StarTalk Radio - #ICYMI - Golf’s 2018 Ryder Cup: Physics & Psychology at the Albatros

Episode Date: September 20, 2018

In case you missed this episode on the Playing with Science channel… Are you ready for the 2018 Ryder Cup? Hosts Chuck Nice and Gary O’Reilly prepare for golf’s most exciting, and most intense, tournament alongside sports physicist John Eric Goff and performance psychologist Gregg Steinberg. NOTE: StarTalk All-Access subscribers can watch or listen to this entire episode commercial-free here: https://www.startalkradio.net/all-access/golfs-2018-ryder-cup-physics-psychology-at-the-albatros/Photo Credit: By Lionel Allorge [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html), CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) or FAL], from Wikimedia Commons. Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ on Apple Podcasts to listen to new episodes ad-free and a whole week early.

I'm Gary O'Reilly and I'm Chuck Nice and this is Playing With Science. Today we tee up another golf show for you. True, we may swing and miss but Chuck and I aim to sink a hole in one at every hole. So let's be fair, if we do, you are not going to want to miss this. Now, are you? No, you are not. Especially when you hear that we're talking Ryder Cup golf, the biggest thing in the golfing universe by far, and knocking it straight down the fairway

will be our very own sports mad professor, Eric Goff, who'll be putting the course under close scrutiny and pulling out some hidden science for your review. Yes, and once we have seen if science can explain how to conquer the albatross at Le National, we will be crawling inside of the brain of a Ryder Cup golfer. Of course, all of that with the help of performance psychologist Dr. Greg Steenberg. So clean your balls! You and I, well, we're coming out swinging.

Clean your balls! You and I, well, we're coming out swinging. So joining us first is physics professor Eric Goff. It's good to have you back, professor. How are you? I'm doing great. And Chuck, I grew up and heard plenty of golf ball jokes. So I'm anxious for this show.

Well, of course, you know, everybody who's familiar with the show knows that Professor Eric Goff is from Lynchburg University in Virginia and the author of Gold Medal Physics. Which we do believe was a stocking stuffer. It was. Last Christmas. Last Christmas, that's right. And it will be again this Christmas because it's still in print, people. Absolutely. Yes, it is. So let's start, shall we, Professor? Can you give us an overall idea of the kind of course the Ryder Cup players are going to be faced with this time around? So this golf course has a mixture of meadow and bent grass greens, and these are a little softer than the Bermuda greens that maybe some of us here in the warmer parts of the U.S. play on. So the golf course, the fairways have a mixture of the bent and the rye and the fescue grasses.

So these types of grasses are a little bit more helpful when the climate's a little cooler. If you tried to use these grasses down around the beach areas or in the hotter parts of the U.S., they would require a lot of water, a lot of care and taking care of the golf courses. So they're expensive. So the Bermuda grass is what you see when you're in the hotter parts in the U.S. By the way, Bermuda grass just sounds like something I want to smoke so bad. Not the rye grass? No. The interesting thing there is, Professor, with certain species of grass, it's rougher, it's smoother. It would then cause more friction unless it's cut very, very short.

That's right. And you've got to love something like bent grass. I mean, bent grass, this is, you know, it's pure science. This is hybrid grass, hybrid materials, synthetics. These are really used in the putting surfaces. Something like ryegrass, these grow better in the cold. You put the fescue grass near the green. So, I mean, science has really taken over the links and really improved the types of play that you can get on the golf course.

Gosh, I tell you, Professor Eric Goff, there is nothing this guy does not know. He's the groundskeeper Willie of science. This is unbelievable. Well, I'll tell you what. We here at the University of Lynchburg have a lot of good students who help me with some of these things. And I got Carter Olds, one of my students. He's a golf player on the team here. So we had a lot of good students who help me with some of these things. And I got Carter Olds, one of my students. He's a golf player on the team here. So we had a lot of fun breaking this course down.

So this course is basically designed to be a pain in the tuchus for the players, right? Is that the whole idea behind designing a course like this, especially with all these different types of grass, which will, I would assume, affect the play of the ball. That's why you want these different type of grasses. And so is this to make it so that, you know, you're just throwing your clubs into the water? Is that the idea? Well, I think the biggest issue for the players is going to be when they drive off the tees.

