“Balls in the Air with Charlie Rymer” Podcast Episode 2: Golf Fitness with Kinexit, featuring Rick Murphy & Chris Mansson
In this week’s podcast, Charlie catches up with his buddy Rick Murphy in-studio. They share college golf stories and talk about Rick’s time teaching 3,200+ people in Colombia. Charlie and Rick also talk about Rick’s involvement with the Kinexit golf fitness, and they also bring Kinexit CEO Chris Mansson into the discussion.
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Transcript
Charlie:
Hi and welcome in to Balls In The Air. I’m your friendly neighborhood host, Charlie Rymer. Got a special show for you today. I have a great friend who is going to be my guest host today, Rick Murphy, PGA. And Rick is a legend in the Carolinas and beyond. I’m not saying Rick is a little slow, but it did take him eight hours to get here yesterday from Greensboro. His golf school and training facility up there in Greensboro is a wonderful spot, but Rick just doesn’t follow directions, really. It’s about two and a half hours from Greensboro and it took him eight hours to get here. But, Rick, glad you made it down to Myrtle Beach.
Rick:
Thanks.
Charlie:
Looking forward to the show.
Rick:
Thanks. Happy to be here.
Charlie:
I told you, Rick is a legend. Ladies and gentlemen, he is a legend in a lot of ways, but let’s start with the PGA of America. Rick’s a long-time member of the PGA of America. He served as the president of the Carolina section of the PGA of America, which is a largest section. I don’t know how you pulled that off, Rick. Rick’s also been teacher of the year in the Carolinas a couple of years. He’s been professional of the year in the Carolinas, and way back in the last century, Spalding named him the national teacher of the year. He’s got a great passion for teaching the game. Also, a heck of a player, and the most important thing you need to know about Rick is, he’s my partner every year in the Carolinas Pro-Pro. We play that up in Pinehurst. We have two top five finishes, the last two years.
Rick:
That’s right.
Charlie:
And if you could find it in a damn swimming pool, I think we’d have won both years.
Rick:
Wait a minute. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Back up. You remember the four-putt?
Charlie:
See, Rick and I had this big debate. If you’re playing alternate shot and it’s a four-putt, is it two two-putts or one four-putt? I think we had had that discussion a couple of times.
Rick:
Got to sort things out.
Charlie:
Yeah. Absolutely. Rick, let’s start real quick and talk a little bit of the golf we saw this past weekend as the PGA TOUR started in the new year, 2021. Boy, Harris English had a really nice performance out there in Kapalua.
Rick:
Yeah, kind of a second career. I mean, he started out successful, was silent for a while, and now he’s back.
Charlie:
Yeah, he actually lost his full time playing status and went to work. He took advantage of the down time in the pandemic. A lot of people were doing some vacationing. He was down at Sea Island working hard on that game, and that’s really paid off, but at 18 hole, second shot, he needed a birdie to tie. Joaquin Niemann, he had a 300, just 268 yards, in there about ten feet, and he missed the damn putt!
Rick:
It must have been downhill.
Charlie:
But he did win in the playoff. Harris played his golf at University of Georgia, and that’s fine. College isn’t just for everybody. I’ve known him a little bit. He went to a high school up in the Chattanooga area which is where I was born and was a long time member of my home course up in Tennessee, the Honors Course. This summer when I was sick with COVID, one of the messages I got from some of the PGA TOUR players, one of them came from Harris, and Harris later had to deal with COVID-19 himself, but really nice to see him playing some excellent golf.
Rick, let’s talk a little bit about your career. I’ve known you a long time. You were the golf professional, later the director of golf at The Cardinal in Greensboro. Pete Dye golf course, one of the first Pete Dye golf courses I’ve ever seen. That sucker is maybe the hardest course I’ve ever played in my life. When it was built, that was the place to be. So tell me a little bit about The Cardinal, in particular the support that The Cardinal there that started in your time with a great amateur event there every year, The Cardinal Amateur, which I played in every year, and I think I finished pretty much last every year. Tell me a little bit about your time at The Cardinal.
Rick:
It was incredible. I was in my 20s when I got the job there at The Cardinal. It was ranked number two golf course in the state of North Carolina behind Pinehurst, number two. So it got a lot of recognition. Pete did a wonderful job, and I think actually, Mike Souchak finished up the golf course towards the end, and that was in the late 70s. It’s a great, great test of golf, one of the first courses that I remember seeing with grass bunkers. So the bunkering around the greens was just incredible. It made it more difficult. You had to drive the ball straight, and you had to have a great short game to be able to play there and be successful.
Rick:
I remember we hosted three North Carolina Opens I think in successive years. Jack Lewis, who was…
Charlie:
Boy, what a player Jack Lewis was, still is a teacher. I know maybe you see Jack from time to time, but legend from Florence, South Carolina.
Rick:
Absolutely. What a warm heart Jack has, and yes, he’s been with us for about 20 years. He was a head professional at The Athletic Club. He coached at Wake Forest, and was at Forsyth Country Club. So yes, he is indeed a legend, but he won the North Carolina Open by maybe a dozen shots. In his playing days, he shot, I think the highest score he shot was 67, three rounds. And that was incredible.
Charlie:
Of course, he made the PGA TOUR, and now, along with teaching, I haven’t had one yet, but they tell me that he makes these chicken pies.
Rick:
Oh, God.
Charlie:
What is it? Tell me about the chicken pie. Doesn’t take long to get into food with me.
Rick:
How’d you know about that?
Charlie:
Oh, listen, I know about my chicken pies.
Rick:
Chicken pie and lasagna.
Charlie:
Yeah.
Rick:
So Jack comes in the shop one day and says, “Hey, Murph, my wife and I, we’re starting this business.” This was six or seven years ago. “I’m going to start making chicken pies. We upfitted our chicken at home.”
“Yeah, bring one over, Jack.” So he brings a couple over, and I tasted it. It was absolutely incredible.
Charlie:
What did you like about it? I mean, I hear people all the time. They say, “Oh, I like it.” But why did you like it? Was it the seasoning? Was it the preparation? Did you have a little wine before? I’m just trying… What specifically do you like about that chicken pie?
