No Laying Up - Golf Podcast - NLU Podcast, Episode 488: Dr. Bob Rotella

Episode Date: October 13, 2021

Dr. Bob Rotella joins us to chat about his work with professional golfers, how we can all quiet our minds on the golf course, the yips, why golf is best played from your unconscious mind, working with athletes in other sports, the power of a strong mind, and so much more.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I'm going to be the right club today. Yeah. That is better than most. How about him? That is better than most. Better than most. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the No-Lang, a podcast, Sala here, got an interesting, deep and passionate discussion on its way with Dr. Bob Rhotella, who has worked with so many professional golfers. I mean, we walk through a lot of all the different people that he's worked with.

I hate to even limit it to professional golfers he's got a book it's called make your next shot your best shot he's got a lot of great books I've really enjoyed listen to the audio books are great for long drives over the years and it's great to talk to the man himself and pick his brain a little bit on golf psychology and psychology in general we talk a lot about confidence no laying up is brought to you by our friends at precision pro golf and golf. Confidence is a wonderful thing. Doubt is not.

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Here's Dr. Bob Rotella. Well, I promise I'm gonna do my best not to make this just a personal mental training session with you. I know, I don't know if I can quite afford you on that front, but looking forward to chatting with you, Dr. Bob, and I just want to know how how did you end up here? How did you get into golf psychology? I figure that's probably the safest place to start. Yeah, that's a great question. I coached LaCrosse and I coach basketball. I did it all through

graduate school. I coached LaCrosse at the University of Connecticut, the defensive coach, and I coached basketball at the University of High School while I got a doctor in sports psychology. I went to the University of Virginia originally teaching sports psychology and coaching LaCrosse at the University of Virginia. I was given a talk to basketball coaches and master's gradinants. Someone from Gulf Digest was there. They liked my talk. They asked me to go do a talk to their Gulf Digest Advisory Board, which was Sam Sneed, Dr. Kerry Middletock, Paul Runyon, Bob Toskey, Jim Flick, David Slough, and Peter Kostis. And they all thought Sam Sneed would probably rip in shreds, and Sam Sneed loved it and started pouring his hearts out

about his experience. And he basically started by saying, and got a hate to think I'm in U.S. opens. I would have won if I had you to talk to. And that kind of opened the door for everybody else there to feel comfortable talking about their mind and their emotions and the role they play in their golf game. That led me to doing some work with the golf digest instruction schools. They had these VIP schools where we had unbelievable staff.

That led me to having some of the teachers want me to help them with their tour players. And she's every time I go work with someone, they win the tournament. I never would have guessed I would have been working in golf. I mean, I caddyed as a kid and I was, had the good fortune of caddy in quite a bit in the summer for Bobby Locke,

who married a girl from my hometown. But other than that, I really didn't have much exposure to golf other than maybe Cady and between, the end of baseball season as a kid in the start of football season. So, and it just kind of went from there and where the mouth took off and I had a career working with golfers.

Let's start this off with kind of explaining your philosophy on how the mind, how confidence, how the mental side of golf has an impact on where your golf ball is going to go. Right? Because we know that you can't just stare and look at a ball and will it into the fairway, right? You have to make a physical swing at it and that is relies on fundamentals, it relies on technique, it relies on rhythm, it relies on all these things. But why is the brain and your subconscious more in control of where that ball goes than a lot of people like to think it is? Well, yeah, to answer that question, let's back up a little bit and just say

that, you know, a lot of people, you people, because we use the term sports psychology, they have an understanding of psychology probably from taking an abnormal cyclist or something of that kind in college. And really, I didn't have any interest in abnormality or clinical psychology. I really, if you look at it, people in those fields study abnormality, abnormality

at the low end, and they're trying to get people to normal functioning. Having been an athlete in a coach, I was interested in people who are already above normal who want to be great. So, it's a very different body of psychology. It's a brand new psychology in the last 30, 40 years or so. It's a very positive psychology. It's a brand new psychology the last 30, 40 years or so. It's a very positive psychology. It's very different. It's about greatness.

It's about the psychology of excellence. It's about getting the most out of yourself. It's about pushing and pulling yourself to limits that most people don't go. So I'm always telling people, if you want to have everyone understand you and appreciate you, go be average, go be normal, go be like everyone else in they'll understand you. So I spend a lot of time talking about the fact that I mean I teach people that you have to create your own reality. You know, so if

someone comes to me and says they're they're trying to be realistic when we start talking about being positive, I say well to me realistic thinking they're trying to be realistic. When we start talking about being positive, I say, well, to me, realistic thinking, at least in the long run, if you're looking over your career, is just a way to justify being negative. I mean, we're really into thinking way outside the box and at a whole nother level. So we're asking people to be in a great state of mind and a great mood. Okay. So the second point I'd make is I gotta get people understand that as human beings, we're different because we have free will. So if someone doesn't agree with the concept of free will, if they feel like they're a victim or they just don't have it or they weren't born lucky or they weren't born with the right

stuff, it's like, well, no, you have a free will. That means you get to choose how you want to think about yourself. You get to choose how you want to think about your life. And basically, your life is what you make of it. And these are dreams are just your ideas for your life. And so, I mean, I got to get people to buy into the idea that you have a free will and embrace it. And from that, you have to buy into the idea that you're going to hold yourself personally

responsible for how you choose to think about yourself, and you're going to hold yourself accountable. And my point is, if I can't get people to buy into that, it doesn't matter where you came from, it doesn't matter where you grew up, or what your parents were like, because I mean, you can find people who were great from every background in walk of life and every country in small town in big city, you can imagine. And so, I mean, I get people to throw away all of the made up excuses and fall in love

with their talent. And all that means is if you don't like your talent, well, you got a problem because you're gonna bring your talent and your personality to every tournament you ever play in. So, I mean, you have to begin by liking your stuff and the love that you got and your job is to find a way to be great with what you have. And so, that's where it all starts. From there, you get into the idea that, well, in terms of the mind, I mean, I say,

when you study sports psychology, when you're actually a true sports psychologist, in other words, you were trained in sports psychology. When you're actually a true sports psychologist, in other words, you were trained in sports psychology. You take courses in biomechanics, you take classes in kidney theology, you take courses in exercise physiology, you take courses in motor learning, so that we totally buy in and understand

that it's not all in the mind. Like when people ask me, is it all in the mind? I said, no, but at a certain level, if you wanna play to your potential, your mind and your emotions are going to play a very big role. At the tour level, if you walk the driving range, you couldn't stand on the range and and pick out who's the best player. If you went over the short game area and

watched some hip-pitch outs, you couldn't tell who's a great short player game player because they all look great. If you went into a bunker, they can all hit bunker shots. If you watch them on the practice putting it, it's like when you get in the tournament or on a golf course, now the mind and emotion start playing a role. So at some point, we separate people by skill. There's no question about that. It plays a very important role.

