No Laying Up - Golf Podcast - NLU Podcast, Episode 760: Sean Foley

Episode Date: November 2, 2023

Soly catches up with veteran swing coach Sean Foley to discuss his career coaching some of the best players on tour and lessons learned from mistakes over the course of his interactions tour pros (12:30). We also examine the different styles of coaching when it comes to professional players (20:30), the intersection of swing thoughts and relying on natural instincts (32:30), working with Tiger (44:00), adjusting his teaching methods for the next generation (57:00) and more. We're also bringing you something new after our chat with Sean as our own Kevin Van Valkenburg reads his recent essay "I Walk Alone: Embracing Solo Golf" (1:13:10) which you can also read on our website here: https://nolayingup.com/blog/i-walk-alone-embracing-solo-golf Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I'm going to be the right club today. Yes! That is better than most. I'm not in. That is better than most. Better than most. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the No Laying Up podcast. Sully here. We have an interview coming shortly with Sean Foley recorded this a few weeks ago. I think it's pretty timeless.

I know. I know we talked about how he has increased Ben on clubhead speed. And then since then, Ben on has been suspended for something he took in Korea. I don't think it was necessarily steroid related. I just drawing that pointing that out to say like that was this was recorded before that suspension was announced at a great time chatting with Sean. He's got a encyclopedia of knowledge and just a very, very interesting cat, which you're about to find out.

What I also found interesting was we could not go anywhere in Melbourne, Australia without seeing the subtle dog logo. That's right. Even had, we said this on last week's point, somebody came up and said, look, that subtle dog logo is everywhere. We were wearing the exact same hoodie. You guys know, rowback, they understand quality, only one way to describe it. Best fit, best feel. They got performance polos that are just next level moisture wicking fabric, four-way stretch. They get you through a warm summer day on the course. They're great to wear underneath. The performance Q-Zips, which are a total game changer. Nothing beats rock and a Q-Zip for early morning round of golf. I might go hit some balls this afternoon. It seems like a perfect day for a Q-Zip.

They're soft, stretchy, uncomfortable. We wear them all over the place. I'm not in a Q-Zip. You'll probably find me in a hoodie. I got my black one on right now, which you cannot see. It's the stretchiest softest hoodies in golf. If you want to be comfortable and relaxed on and off the golf course at Roeback hoodie is where you want to be. You can use code NLU at roeback.com for a generous 20% off your first order through the end of this week. That's R H O B A C K dot com 20% off polo's Q. If so, he's in more with code N L U. Let's get to Sean Foley. If we did this podcast a couple of years ago, I don't know if I would have said this, but I walked away from watching the full swing documentary. And I was like, is Sean Foley the authoritative voice on the game of golf at the moment? I mean,

you kind of came off like that from full swing. I was like, I think Sean Foley was the best interview on all that. Yeah. Thanks for that. And thanks, thanks for having me. I wouldn't say, you know, I wouldn't say that by any means. I would, I would just say that everyone on there, you know, I probably spent the most of the time on the front lines. So the, the, the front lines where you, you, you learn about the war, you don't

learn about the war at the Pentagon, right? So I think from that standpoint, yes. And then, you know, this is going to be my 18th year coaching on tour, which sounds like, it sounds and crazy to say, because some days I just feel like I'm getting started. And some days I can't believe I'm still doing it. But so many of the players on that in it,

I've known them since they were like 17 or 18 years of age. So, you know, I was there at Byron Nelson when Jordan Speed and Justin Thomas were 16 years old. And I've known about them for so long because the kids that I used to coach are the same kids that they used to beat every week. So I would say that almost 20 years on tour makes me definitely an authority. Yeah, it's, you know, listening to some of the interviews you've done and kind of following your career. It's certainly, certainly interesting how many names have come and gone. I'm curious kind of how you, how you view your relationships with your players, right?

I was just reading up on, you had a long tenure with Justin Rose and kind of hearing Justin's words on when you guys did part ways of saying like, this was always the goal for Sean for me to own my swing in my own way. How do you kind of view how doors open and how doors close with relationships you have with certain pupils? No, I don't, first off, we always have to realize that,

you know, it's a business. And so, that's the first thing So if that that's overall the meta perspective if you become good friends or almost like brothers It's hard to spend this much time that we spend with people and not like them You know, so when people say don't do business with friends I don't know how you quite do that with this and plus I would say that I don't necessarily agree with quite do that with this. And plus, I would say that I don't necessarily agree with that saying anyways, right? Like curiosity killed the cat is a pretty good thing to teach kids to not be curious and challenge the world around us, right?

Whereas I think the key to life is challenging everything you've been told taught and everything around you. So, yeah, I've had very long relationships with these guys, especially in pro golf and pro sports. It changes really quick. The difference is, you know, the team owner technically in golf is the player. And so the same person who hires the staff is the same person who employs them. So it gets a little strange there.

You know, if you look at other sports, you know, they don't care how much their first round guy loves his personal trainer. He will be having a new trainer who works for them and he will take these tests, alcohol, test, drug tests, you name it, right? Because it's a huge business and it's the owner paying him. So that's where it gets a little skewed in ProGolf is that it gets hard for a lot of people to tell the truth to the boss. And I feel like I've always done fairly well with my guys

because I am up front and honest with them. If I think they're not putting in what they need to put in, if I think they're behaving like children on the golf course, I'm not afraid to talk about any of that. And I think that it's really, that's, it's really important is they don't hire me to tell them what they want me to say. They hire me to tell them what I, what I think. And it's changed over almost two decades. It's changed dramatically like my role and how I see my role versus where it started. But look, if you're having success,

you tend to stick together if you're not. You don't. So between Steven Ames and Hunter Mayhan and Tiger and Rosie and Cameron Champ and what will be now been on and Michael, Kim and Eric Van Roin and Higo and Sam Horstfield, I imagine it'll have the same progression. Well, what is your, why does a player come to you? There's a lot of coaches and I know every, every player is different in the

reasonings, but if you were to kind of give your own sales pitch as to what you offer up, when I hear interviews, you do, I, I, I don't pick up a lot of technical stuff from about the golf swing, right? It's, it's a, you seem to have a much more holistic approach. I'm guessing that's one of the things that's kind of evolved over the course of your career as well as you've learned. But what do you offer to somebody? What would be the reason why a matchup would be really good? Because it's a give and take thing, right? You're not necessarily a 100% swing fixer, right? It's a, it's a, your approach seems to be a lot more all

encompassing than that. Yeah. I mean, look, you, I think you have to evolve this way. You know, the two guys that I've signed the latest Eric Man Roy and in Garicago, uh, they're both have won on the PGA tour already. Garic was kind of lost in his game, but not playing terrible. And Eric was, was lost in his golf swing. But you're not going to change a lot of what they're doing in the same point of, it's funny how we study things. And the last couple of years, I've consumed my free time with studying neuroscience. And I should have started there.

Not, not, I mean, I keep wondering, like how was this last part that I tapped into about the brain? Why is it the last part that I tapped into about the brain? Why is it the last part when it should have been the first part? And that's kind of the beauty of life, right? Is that if we all knew the most important thing when we started, the goal is to get to that place. And that's where the wisdom kind of becomes interjected.

So I think potentially 20 years ago, I probably would have tried to do more with them, not to say that that was right or wrong, but the brain experts have showed me that human movements pretty automated. Conceptually, I think you can make huge differences. So conceptually, if you get people to understand that they should really attempt to eat whole food and not process foods, if they they able to do that for two months, they're gonna see a massive difference. And so with the golf swing, you know,

the club faces the CEO, that's what we hit the ball with. The hands are attached to the grip. So they become the CLEO. From there, you know, we start to understand the processes within the movement. So I have one guy who rotates really well, and I have one who moves side to side and stands up.

