#ICYMI - Hole-istic Golf, with Craig Davies and Sean Foley

In case you missed this episode on the Playing with Science channel… The U. S. Open may be over but we’re still on course. Hosts Gary O’Reilly and Chuck Nice chat with Dr. Craig Davies and golf coach Sean Foley about taking the hole-istic approach to golf and the secrets that make the best players great. NOTE: StarTalk All-Access subscribers can watch or listen to this entire episode commercial-free here: https://www.startalkradio.net/all-access/hole-istic-golf-with-craig-davies-and-sean-foley/ Photo Credit: Keith Allison from Hanover, MD, USA [CC BY-SA 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:09Gary O'Reilly?

  I'm Gary O'Reilly.

• 0:10Chuck Nice?

  And I'm Chuck Nice.

• 0:11Gary O'Reilly?

  And this, of course, is Playing with Science. And today, we're back in the swing. Yes, we are. It's golf.

• 0:19Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 0:20Gary O'Reilly?

  And Dr Craig Davis, performance optimizer.

• 0:23Chuck Nice?

  Yes, absolutely.

• 0:25Gary O'Reilly?

  So, we're here talking with Dr Craig Davis, performance optimizer.

• 0:31Chuck Nice?

  Yes, and golf coach Sean Foley.

• 0:34Gary O'Reilly?

  Yes, and here we are, in the Hamptons, no less, I say. For the US Open Golf Tournament. And if you think it's quite simple, ball on a tee, swing and hit, good walk ruined, or whichever view you have, we might just be able to change your minds because they are two incredibly interesting people. Two of the leading components that you will not hear a great deal about.

• 1:01Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 1:01Gary O'Reilly?

  Because they are behind the scenes, but the golfers themselves depend so heavily. And there's one calling.

• 1:08Chuck Nice?

  That's right now.

• 1:09Gary O'Reilly?

  Could be Tiger.

• 1:10Chuck Nice?

  That is Tiger, saying, "Please, I need these two guys. I need them desperately."

• 1:14Gary O'Reilly?

  So, this is how important they actually are. Dr Craig Davis, who is a golf performance improver.

• 1:21Chuck Nice?

  Or optimizer.

• 1:22Gary O'Reilly?

  Optim- I like optimizer.

• 1:24Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 1:25Gary O'Reilly?

  And, of course, golf coach Sean Foley.

• 1:27Chuck Nice?

  Absolutely. Gentlemen, how are you?

• 1:28Gary O'Reilly?

  Yes.

• 1:29Speaker 02

  Good. Thanks for having us.

• 1:30Chuck Nice?

  Hey, thanks for joining us.

• 1:32Gary O'Reilly?

  So, how many times have you been to the US Open between the pair of you now?

• 1:36Speaker 03

  Twenty-something, probably.

• 1:38Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's been, it's been, we were very young when we got out there originally, but it's been every year for me since 2007.

• 1:47Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 1:47Speaker 02

  So, 11 years.

• 1:48Chuck Nice?

  Nice.

• 1:49Gary O'Reilly?

  Biggest change?

• 1:49Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think the.

• 1:51Speaker 03

  The field's gotten a lot younger.

• 1:53Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:53Speaker 03

  That's the big thing.

• 1:54Speaker 02

  The field's gotten a lot younger, and the field has gotten a lot longer. These guys are. You know, you get these young kids coming out. It's not all of them, but you see a lot of them like six, two, one ninety-five.

• 2:07Chuck Nice?

  Right. So, physical specimens as opposed to just

• 2:11Speaker 02

  Just athletes playing golf.

• 2:13Chuck Nice?

  Athletes.

• 2:13Gary O'Reilly?

  Sooner. They're maturing sooner physically as well as in their game.

• 2:17Speaker 03

  There's before you used to have a lot of people who are golfers.

• 2:20Gary O'Reilly?

  Yes.

• 2:20Speaker 03

  Right? And now you're having a lot of people who are athletes that golf. And so it's a very, I think there's a difference now in the the person, the individual who's playing the sport, you know, before, I think historically you'd have a lot of people who are playing golf who didn't play other sports. And now you have a lot of people who are great in other sports who are playing golf because it's kind of cool now to play golf.

• 2:45Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, well, and you see that with many other major league athletes from different sports, what they all love to do. Everybody wants to be a great golfer, you know, no matter who it is. But before we go any further, why don't we just get from both of you kind of a breakdown of what it is that you do with a player? And what it is that you're looking for in terms of metrics to improve a player?

• 3:08Gary O'Reilly?

  And just to add to an extra dimension to that, there are a hundred and one and more golf coaches. What makes you so unique in this particular field?

• 3:18Chuck Nice?

  No, no, that's perfect.

• 3:19Speaker 03

  Yeah, you know, it's a good point because there is a lot of people who do both what I do and what Sean does. I think the difference is not too many of them have spent the time analyzing all the components that go into being a great professional in our fields.

• 3:35Chuck Nice?

  All right.

• 3:35Speaker 03

  You know, so I've been fortunate to have a roommate out on this tour since I started, who is one of the preeminent golf coaches, but also one of the preeminent minds in golf, not just about the golf swing. So how Sean looks at performance is very unique compared to other coaches and very holistic. So that's a great influence that I've been able to have that no one else has been able to have, you know, I've spent more nights on the road with Sean than I get to spend at home with my wife. So it's a very unique relationship.

• 4:04Gary O'Reilly?

  You must like each other, I think.

• 4:05Speaker 03

  I, we've never had a single argument.

• 4:07Speaker 02

  Not, no, absolutely not.

• 4:08Gary O'Reilly?

  That's incredible.

• 4:09Chuck Nice?

  That's more than I can say from me and my wife. So good for you.

• 4:13Speaker 03

  So, you know, that's, that's a massive advantage that I've had.

• 4:15Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah, for sure.

• 4:16Speaker 03

  And then from there. I've just been fortunate to have a passion to follow the body and where the body is in all aspects of science and quasi-science, you know, like around what people can study. So, looking at how the body moves, both from a micro level and a macro level, looking at the energetics of the body, how do we optimize the geometry and physics of the swing by tweaking how the body is able to move?

• 4:42Gary O'Reilly?

  So, you're improving the game by not doing anything about the game?

• 4:46Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 4:47Gary O'Reilly?

  You're going to the genesis of it all, the body?

• 4:50Speaker 03

  Absolutely. I'm trying to create an environment that allows Sean to have an easier job to allow his players to give the physical essence of the golf swing.

• 5:02Chuck Nice?

  So, can you give us kind of, you know, because our listeners, of course, love the science and the sport?

• 5:08Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah.

• 5:09Chuck Nice?

  And that's what both of you guys are, especially together. So, can you give us kind of a look at the tandem effect that you have? Like you said, you may adjust a player's body. I would assume that would mean you mean positioning and like, you know, in terms of contorting, I would say. And then, Sean, can you tell us what that does for you and how you respond to that when you're looking at a swing?

