In people's training, how much time do people actually pay attention to improve in
their pace When they're working on the footing, You'll see a lot of time,
a lot of attention trying to get the stroke right. But spend a
little bit more time engaging and giving your brain task to improve paste control.
Go onto the putting green with four balls and see if you can complete this
task from ten fifteen twenty feet with the first balls, if you can roll
it just past the whole. With the second balls, if you can leave
it to the right of the whole, third ball, leave it to the
left of the hole, and the fourth ball leave it short of the whole.
You're engaging the brain to actually increase feel this elusive thing called field.
You're training it in a way by not just trying to get it right all
the time, but moving either side of correct. It's a wonderful, wonderful
exercise. This is a parasute from Rockport, Texas a play Rapport country club,
and this is episode nine h six of Smarter Golf's a game to be
enjoyed not in toured who have both Gary Nichol and Carl Morris. This is
Golf Smarter, sharing stories, tips, and insights from great golf minds to
help you lower your score and raise your golf IQ. Here's your host,
Fred Green. Welcome back to the Golf Smarter Podcast. Gary. Great to
see you again, Fed Thanks for having us back on. You know,
yes it has. And what's interesting is you said us, because I've never
had the two of you on together. You guys have been partners in crime
in the golf world for a long time, but I've had you on separately.
So I'm very excited to get you both on together. And so I
also want to say, welcome back to the Golf Smarter Podcast. Carl.
It's good to be It's good to be back. Fred. I'm excited about
this year. You're looking better than ever. No, thank you. Podcasting.
Trying to keep my face off of it. Just try to be a
podcaster, you know, the phase for radio type of thing. Feeling good
though, because I'm learning a lot and I just am amazed after I mean,
this is the eighteenth year of my podcast, and what amazes me is
these things that will get repeated over and over and I hear them again and
again. But as I get deeper and deeper into this, the nuances of
what is being said just kind of just steps out and becomes more apparent,
and it's like, oh, that's what you meant this whole time. But
I'm excited because I'm on this quest to try to lower the amount of puts
per round that I'm having. I'd love to be in the sub thirty range.
We'd all love to be in the sub thirty range. But if I
can be thirty to thirty two per round, thirty to thirty three, I
can. I feel very good about my score. It's the thirty four and
up that still rears its ugly head that I've got to get rid of.
So yeah, it's what I want to get you guys here, it's important.
Um, Carl, you've got uh, well, are you both doing
podcasts? Are you're doing the podcast together? Carl's this your show? Just
a guest. I think when Carl stop pree guests, you asked me,
Yeah, Gary, Gary's Gary's my goal to you, mom when everybody else
turns me down. So it happened. He's been on a good a good
few times. But I'm I'm well behind you. Fred. I think I
think I've done about three hundred episodes something like that book. Well, well,
well behind the number that you've you've managed to get to. But you
know, it's it's a it's a federal commitment every single week, isn't it.
It's it's you gotta you gotta hang in there and stay with it,
you really do. It's it is a commitment. But um, because I
approach this as a student and wanting to learn as much as I can,
it's a lot easier for me than well, you know. I mean,
if I was a PGA professional, then I can have these colleagues that I
can call in and probably get bigger names. But I love the names that
I'm getting, so I think I've created some credibility here. I'm very curious,
though, how did you guys get together to be working partners on putting
and in golf? Who wants to take that one? Yeah, I'll take
that one and Gary can follow see if the stories are somewhat similar. No,
I mean we knew we knew each other because we've both been out working
on the European Tour and PGA tours for it for a long time. Gary
gary alonger than me, and he'd been out there week in, week out,
and I used to sort of just coming coming in out a few a
few times a year, so we've known each other from that work working with
tour players. But it was actually a guy called Mike Malone, who's one
of the top men in track Man trap Man systems over in the UK,
who actually got us together. We had we had a conversation and we decided
to do a seminar together up at Archerfield with Gary's base, which is one
of the most beautiful places on anybody anybody listening. If you if you somewhere
to put on your boocket list, it should it should be archer Field.
Anyway, we got together and we did a seminar up there, and then
we started talking about putting, and we did put a few putting clinics and
I think we just have a having a conversation one night Gary and we're other
maybe a couple of pints in the in the gull And Clubhouse and said there
must be there must be a book in this and we and we kind of
thought, well, we'll put a book together, just really to organize our
own idea as much as anything else. And we came up with these six
principles. Wrote wrote the book fairly quickly, and we enjoyed that process.
It gave us something to do one winter published it. We published it five
years ago now at the Scottish Open. Paul Laurie was kind enough, the
British Open Champion was kind enough to do a forward for us, and we
launched it at the Scottish Open. And yeah, and that led to led
to two more in the Lost Art series. So yeah, it's it's been
a very very interesting journey. That's pretty much my recollection. If it went
as well, that's a really okay, well let it go at that.
Um, well, I'm so glad you guys found each other. Say again,
Garrett, Yeah, it's been good fun. Yeah. Well, so
the Last Art of Putting is a book that's been out for a number of
years now, but it's now got a new life to it. Carl,
you want to explain what's going on? Yeah, we thought a number of
people who've given us really nice feedback from from reading the book, but a
number of people said to us it would be it would be really lovely if
we could see some some visuals, maybe some drills that we can work on
and some idea is how to practice some of the things from from the Lost
Art and we and we kind of thought it would be it would be really
nice to just put the visual element to it. So that's where we've now
got the new program where it's it's an in depth version of the book itself,
but I think for a lot of people watching it, it'll kind of
come to life the ideas and concepts which for perhaps some people can seem a
little bit dry when they just read a book. We've we've hopefully brought them,
brought them alive, and we filmed it at Archer Field, so the
location was stunning, and we really feel that it's a contribution for people to
explore an area of putting that I think is maybe undervalued these days that there's
so much technology, fred there's so much science, which we were not ludd
eyes. We definitely believe that has its part to play. But I think
for everybody who can think back to the times that they've gone out on the
golf course and they've holed pots and they've putted well, I've never heard anybody
say that I putted really well because I was thinking about a lot of things.
