No Laying Up - Golf Podcast - 874 - Getting Better at Golf with Nico Darras

Episode Date: July 24, 2024

Soly catches up with Dr. Nico Darras of Golf Blueprint to talk through his rapid progression from beginning to play the game in his early 20s to working as a performance coach with some of the best players in the world. We also cover his academic background and how he's worked with partner Dr. Kevin Moore to create a program that applies their research to create unique and specialized practice plans for their clients. If you enjoyed this episode, consider joining The Nest: No Laying Up’s community of avid golfers. Nest members help us maintain our light commercial interruptions (3 minutes of ads per 90 minutes of content) and receive access to exclusive content, discounts in the pro shop, and an annual member gift. It’s a $90 annual membership, and you can sign up or learn more at nolayingup.com/join Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Be the right club. Be the right club today. That's better than most. How about the end? That is better than most. Better than most! Expect anything different? better than most. Expect anything different. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the No Lang podcast. Sali here. Got a little different episode for you today with my friend Nico Daras.

You may know the name. If you remember, Golf Blueprint was an old sponsor of ours that talked to, you know, they make customized practice plans for you amongst a lot of things, a lot of things to help you improve on the game of golf. And been wanting to have Nico on for a while, just to talk through his very interesting route to becoming a golf performance coach. I think is how we define it in there. We get into his background. He was a baseball player that has become a nutso golfer that is a high energy

guy that has somehow now coaching, you know, gone from not even playing the game of golf at the age of like 23 to now doing performance coaching for some of the top players in the world on both the men's and the women's side. It's a fascinating conversation. He's an interesting dude. Hopefully people walk away from this with kind of some kind of takeaway into how they can improve their game. Whether you're a 10 handicap or whether you're a college kid or you're a young pro, even Nico's a really interesting guy to learn from. And I I've enjoyed picking his brain a ton over the years. If you're watching this on our YouTube channel, just a quick note,

it is only a one shot the whole time I had to film this on my cell phone. Small crew here today, just me filming this one. So let's not our highest, highest ever production quality on the YouTube page. But if you're not a YouTube viewer, you can also check it out on our no laying up YouTube podcast page, which continues to grow. We appreciate everyone's support there. Also, if you're watching on YouTube, you might see I am rocking one of my brand new Dewar shirts.

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How would you describe like what your, what your, what your job is? What your, I just asked Micah and Micah from innovation. We just played golf with today. Like I was, you know, introducing you to a couple of people here and I was like, how would you describe what Nico does? I don't really know. Just like a golf nerd. Like what, what would you describe it? It's such a good question. And it's something I need to get better at when I talk to people. I'm always like, whenever I'm with my tour guys,

like, why don't you tell them what I do? And then I seem to learn more and more about what I do from them. The best way I would describe it is actually how one of my girls, Marina, described it. I'm a practice and performance consultant. That's the best way to describe it. So taking what someone does well, right?

Because they got to the dance without me. They're already one of the best players in the world by the time they get to me. I'm not working with 12-year-olds today. They're already one of the best players in the world. And then understanding, A, how did they get there? B, what can we do to make you a little bit better? And with the best players in the world,

that might mean a tenthth of a shot here, that might mean a 10th of a shot there, or it might be, hey, I'm world number 50 and I wanna become world number 10. How do we do that? And really digging in, first thing is, is sitting and playing with them. And I play with all of my clients,

which is such a cool way to learn what their game is like, getting to see it up close in person. And then we have lunch, talk to them, have lunch, get to know them as a human being because every single person is so different. Kind of like the conversation we had at lunch about the 255 yards at Torrey. One of my favorite questions to ask someone is for male golfers, you are standing on the 18th hole,

you are tied with the lead, and you're playing partners slightly ahead of you. You have 255 yards to the pin. What do you do? And getting to learn what drives them. Are they scared to lose? Do they want to win? Do they ask about where's my playing partner?

How am I hitting it? How are they hitting it? All those things. And then from there, once we have a good idea of who they are as a human being, it's really digging into data. And understanding what data matters, what data is noise, and then what can we do, like I said, to find that tenth of a shot.

And if your specific goals are to win a tournament, say you want to win the Masters, let's talk about that. How do we find a shot here or a shot there? Or if you just say, hey, I want to be the FedEx Cup champion at the end of the season, okay, then we can talk about winning a season long. So it's trying to use data, what they do well, and then who they are as a human being to create practice plans so that every single day they're getting just a little bit better and enjoying it.

Well, that's to say, I kind of wanted to, this episode, we're going to talk a lot of stuff you do at the pro level, but I want people to walk away with how to improve at the amateur level, right? Because correct me if I'm wrong, some of what you do, a lot of it translates to that level. And a lot of the things you've, it's unique to each individual person. A lot of the specific work you're talking about there,

but also some of the stuff you've done with Golf Blueprint as well is not necessarily, it is unique to each person in the algorithm and the blah, blah, blah. We'll get into your background and all the stuff you do. Total dork. I sound like an idiot as soon as I start talking about it. But I want people to walk away and be like, all right, here's a way I can get better golf.

Or hopefully somebody hears this and is like, oh, I do that wrong. I do that wrong. I do that wrong. I could tell some of the questions you were asking me out on the golf course today. I was like, all right, what do we see here? And I was like, ah, I'm probably going to answer this question wrong. I know I felt a me out on the golf course today. I was like, all right, what do we see here? And I was like, ah, I'm probably going to answer this question wrong.

I know I felt a little intimidated on the strategy part and all that. But it's not just course maintenance. That's not what we're talking about. Totally. OK. Yeah, one of the most important things is there's really no wrong answers.

It's about how you do it. Because at the end of the day, the best executed plan is the one that you believe in. So if you were standing there at one point and you wanted to hit the soft wedge, I thought it was a full wedge. Doesn't matter to me what you do. You're the one playing the shot.

At the end of the day, you, the golfer is responsible for the outcome. I can help you. I can create the best plan in the world. But you at the end of the day are the superstar that's hitting the shot. Was there ever like a pinch me moment in terms of you've had a very fast rise to the game of golf,

which we can get through, but all of a sudden you're out there walking. I walked with you with John Rom at the US Open in 2023. I guess that was at LACC. Like, was there a pinch me moment for a little bit of that that you're getting to consult with some of the best players in the world? So getting to work with the best players in the world and the best teams in the world, I always go back to that.

Because the best players in the world have the best teams in the world. And that's so important to me is understanding what makes a player successful and having the people behind the scenes that you may never have heard of that are just playing a huge role in that success. Truthfully, longtime listener, first time caller here. I got to give a big shout out to you guys.

It's kind of a pinch me moment of being a fan of NLU for so long. And then we can tell the story, but I mean, you guys gave us our start, right? So this is such a cool golf blueprint. Yeah. Yeah. So, so I mean, we'll go through, I'm sure my journey in golf, but yeah, getting to getting to work with the best players in the world so quickly in a lot of ways was easier than you'd think because I never had the time to get scared. It's almost like we talked about when you're around

with Furek where you said, you didn't even have time to get nervous. My first players that I was working with were the best players in the world. So I literally never had time to be like, oh my gosh, this is insane. I made it. Yeah, like I've made it.

Hey, I started, like so many coaches, right? They start in the driving range and then they move up and move them up. Whereas for me, it was just like, hey, here's the deep end. Let's see if you swim. And you just sink or swim. And luckily for me, players have played great. Tell me if I have this right.

You have a doctorate in education and learning theory. Is that accurate? Yeah, so my doctorate is in education. And then my specific area of study was learning theory. Well, how does that translate ultimately? I'm sure it's a long story to get to where you're at today, but I'm interested in calling at some point in this conversation, going down a path of like,

the phrase learning theory was a little alert to me in terms of there's so much muscle memory in golf, there's so much psychological damage in somebody's brain, there's so much decision making in strategy and calculus and judging moods and all kinds of stuff that it's an interesting way of looking at the game of golf. I don't want to characterize your work, I definitely don't want to, as being a math equation.

You're not printing off a piece of paper and saying, hit here, hit here. I am no mathematician, trust me. My high school math teacher in geometry would be the first one to say that I struggled mightily. So but I mean, you dropped like four or five examples just in our round of golf today of ways you've thought about the game in terms of like,

all right, I've studied ball speed and here is where like the limit is on best players in the world. But I kind of want to know how your background in all that translates to what you specialize in in golf, what you've learned, some examples maybe of that and how that's especially helped you. Totally.

So I think it's important to identify first. I've been down every freaking rabbit hole you could have had. You dropped a couple of them. Ball speed, shafts, swing weight, shoes. That was another just wild one for a while and equating shoes and ball speed. Shout out to TPI Dave on that one.

But I think the story goes back to, I started playing golf at 23. I never played before. My sister was a college golfer. I'd probably played a round of 18 holes at some point in my life. Two years later, after learning, I was playing in a mini tour event in Arizona on the Outlaw Tour.

Defunct now, but what a blast. The most fun ever. And in my first round, I shot even par. And I was ready to sign up for Augusta. I didn't even know what the Masters was. I was like, I most fun ever. And in my first round, I shot even par. And I was ready to sign up for Augusta. I didn't even know what the Masters was. I was like, I am freaking ready. Put me in the Masters, right? How do I become a pro?

