The Best Practice Tool Is in Your Bathroom - Payne Denman
Play Ready Golf | Strokes Gained for the 9 to 5 GolferShow Notes
Secrets of the elite Mid-AM: https://playreadygolf.beehiiv.com/secretsofthemidam Practice smarter with the Play Ready Golf app. 7 days free, code ISAAK takes $20 off the year: https://onelink.to/93ggkv Follow Payne: https://www.instagram.com/paynerr/ He plays 3 to 4 rounds before a tournament and hits balls maybe twice a week. He has a day job in logistics and just won his 3rd straight Tennessee State Amateur, something only 2 other golfers have done in 100 plus years. Payne Denman has played 5 U.S. Amateurs, coached college golf at MTSU, Tennessee, and South Florida, and played pro golf on PGA Tour Latinoamerica before walking away. In this episode he breaks down exactly how he practices now: the 60 minute range hour he splits into 3 blocks, why he stopped hitting drivers and got better, the mirror work he does at home, and how he talks to himself like a coach talks to a player. Timestamps 0:00 What he knows that college golfers don't 0:43 How many hours he actually practices 1:04 Mirror work, slow reps, and the 90 minute cap 2:10 Week 2: money games instead of range balls 2:33 The 45 minute session: where all the time goes 3:14 Why he quit hitting drivers (and got better) 4:41 Where college players waste unlimited hours 6:33 A lack of intent repeats what's easiest 7:10 How a coach fixes wasted practice 9:22 Talking to yourself like a coach 10:59 No coach? Write it down, 1 goal, max time 12:53 Separate mechanics from target practice 13:54 The 60 minute range hour: 3 blocks of 20 15:31 Why range games die on the course 16:22 Serial ball beating and why failure is the point 17:44 Playing scared: fear and embarrassment off the tee 19:14 Merion: the hardest course he's ever played 21:39 How he preps for championship setups 23:45 Adjusting to new grass, climates, and fog 26:45 The day job advantage 27:45 Down with 5 to play: birdies on 4 of the last 5 30:52 Fighting off the three-peat thoughts 32:22 What pro golf taught him about failure 33:35 The day he knew pro golf was over 36:32 What he tells players who want to turn pro 38:51 Reinstatement: the 4 year wait 41:31 PGA Tour Latinoamerica and the $4,000 career 44:32 What recreational golfers get wrong 46:45 What's next for Payne
More from Play Ready Golf | Strokes Gained for the 9 to 5 Golfer
Go look at the bottom of your pitching wedge. It probably says 42 or 43. In the 1980s it said 49, and your sand wedge barely moved. Get the free Wedge Matrix (one page, every wedge, every swing): https://playready.golf/wedge-matrix Try the Play Ready Golf app free for 30 days: https://app.playready.golf That's a hole in your bag the industry made, and most golfers never check it. So they end up with two wedges that go the same distance and one gap they guess at every round. Hayden and I break down how the bottom of your bag got broken, how to find the hole in yours in about 2 minutes, and a winter plan that gives you a number for every wedge and every swing. This isn't a gear episode. Most of the fix is checking the lofts you already have, and the rest is one bucket of balls this winter. Chapters 0:00 Your pitching wedge used to say 49 1:56 How much loft your pitching wedge lost 4:00 How close tour pros really hit it from 100 yards 5:21 How the bottom of your bag got broken 9:17 What tour players actually carry 9:58 Should you carry 4 wedges? 12:38 The club you carry because everyone else does 13:56 The problem with the 60 degree 17:46 Dave Pelz, Tom Kite and the first 60 19:16 Fix 1: check your gaps (4 to 6 degrees) 21:29 Fix 2: bounce and grind, made simple 25:21 Fix 3: when your grooves are worn out 27:52 Fix 4: the Wedge Matrix (Pelz's 3x4) 28:53 Why your 9 o'clock number matters 31:16 How to fill in your matrix this winter 33:08 When 4 wedges is the right call 34:08 How much wedges really matter 35:13 What to do tonight 36:02 What we're changing in our own bags Two fixes from the episode, also on screen: Ping's G440 went from 5 set wedges to 4 (fewer, not more). And a 15 handicap's double rate from 200 yards is about twice what it is from 150 (29% vs 15.6%), not 3 times. Sources Pitching wedge loft by decade: loftchart.com 2025 lofts: Callaway Elyte and Ping G440 spec sheets; Today's Golfer on the G440 wedge change Tour proximity from 100 yards: PGA Tour stats Finishing 75+ feet away, and double rates by distance: Lou Stagner, Arccos data What tour players carry: Golfing Focus, top 100 PGA Tour players Wedge gapping (4 to 6 degrees, 10 to 15 yards): Titleist Vokey Tom Kite and the 60 degree: Golf Channel, World Golf Hall of Fame Groove wear: Titleist's own robot testing; MyGolfSpy The 3x4 system: Dave Pelz, GOLF Magazine, 1990 Pitches that find the green vs miss it: Play Ready Golf app, 453 rounds from 127 golfers Long game share of the scoring gap: Mark Broadie, Every Shot Counts 15 handicap 4 iron distance: Shot Scope
Kris Marshall didn't touch a golf club until he was 16. He sent his resume to 500 colleges and got zero responses, walked on at Kansas anyway, and left a two-time All-American. Today he's a +5 with a full-time career, three kids, and barely any practice time. We get into how he walked on at KU, six trips to Q School (four of them lost by a single shot), why he walked away from pro golf to start a family, and what he thinks about the reinstatement debate. Then he shares the forward tees drill that teaches you to go low, and why a 10 handicap should stop aiming at pins. HOPEKIDS: the charity Kris founded a golf tournament for, serving families of children with life-threatening illnesses https://hopekids.org/ FREE: 18 Golfers, 1 Question. What 18 elite mid-ams with day jobs say busy golfers get wrong about practice, plus their go-to drills https://playreadygolf.beehiiv.com/secretsofthemidam PLAY READY GOLF APP: practice plans built from your strokes gained and the time you actually have. 30 days free, and code PRGPOD takes $20 off the year. https://app.playready.golf/ Feedback or a topic idea? [email protected] CHAPTERS 0:00 What a 46-year-old knows that college kids don't 1:56 He didn't start golf until 16 3:10 500 colleges, zero responses 4:14 Sitting in the rain outside the KU coach's office 5:15 The walk-on trial: the only one under par 6:46 From walk-on to two-time All-American 11:43 Turning pro: "You don't have to, you get to" 17:05 Six trips to Q School 19:17 Why he walked away from pro golf 21:44 Reinstatement and the "true amateur" argument 24:13 Kris's fix for reinstatement 27:50 What makes a great mid-am event 35:29 How golf built his career 37:52 The 14 handicap who was nervous to play with a +5 41:48 How to go low: play the forward tees 43:37 Late to the tee, then four eagles at the Kansas Open 45:44 Set a scoring goal and don't move it 46:22 Chess, not checkers, off the tee 47:44 Data vs feel 51:28 What a 10 handicap should fix this week 53:12 22-year-old Kris vs 46-year-old Kris 56:50 HopeKids
Free 3x15 Week card (the 3 dials, every session scored): https://playready.golf/3x15 Play Ready Golf app, free 30 day trial, code PRGPOD: https://app.playready.golf Ep. 27, why the range is the most expensive habit in your bag: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0R9mVHabK0c If you went 10 for 10 at the range last night, you didn't practice. You performed. Adam Young, one of the best practice coaches in golf, wants his players making somewhere between 3 and 7 out of every 10. Most of us build every range session around never missing. That's why the good nights never show up on Saturday. In this episode, Isaak and Hayden get into how much you should actually be missing, what Rory McIlroy did after blowing the 2011 Masters, and the 3 dials (distance, target size and randomness) that make any drill show up on the course. Hayden also tells the full story of his 2024 Canadian Q School week in Dothan, Alabama. He was 7 under after two rounds. Then came a double on a 200 yard par 3, a misread tee time and a DQ before the final round. He shares what he does differently now. Tell us in the comments: what's your next drill, and how many out of 10 do you make? Studies and people we mention: Adam Young, The Practice Manual Guadagnoli and Lee (2004), the challenge point framework Robert Bjork, desirable difficulties Wilson et al. (2019), Nature Communications, the 85% rule Human Movement Science (2025), when a task gets too hard Jared Porter, LSU, moving from blocked to random practice Low and colleagues, 14 studies on pressure training Annie Duke, Thinking in Bets Sisk et al. (2018), the growth mindset meta-analysis Chapters: 0:00 Why 10 for 10 at the range is a bad sign 1:59 How much should you be missing? 