But at the turn of the day, they've all been able to do it in a product area. In an amateur level, a lot of people can do it in a product area. And now they have to take it to the golf cook. At that point, you know, it becomes more of a mind and an emotional test. And I'm not telling people, I don't really know if it's in the mind or the heart or the soul or the human spirit. I just know it's somewhere inside of people. And everything I teach is real talent is inside of people.

And you can't take a picture of it. TV tends to present golf from the perspective. If we can't take a picture of it, it doesn't exist. And you can't take a picture of what's going on inside the mind. So I'm always teaching people that, look, if we had a camera that could take a picture of your insides and we could put it next to the camera, the TV shows us of the swing or the stroke

or the pitching motion, well then we could say, oh wow, they really got in their way. You know, they had a really bad thought there, no wonder their swing chains. But TV tends to present it like, now their swing chains, it's a swing file. But TV tends to present it like, now they're swing chains. It's a swing file. Let's show a replay of that and show you a difference in this way. And it's like, the player knows the truth. So I have to get people to be

ridiculously honest with themselves because golf is probably one of the most honest things you'll ever do in life. I mean, and the way we talk about it is you have to play it as if the golf ball knows what you're thinking You know, it kind of gets to your question is like at some point You have to play golf when you're when it's time to swing or pitch or stroke I mean you have to present it as it play it as if You know the ball knows what you're thinking and it's basically I want you to be like a horse with blinders on or have laser vision, or another way of saying it is nothing in the world exists, but where you want the

ball to go. People talk a lot about Monormon, and they talk about he had all these problems, mentally or emotionally or whatever. And what was amazing is he had a beautiful comment. He said, you know, I described the state of mind you want to be in his focused indifference. And I like, I don't know if I love the word focus because all I really want you to do is softly look where you want the ball to go or look at your target or softly see a ball flight. I don't want you to try hard to do it. And sometimes when people think of focus, they start trying hard to stare down the chair. I just want you to softly look, your brain will know you're playing golf. I don't know how the brain knows you're playing golf, but the human brain is brilliant. Brilliant. It's like trying to figure out how can we

be talking and have an idea that I want to communicate to you, sorry, and somehow the words come out of my mouth. I don't really know how that happens, but it does. Well, the same thing, if you played golf a bunch, if you just look where you want the ball to go, your brain knows that that's where you want the ball to go without you telling it, and it will just happen if you stay out of the way of it. It goes there a lot more of the time

if you practice and have developed good skill or technique. And so, you know, that's how we teach it. And it's like, I want, when it's time to play, I want it to be that the swing is something that happens in response to what your mind sees. That's really where I want people once around the golf course. So I want a very quiet mind. I want it very unconscious. I call it an athletic mind because an athletic mind is just looking and reacting with no conscious thought in between. Consist thought is what messes up a lot of people and the problem is for a lot of golfers who are pretty well educated

is you go to school your whole life and you learn how to use your conscious brain. And unfortunately when you play sports, if you're doing music, playing an instrument, if you're singing, if you're doing art, you really want to use your subconscious brain and you want to just let go of conscious control. I was using example like if you went to Disney and had someone do a caricature of you, they'd be looking at your face and their hand would be over here in a pad and they'd be drawing a caricature of you, but they don't looking at your face and their hand would be over here in a pad and they'd be drawing a caricature of you, but they don't look at the pad and tell their hand what to do. Like I work with a lot of rock musicians over the years and like they'll tell me they always play

the guitar the best when they're singing because they can't put any intention into playing the guitar. I want golfers to see the shot and let us swing happen. And you have to trust that the body is that brilliant and it will just happen, but you train it so you don't have to think about it when you're playing. And everyone gets there when they're in the so-called zone, but we're probably in the zone less than 10% of the time we play. So we're

doing everything we can to get as close to that state as possible. But you have to be able to play golf great even when you're not. And that means, you know, like in this next book making that shot your best shot, what it really means is that shots over wherever your ball is, you got to go get it and go find it and go play. So if I see someone hit it in the right trees and they're walking down the fairway, working on their draw swing in the right handed, I'm like, oh God, they're not into their next shot. They're still beating themselves up for the last shot.

I wanna see them, you know, start new imagine what they need to do to get the ball to go around the trees and wherever they want it to go. So I mean, that's what we're talking about. And so you have to learn to trust your subconscious brain, even though most of the educational system is designed to teach us to use the conscious brain. And I keep telling people the problem is some academician, which I certainly was, you know, probably wrote the language. And it was like, the language is all used to describe the conscious mind.

