161 – ‘The Uncorrupted Pleasure of an Old Bladed Putter’: James Ellis-Caird

hello and welcome back to another episode of the cookie jar golf podcast earlier on today we managed to sit down
with James Ellis cared who’s a PGA professional and author of the
uncorrupted pleasure of an old bladed putter a new book that’s just been released and written by James and is a
collection of golfing fables and it’s illustrated by Jamie buckridge
it was interesting to sit down with James and chat about his philosophy about Golf and the stories are in the
books and their inspiration that he’s taken from all of his pupils and May these fictional characters based on
people he’s met throughout the world of golf so it’s a lovely little chat we have with James and he’s one of the truly interesting blokes of the game so
settle back and enjoy watch this [Applause] [Music] [Applause] so how about that drive in anyway tell me about this coffee what am I it’s
cookie caramel by Nespresso very on brand isn’t it it’s like one of their Creations they’re not I didn’t think it was that good I just it smells very
sweet are you a coffee drinker no not at all I really not not at night I really like to be because someone’s quite
creative I like the idea of making coffees I mean when I was at Urban golf I used to love making coffees for other
people because the smell of it no really yeah that I think it’s the smell that put me off but I love the idea of
how you can create wonderful different coffees and the way you make the actual sort of milk I really enjoyed that
process you can disappear your own backside with it I think as you can get
a bit too into it people who have like drippers and all that sort of stuff and those digital scales espresso is the
correct amount of nerd it’s a good coffee without having a complete nerd you know because you’re just because it’s capsules you’re just like an
official sponsor of today’s our house is full of Teas
or mint from the Garden Tea yeah nice well you make your own mint tea well yeah because it’s um it’s more it’s more
delicate so tea bag mint tea bags they’re a bit harsh but if you just grow
your own mint it’s a real delicate taste no mint is a is a plant which takes over there isn’t it yeah I was going to a
botany podcast here but it literally goes berserk doesn’t it it does go preserved so you do that I just put it
in and then what put it in like a little no just put it in the cup and then put not boiling water let it get the
temperature to about 83.4 I’m just joking um exactly um and then just yeah and then
it’s just it’s really good for digestion after dinner after any meal and it’s just really gentle long like like a mug
of mint tea or would you do like a short oh like a small that’s the normal lights
how many how many leaves were in a mug of mint tea oh that’s a good question I just pick a handful yeah handful yeah
exactly it depends how minty you want it but it’s just nicer than the tea bag it’s just more it’s more delicate so
you’re full of um see we still describing we’ve just had a nine holes of golf and a bit of a natter but you’ve
moved into the countryside and have become a bit more hunting shooting fishing I don’t want to say into the
hunting even though I heard the classic the other day coming from the coming across the field we’ve we’ve moved from
buckinghamshire and we were quite sort of like in the sticks there but we’ve now just moved somewhere really in the
sticks and we’ve got a bit of land and got some sheep and uh that’s your Vibe though James like you
know the you know you’re you know if people you know we’re going to talk about your book shortly but at rewilding
the golfer there’s some hippie Vibes coming off you’re quite a kind of cool all laid back very very healthy man kind
of get the feeling that living out in sticks and being a bit more sort of connected with Mother Nature is you it I
think I’m finding that yeah I think it’s always been there and you just it takes a while to discover who you are doesn’t it and I think
the idea of just yeah I I’m not sure I want to be called as a hippie
but I really like the idea if you wanted to label yourself as a hippie I think you you are then not a hippie it’s like
you say you’re cool if you ever say I’m cool then you’re automatically not cool but I think you’re a little bit of a hippie do you okay I’ll take it it’s
fine yeah but you’re right I really I was saying to you I was saying Sam Maybe I really enjoy sort of coming back from
the golf club if I’ve just you know seen a client or something or played a few holes and literally then just get rid of
my golfing clothes which which are not golfing clothes I never really like them um and then just putting on something and then I’ve just love recently just
chopping down trees and you know just learned to use a chainsaw
I was petrified of it I’ve got myself like a wood horse so and I took down my
first big tree it’s where you then you drop your tree chop your tree down and then you lay the trunk across it it
grips it so then when you’re you’re chopping up into the bed like a vice it’s a sort of like a V thing you can’t
really oh okay and it sits in there it grips it and then you then chop up the wood and then I get the ax out and it’s
just yeah I’m loving that and just having a bit of for some years you certain would so
we’ve got ash trees in in sort of the land so I can chop them straight down and put them straight on the fire
because they don’t know they’re good together they don’t absorb that much water but Ash and Birch then I did if you chop
them down they need to sort of season for like a sort of a year 18 months or you can kill and dry them just to use
all that moisture yeah exactly otherwise yeah I’m not ready yet because um you know it
will just build up his soot in your in your in your chimney and um so I I’m loving that type of Lifestyle so I’m
really embracing it vastly different from your former life
yeah is it it is it’s not vastly different because we didn’t live in a
town or anything we lived out in buckinghamshire you know Amazon quite well um it’s outside of London but it’s still
vastly different from the suburbs of you know which now is London you know and doing a different sort of
thing so I suppose where we’ve connected in the past before is our connections through Urban Golf and James day and you
obviously spent a bit of time down at Urban yeah that was that was wonderful um
I was spent about 15 years I think with Urban um James
um sort of they contacted me sort of six months into their project um Amazing Project you know James and uh
he set that up and Soho was the the baby that was the original one and it was a great time it was um you know
no one had simulators um people were coming it was all about the lessons it was pure it was about Golf and um
and you know and James was great you know as he expanded the business to Kensington and Smithfield
um I stayed on a Soho and you know it just allowed me to sort of really be free and think about the game in a
different way you know I have that freedom to do that while working and in the middle of Soho doing golf in a
simulator was it was well your book is a is basically I mean I I would say it’s I
think it’s right up there in the top one or two stocking fillers you could get in the UK this year the other set the other
of course being a packet of cookie jar tea packs I think either that or the
uncorrupted pleasure of a bladed putter I mean that’s very kind I think our beautiful stocking fillers and want to
get on to those but you’re a professional golfer spend a lot of time coaching the game talk us through how
how did you come up to end how did you wind up working at Urban golf you know what was the sort of route in junior
golf got good
how did that whole thing come up come about because even working as a pro in urban it’s like it’s a real outlier in
the world of professional golf as well isn’t it you know it’s like it’s a niche part of being a professional definitely
um it’s a good question because I didn’t unlike James who played a James day around Urban golf he played a lot junior
golf um I didn’t I sort of I came across golf when I was about 14.