And I lost by 11 that day, because that's what mini-tour players do. They shoot 61. So I shoot even. And I'm driving home, and coincidentally, I'm listening to Dr. Kevin Moore, who's a real mathematician. And I was a first semester doctoral student studying education.

And as I'm driving home and listening to Kev, the professor, I hear this idea of math. And it just sparked something in my brain of like, hey, I don't have the years of golf that these other players have. I need to close the gap on them really quickly. And I know I can't make it up with time. And at the time, you know, I was a doctoral student,

you don't have any money, right? It's not like I can afford $1,000 an hour of lessons. So I needed to close the gap. And then fast forward to a weekend later, I had just gone through a breakup and I was so sad. And I, like a dork, did all of my homework in one weekend for like an entire semesters of class, right? Just like a total nerd move in my sadness.

And as I'm reading a page on Dr. Robert F. Major, he talked about learning theory in the military as a way to reduce time and confusion in task-oriented skills. And I said to myself, wait a minute, can I apply this to golf? And if any of you've been to therapy, you'll know what this means. But as at the end of one of the professor and I sessions on talking about math and data, I ambushed him with five minutes to go of this manifesto that I wrote on practice. Still to this day, Kev's never read it, I

guarantee you. I've never read it since. I have no idea what's in there, and it's like our long time joke. But it was the idea of structuring my practice every day so that I actually understand, OK, I have the data, right? Everyone's tracking strokes gained. People understand a basic idea of what that is. But it's worthless without a plan.

And I realized, OK, I might be a bad wedge player, but now what? How do I actually get better? Just because I know that I realized, okay, I might be a bad wedge player, but now what, how do I actually get better? Just because I know that I stink at putting, I need to actually improve at my putting. And it became down to how to structure my time. So some days I'd have 45 minutes, some days I'd have no time, some days I'd have four hours.

But I need to get the most out of the time because I got sick of losing. Mini Tour players are really freaking good at golf. The line is so razor thin between Mini Tour Canada, Canada, Corn Fairy, Corn Fairy, and the big leagues to where I was getting waxed. And when you're losing 40 bucks a round, I was a freaking ATM machine.

I think I put half of the dudes in Scottsdale, probably paid their bar bill for the month, and really just got sick of losing. And that's kind of the long-winded answer on. So how do you, we can look at this on the amateur side and on the pro side. So let's flip over a little bit on towards the amateur side. You guys end up creating this thing called Golf Blueprint,

which you guys have been a sponsor of ours for, it's been a few years, but it's, you guys create these practice plans, these paths to getting better for people on a more individual basis. It's for a few years, but it's, you know, you guys create these practice plans, these paths to getting better for people on a more individual basis. It's for the mass public, but it's on the individual basis. So like backing all the way up into that, what do people get wrong with practice?

What are you trying to avoid with that? And what, if you were to like summarize how, if you would want one of your students to summarize, here's how my practice sessions work, what would like the two sentence reaction to that be? Let's talk about first why golf practice sucks. Golf practice sucks because it's unlike the game. You stand on a flat range, there's no pressure,

there's no stimulus, there's absolutely zero consequences. You take and you rake, right? You hit a ball, you get another one. And most driving ranges aren't very good either. Yeah. Right? There's not really a good. The balls are terrible.

There's bad targets to hit at. There's music, or there's people, or there's whatever. It doesn't even remotely replicate the game of golf. And yet we stand there with our tripods, and we break down our swing with limited knowledge of actually what we should be doing, which is also so dangerous and We think that we're practicing golf an analogy I like to make is if you were gonna go if you and I were gonna go play basketball

And we went down to the gym and we shot free throws for an hour we practiced a part of the game we didn't play the game right and Standing on the range hitting seven iron after seven iron a right? And standing on the range, hitting seven iron after seven iron, A, how many seven iron are you actually hitting around? Right? How many people actually track the clubs

that they're using throughout a round? Maybe you do. I should probably, but no I don't. Right? And so it's one of those things like, what do people get wrong? Let's talk about those as kind of like the big three. Everyone makes fun of the guys beating their driver on the range.

More people should beat their driver on the range. My girlfriend's in med school, so I'm very much in the medical term of this. High yield is what she loves to talk about. What is high yield golf practice? You need to understand what is the most important things in the game. You know, you listen to the old guy talking in the bar

about, oh, it's all about chipping and putting. You and I, both are data dorks. It's not, right? We understand it's driving and approach play. At the highest levels, it's no different than amateurs, but even bigger for amateurs, it's driving distance and being able to keep the ball on the freaking planet with some semblance of where it's going.

So if I was gonna structure someone's practice and you're an amateur listening to this and you're a 15 handicap and your buddy tells you, you need to practice more putting, probably not, man. You need to learn how to drive the ball. There's no 15 handicap. It's too good at hitting driver and irons. Yes.

I will die on this hill. There's not a good driver in the world that is a 10 handicap because it is freaking impossible. If you hit the ball 320 yards in play and you are in the dead middle of every fairway, you will score better. Right? Distance is obviously a massive controversy right now in the game. And I don't think we're gonna go down that rabbit hole. We can but understanding what is actually going to help

you get better at golf. If I flipped over and played like left handed, or if I think about this too, when I'm trying to teach my wife something like just the actual nature of the strike, right? Because I just don't, I see 15 handicaps, 20 handicaps that are not even, I don't mean this in a begrudging way, but they're not on the path to getting better in terms of how you're hitting the strike, right?

How do you train someone? And I'm very curious on the brain and what you, I don't know if you involve the brain and the human brain, left brain, right brain, how all this stuff works, but how do you train someone to actually strike the golf ball? How would you start with that? Okay, so let's talk about a really interesting thing you said. About a year and a half ago, I started teaching my girlfriend how to play. She's very bright, obviously a medical doctor, a Division I athlete, and a half ago, I started teaching my girlfriend how to play. She's very bright, obviously a medical doctor,

Division I athlete, and a tennis player. But because she's super good at those things, golf is immensely frustrating. It's the Dunning-Kruger effect. You're good at one thing. I think I should be good at this. And let's face it, golf looks so easy on TV. Oh my god.

Oh my god. You watch these guys flush the ball. You watch LPGA. They hit freaking lasers with their hybrids all day. And then I go out there, and I'm trying to hit the ball and it's much more difficult. Understanding as a beginner, the most important thing is having fun.

Because if you're having fun, you'll come back. There's so many massive barriers to entry in golf. And again, look at your country clubs. Look at places that are a bit intimidating. They're unsettling. They're not always the most welcoming places for a new beginner. And then I'm relearning all of the challenges that she had.

Number one, which way is the freaking first tee? Why is there no sign? You get up there, you don't know where the first tee is. You don't know how to get to the second tee. There's so many different barriers to entry of just even getting to the first tee for your first round of golf. And then there's people behind you.

One of the funniest stories ever is we had only played with each other. We get up on the first tee of this public course in Laguna Beach, California, where I'm from. And she looks at me and she goes, why are those two people standing by me? And I go, love, what do you mean? She goes, why are they watching me hit?

I go, we have to play with them. She goes, what do you mean? I don't wanna play with them. They're gonna watch me. I said, this is golf. This is the reality of the game of golf, is that these people are going to play with us and we're going to be perfect strangers.

And at the end of four, maybe six hours at your local Muni, we're going to hopefully become friends. I think the cheat, easy answer to this is when we practice golf, when we go to the range and we just beat balls, that's not the answer, right? But I think there's maybe, maybe you would argue there's times when, yeah, beating balls is the right play, when we go to the range and we just beat balls, that's not the answer, right? But I think there's maybe you would argue there's times when you have beaten balls is the right way to do it. Great exercise.

Yeah, it can be if you're working on the right things, right? So can you give me an example of how you would simulate? What do you see people, I think, for the sake of this conversation for most of today's pod, we can say like we're talking about 10 handicap right now. Yes, let's talk about it. Limited time.

Kids at home, full time job. Let's say you play maybe 30 to 50 times a year, if you're lucky. But how would you advise they get better? I'm guessing the answer isn't like, go hit balls for one hour once every two weeks, right? Like, your time on the range can be worth something. What can you do at home to get better?

How would you take somebody and make them improve at golf? I think the first question I would ask an amateur is the first question I'd ask the Torpro. What's your home life like? Are you single? You have kids? Are you a good husband? Are you a good dad?

Are you a good employee? Are you a good wife? All of those questions, because like you said, when you and I were young and we were single, we could practice for eight hours a day. We had no responsibilities. Your life has changed. my life has changed, we have businesses.

Understanding that golf is your outlet, not your job. Starting there and just realizing this is a stress reliever, which for most people you watch them snap a seven iron when they hit a bad shot, you're like, you're not even good enough to get angry. You are literally not good enough to get mad. You don't work hard enough to deserve success, let alone to get angry.

Like, it is insane to me. And so let's use that theoretical 10 handicap. Number one, I would say, how much time do you really have? In a week. How much time do you really have in a month? And what are your goals? If you're a 10 handicap and you tell me my only goal is to shoot lower scores, you know what I'm going to tell you?

Find an easier golf course, my man. Because that. You're not actually improving. You're not actually improving. You could be the best 10 handicap in the world and you play a bloodbath of a golf course every day and you're better than so many other players. Or vice versa, you play a pitch and putt.

