Upon his arrival at the Club de Golf Barcelona, a few days ago, he delighted us with a short game & bunker clinic. Every time Dr Robert Neal visits Spain it is a privilege to watch him work with the players of the Barcelona Golf Academy, of which he is a member of staff as Golf BioDynamics 3D advisor. To see and listen to him is to learn from all the wisdom about golf coaching that he carries within.
With more than 30 years of dedication, this Australian coach who lives in the USA is one of the most highly qualified instructors in the world in terms of biomechanics applied to golf, 3D swing analysis, and is used to performing analysis and tests, and giving advice to players of all levels, from Tour professionals to amateurs. This time he has been in Barcelona where he has focused on teaching how to improve the short game and finesse with wedges. This is the interesting interview he gave us at the club:
BARCELONA GOLF ACADEMY: What is Wedge Craft, the art of the wedge?
Dr ROBERT NEAL: First I’ll give you a little bit of background. Layne Savoie (a professional player, teacher NCAA coach and PGA professional) and I started nine years ago to try to understand the science in wedge play. And we formed a company called Wedge Craft, that is a resource for amateurs and professional golfers to get really good information on how to play all the shots from about 125 yards from the green, including shots from the fairway, the rough, the bunker. Shots with the squared clubface at set up, versus where you open up the leading edge and loft. So, it’s a teaching resource on how to really get better at playing these shots in golf. And understanding some of the science that underpins effective wedge play.
BGA: What percentage of importance has the short game for a Tour professional versus the amateur player?
Dr ROBERT NEAL: That’s a good question, but I don’t have the answer off the top of my head. In terms of the number of shots you hit with a wedge in your hands versus the other clubs, it probably equates for a professional, I think, to maybe 30% of the shots that they hit, maybe a little less than that. When you think of a typical round of 70 hits, 30 of those will be putts of some length, which means there’ll be 40 left of which 10 or 12 will be a driver. After that, probably only 6 or 7 shots will be with a wedge, but that is a lot every round.
It’s probably more for the amateurs, because they miss more greens than the professionals, and they should be using wedge shots around the green to get the ball on the green, and probably hit less wedges at greens from a distance, but they would have more recovery shots than a typical professional pattern.
BGA: Can the short game be learned in a faster way than by dedicating hours and hours of training?
Dr ROBERT NEAL: Yes, you can never get rid of the fact that you need to spend a lot of time practicing the short game. That is how you became good. But to accelerate the progress it’s important to understand and develop the right movement patterns that will allow you to be successful. What I mean by that is that you need to develop the right movements of the body for finesse wedges, and these are different to the movement that you will have for the distance wedge with a full swing. Subtly but importantly different. So, if you want to get good at short game, you should not try to use the same technique as you do for your 7 iron. That is not appropriate.
And then, what you have to add on top of that, is that the technique in a bunker is different again to the rest ofthe shots you are playing around the green. The only one that is very similar to a bunker shot is a flop shot, but I don’t encourage golfers to play flop shots. They are a very high risk shot, that typically doesn’t end very well.
BGA: And a part from spending a lot of time practicing, what technologies can be used to improve the short game?
Dr ROBERT NEAL: One of the most important things to do is to have access to a launch monitor, because ofthe way you deliver the club and the way the ball reacts to that. You need a critical understanding of how to change the distance you hit the shot and also how the ball is going to behave when it lands on the green.
So, being able to measure that information is critical. And I have a preference for the GCQuad for short game work, because it does a much better job at measuring the face angle and the dynamic loft, and the contact point, than the radar devices like Trakman or FlightScope. That device predicts what the club face and dynamic loft would be, based on how the ball went out. If the ball gets low you will have delivered with not very much loft, and if it goes out high then the dynamic loft must have been higher in that shot.
Whereas the GCQuad is a Quadrascopic high-speed camera device that takes pictures, which measure what the clubface angle is, and also how much loft has been measured on the face so it is better for short game. In other words, the radar devices are good for the long game, but not as good for the short game.
BGA: What about Golf BioDynamics 3D?
Dr ROBERT NEAL: It is really important for measuring body movements. The launch monitor is great for seeing what the club and the ball did, but it doesn’t tell you how that happened. The 3D allows you to understand how this person moved the body this way, how they kept a really good connection between the arms and the body, if the speed of the arms was the same as the chest, things like that. And these are important factors in wedge play. Being able to know where the body moved, how it rotated, sequencing, and connection between the arms and the body.
BGA: What does a golf coach need to be a good short game coach?
Dr ROBERT NEAL: The first thing they need to have is the correct knowledge. You can’t just rely on the feeling of what you do, or what Seve Ballesteros or Jose Maria Olazabal say they do, because what they feel versus what they do could be quite different. So, the first thing you need to have is good knowledge, what I call domain knowledge about movements of the body, movements of the club, and then how the ball behaves. The workshop we did for the instructors of the Barcelona Golf Academy was to give them knowledge, and then we did the practical part. Once you’ve got the knowledge, then it is important to know what activities and drills will help your player to learn the skill and the technique which is appropriate for the shots they are trying to hit.
So, a good golf coach is able to select the right drills to do in order to improve technique and then the right activities to ask students to do in order to develop the skills at landing the ball on the appropriate spot, being able to take off spin when it’s appropriate, to know how the ball is going to behave when it comes out of the rough versus off the fairway, knowing that they can change the trajectory of the shot by changing the club but not the technique.