The fairways are quite sloped. They're going to have to deal with some pretty difficult lies in the fairways, and sometimes they'll have the ball either a little bit above or below their feet when they're hitting their second shot. If they're firm, the ball should come to rest in a fairly flat spot. They're pretty average width, but you get a lot of the fairways that slope away from the center and towards the rough, so they're going to appear a little bit narrower than they really, you know, they're going to appear a little wider than they really are, because if you miss a little left or

right of center, you may have a chance of the ball rolling in the rough. See, so it then becomes target golf, does it not? Because you're looking at a particular spot on a fairway or a particular spot on the green and then you're on then i'm starting to ask myself what kind of course does this suit does it suit the power hitters the guy who drives it forever or is this the guy who's got a short game and can chip and part and do all the little softness the ness yes professor who's he gonna suit that's interesting you say that because the the hna open to france has been played at this golf course the last you know several julys and the typical driving distance for the winner has been only around in the 290 yard range so the players that we've got

on our team you know the dustin jostens, the Justin Thomas, Bubba Watson. I mean, these players are driving over 310 yards on average. So they might have a tendency to want to drop that down a little bit on this course. They're going to have to kind of bridle themselves, take a little off the swing in order to play this course instead of just driving through and being a power hitter, huh? That's right. They might even want to try, you know, one of Tiger Woods' famous stingers, you know, the two-iron low trajectory shot where you keep the ball really low on the fairway, and when it bounces, you get a lot of roll after that bounce.

A lot of forward motion bounce. Yeah. Hey, speaking of teams, can you break that down? Because this is the way this is played, right? This is not like regular golf. This is the USA versus Europe, and they actually pick teams, and I believe Tiger Woods and Steve Stricker were picked sometime earlier this year, I think in February. So they're going to be picking a couple more, maybe four more, before the play starts at the end of September. The players we have on our team are significantly more accomplished. we have on our team are significantly more accomplished. I will say that the younger, the rookies you're going to see on the European team, they actually, looking up the stats, have slightly better driving percentages. So it's going to be interesting to see whether the Europeans are going to be able to keep the ball in the fairway a little bit better, or whether these much more experienced and more accomplished players on the U.S. side are going to be able to use that experience to their advantage.

Speaking of keeping the ball in the fairway, can you break down from a physics standpoint the mechanics of hitting a ball straight with a golf club? What is necessary to do that and what makes one slice left or right? Well, what makes it slice left or right is if I hit it. If you're going to hit it straight down the fairway, you don't want to be filming me hitting a golf ball. But I'll tell you what, from the physics point of view, you're going to be using a, you know, say your driver is going to be very flat on the front face. It's going to have very little on the groove action. And the ball is going to be very flat on the front face. It's going to have very little on the groove action. And the ball is going to be driven with a low trajectory, so only like 10 to 20 degrees off the horizontal. But the spin imparted to the ball, it's going to have some backspin.

And if you're aiming for the ball to have a low trajectory, that backspin may only have something like 2,000 or 3,000 RPMs on the ball. Now, just to put that into a little context, you know, the football, it's a nice spiral that's thrown on Sundays coming up soon here. You're going to have about 600 RPMs. So these balls are spinning maybe four or five times faster than a football. You know, a helicopter blades, maybe you're going to be spinning the golf ball about six or seven times faster than helicopter blades. You know, a helicopter blades, maybe you're going to be spinning the golf ball about six or seven times faster than helicopter blades. So even just a normal shot is going to have a lot of spin. And what's amazing about the golf athletes today, they didn't just take, you know, Tiger Woods and think, oh, I got to have to bulk up and get strength.