I've never I've never putted really well because I was so into into my
mechanics and things like that that usually when people people talk about good putting days,
it's usually related to an absence of thought, an increase in feel,
a little bit more artistry and as much as anything. And hopefully Gary would
agree, we actually want to put a little bit of fun back into into
putting because a number of times I'll go to a tour event knowing again and
Gary'll say, what's it like out there? And I sort of shake my
head and say, it's still the same old, same old story. And
we call it the torture chamber where we see people on the putting people on
the putting green Huesday on Wednesday with all sorts of sort of gadgets and gizmos
and things like that, and it looks it looks akin to literally torturing themselves.
And you know, and I know people get something from it and some
people improve as a result of it, but for us, it just feels
like it in some ways that that scientific element to it is deadening the artistry.
And I think there's just the whole world that you can explore on the
other side of the science, which is the which is the art of putting.
Could not agree more. I was at the Stoar shop and week before
last and witnessed exactly the same thing that putting greens. You know, you're
tripping over strings and gadgets and eyeline mirrors and all sorts of things, and
it does for me, it dumbs down the artistry and the field, you
know, and and the fun element. It becomes a chore. You know,
play golf should not be a chore at any level, whether you're playing,
you're living, or playing with your friends, and a Saturday or Sunday
morning or a Wednesday afternoon, it's a game. It's it's my late father
said this to me many many years ago, and it's obviously stuck with me
because I'm still talking about it decades later. Golf a game to be enjoyed,
not endured. Hmm. But I think just see people, you know,
for people who invest so much time and money in the game, we
don't see enoughful lot of teeth. We don't see an awful lot of people
smiling, which is such a tragedy really. So, as Carl suggested,
you know, we want to bring a bit of the fun element back into
into putting and not putting, but golf across the board. And I think
if that involves a bit more artistry and creativity. I think that's probably not
a bad way to go forward with it. I hope you don't mind,
Gary that I will now forever be quoting your father, but I'll give you
credit for it about golf as a game to be enjoyed, not endured.
Wow. Yeah, wise words weren't the amazing words. Power forwards, power
forwards. We're going to take a time out. We'll be back right after
this. What I so enjoy about watching the video, and I've watched it
a couple of times now, on the lost the lost art of putting is
how you guys complement one another on the mechanics side and the mental side of
it. And I'm gonna go right Carl. You you go to a lot
of places. But I have to say, after watching it a couple of
times and then going out to the golf course this week, what I kept
hearing in my head was about the alpha wave and the beta wave, and
the busy beta wave and the very smooth alpha wave. I played this weekend
in We shouldn't have gone out. It was over ninety five degrees outside,
it was very hot. I walked the front nine and got joined a partner
being in the cart and it kills me to do so, but I got
in the cart on the back nine and rode with him. But for only
the second time in my playing career of twenty five plus years, I shot
even par on the back nine. And I think it was more about the
fact that I was so hot and it was draining me so much, and
I kept I was hydrating NonStop, but I wasn't thinking about it. I
was totally distracted by the heat, and I was just going up taking the
shot and then moving on and not getting concerned over everything. My mind was
moving very slowly. And then again I watched the video and like, oh,
the alpha waves were really in play, and yeah, I mean I
shot a seventy six, which for me is an excellent, excellent round.
You know, my goal is always when I look over my last twenty score
and the hand in the index settings, is to try to have more rounds
in the seventies than in the nineties. And so right now I'm I'm there.
Haven't had a round in the nineties in a while, so I'm very
happy about that. But it's because of what I learned from guys like you.
Yeah, it's it's so interesting to hear you say that, Fred,
and also great to hear that your game's moving in in a good direction.
I think it's I think it's fantastic that you manage to have all these different
people on the podcast, which you know, it's great information, very but
you then manage to distill it down to things that are relevant for you and
in your own individual golf and you know, and I think that's important for
everybody listening that you know, you can hear great information and great ideas,
but ultimately you've got to own these things for yourself, and you've got to
find out what it is that makes you tick as a unique human being.
So you know, we can talk in general terms, but the individual is
sacred. You know. But what you're saying there about your experience with putting,
you think about it with this with this game, most people, as
a generalized statement, would say that they actually put it better when they were
kids, when they were younger than they actually do now. Even even top
professionals would would often relate that story about how easy putting was when they were
when they were younger players. And you think, well, what why is
that? Well, you know, as a kid, you walk onto a
green and you're just absorbed with what the golf ball has got to do.
You know, you're really interested in what this ball needs to do to go
into the hole. And as simple as that sounds, I think what happens
is anywhere evolution as a golfer. What happens we go from being interested in
what the golf ball has to do to becoming more obsessed in what we have
to do. And by that I mean is what we have to do mechanically?
How do we have to move our body to actually move the ball in
a certain direction at a certain pace. And you know, we pose the
question in the Lost Art of Golf does the shot create the swing or does
the swing create the shot? And it's the same we believe does the put
create the stroke or does the stroke create the pup. Now, you know
you'll get a hundred pros who would argue vociferously one way or the other,
and there's no definitive answer to this. But we really firmly believe if you've
got a really good idea what you believe the golf ball needs to do to
go into the hole, trust your body to organize the movement to make that
happen without you getting too involved in it. We need to leave thread out
of it, or Garry out of it, or Carl out of it.
Where we get so involved in trying to be perfect and actually realize that when
we get clear on that, we get clear on our intention, some amazing
things can happen. We have a fundamental principle thread that your body will organize
movement around a clear intention. But most people when they go onto a rain
have a very cloudy intention, and usually the intention is more to do with
how they are going to move rather than what they want the ball to do.