• 5:36Speaker 02

  Well, I started out like very intuitive about all of this, like way more creative. And then I met Craig in 2001 and he kind of blew my mind with a couple of things that I'd never even really thought about yet. So, I was just kind of an intuitive golf coach. I was young, really young, and just trying to make a living. But I knew, I knew I was really capable because whether I knew or not what I was doing, most people got better. So, I knew how to get that. And then as I met Craig... And he started breaking down like physics and kinesiology to me. Then the things that never interest me until I realized that they could benefit what I'm interested in.

• 6:20Speaker 02

  So I started to learn it that way. And so basically, any sports motion, period.

• 6:28Speaker 02

  Is about applying force and torque through optimal range of motion. So. We could measure on force plates. Uh, and 3D. Why Messi's. Like. Low, no spin kick is so effective.

• 6:43Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 6:44Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah.

• 6:44Speaker 02

  But people say he's gifted from God. I mean, okay, whatever. That, that's, that's not, to me, that's not really accurate. Okay?

• 6:50Chuck Nice?

  Well, for us, science is God. No, I'm joking.

• 6:53Speaker 02

  But that's.

• 6:53Chuck Nice?

  I just had to say that. It sounded really good.

• 6:56Gary O'Reilly?

  You channeled your inner Neil.

• 6:58Speaker 02

  I think, I think the word talent and all that, and, and the things that we hear like thrown around quite often just comes from. Like mediocrity being okay with itself is to believe that someone was born just like so much better. And, and I think that that's a. I, I don't really believe that. So.

• 7:13Chuck Nice?

  I'm with you on that.

• 7:13Speaker 02

  You know?

• 7:14Chuck Nice?

  That, no, that's a very, I'm glad you said that because, and Gary will attest to this because Gary's a former professional player. Okay. So for instance, what was the, um, um. Free throw percentage? We, we found that, um, um, who was it? Steph Curry? Has an 89% free throw percentage. That's not natural talent.

• 7:36Speaker 03

  No, he's grinded his way to that.

• 7:38Chuck Nice?

  Exactly. That's.

• 7:39Speaker 02

  Well, if you look at it though, right? So take, and this is kind of what happens with these like super athletes, right? The environment is so massive in the intelligence. So. Steph Curry grows up, his dad's Dell Curry.

• 7:52Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 7:52Speaker 02

  Okay?

• 7:53Gary O'Reilly?

  Yes.

• 7:54Chuck Nice?

  And brother Seth Curry, let's not forget.

• 7:55Speaker 02

  And, and, and, and Dell. Dell Curry is like close mates with Glenn Rice. Who can shoot. And Ray Allen is like his mentor. So you have three of the best three point shooters of two generations. And then, when your dad. Is playing in Toronto. You don't leave the court and then you just sit out there with Vince Carter. So I just watched a documentary on Vince Carter that was really funny because it had like Steph when he was like 10. And they couldn't get him off the court. So. When he went to the McDonald's All American Basketball Camp, he was sweating for two hours before they showed up for practice. And everyone was early for practice.

• 8:39Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 8:40Speaker 02

  And so that's, that's kind of it. So, you know, when you see, when I see what goes into Justin Rose is the third ranked player in the world and his guy coached that Craig's worked with. Yeah, okay, at 12 and 13, he showed like a really interesting skill. And if that was like a little bit of strength and balance and proprioception and hand eye coordination.

• 9:01Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 9:02Speaker 02

  Then he's a visual learner, so he's watching his heroes. He's going from there, but to see how he's taken himself from, I started with him at 28, he's now 37, to be the best player he's ever been right now at 37. When all the young guns are coming up and how much further he's hit it. Um, how much better he's got at certain things that were weaknesses. You see the work. So when someone's like, gosh, he's so talented. It's like, no.

• 9:29Chuck Nice?

  Not at all.

• 9:29Speaker 02

  But if they're, if they're going back. Like if Michael Phelps was talented as a swimmer.

• 9:33Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 9:33Speaker 02

  When he came out of the womb, if they chucked him in a pool, he would have done the breaststroke out.

• 9:37Chuck Nice?

  I got a feeling he might have though, and I also think he has gills. I'm just saying.

• 9:41Speaker 02

  I got a feeling he would have been in the bottom of the pool.

• 9:43Gary O'Reilly?

  So the thing is, when, when you talk about an athlete.

• 9:46Chuck Nice?

  Except for the Nirvana baby on the cover of In Utero.

• 9:49Gary O'Reilly?

  When an athlete goes deep.

• 9:52Chuck Nice?

  Never mind. Sorry. That's right.

• 9:54Speaker 02

  Gotcha.

• 9:54Chuck Nice?

  Sorry, man.

• 9:55Gary O'Reilly?

  No, no, no, that's good, good. So.

• 9:56Chuck Nice?

  Good catch. Thanks.

• 9:57Gary O'Reilly?

  When an athlete goes deep into their career and shows their best form, that must really please you as a coach because you're thinking, all right, they were good before. The body is beginning a downward slope because that's the way it goes depending on the sort of sport you're involved in.

• 10:16Chuck Nice?

  Absolutely.

• 10:16Gary O'Reilly?

  But they're still able to buck that by bringing their best game. So it has to have some, I mean, is it just about you beginning to be knowledgeable about your game and how best, or are there other factors that come into play? So do we know more?

• 10:33Speaker 02

  Well, with the, with the science.

• 10:35Gary O'Reilly?

  Yes, exactly.

• 10:36Speaker 02

  Well, with the ability to measure it now, right? So I have a bunch of devices. I have a 3D unit from K Vest and.

• 10:44Gary O'Reilly?

  For analytics?

• 10:45Speaker 02

  Uh, well, you just kind of, it's like, for example, you, you put it on the player.

• 10:50Gary O'Reilly?

  Uh huh.

• 10:51Speaker 02

  And then you set it and then they move. And then you can look at the range of motions and the amount of rotation and side bend and all these different things. And, and a lot of it is. The things you're seeing are come so much from effect. That the causes aren't many, right? Principles, there's thousands of styles, but there's only a few principles that matter in the whole deal. When it comes to almost anything. Right. Right? And so I think what happened is that being able to measure force in the ground and 3D and then using a radar like a TrackMan to follow the ball to give me all the information from impact.

• 11:28Speaker 02

  That, that was something that we, you know, I sort of pioneered on the, on the PGA Tour. And I remember having that TrackMan out there years ago and, and it was like one of the first ones. And, you know, the next thing, it was like 65 to 80 of them.

• 11:44Speaker 03

  Every coach now.

• 11:45Speaker 02

  And, and almost every player, right?

• 11:47Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 11:48Speaker 02

  Why shoot a video when I can get really a thumbprint of what happened at impact? And then problem solve from that point.

• 11:54Chuck Nice?

  Right. You can reverse engineer a swing. You can actually take from the point of impact, go backwards.

• 11:59Speaker 02

  But the thing is about impact though is where, where I've gone in the last couple of years is so much into the loading and the movement of the center of mass on the way back in the backswing, which is kind of a, a linear movement, a rotational movement. Right. A vertical movement. You're doing that and then you, you just, I'm just saying, say someone's not really limited in their movement. Cause if they are now, I gotta skin the cat the other way. Okay. But I'm still gonna get to what I want, cause there's other ways, right? Just say, no cats were hurt during this incident. No, sorry. Yes.

• 12:30Chuck Nice?

  But they were delicious.