Rick:
It’s just so much chicken. It’s just tons of chicken, and they hand select the type of chicken.
Charlie:
No cartilage in there. A little gravy in there, little pastry.
Rick:
Just a little bit of pastry and some gravy, and it is out of this world. So I introduced that to some of my friends. So for about a two or three month period, I was delivering chicken pies for Jack to my friends. So finally, I gave them his phone number, and I said, “Look, you guys are going to keep eating these things, text Jack, and Jack will bring it over.”
Charlie:
I mean, you did drive down from Greensboro, took you a while to get here. You could’ve brought some. I’m just saying. Next time. By the way, we’re going to be talking about fitness here in a little while. So we better get off the chicken pie, but my strongest impression of you from the early days is the atmosphere that you established there at The Cardinal. That’s where all the good players wanted to hang out. Whether it was young players or well-established or even some tour pros, we’ll get into that in a little bit, but they wanted to hang out with you. They wanted to be at The Cardinal, and it’s all because of your passion for teaching this game, and you just love for making people better at golf. Where does that come from, Rick?
Rick:
Well, Charlie, I’m not sure about that, but the time I did get to spend at The Cardinal, that was 15 years. It was incredible during my lifetime and in growth and becoming a better person, a better golf professional, learning much more about the golf business, the members we’re engaging, and like you mentioned, we had The Cardinal Amateur there, which was a major amateur even during its day, which the winner would get points towards USGA rankings and so forth. It was a warm place to work because of the golf course. Everyone had respect for the golf course.
Rick:
I remember days where we would have crows foot parties, I think it was, that we would go out…
Charlie:
Oh, yeah. You got a steak knife and you would go out.
Rick:
Yeah, the steak knife and the men just… Oh!
Charlie:
Yeah, and cut the weeds out of the green.
Rick:
Absolutely.
Charlie:
Oh, I could fill up a garbage bag doing that where I grew up, south of Charlotte.
Rick:
The bar went up at about 4:00 in the afternoon. Members would show up and out on the golf course with their spade or knife and they took care of the golf course that way. Pete Dye came by a couple times. I had the opportunity to meet he and Alice during those days, and he actually walked over the golf course. I spent some time with him there. That was an incredible moment for me, and Pete Dye actually built another course close by, designed another course called Oak Hollow in High Point which is 15 miles away. So he was checking on that.
The golf course, I think in the game, brought our members together, and I took a keen interest in helping youth and developed a youth program there, the first one at The Cardinal. So we had something going on all the time with junior golf and developing young players. Probably during that time, we had a kid named Jason Widener.
Charlie:
Yep, USGA Junior Amateur, which ought to be considered a fifth major.
Rick:
That’s right. I agree.
Charlie:
Especially if you won in 1985.
Rick:
If you’re Charlie Rymer or Jason Widener. No, but Jason played there.
Charlie:
[inaudible 00:10:23] Duke had a nice career there. Duke.
Rick:
We had Bryan Gawley and Butch Monteith, I think, and several really young players that developed over those years, and not sure why, but they had great roots and went on to play college golf.
Charlie:
Speaking of college golf, my story that I remember most vividly from The Cardinal is, seemed like it was maybe my Sophomore or Junior year, the ACC Championship was at The Cardinal, and playing at Georgia Tech. We get in our fancy van, we drive up to Greensboro, and the two things I remember from that week was, I know people will find this hard to believe, but my golf shoes smell horrible. When you’re riding in a team van, you throw them in the back, and there’s nothing you can do about it. I was too cheap to get shoe trees to go in there.
Bill McDonald was one of my teammates. Bill’s the men’s golf coach at the University of South Carolina, and one of my favorite things to do is torment Bill, and Bill is very sensitive to smell, which that means… Being teammates was hard because of that. I won’t get into those other issues, but this particular occasion, we were meeting at a coach’s house, Coach Puggy Blackmon, who Bill replaced at University of South Carolina as coach. Puggy later went from Georgia Tech to South Carolina, but for some reason, I thought, “You know what? I’m going to be nice to Bill.” So I got my size 15 FootJoys and I’d stopped to get some lemon scented Lysol on the way to coach’s house, and I just coated them down, right?
And I threw them in the back and I thought I’m being a good teammate, right? So we drove up to Greensboro, everything was fine. Well, the next day it got hot and I left my shoes in the van, and there’s some sort of chemical reaction that happened between the FootJoys, lemon scented Lysol and the upholstery in that van. The third day, which would have been the second round of the tournament, we all got in there, Bill threw up in the parking lot. That’s how bad it was. And I’m like, “I’m trying!” He starts yelling, hit me, and watching two golfers fight, it’s really funny, especially I’m a foot taller than him, and I’m laughing. And we were on our way to the golf course, and he threw my FootJoys out in the field, just out of the van.
Coach wouldn’t go back and get them. So now I’m down to just one pair of shoes, right? So Bill swears to this day that the final day, when we went out to the golf course, that he saw a dead dog on the side of the road with one of those shoes in his mouth. I was just trying to help. And then the other, on the golf course, I know the configuration’s changed over the years, but when we played it, 10 sort of went down and away from the clubhouse, 11 was really cool par three, 12’s a short par four. I’m not going to go over the whole course, but 13, a par five, pretty easy hole.
Rick:
Yeah.
Charlie:
So I hadn’t played very well first couple days. I was distraught about the shoes, but I got it going the final round, and I think I was maybe 5, 6 under, which was a heck of a score at The Cardinal. I drove it perfect on that par five, the skinny green, as I recall.
Rick:
Sure.
Charlie:
And I put it in a bunker pretty close to flag stick, and some fit folks were out watching. Coach came out there to watch, and I wasn’t a very good bunker player. I didn’t think I had to play good bunker until actually a couple years ago, and I skulled it into the back bunker, skulled it from the back bunker back to where I was in the footprint, hit it in the back bunker again, and then came back to the other bunker.
Rick:
Oh, my God.
Charlie:
I think I made like a ten on the hole. I went from 5 under to even, and I looked up as I was walking to the next tee, and all those people that came out to watch, they were all gone.
