Speaker 1: Hi, This is Gary EMUs from Sale Morgan and I
Speaker 1: play at Creekside Golf Course. This is Golf Smarter number
Speaker 1: ninety seven eight.
Speaker 2: Could you go out and play golf and make a
Speaker 2: commitment to being a great playing partner? And it sounds whimsical,
Speaker 2: tree hugging it up and all the rest of it.
Speaker 2: You know, the win win with that is that you
Speaker 2: go out and if you're intending to be a great
Speaker 2: playing partner, you're probably going to be a little bit
Speaker 2: less selfish and self absorbed, a bit more self less.
Speaker 2: And if we're self less, perhaps we're not so much
Speaker 2: in our own head trying to figure everything out to
Speaker 2: the nth degree. As we're going around, we're a little
Speaker 2: bit more engaged with other people. My experience is when
Speaker 2: people have experimented with that as a commitment, they generally
Speaker 2: play better. And the worst thing that happens with that,
Speaker 2: fred you actually enjoy the round more because you do
Speaker 2: genuinely engage with other people.
Speaker 1: Make a commitment to being a great playing partner. The
Speaker 1: benefits will amaze you. With Carl Morris, this is Golf Smarter,
Speaker 1: sharing stories, tips and insights from great golf minds to
Speaker 1: help you lower your score and raise your golf IQ.
Speaker 1: Here's your host, Fred Green. Welcome back to the Golf
Speaker 1: Smarter podcast. Carl.
Speaker 2: Hello, Fred, it's wonderful to see you and great to
Speaker 2: be back. Always enjoy our conversations.
Speaker 1: Always enjoy the conversations. Always learn so much from you.
Speaker 1: And I was looking back, this is at least the
Speaker 1: fifth time that you've been on. The first time was
Speaker 1: back and we've been doing this since twenty nineteen.
Speaker 2: Wow, wow, it was as many times as I'm a
Speaker 2: repeater Fender.
Speaker 1: Then y as you are. But also I don't know
Speaker 1: if it started after we started doing this, But you
Speaker 1: started your own podcast that's doing quite well, and you've
Speaker 1: been You've got a lot of episodes.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, I think I'm way behind you, Fred, But
Speaker 2: I've done about six and a half years now, which
Speaker 2: is which is not a bad effort. I think, as
Speaker 2: we were saying before we started, there's an awful lot
Speaker 2: of people who start podcast, but to keep to that
Speaker 2: commitment weekly is a fair ol task to stick to,
Speaker 2: isn't it. But I don't know about you. I've got
Speaker 2: to the point now where I would feel incredibly guilty
Speaker 2: if I didn't do the things that I needed to
Speaker 2: do to put it out week but week by week
Speaker 2: and above anything else, right, I just genuinely enjoy doing
Speaker 2: what we're doing here because I mean I'm a coach
Speaker 2: first and foremost, but I mean that's quite a lonely
Speaker 2: place to be at times. You know, you just go
Speaker 2: about your own business and you see your own clients,
Speaker 2: but to share ideas with other people, I just find
Speaker 2: that it's a wonderful hobby.
Speaker 1: Really well, I'm very flattered by looking down the list
Speaker 1: of people that you've featured on your podcast called The
Speaker 1: Mind Caddy, which I think is an incredible name, and
Speaker 1: there's a lot of folks that we've shared.
Speaker 2: I think Jim Waldron is probably the one who's been
Speaker 2: on most of many of your shows, and it was
Speaker 2: a guy called Justin Tango. I don't know who's been
Speaker 2: who's been on your podcast, but if you haven't had
Speaker 2: him on, he's a wonderful coach in Asia. And he
Speaker 2: actually introduced me to to Jim and we've really we
Speaker 2: really hit it off. We've become kindred spirits. Really. I
Speaker 2: can sit and talk with Jim with Jim and then
Speaker 2: two always disappears very very quickly.
Speaker 1: Very quickly, and Justin was on here, and I think
Speaker 1: I was the one that introduced them.
Speaker 2: The Jim Waldron was it really really?
Speaker 1: I think so right, But that doesn't matter. But Jane's story,
Speaker 1: John Sherman, Raymond Pryor, Scott Fassett, Fred Shoemaker, Gary Nick.
Speaker 1: Of course, what you bring him wherever you go, I
Speaker 1: would love to hear. You know, when I first started
Speaker 1: approaching Fred Shoemaker to be on the podcast, he'd never
Speaker 1: heard of podcasting and he didn't know what we were doing.
Speaker 1: And he did a couple with me, but then he
Speaker 1: was like, man, I'm not so I was so excited
Speaker 1: to see that he was on your show. Share with
Speaker 1: me if you will. Some of the teachings that Fred
Speaker 1: is doing now, were, you know, versus fifteen eighteen years
Speaker 1: ago when I had him. I'm sure it's advanced because
Speaker 1: he's so thoughtful.
Speaker 2: I think Fred, eventually we'll go down and we'll look back.
Speaker 2: As Fred had been one of, if not the most
Speaker 2: influential coach in golf in the past twenty twenty five years.
Speaker 2: I really don't think he's been given the mainstream credit
Speaker 2: that he fully deserves, maybe because he's never been particularly
Speaker 2: interested in being on tour and working with tour players
Speaker 2: and things like that. He plays very much to the
Speaker 2: beat of his own drum. But you know, funnily enough,
Speaker 2: he was on last week's podcast on my podcast a
Speaker 2: week before last, and I look forward to him with
Speaker 2: a like like us. We sort of have an annual conversation.
