Learn How to Play Golf Better

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Todd Graves  – Graves Golf

 

Podcast Overview:

00:00 Outdated PGA teaching methods
09:52 Regulating equipment in sports
13:15 Learning step-by-step skills
18:40 Todd’s seminar on clarity
23:42 Understanding golf swing mechanics
30:20 Fixing common golf swing mistakes
33:51 Starting Graves Golf with a trailer
37:12 Prioritizing values over quick fixes
42:22 Building a custom golf academy
51:08 Raising your standards for excellence
54:44 Golf club components explained
01:02:16 Range balls vs. regular golf balls
01:03:41 Choosing the right golf ball

Podcast Transcription:

Todd Graves [00:00:00]:
Now when you, when you look at the way the game has advanced and I’ll just give you some, some data, but just from in the late 80s, early 90s, John Daly led the Tour driving distance. John Daly was the longest striker of the golf ball on the, on the Tour at the time. And he was driving the ball, I think 288 yards, 289 yards. Something was the, he was the longest. And the Tour average driving distance was around 265. Today it’s 30 yards greater than that. So now. Oh yeah, yeah.

Todd Graves [00:00:29]:
So now the average driving distance is in the 295 range and the longest drivers out there in the 32330 range and sometimes longer.

James Kademan [00:00:42]:
You have found Authentic Business Adventures, the business program that brings you the struggle stories and triumph and successes of business owners across the land. Downloadable audio episodes can be found in the podcast link found at https://drawincustomers.com We are locally underwritten by the Bank of Sun Prairie Calls On Call, Extraordinary Answering Service, The bold business book as well as Live Switch. Today we’re welcoming slash, preparing to learn from Todd Graves of Graves Golf. And Todd, I’m excited. We are now entering what, at least in my world in the Midwest, is golf weather. So let’s talk golf today.

Todd Graves [00:01:19]:
Well, yeah, the Masters, you know, coming next week. So really golf, golf season across the country and probably across the world really kicks off for us around Masters. We always gear up for this time of year. You know, nothing’s more exciting than the Masters tournament. So that’s a, it’s a big week next week. So we’re excited about what’s happening. You know, it’s been a, been kind of an early, interesting season this year because the weather seems to be, it’s, it’s always off and on, but it’s, you know, I own a golf course here in Edmond, Oklahoma, and the, the grass came out early this year, which I don’t know if that’s always a good thing. But, but, but we’re, yeah, we got some nice, nice playing conditions and we’re ready to go.

Todd Graves [00:01:58]:
You know, golf’s golf kicks off for us and we’re ready to get busy this year.

James Kademan [00:02:02]:
Nice. Yeah, I’m in Wisconsin and we always joke that we have six springs.

Todd Graves [00:02:06]:
Yeah.

James Kademan [00:02:07]:
Last a day or two at a time. So I know that the course has been open and they’ve been snowed on and all that jazz. But at any rate, let’s, let’s talk about how you got started because it’s been a while you’ve been in this game for quite a bit, it sounds like.

Todd Graves [00:02:21]:
Yeah. Yeah. You know, I’m not sure, you know, in business, being an entrepreneur, I’m not sure that you ever really know what you’re doing at first. You know, you get into the game because you, you have an idea or you have something unique that you want to offer the world and help people with. And I think that’s kind of what I stumbled into. I, you know, I, I played professional golf. I played in college, and I played professional golf, and, you know, I aspired to be a player, and I played for a while on the, on the tours around the world, and, and I just, you know, I kind of fell into. I saw a problem.

Todd Graves [00:02:53]:
I saw a problem in the golf world from, from a golf learning teaching methodology standpoint because I struggled, you know, I struggled to learn the game. I struggled to become better at playing it, even though I was a good player. I, I, you know, I came from a background of, of educators. My parents were both. My dad was a PhD in microbiology, taught at the medical school. My mother owned civil learning centers here in Oklahoma City. She was an entrepreneur herself. So, you know, I came from this background of always questioning how things worked.

Todd Graves [00:03:23]:
And, and I, I would consider myself relatively smart. I don’t think I’m the most intelligent tool in the, you know, the smartest guy in the world. But, but I always, you know, I’m, I’m inquisitive. I always was curious about things and, and as I tried to approach the game of golf and get better at it, there was a lot of, A lot of dogma in, in the golf instruction world. And there was. There was really no standardized teaching methods. There was, and it just didn’t seem simple to me. So the more I tried to improve, the more trouble I saw with the industry that teaches the game of golf.

Todd Graves [00:03:54]:
Matter of fact, to give you an example, the PGA teaching manual, the manual that they teach from today, if you go into a pro shop and you want to learn from a PGA pro, that teaching manual that they operate from and they, and they use has not been updated since 1990. So, so you would think that, you know, with the technology today and with, with the way the game works and with all the, I mean, look at, look at the industry. Look at your world. You know, we got AI. We got so much, we got so much information out there and the ability to do things we could never do before, and you got this antiquated way they teach the game of golf. Now, I’m not saying that everything in that manual is bad and wrong. I’m just saying that there’s so much more that we can, we can offer and become better at what we do. And, and that’s, that’s part of an entrepreneur’s job is to, so I look at that.

Todd Graves [00:04:41]:
That was part of it. And there was, you know, everybody’s teaching a different method. So I just, I said, look, there’s, there’s something wrong with, with the game of golf. It’s how it’s being taught and it’s what’s being taught. And I’ve been, I, I built a business around that and, and so I kind of stumbled into it just because I saw a big need and a problem. You know, that’s what we do as entrepreneurs. We find needs, we find problems, we try to solve those things as best we can. You know, that’s fair.

James Kademan [00:05:03]:
That’s totally true. Tell me a story, because I have to admit ignorance here I am just getting into golf, like just getting into golf. So I have played golf. Not well. We play best ball and out of 18 holes, we’re probably using mine two or three times at best.

Todd Graves [00:05:19]:
Yeah.

James Kademan [00:05:19]:
And I’m going to call that pure luck. Nothing.

Todd Graves [00:05:22]:
Yeah.

James Kademan [00:05:23]:
So at any rate, tell me a story about, let’s just say a typical drive. A typical drive in 1990 versus a typical drive now with the skills and the tools and all that kind of stuff. Is it. When I say a typical drive, I guess a good drive, not my drive. A good drive where it goes straight, where you intended to go. Is it farther than what it was?

Todd Graves [00:05:44]:
Well, here’s what’s interesting about it. You know, when you, when you look at the way the game has advanced and I’ll just give you some, some data. So just from in the late 80s, early 90s, John Daly led the Tour driving distance. John Daly was the longest striker of the golf ball on the, on the Tour at the time. And he was driving the ball, I think 288 yards to an 89 yards. Something was the, was he was the longest and the tour average driving distance was around 265. Today it’s 30 yards greater than that. So 10%.

Todd Graves [00:06:15]:
Oh, yeah, yeah. So, so now the, the average driving distance is in the 295 range and the, the longest drivers out there are in the 32330 range. So. And sometimes longer so that, you know, you can, you can attribute that to probably, we call it the tiger effect. In the game. You can, you know, better athletes, they’re definitely better trained athletes. I caddied about a month and a half ago in a PGA tournament. And they’re just great athletes.

Todd Graves [00:06:40]:
They’re young, young guys. I mean, the average Tour player is 28 years old, so a bunch of young guys that are good athletes that are not training harder. And that’s part of it, too. But, but a majority of the. Of that is just the technology of equipment and the way the ball. The ball flies farther this, the way it spins. You know, people recognize that the ball spins less now, so you can hit it harder and not hit it offline further. Because rotation of the golf ball is what creates curvature.

Todd Graves [00:07:02]:
And so, so those are the factors that are creating a different game. And what’s interesting about the. The industry of golf is because of that, courses are becoming obsolete. There. There’s courses out there now that. That PJ Tour cannot play that they would play on a regular rotation because they’re just. They’re just not long enough. They did.

Todd Graves [00:07:22]:
The players just. They’re just. There’s not. They’re inadequate for the way that. How far the golf ball goes. So it’s interesting because you think about. You think about that there’s. There, there’s a.

Todd Graves [00:07:31]:
There’s a down. That downstream effect to all these things that happen in the game. So, so that’s. That’s part of the deal. You know, that. That’s. The industry struggles with that. I think the usga, the governing bodies of golf, struggle with that because they’re like, we can’t keep going backwards on golf courses.

Todd Graves [00:07:46]:
We don’t have the real estate, okay, we got to find new golf courses or we got to stop letting the golf ball go so far. But that’s. That’s part. It’s. It’s been a big. That’s been a big controversial issue with. With the game of golf since Tiger basically came over and started hitting the ball really long distances. So that’s, that’s a.

Todd Graves [00:08:02]:
That’s kind of an example of the change that’s happened in the game in the last, you know, at least since tiger. I mean, 97, 96, you know, tiger getting on the Tour. So that’s a big part of it. Yeah.

James Kademan [00:08:14]:
Interesting. I guess it never even dawned on me that they’d have to change courses or not use a certain course because of distance.

Todd Graves [00:08:22]:
Yeah, well, like. Like Augusta national, which we’re going to see next week at the Masters. They’ve lengthened that course dramatically to handle the distances because that’s. That’s one of the most renowned places that tournaments and places to play golf, and they’re definitely, they’re going to definitely want to play at Augusta and keep doing the tournament there. But they, if they, if they would have left the yardages at Augusta where they were even 20 years ago, it’d be obsolete. Guys would be driving greens and flipping wedges at every hole and it just wouldn’t be even a challenge. But Augusta’s, you know, they’ve lengthened the course and they keep it a challenge, but they got a little room there. They got, but there’s some courses, they just don’t have the real estate.