Rick:
That was. Hey…
Charlie:
But Bill threw my shoes out of the van! How am I supposed to deal with that?
Rick:
That front right bunker you hit it in, the back bunker?
Charlie:
Yeah, yeah.
Rick:
That part of the green is tiny.
Charlie:
Yeah, yeah.
Rick:
Especially after you hit it across a couple times. It’s tiny. It’s smaller.
Charlie:
Yeah, after the round, the coach pointed out to me that I had other options. I could’ve [inaudible 00:14:41] get it going right. I mean, the chicks don’t dig that when you play it safe. That same tournament, a really good buddy of mine, Chris Cupid, who was a very good player, his uncle was actually lost a playoff in the U.S. Open to Boros. It was Boros, Palmer and Cupid, an 18-hole playoff, seems like 1967, ’70, somewhere in there. Really good player, but he was so crazy that coach got mad at him because he’d hit driver everywhere. So for the final round, coach pulled a driver out of his bag. I thought he was going to cry. He’s like, “Coach took my driver!” So he got mad. He couldn’t find another driver. So he put another putter in the bag.
So he had a Bullseye and an Anser, and I played behind him watching all this, and he’d get over two or three practice strokes with one, drop it, go get the other one, two or three, go back and forth. We were crazy at Georgia Tech. We had a lot of fun. Played some good golf, too, just not that way.
Rick:
That reminds me, playing at NC State, Richard Sykes.
Charlie:
Oh, talk about crazy!
Rick:
50 plus years.
Charlie:
With a glass eye. Is it true he’s got just a glass eye, and he put it in his soup at dinner with you guys.
Rick:
Well, I had the opportunity, we roomed together in Pinehurst. We were there for a tournament, and I remember waking up in bed, and Richard had gone to the bathroom, and he turned around and said, “Hey, Murph, what do you think?”
Charlie:
He just showing you his full eye.
Rick:
Yeah, what do you think?
Charlie:
Oh, my goodness.
Rick:
He was hilarious.
Charlie:
I’d have thrown up.
Rick:
He really was a great coach, and he wasn’t much older than we were. I think he started when he was 30 as a head coach. I think it the longest tenured golf coach in the U.S., NCAA Division One when he retired three years ago.
Charlie:
Yeah, I actually interviewed him the day he retired.
Rick:
Oh, really?
Charlie:
Because everyone said, “Oh, he’s funny. He’s great. He’ll do an interview.” When I was at Golf Channel, he did a live interview. He choked. He was about as funny as a heart attack.
Rick:
So we’re at Duke on a par three on the front side, and an old high school teammate that played at NC State, as well, was in front of me, and he’s hitting the ball on this par three across the water. It’s about 160 yards, and he shanks it. So I had just finished a par 5 prior to this hole. So it backed up a little bit. There were a couple groups on the tee waiting to hit. Eddie shanked it, and he teed up another ball, shanked it. And about that time, Richard rides up in a golf cart. Eddie walks over and says, “Hey, Coach, what do I need to do?” He said, “What can I do?” And Coach says, “You know what? Looks like you need to aim further left and shank it.”
Charlie:
Oh, he was so much fun.
Rick:
He was.
Charlie:
He was the first coach that offered me a scholarship. I thanked him. I didn’t go to NC State. I ended up at Georgia Tech. My grades weren’t good enough to get into NC State. So I had to go to Georgia Tech, but he did. Charlotte Country Club, I was playing a tournament and he offered me a scholarship, and I always got a long with him great, but the other coach that was quite the character at Georgia. Do you remember Coach Dick [Koppas 00:17:50]?
Rick:
Yes.
Charlie:
Who was attached to the football team.
Rick:
That’s where I wanted to play.
Charlie:
Yeah, Georgia, and I lived in Athens for a long time. Being a Georgia Tech guy, we got a little friction there. It’s all fun, but the funniest thing I ever saw happen, and Richard Sykes could’ve done this, too. We were actually playing here in Myrtle Beach at Long Bay, and it was NCAA Regionals. And the first day, we got paired with a northern school, Temple, and it was funny. It was early spring, and the guys from up north, when they come down in the spring, they wear the shorts, and it’s always the white legs from our northern friends, and the mosquitoes just go right after them. In about three days, it looks like hamburger meat. We’re always making fun of Temple guys.
But I’ll never forget, the 10th hole, it was Temple, Georgia, and Georgia Tech, and this kid from Temple had a good second in there and Dick [Koppas 00:18:47] always wore the straw hat, and real funny, old south. You’d see him at football games, he was wearing it too. We walked up there. Obviously, we’re carrying our bags, college tournament, and everybody threw their bags down. Dick [Koppas 00:19:03] looks at the kid from Temple, and he says, “Nice shot, son.” And the kid from Temple goes, “I’m not your son!” And [Koppas 00:19:12], doesn’t miss a beat, he goes, “Nice shot, asshole!” Head coach at University of Georgia. You can’t beat that.
Hey, we got another subject coming up. We’re going to take a break in a minute, but first a want to ask you, one of the most fascinating things that I ever hear you talk about is after being at The Cardinal, that nice long run, you went to Bogota, Colombia, and you were down there four or five years?
Rick:
Almost five years, yeah.
Charlie:
Teaching. Tell me a little bit about that experience.
Rick:
That, in and of itself, was probably the most significant thing in my life that I had done in golf to that point, going to a different culture and so forth. But to set the table, the reason they had hired me to come there was to help teach their teachers to become better teachers and also to build a youth golf program. So I had just won an award, lucky enough to win the Junior Golf Leader of the Year from PGA of America in 1988. So they started inviting me down each year to work with their kids and help their golf professionals, and then I would play in the Colombia Open.
So I took my vacation from The Cardinal for about eight consecutive years, and I went to Bogota, Colombia. Well, they decided, “Hey, we want you to come down and help us with our golf program.” So I left The Cardinal to take that job, not knowing much about South America at all. I knew that I’d have to learn to speak Spanish, so I did.
Charlie:
And you barely know English.
