Speaker 1: Hi. This is Mark Soldisbury from Langley, Canada and I
play at No.
Speaker 2: Few Golf and Country Club.
Speaker 1: This is Golf Smart at number nine hundred and ninety one.
Speaker 2: If you want to work on your golf swing, there's
a video called swing Beats Ernie Els. It's on YouTube.
Go watch it. Don't think about it, don't put it
into words. Just watch Ernie El's swing and it shows
I'm hitting like a two iron, a five iron and
an eight iron. It's the same swing every time. And
you know, Erniel says that beautiful smooth swing. Most guys,
if they swung like Michelle Wie, would play better. But
they're trying to hit it like Rory McElroy. I'm going
to hit it really far. Just keep it in play,
get it straight. If you hit it, hit the ball
like Michelle Wie, you'd be a lot better player than
you are. I talk about the mental game more, you know,
don't be an idiot. You know, why do you get
up and say I'm going to put a little extra
on this one and you know what happens? She hit
in the water, hit a two inches. What is it
our minds that make us do that. I'm going to
hear this one really hard. I'm going to do the
old Russian hammer thrower swing here and it never works out.
Speaker 1: Hit your second shot first. A snarky book about playing
golf by humorist Jim Flynn. This is Golf Smarter, sharing stories,
tips and insights from great golf minds to help you
lower your score and raise your golf IQ.
Speaker 2: Here's your host, Fred Green.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Golf Smarter podcast.
Speaker 2: Jim, Well, thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: I'm glad to have you on. This is a fun
little book and it's definitely tongue in cheek. I mean,
you even call yourself snarky at one point in the
descriptions of this, and I would have to concur its
snarky humor.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's I'm kind of a wise guy, and that's
just who I am. I wrote this book. I'm I'm
a novelist and I've written I'm working on a novel
right now. I wrote this as a lark to take
a break from writing a novel. I was really sort
of stuck in it, out of your dry through something
like that. I was just dead. I had no place
to go, so I said, I'm a golfer, I'm a hacker, golfer,
and I always kidd it i'd write a book called
hit your second shot first, because I always say I'm
always saying that, And so I wrote this book as
a lark. And it's a lot shorter than a novel,
a lot easier to write the novel. It's been my
by far bestseller.
Speaker 1: Wow, congratulations.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's been out for five years. It still sells
every day somewhere in the world where they speak, although
it's sold in Japan. I'm assuming to English speakers in
Japan because not translated, but still sells every day. It's
for people who have a sense of humor about golf.
As you know, there are people who take golf very
very seriously and some kind of religious right and all
that stuff, and they don't like this book. It's it's
it's not for them, but it's if you have a
little bit of sense of humor about golf, I think
you play better, absolutely, and and so it's written for
people like that who want to have I want to
have fun yep.
Speaker 1: Well, it's this audience definitely runs the gamut from the
very serious golfer who wouldn't find this funny, to the
guys who love Daddy humor and snarky humor that would
just I found myself going really and then less than
a two minutes later, i'd be I'd be laughing out loud.
So it's like you really did go all the way
on extremes on both ends. But I did find it
to be fun and quick. I did the audiobook, and
the reader is clearly a pro.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's great.
Speaker 1: He was doing and so I did the whole book
in a day.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the audiobook. If somebody is an audiobook person, this
is a great book to listen on the way of
the golf course. And you might even play better after
you listen to it.
Speaker 1: As long as you keep your sense of humor. Yeah,
tell me about some of the other books you've written.
Speaker 2: Well, I've written. My first book was called Be Sincere
Even When You Don't Mean It, which is not a novel.
It's a sort of a humorous memoir. And this fellow
who narrates hit your second shot first also narrated that
Gary Williams' name is. And it's kind of crazy about
this guy who does all these wonderful things. He's an
astronaut and he plays in the Master's tournament and he's
a football player, and it's kind of like, it's not
meant to be believable. Well, it's meant to be funny,
and it is funny. And it's my second it's still
my second best seller. It still sells. It's sold quite
a few copies in Australia. Don't ask me why I
never I was on one podcast there a million years ago.
