Ask Bradley Hughes!

Bradley Hughes Cuts Loose Ask Bradley Hughes!
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Very insightful post…

I can certainly see how being able to get into the company of world class players was very instrumental in your development. I know you have stated before that you might have had some second thoughts about not taking the US Collegiate route, but reading your post there makes sense. I think you made the right choice by staying in OZ and sharpening your teeth with pros rather than bratty American rich kids on university scholarships… (there are lots of them!)

When I was in high school, we had a PGA Tour winner playing out of our club “Palos Verdes CC” named Mark Pheil. If I played well, I could beat him while I was in high school, and he was always very encouraging and helpful in anyway he could be. He used to tell me I hit the ball as good as some of the guys on the PGA Tour when I was only 16. I was the third ranked junior in California behind Dennis Paulson and Duffy. Mark was a Walker Cup member and won the Tallahassee Open one year. I think that really helped me. He helped hook me up with a scholarship offer at USC, although I didn’t take it and went to Fresno for other reasons.

But my point is, I think it really helps so much to be around a good role model, someone you can admire and respect as a youngster, and get that realization that you could be that guy in a few years if you work hard, and stay out of trouble!

Of course Mark was a long way from being Greg Norman or even David Graham. He was always just barely keeping his card. But when he would play a local event like a mini tour event such as the Long Beach Open, we would wipe everyone out.

That reminds me of Rick Todd, when he got his PGA Tour card, lost it, then showed up in Canada the next spring and right out of the shoot won the first two events back to back. He must have felt like the experienced he gained out there gave him a big advantage when he came back home to Canada. Before he had a year on the PGA Tour, he was just another one of us grinding away to make ends meet… not winning events or even contending all that much. Everything looked the same, he just had a different aura about him…

I suppose some guys feel beat up coming off a poor season. Like you said, it’s all in the mind somehow, and how you perceive it.

Sometimes it’s just good to win, even if it’s a smaller event or even a two day pro am. Just connecting with that feeling again seems to be really confidence breeding.

It reminds me again of Jim Benepe. We both turned pro in May of 1987, and we were paired together in the final round at Canadian Tour Q school.
There were 3 rain delays during the round where you had to literally mark your ball and walk in to the clubhouse. Benepe was a notorious hot head,
and just fuming with anger over the situation. When we finally made it to the 18th, he was right on the bubble, and had been choking his brains out coming down the stretch bogeying three in a row on 15, 16, 17. On the 18th, he fats a wedge shot leaving himself 80 feet, and walks over to an official to find out what will be the magic number. I had played well, so I was in easy, and had to watch this drama go on. Jim mumbled that he had to two putt to get his card. Pacing around, taking forever, he finally putts, leaving it 10 feet short, then misses the putt. He was so pissed off I literally felt like I was in danger of a thrown club hitting me or even worse. As luck would have it, others would choke as well, and the magic number went up by a shot and Jim got his card after all.

As it turned out, he ends up winning the BC Open, then wins the Order of Merit, then goes down to Australia, wins the Victorian Open, then comes back to Canada, gets a sponsor exemption into the PGA Tour Western Open, because he had won the Western Amateur a fews years earlier, had ties to the area playing college at Northwestern, and of course his fine play. It was his very first PGA Tour event ever, and he goes out and beats Greg Norman for the win at the very tough Butler National. Nobody could believe it…I had dropped him off at the airport in Edmonton just days before, and we never saw him again!

I think this really shows how confidence can breed confidence, and he just got on a roll… I was really happy for him. He really had a great golf swing.
A great flat pivot driven swing. For a guy who was only about 5 foot 6 inches, he still was one of the longer hitters. Slender build as well. Really shows the power of a quick pivot rotation.

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Two/Lag - great stories. Lapping it up over here, rather than getting on with my work lol! Keep em coming!

103

I played with Benepe a few times in that late 80’s/early 90’s era and also in the early 2000’s when he tried a little comeback. I think he was out living in Montana selling insurance and got the golf bug back for a while. I always liked his rotating action and he was a nice fun guy to play with. I think he lost confidence in himself after a little bit because it all came so easy by winning in Australia and on the US Tour at The Western in pretty rapid fire. He couldn’t keep up that hot play for whatever reason and it maybe finally beat him up and zapped his ‘mind’ because his swing still looked the same and looked classic to me… he just couldn’t produce the goods or the low scores like he once had

104

Sorry to get sidetracked but I feel that an important point has been made and warrants attention.