Todd Graves [00:08:58]:
They just don’t. I mean I, I remember I played a tournament in Las Vegas on, in a, in a, in a professional golf tournament and it was at, at one of those resort courses where like, I think it was at Tropicana Country Club. By the way, they blew that place up because it doesn’t exist anymore. Yeah, they, they put the, I think they built a Mirage hotel on top of it. But when I played there, the, the course just, they couldn’t go back any further. There’s no more real estate. So the course is just like, we can’t, we can’t run this course anymore. We can’t have tournaments here anymore.

Todd Graves [00:09:23]:
We can’t have any major events because it’s just. Can’t handle it. It’s just too easy for these guys. So a lot of stuff going on like that in the industry, but that’s a lot of change happening in sports too.

James Kademan [00:09:34]:
It’s so interesting because I think of F1 or even NASCAR racing, I think of high jump, four minute mile, all these things where the sport, wherever its peak was and then over the course of time the athletes keep getting better and better and better or the equipment gets better and better, better or a combination of both.

Todd Graves [00:09:52]:
Well, think about F1 for a minute. I mean, I don’t know much about, you know, Formula one racing, but, but they, they regulate the cars, right? I mean, so there’s regulations. So they, they have, you know, whether it’s, whether it’s in the design characteristics of the car or the, or the, the horsepower. So they, they, they’ve implemented things like. Because they can build a faster car that no one could even touch. But now they have these regulations and then they, then they live by these standards. Golf is trying to do the same thing. Golf, Golf is getting to the point where it’s going to have to do the same thing.

Todd Graves [00:10:19]:
It’s going to have to regulate equipment, which it already does by the way, that, you know, drivers can only have so much of a, of A rebound effect in the face. And the ball can only have so much coefficient elasticity. I mean, there’s illegal golf balls out there and there’s legal golf clubs out there, but you can’t use them in competition. So, so every sport has to do some of that, has to do some regulation on, on the equipment. I mean, I don’t want to regulate, I don’t want to. Well, you can’t. You know, they do drug testing in the PJ Tour, by the way. Right.

Todd Graves [00:10:44]:
So those guys get drug tested? Oh, absolutely. They, they get drug tested every week. Yep. So it’s, it’s, it’s again, it’s, it’s high profile sports and they gotta regulate this stuff. And you know, the guys on steroids out there, which you wouldn’t think golfers would be, but heck you, you should see the athletes out there now. I mean they’re, they’re incredible athletes. So, so yeah, every sport, every, every everything like that has to be somewhat regulated, you know, And I suppose once

James Kademan [00:11:07]:
you get to that level, an extra yard or two on your drive is probably the difference between winning and losing.

Todd Graves [00:11:14]:
Well, yes and no. I mean, so, so it, in, in the world of golf, it’s, it’s proximity. So if I, so the, just for people that play golf out there, if you have a wedge in your hand and from it’s say 120 yards in end. So it’s, it’s a short club, it has more loft. So you, you curve the ball less so it becomes how close you can hit the ball to the hole. But you put, you put a six iron in a guy’s hand and there’s less loft on the club, it goes left and right more. So if I can put a club in your hand that, that goes less left to right with the same amount of, of error in the swing, I have a better chance of making birdies, right? So, so basically the, the closer I am to the hole, statistically speaking, really not even improving your ability or your skill, the better chance I have. So, so if I can get the ball down there closer to the hole, then I can hit a wedge in there and I’m going to score better.

Todd Graves [00:12:06]:
And so it comes down to proximity and distance. It’s really a distance game right now. But here’s what’s interesting. You know, in my world and what I focus on is I focus on, I don’t focus on tour players. I focus on the average guy. And so the average guy like you and me that plays golf and guys are getting up in their 60s, which is a third of all golfers over the age of 60 in the industry. So a large majority of golfers, they’re retiring guys that want something to do when they retire and go on the golf course and play golf with their buddies. You know, we’re not, we’re trying to actually have more fun playing the game.

Todd Graves [00:12:40]:
It’s always going to be somewhat of a distance game, but it’s also a consistency game. And how can we hit the fairway? Can we not lose the golf ball? Can we, can we have more fun playing the game? That’s the focus of my business has been on the average golfer and improving the average golfer. And of course, I do teach some tour players and guys that are very high level, but that’s not the rule of the focus of what I do. I focus my attention on making the average guy better with an easier way, an easy way to learn. Like you, you know, you’re starting to pick up the game. What would I, what would I do for you? And I could, I could, I could tell you right now, and I’ll give you a little bit of my spiel. You know, you’re gonna, what you’re gonna do is you’re gonna grab a golf club and you’re gonna go out there and start hitting, right? Now, let me ask you a question about that. So.

Todd Graves [00:13:23]:
And you might even hit a driver and start hitting it, right? I’m gonna swing away. But what other thing would you try to learn by doing it? So if I said, I’m gonna teach you to play the piano and I just gave you a piano and go play, right? Or if I said, look, you see Michael Jackson over there dancing? Go dance like him, right? You’re gonna look like an idiot. And so what I would do, I would say, let’s be smart about this. If I’m gonna teach you how to dance, I’m gonna teach you step one and then step two and step three, and then I’m gonna put it together and you have a dance. If I’m teaching you to play the piano, I’m gonna teach you the notes, Then I’m gonna teach you where to put your hands. I’m gonna teach you chords, then I’m gonna teach you how to put those chords into a sequence. And also music plays, right? So it’s a product of positioning and sequencing. It’s the opposite of what people do to play golf.

Todd Graves [00:14:10]:
What people do to play golf is they go try to do it, and they keep trying to do it, and they keep trying to do it. Until they realize, geez, this is hard. And then they go take lessons. And by then they’ve been doing it so long, it’s like you’re fixing people all the time. And so I’ve built a company around a structured, systematic approach to learning. And so not only do I teach an easier way, which is fundamentally based on biomechanics of the natural use of your body, which we can talk about that, but I teach a process. And by the way, when it comes to entrepreneurship, and that’s probably a really important subject for the guys, you know, the folks out there listening to this podcast is systems are very important in business. And so, you know, not only in my business, having multiple systems here that, you know, marketing systems and all that stuff, you know, all the business side of this, but having a system that people can clearly understand when they come in here to basically benefit from your products.

Todd Graves [00:15:10]:
If you confuse people and they come in here and they’re confused, like what do you actually do? Right? I mean, what do you teach? Well, we teach golf. Yeah, but that’s a commodity. I mean I can go, I can learn that down the street. How do you teach it differently? Well, we, we, well we’re just different. Yeah, you confuse them. But if you say, look, I have a, I have a five step process that I teach you. And, and by the way, this, this, you know, I spent multiple years learning from other entrepreneurs, which that’s why people listen to this podcast. They want to learn from other people.

Todd Graves [00:15:37]:
And I was, I was very fortunate to work with some very high profile CEOs or Starbucks and other other big companies. I was very fortunate to be around from really high profile people that, that were really very skilled and talented with business in me. I’m just, you know, I’m just a knucklehead golfer trying to be a business guy. And they, they, they what, what resonated with greatly with me. One time I was sitting in a meeting and one of the, one of the entrepreneurs that I was in the meeting with was very successful at cleaning, cleaning private airplanes. And he said, Todd, when I first started in business, he had a multi million dollar private plane cleaning company. And he goes, when I first started in business, I’d walk into a big company like NetJets and he would say, hey, I want to clean your aircraft. And they’d say, we already have somebody.

Todd Graves [00:16:24]:
And he goes okay. And so he’d just go, he started to get really confused because it’s so hard to get these contracts. So he sat down with a piece of paper and he showed me this paper and he drew a graph. And the graph started here. We start here. We have step one, step two, step three, step four, step five. We have five step process. And he made it like an airplane flying and landing, right? And he had these graphics on the sheet.

Todd Graves [00:16:45]:
And he goes. So he goes, that’s how we absolutely clean an airplane perfectly every time. That is our system of cleaning airplane. So he walked back into those companies and said, this is the process we use to make sure every airplane, airplane is cleaned perfectly. And he started getting contracts. And he goes, that’s how I built my business, with a five step process. Because he gave super. It was super clear to the end user, to the people buying the product, that what I’m buying is exactly consistently the same every single time.

Todd Graves [00:17:13]:
And it’s very clear on what I’m getting when I. When I do business with you. And that resonated with me greatly because I said, that’s the problem with golf instruction is you don’t know what you’re gonna get, right? You don’t know if you come to me, if you’re gonna get, you know, are you gonna get a golf swing or am I gonna try to fix something or am I gonna hurt your back? So I built a process that said, this is what you get when you work with my company. We run you through this process. And to me, that was probably the clarity of that was probably what I would want every entrepreneur to understand is that when you get super clear on your process, it’s really easy for your customer to know what you do. If you’re not clear, then you got a problem. You know, you got a problem. I was, I was sitting at a meeting one time and I was, I don’t know if you know who Todd Herman is.

Todd Graves [00:17:53]:
Do you know Todd Herman?

James Kademan [00:17:54]:
I’m afraid I don’t know.

Todd Graves [00:17:56]:
He would be a guy that you’d love to have on Amazingly Smart guy. He’s a good friend of mine. He’d be great to have on your podcast. He wrote a book called the Alter Ego Effect. And I met Todd at a conference in, in Seattle. And Todd knew who I was because he was a golf guy and he understand golf. So he kind of knew who I was and I didn’t know who Todd was at all. But Todd was there for the same reason I was there.

Todd Graves [00:18:16]:
I was. I was learning some marketing skills, some Facebook marketing skills when I went to this conference. And Todd was there doing the same thing because he was launching his book. But so he’s a. He’s a customer. And I was a customer. Well, by the end of the two days, we’re all talking to Todd because he’s the smartest guy in the room, right? We’re like, this guy’s genius, right? So. And I became good friends with Todd and I’m good friends with him today.