15 you know I just I think it was I was working the local paper shop and I went up there and I think I think it was a
five iron and support of friends you know I don’t know if I’m pretty missed the first shot and
then I just hit it’s five iron down the second that lay here was a beautiful little nine-hole course in chesham
um I think that’s where I played my first round of golf it’s the most Charming place in the world
um I know this other Charming nine hung golf courses but um and I remember that five and I was I was completely hooked I
was hijacked by the game and I remember going home and sort of sent to my parents want to play golf and they got me a little set
and then I sort of I tinker with it I played a bit I played cack-handed you know because leftover right yeah
it’s a beautiful course there’s no Pro Shop you know no driving range just a Nat
little Bowling Green and I just played you know and I wouldn’t teach a cat candy crit but
um you know I still got down to about 22 and I was playing golf with it and then obviously then just people with all the
pressure and I changed it and first Side Track alert is is there actually is
there a ceiling to a cacanda grip that’s a really good question um
I’ve I knew a lad as a junior that I played at King’s Norton with who played
kakan did and he was off plus four so no really he was not a long hitter but he
was like lethally accurate and again I think it’s a huge outlier I that’s the
only time I’ve ever seen someone of like any real good quality yeah yeah he was
only like 15 like he was crazy good yeah um but it just shows you doesn’t it it’s like you just wouldn’t you want to see
it on tour you’re not gonna see on tour you’re not going to see it in your local golf club but the
but what that means is you don’t have to hold it in a certain way to play golf do you yeah you don’t have to swing you
really don’t and so you’re not gonna even in the relaxed way I sort of teach I’m not going to get
someone to hold a caca and there’s no point it’s just a bit more it’s less natural that’s all but it doesn’t mean you can’t start the game you don’t you
can’t not play you can’t join a club I joined a club yeah got a handicap with a cat handy grip and you kind of learned
it for yourself you pretty much self-taught yeah self-taught to start with yeah um
we talked about it briefly out I’m playing a few holes didn’t we about I mentioned in the book about the wonderful thing about learning in a net
and I didn’t realize that at the time until I sort of looked back on on golf when I was writing the book and
how that really taught me to understand what good golf swing felt like without explaining that a bit because like obviously I’ve read the book and talked
about it but explain you know as golf as we shy away from hitting balls in the net give me a
similar range and I’m all over it you know and actually you think the opposite would be more beneficial just just bring
that to life a bit um well I guess without when you’re in the net you you can’t see the result
okay but you can get it you can grasp for sense you can learn to feel if you’ve thinned it if you’ve secured it
there’s feedback immediately through that feeling and you know after a while you can tell if you’ve if you’re gonna
you’ve hit it left you’ve hit it right you can also tell if you’ve put a little bit of cutspin on it and played a fade
in it and and by learning and understanding about what something feels like I just believe you’d be a much
better golfer because you understand more about how something feels and you you told me you were saying how much
you enjoy sort of more the numbers and the simulated stuff and yeah but it is good as an affirmation of something a
confirmation so I don’t disagree with technology and numbers but but how was
your game about you’re trying to like oh I want to hit it higher or that one’s gone a little bit further right and then it’s like well I’m hitting it right so
maybe but you wouldn’t be thinking about that in the net no no you wouldn’t be you’d be feeling it because you know
Urban was great but you found that if people left to their own devices were sort of became very brittle to the
straight line and they’re very critical themselves and trying to perfect something that was slightly offline by a
yard an angler you know you know a degree in reality is you can you can hit a five
iron if you feel like you did it awful you’ve you’ve hit it on the green you get up there actually 18 feet to the right is
still horrible it’s never that bad but on the simulators and on the driving range you can be you can look miles away
it can look miles away and then you start over correcting over worrying overthinking and then you know you can
end up just never sort of taking ownership of anything and it’s it’s just taking ownership of something that makes
golfers you know good golfers you know the swing is a very small part of the game isn’t
it and it’s important to understand how a swing Works understand how it feels for you but as quickly as you can take
ownership of a feeling it doesn’t matter what that is there’s a few principles that sort of help create consistency and
power than that but that allows you then to learn to play the game and to enjoy the game it’s a small stepping stone to
the actual now we play today and you know it was sticky it was wet it was
lovely conditions but all the sorts of Lies We found ourselves in from good shots and bad shots is that’s only learn
what was the verdict on Blackwell we’ve got to get gotta get you some third-party endorsements yeah it’s really into winter golf you can’t you
can’t say anything bad now because we put you on the spot no but there’s nothing bad to say anyways there on this classic Parkland golf it’s sort of like
it’s not short but it’s compact you’d have to walk miles in between you know the holes you don’t feel like you see
another hole anyway that’s the beauty of it it’s it’s in a small amount of land isn’t it as you said yeah but every hole
seems individual you need to hit fade you need to draws there’s a lot of creativity
suits you because I think you you would you would discussing earlier how like you just like to see shapes and you’re
like oh I’d like to fade there so I’d like to draw this and you kind of like I don’t think we played only played nine
holes and we played nine holes quite quickly we got around an hour and 20 and just managed to miss the dark with some
quite a decent golf throwing actually for all of us really but I don’t think I heard you say today I’m going to hit a straight one like you were like oh yeah
probably gonna fade this one I’m going to try and draw this one and they’re not always Fades or drawers but it’s how you wanna it’s like it’s planning for the
best shot isn’t it it’s planning for that shot and because I think the more I S I feel like I want to hit a shot then
there’s more chance of it coming off and I always feel like a straight shot is just a happy accident anyway I know
clubs are designed for the ball to go straight but again to actually think you can hear a shot point to point straight
I think you’ll always be sort of them it’s not impossible and so your bad shot could be left or right so you’re better
off being a big Slicer in the ball because if you know where your ball starts and finishes it’s not that you wanna be a big slicer but you’ll be far more
consistent with the biggest used to say that wasn’t it like that you can basically eliminate one half of the golf course if you only play one shape you
can just you make the golf you make the Fairway twice as wide essentially because you know if you hit fades it nothing but Fades
