Sadly, I've been so busy for a few years (long story I'll get into eventually) that I forgot about 2+2. It's been an amazing ride and I can see y'all have followed along somewhat.

I'll start a well, fire away!

Hopefully I won't forget about this in the morning!

Welcome back - congrats on the success of DECADE thus far and glgl going forward

1. What are your expanded thoughts on bifurcation in golf? Should it be ball, ball and clubs or nothing at all? I believe you tweeted something about what would the high level ams (college, mid-ams, etc.) do? Do you believe that the best will/would adapt regardless of equipment?

2. What are your latest thoughts on Will's ceiling in professional golf?

3. Name a couple of players we likely haven't heard of at web q-school finals this week that are worth paying attn to

4. Rank the majors in the order of prestige in your opinion; in the opinion of most tour players

5. What are your plans for playing over the next few years?

welcome back

congrats on the success of your golf business......... didn't realize you'd done this but the website looks really good.

does your advice/system get into what shots to hit near the green? that's probably my #1 concern/thought these days. also, ties into learning how to control trajectory and spin....

my other giant bugaboo is how far to stand from the ball... i saw a very good video from peter kostis about how TW when he was young and dominant used to stand much further from the ball and had a slower transition from the top. some problems with the video framing but i had no doubt kostis was correct.

Ship, i liked your idea of mistake to achievement ratio in the other thread.

1. That’s a tough one I haven’t thought about enough to firmly state my opinion. The points I made on Twitter “what about college players turning professional” was an attempt to illustrate the bifurcation isn’t as simple in a game where you don’t share equipment. I’m not sure if it’s possible, but I think equipment should simply be frozen where it is now most likely. I think too many would hate rolling the ball back for all players and taking 10% off an amateur’s tee shots.



2. I think Will is going to do fairly well. His putting has improved over the last 12 months since beginning work with my sport psychologist Dr. Michael Lardon from San Diego. He’s still got a long way to go, but I believe it is proficient enough now to not completely offset his superior ball striking and mental approach.


3. “Haven’t heard of” is tough as I don’t know who you’ve heard of…obviously the bigger names, but it’s the guys out of college that might be lesser known even though they are big names in my world. Cameron Champ, Sam Burns, Wyndham Clark, Sean Crocker, Rico Hoey, Kyle Jones, Hank Leboida, Maverick McNealy, Jordan Niebrugge, Joaquin Niemann, John Oda, the 2+2 world famous Michael Weaver. Of course I'm biased as all but a couple of these players have sat through my seminar!


4. I think the Masters is first, then the US and British Open are interchangeable, and PGA last. I think most would order them like this as well and probably be ethnocentric as to choice of US/British.


5. I’m going to try to play more now that Will is turning professional. I haven’t played hardly at all aside from the US Mid-Am qualifier the last two years. I hope to get a little more active moving forward now that I won’t be spending a few weeks a year caddying.

It does when I work directly with a player. It’s hard to translate that aspect of the game into video format. Overall, I’d say most people try far too many flop shots rather than keeping the shot simple and accepting 8-10’ coming back instead of trying to use trajectory to stop it close.


As for how far to stand from the ball, I believe traditional golf instruction taught us to stand too close. What is correct for you as generic advice is hard to say, but I’ve always stood “too far from it” and usually hit it fairly well.

Thanks! It's all based off the thousands of rounds we have in the DECADE App at this time.

that's interesting... the canadian tour the last few years has offered 5 exemptions to web.com including one that is full, unlimited... since they did that, especially this year, the tour has been more dominated by big college players like hoey, shelton, mccoy, niebrugge. before that it was more "regional tour" and just a place to play.

No one actually forgets 2+2. I mean whoever read the "which is easier a dead straight putt or one with a slight break?" thread would ever forget it? So the chances that the person who actually wrote one side of it forgetting about it seems infinitesimally small to me. Mr. This if you do somehow remember your position maybe some your new data could disturb that can of worms. (I hope you know I'm kidding, please don't make me relive it, ever.)

Nice to have you back though. Now you can keep this forum in check. Oh wait there's nothing much here now. Keep it coming though, we won't understand a lick but keep it coming anyway!


Also lots of very good players have come up through the Canadian Tour I disagree that it was only a regional tour. Stricker, Scott McCarron and Chris DeMarco (who I saw myself in Victoria in the early 1990's on the tour), Mike Weir, Stuart Appleby, Nick Whatney, Tim Herron, Paul Casey, Scott Dunlap all came up through the tour one way or the other and moved and on to the highest levels. The list goes on and on. There's always been a number of college stars on the Canadian tour.

what the heck is bifurcation?