The second thing I would do is I would say, look, how much time can I actually devote to this just for me? That's not when my phone is on. That's not when I'm responding to work emails This is actually my time and being selfish Truly selfish with your time and getting to dedicate it and you talk to your wife talk to your spouse whoever it is your boss And say look, this is my one hour Twice a week it's for me and I'm gonna take this time and I'm gonna freakin enjoy it Maybe your thing is, you know, you get a lemonade every time you go, right?

You insert whatever you want. You drink a beer every time you go, and that's your relaxing time. Because again, I'm going to keep dying on this hill. This is not your job. This is meant to be enjoyable, fun for the rest of your life. If you're a 10 handicap and you tell me you want to be a tour pro, I'm okay with that. I've heard crazier things.

I've listened to the wildest conversations of saying, these are my goals. And I've also listened to people who say I want to be a tour pro, I'm okay with that. I've heard crazier things. I've listened to the wildest conversations of say, these are my goals. And I've also listened to people who say, I want to win the Masters and they've done that. So no goal scares me. It's just what time do you have and what are you willing to devote? Because there's consequences in everything, right?

There's consequences for being a great player and there's consequences for, you know, you and I both have jobs now. We don't get to play as much anymore. It's our reality. And that's where it just comes in like, all right, I feel like I was on a path down with my golf swing maybe four or five years ago

that hey man, when I played a lot, it was fricking good. Like it was good. I was comfortable with that, but then like, when the time dialed back, whatever I was doing on that path, the maintenance of that was not, I wasn't able to keep up with that. And things kind of started to fall apart and then I started searching and then I ended up down whatever I was doing on that path. The maintenance of that was not, I wasn't able to keep up with that.

And things kind of started to fall apart. And then I started searching. And then I ended up down another bad path. Like, I wasn't practicing right. And I wasn't working on the right technique. And all this, it fell apart rather quickly. Whereas I feel like I've gotten back into, now I'm 38 now. My back is not as healthy.

And I've got a new instructor here, Jim at Tim McQuana. And we just broke it down to the very basics. And I told you this on the course. I feel like I've got a swing instructor here, Jim at Tim McQuanna. And we just broke it down to the very basics. And I told you this on the course. I feel like I've got a swing now that I can age with. I'm not trying to murder the ball anymore. Maybe my ceiling's a little bit lower, but my floor has been raised, at least by the fact that I can keep the ball in front of me.

And I just got back more into basics. So I feel like that can be a tough path for a lot of people. It's a tough path for me. It's years of getting there. Years of getting there. Yeah, like I got soft capped. Like I was a plus 2.6, and I ended up soft capped it like a two over a two.

Now I got five shots off that. Dude, I get it. It was very bad. But I didn't know what I was searching for. And I'm only sharing this and hoping that somebody listening to this, it would resonate in some way of like, I'm not on an actual path right now. I'm wandering out in the wilderness. And like, that's where I'm only sharing this and hoping that somebody listen to this, it would resonate in some way of like, I'm not on an actual path right now. I'm wandering out in the wilderness and like.

Join me. Well, that's where, no, you shouldn't say join me because you're supposed to help with that in terms of like, how would you like set someone on a path? I know that's a really broad question, but like you have to have some examples. So let's go to the learning theory side to circle back. We always start with the end goal in mind

and then work backwards. If that 10 handicap comes to me and says, my goal is to play in my club championship, then let's work backwards from there. What does that mean? What do you need to shoot to qualify for your club championship? Do you want to qualify or do you want to compete?

Do you want to compete or do you want to win? And then we work backwards. It doesn't matter how big your goals are. You need a goal. Otherwise, you're just wandering aimlessly in the wilderness like the rest of us. If I set my goals and I say, look, my goal is to compete on the mini tours, what does that actually mean? I need to define clear success so that when I can say,

I accomplished it or I didn't. And more importantly, what are my process and my outcome goals? I think this is one of the most important things. If you and I set outcome goals as good players qualify for the mid-amp, let's say, what are my process gonna be to get there? I'm not just gonna suddenly wake up and do that.

There's a lot of little wins that have to happen along the way, and I want people to be so excited about those little wins. Hey, my goal is to go to the driving range twice a week. This week I did that, that's a win. Doesn't matter what, doesn't matter what you what your goal is to work twice a week, you did that. It's like putting something on a to-do list

that you've already done just to cross it off. How good does that feel? You make your bed in the morning, you have a small win. It's that there's a Navy SEAL commander that talks about that. Little wins. And I'm such a big proponent of small wins create big momentum.

I want to now flip in back more on the top level side. What are you, it still kind of can blow my mind a little bit that some of the players that you've worked with are somebody that's not been in the game of golf for a very long time. Some of these guys have been major champions before you were into the game and now you are. Before I even played. Exactly, now you're helping them with their golf strategy

and things like that. What do those conversations look like at the highest level? Is it that different than what it would look like at a lower level? And I know it's different for each person, but kind of take us to how you help the top pros. Amateur golf and pro golf are not even the same sport. They're not even in the same realm.

They're not playing the same game. They have such different challenges. And again, I can't stress enough to the amateur listening at home. You watch it on TV and just understand those are mutant aliens. They are freaks of nature. I have no idea how they're so good. And to take it a step back, I am worse at golf than everyone that I coach. And I understand that. Every single person that I work with is better than me fundamentally at the game. My job is to understand what they do well. And at the highest levels, that might mean practicing more efficiently.

And more importantly, it might mean practicing with more fun. Because if you- Even for the top guys. It's even more important. Think about for the best players in the world. There's so much stress, pressure, immense amounts of people relying upon them,

whether it's their family or coaches or whoever it is, there's so much pressure to maintain that. Getting to the dance is cool. Staying there is so much harder. And it also gets really boring. Dude, you and I have stood on the putting green and practiced. If I said to you,

it's all you gotta go putt for an hour, 10 minutes into it, you're gonna be looking at your phone like, oh man. Well, I think it, at least I have this tendency of when I'm out there trying to practice either wedges, eight irons, drivers, putters, chipping. I practice until I feel like I've got it right. Not that I'm gonna keep doing it right.

It's like, okay, my hook's gone for now. I'm good, two more balls and let's go play. Whereas that doesn't seem to, I know that, and that still doesn't seem to be the best path to actually improving, yet actually programming your brain to work in a different way towards improvement is hard for a lot of people. Yeah, we want to move away from reactive practice. So reactive practice is you and I went out and played today,

and we had a left miss with a driver. Well, I'm going to go practice until I don't miss a left anymore. That's terrible practice. You're wasting your freaking time. Instead, tomorrow, you know what you and I are gonna do? We're gonna go back to the book that we have of, okay, tomorrow is wedges, eight irons, and putting.

I might hit a few balls with my driver, but I'm not gonna waste all of my time tomorrow. That's too small of a sample size, number one. And number two, understanding that we're looking at a long-term. I'm looking with tour players at a six month range of their events.

Because as players, we live and die on our last round. We're only as good as our last round. But as a data set, you and I know that's terrible. Because I might have flushed it and shot a 62 last round, I'm the greatest player in the world, tomorrow I might shoot 78. Or if we look at it and we say, okay, what have I done over the last 30 days,

60 days, 90 days, six months, now all of a sudden we get some really good data to say, you know what, you're right. I am missing my driver a bit left. Is that equipment? Is that setup? Is that just I'm freaking scared of leaving it out to the right? Because they could be just as easily as that.

Yeah, gosh, I don't know if I want to go down that rabbit hole of answering why I'm missing it left still. Right elbow flaring, but then is it bounce? Is it my back? Is it what I'm compensating for? I don't really know the answer to that. So I've done some of your practice plans,

and I've not, like admittedly, I have not been able to keep up in terms of, same way like I've gotten personal training workout plans, and I have not kept up with those. It's just human nature to like, it can be a hard thing. But I have found the only way to actually do this improve. I'm working on like a speed training thing. I'm like, dude, it's something that like holds me accountable. I put it on my calendar and actually go do it.

But otherwise, I wouldn't. The human, I don't think it's people's natural reaction to want to keep a habit, a structured plan, without writing it down, without actually putting something in ink or holding yourself accountable for it. So I'm guessing that's at least a little way of how you would describe how your practice plans work. It's the human experience.

Even with tour pros, they'll come and go. They'll be locked in for three months, and they're just on a heater. They're doing it every day. And I won't hear from them for three months. That's okay. It doesn't bother me. Right? That's one of those things.

That's human nature. If we were robots, yes, we'd wake up every morning, we would cold plunge, sauna, you know, stare at the sun for 30 minutes, you know, whatever else or crazy morning routine. But that's just not the reality of being a human being. And a lot of it, we have to be kinder to ourselves. We have jobs, we have lives,

we have things outside of golf that as much as you and I would love to be the best player you and I can be, we have jobs, we have lives, you have kids. It's being nicer to yourself and it's also expectation management. And that carries not just in your practice but on the golf course. How much time do you really have to dedicate?

How good can you really be? And how important is it that you reach this goal of being a better golfer, whatever it is? Is your enjoyment of the game gonna greatly increase if you reach this arbitrary goal? I'm gonna ask you a weird question. Bring it. I ask everyone of my tour pros,

what's your biggest goal in golf? Biggest possible. Okay, shoot, let's go medium. I think it's attainable. I could qualify for the US medium. Okay, and now give me a lofty goal. I could win the US medium. What happens if you win the US medium?

I go to the Masters. Ben, what happens? Figure it out from there. I never got that far in my dreams. So it's one of those conversations where I say to people, when you're looking at your goals, and this is, again, kind of the brain side, a lot of times, what happens if I actually do accomplish them?