you know you can hit down left side of the Fairway as hard as you like if it goes straight you hit the left side of the Fairway if it fades you go the right
side the Fairway but you’re never really going to be two-way misses a dangerous though exactly right yeah there’s a big
difference between you sort of like wanting your ball to finish in the middle then actually trying to hit it
straight down the middle but I also get the sense despite being you know professional golfer teaching coaching
players playing at a really good level I also get saying she couldn’t give her monkeys about the score or anything really there’s there’s something a
different connection with golf than score and output and what and card and pencil stuff that definitely is now
um but I’m not saying that should be the only way to play golf because if I think back to
when I was younger and I was you know getting into golf I loved I loved trying
to get the ball in the hole I love scoring it was it was wonderful it was just a drive to try to you know to break
I remember the first time I broke 80 you know that’s an incredible feeling you know um and then the first time you broke you
know 75 and then 70 and I loved the scorecard and that’s when I was a member of a club
and then you just as you transition through your life and and you do different things it’s just becoming less
important to me now you know it’s um it’s about purely for the love and joy of the game and the feel for a shot you
know what today we played and how many clubs are in that bag today I think it was seven okay that’s just up your
laziness but also it’s um it’s also out of like they were all cavity back a lot
helping them brand new clubs were they they were brand spanking you James Day made an
informally 16 years ago yeah they’re still so uh James day says it would have been one of the first
mirror sets um when we first come across mirrors yeah okay yeah and you said you’ve never played with more than one
wood in the bag not no generally no um driver or a forward well I used to
have a little Bobby Jones Callaway driver sorry what was the drive was it a burner I don’t even know someone gave it
to me um about laughter um six months ago
um yeah I really don’t know um I can’t remember what it is you might know oh is it an M2 it wasn’t an M2 it
wasn’t okay I don’t know but it was older than that but it I it doesn’t but
this is the segue you see and that’s why I bring up the clubs because the book is called the uncorrupted pleasure of a old
bladed putter that’s right yeah which is a bit of a mouthful but of course isn’t
it yeah so you know the title for that book the premise behind the book
first time you’ve written a book oh absolutely yeah and I’ve been writing for a few years so no way so you’ve been
doing sort of like pieces and stuff and then thought well I’m just gonna yeah where’s the whole idea behind the
book camera because I loved it it’s a lovely lovely read thank you very much yeah it it’s it just came I don’t know
it’s a really that’s a really good question because I guess when I started at Urban
um I hadn’t done much teaching I’ve done a little bit of teaching um but we talked briefly on the phone about
that that I was just new in the back of my mind teaching was pretty poor generally you
know it it hadn’t it had a bad effect on my game when I was a I was an amateur
um you know I have no idea no idea what a flat back swing was until someone told me that until that point I had a lovely
little shape didn’t have any fear over the what the club did on the way back and this one told you were too far some
told my swims flat and um from that point on and it’s still as well and I bet he loves it sorry he loves a flat
backswing James Davis yeah nobody was James it wasn’t James you can’t go fast enough for James no no no no but anyway
so then I got to Urban and uh I don’t know what something just told me that this is a great opportunity to
think about the game now think about teaching and um and and really Focus my attention purely on
on on the game of golf and and I made this decision and I never really read much anyway about Golf and I just said
right I’m just not going to listen to anybody else read any magazines look at any books listen to anything anyone’s
saying and it was sort of quite scary because you think you’re going to miss out on some of the latest sort of fun sort of
techniques but actually the sort of the opposite happened it’s sort of like it really it was quite liberating and I
started working and thinking from just like a my own mind one mind and I just started allowing us and I had
the freedom of urban to as I was teaching to think about it and then I just thought you know I’m just going to start jotting this down this is quite
interesting and I quite enjoy this because they’re kind of stories of people you’ve encountered most of them
students a lot of them from your time at Urban right yeah they sort of even they they come under the bracket of one
person yeah there’s some creative license around how you feel you know the
corporate guy that goes out and plays the football he’s a he’s an amalgamation of all sorts of a vast number of people
I saw correct yeah like and you know the the joy of imperfection chapter two again she’s a she’s just another example
of a number of people who come to me and and think they’re perfectionists but actually I need to understand you need
to take joy from the imperfection and you’d be a lot better I love that bear in fact I wrote that down I seem to
remember writing some stuff down about that and saying you know kind of I think you you quote in their Voltaire a perf
as perfect being the enemy of good or whatever it was and and the fact that you’ve kind of almost got to take the
the love of the imperfection of the game of being like that’s exactly why we’re doing it this is not a bad thing like then the woman you were teaching was
basically just you know I want to excel at this and I should be absolutely perfect and it’s like well no there’s no
one is and you’re a ranked beginner here like it’s crazy exactly and um you know
I think one of my favorite little bits in the book is the bit in that chapter and it talks about you know being a good
enough golfer and I mean you you hear a couple of just magnificent shots today he’s looking at he’s looking he’s
looking for that yeah sorry as well this is an audio only product and I’d like it if you call the person
out please uh Sam thank you flushed like a couple of four irons and they’re great and we all hit maybe a couple of really
lovely shots today that we’re going to take away from that but yeah you know the real heroes of the game and the
shots are not quite so pure are they not so perfect but they’re the shots that sort of like you know not quite great but they’re still down the Fairway and
give you an opportunity yeah you always have the one that’s like you think about when you go to bed but
then you have a ton of things that are vitally important in the round but we’re a bit scabby you know they weren’t
perfect but got away with it like I remember it that hit the tree off the fourth T today and then hit just a
dreadfully commercial Three Wood up there but it was actually a fairly a very acceptable gold shot and it’s like you don’t take any pleasure from that
but you don’t realize the importance of the imperfect shot that I hit there actually they’re the ones that could set you up still for a Burly or a part and
I’d say they’re they’re the sort of the the day-to-day they’re the real heroes of the game they’re the slightly the joy and you’ve got to take joy from that
imperfection and it’s lovely if you stripe three or four drives or a couple of irons and you get a part that’s just