Speaker 2: It's a bit like it's a bit like Thanksgiving or
Speaker 2: Christmas or whatever. It comes around once a year, and
Speaker 2: he's gracious enough to come on. His wife, Joe, is
Speaker 2: a lovely person. She facilitates that. But every time I
Speaker 2: listen to Fred, every time I do a podcast with him,
Speaker 2: I generally play it back three or four more times,
Speaker 2: which I don't really do with too many other guests,
Speaker 2: because there's so many wonderful insights there, and he is
Speaker 2: such a deep thinker. I think for me, one of
Speaker 2: the big things that has influenced my thinking is Spread's
Speaker 2: idea that when you go out on the golf course
Speaker 2: is how does the golf course occur to you? Does
Speaker 2: the golf course occur to you as a place of
Speaker 2: opportunity or is it a place of threat? And I
Speaker 2: think for most people we've fallen into the trap of
Speaker 2: the golf course unfortunately becoming a place of threat. And
Speaker 2: if the golf courses occurring to you as a threat,
Speaker 2: there's going to be a physiological response to that. So
Speaker 2: you know, we can be trying to do all kinds
Speaker 2: of things in our swing and work on all kinds
Speaker 2: of stuff, but we're if we're physiologically threatened by the
Speaker 2: environment called golf, we're probably not going to perform at
Speaker 2: our best. And no amount of breathing techniques and things
Speaker 2: like that, whilst they all have the value and the place,
Speaker 2: it really is understanding how you are perceiving that environment,
Speaker 2: how you're perceiving the game of golf, which I think
Speaker 2: then lends itself to that key question that we probably
Speaker 2: don't ask enough as golfers. Why do we play? Why
Speaker 2: is it that we do this thing called golf? And
Speaker 2: I think when I ask players that question you very
Speaker 2: often they'll answer it. And I realized that the answer
Speaker 2: is not their genuine answer, It's an answer that's been
Speaker 2: given to them by other people. And when you press
Speaker 2: them two or three levels down and you really get
Speaker 2: to the root of white people play golf. I think
Speaker 2: if you can tap into that, you can then create
Speaker 2: something that you can go out and make a commitment
Speaker 2: to you when you actually play golf, and I think
Speaker 2: that's one of the roots to change the perception of
Speaker 2: golf from being a threat to an opportunity.
Speaker 1: Well, first of all, regarding his wife, Joe, the irony
Speaker 1: of this is just too overwhelming for me. That my
Speaker 1: wife's name is Joanne. I call her Joe, so it's
Speaker 1: Fred and Joe, which is the same that he has.
Speaker 1: And strangely enough, I don't know if you know, mister Rogers,
Speaker 1: mister he was a TV he did kids shows for
Speaker 1: decades in the United States, and his wife was Joanne
Speaker 1: as well. Okay, that's enough of that. But just recently,
Speaker 1: and boy must have come from the deepest part of
Speaker 1: my mind with Fred Schumaker, but just recently I realized
Speaker 1: that and came up with the idea of that the
Speaker 1: tea box is a meeting place of uncertainty and the
Speaker 1: green is a meeting place of hope, and that everything
Speaker 1: in between is like, Okay, I'll see you there.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: It's like, at least i'll see you on the green
Speaker 1: or I'll see you at the tea box, but everything
Speaker 1: in the middle is like you're on your own. But yeah,
Speaker 1: a meeting place of uncertainty is because when you step
Speaker 1: up to the t it's like, where am I supposed
Speaker 1: to go? What am I supposed to do? Which club
Speaker 1: am I supposed to hit? I'm not sure I'm not
Speaker 1: hitting this club. Well today I'm feeling oh, I'm feeling confident,
Speaker 1: but there's that bunker in the middle. So definitely there's
Speaker 1: a lot of uncertainty when you step up to the tee.
Speaker 1: But when you're stepping up on the green, the putting green,
Speaker 1: it's like, I hope I can do this. I think
Speaker 1: I can do this. I want to do this, and
Speaker 1: I'll know if not, I'll get close. Right, It's a
Speaker 1: meeting place of hope.
Speaker 2: But I think the points on that really is to
Speaker 2: me so relevant that when we can eventually and I
Speaker 2: say eventually, make peace with the chaos and uncertainty, that
Speaker 2: golf will always bring a great paradox kicks in that
Speaker 2: when we're okay with the uncertainty, it tends to settle down.
Speaker 2: I think most of us we start playing golf in
Speaker 2: the early days, and you know, we we go out
Speaker 2: there and we play and we're not creating too many
Speaker 2: expectations certainly, if we play as a kid, we're just
Speaker 2: we want to whack a golf ball and play. But
Speaker 2: I think for most people that comes a point whereby
Speaker 2: there's a sense of identity on the line when you
Speaker 2: go and play golf, and a sense of your self worth,
Speaker 2: and all those things tend to kick in, and then
Speaker 2: what we tend to try and do is protect ourselves
Speaker 2: from the feelings that bad shots give us. And the
Speaker 2: search to protect ourselves from those feelings then tends to
Speaker 2: fall into a couple of categories, the main one being technique.
Speaker 2: That if I can just get the right technique, if
Speaker 2: I can just be given the silver bullet, if somebody
Speaker 2: can bestow me with the wisdom of putting my club
Speaker 2: in a certain place, or swinging in a certain way,
Speaker 2: or moving my body in a certain way, surely that
Speaker 2: will protect me from poor golf. Well, I'm not sure
Speaker 2: if any of your listeners can ring in and say
Speaker 2: they've reached that promised land, But my experience is that
Speaker 2: it's a fruitless search. Not saying you shouldn't work on
Speaker 2: developing your skills, obviously that's a big part of it,
Speaker 2: but nothing will ever protect us from hitting poor shots.
Speaker 2: But actually, if we can get to the stage where
Speaker 2: we can develop an acceptance for all outcomes, to me,
Speaker 2: that is the genuine foundation of confidence. You know, Raymond
Speaker 2: Pryor has been on both I shows, who's a great psychologist.