Maybe now I have to practice more and I'm not with my kids. Maybe all of a sudden there's more pressure on me. And everyone wants to accomplish their goals in theory, but in reality, what happens, not if you fail, if you fail it's whatever. There's no such thing as failure, there's learning. But if you accomplish them, then what? I think about that all the time in my own life.

If I accomplish my goals, let's say I win a mini tour event. Now all of a sudden it's, well, am I going to go to Q school? Oh, if I go to Q school, then what? Then I got to go to European Q school? Then I got to try. All of those things. And I say to people, what if your wildest dreams come true?

That's a bigger problem a lot of times than it is the end all be all of my dreams. Well, I'm sure that happens that, you know, I've never really thought of it that way, but in terms of pros at the highest level, if you go out and you win a major championship and then it's like, Now what?

Then what? I mean, I'll use two guys as an example that I don't believe you've worked with, but like, Conmore, Cowell, one, two, very quickly. And then it's, I'm totally projecting it. I have no idea what his conscious is like, but maybe it's like, well, now what? And how do I maintain this? Do I, am I now looking for eight no idea what his consciousness is like. Maybe it's like, well, now what? How do I maintain this?

Am I now looking for eight majors? What is it? Xander, who just won his second this past year, I'm sure there's something of like, once you've reached what you've dreamed of the most, it's got to be really hard to. Dude, let's talk about our own game. My goal posts have constantly changed.

And it's been really hard in golf. Something I've never really shared is that my goal was to become a scratch golfer. And I unfortunately accomplished that in a year. Then what? Then my goal was playing mini tour golf. Okay, I'm playing now in Arizona after two years. For people that want to punch you on the pod,

like you're an athlete, you're a baseball player, like you have incredible, incredible ball speed. You make golf look very easy and you are an outlier in terms of what you've been able to accomplish in a short period of time. You sprinkled that in and some people are an outlier in terms of what you've been able to accomplish me in a short period Of time you you sprinkle that in and I've some people are listening to this enterprise very upset So I had to qualify that for them And I'm gonna laugh with those people and say I might be the best player you've ever played with and I'm the worst player

In my group every single day in Jupiter every day. It's a crazy anomaly that I literally lose every Single day in Jupiter. I walk on the tee and I'm like, that guy plays on Corn Fairy, he's a Canada guy, he was a two time All-American in college, and here I am just trying to keep one on the planet. Right, and so when the goal posts are constantly shifting, it's really hard to say, hey, I'm really proud of where I am today,

and that's enough, because otherwise it's never enough. If I win a major, then what? I gotta win two. If I win two majors, what I got to win two if I win two majors now I got to win four then I'm chasing Jack then I'm the next That is a really hard way to go through life, but it's also what the most elite performers do. They're never satisfied Can work I can work against you though without the same exactly kind of game plan. So interesting. So what's an example? I don't know.

I know coaches and whatnot don't want to necessarily use specific examples. They've used with specific players and all that. So you can keep the names or whatever out of it. But what's an example of something that has been really rewarding for you in terms of how you've gotten through to a player and have seen the specific reward,

either the goal they were looking for, or something you implemented that helped got them over the hump or have helped them maintain over the hump, whatever they're trying to accomplish. I'm curious like where your brain goes there. So I always need to clarify that no matter what I do, they are the superstar hitting the shot. And I think that understanding that as the player,

it's not egotistical, but golfers need to have a little ego. You've got to have a little edge. We've talked about that a little bit in the past. You really got to believe you are the guy or you are the girl, because otherwise someone else does. So I think one of the coolest things that I've worked on

and I've actually posted a lot about this in social media, ironically, with very little response is heart rate. And understanding that you are practicing and playing at two different heart rates. One of the most rewarding things for me was watching one of my guys come down the 18th hole, take a deep breath, and then hit a shot. As simple as that sounds. This dude has a tendency to race, you know, tendency to get going pretty hot, and just say, I got this. Boom, execute. Take a deep

breath over the putt, knock the putt in. That to me, getting to watch as simple as that sounds, because that's the end goal, right? That's the outcome goal. The process goal was doing sprints and then hitting balls. It's listening to metal music, super loud, and then hitting balls. It's trying to condition your body through operant conditioning is essentially what it is.

That there's all those steps that we as the viewer at home don't get to see. Right? We only see the end goal if that player succeeds or if they fail. But for me, I was so proud and my goal is to be the cheerleader, the Ted Lasso coach. It's like, dude, I watched you succeed 38 times on the range and guess what? You freaking shanked it on the 18th hole last time. One of my earliest tour pros that I got to work with, he missed a putt to win on 18, and it devastated him. And it was a career-altering moment, but he came back. That, to me, is so cool, because I got to see behind the scenes that, like you talked about,

coaches are really cagey. And really so. That's their career. That's their life. That's their thing. The specifics that they're working on, I tend to be more of an open book, which I just believe in that.

But getting to see the work behind the scenes to me is the coolest part. The way I kind of see it, the people at the very top of the game are freaks in a way that like, even I'm sure you have to work with some mid-level pros or college kids or whatnot that you see, like maybe you don't tell them this directly,

but like, hey, you're not this. Like this, there's just a different category of things. Like, I don't know if I could take you, like you could not take me and make me into a top 10,000 player in the world, probably. But I just don't have like it, whatever that would be. But some people have this it factor. And I'm curious as to your understanding

of the professional sports landscape in terms of outliers. And again, you're working at an extremely high level. Yeah, a meta niche. You have to have an understanding, at least, of what people are capable of and how that works into your programming and whatnot. So one of the biggest advantages I have is that I'm referral-based and guys coaches bring.

Guys typically come to me through their coach, a lot of times it's TPI Dave. So there's like swing coaches. Yes, there's swing coaches that typically. And you do not do swing stuff. I'm not a swing guy, no. No, I've been down the swing rabbit hole, trust me. I've been down face to path, but I'm not a swing coach.

So I'll tell you an interesting story about that. David Pooge was a 20 year old kid from ASU and TPI Dave called me and said, hey, let's, you know. It's Dave Phillips for those of you. Yeah, let's, you know. It's Dave Phelps for those of you. Yeah. Let's take the kid out, see what he's got. So I always like to bring a mini tour player or someone

who's good in the group with me. It's hard to play and evaluate. And I remember I'm watching this kid, and he's through 14 holes, and it's an easy club. And he's not hitting it like he should be, like a tour pro would at that age. And we get on 15. It's the easiest part of three

on the course, as you've played Arizona Country Club, great club. He short sides himself and he's driving up and he is in Spanish saying the funniest things in the world that I don't speak Spanish but I could pick up enough, he's mad. And I say to him, I go, hey, you need a putter? And he looks at me dead in the face and he goes,

I don't need a putter. And this is the nicest human being in the world and said it with a voice that I've never heard. He looks at me and goes, I don't need a putter. And this is the nicest human being in the world and said it with a voice that I've never heard. He looks at me and goes, I don't need a putter. Short-sided pins running away from him. Dude, if you and I are there, we get it up and down one out of 10 times and that's if we hit the stick.

He hits it to an inch, looked at me and goes, I didn't need a putter. I called Dave and I was like, I don't know what you saw, but that is different, right? That kid is different. He's an Olympian today, amazing player, and he has worked his butt off to get to that level, all credit to him, his team.

Getting on my end, I have such an advantage. Claude will bring me a great player, like Marina, for example. Marina's already an established pro. It's Marina Alex. Yeah, Marina Alex, friend of the program for NLU gang. An established pro. She's been doing this for so long.

We just got to make it fun for her. We gotta make it engaging. That's the other thing is, again, going back to it, trying to make it mentally engaging so that we're not just standing on the driving range board and more importantly, hating our job. As much as people might not understand this at home, again, we talked about pro golf and amateur golf

being different worlds. Golf is a job at the end of the day. Some people love their job and they might have the best job in the entire world, but there's still stresses, there's still up and downs. And at the pro level, when you don't make a cut, you lose money. If you and I have a bad day at our job, it's like, okay,

maybe your boss yells at you or whatever it is, but we're not losing $10,000. We're not losing money that we had to put up to play. And that stress and that pressure is a very different concept. Yeah, I think you can attest to this. Pro golf isn't necessarily as glamorous as maybe it's made out to be on television.

You mean to tell me the corn fairy tour in the middle of nowhere and grinding for a cut isn't awesome? Well, you referred to this earlier, too. And it's what I always default to is like the, it took moving to Jacksonville to really get an understanding. And I'm sure Jupiter is even more so of like the depth of. It's insane.

The number of dudes that will just beat the shit out of a plus three handicap. Oh dude, a plus three handicap. It's nothing. I have five cart guys in Jupe today that I would fly to the the your best player at your club I have five car guys that I will Bet the mortgage on they beat them five and four and it's not even close and these dudes will never

Sniff the corn ferry tour for a myriad of reasons. Yeah, right Like what would those reasons be the biggest reason is cash? And this is one of those things that is very very quietly talked about I know Ryan does a great job, Monday Q info of talking about how expensive it is to play pro golf. And for a lot of these kids, they might have the talent, but it's 150 grand a year at the high, you know, at corn, furry tour level, etc. And they might not have the

opportunity, they might not have the financial backing, whatever that might be, they might not have the ability to play stress free, like the golf they can play, because they're worried about the limitations that finances have. That's one of those things that I don't think it's talked about really enough is truly the pressure of one of my clients is an Uber driver.