And I want people to get comfortable with the subconscious. And it's hard to even come up with words to describe not thinking. Is it a quiet mind? Is it unconscious? Is it silent? Is it, you know, eating above with a number of words? You know, some people think they're not doing enough. Some people feel like they're not trying hard enough or caring enough. And ultimately, you have to get to the point where you're seeing it and doing it. For a

lot of people, we have to say, well, what are their hobbies? Well, I like to fish. Well, when you fish, you look where you think the fish are and you look in your cast, you don't look at your hand and tell yourself how hard to throw it. You just do it If someone says they like to play touch with baseball Well, you'll look at your buddy's glove and you'll look and you'll throw it You don't I mean, this is where it gets interesting is you look where you want it to go But you don't give yourself any instruction or direction. And maybe more importantly, you don't think about whether it's going to go there or not

going there. You just assume it's going to. So you just look and you throw it. You don't say, God, don't throw it over his head. Don't throw it into the ground. And if you do that, you're in trouble. I played high school quarterback in football. I might have four different receivers

who ran at different speeds. I have no idea how I knew how to lead each receiver a different amount. And I never thought about it and no one ever discussed it. If it was golf, we'd be having our long discussions, trying to figure it out. And then we try to explain it. And we'd overanalyze it and mess it all up. And I think that's the challenge in the game ago. A lot to react to there and I when I kept coming back to as you were talking was I felt like I had a spurt last year, maybe two, three months where I saw it would all played out Like all of the unconscious mind, I know I had read golf is not a game of perfect of yours and that had helped me with, you know, not to get too deep in the concepts of it, but basically like standing up on the first tee and telling yourself that you are your best

round you ever shot is what I said I was every time. I said I'm a 66 shooter, that's what I am. That way, you know, what really resonated with me what you said in that book was, you know, if you tell yourself you're a 72 shooter, when you get to three under, your body, or your mind is uncomfortable with where you are, right? And so I, it worked.

It was working for me. I loved it. And it is not something I've been able to channel consistently. Why would that be? What's your reaction to that if I was to say that? And why do people need constant maintenance of their mental approach to the game? Well, first of all, because it's really a hard game, and no matter what you do, the ball doesn't always go where you're looking. So, I mean, that's the first thing. The second thing is is where human beings and we're born flawed. We're not born perfect. And the good news, and what

else in the term is perfect, and everyone else playing the same game of mistakes that you're playing. So that's where it begins. The next point would be being human. We have to deal with fear and doubt, as well as being unbelievably confident. And so I mean, you know, you're in doubt as well as being unbelievably confident. And so, I mean, you're dealing with being human as part of it. And you're playing a game designed to be a game of mistakes. So that's another part of it. And that's the challenge. Can you get past it? And no one's ever gonna master the mind.

No one's ever gonna perfect it. Anymore than they're gonna perfect their golf swing. So I mean, no, sorry. Can I bet, but in real quick here, because what? Yeah. So their golf swing. So I mean, sorry, can I bet but in real quick here because what? Yeah, but so one of the rounds that I had I was actually playing with Jim Fierrick down here and I hit I had one of the best ball striking rounds I've ever had and I kind of was we're chatting after the round and I said, you know, why would you ever I was really in a good spot mentally? I was why would

you ever stand over a ball and not imagine that you were about to hit a perfect golf shot? And you know what his response was to that was because you're human. And like that just like, honestly, that kind of sank my confidence a little bit. I'm wondering if you got that directly from you though, because that was exactly where you went with that. Well, I mean, I spent a lot of time with Jim. I don't know if that's what he was thinking about when he said that to you, but I mean, I think if you play golf, you come to grips with the fact that you're human.

And basically, I tell people, think about like this. If you're fighting being human and think you're not going to be a champion until you perfect it, well, you're in big trouble. You're going to be 95 years old and go, God, I hope I perfect this soon before I die. And second of all, if you say you love golf and you're trying to make golf into a game of perfect, you're basically saying, I don't like golf. I want to change golf into the game that I like.

And I want it to be a game of perfect. And it's never gonna happen. It just, you either have to come to grips with the fact that you love golf as a game of mistakes and you have to be able to love it all the time. You know Tom Kighton is prime. I mean, he would say that to be all the time. You know, it's like you have to love golf all the time. If you only like it. When everything's going the way you want it, you don't love golf. And I think it's so true and so brilliant. But it's all part that we don't

understand this idea. You have to accept the game in order to be really good at it. And you're point about, you know, being able to see it. It's like, I think I'm on now, I think I'm on 81 major champions of work with. And it's like interesting. Like if you can't see yourself winning a major, you'll find a way to not let yourself do it. You're only going to do things you're comfortable with. And some people, when we start, you know, we'll start talking about spending time, visualizing or imagining yourself when a major. And they'll say to me, oh my God, you know, I've tried to memorize, I get so nervous just thinking about it. And I mean it respond by saying, if you're getting that nervous, just thinking about it, what do you think is going to happen when you're actually there and doing it.

So I mean, you have to do it enough that you get comfortable with it. And that's a part of it. It takes some work because we're asking people to do exceptional things. If you want easy, then go do it. Normal people do. Be average. I mean, just be okay. And the greatest cop out in the world is I'm just not talented. Or I don't have the personality to be great. I mean, those are probably the two greatest cop outs I've heard over the years. There's no sense in me working at it or trying to get better because nothing I'm going to do is ever going to cause me to get any good at this game.

And that's the other side of evidence free will is you can rationalize and go the other way. And so it's a battle in your mind with, you know, am I going to dare to believe in my dreams long before anybody else in the world believes it. In other words, they're going to probably tell you, where did you get that crazy idea? What makes you think you can do stuff like that? That's the craziest idea I've ever heard of. No one from here ever does stuff like that. I mean, that's what you're probably going to hear on the journey. Once you get there, they're all going to say,

I always knew you were going to be a great one. You can wait a minute. You were telling me I didn't have it. I was just doing that to motivate you. So that's kind of what people are dealing with. And it doesn't matter if it's golf or basketball, football, baseball, or life in your business. I mean, you probably had people tell you the idea of doing a podcast is a crazy idea. It's like, how are you ever going to make this work? So I mean, that's what people are dealing with. Mm-hmm. Well, Transition is a bit to some of the top professionals that you've worked with.

And it's probably a hard question to answer, because I'm sure every situation is different. But what would you say is the typical state of a professional, you know, what their mindset is when they do come to see you? Are you ever shocked at how maybe poor their thinking is and that's probably what led them to you? No, I think most people come to me. I mean, it's not that they necessarily have terrible thinking. I think they're really good or they've at least caught a glimpse of what they're capable of.

And they're really passionate about the game, and they want to see how good they can get. Like in this new book, I talk about the idea, there's a lot of, there's kids who are precocious and came by the game quite easily and readily, and they have to deal with all kinds of pressures of expectation. And then there's another half that are late bloopers who had to work their tail off to get there.