Speaker 2: He talks about stable confidence, and you know, essentially stable
Speaker 2: confidence only emerges from a willingness to accept the variety
Speaker 2: of outcome.
Speaker 1: You mentioned about the acceptance of results, which is so hard.
Speaker 1: Now we're talking. We're here to talk to amateur golfers,
Speaker 1: to recreational golfers who definitely want to get better, they
Speaker 1: definitely want to learn more, but there's this acceptance of Okay,
Speaker 1: so I'm not going to be playing on the tour. Okay,
Speaker 1: I may not win my club championship, but I still
Speaker 1: want to enjoy the game. And what we have a
Speaker 1: difficult time accepting as recreational golfers is that we make
Speaker 1: bad shots and you get upset with ourselves. But then
Speaker 1: if you watch the game at the highest level, you
Speaker 1: see that they make mistakes as well, but they get
Speaker 1: out of it. They don't carry it with them. It's
Speaker 1: the acceptance of the results and then working from there
Speaker 1: and their skill set as such. And let's not forget
Speaker 1: that they do this seven days a week, ten hours
Speaker 1: a day, okay, six days a week. Give them one
Speaker 1: day off, but because they're traveling. But all golfers make
Speaker 1: bad shots, no matter how good your your skills are.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think when you begin to understand that, Freddie,
Speaker 2: the acceptance isn't in any way resignation. We're not We're
Speaker 2: not saying, for one minute, be happy, you know, We're
Speaker 2: not saying for one minute stand there knocking out of
Speaker 2: bounds and grin and say, well, it's a lovely day
Speaker 2: and I'm glad to be alive, And that would be
Speaker 2: insulting people's intelligence. It's a it's a willingness to embrace
Speaker 2: the fact that the game is inherently incredibly difficult. You know,
Speaker 2: when we're talking about impact, you know, if you're going
Speaker 2: to knock it thirty forty yards off line, off the tea,
Speaker 2: we're talking about a club face that's probably three degrees
Speaker 2: closed at ninety five one hundred miles an hour. That
Speaker 2: is infinitesimal degrees of difference between down the middle and
Speaker 2: in the water or in the trees. But I think
Speaker 2: then it comes into an area I've looked at an
Speaker 2: awful lot these last few years is to really understand
Speaker 2: that if you're going to get the best out of
Speaker 2: your golfing experience, it's about focusing on devel up in
Speaker 2: certain skills and then being able to access those skills
Speaker 2: out on the golf course. Now, what does that mean?
Speaker 2: Well to me, there's a big difference between focusing on
Speaker 2: a skill and focusing on a form or a function
Speaker 2: in the sense that most people get drawn into how
Speaker 2: does the backswing look? Or is it too flat? Is
Speaker 2: it too upright? Am I doing this with my hips right?
Speaker 2: So we get drawn into the esthetics of the swing.
Speaker 2: Now we can argue then endlessly about what is correct,
Speaker 2: what is right, whose model's best, whose theory is best?
Speaker 2: But ultimately, what is the only thing that we know
Speaker 2: for certain that supplies information to the golf ball as
Speaker 2: to what to do well? It's the golf club at
Speaker 2: impact is the only thing that supplies the information to
Speaker 2: the ball. The ball doesn't know whether you're in a
Speaker 2: good mood or bad mood, whether you've been nice to
Speaker 2: your wife, or you've been a good person, or you
Speaker 2: anxious or calm or whatever. The only thing that the
Speaker 2: golf board responds to is the physics and geometry of impact.
Speaker 2: So surely we should be spending more time developing the
Speaker 2: skill of influencing impact now, you know, shout out to
Speaker 2: a friend and colleague, Adam Young John Sherman, who's been
Speaker 2: on my show, who shares sort of similar ideas on
Speaker 2: this that you know, if you are focusing your attention
Speaker 2: on developing the skills and impact, I believe, then you're
Speaker 2: at what I call the scene of the crime. You're
Speaker 2: actually investigating what's gone on. You're not in the I
Speaker 2: don't know. In the States, we have the board game
Speaker 2: called Cludo where there's a murder in a house and
Speaker 2: it's in different rooms, and you know, the murders in
Speaker 2: the library with a dagger by whoever it is. You
Speaker 2: need to be in the right room to study the crime,
Speaker 2: and I think the right room to study the crime
Speaker 2: for golf is impact. And you know the guys and
Speaker 2: lady listening this winter time. Even if you if you
Speaker 2: did something that sounds so simple, but you set off
Speaker 2: on the quest to develop the skill of a centered strike.
Speaker 2: As obvious as it sounds, just hitting more golf shops,
Speaker 2: hitting more balls out the middle of the club would
Speaker 2: transform your experience because flashing on out the middle of
Speaker 2: the club just feels inherently good. And yet I would
Speaker 2: I would guess an awful lot of people tuning in
Speaker 2: are putting their attention almost anywhere other than impact, and
Speaker 2: their attention is on almost everything other than what the
Speaker 2: golf club is doing to influence impact, because there's so
Speaker 2: much out there about how the body should move and
Speaker 2: how the risks should move. I'm not saying that's not
Speaker 2: a factor, but if you're not, if you're not clear
Speaker 2: on your impact conditions, you're not developing skill. You're focusing
Speaker 2: on form, right.
Speaker 1: But isn't the form get you to that moment of impact?
Speaker 2: Well, that's one route you can work on the form.
