routine was they were just really effective yeah and the thing is if a routine is so helpful then how come every time i do the exact same routine i have completely different results? So that, and that's, you could look at any sport like that. So the NBA is full of guys who are shooting terrible at the free throw line

who have really articulate 10 second routines. Yes. So when you start, once again, if you're going outside in, then you're probably always going to be flawed in your understanding. But when you're looking at like where this all started, this used with with Craig

that used to be like ART treatment you know and then went down the hole more with this so at first it was like you know guys adjusting backs then going into tissue expertise then going nutrition then going to training so I've I've watched what he just said there I've literally watched it from next to him happen for all those years. And Craig could be listening to someone like Dr. DeGrasse and start to dial that into how he's seeing what he's seeing. And so you see the evolution of the professional, right? And you see the evolution of the professional right yeah and you see the treatments get better and then the best part is having my my own issues um is as they progress and they're understanding how to treat the body uh the treatments happen faster and it's it's just really so you can i

mean i understand the science evidence of sitting there thinking, right, I've given this player, this golfer to Craig, and he's come back to me with this enhancement, and you're able to do these things, and you've seen this on a number of occasions. Yeah, or just he gave someone the ability to have a 10-year career. Wow. They were not designed to, like, bend over and turn fast. And so it's keeping them in the game.

Like no one's designed to be a scrum half and take head-on collisions. No, no, fair enough. Yeah, I get that. It's a rugby reference. And then no one's really designed to run 13 kilometers around a Premier League field four days a week, right? So it's, you know, there's only so many George Best guys

who just did it and didn't stretch and smoked at halftime and were the best. The rest of them are. They were. He was, yes. Right. And he did. Right.

Yeah, absolutely. I know it's elite athletes. It's the top of the 1% of elite golfers. Right. But for other sports and for non-sport related human beings like chuck and myself is it still applicable absolutely maybe not teaching us to swing a golf club that we don't want to but of course yeah you do absolutely so looking at literally the energetics of your body yeah is extremely important to everyone so i have uh one of my friends from back home in Canada

who's apparently been diagnosed with fibromyalgia. And so she's been living with that for the last eight years, pain every day. Terrible, very painful. Yeah. And since she's changed the energetics and where she's getting food, where she's getting water, and how she's charging herself, she doesn't have symptoms anymore. Good for her.

Yeah. So everybody can do it. And it's really just a matter of looking at okay what is what is the way that i can optimize the health and wellness in the performance of my body like i look at performance not just in an athletic sense yeah but how can i perform on a day-to-day basis at the top of my my peak what's my peak i have osteoarthritis in my left ankle and right knee and so that's just come from what i've done right yeah but some of the things we're doing right now is because i'm 44 at 60 that'll be a problem it'll be a life problem and so you know you you see like a lot of runners

who ran their whole life and and and it's funny it's not as healthy as people think it is but they ran and they ran long distances and long distances, and then they quickly get obese in their 60s because they're so broken down in their ankles and their knees that they can't even really exercise now. So I think it's long-term. It has to do that. And obviously, if Craig is able to increase the ability for the body to heal itself, it's knocking out thousands of things a day

that we don't even know, right? There's tons of problems that answer. There's tons. And by the way, just for those of you who will not be watching us on startalkallaccess.com and you're just listening to the podcast, Sean is actually so young looking, he looks nowhere near 44. No. Actually, is actually so young looking, he looks nowhere near 44.

No. Actually, he's so young looking, he could be black. That's how young looking he is. He's sorta, actually. It's a long story, but. All right. Long story. So I'm just wondering, when you first get a golfer

and you explain what you've explained to us, is there that moment where they give you the quizzical look and you have a hard sell or just generally having come through sean you get i'm in well i'm fortunate that this isn't my first rodeo out here okay so i have people who tend to come to me who know what I'm about. Right. All right. So there's, and I think success has something to do with that too. Like when you have success with one player,

other players say, yo man, what happened to you? A hundred percent. What's going on with you, man? I noticed. And then that player says,

Oh, well, you know, you must know. And then I think that would, that would make guys probably a lot more, um, lot more amenable to whatever you have to say. Right. When you have a guy who cannot literally can't play golf and then comes back and he ends up being the number one ball striker on tour less than a year later. People that's big. But it's also a people because, you know, it's no different than any high school cafeteria.

Right. Like the grownup world is no different, and people suffocate with comparison. So it's like, what's he doing? Why has he been so good? Why is he, oh, it must be because of that guy. An interesting analogy. That's exactly why I hate my brother. But as it goes on, it's like I remember when I was,

2013, I was coaching Tiger and Justin Rose and Hunter Mahan. That would be Tiger Woods, right? Yeah. Okay, just for reference. Tiger had won like five times in eight weeks. Justin Rose had won the U.S. Open. Hunter Mahan was top 10 player in the world. I mean, I would get emails from agents nonstop.