They must like my sense of humor. England, they don't
like my sense of humor. I can't give my books
away in England. So and then I started writing novels.
I was fortunate enough to pick up some fans on
my first book, and among them are people i'd call
real writers. People make a living out of writing. People
have written New York Times bestsellers, and a couple of
them have become my sort of spiritual mentors and unofficial mentors.
And they said, hey, you're funny. You should keep writing.
Not that many people. There's a lot of decent writers
out there's not many people good at being funny. So
carry that sense of humor forward, right, novel? So I
wrote a novel. I was in the investment business for
a million years, and so I made up this guy
and he uncovers a Ponzi scheme in the first novel,
and and now I'm on the fourth novel, so wow,
same guy.
Speaker 1: Wow. Yeah yeah. I was one of the famous lines
about actors saying dying is easy comedy as hard.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, yeah, I know. I'm just I'm naturally funny.
My wife says, you know, if you if the fire
alarms going off at three o'clock in the morning and
we get up, you're funny. It's just who I am.
Speaker 1: So how long have you been married? Forty eight years
and she still thinks you're funny? Yes, if that's that's
that is a testimony.
Speaker 2: Well that's a requirement. If she didn't appreciate as such
a humor, we wouldn't have lasted forty eight years.
Speaker 1: Oh absolutely, I'm coming up on forty five. And occasionally
she'll go, you make me laugh. Yeah, But most of
the time it's like, don't don't that's not funny.
Speaker 2: Put on the toilet seat, stupid.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, well, no, that's not even a conversation. And
I can go on and on about that conversation all
by myself. Tell me about your golf game.
Speaker 2: I'm an eighteen handicapper. I've had more surgeries than maybe
Oakland Raiders are combined. So I don't hit the ball
very far. Even though I'm a pretty big guy. I
have a pretty good short game, and when I'm not stupid,
I can get a good score.
Speaker 1: And you're playing partners, appreciate your humor.
Speaker 2: I don't talk much on the course. I don't. I'm
not one of these haha, hey, hey, guys on the course.
It's not like I'm super serious. I don't like talking
on the course. I like to play. Some of the
guys I play with don't know why I write books.
I'm in this league a bunch of guys who play
first thing in the morning with nine holes, a bunch
of old guys. And you get you put your card
in and the starter shuffles them. So you don't play
the same guys. You don't arrange your match. You play
with different guys. And there's maybe fifty guys in a group.
All of the guys don't know I write books. They
don't know that I'm, you know, hilarious, wonderful guy. They just,
you know, either like me. You don't like me as
a golfer, but you would not know that stuff from
playing golf with me.
Speaker 1: Uh, huh okay, So you're incognito when you're playing golf
as far as being a writer.
Speaker 2: Although although I have to tell you that the one
thing I'm that someone who might not like me playing
golf is if you're really slow. And I don't mean
the guys who can't walk because they're old. I mean
the guy the five practice wing guys, and the guys
who stalk around their putt. You know, the guys I
play with, h I have a scientific theory. The longer
they take the putt, the less likely they are going
to make it okay. And the best guys I play
with are the fast, are the fastest putters. And I
don't mean there's some guys who that's their form of choking.
They get up and hit it really fast because they
can't take the pressure. I'm talking about guys who just
stand up, look at the pot, hit it. They're the
best players.
Speaker 1: And how's your putting medium? And do you take time
to line up here? But tell me walk me through
your pre shot routine.
Speaker 2: When you put putting, line it up. I try to
line it up while somebody else is putting. And so
i'm i'm I try to be cognizant of the people
I'm playing with and the people are playing behind me.
So I tried to be ready when it's my turn.
Not some guys act like, oh, I have to hit
the ball, I'll go over and get my putter. Now
it's no, you have to be ready. I'm ready. I
get up. Maybe it takes me five seconds, and I
try to just hit the right speed and sometimes it
goes in. You know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you don't measure out your putt? No? No, do
you keep a line on the ball and you know no.