Guys, take a look at who you are playing with on a regular basis. Are you challenging yourselves enough? I play with really nice guys, but their handicaps are 10, 14 and 16. When I play with my mate who is a scratch player I score (important distinction) better than when I play with my higher handicap friends.

I played last summer with Simon Ward who was at one stage ranked top 50 in the world as an amateur. I can honestly say that his good shots were no better than mine, the difference I saw was that he had a better short game, he holed more putts and his bad shots were less destructive than mine.

The lesson? try and play with good players, even if it is only once a month.

105

Good stories guys, and interesting thoughts Styles.

I was thinking about your point about playing with good/bad players.

I play with some 10 handicappers that are quite good ball strikers… I play with some 5 handicappers that really aren’t very good ball strikers. But I think it’s the ‘type’ of player that helps me or hurts me, but I do agree with what you’re saying. I’ve definitely experienced it.

There’s one group I used to play with that I rarely do anymore. They used to ask me in their little money matches a year ago. When I played with them this year, it was the last time. I hit ‘ok’ but found the tempo and play wasn’t very enjoyable. I’ve had my best games all by myself. My second best category of games have been with very skillful players though not always ‘low’ scorers.

I guess for me the bottom line is, if I’m with the type of player that helps me get in that frame of mind, I definitely notice the difference.

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Two, thanks for offering up your expertise and tales of your career. I’ve been reading your posts here and over at the other, now, pretty boring sight, for some time. It’s great to see you landing here and collaborating with Lag. Your stories made me realize how much I miss the tales of the road and hanging out with an old friend when he came through on the Knoxville part of the old Hogan up through Nationwide tour. I’d loop for him and get to see how he and the others warmed up, and also get the latest what’s goin down from him and his buddies.

Since my ball striking is on 2nd and 3rd vertebrae strike at the moment, reading and thinking are my only golf outlets. I got thinking about warm up routines and it took me back to my long gone days as a pitcher. After the arm loosened, I would first work on the curve ball. If it was crispy that day, I knew all the pitches would be in place, and it would be a time I could chew on the corners. If it was mushy or tended to hang itself, I knew it would be a long day of smoke, mirrors, and luck.

It was a good thing I could pitch, because my hitting played to about the mid twenties. I didn’t have the patience to wait out the count, and couldn’t hit a curve ball except by accident (maybe that was why it was my favorite pitch – I wasn’t alone). So, I just treated every pitch like a fastball, figuring my opposing number would want to use me to show off his heater and with his speed and my over-swing, I might get lucky once and a while. Weights on bats to warm up didn’t exist. If they had I probably would have drilled a hole in a bowling ball and, stuck it on. This thing about weights on bats gets me to my question. Figure it took so long to get there, I should get called for a balk.

Here it is – do you ever envision, since collaborating with Lag, using a no frills blade long iron or a persimmon driver (one shafted and weighted close to your competition one) as part of tightening the contact screws in your warm up routine or would that be way too out in left field? Flop

107

I think it’s a great idea to warm up with something like that.
I have been practicing with persimmon for quite some time now. It grooves my swing. The mishits (bad swings) are exaggerated and when I do pull out the big titanium beast it is MUCH easier to hit because the dynamics of my swing are better. So I see no reason why it wouldn’t make sense to warm up the same way.
As for the irons I use those small blades anyhow but have gone to older heavier sets that allow me to feel the club head better when I swing, instead of wielding featherwights that I have no idea where the club head is.

I had a conversation with someone today about heavy putters. It is quite funny that everyone always seems to talk about using a putter with weight in it, yet they all seem to also want to put a club to swing with in your hands that has no weight- I thought that funny when I was talking to someone today who mentioned words to that affect.
He thought I was from another planet that I actually agreed with him, as no-one else seems to understand what he was trying to explain.

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Two

When I’m trying to figure something out, in my artist or writer mode, I always try to put it into different contexts. Just try to look at it from a different angle or two. So, to put the latest golf equipment phase into the car world, it would be like making speed the holy grail at the total expense of handling. Faster (farther) - just for the sake of faster (farther). Another would be - screw the sound I’m getting I just want those frets adjusted for speed. Flop

109

Bradley,

I’m curious about your early golf. If I recall correctly, you were mostly self taught and yet managed to become a very good ball striker. What do you remember about the first times you swung a golf club? Did it take you long before you were taking a divot after striking the ball, for example? Did you intuitively swing from the ground up unlike the majority of those starting to play this game? Did you quickly embrace the pivot or did you start out as an arm swinger like the rest of us? Did you ever get lessons? Can you remember what sort of swing feelings you were getting early on, and how they developed?