They are really improving their flexibility. You know, a lot of these athletes are going into yoga classes. They're doing stretching every day. And the reason is when you go to drive that ball off the tee for distance, and I'm talking, you know, 310 plus yard averages, you need to get that club back very far and store a great deal of potential energy in your tendons that are stretched, pulling your arms up, and the wrists are even going to start turning. I mean, you watch Dustin Johnson hit a golf ball. I mean, his wrists are really cracked at the top of his swing, and he's storing a lot of energy. So when you come through and strike that ball, you want to deliver that club head, which is going to be coming into

that ball at, you want to guess the club head speeds? Okay, that's a good guess. We can, but we're probably going to be nowhere near accurate. Let me just think. I'm just trying to get it in my mind because you can't even see it when the guys swing it. So I'm going to say swing it. So I'm going to say 220 miles an hour. Actually, it's a little bit lower than that. It's more like an average of about 120 miles an hour. Oh, crap. I'm so far off. It's a little bit lower than that. In other words, Chuck, in another city. You were good on the kilometer per hour, I guess. There you go. that's what it is way to clean it up for me i meant 220 kilometers so if you want to look at the ball speed coming off the ball is going to be springing off you know you got this smash factor that's going to be bigger than one

where you take the ball speed over the club head speed and for a really top flight golfer you know this is going to be about a one and a half factor. So they can get speeds upwards in the 185 mile an hour range. Average speeds tend to be around 180 mile an hour coming off the driver. And to put that into a little bit of context, I mean, we had a Indy 500 race this year that was running. The winning time was about three hours, I think. So you're looking at about 167 mile an hour average in an IndyCar, and this golf ball is going to just fly right past it. Not bad. Puts it into context. That's kind of cool, man. That's really kind of cool. Hey, let me ask you this. So when you go back in time, right, and you take these old, like they used to call them woods because it was actually wood. Yes. Okay.

What kind of speed would a ball get then? I mean, what's the difference in play now between like back then? Like a wooden tennis racket. Like a wooden tennis racket and a carbon fiber tennis racket. What's the difference between like these composite clubs or drivers that they're using now and like the old real woods back in the day? Well, the materials now are so much better and the clubs are actually made much more aerodynamic. In fact, you look at some of the new technology, I'm thinking about like the Ping G30 driver. They now have these turbulators on them.

driver, they now have these turbulators on them. So when we talked about soccer balls before, or if we talk about golf balls with the dimples, you start roughening up the surface of a ball, and you can actually reduce the air drag on it. And they've done this with golf club heads. They will put some kind of roughening around the head of the golf club so that when it comes down toward the ball it's uh actually past the what chuck loves is the drag crisis you can actually move it past laminar flow into turbulent flow and with these turbulators and there's some really neat online images that ping has made from wind tunnels that show this so this technology just dwarfs anything that happened back with the woods. I mean, you know, they were not driving anywhere close to, you know, a ball off the tee at 180

miles an hour. I mean, you're looking at maybe two thirds of that speed. Turbulator, honey, that's what they call me when I'm wearing my thigh high heels. Okay. You had to mention drag crisis, professor. He's off. We may not get him back for about another hour. The thing is, when you've got this sort of velocity from clubface to ball, is the ball going through any deformation or does it retain its shape as it's moving? Oh, there's a good reason you call it a smash factor. The golf ball itself gets smashed considerably. If you look at high speed video that's taken of these collisions, that golf ball gets smushed up against the club face when it is hit. And then there's a springiness that will come back out. So when you stored like in a spring, you've stored a bunch of energy into

that ball's compression and when it bounces back off like a trampoline that's why you can get the ball bouncing off at a speed greater than the club head speed wow that is what sort of time frame are we talking about the for a ball getting smashed and then returning to its original shape and how much compression are you seeing there how much deformation are you seeing are? How much deformation are you seeing? I mean, I would say percentage-wise. Can you give us like, so think of the ball as a perfect sphere. What would it kind of end up looking like when it makes contact?

I mean, it will look like you've got a half, you know, a hemisphere on the ball with the bottom hemisphere that's smushed against the ball. I mean, it will look like, you know, the top of a bald head or something. I mean, it's just completely smashed. And then, yeah, the, you know, the dimples and stuff, all those things will spread out. It's quite a violent collision. And if you hold a golf ball in your hand and try to squeeze it, no chance.