Excellent, it's interesting. I'm gonna this kind of works to go back
and forth in that pink for a group of kids from the Congaree Foundation today
and they're all really good players, sixty and seventeen years old, lower handicap
golfers. And we talked about the basically the principles within the lasstart of putting
the book and within the digital program. And one of the concepts we talked
about in a bit of depth is visualization. And there were seventy kids,
nine kids, and not one of them was seeing the ball going into the
hole before they hit it, which was quite astonishing. Yeah, they could
not visualize. One did a part. I think one did. But the
others we're saying, well, no, I just I picked my line and
then I'll get over the ball and I do this my stroke and I do
this putter and my shoulders. I said, what about the ball, But
what's just I got to get it started online. Yeah, that's part of
the process. But how about you get it finishing. Think about the finish
line rather than the start line. I mean, well, the ball going
into the hole, Well not really, I'm kind of I see where it
starts. I see where I wanted to hit it too, to a certain
point. Whatever said, yeah, but that's the movie doesn't end there.
The movie ends with the ball going into the hole. We tend to create
what we see. So I said, okay, if I give you all
a piece of paper and a pen, a marker, pen, a sharp
or whatever, and asked you to draw a circle, square, and a
triangle, what do you see? Circle? Square, a triangle. So
you can't draw a circle when you're thinking about a triangle. You can't draw
a square when you're thinking about a fish. You know. Yeah, for
example, you've got to think about what you want that intention to be and
surely the intention when you're putting is to get the ball to go into the
hole. So we went through all the questions. First of all, is
it possible this ball could go in the ball? Well, I didn't know
the last one. Okay, I wasn't asking about the last put Let's get
thinking about paying attention to this pat Is it possible this ball could go in
the hole? Yes, absolutely, of course it's possible. Okay, So
what does the ball have to do? Well, it needs to travel on
a certain line at the appropriate pace, or if you flip that on its
head, because that's what most people do. They choose a line, then
they decide how hard to hit it. But if pace the termines line,
surely we should be paying a bit more attention to the pace first and then
choose it. Once you've decided how hard you're going to hit it, then
you choose a line appropriate to ace and pace. Well, line is nothing
without pace. And I saw a few kind of stunned faces. But then
we went out of the putting green and we focused entirely on pace and visualization,
and oh I could hear. I didn't intervene with any technical information or
intervention. And I just heard balls going in, falling into the hole and
laughter, and you know, could see smiling faces and kids having fun.
How about that for a concept? And it was great outrage. They loved
it. Yeah, I know, fun shouldn't go back. A lot of
the a lot of players that we were talking with over the years, their
skills have diminished in their quest to become better, perfect, technically, more
efficient, whatever, But they've actually they've lost the basic skill of getting the
ball into the hole because their attention is not on that. Their attention under
knees, other hips of their elbows, or the shoulders of their left nostrils
of the right ear lobe, whatever it is. But there are attention been
drawn away from the task, which is to get the ball into the hole.
And as Karl said, once you have that very clear intention and you're
paying attention to what the ball has to do, your brain will start to
open up mural pathway. You're sending very clear signals to the parts of your
body that are attached to and move the patter in the appropriate manner. And
guess what, you start to hold some pups. You know, you could
for everybody listening, for everybody in Fred you could have just a really simple
game that you could go out and try it the next time you go into
the putting green. And this sounds so ridiculously simple, but we found it
can be revolutionary for a lot of players. It's just to simply go out
and hits a bunch of pups from say five six feet up to twenty feet
a lot of individual puts all around the green, and just ask yourself one
question before you before you hit the put you just say to you off which
side of the hole is this ball going to go in? And then you
actually answer that question. It's either going in from the left side of the
whole, of the right side of the hole on most pots, from from
you know, six foot and beyond. And then once you've answered that question,
it's going to go in from the right, it's going to go in
from the left. Allow your allow your brain to create an image backwards from
the entry point from the whole back to you. You know, be a
little bit creative. Maybe you want to put some color in there. You
know, you see that the line from the whole, from the entry point
into the whole comes back to you, and the colors green or sorry,
red, or yellow or blue or whatever. It is, not yourself out
with the color that you do. But just really engage that that creative part
of your brain, with that simplicity, and then just see what happens.
Just hit a bunch of puts, single ball from lots of different locations,
and see what you like in terms of your prediction. Did it go in
from the right, did it come in from the left. Because I think
again, one of the things that people don't realize that if you look at
it, what is the fundamental requirement to become a good putter is you basically
have to predict what a golf ball is going to do based on one attempt.
You only get one go as far as anyway on the golf course.
So if prediction is a really important skill to develop, I'd ask everybody listening
how much are you how much are you practicing your prediction skills? Now that
is very different since then standing in the same place, sitting the same put
over and over and over again, drilling into the idea that if you see
the ball going enough times from the same place, you'll magically take that ability
out onto the golf course with you. Now, I know that has got
a part to play. We know that some mechanics and understanding face control and
path and all those things have a part to play, but once you get
out onto the golf course, you better be good at predicting based on one
attempt. So if you're not practice some of your prediction skills, yeah,
exactly. I was explaining to these kids today that you have to hit the
same part from the same place on the golf course three or four or five
times, you're in serious trouble. I don't know how you would do that.
So if you've got hit the same part against because you've all hit out
of bounds, which is going to be pretty rare, the putting greena would
amage. So you know what, people take balls out at the first one
three feet past, so they react to that and they'll leave the knights one
short then because they and everyone else who plays golf as a genius. By
the time we get to third attempt, we've managed to hold the third one,
but we've recalibrated and we've learned from the first one and the second one.
That's not predicting, that's reacting to and learning from. We do not
have that luxury on the golf course. You know, No, we don't.
We're gonna take another time about and we're back to continue this conversation with
Gary Nicholl and Carl Morris right after this. Okay, I need to ask
a quick question about the visualization Gary, especially those young people that you were
working in. Pin in or pin out make a difference as far as visualization
because with pin in then you have something that is more than just the flat
ground that you're looking at. It's got something a hard target that you can
go to. That's a great question. I've read about four very in depth
surveys as studies on whether you should have the pin in the pin night to
conclusively say you must keep the pin in and guess what the other two see
out. So yeah, I still don't know, but I think from a
visualization perspective, having the pin in on longer puts certainly curtly draws your attention
to where the hole is, which is never a bad thing because that's ultimately
where you want your ball to go. You want your ball to finish.