And it comes from all kinds, but in general, they know they're doing pretty darn good. And like when we spend two days when we start, they come to my house and we move in for two days. And we spend all day for two days working on. And then we stay in touch by phone and for years going out onto her. But the point is they wanna get even a better mind.

They want to get all of their potential out of them. Because what we're doing is we're chasing human potential. And I'm not going to tell people potential is something that hasn't happened yet. Other people like to think they know what potential looks like, but they don't because you can't take a picture of what's inside of people. And you have to have it on the inside to reach your potential. And so I mean, they're basically wanting to chase that potential. And they've got a glimpse of it and they want to see how far they can go with it. Sometimes like they're, they've won as an amateur,

but have one as a pro. Sometimes they have amateurs of one a club championship, but they haven't won a state championship or a city championship or a national champion or a USDA event or something. A tour player, maybe they've won once, but they want to win a lot or they've won, but they want to win a major. They want a major and they want to win more majors. Other times it's like I'm doing great with most of my game,

but I'm struggling with my driver or my wedge or my pattern. Other times it's like I'm a really good solid player, but I don't let myself shoot low. You know that's a real problem in today's game because I think because of television the game has become you know to some degree a birdie fest and they want to see low scores and there's a lot of college players who are very comfortable playing the game has become, you know, to some degree a birdie fest and they want to see low scores and There's a lot of college players who are very comfortable playing every tournament in college because they never shot over 73 or 4 But boy, they get out 69 to 74 and they try pro golf and it's like they miss every cut And it's like you got to get really into a mindset of shooting low and love making birdies more than you hate making bogies. It's a it's a big change of mindset. It's a mind shift. And so I mean, it's not like they're

all down the dumps or negative. I mean, once in a while, someone might come to me after a really bad experience. But most of the time, it's some part of their game or they've accomplished a whole lot of things that they want to do more or sometimes it's amateurs who are 14 with big dreams and sometimes it's people in their 50s or 60s who were unbelievably successful in work and now they know when they retire they've got to find the new goal and a new dream and it's going to be golf and they want to see how good they can get at this marvelous game of golf. And they know they can play it for a long time. And they got a new quest. And so I mean, it's all over the place. But, you know, in general, it's not like they're down in the dumps or something.

A quick break here is we're talking about getting our minds right for golf. Let's talk about getting our bodies right. I'm guessing 98, 99 of our audience I guess and you're not doing all that you can to keep your body healthy Delimit physical pain a lot of us said a keyboard's all day probably not with the best posture the aches and pains are starting to mount I've got upper back mid back. I got some hip stuff. I got it everywhere going on This is where melt method comes into play I want to be as healthy as I can to play as much golf as possible But you know every time you get a couple of those muscles flaring up, it's just going to prevent you from playing your best golf or may prevent you from playing golf at all. The milk method app has exercises

and treatments for specific pain areas you may have, but also can help you get rebounds, help you activate muscles that add flexibility to your golf swing or even simple activities you can do at your desk. You can roll out your hands with these great balls that they send you. You can roll out your feet. You can do it while you're in a Zoom call, whatever. You can stream their programs from any device. They got hundreds of hours of content on there. It can be for hip pain, shoulder pain, back pain, lower body stability sequence. I'm just scrolling through the app. As I say this, it's really an endless amount of content. I'm not going to teach you what neurofacial means. They're going to teach you that, but I promise you this is going to be of interest

to you. If you're interested in just feeling better every single day, and I don't know who wouldn't be. So go to meltgolf.com. You can use code no-lang up for 10% off their super bundle that gets you started again. meltgolf.com use code no-lang up all one word for 10% off their super bundle. Let's get back to Dr. Bob. What would you say is the most rewarding accomplishment in your career or one of the most rewarding and I think I think I mean what which student of yours achieved something that you would consider to be something you're most proud of or that

you can tangibly you know I'm asking you to pat yourself on the back say you know what I had I had a big role in this player overcoming this and becoming this kind of player I'm wondering what comes to mind. Well, probably you get more satisfaction out of people who come to you that people said you could never win a major or could never be successful on tour because they weren't precocious and they were more of a late bloomer and had a really be patient and persistent.

They had a delay gratification. They had to work their tail off and eventually became a really, really successful player. But it's just a different kick when you get someone who's unbelievable, who's already been successful, and you help them deal with the expectations and the pressure of, you know, because they kind of feel like they're in an only can lose situation. Like, if I don't live up to my potential,

they're going to bad mouth me and say what happened? How could you not win? So, I mean, they're all different kind of kicks, but you know, my kick in life is getting up every day and helping someone with their dreams. I mean, I don't really care how good they are. I mean, I care about people who got some ideas in their head that are really exciting. They found that they want a reason for getting up

in the morning that excites the living day lights out of them. I like people who are passionate about it and, you know, Lombardi would have called it, I like people who are everyday players who, you know, they're not just once in a while, get interested in golf. I mean, it's like they want to go see how good they can get. And again, it doesn't matter if it's golf or business or life, they can get. And again, it doesn't matter if it's golf or business or life. You know, it just, you know, I like people with ideas that are exciting because you kind of had to have some of that if you want to do some great stuff. So I mean, a line I use all the time is good as the enemy of great. You know, the minute you decide that good is good enough for you, you're probably given away the chance we're ever being graded anything. And great, I don't care if you're defining great,

like the media does, probably like winning majors or winning tournaments on tour, it might be you break, you shoot in the seventies and you've never broken 100. You know, it's like, so I mean, it can be a personal definition of greatness. But I think ultimately everybody knows because they've been there either in practice or in a round of golf or in a tournament for a week, they've been in this place where there was total peace of mind, their mind was clear. and it was so easy. And I think once you experience that, then the next question is, how can I learn to do that more of the time? How can I get closer to that place?

Because now I know I have the ability to do it, because I've been there. You can't deny it anymore. It's like, that's why we call it getting out of your own way. That's why we use terms like letting go. When we use a term letting go, somebody would think it means being floppy or sloppy or whatever.