Get it. Forget it. Yeah. But you can, just with the use of a golf club, basically take that golf ball out. Nice. I can see you playing golf with a picture of someone on a golf ball. Yeah, absolutely. I just want to see this in high speed slow-mo. I can't believe I haven't seen this yet.

The actual thing, high speed, slow motion. So let's take a quick break. And when we come back, more from our super sports mad professor, Eric Goff, analyzing the Ryder Cup course for 2018. So don't go away. Welcome back to Playing With Science. This, of course course is our 2018 rider cup special and for your pleasure we have sports mad professor eric goff analyzing this year's rider cup course and

the physics and science that lie within going back to the course itself, Professor, what I've seen is it's built a little bit like a Lynx course with lots of undulations and little areas where you can get trapped. And I think the final four or five holes have an awful lot of water around them. And I'm guessing that's probably where the excitement will take place for the fans. Yeah, there's what's the hole? There's one hole that actually has just a little island. It's actually surrounded by water with a little bridge to walk over it. It told me there's sharks in the water. I mean, the 18th hole has certainly got a lot of water around it, that final hole. But yeah, you have a lot of water traps in the Lynx. The entire course itself was definitely built with a links course in mind. It's got kind of almost a stadium feel where the edges of the golf course are built up a little bit,

and you definitely have a lot of undulation. You've got these different types of grasses that are in the rough. The intermediate rough that's right off the fairways is only about two inches tall, but the greens, when you get near the greens, some of that rough gets a little less than four inches tall. So the play near the greens is going to be really interesting because, you know, you're going to have to be very accurate when you're driving down the course off the tee. And then it's that second shot, you know, that lead up to the tee where the green is, it's going to be really important to see where the players decide to play it because there are

some of these holes that, you know, if you just miss a little short, you're going to be in the water. If you play the spin wrong, you're going to be rolling back into some pretty tall grass. So those lead up shots to the greens are going to be critical. Those lead-up shots to the greens are going to be critical. So we talked to you once about baseball and humidity and baseball in the rain. So how does that play when it comes to golf? Like humidity, cool weather, and wet, like a wet atmosphere or actual precipitation. What does that do to the golf ball?

So humidity, it's counterintuitive, but it actually lowers the mass density of the air. The ball can actually fly a little bit farther in humid air compared to cold air, cold, dry air. So the baseballs in an October World Series where it's cold don't fly quite as far as maybe in July or August when, you know, it's steaming hot summer and humid. The players, however, are going to notice a difference if it's humid. So there's going to be a physiological effect as well. But one thing to note on a lot of the holes for this particular course, you don't have a lot of tree cover. And that leads to some wind conditions. And if you've watched some of the highlights from that HNA Open to France that's played in July, I mean, you could see the wind blowing and whipping the rough and the grass and

even hear it on some of the course mics. You could hear the wind blowing. And how does crosswind, okay, so we have the Magnus effect, which, you know, you can explain what the Magnus effect is so that I don't look stupid when I explain it. But can you talk about wind shear against the Magnus effect? And so one, so after you explain the Magnus effect, can you talk about wind shear against the Magnus effect? What does that do? So when the golf ball is hit off the tee or even if you're trying to lay up a perfect shot onto the green and you're going to slice the golf club down on the ball and try to induce a lot of backspin, that backspin is going to create a, it's going to have an upward component of a force that we refer to as the Magnus effect, the Magnus force. When you have wind blowing over the ball, then of course that's going to be pushing the ball. Perhaps, you know, if you have a cross

wind, it's going to be pushing it sideways. So you're going to have the effect like, you know, you stick your hand out the window of a car and you could feel the wind pushing your hand back. I mean, it's going to be an added push on the ball. It's going to be in the direction of the wind. So the players are definitely going to have to take note of, you know, the wind and which of the holes are going to be covered with the trees and which ones are not. And can you render the wind ineffective? Like, for instance, when you watch football on a windy day in the stadium, right, you'll see quarterbacks, they're like, oh, he's throwing hard. Like, he's throwing hard because it's windy, and he doesn't want the flight path of the ball to be affected by the fact that it's windy. So the wind really has no effect on the pass. Can you do that with a golf ball and the

