Get ready for a deep dive into the science of golf with Dr. Sasho MacKenzie. In this episode, we cover it all, from the surprising impact of iron size on shot shaping to advanced concepts in swing mechanics. Here’s what you’ll learn as we recap the World Scientific Congress of Golf: - Why smaller irons might not always be better for shaping shots - The surprising truths about club kinetics and how they influence your swing - The science behind face-to-path variability and what it means for your game - How ground interaction affects your wedge play more than you think - A fascinating analogy involving car doors and swing speed (yes, really!) - Tips for testing different swing thoughts and stance setups for maximum speed - The unexpected ways putter weighting can affect your stroke consistency - What Dr. MacKenzie is researching next, including groundbreaking studies on ground reaction forces

In this episode, Dr. Paul Wood, Vice President of Engineering at Ping and President of the Golf Science Organization, discuss insights from the recent World Scientific Congress of Golf. They delve into various research topics, including the physics of putting on sloping surfaces, technological advancements in measuring putting dynamics and the latest buzz in the research community.

After Tony Ruggiero and Smylie Kaufman reflect on their years working together – Smylie was one of the best students Tony ever had. Smylie shares the secret to his success it was his understanding of his swing and keeping his focus simple, by having three to four things he’d monitor. They dive into specific techniques and approaches, as well as the best advice he’s ever received, what the best players can do and how his greatest strengths as a player have helped him in broadcasting.

Ralph Bauer and Tony talk all things putting. He explains where he starts when work with tour players, it’s changing their perspective to understanding how they missed is due to misreading instead of pushing or pulling. He talks about his new app, and how it solves the missing part to putting better is reading the greens better. The technology accelerates what would take years into weeks. They also discuss which grip is best for your putting, and the data he found from testing twelve tour players on left to righters and right to lefters. This episode is full of ways to improve your putting, and stories from Ralph and Tony on how they’ve helped players improve over the years.

Tony has Tour Player, Akshay Bhatia, on the show this week. Tony shares what really stood out to him about Akshay. They talk about his journey and choices with turning Pro at 17 years old. The uncharted challenges he struggled with and how he’s worked through them the past two years. He talks about the amazing coaches that have helped on the journey, and what he’s learned from playing with some of the greatest in the game: Phil Mickelson, Jon Rahm, Bill Haas, Bryson DeChambeau and many more.

Michael Jacobs - 50 Best Teacher in America by Golf Digest, and top 100 Teacher in America by Golf Magazine; shares his journey, with Tony Ruggiero to creating his own research software and what the Jacobs 3D team is working on now. Teaching for 22 years, Michael explains how his focus changed and the 2 steps to becoming a great coach if you’re just starting out. Tony and Michael also discuss the culture of golf instruction and the great modern debate of pushing vs. pulling on the back of the shaft and so much more.

This week’s guest is Shaun Webb - he’s a top 100 teacher, been coaching for 20 years and has achieved great success with his business Athletic Motion Golf. Athletic Motion Golf integrates other sports' exercises and drills to golf instruction. He also studies the commonalities of great players to incorporate and improve the uniqueness of each student. Tony and Shaun share four different similarities of great players, they also talk about what it takes to become a successful coach. This episode is loaded with great teaching techniques and experience.

We sit down with Luke Benoit, a renowned instructor and Founder of Ryp Golf, the inventor of Rypstick, a speed training tool. He's done interesting work in the fields of attention of focus and learning. There's tons of GREAT info to help you train and play better.

This week we have the pleasure of sitting down with Trillium Rose. She shares her perspective on the foundations of great ball striking, helping her players understand their unique tendencies, the value of saving the data, making the most of feedback and having a go-to shot. Trillium is the Director of Instruction at Woodmont Country Club in Rockville, Maryland and she’s been recognized by Golf Digest as one of “The 50 Best Teachers in America,” and a “Top 50 Master Kids Teacher” by U.S. Kids Golf. This episode is FULL of fantastic information.

Brady Riggs joins Tony Ruggiero from our partner podcast, The Tour Coach. Brady has been recognized as a Top 100 Teacher for the past 13 years, and was inducted into the Southern California PGA Teaching Hall of Fame, in 2017. Alongside of coaching Tour Players, he's added Director of Instruction at Hualalai Golf Hale. Tony and Brady talk in depth about his practice strategies - 'Combine-arama', and utilizing stress - as well as the evolution of teaching.

