Fore Play - Tiger’s Kill Shot ft. Dr. Jim Afremow

Episode Date: March 3, 2022

Tiger Woods delivers a stunning and lethal Twitter kill shot after the final 2021 PIP results are released. We react and breakdown the list. Then we’re joined by Dr. Jim Afremow (01:29:02), a mental skills coach, doctor, and author who discusses the yips, performing under pressure, and Frankie.You can find every episode of this show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or YouTube. Prime Members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. For more, visit barstool.link/foreplaypod

Hey, 4Play listeners. You can find us every Tuesday and Thursday on Apple Podcast, Spotify, or YouTube. Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. Foreplay, we're by Barcelona Sports. We got the entire squad today, myself, Trent, Frankie, and Lurch, player impact program. So the PIP, this was just released this morning before we started recording the results. Basically, all the results of the top 10. They even came out with a little bit of data that we could break down. and it's obviously been an enormous point of contention, debate, chatter over the last year, year and a half, however long it's been. Tiger Woods won it, so a little spoiler right there.

But we got a lot to get to, and then we have Dr. Jim Afromo on this very show, who, for, to not beat around the bush, we brought him on to kind of diagnose Frankie and see if he could, you know, help Frankie and his chipping situation, butternives. And he actually began, I think, by saying, I heard we're going to put Frankie on the couch today. So, Frank, how do you think it went with Dr. Jim Afromo? It's my first time speaking with a professional in that field. It was a little nerve wracking going into it because I thought it's kind of like going to go into a doctor where you're about to get all your blood taken and they're about to do a stress test on your heart. You feel like once it's done, they're going to take you straight to the hospital.

You're never going to be able to come out. You never get to see your family again. It's over. I was thinking once I start this process, it's done. He's going to see that I'm broken. I'm damaged. I'm no good anymore and that I need to go into his office and where I'm not going to leave until he fixes my brain.

Turns out he's a super nice guy, really, you know, down to earth, easy to talk to, which I guess is why he's so good at his job. It was really interesting, man. He's, uh, he has a very simple way of thinking about life and it's, it's amazing how often we as normal people that don't have that thought process and all that knowledge in our brain about how the brain works and the mind works. that we just do the opposite of how he thinks and how he preaches. At one point, he said, I do the exact opposite of everything he teaches, he said.

So it's going to be an interesting world that I'm about to be living in with this fixing Frankie stuff and seeing how we can piece together what my program is going to look like. But this first introduction to this world, I thought was a really positive one. I thought this guy was awesome. And there's a lot that we all can learn from it. And, you know, it's really interesting. Trent and Lurch weren't on that call. It was, you guys got to listen back.

It was really eye-opening how much this guy can help you just by saying certain things. Like, why are you thinking that way? It's amazing. He really hit on some things that I think everyone that's not good at golf will feel like he's talking directly to you and about things that you've been through. And you'll feel a little creeped out that he, it's like he's crawling into your brain in those moments. And golf's such an interesting one because obviously all the cliches of golf ball doesn't move.

It's just sitting there. It's mental. Golf's played in the, you know, four inches or whatever it is between the space of your ears, all those cliches from golf. But it's true because almost any other sport that you do, I would say you're actually pretty competent at if you're doing it. Like, would you play roller hockey, Frank, even though you were new to it, like you can skate around and pass the puck and score if you're left.

like, you know, wide open on your, on your forehand and, like, you can feel pretty confident about the way that you're doing it. And basketball, like, you're out there. You could dribble and pass and, like, make a layup if you play basketball pretty frequently. Like, you can fucking do those things. You could throw a baseball to someone that's 20 yards away from you. You can throw a football with a decent spiral. Like, you can do most of those things pretty well. Golf, most people that play it suck at it and hit horrible shots all the time. And so his actually, you know, breaking down the fact that from a physical standpoint, we can. hit the shots. We can go to the driving range and hit the shots. We can during a round of golf hit that keeps you coming back. Another cliche. Why don't we do it all the time? And he's like, of course a lot of that is going to be working on your actual mental game. Like, why wouldn't you

work on your golf swing? You work on muscle memory. You work on getting stronger if you're trying to be into fitness. You work on, you know, your cardio. If you're really trying to improve your overall health and your heart rate and all those things, why wouldn't you work on your fucking brain? and the mental approach if you're trying to improve golf when that's such a big part of it. So he went through a lot of that. He also told stories about working with a college baseball catcher who could throw somebody out at second base

but could not throw the ball back to the pitcher. Like he literally had the yips of throwing the ball back to the pitcher. And so those types of fascinating, you know, mental kind of disconnections and then working with people to get through those things and how he did it. It was really, really interesting conversation. I think people were going to like it. I'm looking for to listen, honestly, because, like, if there's one guy in this room that's like,

it's always interesting to peel the covers back behind Frankie's head of, like, what you're thinking, what's wrong with that thought. Sometimes it's obvious, you know, it's like, it'll, I think I can't wait to listen. I'm bummer to miss that one, but, yeah, I mean, we're flying out west, so that'll be an easy download, easy listen and laugh about Frankie's choices. I think the other day on the range, Frankie, we were hitting balls right before the Homa match. And we're like, no, Frankie, we believe you can do it. And then you'd stripe them. And then when your mental side was like, dude, I'm not sure about this.

Just be a cold shank. So it's like that simple difference in your mind is amazing. And I mean, it's going to be an amazing series and amazing listen of like how wrong you are in different spots. Well, one of the things he, you know, we started, I didn't want it to be that I was his patient because that's what the series is going to be. We kind of just wanted to get an introduction to that world. Like, what is, what is the world of mental thinking on the golf,

in the golf world and all that stuff, right? Can't even say it. Jesus Christ. Anyway. So, at one point, you're, you're like Jim Carrey in Liar Liar when he like can't say that the pin is blue. No, that's like, I just couldn't do it. Can't write it.

The, uh, I started to kind of bleed out the way I think in my process. And at one point, I was like, you know, I'm just so self-deprecate. and when I step up to a to a wedge shot, the first thing I say to every single person around is watch out. And he's just kind of shaking his head being like, this is everything I've teach against. You're already setting the tone for negativity and for failure and for self-deprecation and just for negativity in your own brain. It's just like, fuck, man. I took a real thought after that. I took a real moment of thinking after that podcast being like, do I have to stop making fun of myself as much as I do?

do because I do like that. It's my personality. I enjoy it. I'm doing it to you guys right now. I'm having a therapy session. I enjoy making fun of myself. It's like one of my things that I do. Do I have to stop that to hit better chips? I don't know. It's like it's kind of crazy. You can make fun of yourself, I think, but when you settle over the ball, like the humor is amazing. But when you settle over the ball, there has to be a piece of you that's like, even if you don't say it out loud. And I think this is like the big miss on Bryson in terms of how he communicates the people and not humanizing himself is like when you're over the the ball, you have to be like, I can do this or else, or else it's just like, why are you even out here? When I'm over a ball, I say, oh boy.

I say, oh, boy. And that could honestly be the fundamental difference between you with the driving range and nobody, because you're just in your own head and you're like, all right, I can do this, I can do this, I can do this. Or maybe there's a small thought of that. But when there's people around or you have to execute to get a score to make a four, to make, you know, a five, save a bogey, you're just like, dude, I'm in a bad spot. And that's really right.

But it was really interesting Lurch because of how much the stuff that he spoke about and preached about, we all do horribly. I mean, he, you know, like Frankie's saying like saying to yourself, I can do this or like I'm going to do this.

And then visualizing yourself hitting that shot really well like you did on the practice chipping green for a while is really no different than, you know, a lot of times we stand over and one of your lines, Lurch was like, I had no plan there. And you stand over,

you know, a 110 yard shot. And literally as you're pulling the club back, right, I'm thinking like, man, I wish we would change that song. I really don't love that song. And him being like, you need like a mental routine because if you go through a physical routine, each shot that gets you in the right spot and then you hit it, but your mental routine is not the same.

You might as well not do anything. You might as well be on another planet or be a different person or playing a different game. Like you need to train yourself to be in that right mental state. And it doesn't have to be for, you know, two and a half minutes, but even for those like five seconds before you pull it back and then as you hit the shot, like being in that consistent and positive like mindset is is everything. It's the entire difference. And him kind of talking through that and how there's science and, you know, proof and evidence of that working was like,

dude, so many shots I hit. I'm thinking about something so different than what I'm actually trying to do or what I should be thinking about. And so then again, then he gets to Frankie And it's obviously magnified and and the whole thing's a lot more funny. But you're right, Frankie. I almost started thinking as he was saying that like, does Frankie need to stop making fun of himself or is he, is he incapable of getting good at golf or around the greens if he makes fun of himself? Is that not?

You can't do those two things at the same time. Yeah, we'll figure it out. And I think that's what the series is going to try and uncover. And at the end of it, if I have to stop making fun of myself, maybe I'll be a healthier person and I'll be better, you know, better person to go to, better person to go to, Better person to go to dinner with than like just every time in that. Just like a better person overall.

Like maybe maybe this will just help me in all aspects of life. So it's fun to dive deep into this world. I will say shout out to the Higgs video too because it is like within this and go watch that if you haven't. We did so many videos that day that I actually forgot a lot of what he said. And we're playing some outrageous golf this weekend that we I believe we'll probably get into. Maybe just touch on it a little bit about what's like that. Yeah, Dad by Classy. Maybe we'll get into that.

Yeah, but the Higgs idea of just the plan with regards to field goals is what I'm going to strive for this weekend when we play of like acceptable field goals to get into that allowance. And I want to see if I can do that for 84 shots or I guess like 42 if you're talking about putting or something like that of just like keep hitting the field goal and have a goal to everything. And because what we were talking about Higgs is like, dude, I just look at the flag and just fire at it. and there could be a horrible spot to fire, or fire long of the flag and, like, find that landing zone. So, I mean, we've said this before, but, like, field goals. I like that, like, basic message and be okay with it. You anticipating 42 putts around at the DVC or what?

I think that's about right. I think that if, I think that's like... You, yeah, I think that's probably... I think if I go out and play golf, I just associate half of my strokes for putts. You were like, I can't wait to do this new mental approach to golf, this course management. You know, for 42, for 42 putt.

Oh, maybe, I mean, I'll have 42 puts for sure. So maybe for 42 swings, I'll be able to hit the field goals. God, that's so bad. Dude, if you hit the field goals, you'll have way less putt. If you hit the field goals, you'll hit. Yeah, you're right. I mean, potentially, yes. So that is like my mental tick where I need to have optimism around putting,

which is a mess. But, I mean, now that you pull that cover back, I'm just as bad as you when you talk about fun. Oh, yeah. I mean, there's no doubt about that. Dude, I think we all are. That's one of the biggest reasons for doing the series and talking to this guy. Like, I think no one thinks about this stuff.

We all just go out and golf. We go to the driving range. We hit a million balls. We go to the chipping range. We hit a million chips. We put. We think we're good golfers. We spend so much money on clubs and gear and memberships and all this shit.

And no one thinks about actually how to play the game and all the things we're thinking about. There's a reason why certain guys go pro and certain guys don't. It's because they just know how to do the mental stuff. I just had one of the guys, one of my buddies just texted me and was like, it's amazing how much knowledge Harry Higgs just has and we don't. Like, why does he know that stuff and we don't? Why does he know that when the wind is behind your back, it doesn't draw as much and stuff like, you know what I mean?

Like, why is there all this knowledge about the game of golf? And is that what separates him? Like, Riggs already made the point that we all could physically do it at some level. They're not superhuman. I mean, Harry Higgs is like a big, beautiful boy. I mean, he's no fucking superhuman. And at the end of the day, it's not like he was born with any ridiculous physical attributes that we can't achieve. He just knows stuff and is able to unlock certain things in his brain that we can't.

So why aren't we all taking something from that and learning it? We'll be better. Hello? Yeah. Riggs and I were having that conversation about like when we do these four-man scrambles of, is it impressive or is it wildly like pathetic that there's four of us first one? And his take was much different than I, which I actually was like, oh, that is kind of interesting. His, he was like, I actually sometimes think in Riggs, you can talk you over, it's like, it's amazing that we can compete with them because we are, you know, one out of four hitting the shot that they're kind of hitting to get to a similar or better score, sometimes worse. And that like paradox of like, yeah, well, there's four of us.

So we should be able to, but they're the best in the world at it. And we are like 25% of the time doing that is somewhat wildly, like impressive to me. It was a fascinating conversation, and it was weird because it felt like we were both right. Like we, and there was no real way to, this was in the car ride after the Max Homa match, and we were debating, like, is it embarrassing that we have really tight matches and don't blow these guys out, that we get four attempts for every one of theirs, or is it incredibly impressive that we're just four average Joe Shmo's, and we can compete and almost defeat them and post the same score? and Lurch was basically like it's pretty pathetic.

And I was like, I think it's kind of really impressive. And I want to get into that. First, we got to get into animal. I'm actually looking through some of these. I know Frankie Mitchin just having fun earlier versus grinding and being in some crazy mental state. Maybe life will be more fun. Enter animals. I played with these guys.

I'm going through right now. Okay, here's a camel. You get a camel if the ball lands in a sand trap. You get a dolphin if the ball skips across the water three or more times. So instead of it, you get a camel. focusing only on your score and being in some boring trap playing golf the same way you've always played you can play anemules, you can download this puppy for free

and then every time you hit one of these shots you acquire an animal. Whoever has the most animal whenever the beverage cart rolls around, well you owe the group around a drink. Beverage cart might come every two holes, might come every eight hole you just don't really know. So it is a completely different way of playing. And again, it just introduces all kinds of cool terminology, funny terminology. The rock lobster.

Okay, you can acquire the rock lobster if the ball hits a rock. Snake is obviously a three-putt. I think a lot of people have played snake before. So you just have the zookeeper is whoever has the most animal animals. And whenever the beverage cart rolls around, zookeeper buys a round of drinks, whatever people want from the beverage cart. And then it's a clean slate and you start all over again. You see whoever has the most animal.

So download the app. There's, you know, like anything, there's, you know, like anything, there's a little bit of, I guess, premium option that you can have if you want to buy in, get a little bit more interactive with the app and all that. But Animal's is awesome. Go download for free. These guys are cool. They have a great time playing it.