wind? Well, certainly if the players notice that they've got a headwind, I mean, if the wind's blowing right at them, they may try a little extra oomph on those tee shots. They may try to get a little more on the ball, knowing that they're going to meet up with a little bit of extra air resistance. If they feel tailwind, they're going to be a little bit more careful. They don't want to overdrive the shot, try to keep it in the middle of the fairway. So, I mean, they're definitely noticing the wind when they get to the tee at a given hole. And they're certainly going to notice if they have a crosswind, they're going to have to play a little bit left or right to compensate for that crosswind. This game is so hard.

Why would anybody play it? I just don't understand. for that crosswind. This game is so hard. Why would anybody play it? I just don't understand. Thinking about that, Professor, if you've got an exposed area as it's with no tree lines, would it be better to keep the shots lower rather than to belt them up into the sky where it's likely to be more windy? Sure. If you can play the ball low, then you're going to keep the drive a lot closer to the ground. And when you get that nice bounce, you're going to get a pretty good roll. Now, the wind, of course, when they're going to be playing toward the putting greens, that's going to be critical. Because if they really want the ball to drop without a lot of roll, they may play for a loftier shot.

without a lot of roll, they may play for a loftier shot. So, you know, they may get a pitching wedge or, you know, a club like that where they're going to get a lot of loft and a lot of spin. And, you know, some of these greens are pretty slick. I mean, the greens at this particular golf course, they came in at 10 feet, six inches using that step step meter and that is a fairly fast green for a pro so uh if they're going to be wanting to avoid a long roll on the ball they may have to play it up into the wind a little bit extra because you you remember the skyhook yes and it comes down vertically because he's creating a larger target right so if you So if you were to just hit it low, the chance of, as the professor's saying, hitting the green and scooting off or overshooting is there. But if you go for the elevated shot and drop it down.

Letting it drop on the green. You're going to put yourself in a position where you're fighting a crosswind. Right. So it just depends. And this is how, I mean, what sort of calculations are players going to go through to work this out? You know what they need? They need the professor on the side right there instead of a caddy just working out the calculations for what arc they need to put on the ball.

Imagine the caddy sitting there with a calculator and a slide rule and all sorts of different things just to try and get them a chance of a decent shot. I have a feeling if I start Yapp and Magnus effect, I'm going to have a five iron up the side of my head i mean well it depends if you say it in french or not yeah well they're going to be focused on you know some of those dog legs that they're going to see i mean you got a lot of these links that are not going to be straight they're going to have to play into a left or right turn when they get about two-thirds of the way down the hole. So,

I mean, they're going to have to be very careful where they lay up that first shot and playing for that second. I mean, I look at the course and, you know, look at all the holes, and it looks like what I was able to determine, holes four and 17, I would say, are probably the toughest on the course. I'm just thinking from a physics point of view. I mean, the fourth hole has a kind of a right to left jog in it. It's 486 yards. You're going to have all this undulation that's in the putting green. You're going to have the grass to contend with. You've got some traps. You get down into a hole like 17, and you're looking at a par 4 that's a pretty long 480 yards. And it's got a very, very steep drop-off if you miss the green in one particular spot.

So it's a very creative hole. If you're a little bit wide, you could get in some pretty tall grass. Uh, you get a little bit left, you're going to find yourself down in this hole. So, um, it's got some interesting challenges in it that I think it's going to be fun to watch. Cool. I'm looking forward to hearing a lot of curse words. Professor, once again, thank you so much for your time. And I never fail to be impressed with your range of sporting knowledge. Yeah. Amazing. So we'll take another break.

And coming up next, we'll be chatting with performance psychologist Dr. Greg Steenberg and crawling, as I said at the top of the show, inside the mind of a Ryder Cup superstar. Welcome back to Playing With Science. And today, as you are well aware, we are focusing on golf and in particular the 2018 Ryder Cup, which will take place at the delightfully named golf course, Chuck, called the Albatross at Lourdes National. Yes. Just southwest of Paris. Hanging around my neck. Yes.