so pureed but it’s the part that doesn’t go in but it hasn’t gone five foot by and you just tap it in so that’s
that’s what a lot of people don’t take from the game and that’s what helps you become a really enjoyable
um did that that sort of quest for perfect actually just undoes like is is kind of like
is what ruins it for most golfers because I I find like if I don’t play around and I’m like oh God you know I I
can’t take joy from from the imperfect like you’re saying like I I’ve just yet frustrated and I want to be better
um and do you find like in your experience a lot of people will just give up golf because they can’t get
to where they want to be I think people do give up golf because they don’t want to be but I I think the
people who give up golf are give up golf not because of their ability to to play really well it’s because of the way
they’ve taught to think about the game personally because they become that in that search of perfection something that they’re
never going to find and it’s a dreadfully inaccessible game at time not and do not tell what I’ve just said those inaccessible in terms of because
it is totally accessible that it’s at its very heart but it’s hard to persist
with you know like you talk about people who you know might not be course ready and there’s an intimidation that goes
alongside with exposing yourself to a golf course for the first time and all these things most of which you don’t
really encounter if you’re playing football or tennis because it’s like I’m on the court from day one you know so
there’s well I remember things that maybe you don’t relate to when you’ve played a lot of Junior golfers just actually how imposing the game almost
can be I remember as my because I came back I mean anyone who’s listening to this podcast before no I came to the
game quite late the turn up and you hit a few balls in a net or whatever and you go down the
range and you think yeah I can I can play probably play a bit of golf now and you go to a course and it’s so intimidating like I had to I won’t have
played at a club called meant more doesn’t exist anymore no no no it’s not far is it from yeah
where you know where I live yeah um no it was um two courses two courses the rosebury and
the Rothschild that’s from the um it was David ferretty designed actually um they I think the guy who only wanted
to to like run a big hotel complex because he also owned that house on the top of it the Batman was filmed that
okay um the first Batman there was Wayne Manor um but I remember turning up there and I
kind of they’d let me in and you joined because you just pay a fee and you join and I didn’t get introduced to anybody I didn’t know anybody and I kind of tapped
from the shoulder and said you know can I I need to put it in three cars maybe you have to put in three cards to get handicap I was like can I play with you
and I had no idea how to get around the course and that was like you say it’s not an accessible
successful thing that was intimidating is a better word I think I was poor choice of phrase by me but you’re right
it isn’t extremely intimidating and it remains intimidating pretty much throughout your life in the game
if we play badminton I don’t think you know I always you know bag on
badminton but it’s like I don’t I don’t feel like badminton’s a massively intimidating game for people to play not
really because you’ve got other people watching you know I’m gonna disturb other people but it’s also more like but that’s kind of what are they going to
think of my of my badminton swing right now some people are good golfers with bad
swings that really want to like well not bad things but like just quirky different quirky swings yeah and they’ve
got this like I need to change my swing because it looks a bit weird you’re getting around in like five six over
what’s the problem oh I know but I need you know longer back swing or I need to but that’s this in The Ether isn’t
that’s what sort of drives people to sort of think and that comes from people like me do you think there was a dark ages of
golf where instruction was like this is how you have to swing this is what it’s going to look like yes found a LED
better no doubt about it that was the start wasn’t it do you think yeah I think so I was too young to really
remember the species here um bring it to life I think that’s what effects we touched on it with the as part like I mean that was did you yeah
yeah yeah yeah I think for me because but you know Ledbetter was taking someone some somebody that was already
amazing yeah and when you’re good at something you you have these patterns in your head
and you sort of the fundamentals and founder was already really good and so when you take on complex changes which
he did he did for six hours a day every day by the way um your brain’s able to sort of sift
through the you know the the feelings aren’t great and just and take away from it what you need to take away add it onto
something that’s already solid there’s a platform there’s a layer there and then suddenly that’s feather stripped right right down
into all the PGA Pros out there and all the magazines and then you’ve got every PJ Pro in the in the in the world
golfers who don’t have the infrastructure platform the experience any of the
knowledge to be able to absorb people stuff and put it in and it’s very synthetic bit by bit piece by piece
trying to synthetically piece it together on that left golfers across the world I think really
sort of you know kind of disillusion and they’re
still being taught now though the job swing is still you you were talking about you asked me what P5 was and you
said what the hell is that okay it wasn’t like I wasn’t quizzing you no do you teach yourself you know no did you hear a P5 and you you know you quite
honestly said I don’t even know what P5 is don’t know where it is I don’t know where it is I know obviously it’s a position and it’s a part of the Swing
but I know where it is because I think it’s just complete bollocks yeah well it’s so it’s it’s so difficult because
um you know Bruce and I have had this chat before he Bruce is absurdly knowledgeable about the swing and he
says to me you know what what your problem is and Sam says it you know to me it took me an age to work out what
Sam even Sam was talking about you know you need width on the way back you need to create some space and I was like look
it certainly bruised the way he talks about it you know he’s like you need to be here and you’re doing this and I was like I understand that’s what you’re
telling me I just don’t know how to do it positional base swing is extremely hard to absorb I think I’ve played the
game for 30 years and I find it really hard let’s think about that position take ownership of it yeah it’s really hard it’s about taking ownership of
something and you won’t do that that’s why people flitter between golf pros and they go on the internet all the time but I don’t feel like your book is a I don’t
think it’s a swing instruction book and it’s definitely not because it is a collection of 13 golfing fables yeah
exactly it’s basically like a love letter to golf yeah well describe it and trying to take but a lot of the time
it’s through the lens of people who are trying to improve and people your clients or people you’ve worked with and there’s definitely
it’s definitely definitely you can read between the lines and there’s a lot of there’s a lot of treasure there to to be
had from uh from from a really good golfer point of view yeah exactly pointing at me again
um you know as a beginner and there’s someone like Tommy’s taken
to the game you know not as didn’t do as a as a junior um but you need to hopefully read
between the lines and find that and the idea is to sort of try to break down the expectations constraints that sort of