And it's a different way to play. Skill level is kind of thrown out the window and all these other, you know, way of looking at the game come in. You're not necessarily focused on if you shot like 79 or 87 or whatever. You're focused more if your golf ball hit like the cart path or not. So cool, different way to look at. So I wanted to get into a lot of this because I wanted to kind of react to the Harry Higgs video strategy, kind of like noticing our games, the mental approach. A lot of it kind of has some synergy together.

Lurchin and I's conversation was a little bit in line with Dr. Jim Afromo where, you know, one of the questions we asked him was like, man, we can all hit the shot, right? Like the golfer that goes out and shoots like 87, most of them can go out. and hit four or five drives around that go like 260 to 290, 300 down the middle. And they can hit a seven iron the exact yardage they want to hit it right dead straight. They can do it. We've all done it. Why can't we do it all the time?

Why can't we just do it really consistently? And that was a lot of his mental breakdown. And that was a lot of what led to kind of the same mindset led to mine and Lurch's conversation. I'm like, if you, and I said alerts, like if we sat there and we sat there and We each got one attempt to defeat Rafael Nadal in a point in tennis. We would lose, you know, 40 love every game, 6-0, every set. We wouldn't get any points, none, zero.

But when we go out and we get four attempts to hit a golf shot, you know, we can compete and we have these matches that go down to 18 against Kiz. You know, we killed Joel Damon, who I don't know was really there that day. Pat Perez lift out, like we hold our own. own against them. And Lurch made the point that like, well, we're not competing against the player. You're actually competing against the golf course versus in the other one. Like that guy gets to directly react physically to what you did and you go back and forth. And that that's a different nature of the game, which is true. So it kind of led to this and, you know, never ending

conversation debating whether it's really impressive that we could do it or whether it's cheating. I think it's a little bit of both in that it's infuriating that we can between the four of us who we collectively stink at golf. Like if you go watch the band and travel series, like a little bit of wind picked up and none of us could break fucking 85 or 90 and we play golf all the time. We were playing from like 6,300 yards.

But as a foursome, not like playing any different T's, we don't get strokes, nothing. We just went out. And as a collective group, we hit basically the same shots that Max Homa hit,

that Kevin Kisner hit. Like, we were able to come up with those shots physically among us. And I think that's crazy impressive. I think that's actually impressive. Well, I'd also argue, at least for myself on the mental side of it, when we do four-man scrambles, I am far more comfortable on the golf course than I am playing by myself,

just by the nature of the format, because I usually hit first, and I know that, I mean, I'm the worst golf in the group, but at that time, I'm thinking, all right, you are either going to hit a great shot and it's going to be awesome, or you're going to hit a great put and it's going to go in and people are going to go crazy, or I got my guys behind me where I have three better golfers than me who are likely going to hit her better shot than I. So I think I almost wish, and it's not possible, but I wish I could get into that mental state

when I play by myself where just be comfortable. Like either hit a good shot or don't, but, you know, air on the side of hitting a good shot. It's just that four-man scramble. And I actually think that makes it, I don't know if it makes it less impressive or more impressive in terms of the conversation you guys are having.

But like, just getting into a different mental state when you're playing in that format helps me times a billion. Like there's so many clips of me hitting great putts during four-man scrambles, and then you go and watch the Breaking 100 series, and I'm flying by the hole at 1,500 miles per hour. So it's like, and I really do think that's all mental. When I'm standing over a putt in the four-man scramble,

I'm thinking, A, I want to make the putt, and B, if I don't, I think we're still going to be in a better position because of the guys behind me. When I'm playing by myself, that is completely out the window and it's all on my shoulders. I don't know how you get into the right mental state,

and kind of going back to what you guys are talking about generally, like it's not going to happen overnight. Like we've been playing golf for decades and we've had these same thoughts. Frankie's been making fun of himself. We've all had these same thoughts. So it's going to take a lot of work. And I think that ultimately ends up being the difference between there's a lot of differences.

But one of them is Harry Higgs is willing and committed to put in the work, the mental work, the physical work, all that stuff. And then you put that together and you get a professional golfer. We're a bunch of idiots who make fun of ourselves. Don't really work on the mental side of it, although Frankie's going to do that with this new series, and it's going to be awesome. So it'll be interesting to see the type of strides he can make

when you actually make a full commitment to the mental side of it. And that's something that none of us has ever really done, right, is truly commit to improving at golf in general, but especially the mental side. I mean, I wouldn't even know where to begin, and that's what's going to be cool about Frankie's series, is him learning, like, how you can actually begin and navigate your way through it.

But I wouldn't even know where, what am I going to sit on the stand on the practice screen and just think for 30 minutes. Like, what about, what are you going to do? Like, how are you supposed to do it? I don't think the average person would have any clue. I don't know either. That was the thing that Trevor Luma said about Tiger Woods,

where he would get into the putt. And sometimes he'd spend a day on one putt. And so I actually remember as a kid, and, you know, my dad would be locked me in the room, like, you just have to do some homework. So, like, do whatever, but you have to think through it. So I remember just sitting there, be like, what am I doing here?

You know, and so, but then sometimes you'd get into it. And I don't know. I'd write all sorts of things down on I was studying. Obviously, never made it to any sort of elite level of study or athletics. So didn't really pan out for myself. No. No. So, but to think that Tiger is standing over a putt, same putt, maybe, you know, puts a T down and is like, I'm going to put from this spot and get into the mastery of exactly that put, whether it's six inches of break from left to right or right to left up downhill is amazing. And I think there's so much. much that we miss with regards to like how I was just talking about 42 puts and like mentally okaying that. And then Frankie calls me out and he's like, that's everything that's wrong with our mental ability is like you just okayed 42 puts and was like that's a fine round of golf. It's like there's no belief in there. There's no like expectation you're going to do better. Ten more than you should have. That's just 10 more. It does sounds good, but what it's amazing what happens when you apply yourself. Like we don't even attempt to apply ourselves. Like you're talking about with the homework

Larch. And I was the same way. Like, I'm not, I wasn't a great student. But when I actually sat down and like gave it a shot, like, I have a brain and like it's capable of certain things. When you don't even think about it or you don't even like give it an effort, of course it's not going to change. Of course you're not going to get better. But how dumb are we to think that like we can't get to that level? What you just said of like, because there's times where we stand over a ball and there's no expectation. There's no thought. And we're expecting maybe in the back of our head that we're going to have a better outcome. But it's like we know. that that's the answer. But we're so dumb, we're so, like, we're not applying ourselves at all. We still can't get there. We apply ourselves a lot to trying to make our swings better. And that's the one thing. Obviously, the pros, we're talking about how we could like, just, if we concentrated more, we'd be able to replicate our swings more and more. But I think a lot of it does come from technique. Like, they find the slot more. So more often than not, they're going to be able to hit the ball in the center of the club face for more often. Then, therefore, leading to less shanks and tops and all those things.

So at the end of the day, yes, it comes to so much practice and repetition. We're never going to be able to achieve. Max almost hit way too many golf balls for us to ever be able to be as good as him. And that's just dedication that he had. But what we're trying to say, what at least I think is that if we apply the same mental strategy

that they know and that they've unlocked in their brain throughout a round, my 89, 91, 86 can maybe turn to a 79, 80, 81. one, we're just significantly better golfers. We enjoy the game more. And the only thing that takes it from the higher number to the lower number is applying yourself mentally. And it's kind of crazy when you think about when you're in school and you mentioned like doing homework and going to classes and all this stuff.

And I was always so much better when I genuinely enjoyed the subject, right? If you math, I fucking hated it. I had this teacher, Ms. Brower, and she fucking hated me. She used to kick me out every single day. I hated her so much. There's a left tour told Ms. Broward. I would love to be applying the wall for that relationship. We just did it.

We just didn't fucking gel. And I would like, why is math even math? And what's, like, you're just making this. You just made this up to teach other math teachers. That's what I would say. Like, the only people that are ever going to write that on a paper. That made her feel real good. That's a real.

Like, we just, that's a fucking mean thing to say. It's true, though. All my other teachers love me. You know, the whole thing. But like science or learning about the cosmos or cosmic science, learning about fucking planets. Like, I loved that stuff. I maybe didn't retain the information because I was so dumb. but I enjoyed it and I wanted to read about it.

The thing that's interesting about golf is that we love it so much and we dive so deep into swings and trying to get better and playing and getting gear, but we don't think about it the way we do about subjects in school. Like when I would dive into something in science or social studies and I wanted to learn about like American history or something, I was like all in on everything about it. But with golf, we leave out such a big part of it because we just want to play it. I don't know if it's like the sport aspect of it, like that we don't want to take the time to like think off the course about it.

Like we just always just want to play. We want to hit the ball. We want to get it in the hole and that's all we want to do. Like for some reason I just don't unlock that love for learning all the stuff that we need to learn. You know what I mean? And I hope I can find that, but I just don't love that. I don't, my brain doesn't have like a dopamine thing that comes off when I learn about like all the mental stuff about golf. I just don't love it.

Yeah, I know what you mean. It's interesting in golf, Frankie, because like playing hockey. hockey and when you play hockey once a week, you're out there just playing, right? But you don't ever really think about how you're going to try to get better at hockey, right? You just like play and then you go have a beer after and then you play again a week later. Whereas in golf, it's so different in that you play and you want to be better and then you think about all the time how you can be better. And then when you're not playing, for whatever reason, you think about like, okay,

I'm going to try to be better in the shadow swings at gas stations, right? Fucking people were standing at the gym taking shadow swings, like trying to get better, it's so different than other games and sports in that nature for whatever fucking reason and that we're constantly thinking about getting better at it when, you know, if you play flag football on the weekend, you don't think all week about how you can get better at flag. You just fucking show up and play. It's like, yeah, it's, I think 99% of golfers when they go to the, I am, this is who I am. I go to the driving range and I just hit golf balls. I just hit them. Yeah. I try and get the ball in the air. I'm not, and I'm being completely honest,

That's the only thing that goes in my head is like, let me take this club back to my back swing and I'm just going to hit this golf ball. And I'm going to hit 50 to 60 of them and then I'm done. I'm not thinking about anything. Maybe from time to time I'm like, oh, let me try to come more inside. But never am I trying to like do a muscle memory thing where it's like a certain amount of shots, certain amount of ball flight, certain amount of greens hit? Never.

I don't think about anything. Well, and they're all short term goals as well. Like, if you're at the range and you're pulling them, you're like, all right, how do I not pull it? But you're not thinking about how you can not pull it the next time, or at least I never do, right? You're just trying to solve it for that very moment, but you're never thinking, how can I implement a swing change? So that never happens again. You're just like, if I could stop pulling it today and in the next shot, that'd be a huge win. So let's just do that.

And then you'll literally do anything. You'll like, come around it, swing inside, and try to hold off for just my. miles until it just doesn't yank left. And literally, but it's just that one swing. It's not like that's going to be repeatable the next time. And we all laugh because it's like every swing that Riggs claims to have had is fundamentally different. And like that in itself. In your head, it's completely different. It's so different. It's a nightmare. But in video, it's funny because they all look identical. Like you and your head think, wow, that was different what I did there. And you look on video and they're the same. And I, you know, I think, Frankie, your point about

truly applying yourself and enjoying it is so pertinent because I look at like my hockey career. I look at that and I always think like my biggest failure in life was my hockey career where I just like could have been so good. And then I look at the time when I was pretty even with guys that are now in like the NHL. And I look at like Alex Kalorin who two times Stanley Cup champion, you know, second third liner for the Tampa Bay Lightning, best team in the NHL the last three or four years. And you know, he and I arrived at college. pretty much same time.

And he just genuinely embraced applying himself. Like he ate properly at age fucking 18. And he would go look at video and he would go work on his his wrist strength and all these things that I never ever was willing to do. Never. I just like you, I didn't enjoy. I showed up to the rank. I wanted to get on the ice. I wanted to fucking battle and skate and try to score.

And then afterwards, that was it. It was just there's a whole other life. and truly like applying yourself and and to bring it full circle like with harry higgs and all that knowledge that he has like that motherfucker contrary to the boisterousness and the unbuttons and ripping his shirt off like remember how struck we were in that hour of 40 minute podcast and then that whole hour to have video that we did with how passionate and obsessed and almost nerdy he was about golf and you know we really realized like man underneath at all great song he is so into this and knows so many things and it's not just that he knows him and then he hits balls

and he goes something like you could tell that he enjoys being nerdy about this and being obsessed with this shit and he loved sharing that information with us and he loved like going through our mental approach and telling us pretty much what we need to tweak and change and how we need to move the fuel goals in the middle of the green like he was obsessed with that stuff he was you know how fired up he got at his fucking caddy when he you know thought that he gave him the bad intel and hitting the driver out of bounds and that whole story. Like he's so fired up and he's a guy that we look as like, oh, happy go lucky, he just shows up and plays golf really well.

Like that guy, that motherfucker applies himself. And we don't apply ourselves to 1% of the, you know, a degree that he does. And of course, there's a huge difference. And like, hey, Lee Olstrom, I saw you tweeting about her quote tweeting this the other day, Lurch. Like, she had a great tweet. And I've played with her a couple times and she's always made this point of like, she basically said, if you don't go to the range once a week and you don't practice

putting like twice a week. you do not get to be upset when you hit bad golf shots. Like there's like, and DJ's made that point before of like, if you don't practice golf, you're going to fucking suck it golf. And any other outcome that you believe you should have in your brain, you're just wrong. Yeah, it's just delusional. But that's like, honestly, where I live. It's where everybody else lives.

It's like, no, I like, I'm going to be good today. And you're like, step up to the first team. And sometimes I feel good, have coffee. But, you know, you're just like ready to play, feel loose. And you're like, dude, I'm going to rip it today. And then when you suck or shanked the first ball it goes to some place that you never thought it could go, you're like, how is that possible?

It's like, well, did you ever, have you practiced in the last couple of years? No, I've just shown up with the golf. It's good. Of course you're not going to be good at this game. This game is really hard. You never practice it. So applying, it would be really,

it will be really interesting, especially with Frankie's. It was really interesting with Trent's breaking 100, right? Like, Trent, for the first time, truly applied. to getting better at the game of golf. And it worked. I mean, it just worked.