Drew Steckel sits down with our partner, Tour Coach with Tony Ruggiero. Drew has been recognized as one of the Best Young Coaches by Golf Digest - he shares his journey to coaching Tour Players and his keys to being a great coach. Tony and Drew talk in depth about being on tour, what are the most effective ways of coaching.

This week we talked to Mike Malaska about what is good Ball Striking. He shares three super specific ways that you can improve your ball striking in practice. This discussion has tons of insight, great stories, helpful tools for you to check out. Use our discount code GSL for $75 off links.rapsodo.com/gsl-website-mlm-75off

We are kicking off a new series today; it's all about ball striking. How can we do that more effectively? We have tons of accessibility to feedback with golf technology, but how do we use it to improve our ball striking. To kick off this series, we have Tony Ruggiero sharing what he is paying attention to when it comes to his Tour Pros and their ball striking - full of great info. Use our discount code GSL for $75 off http://links.rapsodo.com/gsl-website-mlm-75off

We talk with Dr. David Harris who works at the University of Exeter in the UK, he’s a researcher in psychology and specifically interested in skill acquisition. He's done a lot of research in the world of VR, and has some conducted studies on quiet eye with VR equipment, and experimented with using VR as a way to practice. He offers insightful and relevant conclusions in terms of technology and sports.

Our Partner, Tour Coach with Tony Ruggiero had the chance to sit down with Chris Como. Como shares what he's learned from his coaching career, why Bryson and him work well together, his favorite players to watch, and what he does first when working with a new tour player.

Masters Roundtable with three amazing coaches: Jeff Smith, he works with Viktor Hovland, Chris O'Connell, who works with Matt Kuchar and Jamie Mulligan who works with Patrick Cantlay. They each have a ton of insights into how they're preparing for the masters - what they're doing beforehand, what they're doing there while on-site and some insights in strategy, jam packed with insights.

This installment is part two of our conversation with Gal Ziv. If you didn’t catch the first part, make sure you go back and give it a listen – there’s some really interesting stuff we talk about that’s sure to pique your curiosity. Today, we’re going to talk about gaze behavior and the quiet eye. The quiet eye as described by Gal, is “the final fixation on a specific area in your visual field before a critical movement.” In golf, this is usually your last look at the ball before you hit a shot. Gal’s research has found that the best players in the world have longer quiet eyes than amateurs. In other words, “they fixate on the golf ball for a longer duration before they putt… and they maintain it longer.” Gal has applied the principle of the quiet eye in his research of people putting. He’s found that golfers of all levels have longer quiet eyes on successful putts and shorter quiet eyes on unsuccessful putts. What makes this interesting is that the concept of the quiet eye is something that can be taught. He then goes on to describe what that training looks like. Keep in mind that in order to do this, an eye tracker is needed. To begin, a golfer starts in their address position and gazes at the ball. After the student looks at the hole and is comfortable with where they’re aimed, they fixate on the ball for two to three seconds. From there, the stroke begins, and the fixation point of the golf doesn’t change. The tendency for most golfers is to look up from the ball before they’ve made contact. Gal’s research shows that this is a sign of a “busy brain.” I asked Gal why he thought the quiet eye was so important in putting. He said there is more than one theory. First, the preprogramming hypothesis maintains that “once your eyes are fixated on the ball… you give your brain time to calculate and plan the correct movement.” The second theory is that “during the putt… if something isn’t right, you still have time to correct it.” Lastly, the inhibition hypothesis maintains that “quiet eye time gives you time to pick the option you think is optimal…” When I asked Gal if the quiet eye concept translated to other areas of the game like full shots, he said that there’s more research that needs to be done. However, theoretically speaking, there’s no reason the same idea shouldn’t apply. Gal has some interesting suggestions on how you can implement the quiet eye practice into your putting. First, he says people have to understand that it’s not easy in the beginning. However, “after 10 or 20 repetitions…” it’s not that tough. One of the best ways to do this is to “maintain a journal.” This will help you see if it helps you or not. For most people, improvement will be gradual, it doesn’t happen in a single day. Once again, Gal shared some really interesting information with us. We can’t thank him enough for his time and hope to hear more about future work he’s doing in the future. Thanks for taking time to hang out with us here on the GSL Podcast. We have more exciting content on the way so stay tuned!