I’d love to hear some insight into your early development. :wink:
Cheers, Teddy.

110

Teddy,
I can’t say I was a good golfer when I started. I remember when I had to post my scores to get my first handicap I was in the 100’s every round- although I was only 12 years old. My first handicap was 29.
However once I got keen and started playing daily - I would sometimes play 54 holes in a day- my skill level improved drastically and by the time I was 14 I had shot 64 - 9 under par on my home course- and had a handicap of 3. And on my 15th birthday was having brithday cake with Greg Norman and playing in a major PGA event in Australia.
How did I do it? I don’t really know. I did a lot of mimicking players swings. I didn’t read much instruction. I watched the best and tried to copy their moves. Then I went by trial and error hitting balls on the range and then out playing. Watching the flight of the ball- looking at my divot. Understanding why something did what it did- even if I had little clue about the geometry of it all. It was basically try something- keep the good- trash the bad and keep building from there.
I remember doing a lot of body motion study. I didn’t watch the players hands much. Just what their body did.
I sometimes would sleep in a tent on the range and at first light start smacking balls. I would be there all day with only a break for lunch. The range was nestled way out in the middle of the course due to a re-design. So not many people would trek all the way down there to practice so I had it mainly to myself. I would hit balls over the trees to the other range to work trajectory. i would hit off pine straw under the trees to teach myself impact. Lots of crazy things that I really had no idea at the time what I was doing but now look back on it was very beneficial.
It helped that I could play most sports well and was in fact signed to play Australian Rules football professionally before I made the choice to put all my efforts into golf when I was approx 17. I thought golf had a longer life span than football- although I was probably better at football. But as everyone got bigger they wanted to beat me up each game!! so I thought golf may be safer also!!
That is pretty much how my swing evolved. trying all types of situations and mimicking the best. I wish I hadn’t fallen into the trap of trying to get lessons and changing my swing because my old swing was dynamically better. I just didn’t know that at the time and took the ‘experts’ word for it that I needed to alter a few things. Lag has light bulbed me back to the past. So I think I have some good info to pass on because of that. I have seen both sides of the spectrum and you guys are getting taught the ultimate way to hit a golf ball.
If I had my time again I would teach exactly what Lag is teaching. Building the golf muscles to make the swing work

111

Thanks for the detailed reply Bradley. Very interesting. Sounds like you spent a lot of time beating balls, but also had a good eye when watching what good players were doing. A mixture of dedication and talent. I myself was good at sports - football (soccer), running, tennis, badminton, table tennis, snooker, catching a ball; and yet at golf I was hopeless, I really was. I’m sure I didn’t spend as much time at the game as you did, but I have the feeling that if I had, I still would never have been able to work it out for myself. I think swinging a stick on an inclined plane is just not intuitive for many people.

112

Bradly
When can we expect you to compete again?

113

Macs,
I really lost my desire for a while. I had a crap divorce which took my love of golf away as it became ALL about money.
Then I went out playing with no desire and wasted my time, my caddie’s time and my money that I had left by trying to play when deep down i wasn’t into it.
I met Lag again approx 6 or 7 months ago after knowing each other 15-20 years ago and am enthusiastic again. I actually have some motivation again because not only am I working on the correct things with my swing again- I am not a lost soul any more. Over the past 10 years I would play and practice and do what my coach was informing me to do and not only was I not improving but actually I was getting worse!
My big lightbulb was actually finding one person in the entire world -Lag- who could explain all the good stuff about my old younger swing instead of everyone wanting to tear it down and build me into a RoboPro and copy everything from a Leadbetter book. So not only was he telling me my old swing when I was younger was technically and dynamically better- he could explain why. So now I know exactly what I need to do to get on the road to success again.