Right. So to help us with the psychology of golf, and there's nothing goes on in the body without the brain first letting the body know what to do, we have Dr. Greg Steinberg. Now, this might take a second or two, so bear with me. He's been hailed by Golf Dig digest as one of the world's best performance psychologists okay that's good that's a good thing author of the mental rules of golf oh yes weekly guest on the talk of the tour on the pga tour radio network on sirius xm yes we like them they're nice and he writes a weekly mental game column very nice yes on that on the pgatour.com. So that's the brief outline of Dr.

Greg Steinberg. Greg, welcome to the show, sir. Thanks for having me. When you look at something like the Ryder Cup and you look at the players, what do you think is the most important thing to do mentally to prepare for and play in a tournament such as this? Well, most of the players will tell you that the Ryder Cup is the most pressure-packed situation. There is all the two years that they play it, every two years, even more than a major. And you're thinking, how could that be? Because they're not winning money. They're ultimately winning the trophy. But I think it's because they're playing in a team event, and ruining the trophy. But I think it's because they're playing in a team event and they know if they don't play well, they're going to not only

let down their country, they're going to let down their teammates. And so the preparation has to come with this. And that is knowing that you're going to feel immense pressure and knowing you're going to play on a team. And so the mental, let's say mental preparation is a little bit different than the other tournaments. So how do you get a guy who's all about him or her putting the ball in the hole 18 times and walking off and with a nice big fat check to focus on? It's not about me. It's about us. and i think one of course it comes with experience so the players that have played in a bunch of rider cups like a phil mickelson or sergio garcia they're used to this pressure they're used to playing on a team event they're used to playing

in uh for their country i think the best strategy is the players that have not played on the Ryder Cup very often or it's their rookie year like Bryson DeChambeau. They have to ask guys like Phil Mickelson and Tiger, you know, how do I deal with this pressure? How is this pressure different from tournaments and how have you done it? So the rookies and the young guys, they have to ask the experienced guys how they have to ask the experienced guys how they have done it before. Speaking of experience, you talk about emotional toughness and some of the talks that you have online. And can you explain the concept of emotional toughness and maybe give us a little peek into how that might apply to golf and particularly the Ryder Cup?

peek into how that might apply to golf and particularly the Ryder Cup? Well, you know, people always say, and they use this term mental toughness, but through my experiences working with professional athletes and collegiate athletes and young athletes is that it's not about the mental toughness. It's about the emotions. When you master your emotions, you master your world. And so when you have control over your fears, when you have control of your confidence, when you have control over your anxiety, then you have control of your game. And I always tell players, even if you think the right thoughts, if you don't have the right emotions, you're still going to choke. So the secret is you've got to really focus on the emotions out there. And how you do that is this. is you got to really focus on the emotions out there.

And how you do that is this. You have to recall times when you played your best and what emotions you had at those moments and then try to replicate those emotions. Because some people, when they play their best, they're nervous. Other people are calm. But the secret is figure out what makes you tick and then move in that direction with your emotions.

So what work will you do with a golfer in particular? Because I know you work with a range of athletes and elite businessmen and women. So if I'm someone who thinks they work well with a little bit of nervous edge in my mind, but actually it's not the right solution for me, how do you work out which is for a golfer? Well, the right answer and the right solution is this. You recall, let's say, three or four times where you were in the flow or the zone and figure out your intensity level for that, for those three or four times. So let's say you discovered for you, and let's take a scale of 10. 10 is totally amped. Zero is totally flat. For you, you have to be at an eight. And you've looked at this three or four times. And every time you're at the zone, you're at an eight. Now you got to figure

out images, actions and words to put you at an eight. Like for me, I need to be at a three. So I get to get to figure out how to stay calm. I have to figure out images to make me calmer in words. So what I call their primers,ers. Primers are words, actions, and images which push our emotions in the right direction. So first you gotta figure out where you need to go, that's awareness, and then figure out how to get there. Now suppose you're a person who really doesn't have very good measured responses