Rick:
I know. When I went down, I could barely speak English fluently, and it still remains today that way, but I did learn to speak Spanish on a level that people can understand, but the country club at Bogota is absolutely incredible. It sits about 8,500 feet of…
Charlie:
Oh, it doesn’t get hot there then, does it?
Rick:
Oh, no. Every day is virtually the same. Arid. It’s just a wonderful place. About 2:00 every day, there’s a thunderstorm for about 15-20 minutes and then it’s gone, but we had 1,200 members, families there. We had two golf courses, Lagos and Pacos, and back many years before, Jack Nicklaus and Roberto De Vicenzo played one of the Shell’s Wonderful World of Golf tournaments there. But the membership, they were very grateful. I spent almost five years there. On Mondays, I would work with their golf professionals on their teaching skills, and I became very close with those guys, and I would go to their homes on Sunday afternoon in Bogota. Bogota is 11 million people. It’s like New York City.
Charlie:
I had no idea it was that big. I imagined it was a big city. I figured it was a couple million.
Rick:
No. And it sits in a savanna. As I mentioned, 8,000 feet above sea level. So I spent a lot of time with the golf professionals, and then started Tuesday morning at 7AM, I’m on the practice tee teaching members at the Country Club of Bogota. So the first ten months I was there, I gave 3,250 30-minute golf lessons.
Charlie:
No way.
Rick:
Yes. I had a full time person booking lessons and a waiting list. So if someone canceled, they would call someone to come fill that spot. In the almost five years, I had one spot open, and the reason it was open is the person died in a car accident on the way to the club.
Charlie:
Hmmm. That’s a legitimate excuse.
Rick:
It was crazy. So I learned a lot. I learned about a different culture. I learned to speak Spanish and so learned a lot about people and families because in that area, they have a strong sense of family. It’s not uncommon to see kids in their mid-20s living with their families.
Charlie:
Don’t tell my kids that, please.
Rick:
For here, would be very different. We’re ready for them to get out, but no. I’ve learned a heck of a lot there. I learned to teach.
Charlie:
Yeah.
Rick:
Okay, and so when you’re teaching the game of golf or teaching golf swing, working with your students, how you say things becomes extremely important and then understanding how that person is perceiving what you’re saying. So thinking through what I was saying in Spanish allowed me to acquire maybe a little better skill [inaudible 00:23:53] at what I was saying. So just an incredible place. I had the opportunity, I did a trick shot show at the time, as well. I had mentioned that to you in the past, and I would travel around to various clubs throughout Colombia and do that, especially if the Colombian Open was at Bucaramanga or in Cartagena or Barranquilla and other cities, Medellin, Cali. So I had a lot of travel going on, as well.
The other thing, I got a couple stories, but I also opened up a golf distributorship while I was there. So I would be on the practice tee from seven in the morning until 5:30 in the afternoon. By the way, at 3:30 is when I stopped teaching 30-minute lessons to members and I started working with their youth from 3:30 to 5:30. So we built a kid’s program from about 25 kids initially to about 180 during that time, and they came Tuesday through Friday. But I opened a business on the side there and had an office downtown in Bogota, and I would go from work at 5:30, drive downtown to the office, and I had a person working in the office to help with that business and two people traveling around the country. There were 54 golf courses in Colombia and approximately a dozen golf shops. So we represented [Cover 00:25:28] Golf at the time, and there was a company called Goldwin Golf.
Charlie:
I remember Goldwin.
Rick:
Yeah, and we had some balls Odyssey putters. I had a lot of fun doing that while I was there.
Charlie:
Well, folks, I told you he was a legend, Rick Murphy, PGA. By the way, he will be inducted later this year into the Carolinas PGA Hall of Fame. Congratulations on that. Very well deserved. Stick with us. When we come back, we’re going to talk about a serious subject. We’re going to get into fitness in golf and might even be putting me on a program. Stay with us, folks.
Charlie:
Back on Balls in the Air. I’m your host, Charlie Rymer, and by the way, when you teed up with us, when your tee time is 9:00, we are Balls in the Air at 9:00. If you get there at 9:01, we gone. So you better show up on time with us, and when I say us, I literally mean us today with my great pal Rick Murphy, PGA, just like myself. We’ve been having a great time telling some stories, and we’ll get a little more serious in this part of the show. Rick, we’re going to talk a little bit about fitness, and as a long time instructor that’s worked with top players, PGA TOUR players, we didn’t mentioned John Maginnes.
Rick:
Yeah.
Charlie:
People don’t understand, John can talk, and John and I have known each other since junior golf. You imagine me and John as 15 year olds out playing golf? We stole all the oxygen from the golf course, but he does a great job over with his show with Brian Katrek on SiriusXM and everything else that he touches. John really makes fun of himself as a player, but John was a heck of a player. I know you spent a lot of time working with I’m over the years.
Rick:
I did. Back at the U.S. Open at Bethpage many years ago, maybe it was 2004? Was it? Around there.
Charlie:
Yeah, when you get to be our age, the years sort of merge.
Rick:
Bethpage was right.
Charlie:
This century. It was early this century.
Rick:
It was this century. So I go up to New York and spending time with John on the practice tee knowing that some of these fairways, like the 10th hole there, you had to carry the ball to 40 or 45.
Charlie:
And in the morning it was cool, it was into the wind.
Rick:
Oh, yeah. You had to carry it to get to the fairway. John never hit it in the fairway.
Charlie:
He don’t have that shot.
Rick:
He hadn’t got that shot. He didn’t have that shot.
Charlie:
He’s aiming at the walk path, right?
Rick:
All due respect, Johnny did have an elbow injury and a shoulder injury that we had to work around, but he went par and went birdie on the 10th hole in those four rounds.
Charlie:
Wow.
Rick:
Now, second round, and he’ll tell the story, but I think he had to second lowest round of the day. He shot 69 at Bethpage. There’s no way.
Charlie:
Yeah.
Rick:
Okay? And someone was on the practice tee. John tells this story. Tiger Woods, someone said, “Hey did you hear Maginnes shot 69? He’s made the cut.” He finished 25th I think in the event. He says, “There’s no way John Maginnes could shoot 69 at Bethpage.” But I had a lot of great times. I went to Hawaii with John and just a great guy. Great guy. Great voice.