He's, they're gonna move like that. You're not gonna turn, you can't turn a leopard into a tiger, and you can't turn a sheep into a dog, right? A sheep is a sheep, so that's where I think people go wrong. They kind of see like, you know, Victor Hovlin on top of the game and they're, oh, look at what Victor does and they try to attempt to do that. But it's a very unicorn, very nuanced move. It's not, it's not for the masses. So what do I know is happening in the golf swing? I know that there's a stretch phase that begins,

there's a counter rotation phase in transition, there's an extension phase through the ball. That is pretty much evolutionary biology, human physiology, 101. And everyone you see doing it are doing all of those three, some to different amounts, but that is happening. And then from there, recognizing that one has left-. And then from there, you know, recognizing that, you know, one has left handed golfer, right handed person, and the other one has right handed golfer, right handed person. So it, these are things I would never have been able to pick up on when I

was younger, because to be honest with you, I had made nothing mistakes yet. Right? And so, you know, everyone out there coaching or in different sports or in their life, no one's trying to make mistakes on purpose. But when you do rather than hammer yourself and feel ashamed and guilty about it, be grateful for it because, you know, that's just another thing you won't get wrong again. And so being wrong is fine. I mean, you're not really wrong if you don't know. But once you understand you're wrong, your job is to then remedy that. And so I feel now where I'm at is that my players are the most safe they've ever been from my influence because the cardinal, the cardinal sins have all been kind of done. I've paid my patents in, I've paid my patents

for that. And I'm still going to probably continue to make mistakes, but I'm very safe. I understand the power of my preference. I understand that my preference, that it is arrogant and not fair to others to share my preference with them, is to get a good idea of what it is that they want. And look, for some guys from the mental standpoint, some guys need to go more Zen Buddhist on the golf course, and some guys need to go more Chris Kyle. And so, you know, some people have a chip on their shoulder,

some people don't. I think that the goal is not to remove the chip from one shoulder, the goal might be to make it even bigger. Everyone's motivated for different reasons. And what happens is we all have to have meaning and purpose. I think that's much more important than being happy is having meaning and purpose because. You know, I just think that you know life is beautiful, but it's also a struggle and it's a combination. So, you know, that's just how you tailor make it.

To the individual and then a lot of times I've had players come to see me and you just don't feel like the chemistry's there. Like, you know, I've been married to my wife for 20 years, she's my best friend. I met 200 other incredible women. I just, you know, why not? But why, you know, probably at least 100 girls, I could have married after a year,

but there was only one left after one year and one day. So I think those are those things and those energy levels that are unseen where in human communication, they're interacting with one another. A lot there. I want to come back to kind of some of the neuroscience and brain stuff, especially.

But what I don't know if this opens you up to liability for lost wages, for for errors you've made in the past, but you said you've learned a lot from mistakes. I'm wondering specifically, what could you cite as a mistake? What's something that kind of shaped, you know, you'd say the, you know, the next guy I work with, I'm going to do things differently. I'm really curious to hear what you would do as mistakes that you can admit to here publicly. Well, a mistake is, you know, a mistake is like not having enough structure and not really having laid out.

This is what we're doing and we're doing this for two years. So a mistake is tinkering each day, trying to find something to appease them and make them feel like they can have a nice dinner without being concerned about how bad they're going to play the next day, which, you know, might be nice for a dinner, but the fact is if you haven't put your finger on where the low hanging air is, then they're gonna have a bad day the next day anyway. So, you know, things like that over coaching, once again, over coaching is not on purpose. I think it probably goes hand in hand with overachieving and overachieving is a great thing,

but everything based in this duality is good and bad, right? So like running is good for you. Running 26 miles a day is gonna be bad for you. It, you know, not having water is not good for you. Having too much is not good for you either. So, you know, I think as it relates to players, you know, coaching them the wrong way in the sense that somebody's very creative

and very feel oriented, and I used to just have a one-stop shop where, you know, if you were an engineer or you'd love swing mechanics, it was probably ideal for you. And you could create pictures. And so I would say more of the ability to be a chameleon to every type of learning type, but also then realizing that, you know, I do well, really well with this type, not as well with this type, but my friend over here is a great coach for this type. And so one of the cool things is, you know, I've added quite a few players to other coaches' stables, and they've went on to have great, great success with that player. So, I think at the root of it all, the oath is to do no harm, right?

Because it's a lot easier, especially at a world-class level. It's a lot easier to interfere than it is to help out. So it's kind of like figuring out, okay, what's, I've said this many times, but I still can't tell you what's right, but I have a very good idea of what's wrong. So when they come to me, they're obviously doing something wrong because they've been playing well now They're not once we can kind of thumbprint it and fingerprint it and start working Sometimes just conceptually getting to realize they thought they had to go up this hill to get to a certain place

And I'm like no, you don't have to go up that hill. You got to go down this hill and they're like you see so it's it's not always It's still technical, but you know, if you keep, if you continue to put diesel in the Bugatti, it's not going to start. It doesn't matter that you spent 9 million on it. It won't create a chemical interaction for combustion because diesel doesn't, Bugatti's don't run on diesel. A lot of times, I have Bugatti's that either have no gas or have the wrong gas. And so even though you want to put them and lift the hood up and put the

computer on it and look at the whole engine, you know, you got to check those things each time. And I think that that's where I've got better over the years is making sure I stay on top of grips and alignment and posture because in these world class players, this kind of species, is when those things get off, they're subconscious is omnipotent and we'll start to do other things to manipulate to make it work. That goes on for too long and then you have problems. The mannerisms you just did are like,

well, that's what's going on in my golf suite. Okay, I could tell, like, yeah, it totally tells. I guess something's weirdly off there, yeah. But it's weird that happens at that level. I've watched, I watched hair, eggs get a lesson once. It was just like a ball position. And I was just amazed that somebody at his level could have their ball position kind of vary that much from day to day. Yeah. I think, you know what? You play on different grasses, different soil types. The reason these guys are who they are and these girls are who they are is because they're subconscious has has a lot of memory of all these different things. So guy goes to the British open, you know, if my players played three British opens in

a row, everyone would come back. Balthasers would be too far back. They'd have too much bow and they're interested in fact. They'd probably be fighting like pretty slingy draws. That remember the main concern when someone comes to me and I'd say that this is probably the most dramatic difference is when you get done playing golf, Chris, people ask you one thing, what did you shoot? They don't ask you if you're on-played and ask you if you shallowed it from P5 to P6. It's what did you shoot.

So when I look at my players and I get all the data that comes in from either Mark Brody or Austin Powell and look at their data, it's kind of like, all right, where they really strong. So something I would challenge is when people say work on your weaknesses, you better work on your strengths. Like keep keep your strength strong. And then where is the next piece of the puzzle that if we put time into this So for example from a player wants to work from 30 to 100 yards on their wedge game, right on the PGA tour I don't really find that a useful amount of a use of time because From 30 yards in it takes them 2.52 strokes to get the ball on average, right? And from 100 yards it takes them 2.52 strokes to get the ball on average. And from 100 yards, it takes them 2.7.

So what's the use in putting two hours of practice in the day to something that is 0.18 of your score? You see, so unless it's something that's like incredibly bad, but then I just don't think they're on the tour. Now, for people listening to no laying up and amateur golfers and from all different levels, 100 yards in might be very imperative to you, but on tour that seems to be where they're the most the same,

where they separate themselves as from 175 to 300 yards. Lots of guys with great hands in college, football, not menu, can run a four, two. It's like that's where the game is headed, right? Is, is, and the golf will always be a game where, you know, a player like Zach Johnson could win twice a year, because there's so many different skills

that go into shooting your score. So, whereas I used to be really fascinated with perfect golf swings and perfect ball flights, and that may have been helpful to the first couple of people that I coached. I failed it now to where I rely on data a lot more to say, this is where we need to put our time. And then the good part is for some of those disciplines that I might not be world class at as an expert, I've been around the game long enough to know the guys who are good at marketing and the

guys who are really good at coaching. And so having the ability to push, to get my players, I've kind of become like a team manager. And who knows if that becomes a business over the next 10 years is where that's what I do. And I look at players and we're looking for coaches or looking for trainers who are looking for nutritionists, whatever it is, and kind of know how to build that puzzle for that player.

Because everyone's smart enough, everyone knows what they're doing, but just as I said, there's, if you got a young player coming in the game, and he's got a therapist, a physical therapist, who's kind of on his way out, he's kind of over a little bit, the energies have to be correct. And there's so many decisions to make.

Like a lot of these 22, 23-year-old kids are coming out and having to make just so many decisions on everything on top of playing good golf. It's just a I am kind of it's an interesting kind of thought process of of you know you mentioned of like I answer to this person who makes a lot of these decisions for me and He's gonna make my practice schedule for me and that allows me to you know succeed the most in golf That's a great comment because if you remember old Luke Donald and Francesco Molinarie They both hired Luke was the first. What was his name? He was out of this world Luke was the first, what was his name? He was out of this world. Dave Alred was like one of the great rugby coaches of his time. So he hired, Luke hired him to come and look at how he practiced,

and then he just told Luke, you're not good enough and yelled at him all day. Luke got to number one. Francesco Mallinari, same thing. Everything in practice is measured. You have to take ownership and responsibility. He was teaching self-awareness after a shot and went wrong. Could you land on where it may have went wrong? And that was a completely different environment than ProGolf, where a lot of times you're at

the major championship. And in the morning, you're watching this caddy talk to this caddy and this player hang out with this player I can't imagine any other sport like that and that's because if we were in the other Matrix of the other sports That football coach be like man. What are you talking to that player on the other team for man? That's our enemy right now And and and so I think that's what happens when the CEO is the person hiring So I think that's what happens when the CEO is the person hiring everybody else, it's going to get to the point that that VP might not like what the CEO has to say, but he also knows that he's got to pay for his kids to go to college.