Speaker 2: My experience has been years ago when I sort of
Speaker 2: coached the swing full time, I would get a lot
Speaker 2: of players who look better in the swing but didn't
Speaker 2: improve because they didn't improve their impact conditions. However, when
Speaker 2: you start using one of the most powerful mental forces
Speaker 2: of all, which is intention, If I have an intention,
Speaker 2: so for instance, we're talking about center strike, if I
Speaker 2: know that I'm hitting the ball off the toe regularly,
Speaker 2: that's my pattern, and I do some practice where I
Speaker 2: intentionally hit the ball off the heel as a result
Speaker 2: of that intention. The genius of my body, which has
Speaker 2: got up in my body, everybody's body, the genius of
Speaker 2: the body, which has got a few billion years of
Speaker 2: evolution behind it. It's amazing how the body organizes movement
Speaker 2: around an intention. So does the form improve as a
Speaker 2: result of intention, sometimes not always. But what does improve
Speaker 2: as a result of intention is your impact conditions. And
Speaker 2: if your impact conditions improve, it's as simple as this.
Speaker 2: If your impact conditions improve, you will be a better golfer.
Speaker 2: It's it's it's it's as simple as that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, intention is huge. I've always like to keep that
Speaker 1: forefront of my mind. Is what's my intent on the
Speaker 1: next shot? Which I always believe is the hardest shot
Speaker 1: in golf, is the next one?
Speaker 2: I think linking two forces Fred Gary Nicol and myself
Speaker 2: who wrote the Lost Art Books. We probably mentioned it
Speaker 2: last time, but I think it burns repeating. The big
Speaker 2: three of the mental game for us is intention, attention,
Speaker 2: and attitude. So what is it what is it that
Speaker 2: you in tend to do? And again, back to where
Speaker 2: we've been so far in this conversation, my intention is
Speaker 2: to hit it more towards the heel. Okay, well, word,
Speaker 2: do I need to place my attention? Well, I could
Speaker 2: place my attention on my right elbow, or my left paper,
Speaker 2: or my right knee or whatever. That's probably not been
Speaker 2: no influence impact that much. But if I place my
Speaker 2: attention on the club, now I can with my attention
Speaker 2: that I can influence my intention. And then what attitude
Speaker 2: do I bring to that? Do I bring an attitude
Speaker 2: of perfectionism or do I bring an attitude of curiosity.
Speaker 1: Or fear or fear?
Speaker 2: You know, curiosity is a great antidote to fear if
Speaker 2: I can be curious about what actually happens as opposed
Speaker 2: to being scared of what's going on. Because see, the
Speaker 2: problem is spread is when you're on the golf course
Speaker 2: and the ball isn't doing what you like, which is
Speaker 2: most of the time for most of us, is that
Speaker 2: the questquestion that we asked straight away is what did
Speaker 2: I do wrong? And if the question what did I
Speaker 2: do wrong? Triggers endless search is in terms of technique,
Speaker 2: I'm literally always going to be all over the place
Speaker 2: based on lots of opinions. But if I hit a
Speaker 2: shot offline and I asked the question, what did I
Speaker 2: do wrong? Was the club face open or closed? Did
Speaker 2: I hit it out the middle or did heated out
Speaker 2: of the toe? What was the interaction with the ground?
Speaker 2: You know those those big three. You know, every shot,
Speaker 2: every shot that you hit that you don't like, will
Speaker 2: be down probably to one, not probably will be down
Speaker 2: to one of those three factors. And I think, if
Speaker 2: the explanation that we give to when a ball goes
Speaker 2: offline is more and closed for one of a better word,
Speaker 2: if it's not, if it's not all over the place,
Speaker 2: if it's not with lots of different opinions. If if
Speaker 2: I can keep my attention on three possible things that
Speaker 2: cause golf balls to go off line, I'm now playing
Speaker 2: a much simpler game. I'm now able to deal with
Speaker 2: the variety of outcomes. My acceptance levels improve, and I
Speaker 2: start to influence the things that really matter. So I
Speaker 2: start to play a game where I developed a bit
Speaker 2: more resiliency, and perhaps more importantly, the big skill is adaptability.
Speaker 2: Is that can I notice what's happening and then adapt
Speaker 2: to that. I said, I was with a young guy
Speaker 2: this afternoon. I coach at a lovely golf course in
Speaker 2: the mid part of England called Delamere Forest. It's a
Speaker 2: beautiful golf course. It's it's almost a spiritual experience going
Speaker 2: playing golf around there. It's a wonderful location of anybody
Speaker 2: ever against the chance. But we were out there today
Speaker 2: and we were, you know, we were talking about these
Speaker 2: these these concepts, and he really grasped the idea of
Speaker 2: simplifying his explanations of what actually happened out on the
Speaker 2: golf course, and he said, he said, I can feel
Speaker 2: a sense of calm that I'm not lost in an
Speaker 2: endless search to try to find a solution that doesn't
Speaker 2: seem to have a solution. I can keep my eye
Speaker 2: on a couple of things that I can work with.
Speaker 1: Coming back to intention, attention and attitude. So good, so simple.
Speaker 1: I know that you know, I'm well aware that the
Speaker 1: bottom of the golf swing, the golf swing is a circle.
Speaker 1: The bottom of the swing should be in front of
Speaker 1: the ball. So many people don't grasp that is the
Speaker 1: low point. The low point of your swing is in
Speaker 1: front of the ball. So if you're a right handed golfer,
Speaker 1: it's on the left side of the ball. So for me,
Speaker 1: where I put my attention is focusing on the ground
Speaker 1: in front of the ball. Yeah, And so my intention
Speaker 1: is to make contact with the ball then hit the
Speaker 1: ground after that, and I try to keep a good
Speaker 1: attitude about it. But it makes so much more sense.