Like he went to Five Iron. He hit balls. He had an actual game plan and a mind, a thought process behind his golf swing and his golf game and how he was going to get from 105 or 110 to less than 100. And it fucking worked. It can work. It really can. You have to at least try.

You know, you have to try. And all this goes back to what Trevor Lilliman said about Tiger, where it's like somehow, like, that he has hooked up his dopamine receptors to enjoying the process. Like when he would get lost with putting, I guarantee Tiger loved that and it felt like an hour to him. Like 10 hours felt like an hour. And if you can somehow unlock that and you, then you're really, you're in business with a lot of this stuff.

I mean, everybody's seen this photo, but I posted on a couple months ago. The ballmark on Tiger's putter, I think is maybe the most impressive thing in the history of the world, not even sport. It's like you hit, I mean, sure, you can make a dummy mark on a driver, you can make a mark on a wedge. Give me the science on how many times it takes to strike a golf ball with a putter at very slow speeds to make a ballmark. That is, that's not to be believed, honestly. I don't even know how that's possible. It's crazy.

He's been putting with that thing, I think since like 1998 or 1999. So that fucking thing has. Getting it on the same spot. Same spot. Five years, okay, of that guy grinding over the guy. More than our entire adult lives, any of us on this show, that guy has just been grinding day after day after day, after day hitting the same spot with that putter. Of course, when he stands over a four footer, it just goes in the middle of the hole.

Like, how could it miss? How could it fucking miss? Think about your expectations of trying to beat that guy when you've seen he's put in the practice to make a ballmark on a putter and you're just showing up being like yeah dude i think i can shoot 70 today you know it's like you got no shot of beating that guy none no chance none riggs you brought you brought up an interesting point there are some people and i i played high school football i didn't go any further than that but there are people who just love it they love practicing they love doing it and i don't know what that difference is like the differences between you and that guy

i was more i was far more like you than that guy but there there were there were guys who just like were in the gym first one's in the gym last one's out and that i'm curious like what the research says in terms of i just don't understand the mental part of people there's you're either born with it or you're not that's what it seems like to me seeing that from the outset because you couldn't make me love going to lift at 5 a.m the morning you could not do it i refuse to do that but there's guys who love it and i don't know what the difference is and when i left college trend i remember like when hockey you know college hockey career was over i remember thinking i will never go to the gym ever again and i've pretty much never gone to the gym ever again like i

just hated it it wasn't even that i didn't enjoy it i fucking hated it and it was like when you whenever you put me on the ice i believed i could nobody could get the puck away for me i could score at any moment and nobody wanted to win more than i did but off the ice like guys all a sudden could get the puck away from me because they were in the gym getting jim getting just stronger than I was. And it was like on some level, they could just do it. And like, they could just shoot the puck a little harder than I could because they got stronger and they like worked on it.

And like, and that, that difference is I imagine, you know, we talk in golf a lot about how fucking good so many players are in Monday qualifying. Guys have to shoot like 62 and they still somehow don't get in. That's got to be the difference at that level because there are, you know, hundreds or thousands of people that are really, really good at golf or hockey or, well, of but having that you know I think or you got to force that out of you but it's the guys that made it you know from my team and that's the only example I was really a part of that made it from my team fucking loved it they were the hardest grinders in the world and lurch knows like one of our

one of our best buddies Mike his two brothers his two brothers played professional hockey and they're awesome and they are they worked so hard they were like their whole approach to it was encompassing. Alex Beagle is still playing pro hockey. He's played a bunch of games in the NHL. Their brother Mike was like as as good or

infinitely better than they could have been. He was so good at hockey and he was much more like us. He just like love to hang out. He didn't and don't give me wrong to play at that level. Like there's working really hard. You're in the gym. You're in great shape. But going that extra mile and

genuinely enjoying it is such a difference and especially when the game's gotten to where it is now. like when we had Jeremy Roneck on, he talked a lot about how like in the 80s and 90s, it just, whoever got by kind of doing what our approach is would be the best player in the world. But now when you get to that level where it's, you know, the fitness and the training and all of that and the nutrition, like that whole approach makes guys just a little bit better to the point where in, you know, over 82 games in the NHL or over four rounds of 72 holes. like that's actually way better and it's the difference between a you know a career or being top

10 in the world and not really making it and you have to I think you have to love it or you have to teach yourself how to love it. That's super interesting. Yeah. It is. It is crazy because like none of these guys love it on this show. I'll tell you that. But like Biagher like watching him play hockey like painted a beautiful picture like and I was

lucky enough to play like Yandel when we played each other in high school. He always found space. He always had space. just a magician with the puck in terms of how he created. Watching Viega play was like the same way and I asked him one time I was like Beega like why not?

Why didn't you make it? He's just like I love Bud Lights and I'm like oh man dude I get that I get that dude That's fine He's the best and he's like the nicest fucking dude in the world but he's so sick at hockey and his two brothers

went on and played pro and he just didn't He was like no I'm just all set I'm gonna go hang out and Southie and he's made a billion friends and he's awesome and it's just It just reminds me of kind of what we're speaking about it. So it is funny, man, that applying yourself in the difference and the mental approach, it's all, that's all things that clearly this podcast could do a lot more of if we really wanted to be better at golf, but I really doubt that we will.

Go out and apply yourself to that audience. You know what I mean? It matters. You know, if you apply yourself. We're really, it's a motivational show right here. Owens might motivate you. All right. If you want to go the other direction, just maybe have a couple cocktails and enjoy yourself just at Owens. I'm actually out at, at Pebble. We came over yesterday. the boys are coming out later this week for the Dad Bob Classic, which we will get into. But they have the transfusion, Barstile Transfusion by Owens at Pebble, and they have it at the Hay, which is the Tiger Woods New Part 3 course. I saw yesterday for the first time.

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that we're having. I played on Sunday with Max Holmes Cady, Joe, Joe Greiner. Awesome guy, really good player. I think he and his partner lost in the quarterfinals last year at Chambers Bay in the USGA four ball. So clearly a really good player. And I love playing golf with him. He's a really good dude.

He's a really good player. so obviously that part's fun but he loves talking golf just like we do and picking his brain about Max and Max's game and he was you know him and Max played in the shark or him and Kisner played in the shark shootout together last year Max and Kiz and you know Kiz is obviously completely different games really like Kiz doesn't hit it nearly as far as Max but putts lights out max hits it and we all saw in person as impressive as any human being on planet Earth but he putts you know not as well as Kiz.

He's not bad putter, but he putts not as well as Kiz. And me and Joe were talking about it. Joe was like, you know, it was really interesting for us because Max is very linear. So like golf swing,

he's very linear. He's always looking at his lines, you know, the path of the club and the lines. And then on the greens, he's very linear as well. He always likes to line it up, you know,

with arrow and a line. And that's his line. And he's like, Kiz is very feely. He's like, Kiz gets on the green. And he just sees how the ball's going to take the shapes of the green

and just roll into over in. into the hole and he's more almost like metaphysical about the whole thing and he's not looking at it very linearly and he's like in neither way is the right way but he's like it stuck out to me how you could have two guys that are both you know 30 35th 40th in the world who look at something so simple as putting which is just rolling the you know rolling the ball end over end with a little flat stick he's like they look at it completely differently and he's like that just you know stuck out to me in so many different approaches that, you know, you can have. And I told them, I was like, man, I remember when we played a scramble against kids,

first couple of holes you're still getting used to it. We haven't really played much golf with PGA Tour pros at that point, especially that was two years ago. And we're so used to, when we play with our buddies, if somebody has a four, six, seven, eight footer, like, you're just waiting for them to miss. They miss all the time, like all the time. They never go in. And I remember I told them, I was like, first four or five holes, kids had one or two of those. The first hole he left himself like eight feet short.

And I remember us all thinking like, ooh, here's a little chance. And he just poured them dead in the heart. And I was like on the back nine when he had those puts, every one of us just, you just knew he was making. Like there was zero point zero percent chance he was going to miss. And Joe was like, yeah,

Kiz is one of those guys where he just sees the ball going in, steps in and bears it. And I remember that Kiz sat on the show after he won the wind him, he was like, if one of these other guys in this playoff don't make their put, I'm winning this. Like this four foot slider I have, there's no way it doesn't go in. It's just, it's going to go in.

And that's so positive. And none of us think that way. That's also a guy who has like talking about the mental side of it. Just insane confidence. Like I remember working with Tillery and we were just like just hanging out talking like in between like the Bay session or whatever. And he would be like, Kisner's the only guy I've ever met who is five foot nine, but also thinks he has a 10 foot dick.

And then he's just like, and then he also thinks that he's like the biggest, strongest. but we all know Kisner he's like a pretty modestly sized guy but he in his brain in his mind he thinks he's the baddest motherfucker on the planet and I would say that goes a long way in terms of making puts like that he's just he just has it we're talking about when you were talking about when you were talking about homo before and like saying next to him and now Kizner are like why are they it's been breaking my brain ever since we talked about like why are they just able to be better than us right what is it yeah so I as we're sitting here I texted Brock Nelson amazing hockey player the guy is just phenomenal.

I just said, why are you a pro hockey player? It's like such a generic question, right? It's a great question, though. Has he ever thought about it? I don't know that he's ever sat there and been like, why. Like, he's just been on this ride

from the time he was born to the time now. He's just, like, that's just how it is. And like, why was he able to do it? And I was like, is it like, how did you get there? And he's like, it has to, he goes, it has to be.

The way he starts it. He doesn't even know, right? He's like, it's got to be a combination of hours practice, mentality, and genetics. And I said, all right, well, like a lot of people have good genetics. And he's saying, but what do you think the average hand-eye coordination is across the general public? And if we don't think it's that great, then guys born with just better hand-eye coordination are now elevated to a level in which their peers and everyone around them are lower than them.

Then you add the mentality on top of that because you're generated with better hand-eye coordination and you just have a higher level of skill, just born with it. And then you add the hours of practice and boom, you have a pro player. Is that not the recipe right there? So it's like, I know that a lot of people say that like you're not born with greatness. You have to earn it and you have to work for it. But fuck, there has to be a reason why he's able to tip the puck out of the fucking air more than other people. It can't be like just practice.

And it can't be just mentality. No, there's a part of that too for sure because going back to my days of playing football. I also knew guys who worked harder than anybody, who were the first guys there and the last ones to leave, and they didn't even start. They couldn't break through, for whatever reason that is, they couldn't get a spot on the starting roster.

And I do think that goes to what Brock is saying, where you can do everything right and work as hard as possible, but if you're not born with just a little bit of something more, you're just not going to become a pro athlete. And I think the other piece is like knowing yourself. Like, just like you're talking like, Riggs is talking about golfers think about it differently. You know, like you have to know what drives you, what you can accomplish, what you can accomplish. Yeah, that makes sense of the search.

It's almost like you, so like these guys were born to do that thing. And had they chosen something else because they didn't know, they never would have been anything. But because they went in the perfect lane from what their brain, body genetics were made to do, right? Like he is made to be a hockey player and he just happened to be one. Like the way his genetics and his eyes and his hands and all that come together, he would not have been a Hall of Fame accountant. He would have, like, he had to be a hockey player. But then even, like, go past that and, like, get the mentality, it's like,

he's understanding the game the way Brock Nelson needs to understand the game to have, like, outrageous success. And the way, like, somebody else saw the game would be different than him. You know, like, there's a good Taylor Made video out there. Shout out Taylor Made. Where Jason Day and Rory and everybody's, like, Tiger hits a wedge. Oh, it's an awesome video.

Great video. And Jason Day is like, dude, how do you control distances with your wedges? And Tigers, like, I just slow my hands down. So fundamentally, like, within that, they're just thinking about how to control distances very differently. And everybody's, uh-huh. And Jason Day has, like, a great humanistic question. He's just like, can you talk to us like a human being?

Like, give us something, dude. That's not a real answer. And it's just like that aspect. I guess bundles into the mentality side, but, like, Brock at some level knows, like, I don't know, he's found his own way to learn to accomplish. And, like, he is born to, like, Brock Nelson is born to be, like, kind of a power forward, like, grinder with a playmaker's ability hockey.

Like, he's just got that. And it's funny. He actually ends it with totally just coinciding with the Harry Higgs video on YouTube. He goes, I'm a huge believer in the mental side. You see how things, you see things how you want them play out in your mind and you can bend reality or will it to happen and that is what I do. He said that? Yeah, he just, he just wills it to happen.

You have to just will it to happen. It's like that like Jason Day asking Tiger about that wedge question. What a conversation you and him are happening. That's all I was just like, wow, this show is going on. That's amazing. I know I'm trying to just get like, because we're talking about pro athletes mindset and like, how do they get to that level and how can we can't do it? It's like this guy goes out there and thinks that he can will reality.

to be the outcome that he wants. And like, obviously that doesn't always happen or else you'd have a thousand goals and the odds would never lose a game. But I think we all need to have that mentality. Of course, yeah. Harry Higgs literally told us that to like essentially bend our own realities

of be like, hit the ball to that fucking target and just do it. Like that is where it's going to go. And if you don't think it's going to go there, it's not going to go there. Just like Dr. Jim Affermo is about to talk to us this podcast. If you don't think it's going to happen,

if you don't visually see yourself, he talks about self-speople. a time Dr. Jim Affirmau. If you don't talk to yourself and make, you're about to get this ball in the green, then you're not going to get the ball on the green. I'm gassed up to play some golf this weekend and just mentally think myself through the fucking golf.

I can't wait for all to come crashing down for each and every one of us. Fuck, man. Like, why couldn't we just be fucking pro players? Why didn't we have this knowledge when we were eight years old? Dude, just been in reality. Let's not forget about the genetics. That was the third of it. So let's not just like totally forget.

But then you have like a Marty saying the way he's like five foot five and he's like Yeah, but his mental strength might be a billion like percent in comparison to yours. Like think about if all that is 33 percent. Yeah. And you need 33 percent to get to the pros. Where are you on that scale? Rank your set. Genetics.

What are you like? Ten. Oh. Dude. Slow. Two. Right. So then all right.

Mentally, you're probably lower than that. might be one. And then, um, what's the last? Mentality, which you might be the worse. No, no, mentality. That's what I'm saying. One percent. So genetics, mentality and then just drive and practice. Hours of practice. Yeah. Right. And so where are you on that scale? Zero. So, so you got three percent out of a hundred. That sounds about right. Bro, it's great. So you think like, oh, if I knew this information 10 years ago, I'd have a chance of this thing.

