In golf culture, as we all know, certain dreaded words must avoided. However, contrary to popular belief, the worst is not “shank”—it is either “bunter” or “short knocker.” How do I know? Years of abuse at the hands of friends who love to bomb it by me and then taunt me. This reached a tipping point in early December with my buddy Fredrick Lindblom of the PGA Tour Latinoamerica. Right after we teed off he asked, “You catch that?”

“Ripped it,” I said, as we both got into the cart and started driving to our balls.

“Yeah. Looked like you sent it at least 201,” he said with a chuckle. “By the way, did you hear about all the new construction around here? I hear it includes a new Super Walmart!”

“A new Super Walmart around here! Cool. Where’s it going?” I asked.

“Right between my ball and yours,” he could barely get the words out before exploding into laughter.

That evening, as I sat at home reflecting, I decided it was time to make a change. It wasn’t just Freddy, it was a lot of people. I needed to be able to hit it further: I set a new goal for myself: fly the ball 250 by September 1, 2019.

What follows is the story of my journey.

It’s not just swinging harder

Going into this process, because of my background in golf, I knew my best shot would be to learn to move more efficiently to create more optimal launch conditions. My first step was to call the people at K-Motion. K-Motion makes a technology in golf called K-Coach—they use wireless sensors to provide data to software that produces an evaluation report that explains how a player uses their body to hit the ball. How good? 51 of the coaches on the top 100 list, 21 major league teams, and Freddy all use it.

Data collection with K-Coach and a Flightscope took less than ten minutes. One sensor went on my back with a vest (hence the name), one around my waist with a belt, one on my arm with a Velcro strap and one on my golf glove with a clip. I took five swings with my six iron and that was it. Out popped the report and graphs.

“You’re obviously aware of your FlightScope numbers,” my friend Joe DiChiara, Director of education at K-Motion, who coaches elite junior and your players, reminded me. “You swing your 6-iron about 79 mph with a path way right”

I nodded.

“Here is what your body is doing” said Joe, as he turned the computer screen show me some data in the evaluation. “You start with your arms and hands first and that limits your ability to transfer the energy your body is creating to the golf ball through what we call the kinematic chain.“

“And what should I be doing?” I asked.

“In an efficient swing, and not all great golfers are efficient, in the transition sequence, from the top of the swing, you want the lower body to fire first, then the upper body, then the lead arm, and then the hand, like when you crack a whip.”

“Makes sense,” I told him.

“And the other thing I would suggest, you need to focus on your side bend at the top of your swing. As you can see,” he said pointing to another page of the report, “you have flat shoulders at the top, and that’s making it hard for you to deliver the club at impact.”

“What does the rest of the report say?” I asked

“That’s all you need to know right now” Joe told me.

“So, here is the million-dollar question, how do I get better on this?” I asked. “Hit a ton of balls?”

“Actually, we are going to do no range work. We are going to design you a biofeedback training program for your K-Coach and you have super speed weighted clubs, and I want you to use the program I give you for those too.”

Joe spent another two minutes creating my programs, emailed them to me and I was ready to go. As I shook Joe’s hand and left, I was excited but also worried, no range? Is this going to work? I mean, it’s where people practice?

I caught my flight home and as soon as I got home, I downloaded the biofeedback training program from Joe, put on my K-Coach and got to work. Immediately I could feel how different the patterns were. My posture was way different, and I really had to struggle to follow the avatar that guided me through my new movement patterns, engaging my muscles in new ways.

I stuck with the program, upping my work to three times a day for the first 10 days. Slowly, I improved, the work got easier, and I got better at getting into position. I called Joe and told him it was getting easy at day 15, so he tightened the tolerances on my biofeedback activities. It got harder again.

About 20 days into the program, I felt confident in my new movement patterns and ready to test my work. I headed out to my home course TPC Pebble Creek.