and you start thinking of primers and they send you like all over the edge. Then you gotta think of another primer to bring it back down. Now all of a sudden i'm like an emotional junkie i need my uppers to get me up i need my downers to get me down i don't know where i am or what i'm doing help me dr grant help me how did i know he was going there fire you he said if i was his client he fired me because he doesn't need a caddy you're way over You're way over the edge. Right. You know, the idea is that, yes, it's really a trial and error. You know, sometimes words and actions, you think they're going to put you in the right emotional state and they don't. So it's more of

a trial and error, you know, figure out what words really work and then move in that direction. So now let me ask you this, just following up on that. I mean, I was joking a little bit. I was really talking about me, so I wasn't joking. But, okay, is this something that works for just these elite players because they're so close in their skill sets already that these small tweaks to their emotional state puts them in a much better or a much more advantageous position? Or will this help the guy on the weekend who's out on the links with his buddies having beer? Is it going to help that guy? Yeah, I mean, it helps everybody. But of course, if you are, let's say, a beginner and you are focusing on the mechanics and you've got to work on the mechanics, it's hard to focus on the mental game.

But the way and the emotional game but the way and the emotional game the way i put it is this uh golf is 100 mental and emotional and 100 physical they're totally tied with one another and what most people do is they only work on the physical so they're only working like with one hand but if you work on the mental and emotional, you're working with both hands. And the biggest problem is people don't know what to work on. And to give the listeners probably the best advice is that everybody's unique. You got to figure out what makes you play your best. Even if you're a beginner or a weekend player, you still played really well certain times. And you've got to really do some soul searching and figure out why you played your best those days and then move in the right direction.

Okay, Greg. So for instance, if I make an analogy to track and field, if I've got a hundred meter race or 200 meter race, I'm on the B of the bang, I hit the finish line. That's all I've got to think about. If I'm playing Ryder Cup golf, I've got a crowd, half of whom probably hate my guts, Playing Ryder Cup golf, I've got a crowd, half of whom probably hate my guts, and I've got 18 holes. And I've got to get up, get in the right place, or dial myself down 18 times, plus from T to green every single time. So the capacity for it to go completely wrong gets, well, I don't know what the factor is, probably minimum of 18. Well, if you're worrying about the crowd and whether they hate you, you're in trouble already. Let me tell you that right now. Of course, if you let the crowd bother you, I can say you're done for. But, you know, the idea is that a pre-show routine puts

you in the right emotional state. It's like a bubble that goes around you. So the idea is the crowds creating all this noise and people are screaming. And as you're walking into the ball, you might hear that. But as soon as you start your pre-show routine, and this is what I work on with every golfer I work on, you have to get a pre-show routine that's bulletproof. And it basically, the idea is it creates a bubble around you. So all the thoughts and emotions that are people or crowd noise bounces right off. And the stronger your pre-shower routine, the better you're going to play. Isn't that Kevin Costner in the tin cup? Yeah, basically, yeah. Release the mechanism. There you go. So this is what you actually do with golfers. Yeah, some of them.

I mean, I do with everybody, but what I'm saying is it's some of what I do. And the idea is that an amazing pre-shot routine puts you into a reactive state, gets you calm, and creates rhythm. So the idea is that when you're in this right emotional state, then you're going to basically play your best. But if you're thinking quick and you're thinking negative, it's going to feed into your swing, and that's when you play your worst. So that's why a pre-shot routine is not just waggling it three times and doing some physical things every time. It's actually creating the right mental and emotional state before you hit your shot.

So does that actually translate to outside influences? I know Gary said the crowd hates me, right? I understand when you say if the crowd is bothering you, you're done already. But let's just say, for instance, and this doesn't really happen in golf as much, but let's just say, for instance, somebody kind of really sticks it in my craw. They do something and they just really get me upset. And I'm not really upset with myself or my game or how I'm playing. I'm actually upset with someone else. So how do you recover from something like that? Or do you just go through your process until you reach the eight or the three or wherever

