00:00We just pulled up Michael Thor Bjornsson's golf swing. Just talk to us a little bit about what those ingredients
00:06were that you saw. You talk about managing the height on the backswing. He's a 10-finger grip. It's pretty
00:12unique, but he's a flusher, man.
00:15Yeah, I mean, 10-finger grip makes sense to me in a lot of ways. I've had a lot of
00:23girls that I coached that were really good competitors, and their hands were so small. Michael actually has probably medium
00:31to large hands, but they just had so much more control and power with 10 fingers.
00:37And it's funny, if you get little kids who are good athletes and they go to the range, they never,
00:42ever grip it any other way but 10 fingers. So is overlap and interlock a bit like political parties? Like
00:49you're a Democrat because your parents were, and you're Republican because your parents were. You're Jewish because your parents were
00:54Jewish, or you're Catholic because your parents were Catholic.
00:57So I think sometimes when people are like, ooh, 10 fingers, that's interesting. It's like, but is it though? I
01:04have the ability to have every single one of my mechanoreceptors and proprioceptors and all of my touch on the
01:11club.
01:11So what does interlock do to face rotation? What does overlap do to face rotation? What does 10 fingers? I
01:18think for amateur golfers who need to learn how to release the club, 10 fingers is ideal. It really is.
01:27Wow. Interesting.
01:29Yeah, it's just, it's just, you should try it. I mean, the fact that you've been another way for so,
01:34so long would probably be weird, but I mean, that's just discomfort. And look, if you want to get better
01:39at anything in life, if you can't deal with the discomfort, then, you know, good luck. Right.
01:42But basically, you know, his, his dad, Ted has coached him since he was five years old. And as soon
01:50as he won yesterday, I called his dad and just said, Hey man, like, it is absolutely remarkable to take
01:55a five-year-old kid all the way to this level at golf. And he said, you know, and I
02:00can't thank you enough.
02:01And I was like, look, you don't have to thank me, man. This is, this is all you and your
02:04son.
02:05Um, and I said to his dad, I said, by the way, we're doing the 2018 Stanford videos. And so
02:11the funny thing is his dad, his dad taught him to do that. But then as, as Michael started to
02:16struggle, they couldn't see it. And, and I think his dad's really a smart guy. He's like, uh, really understands
02:22physics. He's a mechanical engineer.
02:24So, you know, the idea of rotating around an axis, like a single axis is a great idea on paper.
02:31But when you bring into the fact that human beings shift their weight from left to right, just to even
02:35walk, uh, and then you look at tissue and fascia and tendons and ligaments and bones, the idea of my
02:42head staying in the exact same place is probably just not going to happen. So being centered has hurt a
02:48lot of golf careers, helped a few, but hurt probably more. Um, and so basically,
02:54you know, Michael's Michael would is, he would, his hand path would work too much in. And when his hand
02:59path would work and that would throw him into left side bend. And then from here, because, because he's a,
03:05because he's a jumper, as soon as he would slide and then start to jump, it would just throw him
03:11this way so hard. So more than anything, like he, but he could just, the only shot that he had
03:17with that is just the Rory, just high bomb draw, which is, which is, I mean, I would kill a
03:22man to hit one drive like Rory, right?
03:24Smiling. So, oh gosh. Yeah. But, but I'm looking at this kid who's been elite since he was 12 years
03:30of age. And I'm thinking, okay, what's the most important thing you could do? One, help him to understand the
03:37language that he uses. And if that language that he uses is creating the narrative of his life, that's step
03:41one, uh, step two, be an example of what it is to be professional. And then step three, how can
03:47I ensure that this kid never gets stalled because of injury?
03:50And that's it. Because if he stays uninjured, then, then who, then the sky is the limit really for, for
03:57a lot of them. Right. So what, what we did was where he got in his posture was, I have
04:04a, I know, I know it's hard to see, but I have a preference where, and I learned this from,
04:09I learned this years ago from George Jankus. Okay. Who, who I love deeply. And George, who was all about
04:16the humorous being over the toe.
04:19And, uh, I always liked the back looking more turtle-like. So I guess my players were kind of there,
04:26but when George explained to me, I was like, man, that makes so much sense. And so Michael was kind
04:31of tilted over in the chest quite a bit. And then in his toes, um, so you could almost see
04:37no pressure in the heel. So if I'm in my toes and I've got a lot of my mass out
04:42over my toes, when I take it back, the only thing that my brain is interested in is me not
04:47falling over.
04:47So I'm going to balance it. Yeah. You could see like in his, on the TV, you could see him
04:53right before he hit, how he kind of preset the heels and then got into his knees. Yeah. I saw
04:58that. So that's what we tried to do. Don't, don't bend from the waist. Cause remember when you, the more
05:04you bend from the waist, the more angle you put in that lumbar spine, it's not good for the back.
05:09So, I mean, you go back and like Hogan and Nicholas and Snead, and those guys almost look like they
05:14were standing straight up. Right.
05:16Yeah. Really? Like truly anything. They're quite kyphotic with their back and in their head was down, but, but they,
05:23they, they did look like a drunk old man at a urinal. Like they were not, they, they didn't look
05:28like athletes. Right.
05:29Right.
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