Todd Graves [00:18:37]:
I actually hired him to come into my company and consult with me for a while.

James Kademan [00:18:40]:
Nice.

Todd Graves [00:18:40]:
But, but, but Todd, one of the things that was so critically important about what Todd and we discuss a lot of times in this process is your customer is going to, going to, is going to feed on your clarity of what you, what you have to offer. And without clarity, you’re just not going to be able to, you’re going to be a commodity. And so I was at Todd’s, I was at Todd’s seminar and I was sitting up front because Todd did these, did these seminars one time. He was teaching entrepreneurs all these skills and I would always sit in the front row and he would just give me crap the whole time because he knows me really well and use me as a, as a good and a bad example while we’re doing these shows. And there’s probably, you know, there’s probably 500 people in the room. And this one guy walked up to me during the, during, you know, kind of during one of our breaks and he says, Todd, he goes, I’m a golf instructor. He goes, he goes, I want to. He goes, how have you, how have you become so successful? And I said, well, what do you teach? And he goes, well, I’m a golf instructor.

Todd Graves [00:19:34]:
I must say, yes, but what do you teach? And he said, well, you know, I teach golf, you know, like you do. I’m like, no, no, no. I go, no, what? And how do you teach? And he goes, I don’t understand. I’m like, right, until you. If you understand that question and you can answer that question, then you can go teach golf. Because right now anybody can teach golf. Like, I can walk down the street and learn golf from the pro down the street or the other pro down the street, or I can drive five miles and go to another pro. So you’re just a commodity.

Todd Graves [00:19:59]:
You’re just, you’re just another golf teacher. And so what happens is you say, okay, I teach. If you asked me that question, I said, I teach a single point swing. It’s based on the biomechanics and the, in the method of Mo Norman, the greatest ball striker has ever played the game. And we have a, we have a five step process that we teach when we teach you the swing. We put everybody through this process. So I give them a very clear example of why we’re different than everybody else, you know, and so, and what happens, what’s even the best part of that is I can charge more, Right. Because now when I charge $300 for an hour and there’s $50 down the street, they’re going to go, well, that guy, his system, even though it’s more expensive, is more valuable to me because he’s got a clear process for me, so it all works out.

Todd Graves [00:20:42]:
So that’s, that’s kind of backing you into what I believe, you know, people are, what, what people are going to do is they’re going to try to commoditize themselves. They’re going to say, well, the guy on the street charged 50 bucks, I’ll charge 40. Right. And I go, that’s the opposite of what you should do, actually. You should actually clarify your process and charge more. No, that’s, that’s kind of. Yeah, totally agree.

James Kademan [00:21:00]:
Yeah. Systematize everything.

Todd Graves [00:21:02]:
Yeah.

James Kademan [00:21:02]:
You have a fantastic point about. That’s a great differentiator.

Todd Graves [00:21:06]:
Yeah.

James Kademan [00:21:06]:
How you have a process and the other person’s like, well, I’m good at golf, so I can teach you.

Todd Graves [00:21:12]:
Yeah.

James Kademan [00:21:12]:
And my wife’s a teacher and I can tell you it’s very interesting talking with her because she’s like, everybody thinks that just because they went through 8th grade that they can teach 8th grade math or 8th grade science or something like that.

Todd Graves [00:21:25]:
Yeah.

James Kademan [00:21:25]:
But there, there’s a skill set to teaching that is not necessarily aligned with or doesn’t mean that you. Just because you know the stuff doesn’t mean you know how to teach it.

Todd Graves [00:21:35]:
Very important, very important point.

James Kademan [00:21:37]:
I’ve paid professionals that were very good at their skill that I was trying to learn the skill from them. They had no business trying to teach it because they had no idea how to teach.

Todd Graves [00:21:47]:
That’s exactly right. There’s, there’s, there’s a friend of mine was he, he was a, he was a performance coach and he was hired to help Olympic athletes become better at firing long range rifles. Rifles. So, you know, guys that were snipers that were long range shooting. And there was, he said he was studying these guys. All these guys were Olympic level. But there was, he said as he’s studying these 10 athletes that were shooting, there was one that was by far better than their other nine. There was one guy.

Todd Graves [00:22:19]:
So he said, what I did is I took the guy and I studied him and they all have the skills. They all have the technical skills. They all held the gun a certain way, they all positioned themselves a certain way, and they all were very good. Except there’s one guy, he said, head and heels above. And he said. So he studied him, and he found out that the difference between him, the one guy that was amazingly above the other nine, was that he shot between his heartbeats. Oh, right. So, you know, he figured this out.

Todd Graves [00:22:44]:
So then he taught the other nine to do the exact same thing, and they all increased to that level. So there’s these things that you. That sometimes athletes don’t even know they do. There’s things that. Like. Like, I guarantee it, LeBron James has no idea why he’s so good, Right? But he’s just a great athlete, and he’s trained a lot, and he’s. And he’s had a lot of experience, and also now he’s great. But teachers, they distill it.

Todd Graves [00:23:06]:
So what we do is we distill it out. We would go to. We would study LeBron James and say, okay, here’s the five things he does that’s better than the other average basketball player. Why he’s better than the average basketball player. So that’s what teachers are able to do. And that’s what I’ve been able to do, is. I mean, I’ve studied more biomechanics. I mean, I would not say I’m an expert in biomechanics, but I’m probably pretty close because I’ve studied.

Todd Graves [00:23:28]:
I’ve been in the room with some experts. We’ve studied human body motion and. And how things work, and we just have a different understanding. I see a golf swing differently than most people. You know, you. You would see the club move. And I’m looking at body positioning and stabilization of the. Of how the body works and internal rotation of the trail hip.

Todd Graves [00:23:45]:
And I’m looking at things in a golf swing that you’d be like, what the hell are you talking about? But at the same time, that’s because I know the cause and effect relationships that are occurring in that motion. And so that’s what teachers do. We distill it down. And we have the experience to do that because we’ve been. We may have been through it ourselves, but we’ve had to sit back and look at it from a different perspective.

James Kademan [00:24:04]:
Just break it down.

Todd Graves [00:24:05]:
Break it down. Yeah.

James Kademan [00:24:06]:
Love it. Tell me about Mo.

Todd Graves [00:24:09]:
Yeah, well, Mo is a fantastic story. And so what I stumbled across. So as I’m on my kind of mission and my search for trying to become a better Player myself. This is back in my playing days. I. I was frustrated. I was working with the best instructors in the world. The guys who were.

Todd Graves [00:24:28]:
Supposedly knew the most, and, you know, they knew a lot. I was kind of at a wit’s end. It wasn’t really getting any better. It was kind of this. I remember telling my. My. My girlfriend at the time when I was practicing with these. I was traveling.

Todd Graves [00:24:41]:
I’ve told people no one spent more money on golf instruction than me. And I was traveling around the world, working with all these instructors. And I go. I go. I was scratching my head when I’m like, two weeks ago, he told me to stand this far from the ball. And then today he said, move closer to it. And then I came back and he. I’m like, so how far should I stand from the golf ball? I don’t understand.

Todd Graves [00:25:00]:
I. So confused. There’s, like. There’s no systematic approach to this. It’s just, like, random. And so I was pretty much done. I was. I was done.

Todd Graves [00:25:08]:
I can’t play professional golf anymore. I’m. I’m basically losing all my sponsors. I’m not making any money. I was. You know, I was 28 years old. And then it just. And sometimes I think when you’re in the.

Todd Graves [00:25:19]:
In the universe and you’re. You’re in the environment, you just things. I. As an entrepreneur, I have a hard time not looking at everything as an advantage. So I got approached by a friend of mine. He was playing the Canadian Professional Golf Tour. And he shows me this videotape. And on the video, there’s this guy.

Todd Graves [00:25:36]:
His name is Mo Norman, but Mo was regarded. And we. Everybody knew. In my world, everybody knew of Mo Norman, this weird, mysterious Canadian guy that was supposed to be amazingly good at hitting a golf ball. But he was reclusive. No one could get close to the guy. No one knew him. But Matthew, my buddy, he’s an interesting guy.

Todd Graves [00:25:53]:
He’s from New Zealand. He was kind of the character that could get close to Mo. So he. He. He found Mo and started hitting golf balls with him and took a video of it. And so when he showed up in Dallas, at my house, he shows me this videotape of Mo, and I’m like, I go, look what he’s doing with the club. I go, look what Mo Norman is. He’s swinging the club on a single plane.

Todd Graves [00:26:10]:
He. He has figured it out. So his swing looked really different than the average swing. But I immediately recognized that what. What Mo was doing was biomechanically superior to what the Average guy. It was. It was easier. It was simple.

Todd Graves [00:26:23]:
So for a year, I just started hitting golf balls. Looking like that. Like, trying. Trying that video. I’d never met Mo, had no idea who. You know, he didn’t know who I was. But I was copying what I saw in the videotape, and I got pretty good. I got pretty good in a year.

Todd Graves [00:26:37]:
Well, that ended that year. I get invited to go to a clinic where Mo was. Was at the clinic in Chicago. So I go to Chicago, and Mo’s doing a clinic. And after, I was kind of invited as a. As a. A professional golfer guest there. So I was.

Todd Graves [00:26:50]:
I was a little bit high profile. So I was inside the ropes, per se. So after the clinic was over, I. I walked up to Mo and I said, you know, you’re the best I’ve ever seen hit a golf ball. Because he was. He. He was remarkable. And in the sound of the ball, the ball coming out of the same ball flight, just you.