burdened golfers for for a long time now and trying to see the game and question the game differently so when you see
something or something something somebody tells you something you might you might be able to question that and
think actually no or why um and think you can play a very very good standard by not having to follow
this very formulaic step-by-step route and the book transcends that and talks about courses and things like that you
one of the things you touched on a little bit I think is is that power of like observational learning as well
yeah I think that would be worth talking about I found that fascinating when you’re you know talking about observational learning and I suppose
there’s a lot to be said about someone like someone like Mickelson in this case you obviously his dad was a good golfer watched his
dad swinging in the mirror and sees it from a different perspective so swings what’s her face on them yeah the tiger
did the same didn’t he yeah his dad was a left-handed golfer and he used to put him in the garage in the pram or in the
seat his dad would just whack balls into the garage into the net and time and just just learned to
replicate and that childlike Instinct of observational learning which is how kids learn to walk do all the basic stuff
that we do as adults and yeah you see a lot of people who come at it then and almost later in life just completely
abandoned that concept anything you’d talk about and watch what the club does and the position stuff watch what the
body’s doing like watch the way people create a movement around the swing and when you think about all the great
golfers they all do different things with their body it all looks different you know if you break down the sequence
of where the club is at P5 yeah there’s probably a lot of overlap but it’s the body and people how people move around
the ball that is almost like it’s it’s like a fingerprint it’s Unique to them almost it is that it is unique to them
but it’s also fundamentally the same so you know if you look at take a and one
of my favorite swings Mickey Wright or or Hogan and or Nicholas from the olden days and you put that against the
McElroy or a cap canal you know you you know they’re not
they’re not biomechanically the same but if you took the club out if you raise the golf club
you would see that they’ve they’ve they’ve fully turned and the olden day golfer would have had more release in
the knee and the leg to help release the turn but fundamentally when they make their turn they haven’t lifted they
haven’t swayed and that hasn’t changed they’ve just done it biomechanically differently now and we’ve briefly
touched on it around the course it’s all about creating that opportunity for the swing any swing your swing short swing
long swing to transition into the ball so you can hit the sweet golf shot that’s what if You observe
what the bodies are doing and you’re sort of not athletic like Rory McIlroy you want to be looking at golfers from the past because I think you’re more
likely to learn and be more looser in the body because they weren’t athletes you know
they weren’t they were different type of athletes weren’t there they’re not machines now they’re you unless you are so highly tuned
or super young you are not going to perform consistently what they’re doing now you don’t have to either should I
watch some of the LPGA and think some of those swings are like really swings that I’d think yeah I’d
love to swing it’s almost like they’re getting more out of it in on the LPGA it’s like just a they’re more languid
it’s more fluid it’s just it seems just really elegant and something you’re like
I’d love to swing the club like that so violent when you watch the PJ it’s so
violent it’s so violent but it’s still violent through their bodies but and but they can do that I mean and if the focus
is all on the swing that just it stiffens up the body because when you’re focused on the the p5s and the p4s your
focus is so involved in the uncontrollables you know what the swing is doing and you’re so focused on the
arms symptomatic of what the body’s doing they are yeah um you know it’s a non-reactive game
um and in any other sport you know I got to teach sort of like boxes and rowers
and men and women from all different sports and without realizing you know you’re reacting to the ball of something
or the person your body is naturally helping facilitate the technique but the illusion is you’re hitting the tennis
ball ball with your arms you’re punching the the opponent with your arm you’re hitting the golf ball through your arms
in the golf club but that actually happens right down at the point of contact so it’s it’s understanding how
the body is the facilitator of that motion and then it can be any motion if it there’s a backswing and there’s that
little bit that Percy Boomer yeah word it is an illusion I said really
it’s a really accurate word for it because like so many bad golfers intermediate golfers I am
one of the worst for it just throws their arms at it because it’s just it’s so ingrained in your head it’s the you
know it comes through your arms your hands where it’s just like the absolute wrong thing to be doing it’s because
it’s a non-reactive game and there’s so much techniques and so much so many people telling you what to do by default
if you haven’t got that that you haven’t played enough golf where your body is becoming almost like
naturally reactive you can then think about your arms but unless you have that
if you think about your arms your body it will come out of sync more often than it will be in sync and then it’s almost
like when you’re a kid like I wasn’t a junior golfer but it’s almost like because the clubs because you haven’t got the strength to manhandle the club
through the swing that you kind of your body has to do it because you can’t you know you can’t lift it and put into a
position and swing hard at it because you’re just a little kid 100 as a kid I threw my body at it yeah and I still do
now but I threw my body at it a lot because it’s the only way to really create any any meaningful impact when
you’re seven years of age just move his lower body and then just allow the swing
to catch up and allow the swing to find the ball and it got some timing with it and now you know swings change he’s able to make
it more Compact and more more mechanical and more sort of compressed as we hit it
now but he’s got that layer to do that but his lower body is still always naturally helping him to make those small alterations to hit the ball more
compressed and more powerful but majority of us don’t need to worry about that and your your life is your golfing
world now is radically different to perhaps when you’re in your late teens or your time when you’re working at Urban golf the title on the book it’s a
really eye-catching title what was the thinking behind that again it’s a young corrupted you know I
started off the game you know I’m corrupted by people like me or advice so I found a way to play the game
no no and uh I certainly found a way to play the game with the putter as well you know um and I think that’s
and I think it’s just starting don’t you said that a couple of times out there you were like I love just just putting yeah I mean the the the final you
haven’t read um the last the last chapter the uncorrupted pleasure I didn’t share the
book with me unfortunately I’ll send you one then you are I tend to keep most of the copies of those she’s got a better golfing Library than me so it’s just
putting and living you know and it’s and with that Bloody Potter you know I love putting it’s a beautiful part of the