And I think that that kind of gives you a destination and it's like a
beacon signaling or drawing you into that that end goal that destination, so it
can be I mean, we're not absolutists. We would never say you must
use the pin as a visualization tool or you must take it out and not
use it. Experiment with one, experiment with the other, and see which
works best for you. But I think the journey to the pin is quite
important. You know, Carl mentioned the line earlier, and we've experimented with
a number of players over the last few years with the concept of a much
thicker line rather than you know, most people who use a line on their
ball, they tend to see a very an extension of that very thin line
that's on your ball, So they're trying to put down a razor blade or
a tight rope, if you like. But if you think about trying to
put down the channel, as we talk about in the in the video and
in the book the Digital Program, you know, we're trying to get you
to think about a three ball channel or a three ball highway that's going to
lead you to your ultimate destination. And the perception decreases massively when you've got
a channel to hit down rather than trying to to hit up down this very
thin line. Because by definition, if you're trying to hit or put your
ball down a very thin line. Then you're going to tense up. You're
going to get a bit tight, You're probably not breathing. Your brain's going
to start racing. All your attention is then going to focus back on you
and what you have to do and what the pattern has to do at the
expense of what the ball has to do, which was our original attention intense
and I should say so having that change of intention changes your where you focus
your attention. So having that thicker channel, and as Carl said, get
creative with the color. There's the number of people I've asked you said,
I see a green line. Okay, just think about that for a second.
You want something that's going to contrast, not bloed in. So you
know, the brighter the color, the better the results tend to be.
And I often ask players when you do see that line, where does it
end? What starts at the ball and it finishes right at the edge of
the hole. Okay, So basically what your brain is picking up is I
want to put to the edge of the hole. Yeah, very few people
will have the breach the entry point. Something is as simple as that can
make all the difference. You know, sometimes I'll put a tea in the
great say we've got a left right breaking put and if this enter the hole
is six o'clock on a clock face, and you want the ball to enter
at eight pm. So if you put a tea in the ground put at
eight pm side front of the hole. You ask the player does that look
like an easy task or a difficult task? Nine times out of ten they'll
say it's a difficult task. Well, that's a really small entry point.
But if we move the teas to the back of the hole so that it's
thought, you've got to get it in somebody between as you know ten and
two, all of a sudden that target looks so much bigger, and it's
dragging. You put to the back of the hole, not to the front
of the hole. You know, if you if you hit a pup from
ten feet and it stops it in short, stay there by the back of
the hole. It comes up an inch. Yeah, if you in for
the back of the hole, it comes up and in short, well the
whole four point two five inches in every direction. So it's got a much
much better chance of going in the hole that way. Right of puts that
are short, don't go in right, It's pretty simple. The other thing
that you can do as well as we're getting onto the the imagery again,
it's just being playful with it. You know. We've had some players who
they'll create, let's say, they'll create a red channel or a red line
going into the hole, but then even get even more creative where they actually
see that there's liquid flowing down that red channel. It's like it's like a
it's like a mercury going into the hole or whatever. It is, a
lava flowing into the hole. And it just seems that the richer that the
images are of what the task is, the more engaged that we are in
that pot, the more that seems to supply the information from the brain then
to the body to actually get the job done. And it's it's it's a
kind of non technical, nonlinear way of doing it. It's in aging if
you want the right side of the brain, the creative side of the brain,
which then seems to help the feel element to it because you're you're not
verbalizing, you're not telling yourself to do something. You really tuned into the
images and allowing them the field to take over and respond to those images.
Tiger always said he played and put pictures, So what does that tell you?
He was seeing before he was doing, but he was seeing what the
ball was doing. He always reacted to what he wanted the ball to do,
which seems like the simplest, smartest way to play the game. That's
real golf smarter, very many smarter than Tiger, of course, that's for
sure. Do you really think that he was probably and I say was.
It's a shame, but we're saying was about Tiger now, but one of
the most intelligent golfers. As far as his golf IQ. I mean,
we've talked about in the States here in basketball, if the guy has a
high basketball IQ. You know, the Tiger's golf IQ. It was just
off the charts compared to the everybody else. Yeah, could not dream more.
I can't think of I can't think of many golfers with a higher golf
IQ. That's for sure. He just he knew what he was doing every
step of the way. But a lot of it came from his early training.
Carl, you knew a little bit about that, Yeah, I mean
certainly his background, his mother with the sort of Buddhist train and things like
that is mindfulness, the aspect mindfulness practice that I know he did, or
I believe he did, and the work that he did with Jay bruns Or
he was a Navy psychologist who was a friend of Earl Worlds I believe.
I mean, I don't know what they did, but I'm pretty sure they
must have played around with a lot of imagery and creativity. But when you
just said there Fred about golf in IQ, if we drill into that a
little bit, what is golf in IQ? What does what does that actually
mean? And how relevant is it for everybody listening well to me? Golf
in IQ is where you become very attuned to the golf course, where you're
very attuned to the puzzle that the golf course is setting for you, because
you know, we'll say, you know throughout the game that the golf course
is speaking to you all the time. It's telling you what to do,
but you've got to listen to it. And and most people are not listening
to the golf course. They're they're so wrapped up in the minut shy of
what they're trying to do with the mechanics that they actually don't tune into the
subtleties of the golf course, the subtleties of the wind that change the dead
direction, temperature, all those all those kind of things that I think that
the more the more you become involved in what the golf ball needs to do
and the shots that you're trying to create, the chips that you're trying to
create, the puts that you're trying to create, you become much more attuned
to the golf course. You know, one of the things that we recommend
a lot of players do is actually go out on the golf course, even
the course that you know really well, and actually and actually walk to something.
Jack Nicholas did it. Actually walked the golf course backwards, start at
the eighteenth green, look at the perspective from the eighteenth green, and it'll
seem a lot wider than it does when you play at the normal way round.