Charlie:
He is amazing. We played a lot of golf together back on mini tours, and then on what was in the Nike Tour. We were on the PGA TOUR about the same time. He was a much better player on PGA TOUR than I was, but he’s cleaned his act up a little bit now, but I could remember, he was the only person I know. He would dip Copenhagen snuff and smoke cigarettes at the same time, and he couldn’t keep his shirt tucked in, and there was always mustard or beer stains or spit stains or something all over him. And you remember when Tommy Bahama apparel came out?
Rick:
Yes.
Charlie:
I’m a big Tommy Bahama fan. On weekends when I’m doing my thing around here on Myrtle Beach, which is my favorite thing to do, I got on my Tommy Bahama shirt, right? But John decided that he was going to wear Tommy Bahama on a PGA TOUR. So he has some sort of agent. The agent called and said, “Hey, can we get a deal for John to wear Tommy Bahama?” And they said no. And he goes, “Well, what if we just go to the mall and buy it.” They actually sent him a check for $10,000 if he would agree not to wear Tommy Bahama on a PGA TOUR.
Rick:
Oh, my gosh.
Charlie:
Or something like that. I’m not going to let the facts get in the way of a good story, but there was some sort of conversation about that. To spin things forward, all the talk on tour in 2020, Bryson DeChambeau, the distance, the fitness, the added all, the muscle and all of that, and now more than ever, and I’m sure you and John Maginnes back in the day didn’t have much discussion about fitness and how it impacts golf. I mean, you might have yelled at him a time or two, but now, there are ways to tightly integrate fitness programs with golf instruction. Talk to me a little bit about that.
Rick:
So one of the things you see when you’re a teacher on the practice tee is that you’ll see an average golfer may shoot just below 100, and the reason they do, a lot of those times, is because of limitations they have in their body that they’re not aware of. And I want to make one thing clear is that it’s not just youth because I’ve seen 12 year old kids that have limitations in mobility and flexibility and stability. So I’ve studied this for about 30 years now and went through a couple programs learning more about how the body functions in 3D.
Now, taking that to the tour player level, you can see there were people back 50 years ago, Gary Player would be one, right? I think George Knudson was big fan of fitness. Frank Stranahan.
Charlie:
Yeah, he was the first player I heard. He would actually travel with suitcases full of weights. I always heard those stories.
Rick:
Yeah, so it was going on, but for all intents and purposes, perhaps most recently in the last 10 to 15 years, it’s become a huge topic, and you see Dustin Johnson and you see Bryson DeChambeau, which was the first tour player, I think, to carry a ball over 400 yards in the year and not with an extra long club, 48 inches or 50. So there is a lot of focus being placed on fitness now, but most of us that play golf, we have our limitations and they live within our body. We try to work around them, but as a teacher, I’ve got to be able to identify why my student can’t do some of the things that are perhaps native to he or she in their bodies.
So I’ve got to find where those limitations are. Is it balance? There’s some simple exercises for that. Is it stability? Can they maintain speed in their golf swing? A lot of that has to do with how stable you are against the ground with your feet. So I’ve been searching. I went through MG360. Nike Golf had a fitness program. I was trained in that, and now, I uncovered Kinexit, and Kinexit is the first digital platform that addresses those limitations. So it’s a very simple process of going through a screening, which we’ll do later today with you, and then identifying those limitations, giving you a whole regiment of exercises in a simple way that you can start without weights. I like to call it a sweat-free workout.
Charlie:
I’m listening.
Rick:
And I think you’re going to like that. Okay. Yeah, so we identify those limitations, and then you work out your own fitness program. We’re asking you just to spend 15 minutes, minimum, three times a week, but you can select up to 30 minutes or 45 or one hour, depends on how much you want to put into it. So what I do with my students now is I’ll do the assessment. It takes about 10 to 15 minutes. They revisit in about six weeks. They come back in, we do another assessment. It’ll measure their progress or not, and then you’ll get a whole new list or group or regiment of exercises.
Charlie:
When you do the next assessment.
Rick:
It’s artificial intelligence, perhaps. It keeps building on the progress you’re making and giving you exercises.
Charlie:
So listen, I love hanging out with you. I love our friendship, but my motive in asking you to come down here to Myrtle Beach and talk about this today was very personal. I’m 53 now. That hole is a lot farther away than it used to be, and getting that ball out of the hole, sometimes is even a challenge. I’ve lost some flexibility. I think a lot of that has to do with age, and then this year, I had a tough year.
COVID, honestly just about took me out, and I was hospitalized through about July 1st, and I’m still not quite 100%. I can function, but I’m just not where I need to be physically. I’m still getting a little bit better, but with it being the beginning of the year, with me having a tough year physically, with me being 53 years old, and listen, I want to play some good golf, and I’m still playing decent on days that I feel good, but I need to some work that helps me in life, as well. And spending some time and you telling me about this program, I thought, “Man, that sounds perfect to me because I don’t have to go to a class.” If I go to a class, it’s going to be a yoga class, and I’m going to sit in the back, check out the view. I don’t know if that makes me a bad person or not, but that’s what I’m going to do, but that ain’t going to help me.
Rick:
Right.
Charlie:
When you talk to me about Kinexit, I’m like, I need to do that. I can sign up for it. I can do this evaluation. It’s something that I can do by myself if I want to. Or I can call you up, and if it ends up being something that specifically helps me with my golf game, that’s great, but I’m really interested in digging into this. I think there’s a lot of people, with what’s going on in the world right now, not willing to go to a class to exercise. I think that’s going to stick around for a while. So when I see something that’s… I got to do it. So that’s why you’re here today.
Rick:
Yeah. And thanks for having me here for that reason. People, it’s difficult to get someone, just like people joining gyms the first of the year. They have a New Year’s resolution, “I’m going to work out this year. I’m going to lose that ten pounds or 50,” or whatever it may be. “I’m going to gain more of this function that I need, 3D function.” And 45 days passes, and then it goes away, the desire. So I think with Kinexit, and primarily golf professionals use this, but because we’re doing this together, you’re going to be able to introduce this, Kinexit, digital platform to consumers.