Todd Graves [00:27:06]:
You’d watch him go, oh, my God, this guy’s a machine, right? He was just amazing. And so I said, you’re the best I’ve ever seen, Mo. And he goes, I know. I’m the best in the world. I said, well, I said. I said, well, Mo, how. How’d you learn. How’d you learn the skill of.

Todd Graves [00:27:19]:
How did you learn that? And he goes, hard work. Can’t buy it, right? And I said. I said, well, hey, would you mind if I hit a couple of your clubs on the ground there? Because he had. His clubs were laying around. So I grabbed his eight iron. Of course, I’ve been practice, like, practicing like him for almost a year. And I started hitting balls. He goes, ooh, it’s me.

Todd Graves [00:27:34]:
He goes, you look like me. You look like me. He starts recognizing, you know, that I was trying to swing like him. And so I became friends with him. And over the next 10 years, we just. We just teamed up and I did clinics with them and traveled around with him and became friends with him. And he taught me, you know, he taught me remarkable things about the golf swing, but from a humane side. I fell in love with the guy because he was just.

Todd Graves [00:27:54]:
He was a character, but he was reclusive. And he may have been autistic, but he was also just a genius when it came to playing the game of golf. And he really got recognized. In 95, he was put on the COVID of Golf Digest, and he started getting recognized for everything that he was doing. But it was really late in his life. Titleist gave him what they called a reverse scholarship because he wasn’t making any money. And pretty soon, by the time he died, he had a million dollars in the bank. So he started getting some popularity about the same time that I met him, and the companies were kind of recognizing what he was doing, and we started a company called Natural Golf that.

Todd Graves [00:28:26]:
That taught his method. And I picked that up, and that’s what I’ve been doing to this day. I’ve been teaching what Mo Norman taught me. But, yeah, if you look up Mo, we’re actually working on a documentary film about him, and there’s some. Yeah. With Barry Morrow, who wrote the movie Rain Man. I’ve been working with Barry on a project with. About him.

Todd Graves [00:28:41]:
But anyway. But Mo is just. He’s a crazy guy. And look, when I. When I want to entertain myself, I just put into Mo video because he is a character. Like, he’s. The things he says and the way he relates to. And he’s super entertaining.

Todd Graves [00:28:55]:
So I have a great time. I still. He passed away in 2004. I miss him dearly, but he. He. I really enjoy what I can remember. Some of the times I hit balls with him and some of the crazy stuff we did to try to figure out the game. But he had it figured out.

James Kademan [00:29:08]:
That’s awesome. And did he. Is this something. The swing, the single plane swing. He just created that.

Todd Graves [00:29:15]:
Yeah. So. So what? You know, it’s a good question. Like, I. I like, how did Mo figure this out? Right? How do you figure out an easier way to hit a golf ball? And it’s. It’s. It’s actually pretty damn simple. If.

Todd Graves [00:29:26]:
If I. It’s funny. My grandkids, the other day, this is. This has been a year ago, but my granddaughter comes up and she goes. She goes, g paw. She goes, I wanna. I wanna play golf. I’m like, nah, no, you don’t.

Todd Graves [00:29:36]:
She goes, yes, I do. I go, okay, give me a second. And I gave her a stick. Like, I gave her a long stick. And I put. I just put a rock on the ground. I just put rock. I go, hit that rock with this stick.

Todd Graves [00:29:48]:
And what she did was exactly what Mo did. She didn’t hang her arms down to hit that rock. She pointed her arms directly with the stick at that rock in a straight line, right? That’s the single plane. So if you’re going to take the human anatomy and hit something on the ground, you point your arms at it and the stick. It makes sense, right? That’s what Mo did. But see, golf isn’t Taught that way, golf, they’ll teach you to stand there, hang your arm straight down and grab the golf club. And so your arms become on a one plane and the club shaft is on another and you, you’re too close to the ball. So now everything in your swing is a compensation to make room for that club moving around your body because your arms want to line up with the stick.

Todd Graves [00:30:30]:
So that’s what Mo figured out. Mo figured out how to, how to, how to hit something on the ground with a stick better than anybody. And what’s interesting, because people always ask me, so why doesn’t everybody swing the way you teach Todd? I’m like, because it’s taught incorrectly from the very beginning. They teach you this athletic position, hang your arm straight down, get comfortable, relax. Well, that’s not biomechanically the best way to hit something on the ground. Now you have to make up for that problem somewhere in the swing. So you asked me why everybody on the swing kind of looks different when they swing. They’re trying to make up for this problem that’s created from hanging the arms down.

Todd Graves [00:31:01]:
Now you got guys like Steve Stricker, Bryson DeChambeau out there. Now you got guys that are on a single plane that I would say that guy right there is figuring it out. He’s got, he’s got more of a single point swing. But that’s what Mo figured out. He figured out and I think it’s because his brain was wired that way. I think it’s his. I don’t want to say he’s autistic because he was never diagnosed, but he may have been autistic. I think his, his, the way his brain was wired was there’s no rules.

Todd Graves [00:31:27]:
I’m not listening to anybody. I’m going to find the easiest way to hit that thing on the ground with this stick. And that’s what developed from that. That’s how he discovered it.

James Kademan [00:31:35]:
Gotcha. So just so I understand, with a single plane, normal people have their arms straight up and down. And then the golf club I guess would be like this, right?

Todd Graves [00:31:45]:
Yep.

James Kademan [00:31:45]:
And they try to tweak their body in some way to get somewhat janky L shape.

Todd Graves [00:31:52]:
Yeah.

James Kademan [00:31:52]:
Move the ball.

Todd Graves [00:31:53]:
Yeah.

James Kademan [00:31:53]:
He’s saying, just like with shooting a gun or something like that.

Todd Graves [00:31:56]:
If I gave you a three foot hammer, if I gave you a three foot hammer, and you would line the hammer up and just hammer something, Right. It’s all in line with the arm. But if I said take, take that hammer and now put it down at your knees, right. Now your arms down by your knees. And now try to swing the hammer. You’re gonna. The hammer is gonna try to line up with your arm. At some point.

Todd Graves [00:32:14]:
Now you gotta do something, so you know you have a. You have a problem. Right?

James Kademan [00:32:17]:
Right.

Todd Graves [00:32:17]:
So, yeah, it’s just long. It’s a long hammer. You know, the golf club’s a long hammer.

James Kademan [00:32:21]:
And does that plane go all the way around? All the way around, all the way

Todd Graves [00:32:24]:
around, back and down? Yeah. I can draw a line on the club at address. It’ll go up to that line at the top and come right back down to impact on the same line. That’s the definition of what I teach is start an impact on the same exact plane. Yeah. And. And the body. And the other thing, too, is 55% of golfers who play the game of golf, if they play three years or more, will have a back problem and back problems.

Todd Graves [00:32:45]:
And that’s what I. That’s what I’m trying to tell people is like, if you’re having back problems, it’s because you’re trying to. Your body has to. You created a problem to start with, and now your body’s solving that because you’re swinging at the ball, but you gotta make space for that club, and now your back’s gonna stress out. So we’ve eliminated people’s back pains. Matter of fact, the Texas Back Institute and Cedar Sinai Back Institute are. Have been recommending my swing with. They.

Todd Graves [00:33:09]:
They approached me and said, we’ve been recommending your swing to all of our patients who have back problems because it saves people’s backs. And they were doing that. They were doing that long before I even knew, you know, that they were doing that until they contacted me. I mean, I have a business partner at the Texas Back Institute now because he joined our company. But before that, they were. They were. They were recommending my swing long before I knew them that.

James Kademan [00:33:30]:
You know, it’s funny you say three years, I’m like 10 minutes on the driving range, my back hurts, and yeah, there you go. Know that I have no idea what I’m doing.

Todd Graves [00:33:37]:
So there you go. Yeah.

James Kademan [00:33:38]:
Interesting. Tell me, what was the trigger in your. In your head or with you and you’re in this with your brother? Is that right?

Todd Graves [00:33:46]:
Yeah.

James Kademan [00:33:46]:
What was the trigger for you to actually start a business with this rather than just improve your swing and move

Todd Graves [00:33:51]:
on with your life opportunity? I mean, I think we started getting a lot of traction. Matter of fact, we tried to actually run the business and keep playing, but we just saw such a Need and opportunity. And, you know, it’s funny, because I was getting in my early 30s to late 30s, mid-30s, and I was married. I started having a family, and it was difficult to think about my life going well. I got this traveling I’m going to do with the game of golf because as a player, and I just saw a really good opportunity to become a. My goal is to become the best coach that’s ever lived and help as many people as possible. So I just saw a real opportunity there, and so did my brother. And so we started Graves Golf, and it’s with a trailer and an suv, and we started just driving around to locations and setting up schools, and then we started marketing those schools, and we grew that.

Todd Graves [00:34:44]:
Then I bought the company that I worked for, Natural Golf, and we just kind of just evolved the company. And look, it was really just. Just gaining traction on a really good idea and a really helpful thing. We were helping a lot of people. We’ve had over 1.2 million people go through our database that we’ve taught with the company. So. Yeah, and my brother’s been. You know, my brother’s a good business guy.

Todd Graves [00:35:05]:
He’s. He’s been able to really, really capitalize on that. But now. Now I have, you know, 17 members on my team. So, you know, I was in a. In a meeting one day, and I was in a legal thing. We had a. We had a dispute over a trademark, and I saw him being deposed by opposing counsel one day, and she was saying, she.

Todd Graves [00:35:24]:
You know, I don’t know if you’ve ever been in a deposition before, but they. They put documents in front of you, and you’ve got to look at the document. Mr. Graves, do you recognize document 40? What isn’t. What is this? It’s document 43. Do you recognize what that is? No, I don’t. And she’d move it. Mr.