But walk it backwards and then turn around. And you know, the
number of players I've worked with over the years who I can look back on
it where we've actually walked practice rounds because they've not had enough time to play
enough practice rounds. And when you walk a practice round, you actually engage
that creative side of them. And you start to see the shots that you
could play, you start to engage the visualization skills, and it's a it's
just a fun extra dimension that you could have that virtually nobody thinks about,
you know, engage in this creative aspect. I've had an issue for years
where I've said that the USGA was an advocate for the golf course and not
the golfer, and it's going to be hard to grow the game if you
don't give the golfer more consideration. But as we're recording this, yesterday was
the finish of the Open Championship at Royal Liverpool, won by Brian Harmon,
and I think that it was a really good example of you know, you
talked about the golf IQ and understanding what a golf course can do to the
players. I thought that this past weekend was a great example of that.
Absolutely. Yeah. The golf course was asking question after question after question and
Brian Harmon came up with the best answers. Well, in his putting was
remarkable. What thirty eight out of thirty nine or fifty eight out of fifty
nine at under ten feet under ten feet? Now there weren't all ten feet,
so might have been three, four and five, but they were.
That's incredible, incredible. Yeah, he held four hundred fifty feet of puts
all week. That's a lot of puts. If you hold more than one
hundred feet of puts in around, you're having a pretty special day. Four
hundred and fifty. I think he led the putting steps, or certainly some
of the putting steps. Yeah, he played very sensible golf. Some would
say almost to the point of being boring. But if hitting most fairies and
most screens is boring golf, then I'll have some of that, please,
And if using three puts is boring, again, I'll have some of that
please. Yeah, he just understood. I think everyone understood what the what
the task was, and what the questions were being asked of the players by
the golf course or the golf course designer. But he Yeah, he had
the answers. He passed with flight. He passed the examination with flying colors.
All right, moren I have another question about Brian, but we're gonna
take another time out and I'll do that right after this. Congratulations again,
Brian Harmon. That was a remarkable feat. But I have to say,
if I was playing golf with Brian Harmon as great as he hits the ball,
as great as he's putting is, I would go out of my mind
with the waggles. It was like I would just want to yell, hit
the ball please, what's going on there? And is it necessary? And
why is he doing that? I think what every golfer is waiting for.
Freddy's what I called the ghost signal. Well, you get over the ball
and your brains that it says, yeah, we're ready, we're ready to
go here, And clearly for Brian a couple of waggles should in effect give
him the gold signal. I'm not a big fan of overdoing that because I
think two waggles can turn into three, four and five. And it was
interesting on the back nine that the waggles seem to increase a little bit.
So ultimately I think, what again, what is what is relevant for everybody
listening? I talk a lot about with players about the idea of flow,
about the whole routine should actually flow. It's like it's like a dance almost
as you as you go from behind the ball, you create the shot that
the practice swings, that you take, the movement that you make into the
shot. It should. I don't like to see really stacato movements where it's
very rigid and you're trying to get everything absolutely perfect. You'll find that if
you allow yourself to just select the shot, create the shot, and then
flow through the rest of the routine. If the routine flows, then what
a surprise. The golf swing tends to flow. So I think, you
know, just the very concept of allowing flow into the process and not trying
to be perfect with it, not trying to be so precise. I think
you know, for me, we've talked about the three ball highway with with
putting, you could actually enlarge that on the with the rest of the game.
You know, we've been told and many many years that it's all about
picking the smallest possible target, you know, the leaf on the tree idea
and things like that. Now I would say if anybody, if anybody picks
really small targets and they play really well, guess what they should continue doing
it. But an alternative view is instead of picking really small targets, is
that you actually play around with channels and not just as we said on the
green that you can see a channel working into the hole. You know,
one of the one of the players that I've worked with for a long time,
he had he had a decent a decent open lorry cantry finished in the
top twenty. And we've talked a lot with Lorie over the last few years
about seeing shots working down channels because he feels actually when he picks small targets,
he actually feels it really restricts him because he feels it's too precise.
He can feel as though he gets into I have to be perfect mode,
whereas if he can really see a really nice wide channel, then he lets
go. He actually he actually led the driving statistics for the week there,
and that would be something again for everybody listening. Play around with that.
Go onto the range and use alignment sticks for what we believe they should be
used for, is not so much being down by your feet, but actually
stand out onto the range, go out a few feet in front of you,
and play around with what you need to have as a width of channel.
Now, some people might find a faily narrow channel works well for them,
other people, depending on their ability, a little bit wider channel.
But it's a great feeling to stand there on the range and think, I
just can't miss this channel and you're just going to let it go down.
Damn that channel channel element. So again, it's just changing your perception of
the difficulty of the task. And part of the video that I absolutely loved
was the idea of looking at the hole and picking the backside of it and
widening the channel. That that really helped me a lot this weekend. Also,
I have found, and this is I don't know, you know,
we're talking about the smallest possible target that once I have determined my pace and
then determine the line, is picking a spot, a very small spot about
six to eight to maybe ten inches in front of the ball and making sure
that the ball rolls over that spot, as opposed to picking a line where
I want the apex to be and then what the break is going to be
is just as if I can get the ball on that spot and work it
from there. I was having much greater success, even especially with long puts,
but with short puts, which is my kryptonite, you know, the
inside of four feet that just like shouldn't be a problem that I tend to
miss more of those than I want to. I think we all do.
But I started not focusing on the whole. I started focusing on a spot,
making sure I just get to the line built line over that spot,
you know, and get it started properly, and it made a big difference.