Charlie:
Exactly, and that’s the first time I understand that that’s happening. All that information’s going to be over at charlierymer.com, including the pricing for this program. We’ll get into that in just a little bit, but I just love the idea of having something that’s… When you say no sweat, 15 minutes, three times a week, I go, “You know what? I can do that.” And you’re talking to somebody who, about three months ago, ordered one of those fancy bicycles that you see the commercials and you can take studio classes or you can go bicycling through the Alps and all that, and I got one of those. It sits at home, and I’ll tell you what, that’s a great place to hang your clothes.
I got on that thing one time, and the dogs didn’t like me being on it, my golden retrievers. They’re like, “What are you doing? Get back on the couch!” I mean, there’s about an inch of dust sitting on that thing. Listen, I’m making fun of myself, but I know I’ve got to.
Rick:
You will.
Charlie:
Yeah, I’ve got to get after it.
Rick:
You got to do it.
Charlie:
So what I’m looking forward to is over the course of this year, when I do these evaluations and spending some time with you, checking in and seeing where I am and if we can integrate it into my golf, then that’s great, but you going to have to keep me on this. You’re going to have to call me every now and then, call me fat and lazy and stuff.
Rick:
The platform actually allows me to go in and look when you’re doing your exercises.
Charlie:
Oh, no. Can I cheat on that?
Rick:
So I can see how often you work. So 15 minutes, come on.
Charlie:
I can do 15 minutes.
Rick:
Three times a week.
Charlie:
Yeah, I can do that.
Rick:
And you’ll see the benefit. So one of the things, and if you don’t…
Charlie:
Does it hurt? Does it hurt?
Rick:
It hurts.
Charlie:
Because I don’t like hurting. Hurt’s no good.
Rick:
It’s sweat-free, and look, you mentioned this, you alluded to this that what we’re trying to do is people want to enjoy life. They want to be able to travel with their families when we’re able to do that again, pain-free and live a longer life. Movement is so important to that because if you have a foot or an ankle injury or a hip injury or a thoracic spine injury, those are detrimental, and we can avoid a lot of those situations, especially in a golf game when you start looking at your body and how it functions in 3D.
Charlie:
You got to have functionality, and that’s the thing that I’ve noticed so many times. I think, “Oh, it’s the beginning of the year, and I need to get on this kick.” In my mind I’m thinking I’ve had times where I’ve had trainers because I got up and down in weight and fitness and all that. I think about doing squats and weights, and I never get very far.
Rick:
No, that’s important.
Charlie:
The first thing I need to address, and I think a lot you when you get over 50, is you got to have that flexibility and mobility, and that’s what Kinexit does first, right? You can add later, but I got to start moving better first and get that flexibility and mobility and stability.
Rick:
Simple movement patterns, and that’s what the assessment will give us the information to help us. So when you look at someone’s body and how it moves in 3D, and a lot of students don’t think about this. They think, “Okay, my golf professional or I think I should turn my shoulders more or turn my hips more.” Well, there’s not actually a hip turn in a golf swing in the back swing. Then they look at you. How many players have come to me and said, “I know I need to maintain my spine angle,” or “I need to keep my head down.” All those things are myths. Okay? If they understood how the body moved, their eyes will open to why they need to increase their mobility and flexibility because the body moves in three planes of motion. Did I say three?
Charlie:
He said three planes [inaudible 00:40:53].
Rick:
Three planes of motion. You want to know about those?
Charlie:
Yeah.
Rick:
Okay. So there is a frontal plane, and all that is is side bending from side to side. So you know on a golf swing, if I were to side bend to my left and I’m a right-handed player, where would I be in my golf swing if I’m side bent this way, Charlie? Side bent.
Charlie:
You’d be right rough.
Rick:
Okay. So there’s a frontal plane of motion, there’s a sagittal plane, or you can call this flexion and extension, and then there’s transverse plane. You’d call that rotation. So your body is moving simultaneously in those three planes of motion. So once you understand that, “Hey, in my back swing I’m bent to the left.” Well, how many players do you see that…
Charlie:
Moving off the ball.
Rick:
Yeah, their shoulders are turning level or flat. They’d need more side bending. Well, guess what? You can acquire that in a short amount of time just by understanding, “Hey, let’s get a little more side bend on the left.” Or how many players do you see that are side bent through impact? All the great players.
Charlie:
Yep.
Rick:
Well, you’ll see some of the people that have lost that mobility, right shoulder’s moving higher. So all of these little things matter.
Charlie:
So let me jump in there. So what I notice as I’m getting older is I try to recruit power from where it’s always been, and now all of a sudden, that power ain’t there. So my brain tries to get it from somewhere else.
Rick:
That’s right.
Charlie:
And that’s when the ball starts bouncing off of houses.
Rick:
That was a great analysis.
Charlie:
Right? Because the power got to come from somewhere and things don’t work. So Kinexit can help me get back to getting power from where I’ve always been able to do. I love that, and you got the benefit of if you get into this program, you going to play a little better golf, which is great, but you going to have a little better quality of life away from the golf course, which I value even more.
Rick:
That’s right. You make a great comment there about finding a source of power that’s different because something is locked up somewhere, if you will. Right?
Charlie:
Yep.
Rick:
So it all comes from the ground when you understand the kinematics or kinetics, if you will, kinematics of the golf swing, how there is a sequential motion, sequential motion that starts with your feet, through your hips, through your shoulders, through your arms, hands, club shaft, club head, into the ball.
Charlie:
Yeah.
Rick:
So maybe if you have something in the hips that’s not as mobile or stable or maybe you have something in the shoulders that’s not as mobile or stable, or maybe it’s just a simple issue of balance, then that steals that power and that transfer of power throughout your body to the ball.
Charlie:
And this is what it feels like. When that happens, every now and then it’s like in my downswing, my body becomes possessed. Everything is completely out of order, and I hit some shot that just feels so alien to me. Generally, the shot’s not very good, but it’s like, “Whoa. What happened?” So then I talked to some of my other older buddies and they’re like, “Yeah, every now and then that happens. It’s going to start happening more.” I don’t want it to happen anymore. It scares me when it does happen.