Speaker 1: But if I'm thinking about my left arm, my left wrist,
Speaker 1: you know where my right elbow is, and all these
Speaker 1: things are in my mind on a regular basis, but
Speaker 1: I try to block them out during the swing. I
Speaker 1: know about them. I'll take a practice swing and I'll
Speaker 1: concentrate on those things. But when I want, when I
Speaker 1: walk up to the ball, those things are not what
Speaker 1: I'm thinking about are focusing on because if you think
Speaker 1: about your body parts when you're making your swing, you're
Speaker 1: shaking your head. Good luck, just good luck, good luck.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean just we started with Fred, and I'm
Speaker 2: sure we'll mention Fred a few more times. But I
Speaker 2: remember it's twenty five years ago. I went to his
Speaker 2: school in Carmel and one of the first things that
Speaker 2: he he got me to do was to see if
Speaker 2: I could make a golf swing where I did say
Speaker 2: something that sounds so simple. He said, can you make
Speaker 2: a golf swing where you keep your attention on the
Speaker 2: club all the way through the swing. You would think
Speaker 2: that would be the easiest thing in the world. You know,
Speaker 2: if we grab a pen, you would think we could
Speaker 2: keep our attention on the pen, or if we were
Speaker 2: sewing using a knife or whatever, we could do that.
Speaker 2: But I all those years ago, I started it's a
Speaker 2: few shots, and I realized. First of all, I realized
Speaker 2: I'd probably never made a golf swing for twenty years
Speaker 2: were at some level, I wasn't telling myself how to
Speaker 2: move a certain part of my body. Twenty odd years,
Speaker 2: every golf swing I'd ever made, I was trying to
Speaker 2: tell myself to move in a certain way based on
Speaker 2: the latest information or the latest theory or whatever. So
Speaker 2: this idea of making a golf swing where I just
Speaker 2: placed my attention on this golf club and see if
Speaker 2: I could keep it there through the through the swing,
Speaker 2: it was just kind of like wow. First of all,
Speaker 2: it was difficult because my mind was pinging around all
Speaker 2: over the place. But then I started to realize that,
Speaker 2: my God, if I could keep my attention there, surely
Speaker 2: then I can influence what it does. And again, for
Speaker 2: all the folks listening, would I would recommend that they
Speaker 2: try that basic exus I go to the range and
Speaker 2: maybe for the first time in your life, get a
Speaker 2: bucket of fifty balls, get a seven iron or a
Speaker 2: five iron or whatever doesn't matter, the club really and
Speaker 2: hit some shots. Well, you don't do anything in your
Speaker 2: golf swing. You're not trying to do anything. You're literally
Speaker 2: not trying to fix anything. All you're going to do
Speaker 2: is place your attention on the club and see if
Speaker 2: you can observe it, see if you can stay with
Speaker 2: it for the duration of your swing, and see what
Speaker 2: that experience is actually like. And for most people it's
Speaker 2: it's a completely different route go down because if you
Speaker 2: if you can't pay attention to the thing that's going
Speaker 2: to influence the ball, surely our attention is in the
Speaker 2: wrong place. Now, I know a lot of coaches were
Speaker 2: listening say, oh, you've got to move your body in
Speaker 2: a certain way, You've got to put force into the
Speaker 2: ground and all those things. I get all of that,
Speaker 2: and I'm not saying that doesn't have an influence, but
Speaker 2: come back to it. For most people, the quickest route
Speaker 2: to start to get some enjoyment out of this game
Speaker 2: is to take care of those three factors and impact
Speaker 2: were the club's pointing where you hitting on the club
Speaker 2: and your interaction with the ground. You know, you just
Speaker 2: said about about the low point. The other thing that
Speaker 2: we've got a capacity to is imagine things. So you know,
Speaker 2: if I was on the range with you and you said,
Speaker 2: I'm struggling with my low point, the low points behind
Speaker 2: the ball, what we could we could maybe place a
Speaker 2: team front of the ball, or a coin or something
Speaker 2: like that. And so Fred, can you collect the ball
Speaker 2: and the tea? Now, obviously if you collect the ball
Speaker 2: and the tea, that's going to move the low point
Speaker 2: a little bit further forward. Now you can imagine that
Speaker 2: when you're on the golf course, you could you could
Speaker 2: see an imaginary coin or a tea or whatever. So
Speaker 2: utilizing the power of imagination as well alongside intention and attention.
Speaker 2: You know, these are wonderful things that we have the
Speaker 2: capacity to do. But because we're so much inclined to
Speaker 2: just focus on information that other people have given us,
Speaker 2: we dule the imagination. We don't use our imagination the body.
Speaker 2: You know, think about all the physiological responses that we've
Speaker 2: all experienced when we've been dreaming at night, which is
Speaker 2: a wonderful use of imagination. And you wake up in
Speaker 2: a cold sweat because you've imagine that something terrible is
Speaker 2: about to happen and the body is physiologically responding to that.
Speaker 2: That's the power of imagination. But you know, could we
Speaker 2: use our imagination in a way on the golf course
Speaker 2: that actually helps us create more clarity with the intention?
Speaker 1: You said, the golf ball doesn't know if you're in
Speaker 1: a good mood or a bad mood. No, you you
Speaker 1: know that maybe you're playing partners know that I have
Speaker 1: found that for me, it's my you know, we both
Speaker 1: talked to Jane's story many times and her or her
Speaker 1: desire to get us all to meditate, and it's not
Speaker 1: something that I I'm most comfortable meditation. My meditation is
Speaker 1: on the golf course. Is walking a golf course. And
Speaker 1: I'll go out maybe even once a week where I'm
Speaker 1: not calling my friends and I'm not seeing if i
Speaker 1: can play with anybody. I'll just meet a couple of
Speaker 1: people on the on the you know, at the first
Speaker 1: tea box. But I can use my walk on a
Speaker 1: golf course as my meditation. And you know, when if
Speaker 1: I have the ability to go out when things are
Speaker 1: not going well or i'm not happy about something. I
Speaker 1: find that I can get into a better mood by
Speaker 1: playing golf, which is kind of counter into it because
Speaker 1: of the frustration that golf presents to us. But it
Speaker 1: doesn't matter. The frustration is going to be there. It's
Speaker 1: just being able to walk and spend those hours enjoying
Speaker 1: my time, enjoying being outside.