And then he drove for DoorDash. He's literally playing mini tour events and winning $700 for his next mini tour event. He's week to week, month to month, and watching him grow and succeed and that $20 an asshole you and I play, hey man, I'm pissed I lost 60 bucks to you. You waxed me. But if that is me and him playing, he needs that 60 bucks for gas. He needs that for rent. That's a very different way to play golf. And I cackle when I go to country clubs and

I watch an eight handicap who thinks he can shoot 77 Freak out because he shot an 82 like dude. You have no idea the pressure of putting for your rent Literally, you're playing a hundred dollar game that you think you can win and you literally can't cover it That is a very different way of playing golf. And for the amateurs at home listening, just understand that professional golf is a different animal than what you're playing, and that's not bad. And it has to just be a,

it's almost like this race, right? Of, all right, well now I'm in this pool of players, and now like, you tell me, 40% of the players are taking an approach similar to what you're talking about in terms of data and analytics practice. And really, maybe it's way higher than 40%.

Yeah, who knows? You don't know. But all of a sudden, then it becomes like there's all these other prerequisites you've got to hit of like, all right, well, everybody else is working out as well. Like, that doesn't mean bench pressing, but I've got to be this level of fitness.

And I've got to do all this. And it's like, the more any sport continues down a particular path, I'm guessing it's got to be harder and harder and harder to find where your edge is going to come from. Let's talk about one of the biggest ones is ball speed. So when you take your kids to the amusement park, there's a sign that says you must be this tall to ride.

We have that in golf now. We have that. We know unequivocally that if you're 155 ball speed, you are going to have a really hard time of playing. On the men's side. Yeah, on the men's side. ZB is, you know, front of the program for you guys, is the outlier, right, of just this crazy talent

that is able to compete at 155 ball speed. And on the other end of the spectrum, we know that above 190, it becomes very difficult to play as well. Why is that? Dispersion, it's simply math. So to use what you and I were talking about today, when I push my ball speed up north of 195, 200,

my dispersion is 90 to 100 yards. Some places that plays. Yeah, get me in the desert where I can just nuke it down there and I'm hitting gap wedges into par 5s. But in Florida, we have water, we have houses, or a really amazing hole that they have is water left, house right. That's the Florida template.

Who would have thought of that one? Or better yet, a fountain right and houses left. Now we're really talking. Speed becomes something that is a prerequisite that you need a minimum. But if you don't have that minimum today, you're really behind the curve. It's not that you can't be the greatest wedge player

in the world. You could be ZJ. But you better be the greatest wedge player in the world. You could be ZJ. But you better be the greatest wedge player in the world by the time you come see me. Well, and ZJ was a slightly different era than this one. Yeah, totally. Wouldn't, you know, peak ZJ would still be a tour pro on this. But like, now you're competing against a whole different.

Totally. It's almost like maybe you can speak to some of this, too, of what I keep emphasizing when it comes to the distance debate or all that discussion or speed and all that is we're just we're going to see like of the guys that hit at 185 ball speed now, which is shockingly we've seen guys like Rory, Rom, Zander, guys that weren't at that number when they came out on tour.

I've reached that quite easily. But the best player is likely going to when there's let's just say 100 guys that are in that capable pros that are in that ball speed, the best player is likely going to, when there's, let's just say, 100 guys that are in that capable pros that are in that ball speed. The best player is going to come from that group that is also the best iron player, right? And eventually, you know, you could be a really good iron player, but you're just competing against everybody from 175 ball speeding up all of a sudden instead of that bigger group.

And like the more that top part of that group grows, the harder it's going to be to break through. And we're just seeing this. That PGA Tour came out with that study. It was a Mark Brody study that said, golfers are taller now on the PGA Tour and all this. And I was like, they didn't grow. More tall golfers have made it onto the Tour now

because they're able to swing it harder and hit it farther. Like that's where it's trending. That's where it's going. When I first learned golf, there's a guy in Scottsdale who worked at the time for a PXG named Fuge. And Fuge looked at me and I'm 6'3", 220 pounds. And he said, kids are gonna start looking like you that play golf.

Athletes are choosing to play golf now. Golf's cool in some ways. Right, if you're a really good athlete as a kid Yeah, you used to play baseball used play football now There's a small portion of those really good athletes that are going to start playing golf because it's come more mainstream It's cool now, and there's crazy contracts available. Yeah, what have you what have you learned from studying ball speed and how it like First of all, what does that look like? If there's one of these rabbit holes you went down is looking into ball speed. Like what's that, what's a rabbit hole like that look like?

How do you formulate something like this and what it connects to your reach? I did a distance study on using PJ Tour and we took every single winner and then calculated their average ball speed. And there's averages and for the math thorks out there, I understand average isn't the best, but that's what we're gonna use.

So we then calculated it and then we found out the average ball speed of the winner. Then we found the average ball speed of major winners, which was faster, interestingly enough. And understanding that there was a minimum to play, but there was also a maximum to play. So again, everyone wants to have 200 miles an hour ball speed, and I'll use the car analogy for you, Sully.

So everyone wants to drive a Ferrari. It's sick to be able to go 200 miles an hour. But no one wants to drive that same Ferrari in a school zone where if you go over 20 miles an hour, you get a ticket. Professional golf at 200 miles an hour ball speed is discipline. Yes, you might be able to have that top end speed, but it's understanding when can you use that.

Are you on the Autobahn, which is some of these PJ Tour golf courses that you talk about week to week? Hey, that's the Autobahn, right? T at high, let it fly, and just nuke it. Or do you need to be more precise? Do you need to work the ball? Do you need to keep it within the parameters? Because dumping 200 miles an hour ball speed

to hit a 56 degree wedge, as we've seen with some of these really fast players, is so hard. That's what I'll throw Randy under the bus here a little bit. He's always like, oh, I thought Fino had this extra gear. I have this extra gear now. Like, I asked Tony about this. He said, like, no, I need to sit at this speed for my whole golf game to work. You can't.

I found what you were saying earlier today interesting on like above, what was it, above 180? It's 186. 186. That's where it becomes the world rank in the distance study. And it might be different because that was about eight months ago. But above 186 miles an hour ball speed, That's where it becomes the world rank in the distance study. And it might be different, because that was about eight

months ago. But above 186 miles an hour ball speed, they actually had a worse world rank than under 150 ball speed, which is, again, it's a really small outlier. It might be like 10 players versus six players. So it's not great data. But we know that there hasn't been a guy that comes out long driver, for example,

and able to play. Now, there's probably a kid somewhere who's learned to play golf on a track man that's going to figure that out. That might be next year, it might be in five years from now. There's some freak kid who's just nuking the ball. But today, on the golf courses with the technology, that's where we're at.

Ludwig is a guy that's come out in terms of, that looks made in a lab, and I have no idea what his process is like. Yeah, not one of my guys. Not one of your guys. I'm just kind of saying that is the dude that I feel like has come. And it feels like more of his style of play is coming.

Dude, it almost looks like you're cheating with Driver. It's insane. It shouldn't be this easy. It's insane. And it shouldn't go this straight. And do you see that underlying group coming for pro golf? Pro golfers, watching them play play they don't move the ball unlike Amateurs who are standing up there and like trying to not slice the ball think about the average amateur is just hitting like just

Absolute wipey face it go nowhere pro golfers. Don't move the ball They tend to hit very neutral ball flights and that's a technology be you know understanding distance and gains and where they can score But think about Ludwig, he played most of his rounds in simulators, right? That's a crazy next frontier of golf too. There's gonna be a whole generation of kids that learn to play indoors, that learn to play simulator golf and say,

you know what, I might never have never played outside, but I know how to score the ball inside. You mentioned something earlier about making practice more fun for even top players and whatnot. How do you do that with top players? Good question. With the best players in the world, it's understanding what drives them. Is it money? Is it power? Is it fame? Is it more wins? Because once you've won, then you want more, some guys. Or is it enjoyment? For a very small percentage percentage of them they love the idea of getting better and it's

Gamifying practice I will pull the veil back entirely It's gamifying your practice to where we understand Psychologically that when you are chasing that rabbit, you know, they're your rabbit chasing the carrot and you get it. It's so gratifying It's going back to that small wins create big momentum I want them competing in practice so that by the time they get to the game it's no different. I had a new new tour pro working with him the other day and we're on the first hole we've done our driving range work and he was doing great. Amazing. We get on the first hole and he's playing a match because I

always have them play matches against someone else and he had it in between eight or nine iron. He looks at me goes man you know we've been working on this punch eight should I hit nine? I looked at him I said what's the difference between the driving range and the course? He goes well you know on the course I said no no no what's the difference? And he had that kind of light bulb moment where he went oh my goodness the driving range is nothing similar to the golf course. My ultimate goal with any player of any ability is that they mentally can blur the lines of practice and competing. I like a personal anecdote, I have gotten almost completely

away from going to the range. And when I have the spare hour, I just go like summer, nobody plays in the afternoon, I'll grab a cart and just whip around and play nine holes in an hour. And like, I find that more rewarding. I don't know if it's making me better. But I don't know if it's making me better, but I don't think hitting very much less than ideal range balls is really teaching me that much. So a huge thing for me, and I'm surprised this hasn't come up,

and maybe you wouldn't define it this way, but I don't actually approach it this way. But if I had to say it out loud, if you were testing me on what would be a better way to practice, I would say this and not put it into practice. But it would be like the range is for drilling, is for like putting something in of I don't really care where this ball actually goes. I am going to practice this takeaway thing. And it's a, I might hit off the hosel. I might top it. I might, I don't care what happens, but I need to practice something so that when I do get into competition, it's going to feel more like this.