• 12:33Speaker 02

  To me now, it's all about how I'm setting up that moment in transition because as soon as the, the grip and the hands start arcing back down. Impact is a thousandth of a second away. Right. Once, once it starts coming down even more than that, there, there's not really a torque. Right. Or a force that you can, you could do. You're not gonna be able to change anything at that point. Angular. That's gonna be more the vertical force and the rotary force creating torque in the body at that point. So if you go back really and look at the greatest ball strikers of all time, you'll see the center mass of the golf club, which is close to the golf head. You'll always see it trailing behind. The net force vector from what the hands are doing. So, so the hands are twisting upon

• 13:16Speaker 02

  the shaft and they're pulling and pushing. So what's been really interesting, especially amongst power, is like we'll hear ground forces, but I seen without a doubt where the center of mass of the golf club comes down, based on where the net force is in the hands.

• 13:32Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 13:32Speaker 02

  You're gonna see completely different ways that people hit the ground.

• 13:35Chuck Nice?

  Cool.

• 13:36Speaker 02

  And so I think that to me is where golf is now, where we'd never been, is that Sasho McKenzie, who's a physicist and biomech out in Nova Scotia.

• 13:46Chuck Nice?

  Okay, alright.

• 13:47Speaker 02

  Is the person to have like detailed and create the algorithm to show this. And so now all those things, when I was 25, that really worked for me. I now understand why they do.

• 13:58Chuck Nice?

  Cool.

• 13:59Speaker 02

  So when I didn't understand, it was easy to go away from them because I didn't really realize why they were so good. But once you recognize why it's so good, I think the goal of a coach, a technique coach in any sport, is you're trying to get your understanding to where you guarantee the person in front of you that you won't harm them.

• 14:17Chuck Nice?

  Nice.

• 14:18Speaker 02

  Cause it's not about how much you can help them, it's about how quickly you can harm them in so many ways.

• 14:23Gary O'Reilly?

  Interesting. Also, there's a, there's a fear bump.

• 14:25Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 14:26Gary O'Reilly?

  That you've really gotta get over and make them feel, it's okay, it's okay, it's, it's psychologically more than anything else.

• 14:35Speaker 02

  But it's just having enough knowledge to know, like, I've worked with a couple new players lately, and being able to, like, what I really wanna see them do, that guy's shoulder can't do that.

• 14:45Chuck Nice?

  Gotcha.

• 14:46Speaker 02

  So you gotta find another way.

• 14:47Chuck Nice?

  So now, damn, I was gonna say, we are both in the same place, we're like, so Craig, now, tell us, how do you do it?

• 14:53Speaker 03

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 14:55Gary O'Reilly?

  Does that when the phone rings?

• 14:56Speaker 03

  Yeah, so, exactly. So you have a coach will, will say, hey, I have this player, this is the technique, this is the movement I'm trying to achieve, this is where I want the club to be delivered from. And then you have a player who either has a gifted amount of internal external rotation of the hip, you have internal external rotation of the actual shoulder joint. But if they need to squeeze out an extra 10 degrees of shoulder external rotation, you know, kind of what we were talking about before the show.

• 15:20Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah.

• 15:20Speaker 03

  How can you do that if you're not going to get any more out of the actual shoulder joint, the glenohumeral joint? Well, now we can look at how does the scapula, the shoulder blade, how can we change the movement patterns of that shoulder blade in conjunction with how the ribs and the spine are extending and rotating to all of a sudden elicit or just a 20 to 30 degrees increase in shoulder external rotation without actually changing what's happening at that joint because you've changed the rest of the joints in that chain or sequence.

• 15:47Gary O'Reilly?

  So at the moment, I'm hearing the knee bone is connected to the shin bone. And it is basically, quite simply, without being rude, you kind of go back to, right, if I can't move that particular joint, let me work with the places around it and then ease that out. So maybe then you pick that area from some other areas.

• 16:08Speaker 02

  I've seen, I've seen though with people with like, say, a shoulder issue that Craig will focus like mainly on their left ankle and really work through that area. And that, I mean, it's not just so, it's not, it's not just.

• 16:21Gary O'Reilly?

  Seriously.

• 16:22Speaker 02

  It's not just connected. It's, I mean, this could be, I mean, this could be connected all the way to the epicenter of the universe.

• 16:29Gary O'Reilly?

  Oh, yeah. Absolutely.

• 16:31Chuck Nice?

  So based on what you just said, Sean, Craig. So I have a friend who basically told me, he was working with somebody kind of like you, but like, you know, on a more personal basis. And he said something about ankle, knee, hip, shoulder. Is there, is that an actual like zigzag connection? Or there's some kind of connection?

• 16:55Speaker 03

  There's connections that go literally, so you, everything, like you said, everything's connected. Our body is made out of a ten integrity model of connective tissue, right? So if you're looking at. We all know connective tissue being, you know, tendons.

• 17:07Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 17:08Speaker 03

  Right. It's a very obvious one. The outside component of the bone, the periosteum is continuous with the tendon. It's the same tissue, right? It is literally the exact same thing. We just call it something different. So geography wise, we can communicate.

• 17:20Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 17:20Speaker 03

  It's the same. So the capsule, so the periosteum or the outer covering of the bone continues as the joint capsule, continues then as a tendon, which then spreads out into the connective tissue that goes throughout the entire body, literally from every single cell's DNA out to the skin. It is all connected as one, and that is the model of where our electrons or energy moves through the body. It's where movement comes from. It's where force transmission comes from. Everything is connected. It's, it's so much more than saying, you know, the ankle, the knee are connected.

• 17:49Chuck Nice?

  I know, man. You just went, you went down on a microcellular level too. I asked about ankle, knee.

• 17:56Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 17:56Chuck Nice?

  And hip, and you were just like, no, brother, I gotta break this down on a microcellular level for you.

• 18:00Gary O'Reilly?

  Why, why, why, why do you think I said, these are the two secret components of the major golf tours? All right. So we're going to take a break now, but we have more golf with Craig Davis and Sean Foley when we get back. If you've enjoyed the first bit, you're going to love what's coming up next.

• 18:22Gary O'Reilly?

  And welcome back to Playing with Science. I'm Gary O'Reilly. And I'm Chuck Nice. And we are still stuck in the rough with Dr. Craig Davis and of course, golf coach Sean Foley. We are talking about the sort of tactile issue of I need to loosen up this muscle. So therefore I can massage that into, let me very basic.

• 18:41Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 18:42Gary O'Reilly?

  You're talking on a microcellular level where we are playing with electricity, voltage.

• 18:48Speaker 03

  Absolutely. So yeah, if we're looking, so, you know, if you go back to Eastern medicine, they talked about Qi or energy moving through meridians.

• 18:55Gary O'Reilly?

  Yes.

• 18:56Speaker 03

  Right?

• 18:56Gary O'Reilly?

  Yes.

• 18:57Speaker 03

  So we've now been able to look at the body and say, okay, the connective tissue, which is made out of collagen, that is where our electrons move through the body. Okay? So if you're sitting on the grass, wet grass, or the edge of the ocean, and you have salt water kind of coming up and lapping at your ankles, you are taking energy from the ground, right? Which was put there by lightning strikes.

• 19:19Gary O'Reilly?