Speaker 2: You know, it's interesting you bring up meditation. I mean,
Speaker 2: I've always struggled with I know all the research. I've
Speaker 2: known a Buddhist teacher for many years. You know, it
Speaker 2: comes and contributes to my mind. Fact of course, I
Speaker 2: firmly believe it is a very beneficial thing to do.
Speaker 2: But for me sitting in you know, to cliche it,
Speaker 2: sitting cross legged on a cushion doesn't really work for me.
Speaker 2: What does work for me when I try and do
Speaker 2: it every day is you've just said, is to go
Speaker 2: outside and place my attention on the feeling of my
Speaker 2: feet on the ground as I'm walking along, and that
Speaker 2: becomes my mantra that I just I just tune into
Speaker 2: the feeling of my feet. Of course, my mind goes
Speaker 2: somewhere else, but I can bring it back. But I
Speaker 2: think that's one of the most beneficial things that a
Speaker 2: golfer could do, especially in the winter time. You can
Speaker 2: work on your golf away from the golf course by
Speaker 2: doing walking meditation, you know, because we also ignore the
Speaker 2: fact that when we're playing, and I know a lot
Speaker 2: in the States is on cards, but if you walk
Speaker 2: in the golf course, you know, ninety percent of golf
Speaker 2: isn't golf, you.
Speaker 1: Know, more than ninety more than ninety.
Speaker 2: Yeah, probably ninety nine percent is the actual time of
Speaker 2: activity within the game of golf is a fraction of
Speaker 2: the four and a half five hours that you take.
Speaker 2: So I think the ability to notice your thoughts and
Speaker 2: notice you getting off time and you're back in the
Speaker 2: past or projecting into the future just simp Bringing your
Speaker 2: attention to the feeling of your feet as you're walking
Speaker 2: in between shots, I think is a great discipline, and
Speaker 2: I also think what it does help as well. I
Speaker 2: think it you know, rhythm, we've all experienced when we're
Speaker 2: playing well. We tend to feel a certain rhythm in
Speaker 2: our game, a certain rhythm in our movements. I think
Speaker 2: those rhythms can often be dictated how we're moving between shorts,
Speaker 2: and I think when you do walk in meditation, you
Speaker 2: tend to fall into a more personally effective rhythm of
Speaker 2: movement that then can transfer into your golf swings. But
Speaker 2: what we were saying before Fred about going to the
Speaker 2: range and placing your attention on the club head, that
Speaker 2: is meditation for me, because you know, ultimately, what is meditation,
Speaker 2: it's deciding to pay attention to something on purpose, non judgmentally.
Speaker 2: You know, you sit and notice your breath, or you
Speaker 2: notice a candle or a mantra or whatever it is.
Speaker 2: That's the same principle what just said with the club
Speaker 2: So I think, you know, all these things kind of
Speaker 2: tie together in many ways that produce a set of
Speaker 2: areas of exploration that I think can be fascinating. Yes,
Speaker 2: you'll probably play better golf, but there's more benefits in
Speaker 2: the rest of your life. I mean, my god. You
Speaker 2: know we were saying before we started that we're living
Speaker 2: in an incredibly chaotic world. We're living in a very
Speaker 2: very unstable world, and actually, if you go too deep
Speaker 2: into it, a pretty frightening place that there's so many
Speaker 2: things potentially could happen or might happen, that golf should
Speaker 2: be a sanctuary. The time on the golf course should
Speaker 2: be a time away from all that crap and nonsense
Speaker 2: that were being fed all the time, and all the misinformation,
Speaker 2: all that kind of stuff and the overlord of information.
Speaker 2: Golf should be a sanctuary for that. But if you're
Speaker 2: taking a busy mind onto the golf course and just
Speaker 2: feeding it more and more information and more and more thoughts,
Speaker 2: it's not a sanctuary. It's a hell. So you're not
Speaker 2: getting away from the nonsense in the world. You're bringing
Speaker 2: it with you to the golf course.
Speaker 1: With so many of the people that I've had on
Speaker 1: the program talking about getting yourself in the right attitude
Speaker 1: and the right mindset, we get to flow state. And
Speaker 1: anytime that conversation comes up about flow state, which is
Speaker 1: I think we're going. No one's talking about their mechanics.
Speaker 1: That's never the topic when flow state. When someone's talking
Speaker 1: about the round they had that just everything worked that day.
Speaker 1: We have to remember that we have made all those
Speaker 1: shots before. You know, just because you've done it twice
Speaker 1: on one round, it's not a time to start changing
Speaker 1: what you do. Just get into your mind and tap
Speaker 1: into the place where you've been and stop trying to
Speaker 1: change things all because this is how golf works. It's
Speaker 1: not going to be the same every time, and you're
Speaker 1: not going to improve with every round.
Speaker 2: But I also think that ties in as well. Fred,
Speaker 2: It's the same thing in terms of the mental game
Speaker 2: as well. You know, WHI Whilst the flow state is
Speaker 2: great and nice and wonderful, I think very often people
Speaker 2: can fall into the trap of trying to get into
Speaker 2: the flow state, whereby there trying to control the thoughts,
Speaker 2: They're trying to control their experience. They're trying to control
Speaker 2: their emotions so much that it becomes a full time
Speaker 2: job trying to do all of that. Now my understanding,
Speaker 2: you know, probably twenty years ago, when I first started
Speaker 2: with all this, I would I would give people a
Speaker 2: lot of techniques to try and control the thinking. I'm
Speaker 2: completely the opposite of that now because I do understand,
Speaker 2: you know, I have no idea what I'm going to
Speaker 2: think next. I mean, this thing inside between my years
Speaker 2: comes up with the most random nonsense most of the time.