That's I'm describing myself by the.
Speaker 2: Way I do not put the do not do the
line thing. I just leave it there unless I have
to market for you know, get out of somebody's way.
You don't move it.
Speaker 1: The ball's got mud on it.
Speaker 2: Oh well, if it has mud on it, I clean it.
If it's just there, I just I just put it.
So I'm pretty fast putter, and I'm not great, but
I'm not terrible.
Speaker 1: You get thirty six putts in or you're thirty nine
or thirty two putts around, do you know.
Speaker 2: I don't keep track, but it's going to be more
than thirty six because I three putt once in a while.
Speaker 1: Once in a while, yeah, three times around.
Speaker 2: Usually I play nine holes, So I'm a nine hole guy.
Because of all my injuries, I feel, okay, you want
to know my score. If I play nine, I shoot
forty two, and if I play eighteen, I shoot fifty two.
On the back nine because my injuries start kicking it
and I can take four hundred tile in all, it
doesn't help. So I'm much happier playing nine, and I'm
much better. I won't I won't delve on my medical history,
but I've had a few things that would stop it.
Just they just kick in on the back nine about
the thirteenth hole, I can't really play anymore. So therefore
I might three putt on nine holes. I might three
punt once or twice.
Speaker 1: So there's no instructional advice going on in your game
or in your book. This is not for somebody who
wants instruction.
Speaker 2: I wouldn't say that if you want to work on
your golf swing, it's not the right book for you.
In fact, I have a woman that I hire.
Speaker 1: I was going to go there.
Speaker 2: No, it's not a golf swing thing. Except the one
thing I say is, if you want to work on
your golf swing. There's a video called swing Beats Ernie El's.
It's on YouTube. Go watch it. Don't think about it,
don't put it into words. Just watch Ernie L's swing
and it shows him hitting like a two iron, a
five iron, and an eight iron. It's the same swing
every time, same swing. And you know, Erniel says that
beautiful smooth swing. The other thing, you know, look at
Michelle Wie. Most guys if they if they swung like
Michelle Wie, would play better. But they they're trying to
hit it like Rory mckel right on. I'm going to
hit it really far. You know, just keep it in play,
get it straight. If you could hit the ball like
Michelle Wie, you'd be a lot better player than you are.
That's the only thing I talk about the golf swing.
I talk about the mental game more. You know, don't
be an idiot, which I don't always follow that policy.
You know, why do you get up and say I'm
going to put a little extra on this one, and
you know what happens? You hid in the water, hit
it two inches? What? What? What? What is it in
our minds that make us do that, I'm going to
hit this one really hard. I'm going to do the
old Russian hammer thrower swing here and it never works
out right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we have a we have a saying here on
Golf Smarter that I learned from a listener years and
years ago, and I keep repeating it, and as I'm
setting this up, I'm sure that there's listeners going, Okay,
I can sing along with this one. And it's never
follow a bad shot with a stupid shot.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there you go, there you go. Well, and then
then let's go into it. Hit your second shot first.
I start the book exactly what you know. You're just
playing for fun with a bunch of guys and you
hit a terrible t shot and they say, oh, come on,
think another one. Why do you hit a good one?
What what happened between those two things? And I say,
you know, people people think, well, I'm a bad person,
I'm being punished. Well that's not it, and or I'm stupid.
I'm stupid and that's it. Well, you didn't get smart
in the five seconds between the first and second shot,
and you didn't get to be a better person. What
why did you hit a better shot? It's because you're
not trying to do the same thing. You're trying to
put in play because you don't want to hit two
onto the driving range, right, you want to hit Okay,
you just hit a terrible shot. People are standing there
waiting for you to play. What do you do? You
turn it down a few notches and say, I got
to put in play. So that's a that's an instructional thing.
And the other thing is the mental game. And I
talk about that the famous Brooks Kopka interview, which is
real and I think you can find that on YouTube.