Whatever works is that okay, works for you, that's what works for
you. Again, you know, we are not absolute as We're not saying
you must do this way, you must do it that way. These are
some concepts. Take them, personalize and make them your own. Explore with
this, Explore with that, Explore with the next seg and see what works
best for you. Because that's Golf is such an individual and personal game,
and the putting aspect of it. You know, if you pick out the
ten best putter statistically in the world, the one thing that they will have
in common is they all do it their own way. You know, it's
all about they have. They may have different styles or different groups or stances
or putters or you know, some might have a toa hang, so might
have a more of a mallet much of the love of blade. It doesn't
really matter. It's about find out what works best for you. And once
you've got that magic formula, the one thing it would suggest you do,
we we would both suggest you do, is please write it down because We
always think we're going to remember these things, and we rarely do. So
we're very big in the power of journaling and writing these things down. You
know, I always ask my students, you know, did you write that
down when you played really well? Well, yeah, it was good,
but I'll remember what was doing. Really Have you ever forgotten a significant others
birthday, birthday or anniversary or we all have, right, So if that's
really important to us, we forget that. What remembering what we did and
we played well three sundays ago pretty slim. So yeah, get a nice
notebook, nicer pen, and make sure you're right down all your learnings,
all these great things that you've you've managed to learn and apply to your golf
game. Because one of the things that people say read that is that you
know the problem is with golf is that it's not a reaction resport like baseball
or basketball is. But in a way not in a way golf is a
reaction resport. Is that you will react to the images inside of your head
that you have before you actually hit the shot. So you know, what
happens with the stroke, what happens with the swing is after the horse has
bolted, let's come back a little bit and let's find out what image is
that you have, what is your attention on before you actually play the shot,
before you actually hit the pot. And as you described, you know
you've come up with some things, some images that you can work with rolling
over that spot, down the channel, You've come up with something that your
body responds to in term of imagery before you actually hit the pot. So
I think you know that would be our overall message for everybody is understand that
you will be thinking something before every shot and every port. You will have
something going through your head. Fundamental principle is that is what you think?
Is what you're thinking? Is it useful or useless? Because the results that
you get in will tell you which are thus two categories you tend to focus
on. So it's it's about and that's why Gary said writing these things down
is so important. You need to unlock your code. You need to understand
your golf in DNA of the things that work for you. You know,
success leaves a trail behind, but we don't often look for it, but
explore the imagery. Explore the things that you do before you actually pull the
trigger. But what's crazy about golf? Is what may work for you today.
You know you said if it works, keep doing it in three or
four rounds. It may not be working again. It may not be working
anymore. I mean, nothing is perfect and nothing is forever. It feels
like it's an evolving it's it's a living thing, isn't it? A living
organism? Isn't so? But we tend to find that these things stopped working
when you stop doing them. M hm. So you know you've really focused
on something for three or four weeks and then you think, okay, I've
got that, and your attention will wonder somewhere else. Not consciously, you
won't make a conscious eword to stop doing it, but you think subconstantly,
okay, I've cracked that that that I know that works, But I wonder
what would happen if so I just added this or added that. So you
know, when you create your favorite meal, it's your favorite meal because you
use the same ingredients and you cook it the same way. Once you start
messing about with cooking times and adding more and more ingredients, it's not going
to test the same. The outcome will not be the same. So it's
finding your magic form that Now, Yes, we sometimes the brain likes to
reset, so it's sometimes we get a little bit bored with doing the same
same time and time again, so you might have to go away and try
something else. But if you've written down what's worked in the past, you've
always got that to go back to. It might mean that sometimes you do
have to go and try something for a day or two or a week to
discover that what you were doing in the first place was actually the best person
or brought out the best version of you. But if you don't have that
written down as a reference point, you've got nothing to go or nothing or
nowhere to go back too. Well, usually this is where we'll break it
off, but I need another segment if you guys have the time, so
I will take another break, find out what's happening in Golf smarto Mulligans,
and then we'll be right back. Clearly, you're a podcast listener, and
you again for being a Golf Smarter listener as well. So here's the deal
with Golf Smarter Mulligans. Golf instruction and game improvement insights don't get stale like
PGA Toured News does by the time you listen to a podcast on Tuesday,
last week's tour event is old news. Now. We've discovered, over our
many years of creating new, informative, evergreen content, that our episodes stand
up really well and are as helpful as the day they were originally published.
But all the podcast distributors like Apple, Spotify, Amazon, and Google only
allow a podcasts to have two hundred and fifty to three hundred episodes available to
the public, which is why we launched Mulligans so that you can have access
to the old episodes that are no longer available but still valuable. So this
week on Golf Smarter Mulligans, we continue our conversation with Jeff Mangum of the
Putting Zone dot com. This is an hour long episode that talks about putting,
putters, putting insights, putting trills, and more putting. If you
want the predictable ability to deliver your ball into that nice little safety patch behind
the hole, you have to be able to have touch all right. Now,
here's how touch works. If you have the intentionality and you're wide awake
and accepting to the reality of those factors that matter distant screen speed and uphill
downhill. The normal human, non conscious brain is trained to know how hard
to hit that putt, and all you have to do is you use a
standard same all the time tempo and rhythm. A rhythm is two tempos,
the backstroke tempo the ford stroke tempo. And once you size a backstroke in
the tempo, you have already determined the impact that that swing will have at
the bottom of the swing. That's golf Smarter Mulligan's episode two hundred twenty two
featuring Jeff Mangum of the Putting Zone dot Com. And here's the cool part.
This was a member's only episode for our paid subscribers, which we ended
after seven years in twenty sixteen, So chances are pretty good that you've never
heard this episode before. Yeah. Golf Smarter publishes two golf podcasts every week
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It's called Golf Smarter Mulligan's being released every Friday. From wherever you're listening right
now, getting back to the waggle for just a moment, It's interesting because
I think about Lynn Marriott and Pa Nelson who talk about the thinking box and
the hitting box or the thought box and the shots and all that waggle stuff,
all that getting ready, all that should be done before you step up
to the ball. At least I firmly believe with what they profess on that
and have incorporated it. So once I feel comfortable with what my mechanics need
to be and where my target needs to be and what my line needs to
be, then I'll just step up to the ball and hit it. And
the waggling it's like, get on with it. Really told me crazy to
watch him that. Yeah, but who are we to say that's wrong?
The Open champion we're not. Yeah, but I can't imagine that would I
can't imagine that would work forever because it's almost like he's delaying the inevitable.
He's trying to as Carl said, he's not quite ready to hit this price
of Goobutson just yet. So it was interesting certainly. The commentary in the
UK, a couple of the commentators mentioned that it would be interesting to see
if the frequency and volume of wigles increased as the pressure intensified and that certainly
seemed. I wasn't actually counting them, but it's certainly appeared going up and
up and up and up and up and up and up. And perhaps he
needed to do that to just get himself ready to go to calm himself down.