Speaker 2: But what I would say is now I've got a
Speaker 2: little bit better with not so much trying to change
Speaker 2: my thoughts, but the relationship to those thoughts. And I
Speaker 2: think to understand when you go and play golf. You know,
Speaker 2: from day to day, we're different, we have different triggers,
Speaker 2: we've interacted with people differently. To go out on the
Speaker 2: golf course and feel that you have to be in
Speaker 2: a perfect state, it's probably the biggest block to that state. Whereby,
Speaker 2: if you can go out and you can realize everybody
Speaker 2: listening to this has had this experience whereby they've felt great,
Speaker 2: they've seen the shot, they've done everything perfectly before the shot,
Speaker 2: they're convinced it's going to be a good shot, and
Speaker 2: they hit its sideways. They've also conversely had the experience
Speaker 2: whereby they're pretty uncomfortable, they might feel a little bit nervous,
Speaker 2: they're not even certain of what they're trying to do
Speaker 2: with the shot, but they've still managed to pull off
Speaker 2: a good shot. So what I'm getting at, it's a
Speaker 2: bit of a paradox, really is that don't think that
Speaker 2: everything has to be perfect for you to take a good
Speaker 2: golf shot. It's amazing how efficient the body is following
Speaker 2: through an intention. If that is what you then bring
Speaker 2: to the shot eventually, So you know, don't get hung
Speaker 2: up on trying to be perfect mentally anymore that you
Speaker 2: should get up hung up on trying to be perfect.
Speaker 1: Technically, there is no perfect in golf or life, right,
Speaker 1: There is no perfect. So often we'll talk about We'll
Speaker 1: have fitness people on and we'll talk about aging and
Speaker 1: playing golf and how your body reacts and what you
Speaker 1: need to do to keep your body in golf shape
Speaker 1: the best you can. But what we don't talk about yet,
Speaker 1: and I really want to throw it to you, is
Speaker 1: aging and the impact on your mindset. I mean, I
Speaker 1: was playing yesterday with two gentlemen that were from out
Speaker 1: of town, and we had a fine time. Didn't talk
Speaker 1: much because they were heavy their own game and they're,
Speaker 1: you know, from a different part of the country. But
Speaker 1: they were in town to play golf and they wanted
Speaker 1: to know another golf course, and so I gave them
Speaker 1: a suggestion. I said, oh, but you know, there's this
Speaker 1: other course. I could not come up with the name
Speaker 1: of it, and I play there at least once a month,
Speaker 1: and I was like just completely drawing a blank. And
Speaker 1: I'm attributing to that to oh, okay, I'm getting close
Speaker 1: to seventy years old. My next birthday, I'm seventy years old.
Speaker 1: Names are not going to be flowing through my head
Speaker 1: as regularly as they used to be. But how does
Speaker 1: the aging process impact your mindset on golf or does it?
Speaker 2: I think one of the things I don't believe I've
Speaker 2: ever had Ellen Langer on your show. Well, you must
Speaker 2: get her on Ellen Langer, but I think she wrote
Speaker 2: written numerous books on in a Mindful Life, and she's
Speaker 2: talked so much about how we can get drawn into
Speaker 2: the power of story. That you know, if you can't
Speaker 2: remember something and you say, oh, I know the name
Speaker 2: of that golf course, why can't I remember it? And
Speaker 2: the story kicks in I can't remember it because I'm seventy,
Speaker 2: then that can almost become a self fulfilling prophecy. There
Speaker 2: have been a lot of occasion spread when you were
Speaker 2: twenty thirty, forty fifty, and sixty when you couldn't remember stuff,
Speaker 2: but the story doesn't necessarily kick in. Then that that's
Speaker 2: due to the aging process. Now, I'm not saying there's
Speaker 2: not declined for us all, which clearly there is, but
Speaker 2: I think we've got to be very careful of not
Speaker 2: creating that self fulfilling prophecy of a story. But I
Speaker 2: think that's why golf back to our sanctuary idea. I
Speaker 2: think that's why golf doesn't promote itself enough to the
Speaker 2: older generation of how important it is, not just from
Speaker 2: a physical perspective, but from a cognitive perspective. That if
Speaker 2: you if you look at golf, if you go out
Speaker 2: on the golf course and see that golf is between
Speaker 2: sixty five and ninety five separate puzzles to solve, that
Speaker 2: in itself is a wonderful way of going out on
Speaker 2: the golf course, staying present to each shot and enjoying
Speaker 2: the opportunity. And you know, puzzles and quizzes are popular
Speaker 2: the world over, but nobody would sit there with a
Speaker 2: crossword and if they couldn't get seven across, get really
Speaker 2: annoyed with themselves and call themselves an idiot and throw
Speaker 2: the paper down and throw the pen away and storm
Speaker 2: off somewhere else. They would just go and try and
Speaker 2: solve the next puzzle and see if they could get
Speaker 2: a little bit closer to it. So I think when
Speaker 2: you start to look at the frame of reference that golf,
Speaker 2: you go out there and it's a wonderful puzzle to solve,
Speaker 2: that is a great creature of creator of curiosity. And
Speaker 2: I think then really understanding how important other people are.
Speaker 2: And I know it's a cliche to say it, but
Speaker 2: you know, can you genuinely enjoy and engage in some
Speaker 2: conversations that you perhaps wouldn't maybe ordinarily go towards? Golf
Speaker 2: provides that environment, doesn't it. And I think to see
Speaker 2: that preciousness of opportunity when you go and play golf
Speaker 2: of a genuinely interesting conversation with somebody. Not not always
Speaker 2: everybody's up for that, but it's a medium where it
Speaker 2: can come out. You know. I've had some amazing conversations
Speaker 2: walking with clients on a golf course that have gone
Speaker 2: far away from their golf and trying to hate it straight.