Amanda balionis, this is back before the big schism, and
brooks Kopka was playing on PGA Tour and it was
a regular tournament, wasn't a major and the bubbly Amanda balionis,
is now, Brooks, what were you thinking on this shot?
An eighteenth holl You had to go over the water,
You needed to get down in three to tie and
have a playoff. What were you thinking as you hit
this difficult shot which ended up three feet from the
hole You made the pott won the tournament? So what
were you thinking? And Brooks says nothing, That's his whole answer.
Nothing like well a man laughed. They both laughed. But
I said, if we could all think nothing, we'd be
a lot better. And then I go into comparing. Okay,
that's what Brooks was thinking. Here's what you'd be thinking.
Is my shoelace too tight? Where to put my car keys?
Should I open up the club face? It's downhill? Lie?
Why am I stupid? Why didn't I hit it over
to the right where it wasn't a downhill? Lie? You
know all these millions of things that the average Kui
goes through, You're much better off thinking nothing. That's hard
to do.
Speaker 1: Well. I invite you to listen to the Golf Smarter
podcasts regularly because we talked to a lot of mental coaches.
Even recently, we had on the Mother of Mindfulness. I mean,
this is a Harvard professor who's been given the title
of the Mother of Mindfulness. Okay, and we talk a
lot about keeping your mind empty, yep, and not think
about swing mechanics and what your swing thoughts are, but
think of something external, somewhere else on the course, in
your target line. But when you think about the things
that you have to do with your body, it's only
going to hurt you.
Speaker 2: I will watch it. I will watch But now Ben Hogan,
who gets a lot of ink in this book, for
ruining a lot of golfers. But his swing, his swing
thought was Henny Bogan. He brought back Henny came forward Bogan.
That's all he thought about. He adopted that when he
was a scrambled up version of his name. He started
doing that when he was twelve years old, and that
was his swing thought through his whole whole life. Now,
Ben Hogan, nobody would argue he's not one of the
greatest golfers of all time. Maybe had the nicest swing
of all time. But I do blame him for ruin
it for a lot of amateur golfers who think they
can swing like Ben Hogan. By the way, the number
one selling golf book is still five Lessons by Ben
Hogan every years the most. If you take me, I
could read that book a million times. I can't swing
like Ben Hogan. I cannot possibly move my body like
Ben Hogan tells me to. He spends twenty pages. There's
five lessons. First lessons on the grip, twenty pages. If
you go, if you don't know how to play golf,
and you go and they hand your club, how long
does it take thirty seconds for an overlapping grip. And
here's how you hold the club. Ben's twenty twenty pages
on that, by the way, five lessons. Here's how many
words he writes about the most important stroke for amateur golfer,
which is putting. That's the you look at how many strokes,
which which one do you hit the most? Putting? Ben
writes zero words on putting. He didn't like putting he has.
The older he got, the more he started choking all
he got the yips and couldn't putt. Still had a
great swing. But as you know, Ben's book is the
number one seller. And you take a guy my age
and give him Ben. In fact, I'm in this group
and every two weeks we have what we call the
Chicken Tournament. I started it off and we would play.
The winner got a rubber chicken which he got to
keep for two weeks, and it was fun. We'd throw
it around and it's grown and now we have chicken
headcovers for the low net and low gross. And sometimes
there's eight guys who play it. Sometimes there's fifty guys
who play, depending on the weather and so on. But
so the people have contributed different prizes and I contributed
another prize, which I have Hogan's book Five Lessons, and
I bought it on purpose, the most ratty copy I
could find on eBay for thirty five cents, has got
coffee stains on it and stuff. We give it to
a guy to try to jink them for the next turn.
We give it to the guy who wins tried to
jinks him for the next tournament, because if you read it,
it's going to ruin your game. I play with the
two best guys in my group. They have similar handicaps.
One of them has a really nice classics swing. It's
not Hogan, but it's nice classics swing. The other guy
has a you know, public course started playing on he
was twenty five guy swing. You would not write a book,
You would not take a video of this guy, and
you know, try to sell it as an instructional video
since he's a good golfer.