So it's so, so for me, the goal obviously in my career, I do a lot of corporate speaking now. I'm in the midst of writing a book. I've got a lot of young players and I'm coaching. Obviously David Woods and I came together to create the Pro Center as a training aid. I wanted to get to the point where my business off the course is so strong that the players that I'm working with, whether they play well or don't play well, it doesn't matter because I think that this this version of me now, I'm the best I've ever been as a culmination of what I've accomplished and what I have accomplished. You have to be grateful for both right? Gratitude is a weird thing like a lot of times we're just grateful for the good things in our life

but be tough to tell somebody be tough to tell me that day the tiger and I split up to be grateful for it but looking back on it now I'm'm grateful for it. And so, you know, just trying to keep people to understand that with these young players is, you know, getting them to understand the game, you know, they're so frustrated all the time. And it's like, you're frustrated because you don't understand the game. So what I mean by that is, you know, they hit it down the fairway and it goes in the divot. And they bitch about, I can't believe it's in a divot. And that would be like a Navy seal saying to his lieutenant, can you believe they booby trapped the door? No, it's war, man. Like, hey, they're

shooting at us. I'm not ready yet. They're shooting at me. That no, that's war. So every seal who goes into battle knows that potentially this is his last day. And they accept that and they're okay with that. And so trying to get players to understand that frustration comes from one one one's estimate. And so if when I woke up today, Chris, if I saw my day going like this and all of a sudden my day is not going like that, then I'm frustrated. But the problem is is like, I only have control over my effort and I only have control over my actions. So when I go to the airport, I have no control over anything

except my effort in my actions. So to make it easier on myself, let's be there a little early. And then I have control of my actions. So when they say, if light's delayed, I can either scream at them or I can just say, you know what, this is the airport, this happens. And so teaching them to understand what the game is, so that I feel like Tiger and Lydia and some of the great, great Justin Rose, some of the great players I've been around, they kind of knew exactly how good they were. You know, so that is, that look, if you right, if your expectations exceed your current reality,

then you're gonna be frustrated. So getting people to realize that they're not frustrated because of something happening outside of themselves, they're frustrated from their own estimate of what they think should be happening. And I think that that's really arrogant to think that life's that easy. Going back, going all the way back actually

to what you're talking about about, you know, the 30 to 100 jar, it's to what you're talking about about, you know, the 30 to 100 jar, it's not being a separator and 175 up being a big separator. It's something, I've, somebody said this once and I've, I've really latched onto it to say like, if you took, you know, a 10 handicap that didn't know pro golfers or anyone that didn't know pro golf at all, and you walked the range of any professional golfment, LPGA, PGA, or whatever it would be, you couldn't identify the best player if you walked the range, right?

I mean, there's no way that you wouldn't stick out the same way. And at some, I've always struggled to kind of come to terms with or understand. And I feel like I'm almost backed into what makes a great player. It tends to be something that's really boring, which is just, it's more about avoiding bad shots, and it's not about, can you hit a high draw, six iron, 208 yards and land it right next to the pin, and wow everybody, it's can you execute a shot,

15 feet right of that back left pin, eight out of 10 times instead of seven out of 10 times, and the difference in that is what gets exacerbated over 72 holes and makes great players. I'm wondering what your reaction is to any of that in how and how how much players understand that. I mean, how much do how much do you see guys either through evolution of working with them where they usually start at and where they end that in terms of understanding what separates the best players. Yeah, I think like, look, if you're trying to break 110, you know, if you're trying to break 110, you have to move, you have to move a couple triples, they too, at double, you

have to move a couple doubles to a bogey. If you're trying to go from 95 to 85, you have to take two doubles and turn them into a bogey and you have to take two doubles and turn them into a bogey, and you have to take two bogeys and turn them into a par. So the same on the PGA tour is a double is, with these cuts now at like four and five under, if doubles a problem, how do you minimize bogeys? So for example, most of my players on tour, there's this domesticated difference between my guy and my, between the girls and the boys as it relates to pro golf. Most of the guys I've coached think they're better than they are and most of the girls are

better than they think they are and I don't know if that comes from a double standard or social domestication or how we how we look at that but that it seems to be pretty I've very rarely had a girl who's think she's better than she is and so and I've rarely had a girl who's, thinks she's better than she is. And so, and I've rarely had a boy who, I have to be like, do you have any idea how good you are? Do you know what I mean? Yeah. And so I don't really try to understand why that is. I just recognize it as a thing.

So, you know, Tiger was the best at not making bogus. And so I think some of that comes from, you know, the fact that he didn't let a lot of noisin. So he's not going to hit the ball in a, in the middle of fairway and a dividend and get pissed off about it. He's come to understand the game a long time ago. He's not going to complain about a bad, about a bad rate job in the bunker because that happens. And so to me, you know, we're either going towards clarity or we're adding noise. And, you know, looking at people skill sets when I sit in the programs on every Wednesday,

if 80% of the people I watch play golf in a program when they went to go practice, if they're two or three hours a week, they have time to practice. If they brought their wedges and their putter, their scores would go like this. But the fact is, they want to hit a pretty draw when they already hit a pretty consistent slice. So, you know, they're not going through a billion dollars in Proveezier. They just want to hit it further and hit a bomb draw, but that's not really applicable to them shooting a better, better score. So I think

what you have to say is, it's true, like when you stood out there sometimes and saw Tiger and Rory and DJ, if you'd never played golf before, you'd see them in camp champ and you'd be like, okay, that's different. That is definitely different. But if you saw Zach Johnson,

you wouldn't realize he's won two majors, 15 tournaments, and he's in the Hall of Fame. So, I think at the end of the day, the Hall of Fame is full of people in every sport, who's bad was just better than everyone else's, especially as it relates to golf, because how many good shots are hit on a daily basis, that the wind switches from 12 to 17 miles an hour while it's midway there. And it's about to be three feet now it's plugged in the lip and you're going to make a double. So I think, you know, I think being once again, Nicholas said it and it just was like mind blowing when they asked him about bad breaks and how he was never really showing emotion to these things and he said. I always thought the bad breaks

were the charm of the game. So, imagine that. I'm sure he wasn't thrilled that, oh man, it's kicked there, but he's already accepted it as that's part of golf. So he's spending no time making bogies or doubles off of this emotional inability to handle what's actually happening. Did you have you and do you learn off of this emotional inability to handle what's actually happening. Did you have you and do you

learn off of old time greats like that? I hear what are examples? What are examples of things that you've kind of you would pass along from can be from any era really? But what have you learned from

greats? Well, Jack Nicholas told me that even in today's game as soon as you see a two on a par three like two O O or par you see a two on a par three, like two OO or a par four, two OO or a par five, two, six, six, the only place you should be trying to hit the balls and mill the green. And so that's a big deal. There's a lot of bogies being made with guys thinking that they can fit, you know, six and five irons into these tiny whole locations

is understanding the value of par. So when I go out on the golf course and I stand on the first hole at Bay Hill, you know, my player is like, I want to hit a draw around the corner. It's like, well, that's not necessary because you don't draw your driver well. And if you hit it straight and it goes in that bunker, it plays almost point eight over par from this bunker. So this bunker is no good. So I would rather you have 200 yards from Milo Faroei than 165 from this bunker. So I see it more that way as it relates to how you play the whole, this third hole plays, the second hole plays over par, the third hole plays at even par, the fourth play, whole plays at even par. So guys, since you to make Bernie on this whole to get one back.

It's like, this is a par hole by every player on the course. So getting them to understand really like where the potential is as it relates to scoring. So trying to hit a high fade into a right pin when that's not really your shot or something you even practice, you're just lighting money on fire by doing that. Do what you know you can do.