What are we even talking about? When we talk about the vision and reality and all that stuff and like willing it, watch the movie the greatest game ever played when that guy steps on the fucking T-box And all the golf course just becomes eliminated And all of a sudden it's just him and the green and he's just he sees just a serene setting He hears birds chirping. Meanwhile, it's a crazy US open at the country club and the whole thing. And he's just fucking smoking balls right down the middle and then he comes out of it.

The zone. They get into the zone. We talk about that with the doctor in a couple of minutes. We get into the zone. They get in the zone. We don't even know where the zone is. If we had the zone on a map, we wouldn't get there. No.

We would never get there. It's both inspiring and, you know, devastating. It's got to be devastating for you, Ray. I mean, when you get to a level where, like, you're with people that made it to that level, it's got to be infuriating. I mean, you're doing well for yourself in the end of the day. My point is like your peers just had this extra edge on you. And you're like, why the fuck didn't?

Like obviously all my peers had the extra edge. Like if I'm out to dinner with the islanders, they all had an extra edge on me no matter what. I was never in their realm. Like if you go out to dinner with Alex Kalorn, you're like, well, I used to score more goals than you like 10 years ago. And now you're just like a two times the only cup player. It's like it's fucking crazy. Dude, there's a there's a. And you're 100% correct.

Yes. It is like, it's devastating. And I have, we get into it a little bit with, uh, Dr. Jim Afromo. talk about dreams you know you like ask about dreams oh yeah those fucking dreams suck man like my we have I basically have two reoccurred dreams one of them is the one that you sort of mentioned in this where I can't and I've talked about before I can't

get the ball on the tea I'm supposed to be playing in the masters and I'm like get announced on the first scene I just it's like you know somebody comes out of the crowd and kicks it my hand shaking then like the tea breaks in a hat and then I just wake I can't get the ball on the tea the other one is that I'm back at Harvard in college playing hockey and I have another year and I'm like lighting it up and it it's the best thing ever. And then the NCAA comes to me and they're like, your clock, you have like five years to play four years, you know, and they're like, your clock is over.

And then I just like never make it. So clearly it affects my brain that, you know, you in theory, like you say, you're like close enough and you have in theory some of those boxes checked that Brock just mentioned, but you like didn't get there. So yeah, it's like that's just a failure. It's just like you just like you just failed. You just could have done it. You just didn't. Is he think there's any part of that? Alex Coloren is it? Is that his name? Yeah.

Is there any part of him that looks to you and be like, man, he's such a better blogger than I am. He's such a better podcaster than I am. I'm so jealous. Zero percent. Okay. Although I will say he has a little bit of an influencer. He has a little bit of an influencer edge to him. He did like the doc talk with killer where he during, I think during COVID,

he would go around in his wave runner around Tampa and just like do Instagram lives. We had JJ Redick say that like we have the best job. in the world. So it's like at the end of the day, it's like fucking crazy to get that mindset of it. Like a Kalor might be sitting there and be like, fuck, why the hell did I just put my body through all this stuff? I could have just been a golf podcaster. It is, it's true to think about it that way. It's kind of crazy. I mean, but I don't know that we're, we don't view ourselves. Like, those are physical specimen elite athletes. And we're just. Yeah, that's us. That's why I fan boy over all these guys. I mean, they are my gods. They're like my, go back to the Greek times they're the Greek gods. I'm just one of the

fucking citizens looking up at the fucking metropolis. We got, this has been a great this painted a little picture for you there. Yeah, you did. That was a good, I like that picture. You all pictured exactly what I was talking about. Oh yeah. I said I was one of the citizens of Greece looking up at the control. Here comes to repeat.

Where did that come from? I don't know. I just pictured that. I looked at a big fucking, I don't know. That's the guy who's been reading a lot of Aiman Lynch. As a show that spins off the planet quite a bit. This has been a lot of pretty in-depth golf talk, which I'm proud of us for that. We got even more to get into. We're going to go through the player impact program and the latest that came out. This is actually part of the,

from the gallery, because our boy Nate sent us an email and just said, I would love for the fellows after basically a year of contemplating to break down the latest and the revelations in the player impact program. And from the gallery is brought to you by our friends at Truly Hard Seltzer. You can find Truly Hard Seltzer near you at www. www.trulyhardtselter.com. do it for the flavor. They got more flavors. Every truly is packed with flavor in 30 plus flavors. So there's something for everyone. They got fewer calories. All 12 ounce cans have under 110 calories. So if you're trying to apply yourself like we're talking about, maybe get better, get in better shape, look better, be healthier while also enjoying, you know, your life and trying to chase whatever dreams you've got, maybe trying to make the PGA tour after this conversation, which means plenty of refreshing flavors that won't weigh you down. low sugar. Every truly contains only one gram of sugar. So again, that's under 110 cal's calories,

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released that swing video. I think it was a two, maybe three second video. It got like 10 million views on Twitter and took over the entire internet. Then a month later, he plays in the father's son, PNC with Charlie. There's no way he doesn't win after all of that, clearly. I think that a lot of our takes after looking at this list are going to be in line with what we've said the entire time. I'll go through the list very quickly. Tiger Woods got $8 million for first place.

Phil Mickelson, $6 million for second place. Then Rory, third, spieth, fourth, Bryce and fifth. They each got $3.5 million. Then Justin Thomas, 6th, Dustin Johnson, 7th, Brooks Kepka, 8th, John Rom, 9th, and Bubba Watson 10th. They each got $3 million. I think the main takeaway from this is really, it's just not that much about social media. I don't think that your social media action has almost anything to do with it.

Well, I'd also argue if you go back to when they originally announced that the PIP program is going to be a thing, I think we said that Tiger Woods should be number one every single year until he's not on the planet anymore or whatever. Even then he probably should win. Right. They kind of gave out a little bit of data in terms of what goes into this, and I don't totally understand all of it. But Tiger Woods is golf. If he's even, I mean, think about how much he played last year. Like, that's a pretty good indicator on how much of an impact he has when he's not even playing.

So, like, it should always be him. When it came out that Phil might have won those early reports, that made sense to a degree. But Tiger Woods being number one makes the most sense. But I agree with what you're saying, Riggs. There's really, it's just who are the biggest players in golf? It has nothing to do with social media. John Rahman is on that list. Bubba Watson winning number one.

one in social media though is stunning and i know that he does those videos you're welcome and all that stuff i think it's because he's big on ticot and they probably i don't know what their algorithm is but bubble watson i think is one of the only golfers on the planet that has embraced ticot so maybe they see that that new you know area for them like that new just like audience on ticot he has like 250 000 followers all of his videos do like a million views or 450 500 000 views he's at like all the PGA tour events on TikTok going viral on him like is because he's getting a million views on all those videos and everyone else is getting zero is he just knocking off fucking all those stats and he's just the leader and all these stats

because everyone else is zero like he's obviously not getting the twitter action that max home is getting jol damon's getting that harry higgs is getting but he's doing something that no one else is doing so is that why he won well yeah i think so i think too it really um reinforces what we say a lot, which is that golf Twitter is not even close to perceiving golfers the way that they're actually perceived by the masses, like not even close. And I think the Bubba Watson one is a great case, right? Like we all look at a few guys. Jim Herman and Max Homa are in the mix all the time, especially Max, on Twitter, but that doesn't, Twitter doesn't really matter. I mean, Twitter is not real life. That's a big kind of revelation in Barstow the last few years. You hear people

talking about Twitter is just not real life. And I think Bubba Watson is actually adored by people. You know he gets a lot of shit on Twitter and in the golf Twitter and golf circles, podcast, whatever. We love Bubba. We've had him on a few times now and he's so candid and been great with us. But he's been shit on for years. People just dislike him, him versus Ted Scott, pray for Ted Scott, all that stuff.

He's just beloved, I think, and he's got a huge social following. He's big on Instagram, big on TikTok, gets millions of views. We look at his videos as corny. We make fun of them. but most people love his fucking videos and clearly him being number one. You're right, frankly. Clearly that did matter. So it's not that social media doesn't matter at all.

I guess it's just that when this whole thing was originally announced, it felt like the number one takeaway for most people was that if they're active on social media, that that'll really ramp up their chances to win. And in reality, yeah, it's one of the factors that they bring in. But if you're just a bigger star than somebody else or you're just one of the best players in the world, you have an infinitely better chance of winning than if you, tweet a lot. Right.

I wonder if they're, sorry, go ahead. Well, I would say the biggest evidence for that is that Bryson isn't third. Like if you think about the golf world and what has made an impact in terms of what people are talking about, like who's above him? Rory and DJ. Is that who's above him? I had it pulled up here.

Rory and speech. It's Rory and Speat. Yeah. So like if you really take into account of the world that we're talking about, Bryson D. Chambot has a great argument for number three and maybe even number two. but for him to be under a guy like Rory who he's just Rory. And that's great.

And he is well known as being Rory McElroy and all that. But he certainly was not as, I don't know if relevant is the right word, but he wasn't in everyone's face as much as Bryson this last year. So that just that doesn't add up to me. I know that they. And real quick on that point, real quick. And then go ahead, Frankie. Sorry to interrupt you.

But Will Gray tweeted out on Speath. He wrote here is Speath's entire social output for 2021. 29 tweets, including nine retweets and one reply, 25 Instagram posts. That's it. And where did he rank? Fourth. He got fourth overall in the whole thing, got $3.5 million. Where did he rank in the Twitter, though?

In the social, though, the one that... Is that the MVP score? Yeah, MVP. Where did he rank in MVP? Speeth, well, Spieth was 19th. Okay. All right, so it's... Because I was going to say if that's high, then whatever they're doing for the algorithm to be able to figure out how they do that is wrong.

So 19th, I guess, is really low. I want to say that they definitely got some sort of direction on how to win the MVP category, where it was like grow the game on different platforms. Like, bring us new audiences. And Bubba absolutely did that the best. Like Twitter and Instagram, they're already big for golf. Like that's where their fans live. I just think that they're putting so much more of an emphasis on growing. It's almost like a barstable.

We have all these content meetings and business meetings. And they're like, who are the people that are going to take us to that new audience and like that new generation and the new platform? Like we need to be big everywhere. Who are those groups that are going to take us there? Like PGA Tours looking at Bubba Watson and saying he's the one that's making the impact where no one else is. Like that's worth a hundred points in MVP as opposed to Max Homa getting 20,000 retweets for saying funny things on Twitter where it's like, hey, like, you could not do that.

And people are still going to watch because, like, we have a billion golfers on Twitter. Every fucking podcast, every media person, every single golfer likes to like and retweet. And then you have this other guy doing this. So I wonder if it is structured where it's like if you gain new followers and new, and you have a new lane, it's worth X amount. And then if, you know what I mean? So it's like, it's interesting to see how everyone's approach will now change. Like, will Max Homan now be like a TikTok god? going in 2022 like well are they going to try and go on like roblox or some fucking other shit that's

like that's taking over the internet like are we going to start seeing them i don't know snap chat i just like is it going to change the way that they do social media is my point brison started doing his uh he started his own youtube channel where he's doing behind the scenes videos exactly yeah yeah do you think most of them care right like i know i know a handful of them do i know bryson cares you know i know phil clearly cares he's he's tweeting about the PIP program and stuff, but do you think most of them? Like, do you think Rory really cares? Do you think, do you think Dustin Johnson cares?

You think John Rob really cares about the PIP program? No, probably not. Because those are the guys, they cleared probably like $60 million each that they were just like this year were just like whatever. I don't care. Like, and it's going to sound crazy, but like the $6 million that they could have made, they likely don't give a shit about. And then past that, it's like a delta of like three. So it's just like a fun. As long as you're in the list of the top 10, you're just like, oh, this is fun.

Let's all go out to dinner and celebrate us being on this ridiculous list. Honestly, like I think there's a couple interesting takeaways, but it's like, whatever. And Rory didn't do anything in my estimation. He didn't change anything. He wasn't going crazy on social. And he still got third. So like, why would he change anything? He's just like, I can just keep.

Tiger Woods didn't hit a golf ball and finish first. Right. That's right. He didn't play in a single PGA tour sanctioned event. There was a tweet saying that like one of the stipulations is that you had to play in an event, a new event that you haven't entered in the last four years to receive this money, which is why Phil played Capilua. So it's interesting to see if they just waive that because of all the circumstances that have happened for Tiger Wood. Phil's had a tough last month. I will say that.

like just claims you won the PIP program, didn't win that, and then everything he's done was out, it's been, did you get, did you see Kevin Nause tweet? Yeah, I saw it. Tiger Woods wins the $8 million PIP. I'm all for paying Tiger Woods because he made us all richer, but he didn't hit one shot in 2021. At PGA Tour, how is this possible?

Also, I thought Phil Mickelson won. Did this result have any effect in the last two weeks? Ha ha, ha, with like a thinking face. fucking Kevin Oz getting in the mud. I think that's a fair point. I think it's a very fair point. Yeah. And when I saw this morning when it came out that Tiger Woods won,

my first thought was, well, they weren't going to let Phil win now. Like even if all that stuff happened in a different year, like whatever, you can't have Phil at the top of that list being like, this is the guy who everybody wants to be going after and being like, I want to be like that guy. No chance. I wouldn't have been surprised if he wasn't in the rankings at all anymore.

I'll also say that the, Kevin Nause of the world are the guys who I would expect to really care about this, right? Like that guy somewhere kind of in the middle, 30th in the world, whatever the hell he is, like that $3 million if he could sneak into the top 10 is enormous for Kevin Naa, I feel like. Like enormous. I know he's got good career earnings, but you cut him a check for $3 million. He'll tweet all fucking year if he could get somehow get in the mix for a check for $10 million or $8 million or $6 million or $3 million. Like that's big for him.

This is the right way to look at it, but there's not one guy on that list who cares about that money or who like needs that money. And I know that's like that's kind of the weird way. Like I don't know how you would structure it. And we had a long conversation a few months ago about this. But like how do you get it in the hands of the people who are doing it the right way and who also could really use that money? I don't know. I don't know how you do it. Someone also responded to Kevin Nass saying like your biggest moment in the last couple of years was when Tiger like mocked you for like in the video.