Speaker 2: And that is the wonderful nature of the game if
Speaker 2: we actually are open to that, to that potential adventure.
Speaker 1: So frequently my wife like, would you guys talk about
Speaker 1: on the golf course today? It's like our last shot
Speaker 1: the Actually, no, you don't talk about anything. I'm sure
Speaker 1: we do. That's not what the focus is. We're talking
Speaker 1: about our last shot in our next shot.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, and sometimes not sometimes my experiences, the
Speaker 2: more we actually are prepared to be I know, one
Speaker 2: of the things that Fred said that he years ago
Speaker 2: said this idea about could you go out and play
Speaker 2: golf and make a commitment to being a great playing partner.
Speaker 2: And it sounds whimsy, cold, tree hugging and all the
Speaker 2: rest of.
Speaker 1: No, no, no, no, Well we're both from California, but yeah,
Speaker 1: that sounds awesome.
Speaker 2: You know, make a commitment to be a great playing partner. Now,
Speaker 2: the win win with that is that you go out
Speaker 2: and if you're intending to be a great playing partner,
Speaker 2: you're probably going to be a little bit less selfish
Speaker 2: and self absorbed, a bit more self less. And if
Speaker 2: we're self less, perhaps we're not so much in our
Speaker 2: own head trying to figure everything out to the nth
Speaker 2: degree as we're going around, we're a little bit more
Speaker 2: engaged with other people. My experience is when people have
Speaker 2: experimented with that as a commitment, it's not always the case,
Speaker 2: but they generally play better because they're not so weighted
Speaker 2: down by their own self reference.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it makes total sense.
Speaker 2: I love that. And the worst thing that happens with that, Fred,
Speaker 2: you actually enjoy the round more because you do genuinely
Speaker 2: engage with other people.
Speaker 1: Yeah, great concept, great idea. You were going to on
Speaker 1: any New Books podcast taking up enough of your time?
Speaker 2: Gary and myself, Gary Nichol and myself we wrote the
Speaker 2: Lost Art series and we made a promise to ourselves
Speaker 2: that when we've done the third one, that that was
Speaker 2: going to be it wasn't going to be a turn
Speaker 2: out to be Rocky four, five and six or whatever.
Speaker 2: So we kind of feel like we kind of felt
Speaker 2: like we said all we need to say for a while.
Speaker 2: So I've not got anything planned in the in the
Speaker 2: in the immediate future, but I am really interested in
Speaker 2: these ideas that we've talked about today about skills and
Speaker 2: developing skills and then being able to access those skills.
Speaker 2: And I think overall, if I've got a mission in
Speaker 2: go for it is to try and simplify things todayn
Speaker 2: to some some workable concepts. Not I look back for
Speaker 2: in my career. I look back in the early days,
Speaker 2: and it was it was well meaning, but the but
Speaker 2: the sole purpose of my coaching in the early days
Speaker 2: was to sound clever and and to and to and
Speaker 2: to throw big words at people and show the people
Speaker 2: how much knowledge I've got about the game. And I
Speaker 2: think almost every coach probably has to go through that
Speaker 2: at some point where there's there's a little bit of
Speaker 2: ego kicking in. I'm not saying I don't have an
Speaker 2: ego now, because everybody has an ego to some degree,
Speaker 2: but I genuinely feel that as I hopefully I've got
Speaker 2: a little bit better at this, I don't help everybody, obviously,
Speaker 2: but as I've got a little bit more competent this,
Speaker 2: at this, I am willing to say less and and
Speaker 2: and being willing to say less I found is actually
Speaker 2: very very productive.
Speaker 1: And then you started a podcast, and.
Speaker 2: Then I started a podcast, and people probably listening to that,
Speaker 2: I say, what rubbish's talking. He's waffled away for an
Speaker 2: hour there, but hopefully they get the drift of what
Speaker 2: I'm actually going after. In terms of the actual interaction
Speaker 2: with clients. It's trying can I simplify down to such
Speaker 2: a point where the attention settles in one or two
Speaker 2: key areas that do start to produce results. And I
Speaker 2: firmly believe when you understand these things, you don't have
Speaker 2: to wait for months and working on extensive swing changes
Speaker 2: and complicated moves. You can start to tap into that
Speaker 2: innate genius that we all have and enjoy the experience
Speaker 2: of go for More.
Speaker 1: Well, I truly appreciate the fact that you're doing a
Speaker 1: show that really has focused on the mental part of
Speaker 1: the game. That was one of the initial intentions of
Speaker 1: this show. That's why we came up with a name
Speaker 1: Golf Smarter, is to focus on the mental aspects of
Speaker 1: it and strategic But my I, you know, you're nine
Speaker 1: hundred and seventy eight episodes. I can't talk about the
Speaker 1: same thing over and over, so I try to cover
Speaker 1: a wide variety of topics in golf. But I really
Speaker 1: am happy that you are focused on getting people like
Speaker 1: Fred Shoemaker and Jim Waldron and Jane's story, John Sherman,
Speaker 1: Scott Fassett and the Martin Chuck is he Justice, all
Speaker 1: these people that we've had on but you really focus
Speaker 1: on And that's part of what I love about podcasting
Speaker 1: is that if there is a part that is two
Speaker 1: tent too danse for you to absorb, pause, go back,
Speaker 1: listen to it again, listen to it multiple times, and
Speaker 1: you've got a podcast that commands that attention. Congratulations and
Speaker 1: thank you.
Speaker 2: Thanks for It's always great, always great to chat with you.
Speaker 2: You every time I see you, Ali, It goes by
Speaker 2: but you never look at any old would advert for
Speaker 2: the Californian lifestyle. So I said, that was great to
Speaker 2: chat with him. H