Speaker 1: So he his name is Jim Furick.
Speaker 2: Well, this guy makes Jim Furich look like Ben Hogan,
but he stands too far away from the A and
that's all these things you're the classical golfer wouldn't do.
But Jim Furick's a good example for a pro. He
doesn't have a classical swing. Just do your own swing,
get get a decent swing, and then don't think about
it anymore. Practice your short game and try to think
about nothing.
Speaker 1: It Actually, one of the parts that made me laugh
out loud was when you talked about the cult of
Hogan yep, And I thought that was just such a
great way to put it. And you're right, it's a
it's a fascinating book. It's very technical, but it's not
an easy read to go go ahead and read it
and then just apply it, you know, because you're like
you need help with that stuff. But it's still the
best selling book every well. Yet I think it's because
it's short.
Speaker 2: I had to change. I had to change. I had
to get a new primary care for position because mine retired.
And I got this guy who's like as old as
my oldest son, who's too handicap, And so we talked
about golf and I told him about my book and
how I make fun of Ben Hogan, And all of
a sudden, the temperature went down about twenty degrees in
the room, and he says, I'll read that book night.
I said, how old are when you started playing three?
If you're three, you can do it. If you're forty
five and you're starting, you're not gonna. Don't read Ben
Hogan's book Go to the Pro and I talk about
this in the book. People think I'm just going to
buy the new driver that's going to do it, and
I talk about the guy. This is true. I played
with the guy in the league that was, you know,
pretty serious league. Nobody ever gave you, but you couldn't
have to put him in. And this guy was a clown,
and he bought a new driver every year, and he
would always say, I can hit this thirty yards farther
than my old driver, and I don't know what. We
didn't like each other. So about the fifty year i'm playing,
this guy's still driving two hundred yards. He was driving
two hundred yards, still driving two hundred yards. They said,
you know, by my math, you should be up to
three fifty by now, because every driver you buy hit
thirty yards farther, and you know, it's one hundred and
fifty yards of five years. He didn't think that was
that great of a comment.
Speaker 1: No, I bet he didn't want to play with you.
Speaker 2: No, it was one of these things where you were
mad kind.
Speaker 1: Of stuck with each other.
Speaker 2: We never would have played together on purpose. He was
also one of these guys you must have played with
guys who can't tell you hit a good shot. You know,
the guy you make a fifty foot putt and he goes,
is that a two? Yeah, doesn't say anything. He's one
of those guys.
Speaker 1: That's not fun.
Speaker 2: But anyhow, what what I say is, you know, instead
of buying that new driver, which is gonna cost three
hundred bucks or six hundred bucks or one thousand bucks,
whatever it is, if you take that money and spend
it on lessons. I'm not encouraging people. Don't take it seriously.
Take you out. Take it seriously, but not too seriously.
But if you get a decent prose, not trying to
turn into Ben Hogan, working with what you got. Let's
say you're going to buy a five hundred dollars right,
If you spend five hundred dollars on lessons, that's a
much better investment than going out buying a new driver
that you can't hit.
Speaker 1: You probably have a greater chance of hitting the fairways
with those lessons than you do with just a new driver. Yeah,
and if you're gonna spend that money. Get a putter.
I mean right, a driver you use maybe fourteen times
around maybe, and a putter you they give you thirty
six shots with your putters. Yeah huh on the scorecard
before you even start. So it's like, do the math
folks come on.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we'll get it. You get a putter you can
put with. I agree, Yeah, you get a putter you
can put with?
Speaker 1: Yeah, go lab All right. So there were a couple
of things in here I wanted to bring up that
I was like, is that funny? I don't. I'm not
the cattle pride conversation. You keep bringing up cattle prods.
Why do you do that?
Speaker 2: Well, you know, I have a fund, I used to
have horses, so I'm familiar with the technology. But and
I'll give you for your listener, like the context. What
I say is, I'm talking about slow play. And there's
a guy who just got the range finder and he
hits his t shot and he's standing right next to
the one hundred and fifty yard marker, and what does
he do. He has to get out his range finder
and and holds her back because he doesn't know how
to use it yet, and takes all his time. And
then delusional guy thinks he can hit his eight iron
hunter fifty because in nineteen eighty seven he hit one
one hundred and fifty. He really should be yeah once,
so therefore you can hit that the rest of your life.