Yeah, it's odd, I honestly thought the "Five" were all exempt on the web.com. Kramer Hickok, this year's leading money winner, is the kid I caddied for at 2nd Stage and Final Stage 2 years ago. His dad and I are business partners in a few deals here in Texas and Kramer lives with Spieth. I didn't realize until late summer that he needed to be Player of the Year to really make it matter. So many college kids ask me what they should do and I truly have no answer right now. It all kind of sucks.

"Bi" - meaning 2
"furcation" - I assume meaning split somehow

Bifurcation means that there will be one ball for professional golf and anything else for amateurs. The issue with this that most miss is that most (all) other sports share a ball. Golfers use their own balls and are paid handsomely to do so. You can't just all of a sudden have one ball all play. No chance the endorsements, advertising, etc would support that.

I think it would be best for professional golf, but no chance it happens.

To be honest, the last 36 months of my life have only given me more data to illustrate why I was right in that debate. That said, I love Nelson now (honestly can't even remember his name here at the minute). He's a good, smart dude. I knew that at the time, but was loving our debate so much I got clouded.

As for "forget 2+2", never. But, I've had a crazy 2 years which you may or may not know about based on if you follow me on Twitter or not.

3 years ago my sister's son was undercut in a basketball game and had a major concussion as a result. 3 months later a dickwad sucker punched him on the same spot and knocked him out after landing on the ground on the same spot. He went on to socially withdraw and became quite troublesome.

I tried to help him get back on track as did my sister, but with a deadbeat ****bag for a dad he just never recovered.

April 8, 2016 he snapped and killed my sister, his brother (who was an amazing person), and then himself. It's been a storm since as I'm sure you can imagine.

So, actually, yes I did somehow forget 2+2 until Nelson mentioned Tuq on Twitter the other day. I do love this forum and hope to get back involved now that I'm feeling a bit better and trying to get it all back together and move forward.

How's that for a giant dump of info!

When do you plan on joining us DFW plebs for some golf?

And when you do I wish you nothing but straight uphill putts.

Forgot that story involved you Ship, condolences again. If all that happened to me I'd be lucky if I remembered my own name!

I still prefer a slight breaker too.

There are times I don't remember my name!

my neglect is mentioned hickok is that i have never seen him play. whereas i've seen all the others play.

yes, the #1 finisher is the big exemption from canada.... #2 thru #5 are limited exemptions as are many spots from web.com qualifying school.

it's funny. we had the #1 amateur player and ncaa player of year from here (nick taylor - washington) and he said what his friends didn't understand is that you graduate as top golfer and there's nowhere to play for decent money regularly. his friends assume he'd be on web.com or pga tour automatically.

to me it seems like it's alot easier to stay on web/pga tour than it is to get there. brad fritsch from canada has been bouncing back and forth for a long long time with moderate success.

Do you think Tiger has the yips?

Have you known anyone with chipping yips? Have they given you their opinion on the matter?

Your life's biggest regret?

Something about you that most people would find hard to believe.

Will nitBo make it on the Senior Tour?

Welcome back Ship! I bought your DECADE app this summer and its been extremely helpful. I learned a lot particularly from my putting stats, and of course I'm much more conservative with my approach shots now.

Do you think Tiger is back for real this time? I officially gave up on him early this year, but now it seems like he is really in good shape.

For those of us that have only just ventured into this "golf" forum, could you explain what your business is? Also this "DECADE" app that has been mentioned a couple of times.

I still have nightmares of those few weeks in that breaking putt thread. I had the worst flu ever and was on some pretty heavy medicine. The fever dreams about putting and putting together the perfect argument, and trying to figure a way to do computer physics modeling etc...ugh. I still hope one day we can have a definitive statistically correct answer =P


-Reid


*edit* just realized I put putting (golf) and putting (setting/arranging) next to each other in the same sentence. Weird.

I'm just hoping to play more golf myself now that I won't schedule time to loop for Will! That said, when it gets warm next spring let's peg it!

I don’t think he does. I did originally until Como showed me what they are working on a year ago. I think he’s going to win and pass the all-time win record of 82. Jack’s 18 is safe though.

My life’s biggest regret. Interesting question. Actually, I know the answer I just won’t post it while I’m going through a divorce…

Not sure there’s anything interesting that people would find hard to believe. Maybe that I’m a terrible procrastinator.

Yes with a 51” driver.

Great to hear! I get emails almost daily from people saying they've dropped 1-4 shots off their handicap, always great to hear it works.

I do think he's back for real this time. That said, the next discs will now take a ton of force and I think if he has a single twinge he'll hang them up quickly. You can't just keep welding your vertebrae together and not have a long term problem.

I "solved golf strategy" a few years ago. I then used those principles while caddying for Will Zalatoris when he won the Texas Amateur and US Junior. I even chronicled those in this forum real-time. It's actually pretty fun for me to go back and read some of the recaps of the US Junior win.

I now teach strategy and mindset to over half the world top 100 amateurs and 15 or so Tour players. The DECADE App is best summed up here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IMZOOcA1JI8