3:08 Adam Young's 3 to 7 out of 10 rule 4:00 The 3 dials that change any drill 4:31 There's no such thing as a good drill 5:26 Why easy practice feels so good 6:46 The 85% rule for faster learning 7:34 When hard practice backfires 7:49 Signs your practice is too easy 10:26 What Rory did after the 2011 Masters 10:48 Rory's 496 for 496 inside 3 feet 14:54 Hayden's Q School blowup 17:23 The tee time mistake 19:42 How Hayden bounced back 22:04 Handling emotions after a miss 24:20 The 3 part plan 24:29 Part A: turn one dial 26:57 Add a consequence: Colby's match 28:56 Part B: stop judging by results 30:41 The 3 buckets for every miss 31:37 Part C: is growth mindset enough? 32:37 Playing to your personality 35:50 Ask: how many did I actually miss? 36:31 Isaak's GC3 ladder drill 37:37 Hayden's takeaway 40:15 New Friday schedule New schedule: episodes with just Isaak and Hayden now drop every Friday. Guest episodes are bonus episodes early in the week. Isaak is a competitive mid-am who helps busy golfers improve with the time they already have. Hayden is a professional golfer. Play Ready Golf helps you practice with purpose, so you show up to the first tee ready to score.
Secrets of the elite mid am 👉 https://playreadygolf.beehiiv.com/secretsofthemidam
FREE: Secrets of the Mid-Am 👉 https://playreadygolf.beehiiv.com/secretsofthemidam The Play Ready Golf App (7 Days Free) 👉 https://onelink.to/93ggkv Roughly 800 former pros apply to regain their amateur status every year, and virtually all are approved. This week at the U.S. Mid-Amateur, 7 of the 8 quarterfinalists were reinstated amateurs, and so are both finalists. Career amateur TJ Shuart, a veteran of 12 USGA championships, joins Isaak to ask whether a reinstated pro is ever really an amateur again. They walk through why the USGA built the Mid-Am in 1981, the news that brought this to a head, and the toughest counterarguments. Then TJ lays out a simple fix: a waiting period based on how long you played as a pro and how high you got. Every player discussed followed the rules as written. This conversation is about the rules. Feedback or a topic idea? [email protected] CHAPTERS 0:00 Preview 0:27 The fork in the road: pro or lifelong amateur 2:31 Why the USGA built the Mid-Am in 1981 4:30 TJ Shuart's career as an amateur 7:22 The Mid-Am 20 years ago 12:09 The numbers: 800 reinstatements a year 17:22 How we got here: Knost, the USGA pause, and Sposa 28:11 "Those guys stopped playing years ago" 34:20 Is a reinstated pro the same player? 38:21 The Stewart Hagestad question 42:21 Challenge 1: college players 43:44 Challenge 2: NIL money 46:51 Challenge 3: should pros ever come back? 49:19 TJ's fix: a tiered waiting period 54:43 The reinstated players, by the numbers 1:04:26 What John Peterson said 1:11:09 Where the USGA review stands 1:16:23 Mid-Am update: 7 of 8 and both finalists SOURCES USGA Mid-Am fact sheet: https://filecache.mediaroom.com/mr5mr_usga2/190647/download/2025%20Mid-Am%20Fact%20Sheet.pdf GOLF.com on reinstatement: https://golf.com/instruction/rules/how-pro-golfers-regain-amateur-status/ Golf Channel on the USGA pause: https://www.golfchannel.com/ncaa/news/usga-temporarily-pauses-review-of-amateur-status-reinstatement-guidelines NBC Sports on the 2025 quarterfinals: https://www.nbcsports.com/golf/news/u-s-mid-amateur-quarters-filled-with-reinstated-ams-including-kft-vet-who-just-regained-status SI, the other side: https://www.si.com/golf/us-mid-amateur-does-not-have-professional-problem