It means letting go of conscious control. And you have to get out of your own way by getting your mind to quiet down. I mean, that's a lot of it. And golf tends to be, you know, to some degree, a very overtop game and tends to get overly technical, at least for some people. And you have to be able

to get past it all. I always use the example, when I was 10 playing basketball, my dad bought me Bill Charman on shooting, and with the time it was the best shooter in the NBA. You could not find a basketball book today that didn't agree with everything in Bill Charman's book, other than now they jump. But in terms of the technique, everyone agrees on how to shoot a basketball. You go to any coach in any country in the world and they'd all use the same terminology and everyone agrees on how to shoot a basketball.

There's no contest on who's got the right information. We're just trying to get people to do it really well. And in golf, there's kind of a war on who's got the best information on the golf swing and who knows the correct information and what's the right way to do it. And you have to be able to get past that and you have to find a way that works for you. It's really easy to get lost in it. And if you get lost in the technique, you're probably never gonna get to the point where you just let it go, because you don't think you got it yet.

You know, when I get my technique really good, then I'm gonna start letting myself play golf versus going on the golf course and working on my swing all the time. And there's a big difference. Man, you are speaking directly to me at this current moment. So is there a checklist for this kind of thing? How do you go about developing maybe a mental process

that somebody can go through either prior to a shot or prior to a round or just in general? Is there kind of a go-to thing that you fall back on? Well, let's say this, yeah, I mean, certainly I want your mind to be quiet and I want it to be in the where you want the ball to go. But I would say, you know, you ought to be able to write down on a piece of paper. What am I doing behind the ball? Like, let's say you're picking a club and picking a shot.

And then you're seeing it and you're either seeing it and feeling it or just seeing it back there. But I mean, at some point you have to, before you get up to the golf ball, you have to have totally committed to that picture and what you're seeing. And as you're walking up to the golf ball, you have to, right now, I am going to totally commit, and I'm not changing my mind as I'm walking up to the golf ball. So that preparation would be the first step. The second step would be maintaining your commitment as you're walking up to the golf ball. Once you're over it, you ought to be able to write down.

I mean, here's, I'm just seeing it and doing it. And it'd be a routine. Some people, you could put it on a stopwatch. You know, it could be like that predictable. And then after you hit the shot, people got to accept it wherever it goes and go get ready to do it again in the next shot. So I mean, it ought to be predictable. If you think about what people are trying to do with their technique, they're trying to make it more predictable. You know, so we're doing the same thing with the mind.

We want it to be consistent. And then it's like, okay, can you do it on one shot? Like some amateurs have probably done it on three shots a day in 18 holes. We're trying to do it on every shot for 18 holes over four days, over a year, over a career. And, you know, it makes the game a lot easier. But you got to get a way of doing it that's predictable that you can say before the round, this is my goal. This is my objective. It's to do this on every shot. After the round, it's like, well, did I do that? If you did it, pat yourself on the back and say, good, let's do it again tomorrow. If you didn't do it, like, what became more important than doing that? do it again tomorrow. If you didn't do it, like what became more important than doing that? Was it someone driving a cart? Was it someone talking while you were getting ready to swing? Was it thinking about the ball going out of bounds? Was it worrying about your swing? Was

it worrying about winning or not winning? I shoot in a low score. I mean, it doesn't matter where it is, they're all just distractions potentially. And you have to get really good that if any of those thoughts cross your mind, when they're not supposed to, you've got to get away and start over. If you get really good at it, you'll hardly ever have to walk away from a shot.

And you know, that's what we're ultimately after, but it's, when it's time to swing is when you have to be really quiet. That's when I want people to be athletic. And, you know, most people have experienced it. And a lot of players experience it a lot with some part of their game, but don't experience with some other part of their game.

And you have to get to the point where you can do it with everything, particularly with your short game. People don't know wonder why it's so much about short game. Well, you know, with a driver, I mean, look at like this, probably Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson, they definitely weren't the best drivers of a golf ball with a driver that we've ever seen. And they were the two best players for 20 years. So it must not be absolutely crucial to be a great driver, particularly if you're long. It might be a lot more important if you're a shorter hitter.

But with short game, you have to have a clear mind because if you have to pitch it over a bunker, you can't go, oh, I gotta put it through the bunker. Now, when Martin Kimer won it, pinehurst and won by I think seven shots and didn't hit any pitch shots, he put it around bunkers. That was one of the most unbelievable things I've ever seen. But it's the only time I've ever seen it. But in general, you have to be able to play short game. There's not a strategic option. Like Tiger, I mean, as always, interesting people wanted to copy Tiger's swing.

And I tell a lot of players, I said, have you ever noticed like in his prime, he hit two to four drivers a day with that swing? Most of the time he used a different swing on the T-Box and hit a stinger. Why are you trying to learn a swing that Tiger doesn't dare hit with a driver? Yeah, you think he's unbelievably confident and good, it doesn't make any sense.

It's like, you better go get your mind. You have to be clear with your short game. Because every tournament is going to probably end with a pitcher or a putt, at least a putt. You get to the masters in the last hole, you get a one shot lead, you get a four and a half footer for par. You're going to find out if you trust your routine. And if you believe you know, out of pot. And if you don't, it'll show up.

And that's why the games marvel. I find myself and I know a lot of golfers would say the same thing here in terms of that. I find myself in feedback loops a lot, right? When it's pretty easy for me to channel a lot of the confidence stuff a lot of the visualization stuff we've talked about to this point when things are going good yet I do find myself overcome with fear standing over shots and as I say that of course that sounds like a horrific way to play the game but it is I struggle to fake confidence right it it it seems like something that you can't, you know,

good play, breeds confidence, breeds good play, breeds confidence, blah, blah, blah, and it can go the opposite way. So is there a, I think we may have touched on it some there with just kind of channeling the checklist of things that you go into a round with and a swing with, but how do you manage, you know, hitting golf shots or preventing hitting golf shots with fear?

And what kind of an impact fear can have into the way a shot plays out? Okay, well that's a whole bunch of stuff. The first thing you said is something about faking confidence. Well, see, I think a lot of people fake fear. In other words, you're just over in the practice range and I watched you and you hit that shot 15 times. And now you get on the golf course and you pretend you don't know how to hit it. But you don't ever hear anybody talk about faking fear or faking doubt. But man, people love to talk about faking confidence. I'm saying, no, I'm just trying to get you to be honest. Now, if you can't hit that shot in practice, then be like Tiger and find some club you can hit.

