Speaker 1: Hi.
Speaker 2: I'm Kyle Foffy from Cedar Park, Texas, and I golf
at Twin Creeks Country Club.
Speaker 3: Welcome to Golf Smarter. Hi.
Speaker 1: This is Phil Calvert from Coming, Georgia. I play It
Bears Best in Siwani. This is Golf Smart number oneenty
twenty one.
Speaker 2: The issue that we need to deal with is we've
got to eradicate golf intimidation. It's okay to duffer shop,
it's okay to not strip at two hundred and fifty
yard drive. We don't really care if the golf balls
are jacked or not jack. It's not going to make
any difference to my game. I don't know if I
need a new driver every year to pick up the
extra ten yards for the golf that I want to play.
Because golf is happening everywhere. It's happened at the office,
it's happening outside, it's happening with your kids, it's happening
with your grandparents.
Speaker 3: Everybody is playing golf.
Speaker 2: And even what's more interesting, couples golf tournaments, formerly known
as a divorce open, are now the rage.
Speaker 3: More people want to play with their spouse.
Speaker 2: That was always a top It's an event because of
some of the tension.
Speaker 3: Now people love it. They want to play nine and
wine and dying.
Speaker 2: And that's where we're at with golf as we understand
that you don't play golf to get away from your family.
Speaker 3: You can play golf to be with your family.
Speaker 1: Not about golf, the life changing joy of playing the game.
With the author Mike Berlin, 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 to the Golf Smarter podcast.
Speaker 3: Mike, Hey, Freg welcome back.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Yeah, thank you. So he's referring to the
fact that I've been traveling a lot, but I'm here
now and getting to have more conversations for the podcast,
which I love doing. And this one just based on
our few minutes of introduction to one another. This is
going to be lively.
Speaker 2: We have a lot of sep We've had a common journey,
so I'm glad to go through it with you.
Speaker 1: Explain the common journey part.
Speaker 2: I think we both came in the golf a little
bit later. I didn't grow up with golf. It came
to me when I was in my twenties, and it
really surprised me because I didn't think golf.
Speaker 3: Was for me.
Speaker 1: And what was the moment that you went, oh, this
is for me.
Speaker 2: I was on a mandatory vacation doing my first job.
I had gotten some irritable ball syndrome and my boss said, hey,
you need to take a vacation. And I went down
to Santabal Island in Florida with my mother and my stepfather.
My stepfather was an adamant golfer. My father had never
golfed in his whole life. And he said, well, let's
go to the driving range. And I thought this is
going to be kind of boring. I don't want to
watch him hit golf balls, but he said, come anyway.
And then after he hit a few balls, he said,
why don't you try it? And he had this driver
called the Big Whale. And do you remember the big Wheel?
It was by Wilson Whale. La, I have it now
because I bogged on eBay And if the big wheel
is not big at all compared to the big berth
end some of these other ones that are out there.
But he said, why don't you hit it? And I
got up. I cheat the ball up and I hit
it and in my mind that ball went three hundred
yards straight in the.
Speaker 3: Air and I was harked.
Speaker 2: Looking back, it probably went one hundred and twenty yards
and sliced, but in my mind it was the biggest
driverver right down.
Speaker 3: And I was hooked on golf.
Speaker 2: And the rest of the trip I took lessons, I
started to play, and I was hooked on golf.
Speaker 3: And this was nineteen this was nineteen ninety.
Speaker 1: Okay, perfect. And that's what it'll do to you. I mean,
it just takes if you're not a golfer or you're
new to golf, you know, and if you've been playing
most of your life, you know, it takes one swing
with contact and you see the ball in the air
and it's like, oh, this is awesome.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the dope rushes to your head and then it's
you know, I as a as a researcher, I've looked
into it. There's a dopamine rush that comes when you
hit the ball in the air. There's a dopamine rush
when you sink a pot. And it doesn't matter if
it's a twelve footer or a one footer. That little
noise when it goes down is dopamine rush, and you
live for it. That's why I tell people, if you're
having trouble golfing, go putt for twenty minutes. Just go
feel success or the ball going into the cup, and
then go back to the range or go play golf
and it will change your mind.
Speaker 3: Your chemistry is different. You've had success.