And he's never done it again. We all know this guy, right,
And so he swings too hard, he hits the ball
six feet. Then what does he do? He gets the
rangefinder out again again. Yeah, he says, well it's one
hundred and fifty two, you know. And then then I say,
you're allowed to use your cattle prod on that guy.
So some people think that's funny. In fact, one guy,
the one of the gifts we have for our chicken
tournament is a guy made up a pretend cattle prod.
Actually it's range finder. Cattle prode is actually pretty clever
the way guy made this. So one guy gets a
And the other thing that some people find objectionable is
I say that under certain circumstances it's okay to beat
somebody to death with a utter. You know, the guy
who you tee up your ball and before you can
take a swing, it falls off the tee. And what
there's always a guy who says it's one that's one. Yeah,
like it's something clever that you haven't heard four hundred
billion times. And I say, you give the guy a
warning and then if he does it again, you're allowed
to beat him to death or your potter. Now that's
not as I said that humor isn't for everybody. But
some people think it's funny.
Speaker 1: Right, right, sick humor. I know, I'm like going like that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, some people think it's objectionable, and so I say,
this book is a very However, this book has been
a best seller on Amazon, so some people think it's funny,
and it does sell every day somewhere in the world.
Somebody buys this book amazing, amazing, and it makes them break.
Speaker 1: If I have to go, if I have to go.
Defense of the pulling out the rain finder, it says
it's one hundred and fifty to the center of the
green and it's a red flag or or it's a
blue flag. You know, it's not in the se the
flag's not in the centers. You want to just kind
of have a better sense.
Speaker 2: And it's like, we probably should take play together.
Speaker 1: To literally.
Speaker 2: You know what I would tell you hit the middle
of the green. Aim for the middle of the green.
If you're that week and you can hit it in
the back of the green, no offense, I bet you're
not that good. Most guys. Ninety percent of the guys
aim for the middle of the green. If it's a
red flag, aim for the middle of the green. If
it's a blue flag, game for the middle of green.
Somewhere on the right, aim for the middle of the green.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, that's actually when I get in.
Speaker 2: Trouble, is when I get clever, say I'm a really
good wedge player, or somewhere on the right, what do
I do put in the trap aim for the middle
of the green.
Speaker 1: There was I don't remember who told me. There was
somebody on the show once, but they said that as
an experiment, of course, removed the flags from the course,
and more people were hitting getting greens in regulation because
they were just going for the center of the green.
Speaker 2: What do you know, right, they weren't.
Speaker 1: They weren't going pin seeking, and that they were. They
that their statistics showed that if you don't have the
flag there, you're going to more likely to get to
the to the on the green in regulation than if
you have to you know, try to pinpoint your shot
to a place that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm not everybody's cup of tea. I played for
the guy who wasn't that good, and he had a
fifteen foot putt downhill bender. There's no way he was
going to make it. And he walked around for about
four minutes looking at it, and I said, you better
make this expletive deleted putt. He says why. I said,
because we've been waiting four minutes and you're not going
to make this putt. And he missed by but he
hit it off the green because it was downhill and
if you missed, this thing was going off. He didn't
think that that was great. So so don't take four
minutes lining up your putt. If you're Jack Nicholas, okay,
but if you're just a regular guy, get up, get
a line on, hit the ball.
Speaker 1: The thing that attracted me to the book hit your
second shot first, by Jim Flynn. It was we have
a we have a phrase that we use regularly, which is,
after you've hit your second shot and it's inbounds and
you do a decent shot, we call that being a
second swing. All American's kind of thing. I thought you
would find fun.
Speaker 2: Well, there you go, there you go. I mean this
my philosophy isn't for people who are club champions and
playing for the regional championship and want to be professional golfers.