You can put in play. Sometimes amateur will say, well, I feel like it have to go back to like a five-iron. In order to have a club I could stand up here and trust. I said, good, well, then hit a five-iron. If the goal is to score the lowest you can score. If the goal is to find out if I could trust my driver on this hole and I don't care about the consequence if I don't, well then go ahead and try it with driver. But if you really care about scoring, you say what club can I step up here and have nothing in

the world exists but where I want the ball to go. You have to get good at doing that. I mean, Nicholas was great at it. Nicholas and Tiger were probably the two best course managers of the last 60 years. I mean, they were very conservative strategists. They had tons of patients. If they weren't hitting their driver good, they just hit some other club and put it in play. And it's not a coincidence.

They're like, they were the greatest ever. But we don't tend to want to learn from that because we don't want to be patient. We want to try stuff, you know. And so I mean in terms of fear, like so the first thing you have to address is, well, do I have the skill from practice experience at this shot? If you do, then you have to train your mind. It's not a skill problem. It's getting past fear and fear is a mirage. It's just something you made up in your mind that doesn't actually exist anywhere but in your mind.

If you don't have the skill, well then admit it and say, what can I do, just like Kimerimer did and he found a way to win, which I thought was miraculous, but it's probably not going to work on a week-to-week basis. So I mean some of it is like when people change their technique and get better skill, I'm going to tell people you have to at least bring your mind up to the level of your skill level, but I would rather have people have their mind ahead of their skill,

because a lot of people improve their skill and they keep thinking the way they used to think when they didn't have the skill. So I mean, it doesn't do any good to change your skill if you don't bring your mind up to it, but I'd love to have your mind ahead of your skill level. What about even going even further down the ring to things like the Yip, someone'm wondering if you've worked with with people

specifically on Yip like things what what is actually happening happening when it comes to somebody having the Yips on chipping putting anything like that Even even other sports. I think you've worked with people on this. What what's the coaching like there? And is it any different than any of the concepts we've talked about to this point? Well, people make up all kinds of stuff about the YPs. They love to make it sound scientific and complicated. And they love to use big words. The bottom line is when you have the YPs, your heads in a bad place.

I mean, you're thinking about missing or you're thinking about your hands or you're thinking about having the YPs. I mean, you're kind of predicting it to your brain. That means, come on, make my handshake because I want them to. The brain just takes what you get. If all you're doing is thinking about where you want it to go, you're not going to have the Yip. But some people don't want to acknowledge that their brain is caving into those kinds of thoughts.

And maybe you had a bad experience, I'm not denyin' that. At some point, you have to get past it. And with putting, I would say today, we've come up with so many different grips, and then I would say probably the arm lock, and people can argue over it being legal or whatever.

But I mean, it's probably solved a lot of putting problems and a whole lot of different grips have. I don't see as many people yippin with their punters today as I did 20 years ago. I see a lot more people yippin with pitching as they've cut the turf tighter and tighter. You still see some people with it with the driver, but I mean, it's basically if you got to get your mind empty and quiet, and it's when you're yippin' you're it's very busy and it's filled with really bad thoughts either about the outcome or about your body, not functioning. Now, are there people, like certainly with people after 50?

I mean, there's a lot of people on various medications that might be adding to it. There might be people drinking way too much coffee or mountain dew or whatever. But by and large, it's, you gotta get people to be honest and you gotta get a really good mental routine. So a lot of people have a physical routine Hoping it will get your mind in the right place and it doesn't so you have to get a really good mental process that you predictable before the round starts But I mean I can't say as I spend the majority of my time, I just assume never even talk

about the YIPS. I think there's way too much conversation about it. It ought to be like, they'd like to present the YIPS like it's something that owns me. Instead of, I'm thinking that a poorly right now about my putty and her, my pitching. Right now, I, you know, whether it's because you made it too complicated technically or because you're worried about the turf or the lie. And, you know, I call it a lot of golf junk that you hear and you have to get rid of all that golf junk and just see the shot. Because little kids can do it. I mean, you think about it. Pudding and pitching and chipping, eight and ten-year-old kids can do it. I mean, it's a pretty simple task. I can find some skills that are more complicated, but those are pretty simple. But if you get scared of it, which is

basically at many, God, when I'm scared, I can look pretty bad. You know, when my head's in a bad place, I can look like I don't have any skill. And, you know, so you gotta get people to be really honest about it, but the tendency for educated people is to start thinking more rather than thinking less. And it doesn't matter if it's a catcher in baseball who can throw it the second base on a dime if someone's stealing, cause they don't have time to think,

but throwing it back to the pitcher, they think that they start worrying about throwing it into the outfield. Or the second basement who can't throw it the first, but you put him in third base, and he can throw it the first base because it's not so bad if I make a bad throw from third, but if I make a bad throw from second, this is going to look ridiculous. Or embossable, it's at the free throw line, you know, because this would really be bad if I can't, if I shoot an air ball from the free throw line. I've worked with bowlers, with bowling, it's like in a throw strike shaft,

the rule of ball over the edge of the gutter. And if I get a national TV and throw gutter balls, man's gonna be really embarrassing. So every sport has something that's really simple that makes us feel uncomfortable. And sometimes when I do talks, I tell you, let me just talk to the men here for a moment. And everyone goes, what do you mean? Well, I just want to explain to the men, when you

miss an easy chip shot or an easy putt, you don't get neutered. In other words, you don't lose your male parts. I've never seen it happen. It's just something you made up in your head. And I said, you don't usually see women who think they're gonna lose their femininity with their short game. But you see a lot of men who think they're gonna be less of a man. And I go, you know, it doesn't happen. What's it like teaching the best players in the world

for something like the books you write? How similar and how different are the concepts? And I don't know if you wanna, if that relates at all to your most recent book, make your next shot your, your best shot. But I'm just curious as to, as to, you know, how you would compare the similarities and the differences. Well, the main difference is tour players have been doing it for a long time every day, almost for their whole life. Their skill level is higher, their consistency is

better, but I see amateurs that have the same passion, but they've had a career, they've had a job, they had other things in their life that were important. In terms of what I teach, it's the same. Now, they're after winning on tour and winning majors, and amateurs maybe after winning different things than that. But I mean, the whole reason for my books is that don't use a lack of skill as a reason to think poorly. Everybody can think as good as a tour pro. It's just that the ball isn't going to go there as frequently or as consistently as a tour pro, it's just that the ball isn't going to go there as frequently or as consistently as a tour player and you're not playing the same

opponents, you know, you're playing a different field. So I mean that's the good news, but I mean I think a lot of people want to use that they don't have a certain level of skill to justify thinking poorly. And I'm not saying, well, so you don't have really good technical swing. Why would you think thinking poorly would help that? In other words, even with tour players, it's like, well, we change our strategy, but we always make sure we think really good every time it's we're ready to swing. And so everybody can do that.