And everybody knows real versus feel is very different and all that. But what can you tell me about the human brain and the relationship with competition, competing? And competition can mean anything for anybody listening. Like competition for you might just be your Saturday foursome or whatever. Which is totally real. Yes, 100%. That's totally real. That's what you're practicing for to might just be your Saturday foursome or whatever. Which is totally real.

Yes, 100%. That's totally real. That's what you're practicing for to be good in your Saturday group, right? My favorite client in the world, Dr. Lonnie Mollo, his masters was playing with his boss at the end of the summer. It didn't matter that he was a 18 handicap.

It didn't matter. That was his masters, right? So to answer your question, I think it's really important to understand, kind of going back to again, what do you have? Financially, golf is expensive. You and I understand that. Range balls are expensive. What can you do to maximize that time? What can you do at home? We talked about that earlier. Can you chip? Can you putt? Can you get a putting mat online? Those are the little kind of things.

But then once you're on the golf course, it's really important to me to understand that practice and play are two different things. If you're gonna go play that nine hole round and you're gonna say to me, hey, I'm gonna hit nothing but fades, you better freaking commit to hitting nothing but fades. Would pay money to be able to go fade right now. Can I hit a fade right now?

The one yard fade is just so nice. I can't do it. It's so hard. We got the hot poles going. But that is a big deal. Like I think setting an intention at the beginning of your round and say, look, today's gonna be, I'm playing on the golf course,

but I'm gonna practice today. That's amazing practice. Yeah. That's amazing. It's so much better because just like, something gets burned, it burns into your memory and your brain so much faster. If I dead yank an eight iron on a par three,

that if I do that on the range, I'll be like, I'll just hit another one. I'll just hit another one. It's no big deal. Whereas even if it's just practice out on the course, it feels more consequential to say like, that was not the shot I wanted to hit here. I do this all the time on the range too of like,

oh, that's my fairway. And I pull it a little bit and I'm like, ah, that's kind of, maybe that was my fairway. I don't know where I was aimed. Yeah, my target was over there. I was thinking about hitting over there. You can get better on the driving range. And I've seen amazing results of people

spending a significant amount of time on the driving range. But if you have the option, I will always rank them. Walk first. Play around with walking, because it's amazing exercise. You get to chat. Play it. Go play. And then if you can't do those things, whether it be time,

whether it be financially, spend your practice time in high yield things. So if you're an amateur and you have two hours a week, one of my closest friends, Johnny, is learning to play golf. He's an amazing dad and amazing husband. And he said, dude, I got two hours. I'm playing my father-in-law this weekend.

What should I work on? I said, bring three clubs. Bring your driver. Bring your seven iron. Bring your putter. Go spend an hour, twice a week, before he went and played. And he said to me, he goes, wow, I was able to hit the ball off the tee.

That's amazing. Your driver's the most important club in golf. We know that now. Spend that time. If you have three days a week, hey, now we're really cooking. That third day all of a sudden becomes the, hey, you know what, I'm going to work on these drills. I'm going to do these things my coach has recommended. And that fourth day, now you're in the range becomes the, hey, you know what, I'm gonna work on these drills. I'm gonna do these things my coach has recommended.

And that fourth day, now you're in the range of like, dude, we can really cook. We can really start to say, you know what, it's like a lifter, weight lifter, for example. You do your big lifts, then you have the auxiliary lifts, then you can work on your calves and whatever else you're gonna work on. That's where I like to say that that fourth day is like,

all right, you're in pro range, let's really start to cook. Some of the best advice I think I asked Mark Brody of like, what if you were to tell me how to get better at golf, what should I do? Like simple, somebody said, go hit 150 yard shots on the range. Like if you can hit, like I turn it into kind of 160, it was like, if I can,

like the wear pattern on my nine iron is more significant than any other club in my bag. Like if I can hit that shot on repeat and get familiar with what the miss is gonna be, then like what I've found, this is I'm not really paraphrasing his answer. What I've found is like, you can work your way backwards towards,

all right, I'm gonna be able to do this, blah, blah, blah, if I'm within 160. If I'm within 160, I feel very capable. Honestly, when I get to like 8 iron, it becomes a different set of goals I have with the approach shot. So if I'm not driving it great that day, then if I need to take less club and I can get within 160,

and I'm sure the mathematicians out there would hate all that. But I've personally found where I have some trouble, and this is veering into a different topic, where I have some trouble with some of the very formulaic approaches to golf course strategy is you could look at my data for all my strikes, and you could tell me what my dispersion is. But there's going to be days where that is going to lean left.

There's going to be days where that leans right. And there's days when I know it's not going left, or I know it's not going right. And there's some personality to decision making that, is this an area that you work in? This is an area I work in very closely. Formula-like things are a great way to teach high school and college teams how to play the game.

Who have no concept of strategy, hey, here's a great way to play the game. At the highest levels, this is something that becomes extremely controversial on Twitter, you and I laugh about and very nuanced Some players I need to push to be more aggressive some players you have to tether back That's entirely personality dependent some it's like hunting dogs Some dogs get the scent and they are freaking pin hunting and they're on it

I've gotten to be around the best players in the world where they have 230 yards to a back right pin and there's water right. Guess where they're aiming at? One yard left of the pin. That's where they're hitting it. And they are the best players in the world. I'm talking top five talent level. Then you have players who are,

hey, that back right pin, you know, I like to hit a draw. I'm really super happy with something 30 feet left of it. I can two putt and I move on. That understanding, that personality difference, is why it's not a one size fits all. One size fits all is an excellent way to sell products. But at the highest level, it is a disaster, me trying to hit the ball like you

and you trying to hit the ball like me. Doesn't work. It's the same reason why good swing coaches don't teach one move. Doesn't work that way. So are you working specifically with players on their on course strategy in terms of this golf course is this blah blah blah. Here's what we know about this golf course. Here's what we can you tell.

I will never ever ever tell someone hey on the third hole you should hit this club. That being said if let's use a very famous golf course that they happen to play every year, right? Got it. We know there's there's certain shots around that course that a player is going to have to hit. We have empirical data going back, you know, 50 years, whatever it is, we know that you might have to hit a downhill wedge to an elevated green and stop the ball. I'm saying, hey, let's practice that two months beforehand.

And let's slowly start to ingrain that chest high five iron that you might have to turn in there. And so by the time you get to there, you're like, dude, I've hit this shot. I've been doing this for two months. I've hit that lag putt. I know what this chip is going to look like. So I'm not saying to the player, hey, if you hit it left

on this fairway, you have a 4.12 scoring percent versus right. There's amazing people that do that out there. There are course charge you guys that are gurus. I'm saying, OK, you're probably going to have a lot of eight irons. Let's work on that. Hey, you're really going to see a ton of wedges in this week. Let's hammer that leading into it.

Going into a tournament is a slightly different. That's interesting on just marrying what we're talking about with wedges and speed and all that of like, hey, if you're gonna have a ton of wedges this week, maybe we're not worried about moving it, you know, 188 versus 186 because it's harder to dial that back and to be on for all those. You're talking about Honda Classic, right?

Of course, yeah. The Cognizant. Yeah, the Cognizant. Yeah, sorry, the Cognizant. The Cognizant Classic of the Palm Beaches. Yeah, the five iron. My home tournament. What is your kind of relationship with the mental side of golf in terms of how that translates

to success? And I don't necessarily mean with goal setting or any of that, but just not asking you to venture into Rotella or any of that kind of stuff. Let's talk about that. I would love to. Let's talk about the mental side of golf. It is an absolute wilderness of information, both positive and negative.

To me, it's like the swing on YouTube. Type in, how do I fix my slides on YouTube? How do I mentally whatever on YouTube? And I'm going to be the first one to say, I do not even dip my toe in that deep end. Here's what I do. I fight fire with fire. I have said to myself that my mental game is going to be a 10, 20, 50 year,

I can use the word battle, journey, let's use, right? Positive. But I know that every single round that I play, I am terrified to death on the first team I'm in. Everybody I play with is better than me. They have more money than me because they play on the tour and they'm in. Everybody I play with is better than me. They have more money than me, because they play on the tour and they can afford to lose whatever it is.

And I know that they're better than me, they've practiced longer than me than this. So I had to come up with a way to how do I fight fire with fire? I want to get better mentally, I want to be calmer, I want to not have my hands tremble over a scary chip. But I can't do that today.

So I started practicing at my playing heart rate and everyone made fun of me. Everybody made fun of me when I was a nobody. I didn't overnight coach the best players in the world, right? I was a quack on the driving range doing these things and everyone laughed until they didn't. Until one day they saw, I always ask my tour pros,

I said, do you trust me? Do you trust me? Because I need to have a high trust relationship with them in order to do burpees on the driving range. You look like an idiot. You look like an idiot when you chunk your first wedge because I am betting the freaking mortgage you are going to lay the sod.