Todd Graves [00:35:39]:
Graves, what is this? This is an email our company sent out, you know, February 1st. Do you recognize that document? No, I don’t. I mean, I don’t do anything for my company anymore like I used to. Right. I have people doing all the marketing and all that stuff. You know, I. I have a different role with my company. But it’s funny, I mean, when you start out, you’re doing all that, you know, you’re doing all the marketing, you’re doing all the customer service, you’re doing all the product delivery.

Todd Graves [00:36:00]:
You know, so, yeah, we started out with a trailer and having to do everything, just me and him. And then we started gathering, you know, Picking up help and getting the right people. And now we have a big team that does, does all that stuff.

James Kademan [00:36:10]:
Nice. Including train, Is that right?

Todd Graves [00:36:13]:
Oh yeah, we have, we have, I think we have 10 full time instructors now that are training for the company. And then I think we have eight or nine administrative doing all the other stuff behind the scenes. So close to 20, I believe now. I mean we cut out a few more today. I’m not sure we’re looking for some new people. Some always, you know.

James Kademan [00:36:29]:
Sure, yeah, that’s the game. Tell me how hard is it to find an instructor or find and create an instructor?

Todd Graves [00:36:36]:
It’s a good question. I, I, it’s, it’s challenging. It takes a lot of time to speak the language right. Of the company. And I, it’s like it’s a value system. I think that’s one of the biggest things that you have to do is, is when I were, I’d rather, it’s like teaching the golf swing. I’d rather start from scratch than bring a PGA pro in and try to teach them our value system. Right.

James Kademan [00:37:04]:
So hold on a second. You said value system, not necessarily the swing.

Todd Graves [00:37:08]:
Right.

James Kademan [00:37:09]:
Very interesting. I love that.

Todd Graves [00:37:10]:
Yeah, I love that.

James Kademan [00:37:11]:
So teach the value system first.

Todd Graves [00:37:12]:
Well, I think the swing, I think the, the system we have system we teach and the way we teach it, I can teach anybody to do, to do this. But the values that we have are probably the most difficult thing because if you come in here thinking, look, we don’t, we don’t, we have, we’re an anti, quick fix approach. So if you come in here for a one hour lesson, we probably won’t, we won’t want to give you that lesson. But if you want to come sign up for a process with us where, you know, we’ll have enough time to actually make a change. We’ll, we would love to sign you up for a program. So that’s a value system we have. And so, you know, if you come in here and say, I’ll teach anybody anytime just to make a few hundred bucks, that’s not our value system. So that’s been the hardest thing for me is getting people to have the same values as usual.

Todd Graves [00:37:57]:
And so that would be really the priority is the value system. And then what we teach and the process we teach are very, very simple, very understandable. Now you have to be able to read. It’s like reading an X ray. You have to learn to read a golf swing and you have to learn those things. Those take time. And that’s probably a Lot of the training that I help the guys with, we have instructor meetings quite often to evaluate swings and things that we see people doing and we say health issues. I, I, I can actually see a putting stroke and see a swing problem in a putting stroke, because biomechanics.

Todd Graves [00:38:29]:
So you just, people innately have injuries and ways they move and, and when you understand the body and how it works, you see things just like a real expert trainer can see how you do a squat and you can say, well, you’re, you’re going to hurt your back if you do it that way, because, you know, so that’s what we try to get. And that level is more challenging. That’s why we have different levels of instructors. But, but, but I think the method is actually very easy to understand and very easy to teach, but I think the company values have to be prioritized over that.

James Kademan [00:38:57]:
Right on. Yeah. I mean, company values, that’s a huge thing. Culture of the business.

Todd Graves [00:39:01]:
Yeah, exactly.

James Kademan [00:39:02]:
Oh, my gosh. Yeah. Tell me a story about working with your brother. Partnership, family partnerships can sometimes be challenging. Well, any partnership can be challenging.

Todd Graves [00:39:12]:
I wouldn’t recommend it, good or bad there. I’ll be honest. I wouldn’t recommend it. I, if you can stay, if you can stay out of it. You know, what’s funny is we’re so different when it comes to business. I respect my brothers. He’s a very intelligent, smart guy. I don’t know of anybody smarter than my brother.

Todd Graves [00:39:34]:
I am, I’m a, My brother has said this so many times in our company. He goes, todd, you just keep, you keep creating rockets, and I gotta figure out a way to get them off the ground. Right. And so he’s like the doer guy, and I’m like the creator guy. And so you need both of those in a company. You absolutely need both of those. But they don’t need to be brothers because, because that dynamic changes everything. So, I mean, no one’s going to listen to this, but do not go in business with your family.

Todd Graves [00:40:03]:
Don’t do it. Don’t do it. I know, and I know it’s unavoidable sometimes, you know, but. Because, look, it’s like hiring, it’s like hiring somebody that’s in your family. You can’t fire them. Right. I mean, you can’t, you know, and my brother’s wanted to fire me so many times, you know, and I wanted to fire him so many times. You can’t.

Todd Graves [00:40:20]:
We’re partners, you know.

James Kademan [00:40:22]:
Yeah.

Todd Graves [00:40:22]:
So I, I just think there’s a lot of challenges with that. And I think anybody who’s been in a, in a, in a business relationship with, with a family member understands that there, there’s no clean. I’ve never heard of a clean one. I’ve never heard of a, an easy one. It’s always challenging. So I don’t know, I just wouldn’t recommend it. That’s just my, that’s my recommendation, but I’m in it. We have seven businesses together.

Todd Graves [00:40:43]:
Seven. Wow. I mean, some of them are real estate, holding companies and whatnot. But, but it’s, I still got to deal with contracts. We still got to deal with stuff, you know, and. Yeah, and you know, half the time there’s a, there’s a, there’s a mediator in there, you know, so we, we make the right decision. So we’re not doing it from an emotional standpoint of, you know, you, you, you, you punched me when I was 10 years old, you know, so, you know.

James Kademan [00:41:04]:
Oh, that’s funny. Tell me. Let’s shift gears into the, the trailer, the truck and all that kind of stuff that you’re going out to these different places. You’re going all over the country, it sounds like. Right.

Todd Graves [00:41:14]:
Well, we have some main locations. We have an Orlando location, a Phoenix location. I built. I, I bought a golf course here in Edmond, Oklahoma. This is our main site, which is our, our training center. So we have three main locations. And then we have a traveling team that will go places at certain times. We go to Chicago.

Todd Graves [00:41:29]:
We do some remote locations as well. Fewer, fewer now than we have in the past. We’ve been going to Canada. We’ve been all over the place, over the, at least the northern United States. So. But we do, we. Palm Springs, Las Vegas, we’ll do some remote locations as well. We try to stick to our main sites, though.

Todd Graves [00:41:45]:
It’s easier to control and have better experiences at those places. So Orlando, Phoenix and Edmond, Oklahoma are our main locations.

James Kademan [00:41:52]:
Okay. And these are things that’s not going on all the time. People schedule these with you at.

Todd Graves [00:41:57]:
Right. So three day, five day programs. They can come in here. And we had a, we had a two day program this last weekend, which is actually a quarterly program. So we have a group of people that come in every quarter. We have different levels of instruction. So. Yeah, I mean, I love when people come here to the academy in Edmond, Oklahoma, because I built a place where we own the golf course.

Todd Graves [00:42:16]:
I can close the course down and we can go use the course and no one’s going to say anything to me. And we built the place to practice and train and develop. It’s a massive driving range. It’s all built to spec. And so this is really the best place I like because I have so much freedom to give the best experience here. Whereas if I go to the golf course in Orlando, it’s a great golf course, love, they treat us well there, but I can’t run out in the pro shop and go, hey, can we have the course this afternoon? You know, they’re like, no, you can’t have the course this afternoon. You know, so, so, yeah, so, so, yeah, that’s, that’s kind of the way the business and I, you know, I stumbled on buying, you know, speaking of business, you know, we, we were leasing locations to run our golf academy. So we were leasing space from golf courses.

Todd Graves [00:43:05]:
And you look at the numbers on that, you know, we’re spending hundreds of thousand dollars a year leasing space from golf courses. I’m like, it just made sense for us to go buy our own golf course and then operate. And then it’s a real estate investment, right? Because now I own the real estate, I own the dirt that we’re on. And we’re actually developing, putting a restaurant on our location here. I have a clubhouse here that we, we built into our offices. So it’s a full scale operation. I’m building a campus basically now, but it’s a real estate play. And so now my business, if people want some business advice, the business reinvests in itself because the business is reinvesting in the real estate that’s underneath our feet.

Todd Graves [00:43:39]:
And so I have a friend of mine, he was asking for, he owns a gym locally and he’s asking for some advice. I’m like, you don’t own your building. I go, I go, the problem I have with not owning a building is now you’re relying on your memberships to generate revenue. And I was like, we need to own the building. Because I was going to help him with his business. I said, we got to own the, we got to own the structure that we’re in because that’s, that’s really where the money is going to be made. That’s where you’re going to appreciate the investment. Why not double down when you can own your own building? So I have some, you know, people ever wanted a business advice that say, you know, do your best to make the business reinvest back in itself if you can.

James Kademan [00:44:13]:
True story, true story. I want to ask you about some basic golf stuff because a lot of business owners end up on the golf course, whether they like it or not, whether it’s through fundraisers or. That’s just where a lot of deals get made.

Todd Graves [00:44:26]:
Yeah.

James Kademan [00:44:26]:
So tell me a story. I saw on your website you had something about measuring certain things to figure out what drivers or iron is best for you. Or irons, I should say. I don’t even know. Yeah, so tell me about. I’m, I want to be a golfer, at least a good enough golfer, so I don’t embarrass myself too much on the course. I want to get some clubs. Where do I start?