And I just keep updating my books with new and simpler ways of getting there. You know, some of it, like in this next book, we interviewed Tom Kite because he's one of the most dedicated, hard work and players probably ever play the game of golf and a guy that I admire a great deal. And Tom talked about being a kid.

And he said, you know, I got dropped off of the course sometime around 7, 15, 7, 30 on my dad's day to work. I'd get two hours of practice in before the other kids got to the course. They'd get to the course, hit a few balls and say, let's go play. We'd go play 18 holes or 27 holes, and then we go have lunch. We'd have lunch, and I'd go back to the practice area. They'd have lunch, and they'd go to the swimming pool for a few hours.

My dad would come home from work, and we'd go play another nine or 18. Then we'd go have dinner. After dinner, everyone else in the family would go watch TV. My dad and I had built a green in the backyard in a bunker, and we had a night light on it. I'd go out there for several hours and practice, pitch in, and putting until it was time to go to bed and I couldn't wait to get up the next morning and do it again the next day. I have a junior academy at my club

and I was reading the kids an interview with the head of the Korean Junior National Program and someone asked him, you know, why are they so good? And he said, well, Korean juniors are more disciplined and more dedicated and single-minded. They spend all of their time practicing golf and doing schoolwork. And they do it every day. And then he stopped and said, and they start being dedicated and disciplined at an earlier age than most people from other cultures. And I I read it to our kids and I said, I know the people at our club are going to tell you how dedicated I'm working you are, but relative to whom. And I told them that there's a lot of research in psychology and I called perceived exertion. And what it tells us is that people aren't very accurate

in their perception of how hard they're practicing or working at something. And some lazy people think they're not working hard enough and say, I was pushing themselves for more. And some really lazy people think they're the hardest workers in the world. And I said to these kids, I said, if you wanna see how far you can go,

you just gotta understand it, some age. By the time you get to 16, 17, 18, and beyond, you're going to be competing against everybody else in the world. Now, you can either complain that these kids from other countries are too single-minded and want it too much and cared too much, or you can decide that's my competition. And let's face it, competition is what made America great. It's what makes athletes great. You know, Tom Kite would probably say, I don't know where I would have been as a golfer if I didn't have a kid two years younger than me.

Ben Crenshaw at my club beating me all the time as a kid. He said it really helped me. And if I think great competitors understand the better you get, it's going to force me to get better, the better I get, it's going to force you to get better. And it's really what a healthy competitor is all about. And I think we have to be honest. I mean, some of the difference at the top level is how much time and energy they put into it. And some of it is because they have all day to do it. And most people don't. So, you know, it's like everything is relative.

So, you know, so I mean, let's go out and trust whatever you have to the best of your ability. We've covered off on almost all of the concepts that I think we wanted to cover today, but one thing I wanted to touch on as well is, I've heard you emphasize the importance of not being too tuned in with either your score During the middle of around you're standing in the middle of a tournament I have personally fallen victim to a lot of these things at many times in both tournaments and just rounds that I have going

I'm always very aware of what I am in relation to power and all that why why would that be a potential hindrance to somebody on the golf course? Well, because golf is about living in the present moment and playing one shot at a time. People say that's a cliche. It's a cliche because it works. It's worked forever. It's been an essential skill if you want to get great at golf. Well, I mentioned earlier about getting a routine process

that you do on every shot and do it shot after shot until you run out of holes. And, you know, it's not a crazy idea. Lombardi had a great line. He said, every football game comes down to one or two plays that happens somewhere during the game. And he told his team, the darn problem is you don't know when those two plays are going to happen. So you better make sure you're totally completely focused on every down in case the next one is one of the two that's going to determine the outcome. There's one of the greatest football courts of all time.

John Wooden, one of the national championships at UCLA, he never talked about winning or losing. He talked about when the game is over, if we were behind, all it means is we simply ran out of time. If the game had lasted long enough, we would eventually come out on top. But someone decided it last 40 minutes, and who was ahead at 40 is the winner. I tell golfers, sometimes you run out of holes. So we put a game plan together, we go out and execute it to run out of holes. Sometimes people in TV when they ask me about it, they can't stand it when I talk about, I just want you to play your own game. And they're on TV talking about everybody's

paying attention every leaderboard. And well, first of all, no one talks about how many people have lost tournaments because they got too distracted by what was going on in the leaderboard. Second of all, leaderboards aren't necessarily official, so they could be wrong. But more importantly, it just makes it harder to stay in the present moment, and I want everyone to give every shot the same equal low level of importance, and starting to get concerned about leaderboards. So if people say, so what are they afraid to look? No, they're not afraid to look at leaderboards. They assumed before the round started that they were going to win if they

went out and executed their game plan. So the other players are irrelevant. They're immaterial to us. It's like, I want to win the battle with myself. And if I win the battle with myself, I'll win the tournament. And everyone will kiss my butt. That's the game we're into. And could you look at leaderboards? My experience, even with tour players,

is if you've won a lot recently, you could look at leaderboards and still have peace of mind and stay in the present, because it wouldn't mean anything to you other than, yep, I know I was going to win before it started, and it wouldn't have any emotional or psychological effect on you. But even players that have won several times, if they haven't won in a couple of years or maybe a year, it starts becoming too meaningful for a lot of players. Now, if you happen to have the lowest metabolism in the world, and you're unbelievably comfortable with Now, if you happen to have the lowest metabolism in the world

and you're unbelievably comfortable with winning and you can convince yourself and me that you can look at leaderboards and it helps you, well, then I tell you to look at leaderboards. But all I can tell you is most people would be a lot better off in every sport if they just laid their game and lived in the moment and trusted the outcome would take care of itself. On the non golf side, you've helped people

with with stage fright, writers block, you've helped people at Fortune 500 companies. What makes like what you do with in the golf space transferable to to other areas of business or other sports or things like that? Well, I think it's pretty simple. Do you want to be great or do you want to be average? Are you trying to separate yourself from everybody else who does what you do or do you want to just be like everybody else? And then you ask them, where do you think you belong? What's good enough for you?