I had to take a club job recently to try and save up some cash again- $6 mil from playing golf and the exes spent and ran off with the majority of it. I am currently giving lessons and running a pro shop business and getting to sleep in my own bed.
I am working my drills and advancing along and feeling the improvement-amazingly- with ZERO practice!
I work the bag and train the body and off I go. I hit a ball here and there whilst I am giving a lesson to show the student the idea or logic behind what I am telling them and flush every one… It is actually a big eye opener for me to be able to do that. I played for the first time today at my home club since I was with Lag in San Francisco one full month ago. And shot 66- 5 birdies no bogeys. So what does that say about Lag’s instruction methods except - phenomenal ! If you use the right technique and take the beating balls equation and timing equation out of play, by using the correct muscle sequence it can be real easy- And Fun- And NOT one big grind like it always seemed to be.
So as i progress and enjoy golf more and get the bug again to compete I will do it. Not before I feel I have all my ducks lined up though and I am going out to play on my terms again and i am ready to meet the challenge. I played too much golf trying to please everyone else except myself. When the time is right I will know and I think with the understanding I have gained from Lag and the old feelings coming back into my game I will play better than ever.
Patience is the key. I have a good life right now and maybe in 12 months I will be ready to go again. Maybe 6 months?
My goal would be to get so good and advanced at what Lag has shown me that I just jump straight back into the mix and really turn people’s heads with pure flushing precision ball striking and a hot putter!! What a combo to have.

114

Two

Lag told me that he really enjoyed watching you stripe them in San Francisco. I think doing it on your terms ranks right up there with finding Lag. Take all the time you need. We Lagites will still be here to root you on when it starts up again. Thanks again for taking the time to post.

Flop

115

Hi Twomasters,

I’m gonna go to Kingston Heath this weekend to watch Australian Masters. Do you have any favorite holes to share? My plan is to get some good spots, sit and enjoy the day with the old man.

Cheers…

116

The Heath has always been a tea tree haven- lining both sides of the fairway and not allowing much viewing of other holes as you move around.
The only real open vantage points to see more than the one hole’s action would probably be near number 4 green. (you will see entire 4th hole, 2nd shots into 6, drive on 7, maybe tee shot on 5).
Up around 13 green you can see (13, tee shot on 14, players walking past going up 11 and people putting on 2nd green)
And 15 green if you are in the right spot you can see 14 also.
Very hard to see many places at once.
The wise way would be to set up shop somewhere and watch some groups come through and then jump over somewhere else and do the same. Hard thing is this will not be easy because people will be camped around holes all day and viewing may be limited.
Having said all that- I saw the head security guy for the Masters and the Aust events, when I was at The Presidents Cup- and he said they have cleared out a bunch (heaps) of the tea tree to make it easier to move the hordes of spectators around the course whilst not disrupting play. So it may be more wide open now to get a better view of more things at once

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And just for a footnote…

I have won that Australian Masters event twice but am not traveling back to Aust this year to play- HOWEVER- even if I had wanted to play I WOULD NOT have been in the field this year. They have NO past winner category. So I have won it twice, come 2nd once and 4th twice in my last 8 times there playing the event- hold the 18 hole- 36 hole and 72 hole record and couldn’t have even got into the event this year .
I would have been 4th alternate going by last year’s money list. Even Craig Spence a former winner wasn’t in the field last time I checked.
Because it is co-sanctioned with the European Tour, they cut the Aust players spots in half and give half the field size to Europe…And which Europeans are coming? None of the big name players- hardly any of the top 60-100 on the Euro Order of Merit…Quite a ridiculous logic for an event that prided itself as a Major event

118

There is something terribly wrong with this…

rather shocking actually…

Well 2M, you did only win it twice…(a small LOL)

119

Hey Bradley,

Just joined up with the first module.

My background is that I’m virtually a beginner again, after playing for 2 years as a teenager, then giving up the sport, until now as a 34 year old. I’m literally 6 weeks in after regaining a passion to play again, and find myself very inspired after finding ISG, then Lag’s thread, then getting my first module and reading these forums. So I really have no tendencies yet, and my swing changes shot to shot, which I think will be a good thing when trying to work this module, as I’m not really trying to beat out bad habits, so can focus on forging good ones.

I do have a question, and I think you are nearly the perfect person to ask this question to. When would you say your happiest time was? Pre-golf, while learning to play golf well, while learning to beat the best or after you knew you could beat the best?

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G’Day Bradley,

Just joined for Module 1 and I’ve been reading a bit of this private side of the forum. It is great to have feedback from somebody like yourself and Lag that have actually been out there and competed at high level!
My background: I’m 37, I picked up golf as an adult here in Australia after migrating from Italy 7 years ago. In Italy golf is sadly still viewed as an elite golf, for rich and famous, although prices are reasonable for some tracks and the Golf bodies are trying to make it more accessible in terms of ease of entry to courses. I would never have dreamed to play golf there!!! For that I will thank Australia forever. :slight_smile:
Anyway, I’m still a high handicapper (28) but I have managed to break 90 twice in February this year in social rounds with my improvised swing. I am looking forward to learning to hit it at the best of my abilities.

Have you ever played in Italy when you were on the European Tour?