And then you wonder when you compete, why do I hit bad shots? You know, the classic amateur. I was a caddy. So we can laugh about this. I never hit it this bad, says the eight handicap, who wipes the face and hits one off the planet. Well, yeah, because on the driving range, you're drinking, you're having fun,

you're laughing with your friends. And all of a sudden, your buddy presses you for 20 bucks, and you freak out. So the mental side for me was, I'm just gonna learn to play every single round at that heart rate level. Because for me, there is no difference between practice and play.

Everybody I play with is better than me. It's not like I'm never expected to go in there and wipe somebody. Does that make sense? I think so. I think it, kind of where I was going with that was just more of a what you can unlock from a mental standpoint can go so hand in hand with technique.

And just like practice. I'm more on the practice side than the consulting side in terms of that. Like I can tell if I was to trace back when I started playing really good golf in 2019 and 2020, it was there was like two things I did. I had a much better attitude. I read I read be a player from Pia in 2019 and 2020. It was, there was like two things I did. I had a much better attitude. I read, I read, be a player from Pia and Lynn and like,

the first chapter just asked a bunch of questions. And I was like, felt like I was on the stand. I was like, I failed every single one of those questions. Do you get down on yourself after a bad shot, blah, blah. Rotella's famous line of like, well, you know, if you're thinking, if you are bad at golf and you think bad, how will that help? Was just like, well, yeah, sure.

If you just think negatively. So easy to think, yeah. And I unlocked this world of golf that I never thought I would be able to play. But I found the maintenance of that to be difficult. Even after I was like, once I thought I had it figured out, it was kind of like reaching back into that well was harder. I was like, well, why am I getting even more frustrated now? I thought I had this figured out.

I'm in a good mental state. No, I've got this. Why am I frustrated? That plus lower arm tension in my golf swing in general, like Brendan Todd tip of like, you know, he was working with Bradley Hughes and like he took his arm tension from a seven to a four and he won two tournaments in a row and almost won a third in a row. And it was like that unlocked a whole new like level for me. But the main maintenance of both of those things has not, it's not, I don't have that there. I don't have that thing to pull back on.

And I'm just curious kind of your, both with your doctorate background and your understanding of all the things that lead to high performance, how you work in the mental side for the best players in the world and for amateurs. Yeah, so I will always say I'm not a psychologist. I will always begin with that.

A lot of the tour pros have psychologists. And we work hand-in-hand together. Because the things that I'm doing, they need to be aware of. And the things they're doing, I'm aware of too. So it's a kind of give and take, so different than a great trainer, right? If I'm hammering someone in the driving range,

I need to know what their workout looked like that day. And on the amateur side, one of the things that I want to just drive home to people at home is be nicer to yourself. Yeah, totally. Be kinder to yourself. And is be nicer to yourself Yeah, totally kinder to yourself And if you have to be harsh, I will be harsh and tell you you're not that good You think you're good. You are not that good and for the kinder person, you know for my but that can be freeing You're not so you're not saying that is a derogatory way of like to do so freeing. This isn't your job

You're not trying to put food on your kids table by playing professional golf. And if you are, hey, I'm telling you, I told this to a dad the other day, this really elite junior, talking about his kid turning pro, I said, listen, are you ready to write a $150,000 check this year? And the dad said, yes, very wealthy dude.

I said, how about I save you that 150,000, I have your kid come play with three of my tour pros, mini tour, corn fray level, I'll save you and we'll see where they're at, right? That's gonna save you a lot of money that kid can judge where they're at. But for the amateur, I want them to understand to be kinder to yourself.

I feel like I've got a good way of doing this. If I can teach, put a little something for you and put it in your toolbox of way I try to approach things now and I'm not perfect at this as well. But let's say today I shot 74 and I'll put that in like the I'd say 73 round on today would probably be at the bottom end of this range of like, hey, anything in the 73 to 81 bucket, which I'm capable of both of those things, totally anything

in there, I'm going to treat the exact same, which is like, eh, bummer. Not great today. Not perfect, didn't have it. You played golf. But I'm still going to allow myself to 72 and lower or whatever that is. Again, a 68 today, I would have gone home with the biggest smile on my face. I'm going to have the accomplishment.

But the older I get, the more I'm willing to like, hey, 60% to 80%, 75% of my rounds are going to be unsatisfactory, probably. Professor Kev always says, he said something mind blowing to me. He goes, you only shoot your best round once. I was like, okay. That's, I don't want to think about that.

That concept to me was so freeing. And it again, it kind of goes back to what you're saying of like, there's so much variance in golf. And we're so tied to the last shot, the last round, the, you know, the last bit of something. Cause we want to hold on to that. We're human beings. We want to hold on to that. We're human beings. We want to hold on to that.

And my approach is let's let that go and let's look at long data sets. Well, it's also too, if I went home, I mean, my wife takes loving interest in all of my passions and all that, but I can tell her I shot 68 and I can tell her I shot 81. And the reaction's gonna be pretty much the exact same same. She'll be happy for me if I shot 68 But like to what you're saying of like be nicer to yourself of like there's no reason

To take into like your your adulthood to take really bad rounds home and like if you're a college player and like you want to take a bad you might improve yourself by taking a bad round home in some way but like If for most of people listening to this, you're into your adulthood. And again, some days you're crabbier than others, and you just can't control it. There's times I just yell out at moms. Oh, trust me.

We made a rule in Scottsdale that you couldn't throw clubs because we had one buddy, Tomahawk, one into a cactus. Hysterical. So we made a rule you had to throw the ball left-handed. Because by the time you throw it, you had to throw it left-handed because you look like an idiot just like short on the ball goes nowhere and then everyone laughs at you and you move on. You're like, okay, I am someone who runs hot. Dude, I am out there. I'm passionate. I am energetic and I play golf like an athlete.

I am the last person to say you need to breathe more and relax. Dude, when I am hot out there and I just made double bogey to lose the hole and I'm freaking pissed and exited, me looking up at the beautiful clouds being, well, it's such a nice day. I want to rip your head off. The last thing I want to do is do that. But I need to find a way that works for me.

I need to find a way to lock back in and say, OK, you know what? That happened. Here I am now. That is the entirety of the challenge Because like the 50 year old banker that your approach might not be the same as that guy, right? Maybe you should not get as upset, you know If you are doing this for a hobby and for sport about that you need to find what works for you But I think it's important to note though it I don't think just like for a lot of people, I don't think just playing golf is the hobby.

Like the hobby is the pursuit of playing better golf. And that can mean anything. And I don't mean that in a literal like, I need to be at this handicap. It's just, you know what that feels like of when you're playing good or you're playing above what you are normally doing. That's the best part.

Like that's so much fun. How cool is that when you play in a Saturday league and you're like, dude, I'm freaking beating that guy today. I got it. I got it today. Today's the day I shoot 94 and I freaking beat him. I got it. That is such a cool feeling.

I was 300 through 400 today. I thought today was the day. And it wasn't. Well, trust me, you were hot. It was not. But it's still like, I want to go do it again. You want to go chase it again. But I think if you were, as we move closer to rapping,

if you had to distill it down, if you had to do three things, five things, whatever it is, for somebody listening to this, how they can get better at golf. And again, we've been through how it's different for every individual person. But from your experience of what people do wrong, how would you tell someone that you just met, hey, walk up to you on the street, you have three minutes

to get me better at golf, go. So first thing we're gonna do, we're gonna go and we're gonna figure out where I'm at. Understanding where you're at is the most challenging for your ego because everyone thinks they're better than they are. I think I'm better than I am. And I need to be realistic about where I am.

The second thing is creating dedicated time for you. Remember we talked about being selfish. You need to be selfish with your time. That's whatever that means to you. That's phone away. That's you having your one hour time. That's your time. And I'd say the third and most important thing is being realistic with your goals. And that opens up Pandora's box that we've been down. But understanding what winning means to you. Why you're doing it? Why are you here? There's a million other hobbies you could be doing.

You could be bowling. I don't really like to bowl, but someone loves to bowl out there, right? There's a million other hobbies. What is it for you? For me, it's the people that I meet along the way. That's what golf is to me. And you know what?

For a long time, I really struggled with golf. You know what I was doing? I was walking with my girlfriend and it was just exercise for me. That was enough for me. It was just the exercise. I was in a bad place with the game. I was struggling, I was down on myself.

Look, I've lost every day for seven years. I literally lose every single day. And if anyone out there has lost more than me, I'm gonna be the first one to high five you. But what got me through was like, hey, today I'm gonna walk, you know what, I'm gonna get 10,000 steps and that's enough for me. Didn't matter if I lost two balls or made two birdies.

That was enough. Figure out why you play the game. Is it, in the beginning for me, I played the game out of spite. I wanted to get better than this one guy. And that's what drove me every single day. I went to the range and I was just thinking about this guy, I'm gonna be better than him, I'm gonna be better than him.

And then I beat him and I was like, okay Well now what now what now what and that always is gonna change it goes back to what you and I talked about about Discipline and the ebbs and the flows that ebbs and flows the reason I play the game today might be different in three months That's okay That's totally cool with me. Yeah, I think it What to what you're saying about being a little bit selfish is, you can describe it that way,

but I also think it can be healthy of like, people need hobbies, right? We all get really busy and it's really, I'm not good at this. I've been starting to do this where I'm putting my workouts and my, any training or anything, I'm putting it on my calendar. And like, I'm gonna actually do it.