Perhaps who knows. We don't know. We all we can see is
what we see. We don't know what's going on in his heads. So
until we know what's going on these heads, we can't. All we could
do is make an observation on what we see, and we might get it
right, but we might get it wrong. So it's very you know,
I'm sure there'll be a lot of experts who'll be jumping on the bandwagon saying,
well this, you've got to do this, or you've got to do
that, or you shouldn't be doing this, or you should be doing that.
We don't know why he was doing it. We can only make assumptions
that he wasn't quite ready to play, if you like. So another waggle,
another waggle. And I don't think it was a conscious scene. Sure,
he just didn't appear to be quite ready to pull the trigger. But
as I say, he's sitting at home with the Claret jug right now and
we're talking about him, so he must have been doing something right right,
And you know we probably all sat there a Sunday morning going, yeah,
this is not there's no way he can hold up with this. But then
again, he did it right. Maybe needed the waggles, maybe it helped
him calm down and he hung tough, he ground one thing I would pretty
much be and I don't know what he was thinking, but I would be
pretty certain Fred that what looks physically quite uncomfortable with all the waggles, for
him in that moment when he was playing, was ment was mentally quite calming.
That he's his mind would not have been jumping around all over the place,
even though for us watching his waggles, you know, it seemed like
an eternity at times, but you know for him, he would he would
have just been his mind would have been settled in one place. Now,
as we said earlier on, it's not something I would recommend people do because
usually two waggles turns into three, turns into four, and then you could
have a situation like Surgey or had a number of years ago when he couldn't
take the club away at all. Could he because he had so many,
so many waggles. But you know, I know one of your previous guests,
Jim Waldron, he was on my podcast recently and it reinforced to me.
He talks about a lot about focus points and the idea of keeping your
attention in one place during for the duration of the of the golf swing,
you know, and I would reinforce that that's that's the holy grail, really
finding a place that you can keep your attention stable for the time that you
swing that golf club. Right, and with the bio kinesiologists are telling us
that focus should not be on your mechanics. It should be on something external,
although Jim will have variations of that, but focusing on a target,
a spot, something like that. I do want to ask questions based on
the video. Now, the idea that that pace determines the line? Okay,
yeah, how do you determine how is pace determined? How do you
know what the pace is? Is that on how the ball drops in the
in the front, middle and back of the hole. Is that a body
thing? How do you determine what the pace is? You could have figured
that out from green reading reading the green. Most people talk about green reading
as a lightn thing. But what we try to encourage people to do is
have a look at the pup from a certain aspect. We talked about low
side reading, so you would never hit a shot off of course, if
you didn't know how far you had. You know, we've everyone's got a
range finder, a laser or yardish break, whatever it is, so you
would never hit a shot into a green unless you have far add But we
all hit parts not knowing how far we have. So what we're trying to
do is established how long the part is. Is it uphill, is it
downhill? Is it left to right? So slopes, speed of green,
and length of part are going to be the things that will influence the pace.
So once we've kind of figured out if it's uphill and we've done a
bit of practice on the putting green, before we go out a bit of
training to find out why how the greens are running, hopefully they'll be the
same pace as the ones in the golf course. You've then got to figure
out again, going back to Carl's earlier concept of prediction, you've got to
predict. I don't think there is It's more of an art than a science.
Now, I'm sure some clever scientists will and have already figured out ways
to measure slope in degrees and whatever, but not all greens are going to
be the same pace. So it is very much that there's there's a bit
of guesswork involved, but it's an educated guess. So the better you can
understand how the topography that the green is going to influence the pace. And
again, the things that will influence that will be slope distance and green speed.
Is the grass long, is it short? Is it into the grains?
It down? Grain? Is it cross the grain? What? We
don't have so much grain in this country, but I'm shooting. I know
that certain parts of the world there's a grain plays a big influence. And
obviously hitting the ball out the middle of the putter will influence how far the
ball travels as well. And we all know we're supposted out in the middle.
But whims the last time anyone actually paid any attention to that. It's
a real that's a real skill, and that is one of the real skills
that allows you to gain some control or influence over the pace of the pip.
But I think just the whole concept of knowing that will very much influence
or dictate the line is the best place to start. And again, going
back to one of the things we talked about earlier that if if ordinarily we
choose a line, then we decide how hard we're going to hit it,
we're not very that's not very effective or efficient, then it might be wise
to try something else, to flip that on its head and think about how
hard are you going to hit it before you then choose a line, which
is pretty much what we do with every other shot. You know, if
it's a pitch shot or a seven hour and a six hour or a nine
hour and whatever it is into a green, we need to and we have
decided how much force we're going to apply. Because the first thing you want
to do, why do you hit your ball into ferry? What's the first
thing you do? You find out how far you've got to the front of
the green and or to the flag. But it's almost like so from from
the back of the from the tee to the front of the green, it's
all about distance. But then as soon as we break that barrier, we
crossed the barrier from fairway onto green, our attention shifts from distance to direction
because the line is perhaps a bit more tangible than pace. Line is a
bit more obvious than pace, perhaps a bit easier to see. It's quite
difficult to visualize pace until or unless you go back to what carmationed earlier,
when that line becomes liquid or fluid. So if you're if you're pouring liquid
into the hole, it's not going so fast that's going to overflow in a
second where it's actually going to run right over the top, but it is
going to flow fast enough to get into the hole. So if you were
standing on a green that had a slope and you were pouring water or some
other liquid onto the green that's going to reach the hole, you would soon
know how much to tip over the jug in order to get the liquid onto
the surface. So it's going to reach the whole at the appropriate Your brain
and our brains bodies are a lot smarter than we give them credit for a
lot of the time. All right, So a number of episodes back,
a couple of months ago, we had Tim Tucker on the podcast, and
the following week Tim went on to carry the bag for kid Kitty Yama,
who won on the tour, and one of the things that really jumped out
to me with tim was and something I've done for a long time, so
I love having this confirmation of it. Is when we get out to the
fairway, when our ball lands, we pull out our our range finder and
we try to determine the length of what it is to the middle front or
directly to the pin. But once we get on the green, we don't
figure out what the distance is. We just eyeball it right. And he's
a huge advocate of pacing off your puts right. And then to me,
that helps me determine what my body has to do. And I'm going back
to what do you do to determine the pace? And that's a physical thing,
you know, not just a visual or you know calculation, it's a
physical thing. How we determine pace? Do you advocate to paste them off,
to walk off the puts get your distance every time? Well, it's
funny. We do an exercise we've done this in schools and clinics and classes
for a few years now where we asked someone to look at their puts from
down the line, so they stand behind the ball and we ask them to
turn their putter upside dies to the hole that the heads in their hands and
use the putter like a walking stick, and we ask them to close their
eyes and walk to where they think the hole is and tap the green to
see how closely get to it. How many times we've seen people walk past
that that happens, and it's usually the guy who's a good pot through does
walk past the hole if to get it up there? Yeah, so most
people underestimates the distance because looking down the light for shortens everything. So that's
why we advocate going to low sight to get books and the distance because without
knowing the distance, and if it's up pillar downhill, we can't possibly know
how hard to how hard to hit the pot. And if we don't know
how hard we're going to hit it, how can we choose the light again?