game see icing on the cake it’s sort of like everything and um
I panic genuinely like I’m like and I’m not okay putter but like I’ll get I get
to agree like I imagine you’re going oh God this is good now I get to do a bit of putting I get there and think oh god I’ve got to get the ball in the hole now
I hate it dear I hate it I think a lot of people I think that’s more outcome anxiety though yeah like I think even if
I’m playing on my own if I’m trying to keep score you’ll feel anxiety when you’ve got the opportunity to miss a
putt because it’s so short but if you strip it back it can be quite pleasurable activity putting as golfers
we massively neglect the time Tupac not practice not getting like straight pieces of string out mirrors but there
is a there is a purity to just rolling the ball on the green that’s very nice that’s what it is and we all go and hit
a bag of seven irons and just try and hit the same shot and repeat but it’s it’s the Simplicity of it right and it’s
the it’s the joy of like of like Get on the green and just seeing that ball on
the journey it’s going to take left to right down the hill breaking and then just dropping in and then
the joy and then it’s just just executing that in any way you like with any party you like you know it doesn’t
really matter how you stand how you hold it how long your Potter is if you see it
you want it and and some days your eyes are in your whole loads of putts it’s
been one of the things I think that um we talked about the dark ages of the Swing where everyone was kind of taught
to swing the same it’s one of the things in golf I think has always had a lot of individuality and accepted individuality
different ways of holding the putter different Putters you know broomstick patterns short Putters everything and
it’s kind of always been accepted that’s allowed to stay very individual is putting I think although they’ve taken
out that obviously taking out the anchor in now but um okay it is or something there’s more
ways to skin a cat with that aren’t there for sure I think with putting you know I think if you watch everyone they still stand the same though still look a
bit you think yeah still look a bit stiff over it um you know um I think so I think still many people
have been working far too far a lot more room for personality in there yeah definitely if
you can’t create any personality with rolling ball on the ground you’re gonna struggle when you’re at an 80 yards back in the Fairway aren’t you
if you can’t see the ball going in the hole there’s no point some psychologist telling you to like picture your shot
from 200 yards if you can’t do it from 16 foot a little bit left to right now yeah yeah and again Royal Liverpool a
couple of years back and we were having a drink outside and two of the old boys turned up and they’re like yeah we’re here for 18
holes and they just dropped some balls down and they were like you’ve only got a pattern yet
the competition was in two of them and after they patted 18 holes they were going to go that’s how you but like if
you take the life cycle of a golfer it’s kind of how you bookend it there’s a junior you basically spend you know if
you play loads of junior golf you you spend ages on the putting green playing little putting matches and when you when
you’re too old to go and play 9 or 18 holes you carry out with your pound have a have a drink and go and and just part
in this Pro you know because physically limited to doing that and it you know I I can kind of get on board with what
you’re saying you don’t need an expert advice or to spend money on a cutting less some of the cap
um do you think that that whole concept these with Kenya and that sort of stuff whoever it’s like I don’t know you know
these huge Studios where it’s like laser laser guided and all the kind of they’ve
got the you know the same stuff like I’ve never done this but they’ve got you can go in to looking at these lab
performances with Potter it’s like oh you’re hitting it half a degree on the up or you’re hiding at half a degree on
the down the stroke is X to Y and you think I I can’t get a photo of your
favorite expression for those of you watching in black and white yeah James’s face is horrified it’s not I shouldn’t
take you know what I say is true but come on if you think about that logically do you really think that’s
going to make you a confident putter that loves putting that because you’re
always going to be worried about something aren’t you because somebody is trying to justify something with
technology or make it all spangly of rolling a ball on the ground that’s all it is yeah you think you think we’re
over servicing it massively because we’re correct because we’ve got the technology we can now create an
industry out of people’s phobia from six feet so we’ve done it and it’s like if we made the game any better probably not
you know you’ve got to say like all things we’ve got to separate the elite player from the club goal for the
amateur golfer you take the amateur golfer that maybe goes and books into the takes I know someone plays at our
club who’s done a like six seven hundred pound putting course few lessons with like an elite button instructor
from their comment and you know that served as a crutch for him
no doubt but he’s a right-handed goal for the putts left-handed let’s start there you know what I mean
yeah um and you think I don’t know maybe we’ve created an industry out of it because we actually can do because we
can do yeah um and then because it’s what people need no they really don’t
you know there is a small place for Technologies no doubt about it um and it’s fun it can also be fun as well to
look at the numbers but for the for the majority of us it’s just gonna just Cloud your ability to
play the best golf you can in my mind because going to the driver and the numbers you know anybody’s played
golf sort of 15 20 years ago would hit your drive with tea and you
never ever ever thought about how far it went you just put your back Club back in the
bag it was either a good one or a bad one and you walk up the Fairway chat tonight and the next thing is you’re
trying to think how do I get it on the green how do I birdie from there you’re not thinking actually I didn’t hear that
like I did in the Sim when I was really warm and I’d hit 30 balls and I’ve carried whereas now we’re doing golf by
numbers and we see the incorporation of like complex or name and complex but just statistical modeling people know
they’ve got to be operating at 120 Club head speed to play at an elite level because then they can gain X percentage
over the field because they can get it within 100 yards on a 400 yard hole or whatever and it’s like we’ve got away
from it a little bit much better have they
they’re making better golf clubs they’re fitting the balls to make to fit the club so if you’re a high spinner they
can give you a low spinning ball with a low spinning shaft so there’s no doubt about it you can hit the ball further um
but whether we should be sort of like stuck on that yeah I think statistically I mean
there is a categorically no doubt if you can hit if you can get swing Swede up you hit the ball further if hit the ball
further these scores come down like there’s just no there is no getting away from it mathematically but I think
for most average golfers that aren’t playing PGA Tour you know the difference between being
swinging at 98 and 99 is is not on the
courses we play that just focus on focus on things that are going to make
you enjoy it more yeah and I think if you go if you go along and went to uh to
see like a James Urban fitting that can make you enjoy the game a lot more because it’s enjoyable to understand