Speaker 2: Sometimes hitting seven irons for an hour can be a
very frustrating experience.
Speaker 1: Absolutely. I frequently get people going, hey, I'm I'm you know,
I'm trying to come back into golf now that my
kids are getting a little bit older, I've had to
take a break from it. How do I get my
kid into golf? And I'll say, take them to the
putting green, give them, give them three foot putts that
they can figure out that they can do. Hitting a
golf ball's hard. Putting is easy, and if they get
good at putting, the game's going to be easy for them.
Speaker 2: Hey, Fred, I've worked on my putting and taking five
strokes off all on eliminating three putts yep. And so
I mean for all of us, whether we're kids or
whether we're adults, getting your being a confident putter can
just make the day so much better.
Speaker 1: Well, let me blow your mind for a minute and
see if you're familiar with this. A couple episodes ago
we had Eric Alpenfels, who is the head golf instructor
at Pinehurst, has been for decades, and well, he wrote
a book called Instinct Putting, and his whole point is
looking at the hole, not at the ball when you're.
Speaker 2: Putting nice, which you can easily do, right, it's not
hard once you get used to it.
Speaker 1: Well, it's a commitment and I love that. Right, you've
got to trust it exactly. But think about this. You
ever play corn hole?
Speaker 3: Yeah, of course, sure?
Speaker 1: What do you looking at?
Speaker 3: You look at the hole? Man?
Speaker 1: Exactly? You ever shoot a basket?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Yeah, right? You ever shoot a basket?
Speaker 3: Look at hoot?
Speaker 1: Right? You ever hit a baseball?
Speaker 3: Yeah exactly.
Speaker 1: You're looking at the ball. You don't look at And
so what happens when you're putting with instinct, With most putting,
you look at the hole, you look at the ball,
You look at the hole, you look at the ball.
You stay at the ball. You stay at the ball,
You stay at the ball, and you forget where the
hole is. But you take a putt right and you
come up short and you're like, how did that happen? Well,
you you're not connected to it. But when you look,
even on short puts especially, but I've been using on
short and long putts and having great success with my
distance control and holding out long putts, including holding out
ten footers regularly.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 1: By looking at a very specific spot where I wanted
to go, you know, and and it works so well.
When I played Riviera. We were talking about I played
Riviera first the first hole, guy, I've got like a
thirty foot putt, and the caddies like, hit it right here,
and I was looking at that spot the whole time
and it went in. We don't won't.
Speaker 2: But when we played courses that we haven't played before
and we don't quite know the contours and we don't
know the speed, you got to trust the spot because
you know. And so if that gives you that confidence.
If I don't do my putting routine, which I do
in a point, but if I don't do the putting routine,
I miss every time and I don't even know why
I do. But I've got to go through the routine
to know the distance, to know the spot, and then
the commitment comes, and without the commitment, I'm just I'm
just hacking it.
Speaker 3: I'm I'm not I'm not in it. I'm not committed
right right.
Speaker 1: And that's the thing I mean, We've talked to so
many instructors on the show. It's all about your preshot routine, consistency, right,
doing it over and over, and just being comfortable with it,
and including being comfortable with the dog barking because she
wants to come in. Okay, good, she's driving me nuts,
all right anyways.
Speaker 2: But when you play with a partner, if you're a
good part of somehow your partner calms down, you know,
like somebody somebody you're with. I noticed that spending time
on the green can really annoy the other golfers in
the foursome, can annoy your partner like they want to
play kind of quickly, and a slow, slow golf on
the green is actually emerging as one of the biggest
hang ups that golfers are having. Like you've got to
be sort of quick and methodical, but don't be slow.
It's just as bad as being slow in the fairway now, right,
I maybe think they should put a shock clock on
a pup.
Speaker 1: Talk you never watch TGL.
Speaker 3: Finally they have it.
Speaker 1: I love the shot clock.
Speaker 3: You're making bitter decisions. I don't think so, No, just
do it.
Speaker 1: And I know I'm very deliberate about my preshot routine
on the green and in my shot and I have
a feeling that there's people that are like, come on, Fred,
just if you make it, if you ever watch it
on TV, and they take a whole lot more time
than I do. Relax.
Speaker 2: As long as you're three party, nobody cares. Yeah, right, exactly,
it's a three part that takes a long.