Always do what you know you can do. Always do what you know you can do. Don't necessarily do what you're working on and just never do what you can't do. You know, when I'm working with amateur golfers and they're around the green and they're struggling with their chipping and I pull out their hybrid and show them how to put with their hybrid,

they're like, I can do this on the course. I'm like, why would you not do this? Well, I feel like it's a bit weak to be using a hybrid. I'm like, well, no one's gonna see you. I feel like it's a bit weak to be using a hybrid. I'm like, well, no one's going to see you. They're just going to know that you broke 80 for the first time. So if you want, you can just fat chips for the next five years. Yeah. How does it feel to bear leading edge, right?

In the grainie bermuda. Does that feel better than chip in a hybrid? And then because the grainie bermuda is so nasty, you've only moved to the foot and you get to do the whole thing again. You got to do the whole thing again. I got to do it again. That's interesting. I feel like there's still so much untapped potential in for so many golfers. I think more at the amateur level than the professional level of understanding. I guess I

really, the light bulb went off for me when I started listening to and reading Vision 54, listening to and reading Vision 54, Pia Nielsen and Lynn Marriott, who wrote a great book called Be a Player, which like transformed my golf game for a short time period. It's not stuck with me long enough, but understanding left brain versus right brain was the first way I've ever really just heard it describe that way. I've referenced it many times on the show about how Tiger Woods is not in, he, Tiger Woods's brain can't tell his body what to do. And there's an element of, you're nodding, so at least I'm onto something here that you agree with of the natural instincts of your body

are what is going to take over, especially in the heat of competition that's going to allow success more than, hey, I need to bow my wrist at the top. You can have swing thoughts, but you cannot manually have the place, the club where you want to through powers of your brain. Wonder what kind of perspective

you can shine on any of that. Yeah, I've known P and Lindre a long time. I've always loved them. I think they're fantastic. And they've helped a lot of players. So I have a great deal of respect for both of them. I think what it comes down to more than anything is 2012 to 2017. I think

more Navy SEALs died in training than died at war. And so we have to look at how we're training period because basically what happens is the subconscious, I struggle a little bit with the idea of like standing behind the ball and visualizing your shot because that's potentially putting you in a future moment. I won't be present if I'm in the future obviously. So when I have favored more than neuroscience as aspect to where they've actually measured when a human being is present and that's between five and 15 hertz in alpha theta. So we have five brain ways. We have alpha theta, delta gamma beta. So alpha theta at that frequency of five to 15 is when we are present and it's

been measured. And I like that, you know, I wear a shirt quite a bit through an airport that I just love to do a social experiment. And the shirt says, your opinions are no match for my facts. And, you know, we're we're here in 2023. And it's, they're so little, there's so few facts now, Chris, that my 12-year-old comes home and I say something, he goes, that's facts. And I'm like, wow, we never used to have to do that when we were your age-son. You know what I mean? We just got, but it's, the lines have been blurred, for sure. So the thing is, every shot you've ever hit is going to be remembered, and it's all in the subconscious. So if you can get presence enough, so as P and Lynn talk about practice box, play box, once you get into the play box, it's all just about executing the shot. So the idea is to

have enough clarity that so as you're sitting there and you're holding the target in your mind and you're into the target, that the brain is able to go through its rolodex of previous times it's successfully pulled the shot off. And so when you're working with a player who's been struggling, you know that when they go into that rolodex, there's not a lot of good, there's not a lot of good previous memories. And I think that's where the word momentum, and I don't like that word, by the way, the momentum was going my way.

That it means like there was something outside of me helping me do that. I think what happens is sometimes we'll get on a stretch of 10 holes where we are clear enough within our thinking the wind direction is perfect for how we normally play the whole locations favor that. And then almost every shot that we have we have a very clear mental construct from a previous experience. And so that's what seems like momentum, but when players say I need to get some momentum, if anyone had figured out to create the momentum golf school, so when you're not going well,

here's how you create momentum, then they would be a trillionaire. So to me, it's just another thing, it's of the words that I don't like in golf or in life. It's, I would imagine that you probably make, you probably make your momentum more than this other idea. But I just, a guy makes a six foot putt and says, man, that was really important.

I made that to keep my momentum going on. And it was like, so if you miss that six footer, you've now lost this magical momentum skill. That's your choice. Your choice is if you miss the putt, you're going to get pissed off. That's your choice. So if I get too emotional, especially in another way,

remember, because it's imperative that people understand that 90% of our brain is directly correlated to a fully grown chip. And if we look at the behaviors around the world and we look at wars and we look at all these things, I think it's quite safe to say we have not evolved that much. So a lot of the brain is just the threat detection center. It's concern is that we survive, not necessarily that we thrive. So its main concern is that you just had a child and then that child is going to be able one day to have a family and we're going to keep the species going. The thriver in you, which is only kind of relatively new to the human brain, wants

to see them grow up and do well and have joy and be content and have purpose and meaning, a lot of the world, that's the goal is survival and it's not really thrival. So I think what happens is when people get on the golf course, you know, if your identity is super connected to your score, then when you look out at bunkers and you look out at water and you look at it like hard wins, you know, you're going to be detecting more and more and more threats. And it's getting people to realize that most of what we fear in life and society, fear is a acronym. I didn't obviously come up with this, but I really liked it. And fear was false evidence appearing real.

So, ideally, I think for me, when I'm working with players and they're struggling, I ask them like, what they're afraid of. And if they're vulnerable enough and they tell me a lot of times, they realize that most of that's pretty ridiculous to be afraid of. You know, you ask somebody who's got four stage cancer, what are you afraid of? Okay, that's realistic. I get that. But, you know, when you've got a guy in the second event of the year who's afraid he's going to lose

his card, and that's literally 11 months away, we need to get on that and understand that one, it's okay to have fear. It's natural to have fear, but this is a problem you have, and I'm just a big believer that a problem is just a solution that we haven't found yet. And if we could put our heads together and be honest and be vulnerable and be up front with each other and not hold anything in, we'll be able to come up with that quicker. I guess I've been surprised a little at just, you know, some of the some of the pro golfers I've had conversations with about the mental side of golf at at how at times at different times in their career, how shockingly weak they can be, right? And I think something I always I draw back on when I played a lot more competitive golf than I do now, I would always try my best to be like, hey,

if I was five over through three holes, I if I'm weirdly good at pop a shot, like the basketball game, the dumb game, the arcade game, if I miss my first three shots in pop a shot I don't freak out. I don't I'm still the same shooter I'm still like hey, just keep firing fire away like you maybe go a little faster here Maybe change your rhythm a little bit, but if I'm five over through three and golf I start questioning all of the things that got me here I start I now think the last three holes have changed me as a golfer and the remaining 15, I got to find something. I got to like, I don't, I won't hit the next shot, the same shot, or the next shot with the same confidence that I should. And I'm surprised at how that, because kind of prevalent that can be, you mentioned the momentum thing, but how prevalent

that can be among the best golfers in the world of not being, uh, you know, getting psyched out about certain things of a golf course that are challenging. And I, I, I, you know, I, I was listening, I forget to was walking with it at the fifth hole at the, at colonial, talking about how hard that t-shot was. And I was like, Hey, man, who, who's better prepared to hit this in the, on the planet? Literally, then you like one of the top 100 golfers in the world. Like, what are you complaining about here? And he was kind of like, eh, that's fair point. I'm sure you've seen that just that just runs kind of rampant in terms of of how at times everyone is on a is on a roller coaster of mental emotions when it comes

to their golf. I mean, from a week to a big thing, it's just kind of shocking to me. Yeah, I look, I think they're just better at golf, but they're still equally human. And so, you know, the fact is the brain is designed to remember the bad. It's not designed to remember the good. We had to remember generations ago that if we went this way around the forest, that's where the same with two tigers killed the two alders. So when people come out the golf course, hey how was it?

3 putted 7, hit it in the water on 10, hit a terrible shot on 17. That's nothing wrong with them. That's actually very, very natural. And what I would advise anyone on here to do, and this came from a friend of mine who's a neuroscientist, he said that it's really important that when you get done around is that you just quickly journal all the good things you did as well and Read over the few times he said because if you don't do that The subconscious is going to I mean how many times do you guys hit world-class shots and they kind of tip their hat to the gallery and then they miss a seven footer

And act like a petal in ten year old so remember what what we react to footer and act like a petal in tenure. So remember what we react to, the deeper emotion we are in when we react to a memory, the deeper we reinforce it. And so, you know, I've yet to meet anyone who was of the old enough age who doesn't remember where they were on 9-11. You know, I've yet to meet anyone who can't tell me exactly what it was like the day that their wife walked down the aisle to them. So, you know, the deeper we are emotionally when we react to something, that memory gets even more and more that way. So, look, it's a golf shot, right? It's not curing cancer. It's not fixing peace in the Middle East. It matters, and it's cool that it matters. That matters means that we have purpose. But you know, when you try to make it bigger

than it is, the brain doesn't typically like that very much. And then when it comes to training, I sit there a colonial all week. How many times do I sit there? I have to bring up. Okay, we're hitting one iron, three wood, or driver on five based on wind location. Show me the shot you want to hit. And so most of the time guys get on that hole, and that's the first time they try to hit like a block slice. So of course, their brain doesn't necessarily, it's not that familiar with it, but it

does know what it can do. And it also knows how to keep them out of trouble. So next thing you know, it's a pull hook into that left rough, which is guaranteed bogey anyways. So that's where Tiger was so impressive, you know, it's a pull hook into that left rough, which is guaranteed bogey anyways. So that's where Tiger was so impressive, you know, is that, you know, leading up to Augusta, he would go and practice on golf courses that had slopey lies. No one else is doing that. Where would he go?