about what a club does and how you fit one together and it can be fun but it’s if it becomes the sort of the only thing
you think is going to make you better there’s the problem so there’s nothing wrong with spending money on a really nice driver
or a really nice set of irons and having them fitted I’ve got no problem with that at all because why not because it’s
there isn’t it get the best out of the equipment of your game but it it just can’t be that’s going to make me better
yeah a lot of these manufacturers do a great job of it now as well in terms of you know very rarely do they expect you
just to bind off the shelf but I have never understood someone that can go drop 450 quid on a driver that they
literally just pick up from a rack and go yeah this will do because the manufacturers do a great job of it now a
lot of them do that you know you go in they better they change all the Lofts and lies and everything else that you
need the shaft the stiffness and all the rest of it but and James does a great job I know that
um you know he spends months building sets for people that’s going to be one of the best isn’t it yeah and he spends a long time he puts a lot of soul into
it but um we could be you know too dismissive of modern equipment and you know ultimately it does help you know
bigger faces better better producing ball flight from Modern equipment does it enable more people to get more
enjoyment the danger is we can overdo it with science and we can overcook it to the point where it detracts from what’s
at the soles what’s your thing on AimPoint
I think I know the answer well no because you love putting and you love and you love all that stuff and aim
points kind of trying to bring a little bit of science take the take away the
Art Street Maybe I don’t think it’s going to make you do you think what do you think of bone you see Club golfers coming and given it the
two fingers straight out of the line wasting their time because
I don’t think it’s going to make much difference you can feel it in your face when you’re stuck I like feeling in my feet I like
that as a thing I don’t do anything you don’t need to do you don’t need to stand near the side to you need to straddle the putt to I like to feel great I think
it’s easier with my feet than with my eyes but I don’t do that I don’t do the fingers or anything like that but sometimes I like just Australia feel it
I’m just like so nice but again if you really want to hold it
it can’t just be a little bit left or right right to left you need to see it going in you said it’s something lovely today you’re like thing is all you need
to do is to look at it and and want to put it in the hole and it’ll go in the hole
it gives you an opportunity yeah it’s about creating opportunities isn’t it because sometimes your eyes not in and
the stroke’s not going to be the same but you know when I’m really on I used to be able to watch that ball and see it
traveling in my mind’s eye where it’s going to break how it’s slowing in actually watch it go in the hole and only then did I watch again the
whole did I just set up to it and said on his path some days it was good some days it was
bad but I was I’d always say that I was a confident enjoyed putting and if I practiced I only have a practice from
three foot and I still think that’s the lesson I give mostly if you’ve got a putting problem
go and sort it out from two or three foot yourself and if you’re still missing after 10-15 minutes and I’ll come and give you a hand with it but if
you if you can hold loads of parts from that range yeah okay I think you’re okay because
you know I only have a practice from that range I have put thousands of balls in from three foot and again I didn’t
know what I was doing actually I think I read somewhere or heard somewhere that when Montgomery went to college in the
states they made them do a hundred parts from three foot I don’t know where I got the information from it’s stuck in my head I thought I like that idea I’m
gonna do that yeah I did end it and did it and when I was reflecting back on my life golfing life when I was thinking
about the book I thought well okay so I was a really confident putter people said you’re a good Putter and why
is that because I had lady Potter no one ever gave me a lesson I never had a lesson
and he was uncorrupted it was like no one had got into your head on it but because I just hold so many parts from
three foot you you rarely Miss from inside three foot so what that does regardless of your style or your putter
that breaks this sort of continuous seed of confidence in your constant
reinforcement reinforcement because if you go step back to two to five foot You’re Gonna Miss more than your hole
and then you’ll start going to Tinker all the time but also that create a conference in my routine my style you know my feet used
to point left shoulders for Point left and you know it was unconventional but
and also then when I was what happened is when I fed back when I had a 15-foot pot for birdie or 20 foot far or any
part I never worried about the consequences but you’re never going to do more than two
from 15 20. because I was again because I was so I it was just familiarity as
well the more putts you hold from three foot it’s become so familiar when you’re having for that birdie par
part like you saw me rack a few paths today because I never think about the consequences I’m just trying to think the fear of failure is is
to knock the ones back in generally all the time and it was just from familiarity over all that was what I did
my practice on and then and so that fed right back into that and I will stick to that and allow and tell
people if I want to park let’s get really good from that range can I ask a question you when we when we spoke if
I’m talking no no no that’s fascinating I want to talk about the process of of the book itself because not only just in
terms of approaching that writing here you know how you kind of go because it’s yeah there’s an app there’s it’s it’s
not just first party there’s some creativity too there’s obviously some you know license in there in terms of
like how to create the characters around the fables but also then like the publishing side you’ve kind of in that
sort of hybrid world because there’s a whole thing around published authors and non-published and you you mentioned
about you know like you kind of kept some of the Purity by changing how you’re doing the publishing of this as well right yeah that was again nothing
something I knew nothing about you know it’s a murky world it’s a murky world and I bet years ago it was a wonderful
world to be like to be a publisher to be and you know right up but how does it
work you give them like a little script and they say oh yeah we’ll we’ll get on board with this no I mean generally you’ll be very very lucky to send like a
proposal to somebody you’ve got to send to an agent you’re very unlikely for a Publishing House to
just take your proposal without an actor without an agent some will take your
your book waiting is is awful so anyway I sent it to
an agent who used to be a publisher um and they got back to me and really
enjoyed the three or four chapters that I sent them because as a non non-writers someone hasn’t well known
that I need to get the book shelf ready yeah it’s got to stand on its own legs
whereas an established author can just knock out any old yeah you know and it’s like oh great John
Grisham yeah just wheel it in it’ll be fine 50 grand gun yeah do you need to do that in six months so
so that was really exciting so from a real agent who’s a big agency in London they really they’re really excited to
say right can you write another few chapters it’s amazing we love it we put it around we’ve given it to some of the other people in the office we’ve shared