What if that works for you? Brett? Please keep doing well.
This podcast all about me so and another thing that I've found to be very
interesting this years ago. This is from Jeff Mangum. There's also another putting
instructor is to visualize our back to the visualization part of the speed that the
ball would drop into the hole, what it gets to but then go backwards
and then take it all the way back to the putter and as soon as
you bring your attention right back to the putter, then follow through with the
stroke and get it to the pace that you just saw it leaving the pattern
thoughts. Yeah, I mean that was that was something out of the hole
as well as going it's not going to come out like a rocket right,
and it's not going to come out just prepop to the top of the hole
and get find its way back onto green. It's going to come out with
the right pace or the appropriate pace. It was something apparently Jack Nicholas used
to do, used to actually see the ball go into the hole and come
back out of the hole, and that would that would create a really rich
representation of what of what the task does. But you know, we keep,
we keep sort of coming back around to this principle of play around with
the imagery, play around with what goes in your head before you actually create
the put But the other thing I would say as well, Freddy, is
that you know, in in people's training, how much time do people actually
pay attention to improve in their pace When they're working on the putting. You'll
see a lot of time, a lot of attention trying to get the stroke
right, which again as we say has its part to play, but spend
a little bit more time engaging and giving your brain tasks to improve pace control.
Go on, go on to the putting green and when we love doing
this one is gone the Green. It's the only time we'd recommend you do
it. It's gone the Green with four balls and see if you can complete
this task from ten fifteen twenty feet with the first ball, so if you
can roll it just past the hole. With the second ball, see if
you can leave it to the right of the whole. Set third ball,
leave it to the left of the hole, and the fourth ball leave it
short of the whole. So you're engaging the brain to actually increase feel this
elusive thing called feel. You're training it in a way by not just trying
to get it right all the time, but moving either side of correct.
So it's a wonderful, wonderful exercise that I like that one a lot.
I like it a lot, Carl, tell us more about your padet yet
the Brain Booster. It comes out every every Friday, Fred. We've we've
had some some pretty good guests on there over the over the years. We
need to get you on as a guest, telling your life story. That
will be the next one that we do the evolution of a podcast. But
yeah, it comes out every Friday, the brain Booster excellent and Gary now
tell us about this digital program on the last art of putting. How do
we get access to it? Yes, it's really We created it as kind
of a digital or visual companion to the to the book The Lost Started Putting,
which as we said you know earlier on, it's been out for five
years and now we've had some amazing feedback from all round the world from golfers
of all standards, from everyone from beginners to tour pros to whatever, and
been great and it's it's been a real, a real joy to do.
So we created this digital companion if you like to as we mentioned earlier,
to help perhaps bring some of the dryness that you can get from reading a
book and bring it to add some color to it, if you like,
add some a bit more depth to it. So it is now out and
available at either the mind Factor dot com or Performance Principles dot co dot uk
and we have created a special offer for your listeners. So if they go
onto either of these ways and they key in the coupon code which is t
l A twenty t l A two zero you get twenty percent discount. T
l A The Lost Art t l A twenty two zero is a coupon code.
Yeah, so your listeners get a twenty percent discount. That's very kind.
Thank you. That's very generous. So I appreciate it. Well.
I'll tell you that I enjoyed the book thoroughly and five years ago and learned
a lot from it. But the the video is a very powerful companion and
very helpful, and I just want to thank you both for putting that out
there and being so comfortable on camera because you made it easy to watch both
of you. I was just amazed at how comfortable you were and easy,
just flowing talking, not making any you know, gaffs or going in the
middle of a sentence. You both did an amazing job and this was really
helpful as special today. Thank you, Thanks Brat, thanks for having us
on again. Yeah, thanks for the opportunity. Appreciate it again. If
you'd like access to their video of The Lost Art of Putting, go to
mind factor dot com. Use a coupon code t LA twenty for twenty percent
off. And also the book is excellent, as are these guys, I
really appreciate their time together considering they're in the UK and I'm here in Cia,
California. So episode nine hundred four a couple of weeks ago featuring John
Ericsson has really taught me a lot about social media. Strangely enough, now,
we created a short video from the episode where John was talking about why
golf courses don't need to be made longer, and it's kind of gone viral
on Instagram and Facebook with over thirty thousand views in three days. That's pretty
huge for me. But the comments that people are making, especially those who
have no idea of John or who he is and what he's done in the
game, or frankly nasty. I mean, there's some pretty ugly things being
said, but I guess that's how social media works, and that's what being
controversial does. Not my style, but so be it. As I always
tell people who don't like an episode, hey stay tuned next week because we'll
have something completely different and a different perspective on the game. Thanks the good
old boy, Ed Patterson or Rockport, Texas for becoming our latest Golf Smarter
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