So, like, did your putt, walk your putt. It's like without Tiger, you're nowhere to be found with any sort of pit foot program. So absolutely, he wins. It is just a measure of who fans care about is pretty much what it is. Yeah. I would say the one interesting thing. So the Q score is the, like, how recognizable you are in a sense. And I, so Bubba is third in the top 10 list.

And so he's in front of Rory and Spieth and everybody else. only behind Tiger and Phil. I thought that, that was like, I was like, I don't even trust that score because like, I'm a, on definitely the side that Rory is, I would say the number three most recognizable golfer in the world without question, but maybe that's, how do you guys feel about that? Do you think Bubba's more recognizable? That's, I agree with you. That seems off, but, you know, I wonder if the combination of social and winning two masters

for the average human being is just enough to put Bubba ahead of him, you know, like, And he's lefty and he's kind of like, you know, like me and Trent, one of our first shows we ever did. We laid out all the reasons Bubba should be lovable, but just kind of isn't. It was like his name's Bubba. He's a lefty. Hits the ball a million miles. He got his own swing that he created.

He won the Masters twice. So my first instinct is there's no way he's higher in Q score than Rory. But I don't know that it's, I guess if I really think about it, I don't know that it's crazy. I think it's his name. That's not recognizableability, is it? Bubba? But that's not. Like, no, it does.

Like, I think when you say who's more recognizable, I think they show, I think they show a photo to like. Yeah. Let me just announce what it is, just so everybody's clear. A decades old measure of an entity's familiarity and appeal. That's what this cue score is.

Yeah, so it's not recognizable. It's like familiar. Yeah, exactly, which is like, that's Rory to me. And appeal? I agree with it. I would agree. I actually agree with it. Really? Bubba's like, he's like you're talking about in the golf world. Like I understand that Rory is just, he's Rory. Everybody knows that.

But I think if you are taking like a large swath of people who aren't necessarily in the golf world and you put their pictures or you said their names out loud, people be like, oh yeah, Bubba, the guy, the guy won the masters or like, I don't know, just something about his name and the way he is and the way he, I don't know, he's lanky. I don't know. Maybe I'm wrong, but I think a lot of people know who Bubba Watson is. I just feel like the appeal side of it is. You want to go on record saying that more people know who Bubba Watson is in the golf world than Robert McElroy? Well, so it's a blend of-

No, I don't know if I want to go on record. I don't know if I want to go on record with that. Do you think it's even close? Well, I think that the Taurus, or this, you know, these,

this data is telling us that it is. I don't wear the data is. You know what I'm, you know what I mean? Exactly. What do they just count, enter on the keyboard and then like, data, pop,

exactly. Data, data, data, data. They're going to like circle K's in like Iowa and be like, you know who this guy is? And they're like, yeah, Bubba Watson. It's like, all right, yeah, he's third. There's one. I would be curious to know precisely how they collected that day. That'd be interesting.

I think I'm closer to the truth. I think Frankie just said that and I think like they're going to like middle of nowhere, Iowa and just being like two pictures. And then if they're like, that's Bubba, I don't know who that is. And that's Roy. It's like check one for Robba. And like he goes empty there. And then they just go to the next.

Circle K and then they go to like Loves like whatever gas station then on they go that honestly could be it then I guess I'm I'm right I think there's an argument to be made and the numbers would would say that as well Fuck man, Roy's massive I know and I'm a Rory guy but like he's so big it's crazy Bubba won two masters his name's fucking Bubba I don't know that goes a long way with people Rory's international but yeah and also the back half of the Q score is and appeal and I feel like there's no better person, maybe on the planet, in terms of like just genuine, lovable. And like, if anybody had a daughter, be like, yeah, you can marry Rory. Like, that's totally fine.

You know, then Rory back to roll. But I don't know. But I don't know that outside golf circles, that's as well known, right? Yeah. No. All those quotes that Rory delivers that we love so much about, you know, him weighing in on the newest report about the Saudi League and how well he crafts it, nobody that's just watching ESPN day in a day out fucking sees that.

They don't care. They see the pink driver and the bubble. And I really think his name goes, like, if his name was Mark Watson, I think he's 25th on that list. But in appeal, if like you're saying no one's seeing Rory say all these things and be the leader of like the voice of the PGA tour, then they're absolutely not seeing Bubba Watson because he doesn't say anything. Dude, I'm on. Jake, Jake, Jake made the point. He was like on the Tonight Show this year talking about like mental health issues and stuff. Like he, you know, like I think he gets out there more than we think.

I really do. And I think it might be lingering still from when when Bubba was in. You know, like those two, he won two masters in four years. He was the lefty. He hit the shot out of the fucking trees on the 10th pole, the giant hook. Like, Bubba was in, man. Like, he was in for a while. And I don't, again, my first instinct was like, there's no way Bubba's higher on the Q score thing.

But, you know, the more we kind of break it down, I'm believing it. I don't think it's like psychotic to think that. He's not bigger at my Q score, my personal cue score. They need to do the Twitter poll. Just fucking PGA Tour comes out and says, you guys got to vote for who won the MVP this year. The most votes on social media fucking wins. How is that that hard?

So I went on LinkedIn and now I'm on like, I'm looking at the vice president of data science and technology solutions for the PGA tour. This guy named Mike Veeney. I would love to talk to him because I really want to know more about Frankie's guests and kind of assumption of how they get

ground this data. Because they're pulling it from somewhere and they're creating it themselves. and so Mike if you're out there Do the Twitter poll Do a poll If bubble Watson But also like we're saying

But if bubble Watson wants to go on TikTok And like hey vote for me on this fucking poll Like he's gonna get 200,000 more eyeballs on that Million more eyeballs on that other people So if he fucking wins that poll Because he's on TikTok He fucking wins the number one

An MVP because he's fucking all over the place And social media Don't do it on Twitter then do it on some website Do it anywhere I was gonna say it goes against what we've been saying Where it doesn't throw people back to it No but if you're saying you want to get like a read on this Twitter, as we have been saying,

is such a small percentage of what the, like if you're, if you're talking about overall audience and that's the goal of the PIP, you want to grow it, if you just fire that poll into Twitter, you're just, it's, it's a circle,

it's a loop. It's everyone who's always been seeing it no matter what. So you almost have to go to, you almost have to go to a circle K and roll down the window and hold up a picture of Rory and Bubba. Right. Like, what do you think?

No, but my point is like, it's got to live somewhere. So whether it lives on a website or Twitter or Instagram, wherever, if you're on other forms of social media or, and you're going on the Tonight Show and all this stuff, be like, hey, like, there's this fucking, there's this poll on Twitter. And if you vote for me, like, if you're getting out there and you're promoting it, you're going to get more votes.

Like, that's, I just think if you're bigger across social media, you'll get more votes regardless. The people who are watching the Tonight Show at this day and age are not going to, they don't even have Twitter. They're not going on Twitter poll. I'm just saying a vote is the clearest, easiest way. It's fucking democratic. It's just, it's, it is what it is. If they want to, if they want to, if they want to, if they want to,

set up voting booths across the country and vote that way, I would absolutely be in for that. Let's go. There's never ever been a problem with that. How are we going to make these guys more millions of dollars? Let's set up fucking voting voting booths for that.

Yeah, that's, let's set up voting booths for these guys to make a couple more million dollars. We're going to go out and we're going to fucking take off work so we can vote for Bubba Watson at the voting booth. Do you think, do you think an honest just poll a real true well-done poll voting would have churned up much different results it'd be very interesting to see like if bubba turns on his social media but do you think it'd be different like the tiger woods

phil mickleson rory mackerel a jordan spieth bryson de chamba i think that's a pretty true and honest top five oh no yeah no i i think that's a top five because of what they're basing what the money should go after like they're taking a lot more things aside from growing the game on social media. I'm just saying if you're talking about the MVP of social media, who was the most valuable tweeter or social media person, do the poll for it. It's not fair to just like have this weird algorithm of like what they think is the biggest thing because it's not fair to the Joel Damans and the Max Homas and all that stuff. That's all I'm saying. Like they are big on social media. It's just whatever whatever credentials or criteria that they've set forth, they're apparently not meeting

it because they didn't make their money. And the guys that need the extra 10 million. But that all we're saying though is that that's just not the most important. category. Like they might have been, right? Like there's a couple, there's a couple numbers missing on this list. So there's like the, like Bubba Watson was number one in the MVP thing. Justin Thomas was number two. Brooks Kepka was number three. Like number four is not even on this list. Number six is not on this list. Number one of those so like could be max. That's what I mean. Like those guys can be really high, but like there's all there's like five or six different categories. So that's just not, If you're saying, like, do you think that should just be the determinant of someone that gets in?

I think that that's where the money should be divided by because that's when you're going to get more people that deserve the money. We've been talking for two months about how this does not matter. The Tiger Woods getting an extra $8 million. If you guys want to talk about Tiger Woods getting an extra $8 million, then like, yeah, it's fucking fine. We just said he does not care about it. Not one guy in the top 10 cares about making the money. My whole point since the PIP has ever been introduced is that the money should be going to people that actually matters for. That's why you're going to grow the game.

you're going to get the guys on the lower level of the PGA tour making money, growing the game, growing their personal brands. Why are you giving it to Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson, Rory Macquarie, because of the Saudi League. That's literally why they're doing it, the threat of the Saudi League. Like they're trying to keep the players here, which we've debated about for months, that like there's another league trying to get them to go somewhere else. But I agree with you, Frankie.

I think 100 years from now, Tiger Woods is still going to be the number one Googled golfer. And like that's just... Wouldn't the threat of Saudi League go away more if everyone had a chance to win more money on the PGA tour as opposed to the top 10 guys who would get paid no matter where they play? Well, if the guy, if the 110th best golfer had the chance to win $8 million on PGA tour, you don't think he'd be more invested in the PGA tour. And like the PGA tour would live on forever because they have this opportunity to make more money

by just being a big brand and growing themselves as opposed to just a guy who wins 10 tournaments a year, just making an extra $3 million. Well, no, I think that like what would hurt the PGA tour more is like, if they give $8 million to the 110 ranked player, but the brand, the Bryson DeShambeau and Dustin Johnson go to a different league, I think that hurts the BJTor way more than it helps them that that guy makes $8 million. All right. So now we've got these rankings, right?

We've done it for one year. We finally got the rankings. We've got the 10. Let's just give those guys who are in the top five or the top eight or the top 10. Let's just give them 10 million bucks. Give it to them. I don't know where that money comes from. It's not my problem.

But then you start working towards the people that Frankie's talking about. I don't know. The big guys are going to get paid somehow one way or the other. I don't necessarily know if I agree with them taking the top spots when the reason they're taking the top spots have nothing to do with the goal of the actual PIP program. I don't know. I don't know what the answer is. They're just trying to give the top guys more money. It's like stupid to like drag along the whole entire process and like having guys like Homa and Higgs and Damon like try and get involved in it and like they're never going to have a chance because

the biggest players are just going to get extra money. I kind of agree with Utrend where it's just like sign these guys to the contract. or whatever and just give them extra money for being on the PGA tour. And then if you want to have this cool thing where it's like grow the game, TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, social media, that's where the money should be. Like, that's where, like, we're going to get involved of, like, I want to see who's first through 10th. Like, I was actually interested to see who was the biggest impact player on the PGA tour.

I didn't know that it was just going to be like these guys have to make money just so that they have to stay on the PGA tour. That's something that can happen behind a closed door. Right. Their goal is a little disingenuous. What they're saying to us is that they want. these guys to grow the game, get Twitter followers or TikTok followers,

get more eyes on it. But what they're actually doing is just trying to pay the big guys enough money so they won't jet to a different league. Right. So we're just to beat that 10 retweets and Twitter reviews this year. And so when you have those different motivations, then the list is going to be invalid. And it's tough when you're trying to incentivize guys to do more.

But in reality, what the entire basis of their PIP system is, is just going to pay the guys that have the biggest stardom in the game. That's pretty much what it is, right? And like when you look at Tiger Phil, Rory, Spieth, Bryce, J.T., DJ, Brooks, Rob, Bub, like, maybe you could argue one or two names, which we've done, but overall, those are just the guys that two years ago of social media didn't even exist would still be the top 10 PIP guys, right?

Like, I mean, that's not, that doesn't. So you're right. It is disingenuous. Really what they're just trying to do, I think, is keep them from not going to a different league. I think that's pretty much the only reason that this exists. And that's why they threw 40 million out this year. I think they're doing 50 or 60 next year. So yeah, I agree.

It is disingenuous. It would be nice that people got rewarded, genuinely, truly rewarded for being out there working day in and day out to get golf and their. personality as a professional golfer in front of more people because I think that grows the awareness for the PGA tour for sure, which is what Max Homa does, which is what guys do well on social media. But yeah, here it is. I guess we asked for the list and they gave us the list. Yeah.

They said they weren't going to do the list and they gave it to us. So I guess thanks. The whole thing's been weird. It's so weird that they just said forever. You know, it could just be like, oh, Phil, you're wrong. He tweeted you won. He still got second though. Totally.

He's still, it's like. It's gravy. He's had it really interesting last month. Taylor made. So I know we got the Davod Classic coming up. I got a new two iron in my bag that I am excited to use out here. I know there's chatter. The wind is going to be up on Friday and Saturday out here in Pebble area.

And I can't wait to rip that low two iron that I got, the UDI. It's phenomenal. But you can go to Barstalsports.com slash Taylormade. Check out Taylor Made and Barstle's golf gear. You heard us talk about the stealth quite a bit. Stealth is a weapon. There's a, let's see, it was Pat Perez and Kevin Chappell, who I was walking with at the waste management a few weeks ago.

Neither one of them is a, you know, Taylor-made contracted athlete, and they're both rocking the stealth. Tons of guys are using the stealth. Tiger Woods appeared for the first time in a year playing in a golf tournament. What driver did you have in his hands, fellas? Stealth. Which company makes that?