And then when I was fired by Tiger in 2014, I wouldn't get any emails. So that's right. Now you just stay in the game because there's going to always be ups and downs. That's what it is, right? That's almost the beauty of it. That's almost the, to me is the most, the thing I love about, about adversity, adverse adversity and going through difficult times is I love it as a challenge just to see how absolutely upbeat i can stay so i like the harder it gets actually the more i like it so in my

i tried to like teach my young kids that i coach that like the climb is the climb is way more gratifying than the summit that's where the growth comes so it's actually that sort of lesson of embrace oh well you have to yeah and then see it as something that sort of lesson of embrace Oh well you have race yeah and then see it as something that will be transient but embrace it see if what it is put it there well we the next time you revisit this sort of phase you're not broken by it no we we just know we know so little yeah period right like we know like so little that there's no use in trying I love when when players are

struggling you can hear them always saying like i'm just trying to figure it out and i'm like how's that helping you yeah figure out what right how much no no i'm just if i if a golfer comes to you and they want an advantage what sort of percentage of their game would they be saying to you that's what i need 10 1%. I have the data on that. I wrote the foreword for a book from Dr. Mark Brody, who's a professor at Columbia University. Cool. And so he came up with strokes gained.

And so it's a long story, but what he basically figured out was, okay, I met this guy who I was introduced to as the best putter in golf. And the saying in golf is drive for show, putter for dough. There you go. Everyone knows that. Everyone knows that. Exactly. So we're all shackled by the sayings of forever, right? Right.

And so that's just one of those. You just heard it growing up and you're like, oh, right. Of course, yeah. And you never really looked and noticed like, God, the junior golfer who wins every tournament I'm in hits it 60 yards by me, right? So as time goes on on he meets this guy he he says how many times have you won the in in the process six and he's like well how's that work

now he's in the math department at Columbia now he's a dean in the in the business school so he just starts kind of messing around and stroke gained approach um came out seven or eight years ago I remember I saw strokes gain putting and was like, what is that? So it said the guy gained 1.5 strokes with his putter. So in an individual sport, how do you know what's good or bad? Because we had guys hitting a lot of greens in regulation,

which was historically an attribute of a guy making money, but then lose their card and so you would look at it and someone said we could so now for the non-golfers you're gonna have to explain that because you just said just if you can just break that down no because you said you're seeing guys hitting a lot of greens and then losing their card but just break it down for people who don't play golf right so if he if he looked how's how has he looked at it was how he saw it was that if you look at Tiger Woods, Jack Nicklaus, Anika Sorenstam, Rory McIlroy, Justin Thomas, to an extent right now, Dustin Johnson, Justin Rose, these players who separate themselves in their generation, especially Jack and Tiger and Anika, right? That's next level. Yeah, that's next level. Is they were really competent from 175 to 250 yards.

Right. So what happened was their skill set and their physical advantage gave them the ability to hit a ball further and higher. And in doing so, land it softer. Right. And make the golf course shorter. And so it's just that's the math right so if you take the top 10 putters in the world the average 65th in the world ranking if you take the top 10 hitters so t to green they're 13 right and and the idea there is when

you talk about strokes gained is it's a game of the least number of strokes. That's the entire game in a nutshell. Get in the hole. So if I can get in the hole quicker, I win. It doesn't make a difference how well I can putt. But that's the data, though, too, that really helps. So we were taught hit your wedges all the time. OK. But if you look from, like guys will set out on tour

and they'll set out cones at like 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90, 100 yards. Right. And they practice that for like two hours. But then when you look at it as their scoring percentage for the year, it takes the average player on the PGA Tour, I think it was roughly, what was it, 2.52 strokes to get the ball in the hole from 30 yards. And from 100 yards, it was 2.7. So what's the use in even practicing 40 to 100?

Do you see what I'm saying? Yes. It's really not. So one, if you have a 50-yard shot, then you made a mistake because no one wants that. Because what happens when I have less velocity, I don't have the ability to create as much time in the air and spin. So the ball's not going to stop. So you're restructuring strategy.

Oh, 100%. Wow. And that's been, you know, that's been, the thing with the science, right, is that we have the ability now to measure these things. But the problem is, as so many things occur, is sometimes the science just becomes part of the method. Right?

So guys can hear the same things and completely interpret it differently. And that's the tricky part. That, to me, is where guys will start to use the science, but it becomes a bit pseudo because it matches the method. So we're not into methods. We're into principles and laws. The numbers, the math, making it work. That's great. And each set of numbers is different for each player.