Todd Graves [00:44:47]:
All right, so I’ll give you a quick story. So, So I, years ago, when I built my house here, I, I was repouring this big concrete decking area behind the house. And so this guy comes over and he, you know, does a really nice job and pours his concrete. So fast forward about eight years, and I get this phone call from him, and he calls me. He says, hey, Todd, this is, this is Daryl. I, I, I’m working for a concrete company now, and everybody plays golf with this company. And he goes, can you help me, you know, get good enough where I can play with these guys? I’m like, all right, come on out. So he comes out to the course, and he pulls up in his work truck, you know, his F250.

Todd Graves [00:45:21]:
And he gets out, hops out in his work boots, and he goes to grab his clubs out of the back of the truck to yank him out of the bed of the truck. And there’s these old clubs, like, stop. You got to stop for a second. I go, get back in your truck. We’re going down to the golf shop. So we drive him down the golf shop. I said, you’re going to get some shorts, you’re going to get a golf shirt, you’re going to get a golf hat, you’re going to get some golf shoes. You’re going to look like a golfer today.

Todd Graves [00:45:44]:
All right, so, so I got him looking like a golfer, at least dressing like one. I said, we’ll deal with the clubs here in a little while. So I don’t want you to make that huge investment yet. So we get down there and I said, I said, here’s what we’re going to do. I’m going to teach you how to look and act like a golfer. So I literally just said, here’s how you set your bag down. Here’s how you, here’s how you walk up to a golf shot. Here’s how you set up to the golf ball.

Todd Graves [00:46:08]:
You, you look like a golfer now. Like you act like one, look like one. I taught him how to be a golfer before I taught him anything about the swing, right? And then club fitting, I’m gonna. Now I’m gonna fit you to clubs that fit your body size. So now I’m gonna get you clubs that are made for you, not your dad’s hand me down set or some set you bought at a pawn shop, right? So I’m gonna. Because these guys are pretty big guys. So I was like, I got. I’m gonna get your grip size right, and get the club reverse engineered to your.

Todd Graves [00:46:33]:
The way your body is set up. So that’s what we do is we set clubs up to the person’s personal body size. And so we reverse engineer the clubs and then Callaway is our partner. They manufacture the clubs for us. So now I got this guy a great set of clubs. I got him looking like a golfer. And by the way, I have not given him a golf lesson yet. I haven’t taught him a thing yet.

Todd Graves [00:46:53]:
And he goes back to his company. This is after about two lessons. Only two, not lessons. I wouldn’t even call them lessons. I’d call him looking like a golfer, you know, whatever. So he goes, he goes and plays with these guys, and he comes back, he goes, todd, I gotta tell you something. He goes, these guys are looking at me going, you are getting so good at this game. And it was because I made him a golfer.

Todd Graves [00:47:15]:
I gave him the Persona of a golfer. And now I think this is a good lesson, because he wasn’t a concrete guy playing golf anymore. He was a golfer that knew how to play golf, that was in the business of concrete. And so I think that’s a big deal. I think it’s a big deal to take on the Persona of what you’re trying to achieve. And by doing that, you then become that. If he was just a hack, concrete guy that plays golf once in a while, that’s a different Persona than a guy who. A golfer that has concrete business for a living.

Todd Graves [00:47:49]:
So that’s my recommendation for people playing business golf. Dress well, dress like a golfer, act like a golfer, or learn to act like a golfer. Learn what a golfer does, and then you will become that. And that’s a lesson for business too, because people are always really afraid of. Of failing in business, right? I’m going to fail at this. Well, you know what’s interesting about my business career and when I’ve built this business is the right people showed up. I didn’t have to go look for the right people. A Lot of times, because I was in the business of being the best, right.

Todd Graves [00:48:25]:
I’m in the business of being the best golf instruction company that’s ever existed. I’m in the business of providing the best golf schools that exist. And when you’re in the business of the best, the best want to be a part of that, right? So you attract the best. So my recommendation is. Is to take on the Persona of what you want to become, and then you will attract what you need in the business. And I think a lot of people do it the opposite of that. I think a lot of people are like, well, I hope I make it this week. You know, we got to get by.

Todd Graves [00:48:53]:
You know, we’ll. We’ll put that. We’ll just put the temporary sign out front because we can’t afford a nice one. Right. Well, you look temporary. Right. So.

James Kademan [00:49:02]:
Gosh, that is so accurate. Yeah, it’s insanely accurate. Yeah, that’s a fair point. You know, it’s interesting when I. When I have gone to the golf things, I’ll put on a polo or something like that, but it’s not. I don’t have the whole golf. I don’t even know what golf shoes are. I’ve heard of them and I have seen them, but I couldn’t tell you what’s special about them.

Todd Graves [00:49:22]:
Right.

James Kademan [00:49:24]:
I mean, are they. Are there spikes or something? I don’t even know.

Todd Graves [00:49:27]:
Well, they’re spike. They’re spikeless now, but they’re definitely built for stability. And it’s equipment for your feet. Right. Because you’re an athlete and you’re on the ground. So there’s. There’s shoes that. I mean, I’m sponsored by a company that’s.

Todd Graves [00:49:37]:
That. Their equipment for your feet. So. So, yes. I mean, there’s definitely shoes that work really well for golf. I’ll tell you what, your tennis shoes don’t. You know, they’ll stabilize your feet, and you’re. If you’re rotating, you’re trying to keep your feet down.

Todd Graves [00:49:47]:
As an athlete, you got to have shoes that help stabilize that. If you’re slipping around down there, you don’t have stability. Your body can’t biomechanically work correctly. So. Absolutely. As an ice skater, he’s not on tennis shoes. Right. He’s on ice skates.

Todd Graves [00:50:01]:
So. So your sport requires. And there’s a ground connection in golf. So your sport requires equipment and so much. I’m not saying that you need to run out there and go spend $5,000 on all new equipment, but you. It’s Something that, as you improve, you need to. It can really make a big difference. I had a guy bring a set of clubs to me.

Todd Graves [00:50:22]:
He came into the academy for some instruction, brand new guy, and he brings these clubs in here, and I just want to take them down and throw them in the dumpster.

James Kademan [00:50:28]:
Oh, no.

Todd Graves [00:50:30]:
Like we. These are gonna hurt you, right? They’re not built for you. They, they’re. I don’t know where you got these things. You probably got them from some friend or something. But you think about it, he’s gonna go to the range and he’s gonna. He’s not, he’s not skilled yet. He’s not.

Todd Graves [00:50:45]:
He hasn’t developed himself yet. He’s gonna swing these really difficult golf clubs to hit that aren’t really fitting him very well. It’s not right. Not the best scenario for him to improve. Right. So, so, yes, equipment is a big deal. But, but, but more, more than just equipment. Taking on the Persona, like, acting like it, you know, is a big deal because you will always achieve.

Todd Graves [00:51:08]:
You. You write. It’s, you know, it’s really called raising your standards. Because if I, If I tell somebody, look, I want to help you, and they come in here like, well, I, I just want to be okay at it. I’m like, okay, well, so that I don’t. I think we need to raise that standard because the standard of okay is much different than the standard of excellence. And so I would want to say, look, what does it look like to be excellent at this? And then, okay, what does, what do you have to do now to be excellent at this? Well, I got to put more time into practice, right? I gotta. Okay, great.

Todd Graves [00:51:38]:
Let’s get your schedule out. Let’s schedule. So it changes by raising your excellence level, it changes how you approach it. If you just want to be okay at it, you’re not going to do anything. You’re going to just be okay. And you’re me okay with that. So, um, so I’m always about raising people’s standards. And that’s what.

Todd Graves [00:51:53]:
That, that’s why I took my friend down and had him buy a shirt and a hat. Cause I wanted to. I wanted him to raise the standards of what it meant to be a golfer. And it did. You know, and he, and he became a golfer, right that day, he became a golfer because his standard became a golfer standard. If you bring an employee into your company and you say, ah, it’s okay if you don’t dress like us, it’s okay if you. I will fire that person One hour into their employment, if they don’t come in here and first say to me, what are the value systems of how we dress around this academy? Right. Because when a customer walks in, the first thing they see is the guy in a pair of jeans.

Todd Graves [00:52:30]:
Oh, I guess you can wear jeans out here. That’s the level of standard this place operates under. Right. It’s just all going to be seen, you know. So what is that level? What is that standard that you operate under from a business standpoint to a personal standpoint, to how you treat your body to how you treat your employees to. It’s a standard. And that’s the value system that. And by the way, I can’t expect other people to have that value system.

Todd Graves [00:52:51]:
If I don’t, like, I can’t, you know, I can’t run around and expect people to have a high standard. If I don’t have a high standard, you know, I can’t tell you we do not wear jeans at the academy. And I come in here wearing jeans.

James Kademan [00:53:02]:
Right, right, right.

Todd Graves [00:53:04]:
So it’s the standard. So I think that’s all very important to, to people that want to, you know, aspire to be the best at. In their business. And they should, you know, if they’re going to be in business, why not be the best, Right?

James Kademan [00:53:14]:
Oh, my gosh. Great point. Great point. You know, it’s so interesting when you go into a store or place and nobody is dressed uniformly.

Todd Graves [00:53:23]:
Yeah.

James Kademan [00:53:23]:
And so you don’t even know, like, who works.

Todd Graves [00:53:25]:
Who works there. Yeah, I know.

James Kademan [00:53:28]:
Whether it’s a restaurant or whatever. I remember we were at a restaurant in San Diego the other day, and I’m like, I don’t even know which ones are the wait staff. Which ones is just one of the.

Todd Graves [00:53:39]:
I know.

James Kademan [00:53:39]:
Looking for the restroom.

Todd Graves [00:53:40]:
I know. And he asked the guy walking by, hey, can you get me some iced tea? He goes, I don’t work here. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

James Kademan [00:53:45]:
So interesting.