  Right.

• 19:19Speaker 03

  Put into the ground and goes into your skin, up through the connective tissue, up through your entire body. And literally powers your body, right? Each cell. So.

• 19:30Chuck Nice?

  Now, now, now, mind you.

• 19:32Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 19:32Chuck Nice?

  Right now, you gotta, you gotta understand our audience.

• 19:35Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 19:35Chuck Nice?

  And so I'm going to, there's guys right now and women sitting, listening, and they're just going, hey, Shirley MacLaine.

• 19:42Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 19:43Chuck Nice?

  Keep your shock rock stuff to yourself.

• 19:44Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 19:45Chuck Nice?

  We want some science. What are you talking about?

• 19:47Speaker 03

  Perfect.

• 19:48Chuck Nice?

  So go on.

• 19:48Speaker 03

  So.

• 19:49Chuck Nice?

  I just want to let you know, that's what, that's what's being thought right now.

• 19:52Gary O'Reilly?

  You may well have heard that before.

• 19:53Speaker 03

  Yeah. No, so they've shot, it's, it's not even, you know, woo-hoo stuff that the connective tissue is literally where the energy, the electron transportation takes place.

• 20:01Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 20:02Speaker 03

  That's the chunk. There's people out of MIT who are studying how our collagen works to build faster microchips because they've shown that the energy goes through our cells at like 10,000, I think, I can't remember, it's 10,000 feet a second or 10,000 meters per second, but either way incredibly fast. It's 10 times faster than the faster, fastest microchips they have now. Our bodies are an incredible conductor of electricity in essence, right? So what happens, we are no longer getting energy the same way we did a thousand years ago. Our food, obviously, as we all know, is way less in terms of quality of food, right? If you take an apple now and it's grown GMO'd, it's sprayed with chemicals, it's grown in crappy soil that doesn't have the nutrient value, that apple isn't as nutrient dense as it once was.

• 20:47Chuck Nice?

  That's why I like it.

• 20:48Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 20:49Chuck Nice?

  Behind. It reminds me of alcohol.

• 20:53Gary O'Reilly?

  No, please, carry on.

• 20:54Speaker 03

  Our water's the same, right? Our water is not as clean, it's not as fresh, it's not as charged as it once was.

• 20:58Speaker 02

  I mean, I was just in the city in, in New York on the weekend and I was sitting on the steps and I was looking around and wondering how many people in front of me have not actually touched the ground with their feet.

• 21:10Speaker 03

  No contact with nature, right?

• 21:12Speaker 02

  Period.

• 21:13Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 21:13Speaker 02

  Period.

• 21:14Chuck Nice?

  That is a serious concept, man.

• 21:16Speaker 03

  Well, that's where we're going.

• 21:17Speaker 02

  That's, that, that, that.

• 21:18Chuck Nice?

  That is a really serious concept. I have, do you know what? I have, I don't even know what made you think that, but that, like.

• 21:24Speaker 02

  No, no, he told me that, like.

• 21:25Speaker 03

  That's where we're going.

• 21:26Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, you just saying that honestly just jolted me a little bit.

• 21:31Speaker 03

  Well, why do you think people feel better when they go on vacation to a sunny beach? It's not because they have rest.

• 21:36Speaker 02

  They're with the same, they're with the same people, they're with their families, so they're with the people who stress them out.

• 21:40Speaker 03

  They're touching barefoot.

• 21:42Speaker 02

  You know what I mean? They can't leave work now because they got that.

• 21:44Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 21:45Speaker 02

  And they think it's the sound of the waves and it's just, they're just sitting in an electrical grid.

• 21:48Speaker 03

  They're getting charged.

• 21:49Speaker 02

  And their body's.

• 21:50Speaker 03

  Charging them.

• 21:50Speaker 02

  Healing.

• 21:51Chuck Nice?

  Interesting. Very interesting. Okay.

• 21:53Speaker 03

  Ground charge, barefoot, touching nature. Every, every piece of nature has a magnetic field we interact with, right? But we don't have nature around us anymore. So we're losing that connection. We're losing the energy from the, the ground because we're not touching with our bare skin. Most people never touch nature, as Sean just said. We're eating crappy food. We have water that's got low pH and all pH is an energy level, right? So if you have a pH of five, that's acidic.

• 22:16Chuck Nice?

  We're inactive.

• 22:17Speaker 03

  Yeah, it means it has less energy. Less energy in the body means that you can't hold as much, um, gas. We know that a charged.

• 22:25Chuck Nice?

  Oh, you don't know me very well, correct?

• 22:27Speaker 03

  But a charged fluid holds more oxygen, right? If our bodies aren't charged, we can't hold more oxygen. And that's when chronic disease starts coming in. That's when our bodies start breaking down. So when we work with our athletes who are constantly degrading their bodies from doing such a high velocity, high force movement. If we don't give them an environment where their bodies can heal, they're not going to heal.

• 22:47Chuck Nice?

  So now have, have you seen from what you've done?

• 22:49Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 22:50Chuck Nice?

  Have you seen increased oxygenation or oxygen intake on a cellular level? Or if you're able to measure that? And secondly, based on what you just said, what kind of performance metrics have you seen in terms of improvement? Do you have quantifiable data on that?

• 23:08Speaker 03

  You can use different things. So you can use, um, you know, items like omega wave and different other heart rate variability monitors where you're looking at what's happening to the heart and the variability in the beats of the heart and other parameters that that measures. You can actually measure using, uh, different devices like Tennant's device where you can measure the voltage or the impedance of the body. That that changes dramatically, uh, when you're getting in a more charged environment. And by environment, I'm talking all those things, water, food, everything else. And then you look at the tissue quality and the tissue quality changes dramatically and heals so much faster when you're in that kind of environment. Because you're changing how the body can act as a tansecrity model. You know, you're talking about overuse injuries.

• 23:49Speaker 03

  The reason you get overuse injuries is because you've changed the stress and how it goes through the body, which changes tansecrity.

• 23:55Chuck Nice?

  Which, when you look at major golf tournaments.

• 23:57Gary O'Reilly?

  You are playing for two to three hours?

• 24:01Speaker 03

  Six hours, sometimes.

• 24:02Gary O'Reilly?

  Right, and then you're gonna do that again the next day? And if you go deep into the tournament, you're gonna play three rounds?

• 24:07Speaker 03

  Four rounds.

• 24:08Gary O'Reilly?

  Four rounds, thank you.

• 24:09Speaker 02

  Yeah, for you play, you play four rounds, play seventy two holes.

• 24:13Gary O'Reilly?

  Right.

• 24:13Speaker 02

  It's typically around this time of the year. It gets to about a hundred every day.

• 24:18Gary O'Reilly?

  So you've got, you've got recovery issues? You've got repetitive.

• 24:23Speaker 02

  You have neural fatigue.

• 24:24Gary O'Reilly?

  Yes.

• 24:24Speaker 02

  So many.

• 24:25Gary O'Reilly?

  Because every hole is a vacation, right? Every hole is, is stress.

• 24:31Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 24:31Gary O'Reilly?

  Every single shot is stress.

• 24:33Speaker 02

  And the thing is, stress is like, people need to understand, right? Like, stress doesn't need to be like, when we think of stress, we always think of negative, right?