Charlie:
Let me ask you, the exercises, and we’re going to be demonstrating some of these. You can get all this information over at charlierymer.com, but is there any kind of special equipment that you need? I mean, you got to sign up for the service and you get the app, but does that mean you got to go off and buy $1,000 worth of stuff to do this program?
Rick:
Zero. No equipment needed.
Charlie:
I love that. I love that.
Rick:
When you’re starting with mobility and flexibility and stability, there’s some great exercises that it’s going to give you to start with, but the beautiful thing about the digital platform, Kinexit, is that you can take it to the next level if you choose to endurance, speed, agility, power. It’s all there in the platform. However, I would advise, and I advise all my students and the same with what we’re going to be doing with you, it’s to start small. Let’s start small and work on those cherries or whatever you want to call them.
Charlie:
Yeah, victories early in the process.
Rick:
Yes, and look, it’s just like balance. When you’re working with a student, maybe they can’t hold that finish position because of the balance in the left foot and hip. We have these [inaudible 00:45:34] receptors in the bottoms of your feet that are detecting this balance. Well, wait a minute, let’s wake those up. So in two or three days of just a simple balance exercise, I see students miraculously able to finish their golf swing and maintain their balance.
Charlie:
You have captured my attention. Rick, stick with us. We’re going to take a little break, and when we come back, we’re going to talk to Chris Mansson who is the president of Kinexit, which is based in Sweden. I’m not sure if we can actually call from Myrtle Beach to Sweden, but we’re going to give it a shot when we come right back. Don’t go away, folks.
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Charlie:
And we welcome you back to Balls in the Air. I’m your host, Charlie Rymer, with special guest Rick Murphy, PGA. I always got to put that in. We work hard enough to be PGA members, we need to make sure we get the comma PGA on our introduction every single time. Speaking of introductions, we’ve got a special guest now, Chris Mansson, who’s the CEO of Kinexit. Kinexit is based in Sweden, and Chris is on the line with us. Chris, we appreciate you joining us, and if you could just start out, maybe give us a little introduction of how Kinexit got started, we’d sure appreciate it.
Chris Mansson:
Thanks so much. Thanks for having me. Well, long story short, I started my background… I’m a licensed personal trainer and been working with golf players and golf professionals my whole career. I’m not in bound a golf professional, but being playing golf my whole life, I came out from actually a tennis background. So playing with sports and at least sports in that perspective, it’s something that I’ve come from, but got into the perspective of working a lot with golfers and saw a little bit of an opening and an opportunity in the market and got to be able to work with two of my co-founders, one who’s a doctor in chiropractic and one who’s a physical therapist.
And we started to think of the idea of there’s a lot of software out there, but it was really nothing out there that had the customized sort of solution or the ability to create individualized training for players. This is based on all sports. So we started working, and we went into the lab, and it took us about two years to develop Kinexit with the understanding of based on a simple screening that a player would do or an athlete, that the Kinexit AI, or the artificial intelligence, would spit out or filter out the exercises that are based on the actual person.
Two years later, we ended up developing about 10 sports and got the perspective of, “You know what? This is great, but we need to make a decision. We can’t go for all these sports at the same time.” And ended up working with some really, really great profiles, some who had really senior executive roles when it comes to different manufacturing companies and so forth and just got really, really interested about the golf side of things. So we decided on golf for a number of different reasons being such a massive sport seeing one of the biggest leading industries and so forth.
You play golf from when you’re born to, pretty much, you die and there’s just a lot of openings for and a lot of interest for technology, and we’re really interested about the combination of teaching fitness and equipment and the combination of creating that total [inaudible 00:49:56] experience. So once we got into golf, we just opened it from there and working with PJ Professional Academies and Clubs is something that we’ve done since then, and it’s just been an absolute pleasure the last couple years building this business and working close with them.
Charlie:
And Chris, the timing right now with the world, hopefully the very end of this horrible global pandemic, people saw during 2020 that golf was one of the few things that they could do that was healthy, that was getting outside and the numbers worldwide of people playing golf have been phenomenal, and to have Kinexit available now for the first time direct to consumers and of course, obviously, will continue to be available to PJ Professionals they can use with their students, which it really enhance the product, but for consumers to be able to directly get this product through our relationship with what’s going on is something that you can do this at home and get benefits on the golf course and in your life. That’s got to be something that you have to be really excited about, the timing of it and the benefit that people can receive from this product.
Chris Mansson:
Oh, absolutely, and we’re super excited to be working with you and just being able to be invited into this great pod. Just looking at the trends right now, I mean, years ago, you got a lot of PJ Professionals that started working on their fitness and started adopting fitness regiments, and then over the last years, fitness has been growing and growing and growing, and now it’s just at a phase where, just looking at the latest major champions, fitness is there. I think it’s just a great opportunity working and helping players from that perspective and getting better.
We can go back to the whole thing of just looking at equipment, technique and fitness. Equipment, the manufacturers have done an amazing job in revolutionizing the sport, but when you maybe bought your fifth or your sixth custom driver, it’s hard to get that much better. And looking at the technical side, we’ve been working with so many professionals that we know that it’s not always easy to get to the level you want to be when your fitness isn’t there. You’re not able to rotate or you have some glitches in your body. That’s where we want to make it incredibly easy for the player to be successful there.
We created our AI that can pick out what mobility, what stability, what strength exercises that are good for me based on our three steps with our screening, the way we give feedback to our players and the way we help them improve, basically.
Charlie:
Well, I’m very excited about this year. In fact, Rick’s going to be putting me through that evaluation. He’s going to help me monitor my progress with Kinexit. One of the things I want to ask you about is a lot of times, most of the folks playing golf, we like to talk about you want to grow it among younger players, and we do. We’re picking up some younger players, but most of people playing golf are 50 years plus, and they hear about something that has to do with fitness, and they’re like, “Oh, no. I can’t do it.” That’s not the case with your product. Can you tell me a little bit about how someone who’s 50, 60, 70 years old might benefit from this product?