Speaker 1: Time, right, especially when you go through that routine again.
Speaker 3: Exactly.
Speaker 1: You know we're here because you wrote a book. It's
called not about Golf, right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's the biggest mistrack. Not about golf.
Speaker 2: All about golf, but it's not the golf that most
people think about. Most people think about golf as the
tips and tricks, how to get a lower score, how
to improve your game, how to get some distance. I
don't think that that really matters for the golf I play.
For the golf I played. How to have a more
fun time with your friends, how to find more fulfillment
on the golf course, how to build a better network.
And there's you can't take a lesson on that you
talked about your son learning etiquette on the golf course.
What a magical lesson for him to learn early in life.
A few places to have behaviors that will lead to
a more enjoyable experience by everybody who's playing with them.
And I think for social golf and for golf networking,
you can see into the soul of the person you're
playing with.
Speaker 3: By the fourteenth hole.
Speaker 2: You know if they're a good person, an honest person,
a caring person, or a person who will a generous
person will help you look for their ball, a person
who can deal with frustrating situations, who will celebrate your
good shots. And for me, those are the people who
I want to be with. And if I blased somebody
who I see can't control their anger, or who gets
frustrated easily, or who'll get or who doesn't want to
help me look for a lost ball, are these people
that I really want in my life in other areas?
Speaker 3: And most of the time the answer is no, I don't.
I don't.
Speaker 2: I'm not looking for the most competitive games. I'm not
looking to destroy my opponents. I'm looking to have friends
and colleagues and people who I enjoy spending time with.
Fred I spend If I spend four hours golfing with someone,
that's probably the biggest time commitment I'm going to make
that day, and so I want to enjoy it.
Speaker 1: There's no question that golf exposes character. Yeah, like you
were just talking about how how you know doing it?
I did an episode once talking about doing business on
the golf course and what the person was explaining this
woman was great and it's always stayed with me, is
that when you're going out to play golf with somebody
who you may do business with, whether be an lawyer, employee,
or a client customer, whatever it is, you don't do
business during the round. What you do is you learn
if you want to do business with that person while
watching them play golf, what is their temperament, like, what
is their anger level, what is you know, what gets
them going? And then if you decide that yes, you
do want to play golf, you do want to do
business with them, then you do that in the nineteenth fold,
you go to the bar and then you start talking
about it to your thoughts.
Speaker 3: It's the ultimate character referrals.
Speaker 2: But you you're finding out they're honest, and that means
are they calling their true score?
Speaker 3: Are they committed? Are they you know, do they have
this stick to it? Noess?
Speaker 2: Can they deal with adversity? All of those things? Are
they going to rip you off? Are they fairer? Those
are all the things that you want to know, and
you can't find out in a phone call, like oftentimes,
you have to do business to find out if you
want to keep doing business well on the golf course.
If it doesn't go well on the golf course, is
not going to go well in the business deal. So no,
I've never negotiated a single business term or completed a
deal on the golf course. Have I made relationships where
people trust me and I trust them and I want
to spend more time with them.
Speaker 3: Absolutely. Have we had conversation that proves.
Speaker 2: Because I was a political and brand consultant, where I
had something interesting to say or they had a problem
that I can help.
Speaker 3: Them with, for sure.
Speaker 2: But most of the time we're you know, we're chit
chatting about life, and then we talk about this shot,
and then we're chitchatting about something else and then we
say great pot. So it's always golf sprinkled in conversation.
And what I like about golf is golf is the
natural chit chat. When you run out of chitchat great drive,
you can talk about top break. Oh you lost that ball.
That's going to be expensive hole because you just put
your pro v one in the world water and you
know what, you have another one that's exactly or I
think the ultimate thing is I love this will of
somebody finding a golf ball, Like I just I love
when they delight in finding a new gol and it
put they put it in their back and I'm like,
I'm really happy for you found a new golf ball.
Speaker 3: St people to light in that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, oh absolutely absolutely. So do you play for money?
Do you are you gambler on the golf course or I.
Speaker 2: Mean, I mean my biggest bet are two, two, four, five, five, ten,
Those are the nassaus that that's my you know, and
if I splurge, it's you know, dollar skins. Yeah, that's
that's that's what I was big as a catch. I
don't need to bet money in golf. That doesn't it
doesn't get me more engaged or energize.