Todd Graves [00:53:46]:
Yeah, tell me.

James Kademan [00:53:47]:
So that guy, the concrete guy, you got them all garbed up. What did you do for clubs for that guy?

Todd Graves [00:53:53]:
We fit him. So we have a. We have a custom fitting process, and it’s based on, you know, arms, arm measurements, how long your arms are, how you know, your legs, wrist to floor measurements, ankle, hip to floor measurements, hand size. We have a whole process. Again, we have a process for it. And so we run you through the process and then we. We custom fit the equipment, we reverse engineer it to the size of your body and your strength, which would be a shaft flex issue. But yeah, we Reverse engineer it all the way out.

Todd Graves [00:54:20]:
We have an all system for that. Matter of fact, that’s one of the first systems we built actually was our club fitting system.

James Kademan [00:54:25]:
Okay, very cool. And is that you said that’s with Callaway.

Todd Graves [00:54:29]:
And so once, once we have your specs, we call them your specs, which is, you know, all the dimensions of the clubs we want to build for you. Then we hand them over to Callaway and they. Do they custom design those clubs based on those specs.

James Kademan [00:54:41]:
All right, we’re talking length or what is Callaway adjusting from there?

Todd Graves [00:54:44]:
Yeah. So shaft, shaft flex, length of the club, the lie angle, which is the, the angle the club sits on the ground based on how tall you are. Basically the grip size, that’s the base. And then, then there’s the set makeup, which is, you know, what clubs you actually have in your bag, driver. Three wood, five wood, seven wood, you know, four iron. Or maybe you don’t have a five wood, you have a six iron, whatever, you know, so specking it out to. And by the way, that may change as you improve. You may say, hey, now your, your, your swing speeds have increased.

Todd Graves [00:55:13]:
We can put a five iron in your bag. Right? But, but so that, that’s part of the game. That may change as you improve. Just like the shaft flex may change as you gain more speed as you get better. But we, we basically reverse engineer the clubs to the way you’re. Way you’re swinging right now. And then we, then you can. The good news about that is you now have clubs that fit your body.

Todd Graves [00:55:34]:
And so now you’re not fighting your equipment while you’re trying to learn the game. Right? And that’s what so many people do. I mean, dude, I, I had my mom’s clubs when I learned how to play the game. Right?

James Kademan [00:55:45]:
Okay.

Todd Graves [00:55:45]:
My mom, 3, 5, 7 iron, right? No, they didn’t fit me. I was 5ft tall and my mom was a lot taller than me when I grew up. And I’m hitting her clubs, you know, I mean, no, they didn’t fit me. I remember my dad finally said, we got to get you some clubs. So we went down, we bought a set, and my dad and I cut the shafts off and put grips on them and we did our best job to make them fit me. Right. That was my first, like, I gotta fit clubs to my body. And so.

Todd Graves [00:56:09]:
But, but that, you know, that was our rudimentary way of me getting clubs when I was a kid. But now there’s, we have a whole scientific process on it, so the technology

James Kademan [00:56:19]:
of the clubs, it seems like the past, I don’t know, 10, 20 years. I mean, I don’t know exactly, because to me, it’s just a stick hitting a ball.

Todd Graves [00:56:29]:
Right.

James Kademan [00:56:29]:
But I got buddies in golf, and they’re like, no, no, James, it is way more than that.

Todd Graves [00:56:33]:
Yeah.

James Kademan [00:56:33]:
Oh, can you tell me what are they doing, the club manufacturer? What is going on in there? What is the magic sauce, I guess.

Todd Graves [00:56:40]:
Oh, you know, I know. I know quite a bit about it. My brother would know a lot more than I know about this because he. He’s the one that has the relationship with Cali more than I do. But look, let’s put it this way. The material they’re using now, the lightweight materials, the titaniums, the graphite, the composites in drivers, Right? So let’s put it this way. You know you have an iron, right? The iron that I’m hitting in my bag I’m looking at right now across my office has seven parts to it. The iron.

Todd Graves [00:57:08]:
Yeah. And so there’s a dampener in there. There’s four different components to the shot, and it’s just an iron. Right. I mean, there’s so much to it. Why. Why is there so many parts to it? Well, they’re. They’re concerned about a couple things.

Todd Graves [00:57:20]:
The. The ball spin rate, which is, by the way, the ball technology. There’s four pieces to a good golf ball, four parts to a golf ball. There’s different layers inside of a golf ball that allow it to compress and spin at certain rates. So there’s. You got. And then you got the COVID for spin. So.

Todd Graves [00:57:37]:
And then you got how we spin it with the club. And so you have the. The. The. The club. When you hit the center of mass at the golf club, what is the club doing to the golf ball? And what’s it doing when you don’t hit the center of mass of the golf club to. To correct for it, you know, the. The rotation of the face.

Todd Graves [00:57:52]:
So that’s just the club head, all the components in the club head, they’re dampening the. The sound of it. Sound is a big deal. How. How it sounds when it comes off the face. And then you got the club shaft, how it enters the head. Does it. Does it bore through the head or is it in it? Then you got the composite material of the shaft.

Todd Graves [00:58:06]:
Is it graphite or steel? Then you got the. How that’s. That graphite is actually put together. Is it wound? How is a graphite put together? Right. Then you got the grip size of the Grip. Is it tapered? Is it non tapered? I mean, I could go on and on about, about the specs of the club. You don’t want to go too nuts with it. Good fitters, good club fitter.

Todd Graves [00:58:26]:
If he. Here, here’s, here’s a dilemma. If you have a bad golf swing and you go to a fitter, he’s going to fit clubs to your bad golf swing. That’s a dilemma. That’s a dilemma. That’s the dilemma we solve at our company. That’s an industry problem. Matter of fact, I, when I was with Titleist Performance Institute and all these companies that I’ve been, been luckily sponsored by over time, if, if a guy walks in there and says, I need a set of golf clubs and he’s not hitting it well and he can’t swing and he’s not swinging the club well, you don’t want to give him a set of clubs that’s not fit, right? So what we do, we do the exact opposite.

Todd Graves [00:59:00]:
You come in here, I know exactly what you’re going to look like when you swing perfectly on a single plane. Because your body size, I can tell you exactly how you’re gonna, you should set up to a golf ball. So I’m going to build a club that’s already built for your perfect golf swing. So I’m going to do. So I’m going to build it to your hand size, shaft length, lie angle, all your specs. I’m going to build a club for you. Now when you go to practice, that club is working for you, so you’re not working against you. So that’s what I’m going to do to a golf club.

Todd Graves [00:59:28]:
So I’m going to build the specs of that golf club and the way the head’s designed, the way it lie angle sits, the proper, you know, proper setup of the shaft. I’m going to do all that for you. And then now you got a great set of clubs to go play. And even if I build you three clubs, at least you have three clubs that perfectly fit you that you can go hit and practice with. So that’s what we do. And we may be the only academy in the world that’s doing that. We reverse engineer the clubs for the body. Yeah.

James Kademan [00:59:53]:
That’s awesome. That is awesome.

Todd Graves [00:59:54]:
Yeah. And that goes against you walking in the pro shop and buying a set of clubs. Right. Because that club is not going to fit you. It’s not? No.

James Kademan [01:00:04]:
So it’s interesting because I’ve been looking at clubs and I’m like I don’t even know what I’m looking for. I can see there’s all kinds of weird cutaways of this, this picture in that. And this set of irons has five. The set of irons has seven. Yeah, do I need seven? Do I need five?

Todd Graves [01:00:19]:
Right, right, exactly. Yeah, yeah. What you need is, what you probably need is only a five iron down five or six iron, I’ll say six iron to wedge. And then you need some hybrids because they’re easier to hit. And then you need a fairway wood and a driver and a putter. And so that’s, that’s what I mean by set makeup, you know. And then eventually you may drop a hybrid and put in a longer iron. Because irons have a different characteristic when you hit a golf shot than a hybrid does.

Todd Graves [01:00:44]:
It spins, it spins less, doesn’t go as high. But again, I mean, basic set is the average guy is going to be six iron to wedge. He’s going to have a couple wedges like sand wedge and gap wedge in his bag and he’s going to have a putter and a couple woods. And then again, I’d have to sit down and look at your swing speeds and I could dial that in with some time. I’d have to have some. I need some data from you, right, to get dialed in, but easily could dial that in. You could send me a few measurements of your body and I could basically design a set of clubs for you with a piece of paper once I have to have some data from you.

James Kademan [01:01:14]:
Yeah, sure.

Todd Graves [01:01:15]:
Yeah.

James Kademan [01:01:16]:
That’s incredible. Tell me a story really quick. I mean, I know we don’t have a ton of time, but I’m going to ask about golf balls. My father in law is big into golf and he was like, he’s got so many different golf balls, but he’s got a specific. I don’t even know. It’s a tight list, but I don’t

Todd Graves [01:01:30]:
know what that was. Probably pro V. Okay, Pro V. That sounds right.

James Kademan [01:01:34]:
That sounds right. What is different between a golf ball and another golf ball? What are they doing?

Todd Graves [01:01:39]:
Yeah, it’s a good question. So, so the game is a game of spin. So when you, when you play the game of golf and the better you get at the game, the more you want to control the golf ball. Well, what does that mean, to control golf ball? What it means is you control the spin rate of a golf ball, like how much it side spins or back spins. And so certain golf balls are designed to have better control and better spin and better feel and so when a good player hits, it’s a pro V, like is it your father, your father in law? Father in law. So when your father in law hits the golf ball, he’s probably a relatively good golfer. He understands that he has better control over that golf ball because it spins at a higher rate or a more controlled rate and he has better feel with that ball. The average player probably doesn’t understand that because like if I go to the local range, that range is that ball is built for durability, right? It’s not built for great shots.