you're supposed to be? Well, if your playing partners are bothering you, that's when you need to see a sports psychologist. Oh, really? They can't, if they're bothering you, you're in trouble because they're going to do stuff to try to bother you. And if you, if you let them bother you, then you're not bulletproof. And yes, the idea is that if there's some gamesmanship going on and they get to you they're winning so what you have to do is just allow them to do their thing and and be prepared for that you know that's the the preparation we talk about with the Ryder Cup you got to be prepared for the loud crowd noises people screaming cussing you out people with doing gamesmanship and all this stuff going

on if you're ready for that emotionally, then it's just going to brush right off. But if you're not ready for that, that's when you get real nervous and that's when you choke. Okay. What is the worst slash best dirty trick you've heard of on the Ryder Cup? Because you will know. You're the sort of guy that will be privy to that kind of knowledge. So please share with us. Well, I know, I've heard this before with a few people. They might move a little bit when the person's hitting the shot or making a little noise. But most of the players are pretty cordial. There's not too much gamesmanship.

What's really going on is the crowds are siding with, you know, a team and they're creating more of the havoc versus the players. Because, you know, the players, even let's say a Sergio Garcia that's been playing forever on the Ryder Cup, he plays in America and his friends are on the American team. So there's a there's there's a lot of friends. And so it's not like us versus them, per se, only for that week. But in reality, it's it's more of a it's a great team rival. So it's a it's a friendly rivalry a friendly rivalry kind of yeah right a friendly rival last rider cup was 2016 post the tournament

which the u.s won just so as a european is saying that by the way yep uh you said phil mickelson was your main man your standout guy why what made him so important to you watching that whole Ryder Cup? Well, you know, I think if you look at Phil Mickelson, just as a person and as a player, first as a player, you know, he's been playing professional golf, I I think since he's been 21 as an amateur. Um, and, and so he has the experience, uh, and now he, I think he's in his mid forties. I know he's in his mid forties. He's in the hall of fame. And so everything, everything for him is gravy. And so playing at this highest level is just gravy for him. But as a person, um, he, he's a high risk taker. He loves the risk. He loves the challenge. And I think what happens at the Ryder Cup, it increases his risk-taking personality. And that's why he

always, I think, plays really well in these situations because he has said, like the Masters, when he drives through to Augusta National national through the drive he feels a different sense um he loves that feeling and i think at the rider cup same thing he loves the feeling of the challenge of us versus them the risk the high risk and all that stuff just boosts his intensity level where he needs to be where other tournaments that aren't so meaningful he can't get at that level and so that's why he never plays his best. Wow. So just to quantify that, the bigger the game, the bigger the game Phil Mickelson brings. Exactly. The same thing with a lot of these players, you know, they, they play pretty well in the regular tournaments, but in the majors, they raise their game because their

intensity level is that much higher. You know, that's the difference between Tiger Woods and the rest of us normal people. When Tiger was playing his best, he could raise his game for everything. Like every shot mattered to him. It's like Rafael Nadal. He plays every shot like it's the most important point in the world to him. Same thing with Tiger. When Tiger was playing his best, every shot was the most important point in the world to him. Same thing with Tiger. When Tiger was playing his best, every shot was the most important shot in the world.

His intensity level was high no matter if it was a meaningful tournament or a major. And that's why he played so well. Where I think the other guys, they can't get to that level every tournament. Amazing. That is great. That's good stuff. Greg Steenberg, thank you so much for your time and opening up the brain and mind of a Ryder Cup golfer. Pleasure. Thanks for having me. I really

appreciate it. No, thank you. Thank you very much indeed. And that's our show. So the Ryder Cup, end of September, it is three of the most intense days. You go and play as Dr. Steenberg was saying there, it's not about you and your whole career has been about you. You play the course, you're the person that puts the ball in the hole. This then becomes you part of a mechanism, you part of a bigger unit and that brings its pride, its passion and it is something to behold. So if you haven't watched the Ryder Cup before, please tune in and watch. It is going to be awesome no matter which team wins. No, no.

It's going to be awesome when the U.S. wins. As I said, no matter which team wins, as long as it's the Europeans. All right. That's it from us, from Chuck and myself. This has been Playing With Science. We look forward to your company next time.