Yeah, absolutely. Because as you know, biomechanically, we're all anatomically the same, but very different. Very different. We all have different resonance. We will take another break. I hope you're enjoying our golf special right now with our really great guests, Dr. Craig Davis and Sean Foley. We'll take that break and we'll be back very, very shortly with more from these two gentlemen. Don't go away.

Right, let's get straight to the last part, sadly the last part of this interview with Dr. Craig Davis, who is a performance optimizer. I love the idea of that. And Sean Foley, who is a golf coach, but really, golf coach, it doesn't do him justice. Not at all. He is so, so intense and thoughtful. So, all right, let's pick up where we left off shall we so something that struck me earlier on you talked about someone who has a only so much capacity for rotation or can someone just turn up say you're too bendy you're far too flexible can you be just too loose oh sure a lot of the the girls I coach in high-level amateur golf and professional golf have massive amounts of hypermobility. Sometimes these girls have a hard time transferring the

energy because there's not really any XL, D cell kinematically in how they move. And then there can be, because of these just massive movements of their joints, they don't seem to stiffen and transfer the energy out as much. So it's, I know I'm using the wrong words with him staring at me right now. No, he stares at everybody. Let me tell you, you have no idea what is happening to me right now. I am just like sitting here dying because I'm trying my best to be an adult. Yeah, I hear you. You failed miserably.

But Sean, at least you're perceptive enough to look at me. You're like, look at Chuck. He is dying right now. You're getting younger by the second you're mental age.

You've got to control 100 degrees of motion, right? You have 100 degrees of play versus 20. Right. It's much easier to control 20 degrees

than figure out where you are in that 100 degrees of motion. Sweet. So when you have hypermobility, there's a lot more space that you have to own because it sounds like it should be an advantage well you have to have enough motion yeah right to do what you want to do and you have to own that motion but if you all of a sudden give a player an extra 30 degrees of overall rotation they don't own it now they have way more room to make mistakes right and that's

exactly very common wow that's what an interesting concept. That's awesome. Where do we go from here? I mean, you seem to me to be two gentlemen who've combined to make a giant leap forward. And I'm guessing from just the discussion we've had, you're not the kind of guys to just sit down and say, yeah, we've cracked it.

You're looking over the hill. You want to see and think about what could potentially be the future. You got any thoughts, any ideas? Hey, you know, when I just talked about residence, one of the cool things that the last couple of years, that's made a big difference in my job. So, you know, I get to see my players on a daily basis,

which is very different than a lot of other therapists or movement coaches. Yes. And so I use a lot of the times when my players aren't injured we use that as the diagnostics and when i say not injured i mean not symptomatically injured yeah as a as a time to use the diagnostics with our hands and different other tools to figure out where the body's starting to break down without actually being injured yet and so now we can use things

like there's something like luminous where we're using electrons and different other natural therapies to increase the healing before the problem actually becomes an injury so for me preventative yeah it's there's a completely new way now see i just use steroids for that yeah well that's a that's a good way that's a joke that's another one look at craig he's such a doctor he was like well listen listen no it's a joke. Hey, it works. It does. That's why they test for it now. That's right.

Because they do work. Anything that's got high repetition in it is going to be putting muscles and tendons and everything into a stressful environment. And at some point, you're going to find damage. Well, that's the tensegrity, right? You alter the tensegrity model. There you go.

And you've got to be thinking, well, look look we'll deal with it when we get there, which is possibly the 80s slash 90s model for dealing with it now Everybody's thinking Well, we know it's coming How do we? Prevent that or limit damage? I think though too, with like the, with the amount of opiates in pain treatments that are occurring in all the

different sports, it's not even an, you better get there before it happens. Right. You know, you have to, I can get like a 13 or 14 year old kid who's one of the best players in the country.

And I'll look at how he moves through the ball and I'll just say, you know what? You need to do this, this and this. And their parents are like no but he's he's he's playing really good and I'm like he's gonna hurt himself he's gonna herniate right how interesting l3 and l5 no doubt by the time he's because you've just preempted my next question is the key to keeping Craig away from the athlete just great technique? Because if you've got the great technique, you're not going to have to have too much interaction. Is that just too simplified?

That's ultimately the goal. Yeah. But the thing is, is we're not, I think what Craig's done well is he looked at it more as performance rather than treatment. Like a lot of guys on tour are just, they just get treated. Right. And they like it. And they get, you know, it gives them an hour and a half to themselves.