Cause I can keep myself busy. If I wake up and get on the computer, I can keep myself busy until it's time to go pick up my daughter. I can do that. But if I put this on the calendar and go do it, maybe the rest of my time working is more efficient. And also, I have my little personal break

that is for this purpose only. I'm going to throw a podcast in and get something out of it. So I think we can, there's certain times when you're too busy to actually get out there and practice and do it. But I think to your point too of be selfish, find the time and then know actually what you're working on and practicing.

Have a goal, sign up for something. Think about why people run marathons. And play with people better than you. That was a massive thing for me too. Yeah, play with people better than you. They will help you. How, why is that and how? I learned so much just watching other people.

And then more importantly, it's one of the saddest things that I experienced today, actually. People get intimidated when someone's better than them. They don't ask for help. I have found the smartest people in my life, ask the most questions and they'll ask people for help. I learned a chip shot I executed today from a guy.

I just walked up to him, and it's the most amazing shot I've ever seen. And I just walked up to this tour pro one day, and I said, can you hit that shot for me? Did you move the right foot backwards? That's right. 15. I saw you do that on 15.

Yes. And it was so incredible. And he lit up. And he was so happy to help me. If someone came up to me on the drive range, I live in Jupiter, if you see me on the range in Jupiter, come up to me. Come ask me, say, hey, man, here's what I'm doing.

I would love to help you. People who are better than you oftentimes want to help the next person. That's my other advice to someone is bring someone else along. Me teaching Em how to play has created a new love for the game because even on the days that I'm not that stoked to be there, look, it's my job, man.

At the end of the day, it's my freaking job. She hit an eight iron in her ladies' nine hole scramble league. She jumped up and down. It was the most amazing thing in the world. She hits a good drive and she does a cartwheel. And I'm like, you can't do a cartwheel. She goes, why not?

I'm like, I. Fair enough. You know what? Fair play. I guess you can do a cartwheel. So bringing someone else along is one of the coolest things in golf, whether it's a kid, whether it's a friend who's never played before,

and understanding how easy it is to become detached from that beginner feeling. I'm curious. This is the first time you and I have ever played golf together. You may have seen some videos on YouTube. And I'm asking this because the viewers will have seen me play a lot of golf on YouTube. But what would you do with me?

How would you improve me? Like, again, we can talk big picture. What do you want to do? I know all that. But just based on what you saw of the golf swing the golf game the attitude the the everything What would you what would you how would you? Two things you're a dog and you don't allow yourself to be So meaning you're a competitor and you're trying to play work golf

Doesn't work for you. I don't play social golf very well. I'm a social five I tell everybody that I can whack it around. I have fun. I'm Mr. Chatty, and I'm nice guy. When I'm competing, I'm an absolute menace. The first round, my girlfriend ever watched me play when I was competing, I tomahawked a wedge. And on the third hole, she looked at me,

and her eyes were welled up. She goes, did I do something wrong? She goes, what's the matter? What did I say? Because I hadn't spoken to her in three holes. And I was just like, come on. And she looked at me, and she was like, what's wrong? She was like, what's the matter? What did I say? Because I hadn't spoken to her in three holes. And I was just like, come on. She looked at me and she was like, what is the matter? What did I do?

So for you, I'd say give yourself the freedom to compete. That's really hard. The only way I can do that is by playing against tournament people. That's where it's okay to, it's like an MMA fighter. I always say, let yourself get in the cage. It's really hard to do it in a workaround. Because if you beat me today, who cares?

Right, who cares? At the end of the day, it's like, ah, whatever's a hit and giggle. Allow yourself to be a competitor, and I think that will unlock an entire realm of possibilities. And the second thing that I would say, just as like a thing that,

I say to every good player, you need a missile off the tee. Yeah, I need to go to. You need a shot you can hit off the tee. And every tour player is the same, right? You need something that I always say to people, on your worst day when you slept three hours, you didn't sleep well, whatever,

you need to be able to hit me a 270 yard cut down the middle. That's just the end of it. Remember how we talked about that kind of ticket to ride? That's my ticket to ride. We're like, dude, I need you to freaking hit one and play. I can't have you wipe one. I need you to hit this and play. Let's talk about for a quick second, though,

the social media golf. Because I'm a social media golfer. You're a social media golfer. It's really easy to watch guys play on the internet and think they're really good. I don't sign scorecards. And the professor and I had a line, we used to say,

when's the last time you signed a scorecard? If you watch someone play on social media, that's really cool, but who knows what that outcome is? You might watch me hit shots on my Instagram. I'm always honest, unfortunately. I'm brutally honest when I hit a pad. But not everyone's like that.

You're watching a highlight reel a lot of times, not necessarily an outcome. Anybody who signs up for a tournament, seriously, and I'm not talking about the guy who's an 18 handicap playing the USM, you're an asshole, don't show up. Do not go to a Monday qualifier if you're a four handicap. You are the worst human in the world.

Withdraw after nine holes, get out of the way. But if you are serious about actually competing, like hey, I can play in my club championship, that is amazing. Sign a scorecard, enjoy it, have so much fun with that. That to me is everything. Anybody who steps in the arena, right, the man in the arena, I will give immense props to.

It's why you never hear me, you know, I don't know if we can swear on here, shit on anybody, for having the courage to play because it takes massive balls to put your name out there. And I give all the YouTube kids credit that are playing on the minor league tour. Dude, that takes a ton of stones to put your name on the tee and say, I shot a X. That is sick to me. Neil just started playing in some more terms. New York? In New York. He played the MGA, or what is it, the local association up there.

He qualified for the Publinks. Sick. Played it, and then played the Mid-Am as well. He shot like 73 or 72, I think. But it was low score. He'd be missed by four or five. Amazing, though. But it's great.

I get so excited for him. I love it. You can look up. And that's one thing, too, is I'll walk off. I had the US Open Local this year, and that's one thing too, is like, I'll get, I'll walk off, I shot, I had the US Open Local this year and I shot 79. And listen, that was not good enough to get in the US Open. Sure. But I played great.

Like I made one risky move that I knew was risky, but it was like, hey, if I'm gonna qualify. And I got online and saw everyone was like, shitting me on the message board. And I was like, there's a big gap here of like, you know. It's really easy to throw peanuts from the cheap seats, man. Like for you and I, for people who put themselves out there

on social for anybody who's doing that, especially in today's world, it's so easy to just troll. It's so easy to comment and say, oh, you suck. This whatever, right? Go down that rabbit hole. Does that make them any better? Well, it, but it, uh, I just enjoy, I don't enjoy, I've played a couple of tournaments that are really small fields where I'm clearly the best player. I don't have fun with that.

I have loved tournaments that I get in and I'm like, dude, I am, I'm below 50th percentile of this group and I'm going to play my ass off to be prideful of a finish. And it is just such a totally different beast that I'm fascinated by it. I enjoy it, and I don't at the same time, but it has helped me understand pro golf so much more. And people that listen to this might be sick of me talking about my own tournaments.

But when I go back and listen to myself talk about golf before I started playing in them, I would say dumbass things. I'm just like, how does he dump that ball in the bunker there? It's like, well, no, here's exactly why. Here's who's here. I guarantee you, nobody who plays a competitive sport, and I'll use golf, is the one commenting that. Nobody who's doing this every day, who has the courage

to put themselves out there, who shot 82 in an event, is going to be the one commenting like, oh, you're a joke, right? That's not a thing. And I love the videos now where people show up and they play these people. They're hysterical.

It's amazing. But it's having to be out there for you and I, for the other people who are doing this on social. I give so much credit to my friend Paige. Paige puts herself out there, she's competing again and she's putting scores down. Like, talk about the hate, talk about all of those things and being able to, you know, for me, I have a small following, but even that, I'm nervous when I step on the tee.

Not that I'm going to lose, but that I'm going to embarrass myself. No one wants to embarrass themselves. Nobody wants to show up and have it be a joke. The hard part too is like even not tournaments but playing on camera is like just doing something absolutely ridiculous. What do we both do today as soon as the camera came out? Four months from now I'm gonna get made fun of so hard.

The rest of the day has been great but all anybody's gonna remember is this little one right here. Push Daddy talked about the cam today and you gotta be able to perform on cam and as soon as we got the camera out just I yanked it. I was like it's totally going to make a difference if I swing 5% harder here. All right I know you got a long drive back for those listening. Nico drove up from Jupiter to Jacksonville to play golf today, do this pod and drive all the way back. He's a total

sicko. I couldn't believe that you're gonna do this but you pulled it off. I hope you stay caffeinated for your drive home, but greatly appreciate you making the trip and coming on the pod. This has been a blast and we look forward to following whatever is next for you. So stoked. And this is one of those like really cool moments where I get to just say thanks to you guys.

Like this is the pinch me moment, right? This is one of those where I'm pumped. This is a great day. We got to play some more golf. We appreciate you making the trip. We got to play a four ball. We tried to get in Florida. We got to play a four ball. Listen, we got to play a four golf. We appreciate you making the trip. We got to play a four ball. We tried to get in the four ball.

I know. Listen, we got to play a four ball. I know. We got to get in there. Make some birdies. I don't see that in my immediate future. Yeah. That's what you do when you're not.

We might need to adjust my practice plans in the future. But thanks, everyone, for tuning in. And we'll see you back here soon. Cheers. Be the right club. Be the right club today. That's better than most. How about him? That is better than most. Better than most!