I got up on the first tee. I did a step through drill, then addressed the ball and whack! So far left, it was crazy. No Bueno. Lack of separation on the downswing with some forward bend, I thought.
No problem, needed to side bend more at impact and not be so forward. Rehearsing the change, I hit another and this time, crushed it. I was pumped to see where it was, so I quickly put my driver away and darted down the fairway to find it about 20 yards past where I have ever hit it on a course that I have probably played a million times. That was the story of the day, everything way longer than ever before.

After the round, I pulled out the Flightscope and tested my 6-iron speed, 87 mph, ten miles per hour faster. Wow. I called Joe.

“Fantastic stuff, time for new clubs,” he told me.

Studio 360 club fitting

Now that I had better movement patterns, I enlisted the help of my friend Lyndon Wilson at Golf Studio 360 based at Orange County National in Orlando, Florida. Lyndon is a world-class fitter who has done work for many of the best players including Justin Rose and Graeme McDowell to name a few. I was excited to get his opinion on if equipment might be able to help me get more distance.

After watching a couple shots with my irons, Lyndon in his English accent said, “are you ready for something that will change your life?”

I nodded. He turned away and I could tell he was screwing some components together. He turned around and immediately, my smile turned upside down; Lyndon has put in a graphite shaft. I immediately protested, “Lyndon, I may not hit it far, but I love the stability of my steel shafts. I don’t want a couple yards at the cost of accuracy.”

Lyndon smiled and said, “Read it, what shafts are those?”

“KBS C-Taper Lites” I responded.

“Yes, and these are the new KBS graphite. Designed by your buddy Kim (Braly – the owner of KBS). They have the same profile as the steel but have a range of weights from 50 grams to 80 grams. We are going to try you in the 70 grams with the same TaylorMade head you currently play). I want you to hit 10 with yours and then 10 with these. Let’s see what happens?”

The last sentence should have been a hint; a Wiley veteran like Lyndon never guesses, he knew that the KBS graphite would make a huge difference and of course, he was right. The results were not even close; I had now gotten even more distance, flying my 6-iron close to 190 yards: Boom!

Lyndon was clearly happy, but we were not done yet, it was time for the moment of truth; how far would the driver fly? “Mate, now that you have better side bend, sequencing and speed, your driver launch conditions are going to be mad different. I think if we can get +2 AoA (angle of attack) we have a real chance of going 250+” said Lyndon. “Give me 1 second, think I got the perfect fit”.

Again, he turned his back, fiddled with some things and then reached out to hand me a new weapon to try.

I immediately went to check it out; a TaylorMade M5 with an Accra TZ6. The club looked sexy AF. I was pumped. Teed one up and smackkkkkkk. I turned quickly and saw a cheeky little smile on my buddy’s face: “257 carry, 274 total, mate!” said Lyndon.

“Wow, that’s a missile launcher” I said.

“Yes, those TaylorMade heads are really good, but this new Accra Shaft mate…whoooo. It’s so unique because it’s low torque but has an active tip. This means we can give you a really low spin head and it won’t just noise dive,” he said as he showed me the numbers on FlightScope. “Look at these numbers; you hit up two, 103 mph and spin of 2,200. Couldn’t be any better.”

“I also love the feel,” I said, as I smashed a couple more. “Also, really like how everything looks.”

“You know those Accra’s also come in custom finish. I got something in mind that you are going to love. Trust me, you’re going to have a killer set when I’m done building these things!” explained Lyndon as he shook hands and ended the fitting.

My new best friend Chuck

Recently my buddy Katie, invited me out to play golf with her, her dad and his friend Chuck. Don’t let the sweet name fool you, Katie is a stud; former college lacrosse player, who’s super athletic and had just qualified for her first USGA championship (US AM). She was also down in our series 2-1 and very eager to tie it up. 4 hours later, it was not even close, after Katie laid a complete beatdown on me, she did something extremely admirable; she invited me in for a beer and nachos. As I numbed the loss with a delicious pint of Guinness, Chuck looked at me and said “you hit is so good day, way better than Katie! You kill it brother! What’s your secret?” I smiled, the circle was complete, and the loss quickly faded from my mind.