BGA: Then, what are the essential elements?
Dr ROBERT NEAL: In finesse wedge play, what the player needs to do during the backswing is counter intuitive and opposite to what you would do in full swing, for example. So as your body is rotating in your backswing, you need to move toward the target with your pelvis and upper torso ahead, and probably down a little bit. And then, on the down swing as you unwind, you’ve got to stay on the lead side and rise up, and that allows you to shallow the delivery of the club.
One of the worst disasters in finesse wedge play is when the player starts backing up, and tilting away from the target, because then the contact point, or low point in contact with the ball, gets compromised.
So, getting toward the target, rotating and going up, is what I call pivot-plaining. As you pivot or rotate, you have to rise up the plain, you go up and away from the ball.
BGA: What can amateur players learn from watching the short game of Tour professionals on TV?
Dr ROBERT NEAL: They can learn that these guys are incredibly good with the wedge. They can hit shots that are amazing and I’ve been telling people since the Ryder Cup that the wedge shot that Rory McIlroy hit on the 17 hole in the afternoon matches is the best finesse wedge shot I have ever seen. It is so remarkable. He swung it probably around 50mph for maybe a 25 yard shot, and it came out with a pretty low launch and went down spinning and spinning to finally grab near the hole. A really, really high spin shot, extremely difficult to do. One of the things that made that shot so remarkable is to do it under the intense pressure of a Ryder Cup, with a match on the line. He could have been made to look really bad, if he hit it a little bit fat or a little bit thin, going far away or coming back to his feet, so it was an incredible shot.
So, what can you learn… Not all the Tour players hit the shots exactly the same way. For example, Jordan Spieth is very steep in his finesse wedge shots, always taking a divot, always leaning the shaft a long way forward. Other players like Justin Thomas or Rory are equally good with the wedge. They’re nowhere near as steep. They’re much shallower with most of those shots they play around the green. Steve Stricker is really good with the wedge, he is an excellent model like Jason Day. They are excellent models for amateur golfers to copy if you are watching Tour players.
BGA: To dominate the short game also depends on the club. Are there some brands that customize the clubs better than others, offering a better performance with the wedge?
Dr ROBERT NEAL: For disclosure, Titleist support me, so I think they have the biggest range and the best wedges on the market. But having said that, I think the other companies like Cobra, Mizuno, TaylorMade, Callaway, Srixon, Cleveland… they all make good products. Nobody makes a bad wedge.
BGA: With so many lofts, bounces, grinds, reliefs… Is it difficult to choose or find the right short game clubs for each amateur player?
Dr ROBERT NEAL: You can get wedges with a big range of bounce and grind, all different lofts, but sometimes the more choices make it a little more difficult for the fitters as well. Then, the two most important things other than technique are:
1) What type of grass you are playing from? And conditions? Firm, dry conditions versus soft, wet conditions? Because in the soft wet conditions, more bounce helps you.
2) The second thing that is really critical is, are you comfortable opening up the leading edge of the club? If you are comfortable, then the size of the bounce, and particularly how much bounce there is around the heel, is important. Because if you never open up the club face, then the bounce is important to the conditions, but it doesn’t change the nature of where the leading edge is, if you never open up the leading edge. We open up the leading edge on a club that has a big bounce, with a big sole, that really lifts the leading edge up a lot, and so there are implications for how you can play shots with that type of wedge design.
BGA: Is the angle of attack perhaps the most important part to control in the short game?
Dr ROBERT NEAL: In the short game you need to be able to change the attack angle. So, for example, most finesse wedge shots you want to be pretty shallow with your attack angle. But there are other times, when it needs to be quite steep. When you are in deep rough, you need to get the club down more steeply, so you’ve got to be able to change the attack angle. If you don’t know how to do that, then you are not going to be very effective hitting shots in those conditions.
If you are playing a 7 iron you are not going to be trying to hit one shot with a 5 degree attack angle, and on the next shot try to make it 10 or 12 degrees. That doesn’t happen in full swing. In full swing you try to deliver the club pretty much the same on every shot. Whereas in finesse wedge play you pretty much need to read the conditions and in select the appropriate attack angle. That’s going to make the shot effective.
BGA: Finally, how do you see the evolution of the Barcelona Golf Academy and compared to other similar in Europe?
Dr ROBERT NEAL: I keep saying to Carlos Vivas and another people that I’ve seen over the years, that Carlos continues to grow and develop as a golf coach. And now as a leader of a golf academy, he’s really instituting things in his program that help his players and his coaches. He is always trying to get his coaches to be better educated, learn more about how to make the players learn better, to give them variety in their practice and making life interesting for them.
And as a golf coach himself he has always been seeking knowledge, and trying to become the best golf coach he can, and I think the students who attend the academy now get a much better product than even five years ago.
The fact that the school, the golf course, the gym… are all onsite, in one place, means that it’s a safeenvironment for them. There are other kids, around not just golfers, and living conditions are really good for them. So, it is safe for the parents to feel like it is an excellent place to send their child, and they get better at golf. I think this academy is as good as anything you can find in Europe right now. It is a great place, with great weather here in Barcelona.
At the picture, Dr Robert Neal with Jose Maria Olazábal, champion of two Masters and course designer of the Club de Golf Barcelona, and Carlos Vivas, Head Coach of Barcelona Golf Academy.
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