And I mean, who doesn't want to get treated every day? It doesn't have to be like a full on treatment, right? They can just flush you. You're in there relaxing. They get an hour and a half with their head down. There's no media there's no fans there's no nothing i mean all things that they're fine with yeah you know i get a guy and and and i i started working with a player in september danny willett who won the masters in

2016 yeah and so i did a little due diligence on him and found out that when he came on the tour he was actually quite long off the tee and he got really short. So I knew I could max him out a bit and not be concerned about it. Like I knew that it was in him to be able to do that. Um, and that's just based on memory and that's based on the brain and that's based on all the neuropathic way, uh, the, the myelin aspects. It's not gone from him. He's just developed. He's doing something different different

patterns he's different and so we got i mean we got 35 yards of carry off the tee in five and a half six months and the neck shoulder and back pain um are gone wow yeah and see that's the advantage right so when when i have players who work with sean and obviously we communicate all the time right because we stay in the same place all the time. Those players are coming to me using a technique that fits their bodies, that decreases the amount of stress their body versus other coaches who have absolutely no idea. And some of my athletes have worked with coaches who have no clue and those bodies get injured more. And my goal is to get an athlete where they move great and then i act like bumpers in a bowling lane and i just try to keep them in that right so i can do that very well with someone who's coming

who's using great technique for them yeah when they're not it's tough to do so it's interesting i think back to my playing career and you don't play a game fully fit no it's how it's how much is of your fitness is actually. I've heard many athletes. Somebody said that there's no professional athlete that completes any season 100% healthy. No. I don't care who they are, unless they're on the bench.

If they're playing, everybody's playing injured, period. Even if you're on the bench, you're probably carrying something because you need to be on the bench. And there's no way to say, Coach, you've got to count me out because I've twisted a sock or I've broken an eyelash. No, there's no way. You just put yourself in the frame every time.

Those were my excuses. I know they were. All the time. Yeah, I know. Just like, my God, I can't play with this ingrown nail. My God, are you kidding me? Hey, guys, well, thanks so much. No, thank you.

It's been unbelievably interesting really thank you because we've got two people who are working with the elite of the elite i mean we do meet elite athletes but when you get to this kind of level of the pga to talk to the guys behind them to talk to the guys that dismantle and rebuild is is just incredible to see how you guys that dismantle and rebuild is just incredible to see how you think. Yeah, I think the key is you don't want to ever, unless you have to dismantle something because whatever they're doing just causes too much pain, but it's, you know, if you know where to plug in.

And how to plug in. Yeah. You know how to plug in the cord. Yeah. A lot of it is just, a lot of it is it is that you know i mean these guys as good as they are right and they're such chameleons kinesthetically if they aim in a poor fashion for three days it'll totally alter their mechanics wow so it's like you got to be their eyes because when they go out there and they get clear and they're doing their things like i said they're but you when you're observing the swing of a golfer

and you know what it should be you're dealing with such small details you know how do you train your eye to be able to notice such small you don't know you just do just been doing it sometimes when you walk into a room each of us sees something differently right so one person might see the curtains one person sees the type right so one person might see the curtains one person sees the type of lights one person sees the the type of flooring or the coloring yeah and if you're somebody who sees the color you shouldn't be the person who's working on the flooring and so sean has just been he's just extremely good at looking at how the body moves intrinsically understanding that athlete and being able to pick that up in their swing he's always

been good at that so he's come into something that makes sense for him the way he sees the world or life or the swing it just works for him so the first question you ask yourself every time is what's wrong with this picture or what's right with this picture yes good answer good answer kind of look I see I see everything I always feel like I'm the I'm the hyphen in between the E and the R

I'm moderate so when it comes to everything I look at all religion politics you name it I see it all through the same kind of

like it's it's that search for why yeah but it's to really know what it's not like I don't necessarily know what's right but I totally know

what's wrong there you go you know what I mean I forgot the congressman who said that I don't know what it's not. Like, I don't necessarily know what's right, but I totally know what's wrong. There you go. You know what I mean? I forgot the congressman who said that. I don't know what porn is, but I know it when I see it. Right, yes. Absolutely.

I don't know the definition of it, but I know it when I see it. And that's great. Yeah. And on that note. Yeah, exactly. Hey, what a pleasure talking to you. Absolute pleasure.

It's a thrill. And have a great time. And good luck. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, my york guys, they can't all win, but hopefully the guys that you work with are successful. Absolutely. Cheers, man.

Pleasure. Thank you. Thank you. So that's our show. Back in the world of golf. And two incredible guests who, although they're not players, are possibly two of the most or more important people involved in elite golf. I just love the way Craig Davis has got a handle on these things and how his mind is opened up to treatment,

but how Sean's attitude towards golfers and how he sees things. No wonder he's worked with elite athletes like Tiger Woods and Justin Rose. I'm sure they're queuing up to get on his list. Absolutely. Holy dynamic duo. They are a great couple. Kind of like some other people I know. I'll say it.

Chuck and I. I'm not shy. I hope you've enjoyed the show. We look forward to your company very very soon