• 24:40Speaker 03

  Right.

• 24:40Speaker 02

  But it's, stress is just, just the activity and productivity of the brain. So it's, if, so a guy's sitting there and he's playing around eighteen holes and say we're at Schenectady Hills, there's a lot of decisions that need to be made for five hours. Like, it's all a decision. When they go semi-clear and then just become the athlete, they've done, they've gone from, I like to call it like going from Einstein to Picasso. Like, I do this simply with like my young kids just to kind of teach them a process. I don't necessarily believe in routines because I know a lot of people who are the greatest who actually couldn't even tell you what their routine was. They were just really effective.

• 25:17Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah.

• 25:17Speaker 02

  And the thing is, if a routine is so helpful, then how come every time I do the exact same routine, I have completely different results? So that, and that's, you could look at any sport like that. So the NBA is full of guys who are shooting terrible at the free throw line, who have really articulate ten second routines.

• 25:33Gary O'Reilly?

  Yes.

• 25:34Speaker 02

  So when, when you start, it, once again, if you're going outside in, then you're probably always going to be flawed in your understanding. But when you're looking at, like, where this all started, this used, with, with Craig, that used to be like ART treatment. You know, and then went down the whole more with this. So at first it was like, you know, guys adjusting backs, then going into tissue expertise, then going nutrition, then going to training. So I've, I've watched what he just said there. I've literally watched it from next to him happen for all those years and it couldn't, you know, Craig could be listening to someone like Dr. DeGrasse and start to dial that into how he's seeing

• 26:19Speaker 02

  what he's seeing. And so you, you see the evolution of the professional, right?

• 26:23Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah.

• 26:24Speaker 02

  And you see the treatments get better. And then the, the best part is having my, my own issues is as they progress and they're understanding how to treat the body, the treatments happen faster and it's, it's just really, so you can, I mean,

• 26:40Gary O'Reilly?

  You've got quantifiable evidence of sitting there thinking, right, I've given this player, this golfer to Craig and he's come back to me with this enhancement and you're able to do these things and you've seen this on a number of occasions?

• 26:54Speaker 02

  Yeah. Or just he gave someone the ability to have a 10 year career, like where they would, they would just be, they were not designed to like bend over and turn fast. And so it's keeping them in the game. Like no one's, no one's, no one's designed to be a scrum half and take head on collisions.

• 27:10Gary O'Reilly?

  No, no, fair enough. Yeah, I get that. It's a rugby reference.

• 27:12Speaker 02

  And then no one's really, no one's really designed to run 13 kilometers around a premier league field four days a week, right?

• 27:19Gary O'Reilly?

  There you go.

• 27:20Speaker 02

  So it's, you know, there's only so many George Best guys who just did it and didn't stretch and smoked at halftime and were the best. The rest of them are.

• 27:28Gary O'Reilly?

  They were, he was, yes. And he did.

• 27:30Speaker 02

  Right?

• 27:31Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah, absolutely. I know it's elite athletes. It's the, the, the top of the 1% of elite golfers.

• 27:39Speaker 02

  Right.

• 27:40Gary O'Reilly?

  But for other sports and for non-sport related human beings like Chuck and myself, is it still applicable?

• 27:50Speaker 03

  Absolutely.

• 27:51Gary O'Reilly?

  Maybe not teaching us to swing a golf club that we don't want to.

• 27:53Speaker 02

  Of course.

• 27:54Speaker 03

  Yeah, absolutely. So looking at literally the energetics of your body.

• 27:59Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah.

• 28:00Speaker 03

  Is extremely important to everyone. So I have one of my friends from back home in Canada, who's apparently been diagnosed with fibromyalgia. And so she's been living with that for the last eight years, pain every day.

• 28:12Chuck Nice?

  Terrible, very painful.

• 28:13Speaker 03

  Yeah. And since she's changed the energetics and where she's getting food, where she's getting water and how she's charging herself, she doesn't have symptoms anymore. So.

• 28:22Chuck Nice?

  Good for her.

• 28:23Speaker 03

  Yeah. So everybody can do it. And it's really just a matter of looking at, okay, what is, what is the way that I can optimize the health and wellness and the performance of my body? Like, I look at performance not just in an athletic sense.

• 28:35Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 28:35Speaker 03

  But how can I perform on a day-to-day basis at the top of my, my peak? What's my peak?

• 28:41Speaker 02

  I have osteoarthritis in my left ankle and right knee.

• 28:45Chuck Nice?

  Ooh.

• 28:46Speaker 02

  And so that's just come from what I've done, right?

• 28:49Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 28:49Speaker 02

  But some of the things we're doing right now is because I'm 44, at 60, that'll be a problem. It'll be a life problem.

• 28:57Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 28:57Speaker 02

  And so, you know, you, you see like a lot of runners who ran their whole life and, and it's funny, it's not as healthy as people think it is, but they ran and they ran long distances and long distances, and then they quickly get obese in their 60s because they're so broken down in their ankles and their knees that they can't even really exercise now.

• 29:14Chuck Nice?

  Can't move.

• 29:15Speaker 02

  And it's really, so it, it, I think it's, it's long-term. It, it, it has to do that. And obviously, if Craig is able to increase the ability for the body to heal itself.

• 29:27Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 29:29Speaker 02

  You know, it's knocking out thousands of things a day.

• 29:31Chuck Nice?

  There's tons of problems that it answers, tons. And by the way, just for those of you who will not be watching us on StarTalkAllAccess.com and you're just listening to the podcast, Sean is actually so young looking, he looks nowhere near 44.

• 29:46Speaker 02

  No.

• 29:46Chuck Nice?

  Actually, he's so young looking, he could be black. That's how young looking he is.

• 29:52Speaker 02

  He's sort of actually. It's a long story, but.

• 29:54Chuck Nice?

  All right.

• 29:57Speaker 02

  Long story.

• 29:59Gary O'Reilly?

  So I'm just wondering, when you first get a golfer and you explain what you've explained to us,

• 30:06Gary O'Reilly?

  is there that moment where they give you the quizzical look and you have a hard sell? Or just generally having come through, Sean, you get, I'm in?

• 30:15Speaker 03

  Well, I'm fortunate that this isn't my first rodeo out here.

• 30:18Gary O'Reilly?

  Okay.

• 30:19Speaker 03

  And so I have people who tend to come to me who know what I'm about, right?

• 30:25Gary O'Reilly?

  All right.

• 30:25Chuck Nice?

  And I think success has something to do with that, too. Like when you have success with one player.

• 30:31Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 30:31Chuck Nice?

  Other players say, yo, man, what happened to you?

• 30:34Gary O'Reilly?

  Oh, 100%.

• 30:34Chuck Nice?

  Like, yo, dude, what's going on with you, man? I noticed. And then that player says, oh, well, you know, if you must know. And then I think that would, that would make guys probably a lot more amenable to whatever you have to say, right?

• 30:48Speaker 03

  When you have a guy who cannot, literally can't play golf and then comes back and he ends up being the number one ball striker on tour less than a year later.

• 30:55Chuck Nice?

  People know that.