it with a few golfers it’s great it’s so different um so we did so I signed a contract with a big
agency and it was all really exciting um and then like so many books like so many movies you know you know the
publishing houses really it’s about marketing it’s not about the love that goes into it it’s about will that sell
books further so actually the people that make decisions aren’t the people who love books generally yeah and so I was
getting a bit frustrated with the agency and it’s not his fault and you know he was dealing with thing more famous
people so I decided to pull the plug and investigate self-publishing and and that’s awful really because a lot of
them are algorithms you could write something down right now and just then get it self-published
um but they’re knocking out books the quality will be poor so there’s a lot of hybrids now where a lot of EX Publishers
and agents trying to give you the the the same sort of processes you get with a traditional
publishing house but you’ve still got some of the risks you carry some of the risk but also you carry some of the
license you don’t you you don’t have to change the front cover because you know like I said at the top of this pod these
are beautiful looking book because you have the sketches coming in and I remember we met obviously at rngc
um down in Devon and summer very different weather to what we’ve played in today um I remember shortly after that you
were inquiring for people to do some sketches for the front cover and the product is a beautiful looking book there but you can imagine the whole
product becomes diminished when on the Shelf it’s you know a different title it’s like an old bladed putter no one’s
going to buy that that’s exactly what the um the agency said the London agency and you’ve got a central the famous famous golfer on the front you know it’s
like when I want to change it to sort of like the occasional Miracles like and when I step back from that I thought
we should put a laughter track on it and he was like no like he just you know it’s like you know I’ll just pull the
plug on this if you if you change this and you’ve got to hold firm you’ve got to hold firm so actually take step him
back and not trying to not care that it wasn’t through a big agency or a great Publishing House that allowed me to sort of stick to what
the beauty in that title is and allowed me then to sort of like find my own
illustrator and have my ideas go into the illustrations and and not have anyone tell me well this is won’t sell
and that what does success look like then so how do you success it’s published it’s a wonderful thing
it’s done you were saying it’s been interesting about to become a bestseller which had blew me away actually you
don’t need to sell it’s I think it’s something ridiculous like a bestseller is like 5 000 bucks and to the average
book no way the average book I think sells around
250 or 500 copies so if you’ve got 50 Grand you could just publish it buy them
yourself and you could legitimately but I bet you there’s some I mean you could just send Bots out to buy your what you
need an expensive way to get a best seller because you don’t make any money you don’t make any books money from books anyway but once you’ve got a
couple of best sellers under your belt you can just crack but then you can then write another one can’t you so is there is there another book in you was the
process too the process was lovely it was it was the best part you enjoyed the process of writing getting on the train
when did you do it did you like have like um anytime get on the train I just write
I’ll just write and write and write and it would be really awful I expect you know but I’ll just write and then I’d edit it and then I’d think and then it
evolves and it changed and I rewrote it probably about 20 times because I’m a tinkerer not tinkerer the goal swing but
I’m a tinkerer but they say the first edit or the first draft is the hardest to get down because once you’ve got
something down you can iterate and you can improve from there exactly and I just so it just it just it just evolved over like a number of years and I didn’t
write it for a boat because it wasn’t like a project to try and make money it was just something I just kept adding churches and not worrying about it and
then and then finally I gave it to my uh my wife who she really did a wonderful job
editing it yeah she’s um she really sort of like thank
yous actually isn’t she she’s in the thank yous yeah um because without her it wouldn’t have been Shelf ready and it would have been
harder than to get that recognition because and I think that goes with a lot of writers you know that’s what the editor’s jobs are for you know they sort
of help bring books together they help you know my wife beautifully cleansed is
the paragraphs and you can be so there’s it’s a lot shorter and close to it at that point close to it that was too
close to it at that point I find that with with with films that I imagine just far too closer and I hate them but I’m
finished I’m like I just some Andrew’s film you absolutely I hated it thinks it’s wonderful and beautiful if I go
back to two months later oh yeah that was quite nice actually I um but you get so attached to it and you can see every
fault or perhaps you can’t see the fault which is the problem but yeah it is um
it is tricky but are you pleased you did it oh yeah it was wonderful and it’s and
that’s like say the the success or the reward is just now it’s seeing it right in your hands there and I’m not talking
about it thank you and that’s it I’m not but there’s an aesthetic thing to a book as well isn’t there you know like that’s
important and that holding it’s a nice book to hold it’s a nice bit we got it in hardback does it come in it comes in
paper as well it comes in floppy back I mean we read a little bit about your dad in there as well I really like that little sentence at the beginning about
your dad I went near yeah dedications the dedications I thought it was brilliant well you haven’t seen this yet
I know you didn’t share the book with me I I will give it a read so to my dad a
truly wonderful man with a truly Dreadful short game
listeners let’s let’s let’s let’s do operation bestseller how does someone get their hands on this wonderful
stocking fellas it’s not a stocking filler but it’s just I just think it’s a perfect little book like everyone has to
have that in their Arsenal I think it’s very kind yeah um I mean this unfortunately the simplest way is to go
on to um Amazon you can just you can search the underground pleasure or put my name in
um you can go to rewilding the golfer and the link is on the on the page of my Instagram
um you can go into an independent Bookshop um they might not have it in there obviously because they can’t you know
but you can order it what’s the famous soccer Airlines all the good book shops and some rubbish ones as well yeah
exactly so um or you know um if you want to copy signed then just
send me a message and uh I’ll post one out to you any parting Pearls of Wisdom
oh and he put me on the spot there enjoy putting I think that’s what it is plotting and living just learn to love
it that’s the sub the subheading to the uncorrupted chapter 13. it’s one of my favorite chapters along with the
Mercurial magic of the short game Tom I’ll send you one and they’ll put in the post for you James it’s been an
absolute pleasure playing some speed golf with you thank you very much for coming on the podcast for us today and
uh hopefully we’ll sell a lot of books thank you so much I’ve really enjoyed this it’s been a magical day yeah cheers