Speaker 3: It just gets me nervous.
Speaker 1: The exact same way. It's like part of the problem
with my son. Even when we went to top golf,
He's like, all right, bucks on this. I'm like, come on, man,
just let's hit the ball. I can't do it unless
I have skin in the games, like.
Speaker 3: Because he can't.
Speaker 2: He didn't play with his dad enough skin in the game,
like I mean, either rooting for his dad or rooting
against his dad would be. My son and I used
to play twenty dollars. I think we played twenty dollars
skinned until maybe he was fourteen, because he needed money
and he could always beat me, so it was I
always knew it was a good way to give him
some money, spend some time with him, keep him engaged.
And then I think somewhere around when he graduated high
schools like, dad, we don't need to play for money anymore.
I just want to be out here with you.
Speaker 3: And I thought that was very sweet.
Speaker 2: And then he asked for a couple hundred bucks afterwards
for some you know, with him spending money.
Speaker 3: But he didn't have to win it off me.
Speaker 1: Right we were, my son and I were playing. Once
he goes I have fifty bucks, I'm like five, because
no fifty. I said, do you need fifty bucks. If
you need fifty bucks, I'm happy to give it. Right,
don't torment me, don't.
Speaker 3: Humiliate me, right, don't don't make me.
Speaker 1: You know, he can't beat me.
Speaker 3: He can't beat you.
Speaker 1: No, he cannot beat me. But he can. But he
gets into my head better than anybody. And one time
we were going out and I'm like, okay to no,
I'm just going to get into his head. I know
I can beat him. I'm just going to get into
his head. And what happens. He has one of the
worst rounds of his life and I can't do it.
It's like, my son, I can't beat you up. You're
beating yourself.
Speaker 3: Up so much.
Speaker 2: Now you're going to take off him and he is.
He calculating for holes. So he's like putting it out down,
six down, seven.
Speaker 1: Times over and said, just tell me at the end
of the round and at it up. I don't want
to know during the run.
Speaker 3: Did he have money to pay you?
Speaker 1: Oh? Yeah, always. I haven't had to give this kid
an allowance since he was eight. He's always got a
scam going.
Speaker 2: That's I mean, that's a pretty entrepreneurial kid.
Speaker 3: So that's good. So I mean something's working.
Speaker 1: Yes, he's and he's working it.
Speaker 3: I told you before, and yeah it works. And that's
my son. Matthew is is too. I don't. He doesn't.
Speaker 2: He doesn't bet on the golf course anymore. Maybe maybe
with his friends, but it's not for money, it's for honor,
it's for points. They do a Ryder Cup. All his
college friends get together a couple of times year and
they do a Rider Cup format. And that's just fun
to see that they love golf so much that they'll
fly to Arizona or they'll fly up here to New
York and just play.
Speaker 3: That's exciting.
Speaker 1: Absolutely. So you mentioned about using golf to build a
better network.
Speaker 3: Yeah, let's.
Speaker 1: Bring that out. Let's tease that out for just a
moment here.
Speaker 2: I've think fortunate to be part of a group called
a Young Professionals Young President's Organization, which is a group
of which is a group of young presidents all under
fifty years old, and they have something called the Golf Network.
And originally I thought the Golf Network was for all
these young presidents who were you know, scratch golfers. No,
the Golf Network is for like fifteen to twenty handicaps
who just enjoy getting together for golf, and White is
spread all over the world, and so I would look
at the website and find all these different places they
were hosting golf events. So the first one I found
was the YPO World Championship, which I thought that sounds
like a big thing, and it was in Dubai, and
I'm going to go play in the YPO World Championship.
It turned out to be a bunch of fifteen and
twenty handicappers and Dubai was just coming together. And I've
gone to events in Australia and Tasmania. I've gone to events.
Speaker 1: Events these are young that's Young Presidents organization.
Speaker 2: All Young Presidents. And so that was that was one
form of my golf network. And then in New York,
I know New York has a lot of golf, there's
there's public I mean, we have the Ryder.