• 30:56Speaker 02

  But it's also a people, because, you know, it's no different than any high school cafeteria, right? Like, the grown up world is no different and it's people suffocate with comparison. So it's like, what's he doing? Why's he been so good? Why's he, oh, it must be because of that guy he's with.

• 31:13Gary O'Reilly?

  Interesting analogy.

• 31:13Chuck Nice?

  That's exactly why I hate my brother.

• 31:17Speaker 02

  But as it, as it, as it goes on, it's like, I remember when I was, 2013, I was coaching Tiger and Justin Rose and Hunter Mayhem.

• 31:25Gary O'Reilly?

  That'd be Tiger Woods, right?

• 31:26Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 31:26Gary O'Reilly?

  Okay, just, just.

• 31:27Speaker 02

  You know, Tiger had won, Tiger had won like five times in eight weeks. Justin Rose had won the US Open. Hunter Mayhem was top 10 player in the world.

• 31:36Speaker 02

  I mean, I, I would get emails from agents nonstop. And then when I was fired by Tiger in 2014, I wouldn't get any emails. So that's, that's, now you just stay in the game because there's going to always be ups and downs. That's what it is, right? That's almost the beauty of it. That's, it's almost the, to me, the most, the thing I love about, about adversity, adverse, adversity and going through difficult times.

• 32:03Speaker 02

  Is I love it as a challenge just to see how absolutely upbeat I can stay. So I like the harder it gets actually, the more I like it. So in my, I tried to like teach my young kids that I coached that like the climb is, the climb is way more gratifying than the summit. That's where the growth comes.

• 32:20Gary O'Reilly?

  So it's, it's actually that sort of lesson of embrace.

• 32:24Speaker 02

  Oh, well, you have to.

• 32:25Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah. And then seeing it as something that will be transient, but embrace it, see if what it is, put it there. And the next time you revisit this sort of phase, you're not broken by it.

• 32:36Speaker 02

  No, we, we just know, we know so little.

• 32:38Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah.

• 32:39Speaker 02

  Period. Right? Like we know like so little that there's no use in trying. I, I love when, when players are struggling. You can hear them always saying like, I'm just trying to figure it out. And I'm like, how, how's that helping you?

• 32:49Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah.

• 32:50Speaker 02

  Figure out what?

• 32:51Gary O'Reilly?

  Right. How much, no, no, I'm just, if I, if a golfer comes to you and they want an advantage, what sort of percentage of their game would they be saying to you, that's what I need? 10%, 5%, 1%?

• 33:04Speaker 02

  I have the data on that. I did a, I wrote the foreword for a book from Dr. Mark Brody, who's a professor at Columbia University.

• 33:11Gary O'Reilly?

  Cool.

• 33:11Speaker 02

  And so he came up with strokes gained. And so he, it's a long story, but what he basically figured out was, okay. I met this guy who I was introduced to as the best putter in golf and the saying in golf is drive for show putter dough.

• 33:26Gary O'Reilly?

  There you go.

• 33:27Speaker 02

  Everyone knows that.

• 33:27Gary O'Reilly?

  Everyone knows it.

• 33:28Speaker 02

  Exactly. So we're all shackled by the sayings of forever, right? And so that's just one of those, you just heard it growing up and you're like, oh, right.

• 33:36Gary O'Reilly?

  Of course, yeah.

• 33:37Speaker 02

  And you never really looked and noticed like, God, the junior golfer who wins every tournament I'm in hits it 60 yards by me. Right? So as time goes on, he meets this guy, he, he says, how many times have you won? And, and the pro says six and he's like, well, how's that work? Now he's in the math department at Columbia. Now he's a dean in the, in the business school. So he just starts kind of messing around and stroke gained approach. Came out seven or eight years ago. I remember I saw strokes gained putting. And was like, what is that? So said, it said like the guy gained 1.5 strokes with his putter. So in an individual sport, how do you know what's good or bad? Because we had guys hitting a lot of greens in regulation, which is, was historically

• 34:21Speaker 02

  an attribute of a guy making money.

• 34:24Gary O'Reilly?

  Right.

• 34:24Speaker 02

  But then lose their card. And so you would look at it and someone say, well, he couldn't.

• 34:29Chuck Nice?

  So now for the non golfers, you're gonna have to explain that. Cause you just said, just if you can just break that down. No, cause you said you're seeing guys hitting a lot of greens and then losing their card. But just break it down for people who don't play golf.

• 34:40Speaker 02

  Right. So if he, if he looked, how's, how's he looked at it was, how he saw it was that if you look at Tiger Woods, Jack Nicklaus, Anika Sorenstam, Rory McIlroy, Justin Thomas, to an extent right now, Dustin Johnson, Justin Rose, these players who separate themselves in their generation, but especially Jack and Tiger and Anika, right? That's the next level. Is they were really competent from 175 to 250 yards.

• 35:12Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 35:12Speaker 02

  So what happened was their skillset and their physical advantage gave them the ability to hit a ball further and higher.

• 35:20Chuck Nice?

  Mm hmm.

• 35:20Speaker 02

  And in doing so, land it softer.

• 35:22Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 35:23Speaker 02

  And make the golf course shorter. And so it's just that that's the math, right? So if you take the top 10 putters in the world, the average 65th in the world ranking. If you take the top 10 hitters, so tee to green, they're 13.

• 35:36Chuck Nice?

  Right. And, and the idea there is when you talk about strokes gained is it's a game of the least number of strokes. That's the entire game in a nutshell. Get in the hole. So if I can get in the hole quicker, I win. It doesn't make a difference.

• 35:53Speaker 02

  And so how well I can putt. But that's, that's the data though, too, that really helps. So, you know, we were taught like be, hit your wedges all the time. Okay. But if you look from like guys will set out on tour and they'll set out cones at like 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90, 100 yards.

• 36:12Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 36:12Speaker 02

  And they practice that for like two hours. But then when you look at it as their scoring percentage for the year, it takes the average player on the PGA tour, I think it was roughly, what was it? 2.2, 2.5 two strokes to get the ball in the hole from 30 yards. And from 100 yards, it was 2.7. So what's the use in even practicing 40 to 100? Do you see what I'm saying?

• 36:35Gary O'Reilly?

  Yes.

• 36:36Speaker 02

  It's really not, so one, if you have 50 yard shot, then you've made a mistake because no one wants that. Because what happens when I have less velocity, I don't have the ability to create as much time in the air and spin. So the ball's not going to stop us.

• 36:49Gary O'Reilly?

  So you're restructuring strategy?

• 36:50Speaker 02

  Oh, 100%, and that's been, that's been, you know, that's been, the thing with the science, right, is that we have the ability now to measure these things. But the problem is, as so many things occur, is sometimes the science just becomes part of the method. Right? So guys can hear the same things and completely interpret it differently. And that's the tricky part, you know, that, that to me is where guys will start to use the, the, the science, but it becomes a bit pseudo because it matches the method. So we're not into methods, we're into principles and laws. The numbers, the math, and making it work. That's great.

• 37:30Gary O'Reilly?

  And each set of numbers is different for each player.

• 37:32Speaker 02

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 37:33Gary O'Reilly?

  Because the, as you know, the biomechanically, we're all anatomically the same, but very different.

• 37:38Speaker 02

  Very different. We all have different resonance.