It's for the average golfer. As we talked about, go
for the middle of the green, go for the fairway.
Try to hit the ball in a fairway instead of
trying to hit it thirty yards farther behind a tree. Right.
Speaker 1: And there are short chapters. You don't have to read
them in order. You can go any direction you want.
So this is a great little book to keep in
the guest bathroom, right, so your guests can pick them like, oh,
what's this? They read one chapter.
Speaker 2: It's funny you say that, because I've had people tell
me that it's in the guest bathroom. I'm not offended.
I'm not going for Dostoevsky here. It's meant to be
a funny little thing you can pick up and read
one chapter and in an order. And as I said,
it has been an Amazon best Sorry it's Ben Hogan's book.
It's not going to be. It's not even what I
set out to do when I started writing. It just
has worked out for me. I've also written another golf book,
Ten Greatest Golfers of All Time, which is a little
more serious, and I talked about it, and it has
that required research, a lot of research, and it also
requires kicking some people off that that. I got some
pushback on why isn't Phil Mickelson on there? Wise in't
Jeans Arason, Peter Thompson. You know, there's there's a lot
of fans of how did.
Speaker 1: You determine who were the ten best golfers? Well, you've
got to at the what year did you write it?
Speaker 2: Last year? Now? Two years ago? Yeah? So pretty recently
Tiger and Tiger and Jack are number one and two
or they're buying for number one. That's easy. So you
got yes, So you got those two guys that start
with Arnie's got to be on the list, Hogan's got
to be on the list.
Speaker 1: Is it based on tour wins? Is it based on majors?
Or is it based on popularity?
Speaker 2: All the above?
Speaker 1: Cultural?
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, Bobby Jones. Sure, you know, there's certain names
you can't exclude from the list. But there also I
also it was a great learning experience. For example, Walter Hagen,
I didn't know anything about him, he made number ten
because he really invented. He was the first real golf pro.
I don't know if you know a lot about Walter Haighan.
He was a larger than life character. Yeah, he walked
into the He walked into the clubhouse in the bridge
open and said, okay, which one are you guys going
to be second?
Speaker 1: Ouch?
Speaker 2: Yeah, And that was him, and he had you know,
silk shirt and the whole deal. You know. I mentioned,
you know, Larry Bird in the first three point shooting
contest when they started that at the NBA All Star Game,
he walked in the locker room and said, Okay, which
one are you guys going to be second? And Larry
didn't know that he was saying the same thing Walter
Haigen said in nineteen twenty two or something. And the
key for both Larry and Walter Hagen is you gotta win.
You can't say that not win. So that was a
fun book to write, and it did have I did
get some pushback on it. It didn't sell as much
as the funny. It is funny, and I can't write
a book and not be funny at all. But and
I take some shots at people in it, and some
people didn't like that.
Speaker 1: Well, I think it's a great thing if people are
giving you pushback on who's on your list, because that
means they're reading it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, oh yeah, that's great.
Speaker 1: Sure, come on tell me more.
Speaker 2: Let's hear that's also that's also we're done the ten grade.
This book is you say, is snarky and it's not
for everybody ten grass golfers. You could pretty much give anybody.
It's not going to offend anybody, and it and it does.
You're going to learn some things about Arnold Palmer you
didn't know because I did a lot of research, even
Jack Nicklace, even Tiger You're gonna learn some things you
didn't know about them.
Speaker 1: How long did it take you to write that book?
Speaker 2: That took a while. Although research is a lot easier
now with chat and AHI and all that stuff, and
it sends you to other places. I don't know if
you do use AI at all. I do, Yeah, it's
it's Research for a non fiction book is a lot
easier than it used to be. Imagine what are you
going to do to go to the library. Yeah, so,
and I really enjoyed that and it was a learning experience.
Speaker 1: Awesome. Well have you ever read the book The Match
by Mark Frost. Yes, I love that book. Ye. I
read it probably eighteen nineteen years ago and it's still
on my list of some of the one of the
best golf books I've ever read.