And why did you choose that? If you had a high school coach and whatever sport you played, who told you on day one, well, you know, you don't have much talent. You could only be pretty good. You're never gonna be really good. How many of you would love that coach? If you live in a city and you support an NFL team

and they hire a new coach and the coach goes on TV and goes, well, you know, if we could be 500, I think that'd be unbelievable for us. How many of you would have said, well, I love that coach, man, he's awesome. He's lighting my fire, you know, nobody would. And then a lot of people with their own lives go to school. And when they go to college, they think, well, I can do anything I put my mind to.

I'm really smart, man, I'm unbelievable. And by the time they graduate, hanging around other smart kids who are dedicated, they figured out, I'm not as good as I used to think I was. I can't do all the things I used to think I could do. And I said, if that's what you're learning from your college education, you're spending a lot of money to really ruin your life and your career. And you know, you want to, as you grow up, you want to get more confident, you want to have bigger ideas for your life

or your company, you want to enlarge your dreams. And if everyone's telling you how much they love how realistic you are, you better stop and take a look at yourself and say, wow, what am I doing? Because it's really about looking for ways to separate yourself from everybody else who does what you do. And I don't tell people what their dreams ought to be. I just want to make sure people don't lower their dreams or give up on their dreams as they grow up because they convince themselves they couldn't do it.

because they convinced themselves they couldn't do it. And that's where, you know, having big ideas, having patience, persistence, the ability to delay gratification, because let's face for some people, it might take quite a while to get there. And I'm always telling people, well, what if you give up on your dream, like a day or a week before it was all going to fall into place. Maybe the door of opportunity was going to fall on your lap. So like in sales or in business, it's like you've got to treat every client the way I treat every client. Every client that comes to my house no matter what they've done in their past, my attitude is to get jacked because this might be my

next major champion. This might be my next major champion. This might be the next great player I get to spend time with. That's my kick in life. I don't know why I get a bigger kick out of helping people with their dreams and that that's what fulfills my dreams. Like the tour players will say, you know what I tell you'd fly around the world to help me win a golf tournament, but you wouldn't fly around the world to play in a golf tournament. And they look at me and say, I'd fly around the world to win a tournament, but I wouldn't

go next door to help someone else win a tournament. And they go, well, we're different, and that's okay. But I mean, I think you got to get ideas in your head and not let people take them away from you. And if you had a coach or a teacher that didn't believe, well, then you got to believe, and you got to focus on all the reasons why it could happen to you. And that's why I talk a lot about you have to feel like you're destined to do something unbelievable with your career. And that's definitely something you create in your mind. It's something you make up. It's like you create in your mind.

It's something you make up. It's like your ideas for your life. And that's what gives you passion. That's what gets you up in the morning. And for some people who retire, golf is the reason for getting up in the morning. It's like they got a new goal. I tell a story about a client of mine, Gary Birkett.

I mean, who had 60 retired. And that was his whole thing. He said, I watch a story about a client of mine, Gary Berkett, I mean, who had 60 retired. And that was his whole thing. He said, I watch a lot of people when they retire. If they didn't have a new goal or a new dream, they kind of vegetated and didn't last long. And he said, I gotta have a new goal. And for him, golf was a new goal. And it's like, so I mean, you gotta have something

that excites you. Well, I, for one, I'm very excited to play golf today after all of this. I'm ready to channel all this. I'm ready to turn the corner on this, but we're gonna light it up. Let's get you out here on this. Tell us, I know we've talked some about it, but tell us about make your next shot your best shot

and where people can find that and what they'll find within that. Well, I mean, you can find it from Barnes and Noble bookstores all, I mean, you can find it. Barnes and Noble bookstores all over the place. You can get it on Amazon Simon and Schultz are predicted. I wrote it with Roger Schiffman who worked for golf digest for years.

And did it was great to work with. Basically, it's like some new ideas about attitude, about thinking. We did a whole chapter on, you know, I was the first person with a gentleman from the University of Virginia Research Bureau named Bruce Gansiner. We were the first people to do a statistical analysis of the tour stats. And I like our stats a lot better than some of the modern stats because I think they only applied to tour players.

And I try to show statistics, you know, how basically for course management and for what you ought to spend your time practicing. But I mean, a lot of it is talking about the difference between, you know, precocious kids and late bloomers. A lot of it is about being able to lay gratification and really having persistence. A lot of it is about getting through times

when you're working your tail off and not getting any better. And you gotta keep believing. I mean, it's just, it's new ideas that are slightly different. It's sharing with the world of amateur and pro golfers, what we're learning from the best golfers in the world is the simplest way I can put it.

And I've put it, I've put it in a language that anybody can understand and apply. Basically, we're trying to take away all the excuses for not doing it. Like, no one can say, I can't make sunset of that. Or that doesn't sound right, or that's too complicated, or I don't know what you're talking about. It's really very understandable. Yeah, that's what I've noticed from your books over the years. None of it's overly scientific. It's very much just designed to be put into practice pretty easily. So I think same goes for this episode. No, this is I think digestible and manageable and it's not intimidating. If anything, it's kind of

freeing, I think. So just wanted to thank you, Dr. Itself, for coming on, sharing a lot of this, and we look forward to doing this sometime again in the future, I appreciate your time. Great being with you, thanks. Give it a big, right club. Be the right club today. Yes!

Beat! Ready, that's better than most. How about in? That is better than most. How about in? That is better than most. Better than most. Expect anything different.