Where would he go? To go to like Sugar Loaf in Georgia and even some of the events that he played leading up to Augusta he knew he'd need to hit this draw on a certain tee. So even though the hole didn't favor that he would just be working on that out there. So he was working of course on his game but he he was working on the shots that he needed to hit not the positions that he needed to hit. And I'm not saying that the positions are very important. The positions are very important. But, you know, if you're going to play in Scotland in the British open and you spend three weeks working really hard and you're in a soaking wet Washington state is probably not going to. Yeah, you've

been working hard, but it's what what what do you, you know, what what do you, you can't bring a knife fight to a gun battle, you know, what we could do a whole podcast. I'm sure on on just this guy. And I think I'm pretty proud of myself for waiting almost 45 minutes before asking about Tiger, but you brought him up, so I'll ask about it. But what looking back on that, you said, potentially, you're grateful, I guess, that that relationship or that coaching relationship came to an end. I'm wondering, kind of what you meant, how would that go today? If you were to start with him, and let's just ignore health for him for the sake of this conversation. But if you were starting with Tiger Woods today, how different would that look compared to when you started with him was it 2010, I believe it was?

Yeah, I don't know if you can discriminate on the two because I think like, you know, I started with T-Dubs in, you know, nine months after everything kind of fell apart. And so, you know, you're dealing with someone who's incredibly wounded, probably embarrassed, just in a way different place that he's ever been in his life, right? I mean, it was like going from a deity to a punchline almost overnight. And so, you know, I think as I kind of came in,

he was starting to see, you know, some of the mistakes he made and some of the effects that that was gonna have.. And so I think we did a pretty good job together. I think what I would have done much more of that I would understand now is I would have probably spent less time coaching him and more time just being his friend as I was. Do you honestly, like how arrogant was I to think that you honestly, like, how arrogant was I to think that you actually teach Tiger Woods about golf? That's, I'm like amazed at that

whole thing. And I do, I want to pick your brain on like, how do you, for something that's accomplished that much at age was 34 or something at that time. How do you possibly come in and say, here's what you should, he always loved the

challenge of redoing a golf swing. I don't know what to put words in his mouth, but it seemed that way, but, you know, it seemed like you were going to be teaching him or working with him if you would call it that on a different way of swinging the golf club after just 14 major championships. He'd already won. I mean, that's got to be such a monumental task. Yeah. Like I said, it was a different time for sure, 100%.

But I think what I would have ultimately, if it was today, I would have went back to 18-year-old Tiger Woods with some slight upgrades. And so the reason that how I was able to not make that mistake again was that when I started with Lydia Coe, I went directly back to her DNA and then just put upgrades on it. So the thing about human movement is the one that we've made the most.

We wrap the most protein around that neuropath way. So the problem with technically changing your swing is that that old swing you have is never going away. It's wired. It's completely in there. What happens is you can make a new pattern that's got its own wiring, but when push comes the shove, the brain is going to pick the neuropath way that it can transfer thought down the fastest. I think it would have been more along those lines, just whether or not with 4-E surgeries and an Achilles surgery if he could have done that anyways, right? But, uh, no, I mean, look to be like, I've been probably one of Tiger's biggest fans ever, and to be able to spend time with him like that, and get to know him and just see the sheer difficulty of his life.

That type of fame, that type of notoriety, you wouldn't wish it on anybody. And I think that the game of golf, especially the PGA tour, they owe that guy everything. Because, you know, purses are not here today because of the business development aspects of the PGA tour. It's all due to a black kid

and a red shirt from Orange County, California. And I think of anyone who would not admit that there, they're obviously wrong. So I think that would be more of that there, they're obviously wrong. So I think that would be more of it. It would have been just kind of spending enough time with them, maybe asking the right questions and just kind of guiding him to him, discovering what it is. And that's something I feel like I do very well now after that. But you know, I'd had so much success with Sean O'Hare and Justin Rose and Hunter Mayan that my arrogance

levels when I started with Tiger were probably pretty high. And I just thought that everything I touched was going to improve. I didn't have a crystal ball to see that I didn't have enough, you know. I was going to say, if anything based on how you started that answer, if anything, you're kind of advanced knowledge that you have in this era of brain pathways and more holistic approach you have might have been more of what he needed in 2010 when he became, like you said, became a punchline versus from a deity. But I'm curious, you said, you see, you got to see up close just kind of what his life

is like and what that kind of fame levels, anything that sticks out in terms of moments where you're like, Oh, wow, I don't think I really realize that or moments you thought he was especially vulnerable due to just kind of reaction to things and how he was taking everything that was going on at the moment in his life. Yeah, he was always very vulnerable with his kids, very vulnerable about his foundation. You know, he would give every year at his tournament, he would give a speech about, you know, that a kid would come up and they would highlight this kid and what this kid's done and where he came from.

You know, T-Dubs couldn't get through one of those speeches without crying, you know. So he's a human being, man, you know, he's a ordinary guy who did extraordinary things. I think that he had to alter himself a little bit to put up this wall around him. You know, a lot of people did him wrong. And so, you know, trust is something. Love is something I give everyone, but trust is something that you really have to earn from me. And I think that's

that's good for everyone to understand that, right? People give trust before they give love. I'm going to give love because you're just a human being like me. And we're probably doing our best from what we understand to be our best. And I'm okay with that. But trust is a different thing. So, you know, I remember when we first started, like right around that time, that's when Hankhani wrote the book,

like the big miss, and now I'm the next guy. And I'm just standing there on the range, going like, oh, holy shit. Like, this is fucking tricky right now, like, oh, my God. you know, being on the range and watching helicopters fly over and and and film us and stuff. I mean, it was just, you know, Justin Rose and Sean O'Hare and Hunter Mayhan are pretty well known, but that's, that's, this is, we got to like a Prince Michael Jackson level, you know, I would imagine 99

out of 100 people in the world have never touched the golf club or even been on a golf course Still know who who tiger woods is right? What was it like for you then kind of being thrust into a different level of a Famine attention and notoriety at that point in your life. Well, there's no book like there's no there's nothing You can read on it people's advice don't help you just got to find your way to do it and and for me I was never gonna let it change me. You know, I've always been very social, very talkative. I have time for anybody, regardless of you, the CEO of an organization, or you're a janitor in the same building. That doesn't matter to me. So yeah, I didn't really, you know, I had to deal with a lot more, you know, there was the fans

of what we were doing and the people who hated it. And so I've run into both of them in the airport. But hey, look, I was the one Chris who said yes to doing it. And so basically, because I chose to do it, I'm responsible for whatever occurred after that. It all comes down to me. You say there's people that were fans of what you're doing and people that were not fans of what you were doing.

What were you doing? Right? I mean, honestly, at that point in my life, I was not following golf nearly as closely and I can't read back to you. So I'm sure a lot of golf fans listening to this can't read back to you exactly what you guys were doing when you're working together.

I know it's extensive and hard to cover in just a podcast answer. But if you were to kind of summarize and describe it, what would that look like? Well, we're just trying to build around what we could like around that left leg and the things that we we needed to do. So, you know, when people were saying, you know, you got to go back to the 2000 swing. I mean, I would like to go back to my 2000 body, Chris. That's where I ate McDonald's and had quantities of beer and still was ripped.

And now I'm using pea protein and cold plunging and doing all this. And there's not even a two pack, bro. So you can't go back. Like you can't, you can't go, you can go back if the body's the same. But if the body's had like multiple, multiple surgeries, scar tissues, an interesting thing, the way it affects the rest of the human movement. But basically, we went to like this little baby cut off the tee and really focused on the iron play from 170 to 200 yards.