• 37:40Gary O'Reilly?

  And we will take another break. I hope you've enjoying our golf special right now with our really great guests, Dr. Craig Davis and Sean Foley. We'll take that break and we'll be back very, very shortly with more from these two gentlemen. Don't go away.

• 37:59Gary O'Reilly?

  Welcome back. Right, let's get straight to the last part, sadly, the last part of this interview with Dr. Craig Davis, who is a performance optimizer. I love the idea of that, yeah. And Sean Foley, who is a golf coach, but really, golf coach, it doesn't do him justice.

• 38:20Speaker 02

  Not at all.

• 38:21Gary O'Reilly?

  Because he is so, so intense and thoughtful. So, all right, let's pick up where we left off, shall we? So something that struck me earlier on, you talked about someone who has only so much capacity for rotation or the joint. Can someone just turn up and say, you're too bendy, you're far too flexible. Can you be just too loose?

• 38:40Speaker 02

  Oh, sure. A lot of the girls I coach in, in high level amateur golf and professional golf have massive amounts of hypermobility. Sometimes these girls have a hard time transferring the energy because there's not really any X cell, D cell kinematically in how they move. And then there can be, because of... Because of these just massive movements of their joints, they don't seem to stiffen and and transfer the energy out as much. So it's, it's, uh, I know I'm using the wrong words with him staring at me right now.

• 39:08Gary O'Reilly?

  Dude, now he stares at everybody.

• 39:10Chuck Nice?

  Let me tell you, let me, listen, you have no idea.

• 39:13Gary O'Reilly?

  We do.

• 39:14Chuck Nice?

  What is happening to me right now. I am just like sitting here dying because I'm trying my best to be an adult.

• 39:21Speaker 03

  Yeah, I hear you.

• 39:22Gary O'Reilly?

  You failed miserably.

• 39:24Chuck Nice?

  Sean, at least, at least you're perceptive enough to look at me, you're like, look at Chuck, he is dying right now.

• 39:29Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 39:30Gary O'Reilly?

  You're getting younger by the second, your mental age.

• 39:33Speaker 03

  If you've got to control a hundred degrees of motion, right, you have a hundred degrees of play.

• 39:37Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah.

• 39:37Speaker 03

  Versus 20.

• 39:38Gary O'Reilly?

  Right.

• 39:39Speaker 03

  It's much easier to control 20 degrees than figure out where you are in that hundred degrees of motion.

• 39:43Gary O'Reilly?

  Sweet.

• 39:44Speaker 03

  So when you have hypermobility, there's a lot more space that you have to own.

• 39:47Gary O'Reilly?

  Cause it sounds like it should be an advantage.

• 39:50Speaker 03

  Well, you have to have enough motion.

• 39:51Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah.

• 39:52Speaker 03

  Right, to do what you want to do, and you have to own that motion. But if you all of a sudden give a player an extra 30 degrees of overall rotation, they don't own it. Now they have way more room to make mistakes.

• 40:02Gary O'Reilly?

  Right.

• 40:02Speaker 03

  And that's, and that's very common.

• 40:04Chuck Nice?

  Wow, that's what an interesting concept. That's awesome.

• 40:07Gary O'Reilly?

  Where do we go from here? I mean, you seem to me to be two gentlemen who've combined to make a giant leap forward. And I'm guessing from the, just the discussion we've had, you're not the kind of guys to just sit down and say, yeah, we've cracked it. You're looking over the hill. You want to see and think about what could potentially be the future. You got any thoughts, any ideas?

• 40:28Speaker 03

  Hey, you know, when I just talked about resonance, one of the cool things that the last couple of years, that's, it's made a big difference in my job. So, you know, I get to see my players on a daily basis, which is very different than a lot of other therapists or movement coaches.

• 40:40Gary O'Reilly?

  Yes.

• 40:41Speaker 03

  And so I use a lot of the times when my players aren't injured, we use that as the diagnostics. And when I say not injured, I mean not symptomatically injured.

• 40:49Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah.

• 40:49Speaker 03

  As a, as a time to use the diagnostics with our hands and different other tools to figure out where the body's starting to break down without actually being injured yet. And so now we can use things. Like this company like Luminous where we're using electrons and different other natural therapies to increase the healing before the problem actually becomes an injury. So for me.

• 41:11Gary O'Reilly?

  Preventative.

• 41:11Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's there's a completely new way now. See, I just use steroids for that. Yeah, well, that's a that's a good way. That's a joke.

• 41:17Gary O'Reilly?

  That's another one.

• 41:18Speaker 03

  Look at Craig, he's such a doctor. Look at him, he was like, well, listen, listen, no, it's a joke. Hey, it works. It does. That's why that's why they test for it now. That's right.

• 41:28Gary O'Reilly?

  But that's got to be.

• 41:29Speaker 03

  Because they do work.

• 41:30Gary O'Reilly?

  Anything that's got high repetition in it is going to be putting muscles and tendons and everything into a into a stressful environment. And at some point, you're going to find damage.

• 41:41Speaker 03

  Well, that's the tensegity, right? You alter the tensegity model.

• 41:44Gary O'Reilly?

  There you go.

• 41:45Speaker 03

  Right?

• 41:45Gary O'Reilly?

  So and you've got to be thinking, well, look, we'll deal with it when we get there, which is possibly the 80s slash 90s model for dealing with it. Now, everybody's thinking, well, we know it's coming. How do we prevent that or limit damage?

• 42:04Speaker 02

  I think though, too, with like the with the amount of opiates in pain treatments that are occurring in all the different sports, it's not even an you better get there before it happens.

• 42:15Speaker 03

  Right.

• 42:16Speaker 02

  You know, you have to, I can get like a 13 or 14 year old kid who's one of the best players in the country. And I'll look at how he moves through the ball. And I'll just say, you know what? You need to do this, this and this. And their parents are like, no, but he's he's he's playing really good. And I'm like, he's gonna.

• 42:31Speaker 03

  He's gonna hurt himself.

• 42:32Speaker 02

  He's gonna herniate.

• 42:33Speaker 03

  Right.

• 42:34Gary O'Reilly?

  How interesting.

• 42:35Speaker 02

  L3 and L5, no doubt by the time he's.

• 42:37Gary O'Reilly?

  Because you've just preempted my next question. Is the key to keeping Craig away from the athlete just great technique? Because if you've got the great technique, you're not going to have to have to have too much interaction.

• 42:52Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, that's.

• 42:53Gary O'Reilly?

  Is that just too simplified?

• 42:54Speaker 02

  That's the that's the that's ultimately the goal.

• 42:57Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah.

• 42:58Speaker 02

  But the thing is, is we're not.

• 43:01Speaker 02

  I think what Craig's done well is he looked at it more as performance rather than treatment. Like a lot of guys on tour are just, they just get treated.

• 43:10Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 43:10Speaker 02

  And they like it and they get, you know, it gives them an hour and a half to themselves. And I mean, who, who doesn't want to get treated every day? It, it doesn't have to be like a full on treatment, right? They can just flush you, you're in there relaxing, they get an hour and a half with their head down. There's no media, there's no fans, there's no nothing. I mean, all things that they're fine with.