Speaker 3: Cup coming in just a couple of pages.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that case, which will be that's going to really
be a major event from there. That will be as
big as any Yankee World Series or Nicks basketball or
you know, even they're going to have the World Cup.
I don't I don't think New York expects what the
Ryder Cup has become because it hasn't been here in
a while, and New York is going to go absolutely
crazy for their for their for the Ryder Cup.
Speaker 3: So but I have so, I have friends and we
each are.
Speaker 2: Either members of private courses golf clubs or have public
courses and we just play. I never I never play
more than five rounds at my home club because I'm
always going to my friend clubs and having home and
homes and that's something I really enjoy.
Speaker 1: That's awesome. That's awesome. So, so your book about not
about golf, you know. The line that I was fed
here is that it explores the life changing joy of
the game, debunking myths and highlighting how golf's momentum fosters
social and networking benefits for everyone.
Speaker 2: Yes, well, because golf brings people together together of all abilities.
With the handicap system, we can all play golf. So
the handicap, I'm a fourteen handicap, I don't know you're something.
Speaker 3: You're a five handicap more you were a five handed.
But even when in the days when you were lowered.
Speaker 2: We could play together because you would you know, you
would give me a couple of strokes on different holes
and we'd have very competitive matches. Equals the playing field
a little bit and allows us to stay engaged, and
no other sports.
Speaker 3: Really allow that.
Speaker 2: You know, you always have to have similar level of
players playing or it's not satisfying. So golf brings together
that way. It also brings together people in different formats
at different times, and it's outdoors. It's a way to
spend time with each other. And now after the pandemic
where golf was completely discovered as the one sport that
we could all do together, people realize that no one
really cares how you're playing golf as long as you're
playing fast and as long as you're keeping accurate scores.
What golfers don't like is they don't like because it's
one golf course for all of us, no matter what
the level. So the golf course has to keep moving
and golfers like to keep things honest. So if you're
playing fast and you're playing honest, everybody will want to
be out with you. And it's a great equalizer. And
there's very few things like that that bring communities together. Men, women, children,
gen Z's are playing more golf than ever, and they're
not just playing on golf course, they're also playing in simulators.
I think you know that half of there's seventeen million
golfers who are playing in simulators, which is indoor like
a five iron, which is a big simulator. Here in
New York. We talked about top golf, and that's where
a lot of golf is being played.
Speaker 1: Let's continue have thought about simulator golf, indoor golf, because
it is really exploding right now. The technology has gotten
so good. TGL has helped promote it, and I think
that young people are discovering that, hey, wait, I can
play golf. I can play eighteen holes of golf in
under two hours and I don't have to walk or
ride a cart. This sounds wonderful.
Speaker 3: And you get amazing feedback.
Speaker 2: Because Jenz loves to have feedback, how long did ago,
how high did it go?
Speaker 3: What was this spin?
Speaker 2: Because they're used to video games, so they get that
instant feedback, but they get the dopamine rush. If the
simulator says it was too sixty two down the fairway,
it's too sixty two down the fairway. There's no disputing that.
And unlike en course golf, where you know, there might
be a pond on the right, or there might be
trees on the left. They don't see those, they don't
really see those ferriers. So some of the stress that
can come from just you know, looking at the site
or the bunker doesn't exist. You're always hitting at the screen.
So it's it's actually a more enjoyable experience where they
can groove their swing get good results. And the simulative
golf translates to encorese So if they play.
Speaker 3: One on one on green.
Speaker 2: Grass for every three simulators, that's a beautiful ratio. And
it's also very cost effective, very cost effective, sixty five
dollars an hour for similar to golf. Maybe you can
get it down as though many buildings are putting simulated
golf as an amenity in residential and it's an amenity
and commercial now is it really?
Speaker 3: Yes?
Speaker 2: If you look at the Empire State Building here in
New York City, the world's most famous building, they have
a simulator, and they have they have tournament and they
are using it as a way to get their tenants
to convene groups. And it's a wonderful amendy in a
building that is legendary and historic and epic as the
Empire State.
Speaker 1: And as we were discussing, it builds your network. It's
a great way to build your network.
Speaker 2: It builds your network, and you're talking to people. One
person hits seven people are talking.
Speaker 3: I didn't.
Speaker 2: I wonder if they even played foursomes. I bet simulator
golf allow us for all different formats.