And you know, in 2013, it was his second best year as it related to stroke's gained tea degreeing of his whole career. So yeah, we were doing some, you know, we were doing some solid stuff. But, you know, like I said, people, somebody says to you, you need to use the tooth. Why are you not using the 2000 swing? Like, you should just use the 2000 swing. Why don't I think of that? Yeah, I totally should have done that. So, you know what, you just shake hands, have a smile, say, thank you so much for, and what are you gonna do? I mean, you know what I mean?

Like, no one argues with a five-year-old tells you about Santa, no one argues with the five-year-old on Santa, right? Oh yeah, he comes, he's on flying, he's on flying deers, and he comes down the chimney, and you know you live in Florida, you know the chimney has no exit. I laughed at that, but I was probably 100% probably that person in 2014. I was probably like,

why does it tiger just go back to the 2000s, and say, come on, that's where they all the answers are. Like I said, you know what, I brought all of the positive and negative attention to myself because I could have just as easily said, no, I'm not going to do it. I think that looking in the mirror and taking ownership and taking responsibility and pointing the finger at yourself,

I think is imperative to grow. If you think that your life's not going well because all these other things, it's probably going to continue like that because we are offering and producing the novel of our story of our life the whole time. Well, tell you something that kind of changed the way I view all that as well as Jordan Speed talking a little bit about his golf swing and how back in 2015, he wasn't nearly as flexible as he is now.

So at the time, he could turn and rotate as far as he wanted to and it stopped at a certain spot. And that spot was magic for him. And it was a perfect spot. And he had incredible success with it. But as his body improved and grew out of, you know, kind of the baby fat phase, and I'm paraphrasing him, of course, a little bit, he got more flexibility, that turn isn't in, that stop isn't in the same spot.

And that's to say, every golfer's swing has to evolve. But your body does not, it's impossible for it to stay the same from age 20 to age 41. And if you have as many surgeries and changes to it, it's how do you find a new way to do it? How do you adjust with the new body and how do you make sure that it can withstand thousands and thousands and thousands? If not millions of swings of practice and all that stuff. And that's probably a part of the challenge that again, 10 years ago I would not have been sensitive to that you were dealing with at the time as well. Yeah, I think look you got to use data as much as you can when things are good you want to measure what's happening so you know

whether you're using sports box or AMM or a track man or force plates whatever it is is when it's going really good is to have all that data so that when it's not going well you can look back to it. And then I just think that a lot of people, you know, there's a difference between a 22-year-old Jordan speed and the difference between now a married father of two. And so, you know, there's more noise in your life. It's not good or bad. This isn't negative or positive.

But you know, you're busier. You've got more demands on your time. you've got this, you've got that, you've got this younger generation of players coming up, who you inspired. And and and they're after golf, their whole focus is whether they're going to play Call of Duty or go to Chipotle first, they're not sure. So you're going to be one or the other, right? Like, do I get the case or not? Um, it could be our master's champion this year. And you know, the first thing he did was he's, he got guac, he, not master's champion, talking about hoblin is, is, is, well, the feather 21, the feather, he's got, you know, the, the first thing he posted was eating guac from Chipotle. I mean, that's what I'm talking about, right? So, um, you know, that, and I think what's happening because of coaching and because of the previous players

and because of how much money there is in the game, the Ludwig Alberg would have been a unicorn 20 years ago. This is what's coming, you know, and you watch a guy like that, and he's an incredible young man. But you look at these young guys, man, and they're like, they're already there top five every single week.

And so golf may get more, you know, equitable to other sports like equate to it more in the sense that your career might be 18 to 33 because at 33 when you have two or three kids, will you put enough time in to keep your craft where it needs to be for the next 18 year old who hits at 350 and meditates and works out perfect and puts magnesium in his water. They're doing the right things. These kids have been more raised by sports science. And that's not everything engulf. I think it... Well, it seems like it's a bit of a prerequisite, it's too strong of a word. You don't have to be this long and have this technical skill. But when you're dealing from a pool of, I just throw out a number, if you're dealing with a pool of 100 guys that are coming up every year that vomit,

and that pool was maybe 20 guys, whatever, 10, 15, 20 years ago, it's a different eye of the needle that you need to pass through to separate yourself. Like it's easier to get past 15 guys that vomit. Now, if there's, I mean, just look at average driving distance on tour. Some of that's technology and evolution and information, but it's also just selecting from a stronger, a larger pool of players

that hit it this far. Whereas now it's who's the best iron player and who's the best putter of this group of long guys because the difference you make up in iron play and putting is really difficult to overcome hitting it offline or not hitting it far. And that's the thing is, you know, you get, it's like every week there's a new kid who's 6285 pounds and like it's like they're coming out of a lab. Whereas back in the day, when I first went on the tour 18 years ago, there was probably still 15 guys. My height at 5 foot 7, you know, there was the big guys like Ernie or a VJ and but now it's just like continuously going like that and the ball speeds are getting higher and higher. Like I said, players are working on their breathing, they're working on what the e alcohol is really no longer like it used to be normal to CPGA

tour players out. It's become much more of a sport from that standpoint, but I think a lot of that has to do is that, you know, survival of the fittest is gonna be based on the environment. So we have more money in the game at the highest level. It's just gonna bring in different athletes. And I think from Tiger to Rure to DJ, the influencers, the made golf look cool.

So how many guys would have been playing hockey for Sweden or tied in for University of Florida and they're playing golf? So they're bringing the ability to contract muscles and generate more force and have better balance and just it's definitely happening, right? I mean, even if you look at like the Premier League and soccer back in the 76 World Cup, the average heights may be five nine. I think it's well over six one now.

So everything's going, everything's every NFL team in the 70s had one guy now. That's the whole offensive line is the same now. Yep. It's getting more and more optimized. Are you seeing that with either your current stable of players or new players you come to work with in terms of wanting speed?

Is that something that you know you caution players about? Is it something that can be easily achieved through a few certain things? How do you go about if somebody comes to you and says they want speed? How do you how do you help them with that? It's a tricky road. It's a tricky a lot of times I help players with their speed like Ben on and I have gone from 172 to 185 ball speed, but that's just because we made, we improved his golf swing. We improved how he transferred energy. Ben always had that in him. He just didn't know how to bring it out.

But if you get a guy to where he's fairly maxed out at speed, then it is a process between discussing with, you know, the guy who works on his body, the person who trains him, you know, obviously people like Sasha McKenzie,, the person who trains him, you know, obviously people like Sasha McKenzie, who created the stack system know a lot about training, underweight over speed training, but you know, Matt Fitzpatrick, how he did it, he was, it was very, very clear on how they were going to do it, at what times of the year they were going to do it, and he had a brilliant group of guys behind him, all guys I respect. And so he was just kind of behind the scenes,

getting a little bit faster, a little bit faster to the point, he wins the US Open, they're like, wow, where did this come from? But it's been coming for 26, 27 months, did the same thing with Justin Rose as it created, it equated the speed. But I'd say during that time, Rosie probably put 12 to 15 pounds on a muscle.

So remember, you're trying to generate four. So that comes into how you can track muscles, how you load the club and how the body moves to generate energy, how fast the hands are moving and you know as I think that that's that's it's pretty and imperative like pretty imperative, like, it's something you don't want to do quickly, one because of injury and two because the brain can get systemically confused by this new, would you say stimulus. So, like, you know, if you go to a trainer, look, the first thing they want to work with you on is flexibility and then stability and then strength and then power. So, when people get there, you know, there are clubs that they can swing faster to hit it further. I mean, and then stability and then strength and then power. So when people get their clubs,

if they can swing faster to hit it further, I mean, most of them probably aren't flexible enough. If they are, they probably don't have enough stability. And that's why I just think to really misinterpret the math behind it, that's why so many people get injured when they try to do it is because they're not necessarily ready to go into power if they don't even have the necessary stability or strength yet.

I feel like you're you're talking to my soul there with that last part. I've got the stack and I want to get working on it. But like my body's not in a good place right now. Yeah, you can do it too, but you know, getting, you know, the super speed stuff, they do a good job too, but getting someone who's 55 to get on his knees and swing left and it's probably fairly dangerous. Like, I mean, he's just not used to moving in that direction. So yes, the technology works 100% between super speed and a stack. They both have absolutely showed me data proving it, and I'm all for it.

But it's, you know, it's not that you're in a Ferrari. It's just how fast you go around the corner. Well, another device I've picked up and I haven't spent enough time with yet is something you're intimately familiar with. Can you tell us about the ProCender? I, it was, the Twitter was a buzz with it. I think Roy McElroy using it on the range had to have been a great business spike for you guys. Tell us about this device, kind of what it does and how that's gone for you. Yeah, well, my friend David Woods, who is the director of golf at the vintage club and a fellow Canadian.