Speaker 2: It reminds me. I don't want to get too deep
down the tunnel here, but I think he might have
based that on a book about a bicycle race.
Speaker 1: Really.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm guessing after I read that book, there's a
there's a book about a one day bicycle race in Europe,
and there's an awful lot of parallels between those two books.
And I'm guessing I bet you read that book.
Speaker 1: Interesting, that wouldn't be surprised. Huh. So another thing you
talk about in the book a lot that I wanted
to why why does this keep coming up? Is why
you might be delusional as a golfer. Well you explain
that to me, please.
Speaker 2: Well, I think all golfers are delusional, including me. Yeah.
As we're talking about Okay, I'm going on playing good.
There's a par five. I know I cannot reach it
into There's no chance I can. Even if the fairy's
frozen and it's windy, I'm not going to reach it.
I can't do it yet. I stand on the first
of standing on the tee and I try to hit
it too far. Why I know it's going to take
me three shots. I just want to put in the fairway.
What what makes me do this? And I think I'm
less delusional than a lot of guys. You know the
guy who in nineteen eighty seven he hit a seven
iron one hundred and sixty three yards. Therefore I can
always hit a seven iron hundred and sixty three yards.
What makes guys like do that? And they do it?
And I'm talking about doctors and you know, smart people,
but they have this thing about golf. They well, I
think one of the problems is you see guys on
TV and you think you can do what they do
and it doesn't look that hard, right, isn't It isn't
like tackling a guy in Kansas City. You know, you're
not tackling Travis Kelsey here. You're just hitting a golf ball.
People think, oh, I can do that, and they can't.
You can't be them. But I think all golfers are delusional.
You go out next time, and don't don't delude delude yourself.
I do it at least once a round. Oh I
can hit that. No, I can't just lay up. They're
time to lay up. How many people don't ever lay up?
Speaker 1: Right? Yeah? Never follow a bad chat with a stupid chot.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah.
Speaker 1: And you know it's interesting because your handicap is based
on your potential. It's not the average of your last
twenty rounds. It's your eight best scores of your last
twenty rounds. So if they're going to tell you that
I'm gonna mark you as you know, your your gambling
prowess based on your potential, then why can't I play
based on my potential? Because I did hit my seven
iron one hundred and seventy yards once, yeah, fifteen years ago.
Speaker 2: And how many guys you know who do that? And
you see him every time every round they they have
an impossible shot. They got to go through two traps,
the greens, you know, the pins on the side of
the green. There's no chance they should just lay up
in front of the green chip on they go for it.
That's delusional. They're gonna make that shot one out of
ten times. Don't do that, that's delusional. That's what I'm
talking about.
Speaker 1: You got a website, yes, Jim Flynn six dot com
s I j I M okay, j I M F
L y N N R si X dot com. What's
the six?
Speaker 2: Four oh after I published my first book? Okay, after
I published my first book, well, I didn't have any
idea what I was doing. I didn't know you could
how to publish a book anything. I just wrote this
book and I put it up on Amazon. And the
next day I went looked for it and I realized
there's five other guys named Jim Flynn with books on Amazon.
Oh boy, you know Jim Flynn. Well, Fred Green isn't
exactly uncommon either, you know, Jim Flynn's kind of Mike
Smith kind of name. There's there's a guy's a sociologist
in New Zealand with a book. There's a guy who's
written the history of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers named Jim
Flynn with a book on Amazon. So I became Jim
Flynn six. That's my website.
Speaker 1: Okay. That was good to know. And the book again
is called Hit Your Second Shot First by Jim Flynn.
Fun little book to have if you have a nice
library of golf books. And we've been talking for years
and years about different books, and you've been filling up
your library. This is a good one. And if you
have friends that you want to just give a hard time,
buy a copy for them too. Jim, it was great
talk to you. Thanks well, thanks.
Speaker 2: Thanks for Uch for having me. I can hear a
little hesitation in your voice because the book isn't for everybody.
I know that, but some people will think it's funny.
And that's all I'm all I'm asking for.