Taylor-made. That's right. After 20 years in the making, the limits of titanium have been broken, introducing the brand new Taylor Made Stealth Carbon Wood Driver Welcome to the Carbon Wood Age Visit Marshallsports.com slash Taylor Made I think Frankie hit one 317 with his stealth

317 baby It was like a 2992 carry against Lurch Some people say the rollout numbers weren't as accurate 292 carry is what I'm going to put my nice little head on my nice ice cold pillow

Which I actually watch a TikTok video People put their pillows in their fruit fridges There I have breaking news right now. I know. I have my brain is I can't even speak right now. Did you just see this? I mean, did you see this? I don't know how we're fucking even talking. What's happening? Taylor May. This is the most unbelievable tweet the history of the world. It's the best tweet of all time. Tiger Woods just took a screenshot of Phil Mickelson's tweet. Say I'd like to thank all the crazies too for helping me win the PIP. Tiger Woods just screenshot it, tweet it, and wrote whoops with this. What?

What? Tiger Woods wrote whoops on top of Phil thanking the PGA tour for winning the fucking pip two months ago. That's the best thing I've ever seen. With the emojis being like, whoops, he did the fucking Jordan shrug. He gave him the Jordan shrug saying whoops. Bro, what? Wow.

I would never saw that coming. Not in eight billion years that I see that tweet coming. Wow. There you go. Tiger just won the 2020 PIP with that tweet right there. Congratulations. I think you're right. Dude.

That is, that is so out of character in terms of his social media. I'm having a hard time wrapping my, brain around it that it actually happened. I just tweeted that I just came. I just came. Oh my. Wow. Wow. I mean that just, you're right, Trent, that just won the PIP. That's over. It is. The social media, the MVP score is over. That's going to get, that might get a hundred thousand retweets.

Yes. I'll take me over on that. That's going to get it for posture some out. Whoops. Dude, he's been killing this guy for 25 years. He's just fucking, yep, crushing them. crushing him he didn't even have a leg last year and he defeated Phil Mickelson again Phil finished second tiger finished first but even though he has been doing that for 25 years he

you know he kind of lets everybody else do it for him right or he lets this game speak for it he doesn't usually take to my knowledge he's not usually taking a ton of shots that is a that's a shot that's a fucking show holy wow wow wow

that's Dude, that's crazy. That's a mind-drop. If everything, if Phil Mickelson was still just regular Phil Mickelson and having a regular Phil Mickelson life, but to put that tweet out, while Phil is going through the most tumultuous stretch of his career is fucking savage.

Timultuous is a tough word to say. Nice work there, Trent. Tumultuous. That's shit. Is that a punt? We're all having a hard time concentrating on a podcast. Boy. We're looking at tweets.

That's great. I can't. I'm just looking at this week and like reread it. I just said, holy shit, is that a put? I just said another golf tour. I don't even know what I'm saying anymore. Is that a tweet? That is a fucking tweet.

That's crazy. Whoops. Tiger, you savage. What a moment. I mean, this guy is, but he might have the best. Is he the favorite to win the Masters now just because of that tweet? He's playing. He's playing.

He's definitely playing, by the way. There's no way. That's a guy who this morning, that's a guy who this morning. That's a guy who this. morning got clearance from the doctors being like you can do you can play in any tournament you want you're that leg is looking great and he's like all right let me just bury phil mickleson on tv hold on let me i've had this tweet in the drafts for a little while hold on here and then we'll hit the range boys oh wow what do you think phil's doing right now

phil's you've got that notification he's he's trying to give the Saudis call back being like all right was that deal still on the table or what i'll do it for five percent of the original Sorry about that whole journalist comment I made. That was a, that was taken out of context there, boys. Let's get this. Holy shit. What a tweet. What do you think?

Who do you think in Phil's camp has to be the one to show him this? Like, do you think they're all nudging each other? Like, yo, you need to text Phil that this just happened. Like Phil's not scrolling through Tiger's Twitter right now. I bet he might have Tiger notifications on. Also, keeping tabs on him. People are at Phil, I'm sure, under the comments. Like, I'm sure that he's,

aware. He's seeing it. I mean, everybody in the world is talking about this right now. You think Phil has notifications on Twitter for his phone? No, but like, there's enough. I mean, how much... Oh, I see what you're saying, no. We've got... But he... 1200 retweets

already, 5,000 likes. Yeah, but I, again, if you're not on Twitter, I don't know that that does anything for you. In terms of... Like we do, where it's like if you follow the person, they follow you, you see it. He's see... What are we talking about here? Phil Mickelson is going to see it. But we're wondering how he saw it. I'm not saying... I'm trying to get to when it gets to Phil.

Like, I don't, like... He's just going to look at his phone and see it. So you think he has notifications on? I think he probably saw that pop up. Yeah, I think him and Tiger follow each other. Yeah, true. It's impossible to get rid of those notifications. Like, I follow you guys.

We all follow each other. Like, when we tweeted each other, it comes up on my phone. Yeah, Tiger Woods just wrote whoops and he saw it come up on his phone just like it says, like, simply safe there's been motion at your door. He's just like, I'm dead now. Oh, but I guess he didn't tag Phil, did he? No, he didn't. He woke.

Right. Oh, he didn't quote tweet it. He screenshot it. Oh, yeah. So who knows? He definitely knows by now because, like Lurch is saying, people are tagging him like crazy under there, I would imagine. And if Phil just checks Twitter once a bill.

Oh, he should have quote tweeted. That would have been better. I mean, it's still amazing. Dude, you can't get it better than that. Just whoops? I know. No, the response is insane. You know what a non-quot tweet does?

It gets Phil no action. Yeah. If you just screenshot it, it gets filled no action. Yeah, it's even more dial. Wow. That is so diabolical. I mean, seven minutes he's got seven thousand likes. Oh, what is stuff. Yeah, no, he's a fucking man. Well, I think that means we throw it to Dr. Jim Afro at this point. I think that's a perfect ending to the show. We do have dabog coming up, but we can just talk about the, you know, we'll talk about it afterwards. Holy smokes. After it actually happens. Yep. Wow. Tiger Woods. Holy cow. I did not see that coming, boys. That is one of the more shocking.

tweets I've ever seen. It's insane. I'll see you guys in maybe the greatest place on on earth. Is it argued to be the greatest stretch of land on this planet? The greatest meeting of land and sea, I think is what they call it. Pebble Beach, California. Can't wait to be there. Honestly, my mind can't think about anything else other than what just transpired in that tweet of whoops. Let's go play pebble. Oops. Oops. Whoops. Whoops. Whoops. Whoops. Oops. Oops. Oops. Whoops. Whoops. I mean, what a tweet.

Wow. All right. Well, boys. We're going to throw it to Dr. Jim Appromo. Let's have a great week in Pebble. I hope everybody enjoys the Arnold Palmer Invitational. It'll be a player's championship week when we return. And we'll have a lot to get to.

We'll have to recap our Pebble trip. We'll have to talk about the players. And then Tiger Woods, whoops, we'll be getting inducted into the Hall of Fame Wednesday night. So Tuesday's show, we have David Faradie. and we have rockro media who tells incredible stories about about tiger 2008 the U.S. Open and all that. So it'll be a big tiger heavy show then. Hit it hard. Here's Dr. Jim Afromo.

Hit it hard. Hit it hard. Hey, how's it going? Not too bad. I heard you're going to be on the couch today. Yeah, a little bit. A little bit. That's exactly right.

That is exactly right. He's got his little 16th old abandoned dunes behind him. Yeah, so I moved from Scottsdale to Eugene, Oregon. So only three hours from abandoned. Oh, wow. Hell yeah. You must be a big golf guy then. Well, that's not why I moved here, but yeah, I do like golf.

Very cool. Well, so is it Afrimo? Am I saying right? Yeah, Afrimo, yep. All right. Well, we're just going to pretty much hop right in. We're joined by a guest that we've been looking forward to having for a long time. I've got the book right here, The Leader's Mind, a couple quotes.

really good quotes right at the beginning. We had Vince Lombardi I saw. So it's all about champions, the mind of champions, professional athletes, which made them successful. And obviously we on this show talk all the time about being unsuccessful, really, when it comes to playing golf and some of the issues that we have had. So, Dr. Affirmat, tell me a little bit, Dr. Affirmat, tell me a little bit about the book. This is 2021. So it just came out last year. Is that right? Yeah, just came out a few months ago. So it's my fourth book. My first book, I wrote one I was working at Arizona State University, and that's the champion's mind. And so that's all about peak performance and the mental game.

And this book's a little bit more about teamwork and leadership, but also a little bit about the mental game as well. And, you know, we're all about self-leadership and then helping to be a good teammate and a leader to others. So it's a nice, I think it's a nice bookend to the champion's mind. Yeah. So you've, like you said, it's your fourth book. This is something that, you know, you've committed an enormous amount of,

of your life, too, of your thoughts, too. What's, you know, what's one thing that sort of sticks out to you maybe after all the research and all the things you've written in sort of a champion, like a really successful, you know, athlete or business person or whatever that surprised you that maybe you didn't go in and think that this is going to be such an important characteristic or whatever it might be? Yeah, well, a lot of it boils down to mental toughness, which I like to look at, you know, in terms of the building blocks would be confidence, concentration, composure, commitment, those kind of things.

But what really has surprised me over the years is, and this was so much different than when I was growing up, is, you know, if you're nervous before you perform or, you know, and we're going to be talking about the yips a little bit, I used to always think, and everyone used to always tell me, just relax, don't worry about it, you know, and take a deep breath. And some of that can be a little bit helpful, but what I've realized is the best athletes in the world, they love that adrenaline rush. I mean, they ride that to a performance that they wouldn't have otherwise.

And so it's more about embracing the nerves. It's more about loving that feeling inside. Instead of trying to push down the energy, use that energy to do something that you couldn't do otherwise. So to me, it's more about, you know, anxiety is more about loving that feeling and embracing that rush. And, you know, Jack Nicholas talked about, man, that's the fun part coming up the 18th hole with the chance to win the tournament, win the Masters, and Tiger Woods talked about that as well. They love that feeling, and when they don't have that feeling, they try to recreate it. So you'll hear guys like Phil Mickelson talk about making these huge

bets during practice rounds, because otherwise, you know, he might be too bored. So, you know, we should learn to embrace the nerves instead of trying to get rid of them. Yeah, you mentioned the yips, the YIPs, the Y word. You know, how real are they? And is it something that, you know, can be addressed is like is it a physical thing a lot of people talk about it starts with technique and it's not about the brain so what are your thoughts on the yips and you know how can we help me is essentially the main question yeah well we'll get to you in a minute but um yeah but yeah contrary to popular belief uh death or giving up the game aren't the only cures for the hip so that is good news but take two things off the list then a funny story so when i moved out to arizona way back in the

day, I reached out to ASU sports medicine and said, you know, I was sports psychologist at Michigan State, you know, graduated, you know, any opportunities for sports psychology at Arizona State University. And they said, well, you know, probably check back in a few weeks and, you know, we'll see what we can do. In the meantime, I got a call from the sports medicine doc and he said, hey, man, we got a catcher on the baseball team with the YPS. Do you think you could help them? So no pressure there. The first client ever worked with at ASU had the YPS. And I think the baseball team was ranked, you know, top five in the country at the time.

And anyway, we really hit it off. There was some stress going on off the field that I think affected his performance on the field. But he had trouble throwing the ball back to the pitcher. And, you know, but he could throw a guy out at second base. And so we worked on, you know, focus and concentration, you know, self-talk, all those good things, visualization. And he ended up turning it around pretty quick. And so then they offered me a job, full-time job. So I was at ASU for about 10 years.

work with the golfers, work with baseball, work with every sport. So that was a lot of fun. But it was interesting that that was the first real test in my professional career was the guy with the Yips. Right. Yeah, no, it's because I've obviously, it's been like three or four years, maybe even five years at this point where I go to the short range and I'll go to the practice area, the chipping area. And I can, when there's no pressure, when there's no time to deliver, I'm fine. Obviously, I don't have the perfect technique. I'm not that great of a golfer.

I don't know all the things I'm supposed to be doing. I can try and do it on the practice range, and I do it to my best ability. But, you know, the product is always like, oh, yeah, that's actually pretty good. And then I go out there on the golf course. And nothing actually hits my mind. I'm not conscious about being nervous about it or freaking out. I don't feel tense. But there's just, I guess there's just this doubt that it's going to happen, right?

And that always kind of seeps into the back of my brain, being like, well, and I'm very self-deprecating. like I'm in a session now. I'm very self-deprecating. So I'll be like, well, boys, like, watch out here. The first thing I say to everyone's like, everybody look out. So I'm already setting myself up for failure, it feels like. But I wonder, like, what is it, what is it that, like, triggers that? That I can't just go from the short range to the first T and just be like, oh, yeah, let's just do that. Yeah. Well, what you're doing is goes against pretty much everything that I teach. So, no, but, yeah, I love your sense of humor, and that's important, but I wouldn't go too far with it because then it kind of can become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

And the way our subconscious mind tends to work, it seems like, is, you know, whatever we tell it, it kind of is really gullible and tends to believe. So if we're like, here we go again or, you know, we're kind of joking about it. Then I think we kind of recreate that and we get those, you know, visuals in our head. And then we produce that. So the mind-body connection is so powerful. The tension piece, even if you don't feel really tense, you know, sometimes just that little extra tension, and that's what makes golf such a tricky game, that little extra tension can make a huge difference. So, you know, I think a big one is just relax your jaw, relax your shoulders, soften your hands. I think that's really important. But yeah, the self-talk is really important

because in the back of our mind, here we go again, here we go again, here we go again, here we go again. And that's where you've got to tell yourself, it's going to be fine, it's going to be fine, it's going to be fine. So talking sense to yourself is really, really helpful. The other thing, you know, there's a bunch of things, but one of the things that I think Earl, Woods did really well with Tiger is they did what I call adversity training. So most of us just don't do this, but Tiger's dad was really smart from the military in terms of some of the adversity training that they went through. So the key is to make it, you know, get your heart rate up higher than it would ever be on the course and then try to take some putts and chips and, you know, kind of get used to

that. The other thing, too, is Earl Woods would try to distract Tiger, you know, on his back swing. So he would jingle, you know, his keys or, you know, drop a golf bag. And Tiger learned just to ignore that over time. I'm sure the first few times he did it or the first 25 times he did it, that really affected Tiger's swing. But after that, it was just almost like it didn't exist anymore. So little things like that that you can do with your buddies can really help off the course or on the driving range. And then when you get on the course, it's like no matter what happens out here, I've dealt with more distractions and a higher, you know, heart rate than I'm dealing with now. So it actually gives you more confidence.