• 43:28Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 43:29Speaker 02

  You know, I get a guy and, and, and I, I started working with a player in September, Danny Willett, who won the Masters in 2016.

• 43:37Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 43:38Speaker 02

  And so I did a little due diligence on him and found out that when he came on the tour, he was actually quite long off the tee and he got really short. So I knew I could max him out a bit and not be concerned about it. Like I knew that it was in him to be able to do that.

• 43:53Speaker 02

  And, and that's just based on memory and that's based on the brain and that's based on all the neuropathic way, the, the myelin aspects, it's not gone from him.

• 44:01Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 44:02Speaker 02

  He's just developed.

• 44:03Chuck Nice?

  He's doing something different now.

• 44:04Speaker 02

  Different patterns.

• 44:05Chuck Nice?

  He's different.

• 44:06Speaker 02

  And so we got, I mean, we got 35 yards of carry off the tee in five and a half, six months. And the neck, shoulder and back pain are gone.

• 44:17Speaker 03

  Yeah. And see, that's the advantage, right? So when, when I have players who work with Sean, and obviously we communicate all the time, right? Because we stay in the same place all the time. Those players are coming to me using a technique that fits their bodies, that decreases the amount of stress to their body versus other coaches who have absolutely no idea. And some of my athletes have worked with coaches who have no clue.

• 44:38Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 44:38Speaker 03

  And those bodies get injured more. And my goal is to get an athlete where they move great and then I act like bumpers in a bowling lane. And I just try to keep them in that, right? So I can do that very well with someone who's coming, who's using great technique for them.

• 44:52Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 44:52Speaker 03

  When they're not, it's tough to do.

• 44:54Gary O'Reilly?

  So it's interesting. I think back to my playing career.

• 44:58Gary O'Reilly?

  And you don't play a game fully fit.

• 45:01Speaker 02

  No.

• 45:02Gary O'Reilly?

  It's how, it's how much is of your fitness is actually.

• 45:05Chuck Nice?

  Somebody said that there's no professional athlete that completes any season a hundred percent healthy.

• 45:13Gary O'Reilly?

  No.

• 45:13Chuck Nice?

  Like, I don't care who they are. Right, unless they're on the bench. If they're playing, they're, everybody's playing injured.

• 45:20Gary O'Reilly?

  But even if you're on the bench.

• 45:22Chuck Nice?

  Period.

• 45:22Gary O'Reilly?

  You're probably carrying something because you need to be on the bench and there's no way. Coach, you've got to count me out because I've twisted a sock.

• 45:29Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, right.

• 45:30Gary O'Reilly?

  Or I've broken an eyelash. No, there's no way. You just put yourself in the frame every time.

• 45:34Chuck Nice?

  Those were my excuses.

• 45:35Gary O'Reilly?

  I know they were. Yeah, I know.

• 45:37Chuck Nice?

  Just like, my God.

• 45:38Gary O'Reilly?

  We got your profile.

• 45:39Chuck Nice?

  I can't play with this ingrown nail. God, are you kidding me? Hey, guys, well, thanks so much.

• 45:43Gary O'Reilly?

  No, thank you. It's been unbelievably interesting.

• 45:46Chuck Nice?

  Really?

• 45:47Gary O'Reilly?

  Because we've got two people who are working with the elite of the elite. I mean, we do meet elite athletes, but when you get to this kind of level of PGA, to talk to the guys behind them, to talk to the guys that dismantle and rebuild is, is just incredible. And to see how you think.

• 46:07Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think the key is, is you, you don't want to ever do, unless you have to dismantle something because whatever they're doing just causes too much pain. But it's, you know, if you know where to, if you know where to plug in.

• 46:19Gary O'Reilly?

  And how to plug in.

• 46:20Speaker 02

  If you know how, if you know.

• 46:21Chuck Nice?

  It's fine tuning, right?

• 46:22Speaker 02

  You know the plug in the cord, yeah. A lot of it is just, a lot of it is that, you know? I mean, these guys, as good as they are. And they're such chameleons kinesthetically. If they aim in a poor fashion for three days, it'll totally alter their mechanics.

• 46:36Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 46:36Speaker 02

  So it's like, you've got to be their eyes because when they go out there and they get clear and they're doing their things, like I said, they're.

• 46:42Gary O'Reilly?

  But you, when you're observing the swing of a golfer and you know what it should be, you're dealing with such small details. You know, how do you train your eye to be able to notice such small? You don't know, you just do.

• 46:57Speaker 02

  Just been doing it since I was.

• 46:59Speaker 03

  When you walk into a room, each of us sees something differently. Right? So one person might see the curtains, one person sees the type of lights, one person sees the, the type of flooring or the coloring.

• 47:09Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah.

• 47:09Speaker 03

  And. If you're somebody who sees the color, you shouldn't be the person who's working on the flooring. And so Sean has just been, he's just extremely good at looking at how the body moves, intrinsically understanding that athlete and being able to pick that up in their swing. He's always been good at that. So he's come into something that makes sense for him, the way he sees the world or life or the swing. It just works for him.

• 47:31Gary O'Reilly?

  So the first question you ask yourself every time is what's wrong with this picture? Or what's right with this picture?

• 47:38Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 47:39Gary O'Reilly?

  Good answer. Good answer.

• 47:43Speaker 02

  Look, I see, I see everything. I always feel like I'm the, I'm the hyphen in between the E and the R. I'm moderate. So when it comes to everything, I look at all religion, politics, you name it. I see it all through the same kind of, like, it's that search for why.

• 47:58Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah.

• 47:59Speaker 02

  But it's to really know what it's not. Like, I don't necessarily know what's right, but I totally know what's wrong.

• 48:04Chuck Nice?

  There you go.

• 48:05Speaker 02

  You know what I mean?

• 48:05Chuck Nice?

  I forgot the congressman who said that. I don't know what porn is, but I know it when I see it.

• 48:11Speaker 02

  Right, yes.

• 48:12Chuck Nice?

  I don't know the definition of it, but I know it when I see it. And that's great.

• 48:16Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah. And on that note.

• 48:18Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, exactly. Hey, what a pleasure talking to you.

• 48:21Gary O'Reilly?

  Absolute pleasure. It's real. And have a great time here at the US Open. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, my, your guys, they can't all win, but hopefully the guys that you work with are successful.

• 48:31Speaker 03

  Absolutely. Cheers, man.

• 48:32Gary O'Reilly?

  Pleasure.

• 48:33Speaker 03

  Thank you.

• 48:33Chuck Nice?

  Thank you.

• 48:34Gary O'Reilly?

  So that's our show. Back in the world of golf, and two incredible guests who, although they're not players, are possibly two of the most or more important people involved in elite golf. And I just love the way Craig Davis has got a handle on these things and how his mind is opened up to treatment. But how Sean's attitude towards golfers and how he sees things. No wonder he's worked with elite athletes like Tiger Woods and Justin Rose. I'm sure they're queuing up to get on his list.

• 49:10Chuck Nice?

  Absolutely. Holy dynamic duo. They are a great couple. Kind of like some other people I know.

• 49:17Gary O'Reilly?

  I'll say it. Chuck and I. I'm not shy. I hope you've enjoyed the show. We look forward to your company very, very soon.