Todd Graves [01:02:33]:
It’s not built to control on a golf course. It’s not built to stop on a green. It’s built because I want, I want this ball to last for two months, right? Or whatever, you know, so, so the average range ball is just a hard kind of two piece thing built for durability. It’ll still fly, it’ll still go out there, you’ll still get some practice with it. But if I go to the golf course and play with that, it hits the green and bounces over the back of the green. It, it doesn’t fly consistently the distance because spin controls the distance the ball goes. It spins inconsistently. I don’t get the same consistent distances from it.

Todd Graves [01:03:05]:
So it’s a terrible thing to play golf with if you’re a good player. I can’t control it, I can’t stop it, and I don’t know how far it’s going to go, right? So, so, so better golf balls have four pieces, sometimes five layers to them. Every layer inside that ball is designed to how much compression it has, how much it stay, how long it stays on the face, how much it slides up on the face, and how much I control the spin. So good players play these high dollar golf balls because when I go play, I know they go consistently the right distance. I can stop them on the green, I can spin them with wedges, and I have full control over the spin of that golf ball. So that’s, that’s why. And I’ll give you a quick story, you know, just, just to understand the difference in golf balls. When Tiger woods would play in the Ryder cup, they, in the Ryder cup they, they have a, they have a match where it’s alternate shot.

Todd Graves [01:03:56]:
So, so Tiger hits the shot and then the player 2 hits it from where Tiger hit it, right? So they’re playing the same ball. And the tour players would complain because they didn’t want to play Tiger’s ball because he played a different ball that spun differently than their Ball, and that’s the challenge between two really good players playing, is that we got to pick a ball to play with. Like, I don’t like your ball and I don’t like. There’s so many arguments that go on between players. I don’t like the ball you hit. I don’t like the ball you hit because of the way it spins and how much you can compress it. So as you get to higher levels, the, the ball becomes more and more and more important. Much more important.

Todd Graves [01:04:33]:
But I mean, it’s always important. Don’t get me wrong. I mean, the pro V is the best ball out there. It’s most expensive out there. Right. Those, those really high. There’s a number of really high profile golf balls, but the average guy probably doesn’t need to do that right now. If he’s out there just trying to learn the game.

Todd Graves [01:04:46]:
Don’t go spend six bucks a ball. Right. But if you’re a really good player, you need to play a really high, high quality ball.

James Kademan [01:04:54]:
Yeah, that makes sense. I am so glad that you told me that because I’m looking at it as I’m going to spend. Yeah, what are we talking, 18, $24 every hole, losing four balls. Why am I going to spend so much money? I’ll just. Whatever ball.

Todd Graves [01:05:10]:
There’s some good balls out there that aren’t super expensive, that are, that are pretty good. Like one company, Vice Golf, every, every manufacturer is going to have. Have a, a lineup of golf balls from, from cheap to expensive. And as you get more expensive, it’s the more. It’s the better balls. So if you can find that middle ground, stick in the middle ground right now. I mean, a middle range ball will be really good for you. Just don’t go cheap.

Todd Graves [01:05:34]:
If you go. When you go with a hard range ball, it’s going to be. It’s brutal. It’s. Golf is hard. It’s just. It’s too hard to have a bad ball like that. Yeah.

James Kademan [01:05:42]:
So does a ball wear out?

Todd Graves [01:05:44]:
Oh, yeah. Yeah. Okay. Oh, yeah. Back in the day when I played on tour, we would change balls every three holes.

James Kademan [01:05:50]:
Every three holes.

Todd Graves [01:05:51]:
Every three holes. Yeah. Maybe. Maybe even more than that. Because. Because when I hit a golf ball and the grooves on the face, they would damage the ball slightly. It changes the way it spins. So you would, you want to change it out? I’d go through.

Todd Graves [01:06:03]:
I’d go through six. I wouldn’t lose any golf balls in a round. And I’d go through six. Six or seven golf balls. Wow.

James Kademan [01:06:09]:
Okay. Oh, my gosh. I’ve learned so much today.

Todd Graves [01:06:11]:
Now, now, today’s balls are better. They’re more durable. I bet you I can play nine holes. I mean, I’ll play 18 with the ball. Now, I don’t care as much, but back when, if I was playing competition, I could probably play six or seven or eight holes with a golf ball. Yeah.

James Kademan [01:06:24]:
Does it feel different after. On that fourth or fifth hole, or you just know I’ve been hitting this thing.

Todd Graves [01:06:30]:
It doesn’t. It doesn’t feel different. It. It reacts differently when it flies. Because. Because. Well, let’s take, for example, let’s say your ball hits a cart path, right? You know how it scrapes up the ball? Like we got a big scrape on it. Throw that ball away.

Todd Graves [01:06:43]:
Because that scrape on that golf ball is going to cause that thing when it starts spinning in the air, it’s going to cause it to go one direction or the other. Yeah.

James Kademan [01:06:51]:
Huh?

Todd Graves [01:06:52]:
Yeah. Aerodynamics, right? I mean, it’s gonna. It’s like if I cut a part of the wing off of airplane, you know, it’s like it’s gonna go cur. It’s gonna curve. Right.

James Kademan [01:07:00]:
So that makes sense. I feel like you taught me a lot about golf, but you also gave me a lot of excuses I can use for why my golf game is so bad.

Todd Graves [01:07:06]:
And you could. And I gave you excuses why you can go spend a bunch of money on golf clubs and golf balls. Yeah.

James Kademan [01:07:10]:
Right. I love it. So, Todd, how can people find you?

Todd Graves [01:07:18]:
Well, you know, I really like doing these podcasts because I can tell people about my latest book, which is the Intelligent Golf Swing. I wrote a book which basically goes through a lot of stuff we talked about today. It’s a dialogue I had with AI about I taught AI everything I know about golf, whether it’s biomechanics. And we synthesized it down into a really fun manuscript called the Intelligent Golf Swing. And it is all illustrated so you can see the golf swing in there. So if they go to the intelligent golf swing.com, they can pick up a copy of the book. Other than that, then go to my website, gravesgolf.com and you know, that’s kind of the. That’s kind of the kitchen sink.

Todd Graves [01:07:49]:
You can see all the stuff we do at https://GravesGolf.com. Our golf schools are listed on there. You have. You can see, you can go club fitting if you want to on there. You’ll see on the website. But. But go to https://gravesgolf.com, learn what we do. Learn about Moe Norman, learn about the single Plane swing.

Todd Graves [01:08:00]:
And if you want to get my new book, go to theintelligentgolfswing.com Nice.

James Kademan [01:08:04]:
And I gotta ask you one last question. You’ve golfed in a lot of places. Do you have a favorite place?

Todd Graves [01:08:10]:
Yeah, Medina. Medina in Chicago. A good friend of mine who was a member there and I used to play there a couple times a year. And it’s just, it’s, it’s majestic. Right. But I will say this. I played at Cyprus, about which there’s, there’s about five golf courses in the world that are very hard to play and very special and Cyprus is one of those. And I had the opportunity to play there about a month and a half ago.

Todd Graves [01:08:32]:
So Cyprus may in my mind replacing Medina at the moment. But Medina is very special to me. So it’s either Medina or Cyprus. All right.

James Kademan [01:08:39]:
Why am I dynamo? I mean, you didn’t even pause at all.

Todd Graves [01:08:42]:
You probably golfed on hundreds of plays because it’s probably. They play, they. What year was it? 2000. They played the, the US Open or PGA there. But probably because it’s very classically styled golf course that’s, it’s a very fair, tree lined classic golf course that basically has every shot in the bag. You have to be a very well rounded player to play well. There’s, it’s not tricked up, it’s not a desert course where you got to hit it 350 yards to cut corners and you can hit in the rocks and play out of it. You know, I got, I got a lot of, I got, I have a lot of, I don’t like desert golf courses very much because it allows for a lot of stuff.

Todd Graves [01:09:20]:
So I like tree line golf courses that are very classic that, that require every golf shot out there. And players, players that win those type of courses generally have their, have a very well rounded game. So that’s why I love Medina.

James Kademan [01:09:31]:
That’s awesome. That is awesome. Well, Todd, thank you so much for being on the show here.

Todd Graves [01:09:35]:
Yeah.

James Kademan [01:09:36]:
Can you tell us that website one more time? Are those websites? I should say, yeah.

Todd Graves [01:09:39]:
Go to theintelligentgolfswing.com Pick up a copy of the book or go to https://gravesgolf.com to see more about our company.

James Kademan [01:09:45]:
Awesome. This has been Authentic Business Adventures, the business program that brings you the struggle stories and triumphant successes of business owners across the land. My name is James Kademan and Authentic Business Adventures is brought to you by Calls On Call offering call answering and receptionist services for service businesses across the country. On the web https://callsoncall.com. and of course the Bold Business book, a book for the entrepreneur in all of us, available wherever fine books are sold. If you’re listening or watching this on the web, if you could do us a huge favor, give it the big old thumbs up, subscribe and of course share it with your entrepreneurial friends. We’d like to thank you, our wonderful listeners as well as our guest Todd Graves. Todd, my goodness gracious, you tell us that website.

James Kademan [01:10:27]:
Wonderful.

Todd Graves [01:10:27]:
More time the intelligent golf swing.com or go to graves golf.com awesome.

James Kademan [01:10:33]:
Thank you so much. I appreciate everything that you’ve done helping me certainly with my game in this one hour podcast. And I’m certain other entrepreneurs that are like well, we’re getting on these greens, we better learn what the hell we’re doing. Right.

Todd Graves [01:10:44]:
Got it. All right.

James Kademan [01:10:46]:
Thank you so much.

Todd Graves [01:10:46]:
I appreciate time, Todd, appreciate it. Thank you.