So when you're working with a golfer, are you ever on the golf course with them? And if so, like, how do you, what are you looking for, right? Like, are you like physically, are you telling them to do something physical? Are you telling them to think about something when they swing? Like, how do you kind of go about working with a golfer on the golf course? Yeah, I love that. So what I'm looking for is, you know, body language, obviously. But what happens after a shot, which is really interesting, is most of us cringe.

And, you know, it could be a short put or, you know, just any type of shot on the golf course. course we cringe and that's where we get tight. So I look for how do they respond after a not so good shot. The other thing too is under perceived pressure. And so this is important to think about when you're playing is we tend to speed everything up. Some guys slow way down, but but most guys tend to speed up in an effort to kind of get it over with. And I know I've done that too. It was interesting in the background here. I have banned in Dune. So one of the first, well, the first time I ever went out to Bandon, I drove three hours from Eugene, show up at the course. And they said, okay, we can get you out right now.

So I had to rush over there to the first tee. And everyone's around the first tee. I brought my 10-year-old daughter with me. Everyone felt like the whole world was watching. No one cared. But it felt like the whole world was watching. And I started like, I just want to get this shot over with. And that's where I said, you know, you got to do what you preach.

And so I took a step back, took an extra deep breath, said, you know, slow everything down. And my only thought was tempo, tempo, tempo, tempo. And just, you know, and I like the acronym JMAs, just, just, just make a good swing. Don't try to make a perfect swing. Just make a good swing. So I ripped it right down the middle, you know, and I'm not going to tell you how far, because that would ruin the story. But, you know, it was a good shot. And then after I got through that, I'm like, God, you know, I'm so glad I got through that okay. And, you know, but it was one of those where it was like almost like it was just feeling like too much pressure. But then when you look back on it, it's like,

that's what makes this fun, you know. And so, so it's really trying to embrace that. And that's memorable. If no one was around at the first team, I hit a pretty good drive, then that's not memorable at all. So really enjoy those opportunities. And that's the thing, do you guys remember a few years ago when Mississippi State women's basketball beat Yukon in the final four? And I forget her name, but one of the players on Mississippi State, she made that game winning shot. And they said, what did you see on that last play? And she said, I saw opportunity. And that was the coolest answer because it's like, you know, we're always looking at kind of doomsday scenarios on the course like oh if i miss this it's going to ruin my score if i miss this you know the guys are going to really needle me but instead of looking at you know

what bad things could happen start looking at it's man this is an opportunity to get up and down or this is an opportunity to have a shot that i'm going to remember forever yeah that's an amazing way to look at it for sure i mean i think we all everyone listening to this we all do that and i think out of 10 scenarios for me nine of them are are negative when i'm thinking of not yeah i mean don't hit this tree. Oh man, I'm not going to be able to draw this around the tree. I'll just go left. Or I can't get it up on that shelf with this chip. I'll just put it around. Oh, that looks way too slippery. I'm not going to go. I don't want my next putt to be downhill. There's all these negative thoughts. And you're never actually saying, well, if I just put it correctly and put it to

the bottom part of the hole, I'll have an uphill put. Like, you know what I mean? I'm never saying the positive part. I'm always saying I don't want to do that because I don't want this. Yeah, we're so negative. And all of us. And that's by default. We all have a negative. We all have a negativity bias inbuilt, and it's to protect us. So human nature is to be safe, not to be successful. And so we have to overcome that. And that's what the best have done. You know, they've learned to thrive in those situations. They've learned to talk back to that negativity. It was funny when I moved out from the first time I moved out to Arizona, kind of a random occurrence. And this was like 20 years ago. I ran into Hale Irwin. And we were talking, he was asking for directions. It's a long story.

but the short end of it is I said, Hail, how's your golf game? You know, and he didn't know me. I didn't really know him, but I mentioned ASU, and then, you know, we were talking about golf. He was doing some golf opening way out, way out in the valley. And I said, how's your golf game? And he looked at me like I was, you know, just came from Mars or something.

He's like, my golf game is always great. And, you know, and at first I thought, you know, what a jerk, you know, like, you know, most of us tend to go, my game sucks or, you know, I haven't played in a while. But he was just, I'm confident in my game. It's always good. And that really hit home for me afterward thinking, man, it's good because, you know, partly because that's how he thinks about himself.

It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Do you think at that point for guys like Tiger Woods and the greats, especially in golf, because so many people can play this game. And then there's this elevated level of guys that are able to reach that professional level. And then there's another level of guys that can reach the Tiger levels, right? And it's like the one or two guys in every sport. What is it about them? I know you mentioned Earl Woods and how he basically prepared Tiger for these moments, but is this something that you're born with that we can't even achieve?

From your findings and your research, have you ever found any reason for why they were able to take that next step? Yeah, well, they, you know, they love to compete. They love to, you know, be in the mix. And they do a whole lot of believing in themselves. And they're really selective about what they remember. I love the story of Jack Nicholas one time. he was asked about missing a put at the end of a tournament.

And he's like, I don't remember that. And the guy's like, yeah, I was there. I saw you missed that put. And he's like, I don't think that happened. So, you know, we tend to remember all of our bad stuff. And he just remembered his good stuff. So I think that they're really selective on what they choose to remember about themselves. And whatever situation they're in, they always look at as an advantage.

So I love interviews back in the day with Tiger Woods where, you know, he has a five-shot lead. most of us might be thinking, you know, like, oh, I hope I don't blow it. He's thinking, man, I have a great cushion. I can make mistakes and still win this. And then, but yet on the other hand, if he's down by five going into the final round, hey, I've come back before from more than five shots, I could do this again. So he's always looking at any situation to his advantage. But the thing I love about the mental game is we could all learn to think more like that. So we don't have this swing speed of Tiger Woods or, you know, Rory McElroy or those guys. there really truly is nothing preventing us from thinking like them.

And that's why I like to say that no one's born with the champion's mind gene. And that's what's really fun. I've seen it over and over and over again, how we could all learn to think better and kind of be a champion in our own life. Wow. Store it at barcelports.com. Merchandise. We love merchandise. I haven't been to a pro shop in like 10 years.

I haven't decided to buy something. And it turns out people like our show. They like Barcelona sports. So we make all kinds of phenomenal merchandise ourselves. We're all wearing it right now. I got the Unreal hoodie on. I got this Travis Matthew hat on. Trent's got a champion hoodie on.

Frankie's got our new item, which I believe is a collaboration with KFC Radio, Kevin and Fights. Yeah, it's electric, man. I mean, it's everything that I love. It's golf, it's space, it's the moon. We use the KFC radio, moon man drawing. So it's our first collab with another podcast here at Barstle. I know it's KFC's first.

I don't even, I think it might be the first in Barcelona history of two major podcast collabing for one piece of merchandise with the two things that we like to do. They like to do the moon man. We like to talk about space. We like to golf. It's an amazing piece of artwork. This is coming out next week, so keep an eye out for it. I think Tuesday maybe. And we're also interviewing

an astronaut next week. So that's going to be awesome. At the end of the day, go get this thing. And then also, I'm teasing these hats. I don't know what you haven't talked about this, but maybe you can see that on the YouTube. We got some stuff coming out. So yeah, the Barstle store is fucking phenomenal. We're crushing it. Our merch team crushes it.

every single day. You're going to get high quality stuff, really good designs. It's going to get shipped right to you. And we love you for supporting the brand. Store. Not BarstableSports.com. Go check it out. Go check out the foreplay page, Barstable Golf.

We got all kinds of good stuff in there. Like I said, hoodies, pullovers, we got polos. We got accessories, head covers, hats, all kinds of great stuff. Towels, teas, everything. So please go check it out. Store. com. It's interesting because, you know, golf,

is spoken about probably more than any other sport or game as how mental it is. And, you know, one thing that I really wanted to ask about is consistency because, you know, we all, to a degree, everyone that plays golf on the weekend, even if you're a 25 handicap, if you're a five handicap, if you're a scratch, you know, we can all hit a drive straight down the middle. And then we can all hit a seven iron pretty much right where we're aiming, the yardage we want it to go. and we can all hit a put right on that, but we can't do it consistently.

We know we can do it, but we don't do it consistently. We might only do it one out of five times or whatever it might be. You know, from a mental approach and your expertise, you know, how can people work on finding the ability to do it consistently when they know they can physically do it? They just don't do it, you know, a high rate of success.

Yeah, that's a brilliant. question because even though sometimes we think that physically we're doing the same thing mentally we're doing something different each time and so we're talking about the june's day thinking you know kind of like you know oh my god if i missed a shot it's going to ruin the round or you know guys are going to rip on me for the rest of my life or you know whatever then there's outcome thinking where we tend to start thinking about you know more in a positive way but it really gets an adrenaline spike in the wrong way where we start thinking you know if i make this then i could break 80 or you know or you know or If I get off to a good start, today's going to be a good day.

We start getting way too ahead of ourselves. But the ideal is, you know, and we've heard this a million times, and I wish I could come up with a better word than process thinking. But process thinking would be just, again, good tempo, put a good swing on it. That's it. So keeping it really simple and kind of living in the target, not getting too mechanical. The thing for the top players is they tend to get too mechanical. and I see that with a lot of baseball guys too.

So they'll go up to bat and I'll say, remember it's watch the ball and then whack the ball. It's not watch the ball, think about mechanics, then whack the ball. But so consistency, having routines. And so one baseball guy I'm working with for the Yankees, he said, man, I never really thought about that. My physical routine is the same every time. But mentally, I'm thinking, you know, I got to get a hit,

I got to get a hit, or it could change. And so he said, how am I going to, you know, that'd be like changing my batting stance every time. So he said, you know, I need to know exactly what I'm going to think each time. And Tiger and those guys have talked about that too. He said, just knowing that when he shows up to a tournament, his warm up routine and then his pre-shot routine are not going to vary at all, really helps him to be more consistent because he could let it unfold in front of him. And it kind of gives you the sense of calmness. Like, I don't know the outcome of the shot or today's round, but I do know,

you know, so there's that uncertainty that we tend not to like and cause the anxiety, but I do know the certainty of my routine. So having a good mental and physical routine is really powerful. That's really interesting because we talk a lot about how little control we have over what we're thinking about over shots and what really is going on. There are times in my mind where I'm thinking literally in my head about like, man, am I going to get ketchup with that burger at the turn or not? Like literally thinking that as I'm pulling the club.

back. And then there's other times when I'm playing really well where I think I'm probably thinking about closer to the right thing. And I remember, you know, Tiger Woods in 2008 when he made the put to win to force a playoff 15 footer down the hill must make. And he bent through everything and the broken leg and a chipping in for eagle and all the crazy stuff. And they asked him after, you know, and he's got on the poana green and it's bumpy and it could bump this way. And he said, all I thought was just make a pure stroke. That's it. And he said, I can't control if it bounces. If it doesn't break as much as I think, I can't control any of that. All I could do making pure stroke and that's it see that that that I love that story because under pressure

simple wins and but it's but but simple uh seems too simple for us so we overthink it and and the greats are just good at see target hit target um and we think that that's too easy you know but so we add up you know add in all these others but yeah it's it's really about you know I'm either going to make it or not might as well make it kind of attitude yeah that's wild that's just wild to me we had um so i was just watching this morning this made me think of of you i was watching this morning the uh step curry video from last night and warmups of him just making everything i saw that yeah and and we had j j reddock on last week and he talked about step currie i think he said like his flow state when he just gets in that flow state and

it's more elevated than anybody's ever been you know when you when you watch someone like him and you hear that kind of terminology but where do you sort of of extract that back to of him being able to shoot the way he does and be able to put up a video of warmups like that video from last night. I mean, how does someone like you break that down? Yeah, well, it looked like a video game. I mean, it didn't look real, right? I mean, it's amazing. And, but again, it gets back to, you know, in that moment, he's just thinking or just feeling probably just good tempo, you know, his mind is focused on the basket. And he's doing it over and over and over again.

And so he's able to just kind of get out of his own way and let it happen. Whereas I think the issue for most athletes, especially in those kind of pressure situations, is we tend to get in our own way. And so that's why I love about the mental game, because if I can't kind of overcome what's going on inside of me, then how am I going to beat you or beat the course or, you know, whatnot? But yeah, that's, I mean, that's flowing.

I mean, he was on, he gets on cloud nine, doesn't he? And it just looks effortless. And that's the thing. it's effortless power where most of us are trying to force things and it becomes like powerful effort, you know, so, but I love watching that because, and that's why we love sports is because it shows us what's possible, you know, and it shows us, you know, what we could kind of strive for in our own way. But yeah, I mean, that's a lot of work and he's a mastery performer. You know, he, he treats practice like the game. And so then when he gets to the game, he can almost treat it like practice.

Since that was insane, 16 straight shots. I mean, half court all the way. down to three. Is that what it was 16? I think it was 16 straight. I was talking about buddies, I'm pretty sure that I'd have a better chance of making a whole one before I did that. Like if you told me I had this unlimited time to make 16 shots or a whole one,

I think I'd make a whole one first. That's how hard that is. Yeah. I mean, that was fun. And that's what's fun is for all of us, we might not have highlights like that, but to create our own memory break of our own highlights. And,

you know, what's interesting, though, guys, is that most of the athletes that I, all of the athletes that I work with it, you know, high school, college, pro, Olympic level, I'll ask them, how often are you in that state of mine, you know, when you're in the zone? And it's a lot less than most people think it's about 10% of the time at most.

Some guys might say, yeah, for a whole round, I was, you know, pretty close to that. But the thing is, is I like to look at as microflow too, that just even if we're not in the zone, we can get a little bit closer to it if we think the right way. It's funny. the zone. I was watching the Disney movie, Soul or the Pixar movie. And he gets into the zone when he's playing the piano. And they actually show a physical representation. I don't know if you've seen it before. It's pretty interesting. They show a visual representation of like this extra realm of all these greats entering this zone. And like it's obviously a Disney movie. So everything's like floating. And he almost feels like the keys are going with them into the sky. And then he comes back to Earth. And everyone was like talking to him and screaming at it. And he's like, I'm like, why are you still playing? You know what I mean? He doesn't, he didn't even know what was happening.