And David and I have known each other for 11, 12 years. And so David had built the plane mate and he had some success in understanding that marketplace and how you go about building the business. And I had no idea about that. But what I do know about is wrist angles. And after all these years of teaching golf, designing something to help pro golfers but more so amateur golfers.

So when we built the Pro Sender, if you looked at the angle, Chris, that it's at, if that's my hand normal, and you can see how it's angled away, 51 degrees, this is like a weighter's tray extension, 51 degrees is the average right wrist angle on a PGA tour. All right, so John Rom, this wouldn't do anything for John Rom because he's over here at about 64, and somebody like Phil Mickelson,

Phil likes the ball between the wrist, but he doesn't like that because he'll never get into that. But if you took 90 out of 100 players, this benefits them in two directions. So when you look at an amateur golfer and in a pro golfer, you can't believe the amount of strange FaceTime lessons I've had all over the, I remember one year I was in New Orleans with my girl, Annie Park, and I was in the,

was a little late in the night too, so I probably was feeling it. And I put this thing up against the wall, and I'm talking during, and I'm showing her this, and this guy walks up, and he goes, hey man, you should probably pick a different alley than this one. So it's, it's quite normal to be swinging in hotel rooms and hallways and lobbies. But two things that an amateur golfer and a pro golfer where they vary a lot in a different way. Amateur golfer still turn, they still shift their way as much as not as much as some of the freaks, but that's not much different. I could take anyone on the street right now and teach them how to do that and teach them how to do that. Okay. The difference is is when we apply the golf club to the hands and then the arms to the body. And so what we'll see is the average on tour is 51, but the mean is from 43 to 62. Amateurs are around between 9 and 27. Okay? So what do most amateurs do when they hit a golf ball? They what? They slice it. They slice it. And they slice it

mainly because when the wrist angles are like that, that clubface is wide open. So the problem is I've got two one I got two and hundreds of a second to get to impact. And so I've always done a drill with players where I got them into impact and then had get to impact. And so I've always done a drill with players where I got them into impact and then had them feel that they took impact to the top of their backswing. Because intuitively I understood that from here to here is no time.

So I, Rosie, Justin Rosenhaus, had a saying that golf is a backswing game. So people take it to the top and they go, what's next? And of course, we'll see people's weight shift first, but remember, Chris, we're bipedalers, so we walk. So it's natural for us to go from the heel to the mid foot to the toe, it's natural for us to shift our weight. And the thing is, when you look at great walkers,

is they shift their weight, they have rotation through the thoracic spine. So it is very, very much like the golf swing. And of course, every athletic movement is going to have to have the human gate cycles going to have to have some effect on it. So two things, amateurs have the face way more open because of the right wrist. And then two, amateurs write elbows are a lot more bent than tour players. So your average amateurs probably looking like this at the top and your average pros looking

like that. And so from this standpoint and this standpoint, if if my arms not as bent, it's going to be easier to straighten it fast. And if you're a boxer, you wouldn't want your right arm still bent when you hit someone, you want the arm extending. So yes, I know there's a couple unicorns like Victor and these guys who come in with their right arm still bent and they're able to rotate inside bend, but I just don't really know. Someone comes to me and they do that and they do it well.

I'm not going to change it. But I now have a million people coming to me trying to do that. And it's a highly elegant movement, all right. But I would say the hall of fame is full of much more people extending and straightening their arms. The second big thing in golf, I always thought about it as this sweet spot never coming down on the same plane that went up on. I've been teaching that for 25 years. And so all this talk about shallowing, and I know that you know the word shallowing,

and you've attempted it and tried it. And so how a lot of shallowing has been taught is with like a lot of rotation and the arms going out. And that's a variation. But if I do that, I'm going to have to be really bowed and in super extension because when I put out force on this club, the face opens. So I've already got amateurs who slice it as it is. So one, in the takeaway, the wrist doesn't get under the cradle and the takeaway. It wrist doesn't get under the cradle in the takeaway.

It happens more towards the top. So if I get to this position and I keep the right wrist in extension and then extend my arm down, look at how shallow that club stays. So from here I'm now incentivized Chris to rotate to square the club through impact. So the amateurs look like this. So as they come down, the shaft looks steep, and they all extend early, because if I went here and kept rotating, I'd slice it more.

So early extension is not the problem. Early extension is the effect of the cause of the force being too much towards the ball and the face with just too, that's too open with too much loss. And so when I thought about, you know, and this is the first thing I've ever done like this, I've had 50 companies reach out to me and want me to be the face of their training aid,

but when I looked at their training aid, I just, from an integrity standpoint, I couldn't agree with it. So when David and I came up with this, for me, it was the right thing because when I just look at amateurs and they're here and they get into this position, it's like life-changing experience for them because really at impact, we're there. So it's trying to build that into the backswing.

And that is why this was excellent in the sense that there's been products out here like this, but they always put you into the position. So when I consulted to Will Wu who is a PhD at the University of USC, Will said, when I sent this to him and he looked at it, he said, because of the way it's built and the fact that I have to use my own ability to use it, that it was very applicable to people getting to people getting better. And it's been, I think we're at now what I think we you know, I think we've sold over 25,000 and I think we've had 150 returns. The product lasts a long time. We've got over 50 players on the PGA tour and LPGA tour using it.

And there's just, I don't think there's ever been a product like this where You know these top players are using it And then allowing us to use them using it with no fee So no one using it is paid to use it and like I said, it's not for everybody But is it relates to average or golf? It's for most people and And I'm starting to, you know, I was just up in Toronto one day. And then I was in San Diego. And I drove by these two public ranges. And there was 10 people on each range. And there was probably four people on each range using it. So I stopped

to say hello. And then the other people said, what is that? And it's just been, I don't think I've ever received this many DMs or anything like that of people are getting progressively better, but this is, you know, the marketing is how you can have PGA tour wrist angles, and you can. Will you be able to ever generate as much speed as Cameron Chan? You will not. Will you ever be able to side bend as much as Victor Hoblin without going the chiropractor? You will not. Can you get the face in a much more square position to help you square it even more? And you can, and you definitely can.

So yeah, it's been great as obviously as a business. It's been great, but more importantly to me is that it's helping golfers. I had plenty of options to have my business better, but looking in the mirror is more important to me than looking in my bank account. Well, that's a great way to conclude because that baby want to go practice with it right now, because I need to work on some things.

We got to see where the baby situation is at before you get, but you can definitely go in the backyard. I think if you can put the baby, do you have one of those baby beorns? I do, yes. Well, that helped me too. I think if you could connect the baby between your arms there, and then just, I think the baby would have a lot of fun too, man, you know. We want to get her playing anyway, so that could work out really well. That would be the greatest video in the history of golf. Like that would, that would basically blow up the internet is to see you out there with your

beautiful little daughter making swings with someone videoing you from another house going oh my I mean that would be the greatest thing ever. With moms out of town. This is what happens. Yeah, exactly. So Sean, this was a blast, man. I mean, I feel like we could do this pretty much every week. You're you have a lot to say about the game of golf and have a lot of experience in it. And this has been a very enlightening hour plus. So we greatly appreciate your time and effort and hope to do this again sometime. Yeah, and congrats to you guys too. You know, there's, I think there's a lot of people out there trying to do things in a cheap way. And the amount of thought that you guys put

into it, the amount that you love the game, starting it from nothing and building it all this way up, it's commendable. And you're doing it to me. You're doing it the right way. It's not shock factor. It's like real things that people enjoy listening to. So that was number one goal. Just got to make it real. That's our north star.

So we appreciate that. But thanks again, thanks everyone for tuning in. And we'll see you back here next time. Thank you. Chris, thank you, man. Before you go, we are trying something new on the end of this episode, our very own Kevin van Volkkenberg wrote an article on our website, nolangup.com this week. If you don't visit that

often, we do not blame you. We have, we are reinvesting in the writing process this year, bringing KVV on board for that. But I want to try something new, the different aspect of that to say that KVV is going to rejuve his article, he wrote on playing golf solo and it wrote in the shame of loneliness by the powerful discovery of playing golf alone, which greatly enjoyed the read and KVV is going to bring you that article on the end of this podcast episode right here. Every Wednesday, an anticipation of my weekend, I sift through one of the four text threads

on my phone related to golf. I read or make inquiries about getting a forceome together. There are a few things that I enjoy more than when the star is a line, we can find a way to get my regular crew on a T-sheet somewhere. There are frequent complications. Certain people can only play on Saturday. Others won't play if they're all moderns on TV. You've sports schedules are a constant curveball. Some friends want to play at the crack of dawn. Others will only play a

course that won't make us take carts. Sometimes we make decisions that are driven by price. Other times by how quickly someone needs to get home with their spouse and kids. Factor in all the constant moving parts and needs of a blended family like mine, and it's a miracle that we play at all. If you think the New York Times Sunday Crossword is hard, try finding a window where four adults in their 30s, 40s, and 50s can play golf together without crippling guilt or financial strain. We still attempt it and frequently pull it off for myriad reasons.