Chris Mansson:
Well, first of all, that’s a great, great aspect around it, and what we’ve learned is that it’s not always about the going to the gym and having to spend 60 minutes, historically, what a lot of players would do, and sometimes… To be honest, the best training is the training that gets done. If you like going for walks or if you like doing things, you have to do what you feel is the best for you, but creating a simple and easy routine that you can do at home or they can do a little bit every day, we like two aspects. One is the concept of no sweat training.
Charlie:
Amen! You get an amen from me on that!
Chris Mansson:
Oh, yeah, and I think catering to the players that love to play golf but, “I’m not super comfortable going to the gym,” and that’s fine. At the end of the day, if you can do a little bit of the right stuff, there’s never any guarantees, but what we’ve seen in our results in the thousands of players have been on, we can create some tremendous results doing the right things at the right time. The other thing is a little bit every day rather than that big program, that big session you do once a week. You want something to be able to be repeated. You can do a little bit every day if you can.
So we like to say 15 minutes, three times a week at a minimum, but if you can do that session every day just for a few minutes, it can really take you a long way.
Charlie:
I’m listening to you, and I’m thinking, “I can do that.” And I’m looking forward to doing it, and I’m looking forward to my good friend Rick Murphy taking me through that. Let me ask you to finish up with this. You have a very special relationship with Rick Murphy, who’s a very accomplished PGA professional and in the world of teaching, in the world of PGA of America. Talk to me a little bit about that special relationship that you have with Rick.
Chris Mansson:
Well, to be honest, Rick is someone that we got exposed to and we got introduced to about, Rick, what was it now? Maybe 18 months ago, two years now. Rick was one of our early, early professionals in the U.S. Now, in the Nordics or in Scandinavia, we have established a really strong foundation of professionals, and right now we’re looking into the U.S. and U.K. and other parts of the world and Rick has been an early ambassador for us on not only with his relationships, his personality, but I think the thing that I think is really unique is that Rick is so open and so curious to learn new things.
He’s been well-established on the golf fitness side of things and done lots of education, and he knows a lot about the body. So for him, when we started talking, we both hit it off from that perspective, and working with Rick has been something that we’ve gained so much from both in insights. I call him. He’s really good friend of mine from that perspective. I think many times… Yeah, go ahead.
Charlie:
I was going to say he’d be a perfect friend if he could just putt a little bit better. He never putts well when he plays with me and we’re partners. No, Rick is obviously very passionate about golf, and he realizes now and has for a long time that fitness is a big part of the game. Chris Mansson, we appreciate you joining us, CEO of Kinexit. I don’t know what you’re going to do for the rest of your day in Sweden. You probably don’t have much daylight left this time of year is what I’m guessing. Am I correct on that?
Chris Mansson:
You are very correct. So for those that are interested in visiting Sweden, I would definitely recommend going in the summer. You’re not going to get a lot of light right now.
Charlie:
Yeah, I’ve heard it’s a beautiful place. I look forward to seeing it. Hopefully, I can visit you over there. In the meantime, I’ll send you my address. You can send me some of those Swedish Fish or Swedish Meatballs. That’s about all I know about Sweden. I do know Hanukah, too. That gives me some credit, as well. Chris, we appreciate your time. I’m really looking forward to working through your program with Kinexit.
Chris Mansson:
Thanks so much. Good luck.
Charlie:
Appreciate it Chris. Sharp guy, and I know y’all have a good relationship. You’ve done a lot of work to get this product to where it is. One of the things that I think it really neat about this opportunity that we have is up until now, this product has only been available to golfers or people interested in improving their fitness who are PGA professional, and it still is, but it’s also very possible to work through this program by yourself, correct?
Rick:
Absolutely. You can take this and go with it on your own. One of the things that attracted me to Kinexit and I think part of what our relationship has been built on is the fact that they will follow through. If you have a question about a workout routine or if you have a question about a specific exercise, there’s someone at Kinexit that you can talk to or email and get an answer quickly. They’re very communicative and engaging and want to help, and that stretches over to the PGA member where they will do all the marketing and campaigning for you. They’ll design emails for you, templates for you, whatever you need to help grow your business, they will do that.
I’ve been able, as I’ve talked about earlier, to monetize this. It’s become a nice revenue stream. At the same time, you’re helping people, which is my ultimate goal. So why not do it?
Charlie:
Absolutely. I love hearing it. I love this program. I’m excited about getting started with it. I’m going to do that today, and you’re going to put me through the evaluation. We’re going to see where we stand. There’s no judgment in this. As I understand, in the evaluation, you either get gold, silver or bronze. Bronze doesn’t bother me that much. So I’m sure I’m going to get a lot of bronze. I know I’ve got some work to do. All the information, Rick putting me through that evaluation, we’re going to video that. That’s going to be available at charlierymer.com as well as some of the core exercises. We’ll demonstrate some of that for you, as well. Pricing information also.
We said for the first time ever, the product is going to be available directly to the consumer. Everybody, this day and age, wants to know about the pricing. The price on that’s going to be 29.95 a month. If you commit to a whole year, it’s going to be $299.95 for the entire year. Of course, you got to do it, but I love the no sweat. 15 minutes, three times a week, no sweat with this program, and I’m excited about it. I need to do it, and I know a lot of people out there do, as well. Ultimately, at the end of the day, you’re going to feel better if you stick to this program. When you come see us here in Myrtle Beach to play some golf, you’re going to play better golf or wherever you play golf. We’re all about getting people playing golf here in the golf capital of the world, but we appreciate it when you look at coming here.
So as far as the podcast, Balls in the Air, we appreciate it if you give us a good rating, five stars if you think we earned it. Do you think we earned it, Rick?
Rick:
Absolutely.
Charlie:
Okay. I think we earned it, as well. As always, you can subscribe to this podcast wherever you listen to your podcast. So for Rick Murphy, I’m Charlie Rymer, our guest today Chris Mansson, the CEO of Kinexit, we appreciate you being with us, and we’ll see you right here next week on Balls in the Air.