So it's interesting to hear you say that you asked people about the zone because that's one of the main parts of that movie. I just watched it. And it's like, man, how real is that? Are people actually getting so dialed in, like the great? Are they getting so dialed in that they don't even know their surroundings? I've talked to a couple of hockey players that I've become buddies with. And I'm like, isn't all that crowd noise insane and people banging on the, he's like, we don't

see it, man. We're just, we take it like, I need to get this puck into that net. And that's all I'm worrying about. Yeah, it's amazing the state of mine that they could enter in. One of the Olympic athletes that I just worked with, she's one of the top ice dancers. Her and her partner did really well at the Olympics, and they have two performances.

And there's like a free dance and a rhythm dance. And I said, you know, we were emailing back and forth. And I said, how was the rhythm dance? And she said, I don't know, I need to watch it on video because I don't remember it. She did it that well. And that's the thing too. It's fun. I love hearing stories like that. One Olympic wrestler that I work with, I said, tell me about your best match ever. And he said, I can't. And I'm like, come on, you can tell me. I'm your sports psychologist. He said, no, I can't. I can tell me. He goes, no, I don't remember it. It's not that I don't want to tell you. I just don't remember even being there. And Tigers talked about that too. It's like, I know I was there. But I don't remember before the shot, I remember after the shot. But I don't remember kind of during the shot. Isn't that amazing? Isn't there muscle memory that goes into? to like actually performing those things.

Like how are they not remembering it? How are they so so just like, it's almost like they're on autopilot, but like how are they then reaching the other parts of their brain to actually do the thing? You know what I'm saying? How is Tiger actually hitting a stinger iron? If he doesn't even know what's going on,

he's just like completely on another planet. Well, you just made a really important point is they're not accessing other parts of their brain. And that's the good thing is we start activating too many parts of our brain, you know, like our frontal love. We start thinking about it. You know, and what does this mean? and all that stuff. They're just, you know, it's almost like their limbic system. Like you said,

it's kind of like a muscle memory. I don't know if muscles really do have memories, but I like, I like saying that. But yeah, they just kind of almost get out of their own way. And the interesting thing, it's like they become the performance. It's really fascinating. And we've all had glimpses of it, but instead of giving a performance, the performance is giving them. Well, what's your thoughts on muscle memory? We hear that all the time. Like you have to make a thousand puts and you'll just remember how to do that. Is there any truth to that or what's your beliefs on that? Yeah, you definitely need confidence, you know, like, you know, I'm big on the mental game, but you definitely need the physical talent. And the way to get that is just reps, reps, reps,

but being present during those reps. And so really deliberate practice, I think, is important. But yeah, I mean, it's kind of training it. That's the whole thing is, you know, Bob Rottella with golf is not a game perfect. It's training it and then trusting it. And when you trust it, know that it's in there. So with the Olympic athletes for the winter games, one of the analogies we were using is, you know, it's almost like have a performance piggy bank. And you pack it with as many gold coins as you can, you know, in practice, you know, work getting those reps in. And then when it's time to perform, just empty out the bank account. Just have fun spending the money and all that talent's in there.

So let it out. That's when you say be present during the reps, what exactly does that mean? Yeah. So when I worked with San Francisco Giants, I was the sports psychologist for the San Francisco Giants. And I would see the better players like Posey and Bum Gardner and Crawford and Panic and all these guys. When they're practicing, I mean, they're serious. They're locked in. It's almost like you could walk by them and they won't see you because they're just so focused. And so every rep is high quality. You know, when they're lifting weights, when they're throwing, when they're warming up, it's just really high quality. Whereas some of the other guys, you know, some of the younger guys or, you know, some other guys that weren't performing as well, they're kind of goofing around a little too much. You know, there's a time and a place for that because you've got to have fun with it. But the guys get the most out of practice. And Kobe Bryant said this once. He said it's not how many hours you put into practice. It's how many hours your mind is present during practice. So a lot of guys, yeah, and not to be too hard on ASU, but, you know, when I would go watch some of the practices from different sports, you know, different teams. I would start seeing guys look at their watch or look at the clock, you know, like 10 minutes before practice ended. Whereas these other guys, you know, I mean, they're just like, oh, practice is over because they're just so in the moment. Yeah, I remember from, and we're always going to talk about Tiger because he's probably, you know, he's our favorite guy. But from Hank Haney's

book, he would talk about Tiger's practice sessions and he'd said they would, you know, Hank would give him something. Tiger would hit two or three balls. Then he would go sit in the cart and just look out and think about it for a few minutes. He's like he would just sit in the fucking cart and he would just look and he wouldn't hit a single ball. And then he would come back to the range and hit a few and be like, all right, I got it. And Hank's like, I never saw anybody do that. Yeah, his visualization skills are off the charts.

And so that's one thing that I think all of us can do better at because, you know, it doesn't take up a lot of time and it's fun. And so spend a couple of minutes, visualize you yourself hitting great shots or Or, you know, like if you're working on your swing, you know, picture yourself, you know, swinging flawlessly a couple times. And I remember one athlete said to me, does that stuff really help? And I said, well, a lot of people do say it helps. I think Jack Nicholas said he never missed a put in his mind. I love that quote.

But one of the things that, you know, he was realizing as we were talking about this is that, well, it's not going to hurt. So why not do it? And it could only help. And so he really found it really. really helpful. And that's where a lot of guys have said, you know, like I work with a lot of injured athletes. And so we talk about get your mental reps in, even though you can't get your physical reps in. And I've had a lot of guys return back to their sport and say, man, it almost feels like I never left my sport because I kept playing it in my head. It's amazing. I mean, it's obviously

not a negative because you've been so amazingly successful with this, but has it driven you crazy knowing like your whole life exactly how to go about things? Like, and then in your own mind, you have to now practice what you preach, right? Like that would drive me having all this knowledge about how you're supposed to perform in certain situations. And then like if your brain just takes you to another place, you have to, you know everything. Like we're coming to you because you're giving us the information, but it's all in your head. So does that ever drive you freaking nuts?

A little bit, but, but I love that though because, I mean, I'll have the same thing. Like if I go play golf, it's like, well, you're supposed to be good at this because, you know, you know this or that. But you still need to practice it. But no, it's been helpful. And that's what I love about the mental game is it helps with everything. So, you know, for example, writing these books, I'm not a natural writer. And so I had to practice all the stuff, you know, in terms of self-talk.

I don't feel like doing this. Well, you're going to do this, you know, like those kind of things. And then I would visualize myself holding the final product, you know, like holding the book and, you know, how good that would feel. So using self-talk, visualization, goal setting, it really does work. my only regret is I wish I knew this stuff earlier in my life. What drew you to this? Like, was it something that happened in your life that you needed to like pursue it or see it? Like, what drew you to this field?

So when I, I grew up in Portland, Oregon and I played a ton of different sports. And I would always ask, I was just curious. And so I'd always ask questions, what do you do, you know, when you're in a slump or what do you do? And people look at me like, well, you just try harder, you know, or what do you do when you get nervous before, you know, a big track meet or, you know, well, you don't worry about it. You know, like, so I never got satisfying answers. So then I got more and more curious about that. And then I started realizing, well, there's something called sports psychology and is, you know,

kind of in its infancy, so to speak, at that time. And so I started reading more about visualization, self-talk. I'm like, why aren't they teaching this stuff in school? This is the real stuff. You know, this is the important stuff. So then I, and it's just been a fun journey learning more and more. And then when I meet with a lot of, you know, really amazing athletes, to learn from them too. And so that's a lot of fun, hearing their stories. And again, they're all

more similar than they are unalike in the sense that champions in one sport think like champions in a different sport. The other thing, too, is a lot of athletes still don't talk about this. I do think it's the final frontier. Some athletes are kind of, you know, what I'd call like a phrechazoid, where they're so good, they never had to be mentally tough. And but then when adversity strikes, they don't know what to do. So, you know, how do I call my nerves in these situations? Or how do I, you know, if my confidence

takes a big hit, how do I get it back on track? It's amazing. We just had Matt Duches on the National Predators on. He talked a lot about this. He was very open about, you know, you got to attack the mental side of golf, whether, I mean, of hockey, whether it's, you know, that's perceived as a negative or positive, you just got to be able to do it. And he says it's so opening and freeing to be able to now attack that part of his game, fix

that part. He says it makes him better on all aspects. He's a better teammates, a better person, he's a better player. It is amazing how it is very new. It's, and no one's really, it's definitely getting more, you know, approved or, and people are, are not so quick to like make fun of it anymore, which is awesome to say. It's like, oh, you need therapy to, like, figure it out to play a sport. Well, no, but there's so many things that go into that sport that you do need to talk it out. Yeah, well, it's become sports psychology has become sexier. When I first started, it was like, you know, what was the old saying? Like, you know, 20 years ago, if you told a sports psychologist,

or if you told anyone you were seen a sports psychologist, people thought you're crazy. And now they think if you're not seeing one, that you're crazy. Yeah. And that's the thing, too, is sports has become so global and so competitive. And the margin for error is so small. It's like, you know, people might say, well, Ben Hogan didn't have a sports psychologist or Jack Nichols didn't have a sports psychologist. Well, they also didn't play with people that had a sports psychologist

or against people that had a sports psychologist. and they also had really good mental game. So, I mean, you know, that's the common denominator is the mental game. Have you ever talked about dreams that athletes have? And like for me, I'm not calling myself an athlete, but I'll always be in a dream. I call it a nightmare. And I got called up by the New York Islanders,

and they needed me to play, and I can never get on the ice. So, like, it's my time to go and I could never do it. And I have it maybe five to six times a week. And I can't, something happens. I just can't tie my laces. I can't get, I just can't get up there.

Someone calls me. It's crazy. Have you ever heard that? I think it's a pretty common thing across. It's super common. Yeah, I think we all have that is where it's just kind of where in this worst case kind of Armageddon scenario where, you know, we just, you know, it's our biggest moment.

We don't, we can't deliver for some reason. I do think there's a physical part of that where the body kind of, you know, we're kind of paralyzed when we sleep so we don't start swinging a club or, you know, doing those kind of thing. So I think that's some of it that kind of holds us back. But yeah, those fears are, you know, are really interesting. I think it's just human nature. We all have fear of failure, you know, a little bit of fair success, you know, like the better I do, the better I have to do. Like some of the Olympic athletes that I work with, they're so excited to make their first Olympics, but now it's like, okay, you made it, you finished top 10 or whatever, are you going to win

next time? Are you going to be on the podium next time? So now the expectations are crazy, and that's four years away. So, you know, just like, and that's what's amazing about guys like Tiger. my all-time favorites too. I mean, he surpassed all those expectations early in his career. He just didn't meet him. He surpassed him, which is unbelievable. So with Tiger and now you see Charlie, do you have any thoughts about, you know, everyone says don't put so much pressure on a 12 year old or like he shouldn't be in the limelight. Should just be a regular kid. Like we, I mean, our thoughts are his dad's Tiger Woods. So he's already in that limelight. Why not have the confidence? Why not be in front of the camera? Why not just attack it while you can? I mean, he's going to have a leg up

than everyone else. What do you think about, you know, Charlie and his trajectory up? Yeah, I love what you're saying. It's kind of like when athletes say, you know, how can you help me get rid of the pressure? And that's when I'll say you're going to have to give your clubs away, you know, because if you're going to keep playing, there's always going to be pressure because it's important to you. It's meaningful. So I love what you said is there's going to be pressure around him and a lot of, you know, media around him. So you might as well embrace it and use it to your advantage somehow. Yeah. And but I love, do you remember the father's son deal where, Tiger was talking to Charlie and he said remember these are the same shots just that we play on our you know on our home course they're the same shots out here same distance same whatever and then so I love that you know it's just like you know a hundred yard shot is the same as a hundred yard shot and then but also he said hey it's just us just getting our own little world you know kind of put a bubble around us and just be in the moment and with each other so tiger's giving them some pretty good advice that we could all take

It's amazing because we work with this company BetterHelp. They sponsor a good amount of our shows, and it's about, you know, online kind of therapy and basically working on the mind. And one of the quotes that they always use, it's really good. It's like, you know, you go to the range, you work on your nine iron, the physical aspects of it. You work on your driver. You work on your chipping or your putting. You go to the gym and you work on all these physical things. And then everybody knows that the mind is just as important.

Yet very few, you know, people or very little of the time. do we ever actually work on our mind? We just expect it when we're on the course, all of a sudden our mind's supposed to just be performing at 100%. Like if you never practiced it and worked on your mind, it'd be like if you'd never hit a driver in your life and then you walk on the first tee, you're like, I'm just going to drive one down the middle.

Like, no, you've never practiced it. So it makes a lot of sense that if you don't truly work on your mind and the physical or the mental aspect of it, there's a good chance it's not going to perform to the level you need it to perform. Yeah, and that's the great thing again is that you have to train it, you know, And the other thing, too, about the mental game is it's not like, well, okay, now I understand it. And I don't have to worry about it. It's just like you said, with your driver, you know, putting or whatever, you have to keep refining it, working on it.

But what I love about the mental game, again, is it doesn't have to take up that much time. I think that's a big fear of most of us, you know, amateurs. It's like, I don't have the time. I don't even have a time to play as much golf as I want. Where am I going to find the time? It doesn't take up much time or the pros, especially. And again, it just makes it more fun. Yeah, for sure.

Well, look, we really appreciate it. This is fascinating. It's a whole new realm, like you said. It's a little bit of the last frontier. It feels like for golf and a lot of sports and people kind of trying to master the mind a little bit. So we appreciate it. Dr. Jim Afromo, check out the book.

I got it right here. The leader's mind. What are the other three? A champion's mind is one of them. So the champion's mind. And then if you're going to be a champion, there's going to be a lot of setbacks. So I came out with the champions comeback.

And then the young champion's mind. So that's more for teens. Okay. Awesome. Well, again, we appreciate it. We got to get you back on and update you, you know, on how we're doing on our mental approach. But we really do appreciate the time. Thanks, Rick.

Thanks, Frankie. That was a lot of fun. Yeah, thanks, Jim. Really appreciate it. Yep. Have a great day, gentlemen. Thanks, you too. Bye, no.