The primary motivation to simple, we enjoy it immensely, even if the quality of golf is occasionally pitiful. The people who suggest you need to be good at golf to enjoy it are the worst kind of snobbs. But there are intrinsic motivations too, ones we typically don't talk about but innately understand. It's easy to fill lonely and adulthood. ["Monday, and the End of the World"] There is mounting evidence, clinical, academic, and anecdotal,

suggesting that shifting so many of our friendships and social interactions to an online realm is not particularly good for our mental health. We squabble and MF each other in the digital space in ways that we would never dream of doing in the real world. But the internet and our smartphones are only partially to blame for the loneliness creep. In 1995 Harvard professor Robert D. Putnam published a soon-to-be-famous essay titled Bowling Alone about the gradual collapse of community in America. The premise being that we once gathered in groups, as members of teams, to bowl in leagues. Over time, something shifted. Americans weren't bowling less in 1995 than they were in 1955 research showed. They were simply choosing to do it solo. The

essay later became a best-selling book by the same name. Golf, perhaps by design, hasn't succumbed to similar trends. If you show up as a single at your local muni, it is the job of the pro shop or the starter to play matchmaker, to try to find you a group that needs a fourth. Public courses, at least the majority of them, can't afford to let introverts have run of the place, as such, every solo endeavor can feel like a role of the social dice. If you're lucky, you'll land in a group of people who are warm and friendly, who drive it straight and ask you personal questions but don't pry for sensitive details. If you hit the lottery, you might emerge with a new friend or a regular playing partner.

If you're unlucky, and it happens to everyone eventually, you'll get paired with someone who can't resist peppering you with crude offensive jokes or unsolicited swing advice. You might have to share a walk or a cart with someone who takes way too long over the ball, throws tantrums and clubs, and is completely oblivious to golf's unspoken social contract. The next time this happens, just know as you watch them take six practice swings with rage, swelling, and your temple and jaw, that I have been there, I see you, and I feel your pain. I still treasure what golf can do to foster a sense of community. I'll never pass on the chance to play with friends or family if available, and those concepts I've come to understand are malleable.

This week, our company will welcome nearly 100 golfers to Frisco, Texas for our annual Nest Invitational Tournament. Each of them will bring a piece of themselves to the table in the name of communion. It is one of my favorite weeks of the year. But in recent years, I have also learned to lean into the meditative zen of playing alone. It is one of golf's most underrated pleasures. If you've never experienced it, I cannot recommend it enough. I used to think golfing alone was the fate of a misanthrope, so I tried to avoid it at all costs. I would

sneer with condescension when I watched Patrick Reed play practice rounds by himself at majors. Choosing to golf solos seemed like evidence of something pernicious. You had to have taken some wrong turns along the way to have arrived there. But once you try it a few times, you realize how naive that is. It takes a bit of effort and luck to pull it off. You need to seek out tea-times very early or very late, but the benefits are considerable. In recent years, I have grown fond of sneaking out late in the day, just as the sun is sinking low in the sky, comforted by the understanding that I do not care if I cannot finish nine

holes or post a score for my handicap. The solitude is its own reward. I cannot tell you at what point I became hopelessly addicted to my phone, only that it happened gradually and then suddenly, a fate that has ensnared so many of us. Every blinking alert or hideous vibration triggers a Pavlovian response in my brain. The demands I yank it from my pocket, that I answer a slack or a tweet or an email with unnecessary urgency. Yet golf, by myself, is one of the few times in my day, and I feel like I can ignore those impulses, but nothing seems as important as the grass in front of me. My phone gets zipped into a pocket of my bag and remains there, hopefully for hours.

I am often convinced that I am too impatient for meditation, too weak to escape the grasp in the allure of the digital world, but I can lose myself on a golf course if no one is around. I can forgive myself as I walk to find my ball, for my failures and shortcomings. I can imagine ways in which I could be a better writer, a better father, a better son, husband or friend, a better version of me. Some days, I even hit good golf shots. Is a birdie really a birdie if no one but me is around to see it?

I have found that yes, it very much is. Several years ago, while working for ESPN in 2016, I attended my first masters. I arrived on a Tuesday, as most writers do, and as I walked the property for the first time, I could not stop smiling. The glow of Augusta National tends to dim a bit with each successive visit, but your first time feels a bit like visiting a movie set. It's greener and larger than you can possibly imagine before you see it. Fones aren't allowed on the grounds, so the impulse to take a picture quickly gives

way to something more serene. I did what all first timers do, and made the pilgrimage out to Amen corner, just to see it with my own eyes. I stood as close as I could to where Phil laced one through the trees on 13. I found the sight of Tigers 2005 Chippin. I wander the property for hours with only memories as a guide. Late in the day, having seen all I thought I wanted to see, I drifted in the direction of the clubhouse, but paused as I walked behind the sixth hole. Almost no players and very few patrons remained on the course. But there was Trevor Imelmond, the 2008 master's winner, playing by himself. He was above the treacherous sixth green, gently

bumping hybrids through the fringe, laboring over pieces of a puzzle he once artfully solved. I leaned against a tree and watched him for several minutes transfixed. For years, the scene lingered in my brain. What did it feel like to play a gust of national by yourself? Even members didn't seem to have that privilege from what I could tell. I decided after years of mulling it to call Inland and ask. It turns out against all odds he remembered the scene I witnessed. Sort of. After I won in 2008, my routine kind of became going to play nine holes by myself really late on the Tuesday, teeing off about 3.30 and the moment told me. I would also generally play the front nine, because typically all the patrons, especially if it's their first time, they're out on the back. They want to see Amen corner and the flowers popping.

But there's always something serene about getting to the third or fourth hole, and there would literally be no one out there. That time of afternoon, the sun is starting to set, and you've got these shadows coming from the tall pines. It's awesome. I think me doing that on those late Tuesday afternoons was like therapy for me. What does one think about when you're all alone and one of golf's cathedrals? It takes you back to a time when you're a kid and your dad comes to pick you up and you're like, I want to play a couple more," Emelman said.

Emelman, 43, no longer competes professionally. His job as CBS's lead analyst consumes much of his year, so he doesn't play much golf these days. Twice a week if he's lucky. I'm sure to some people that seems like a lot, he says, but you have to understand where I was coming from. When he does play, it's typically with his teenage son Jacob or a group of friends at his club. But some days, if his schedule permits, he will sink into the silence of being by himself. The thing that I really enjoy is the game is so challenging

and so difficult, no matter what level you're at, and said, if you're a beginner and you're just trying to get it airborne, or if you're trying to get two in a row airborne, or if you're a beginner and you're just trying to get it airborne or if you're trying to get two in a row airborne or if you're a pro and you're trying to make sure all your draws actually draw and all your fades actually fade, it's so challenging for everyone. And the unknown landscape of how much of it is physical and how much of it is mental, it's an unanswerable question. You can fall in love with that journey and you can keep yourself occupied for hours. Some days, when I'm racing against the setting sun, it's already dark when I reach the last hole. I can't even see the balls, it flies off the club face. Logic tells me it's foolish to tee off that I should just walk in, but I often do it anyway.

It's only then that I reach for my phone. The flashlight function tends to come in handy here as I search for my ball. I can see a string of texts and emails on the home screen, but I'm confident they can wait. If I'm lucky, there might be time for one more swing. Thanks for listening. I'm Kevin Vindbalkenberg, Editorial Director of NoLingUp. You can email me or any of us at kvb at noLingUp.com. You can find more writing like this on our website, noLingUp.com, which is free to everyone. But we'd also encourage you to join the NEST, our community of avid golfers.

NEST members get a 15% discount in our pro shop, access to our vibrant members-only message board, a link to our monthly NEST podcast, as well as a chance to sign up early for our Roost Events hell all around the country. Thanks for listening. up to date. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's better than most. How about in?

That is better than most. Better than most. Better than most. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

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