Speaker 3: Sure, sure, right.
Speaker 1: Right, well right now, let's let's get back to or
let's get not even back. We haven't gotten there yet.
We've been chatting like this but not about golf. Is
not your first book, but it's your first golf topic book.
Let's establish where you came from and now you got
to this spot.
Speaker 3: Well, I'm a researcher.
Speaker 2: I started off doing polling for an audacious congressman named
Ed Kotch who wanted to New York City. I worked
for Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton. I worked for Mike Bloomberg,
and I worked for some of the top brands I
worked for. I worked for Open Ai, worked for Airbnb.
I've worked for all these different brands who really for politician.
They wanted to get elected, for the brands who were
disrupting the way that people do business. They wanted to
get momentum, and so I was a momentum seeker, and
so as a polster, I find information and I share
it with large groups. And the book that I'm probably
most well known for is called maxim Momentum, How to
Get It and How to Keep It was a book
about modern momentum, and momentum was always this very emotional
feeling like I have momentum, I've lost momentum. I was
able to quantify momentum using social media analytics and create
an algorithm to decide a brand, a person, a sport,
who you know who has momentum and how to keep it?
Speaker 3: And I used.
Speaker 2: So Isaac Newton's definition of mass time's velocity to calculate momentum.
And so in the book, I showed how modern politicians,
Donald Trump, whether you liked him or hate him, a
momentum master who in politicians you always have to have
maximum momentum on election day or you lose. And Trump
seems to figure out how to get that momentum. And
so we admired and we see politicians who couldn't get
the momentum or peaked too early and lost. So that
was a lesson I learned in politics and with golf.
I always thought that I found golf at twenty one
and it had been a real life changer for me
and my family and my wife, and we played and
my friends played. But I didn't understand the cultural significance
of golf until the pandemic happened. And during the pandemic,
golf was really one of the few things that we
could do as a society, as a neighborhood, as a
community to go out in golf because we had all
the social protections to be outside.
Speaker 3: It wasn't contagious.
Speaker 2: We could do as for it, be together, but we
could still be separated, right And so golf sturge. Eight
hundred thousand more women started to play golf. Gen Z
came into golf, and there were golfers who were starting
to play at sixty year old golfers for the first time.
We're coming out to play because they wanted to be
part of it. They weren't trying to win the club championship,
although maybe some of them were. Most of them just
wanted to be social and be with their friends. And
I could see the momentum of golf just absolutely taking off,
and that's why I wanted.
Speaker 3: To share it.
Speaker 2: Because I knew they could take lessons to get their
swing better, but who was going to teach them the
social and networking parts of golf? And I felt that
this was my opportunity to share with them.
Speaker 1: You know, in the years that I've been doing this,
we've seen two momentum factors in golf, the second one
being COVID where the pandemic to industries that really benefited
from from the pandemic were golf and podcasting. So I
seemed to be right in the right spot. Yeah, podcasting
exploded at that point, but also the Tiger Woods effect
in their early two thousands was another thing. So where
are we now as far as momentum in golf to
continue to grow the sport. Are we in a good
spot or is it kind of waning because we're no
that far outside of no?
Speaker 3: I think so.
Speaker 2: Tiger Woods brought in athletes and brought in people who
wanted to be like Tiger play like Tiger, And I
actually think that while it was amazing for the sport,
that was an intimidating version of golf because Tiger Woods
was an amazing player who made great shots, and that
was still the era where there were golf I mean
there was Nie Arnold, Palmer, Jack Nicholas and and we
can go through Gary Player, all these amazing golfers and
you wanted to be a PGA pro. Right, this isn't
what we're talking about. We're talking about a grass roots
led from the people wanting to go into the golf court.
It's a very different movement that's going on right now.
Which I think that as I've gone through these book
tour and understanding the issue that we have Freds that
we need to deal with is we've got to eradicate
golf intimidation. And what I mean by golf intimidation is
it's okay to duffer shot. You know, it's okay to
not have to stripe a two hundred and fifty hours drive.
We don't really care if the golf balls are jacked
or not jacked. It's not going to make any difference
to my game. I don't know if I need a
new driver every year to pick up the extra ten
yards for the golf that I want to play.
Speaker 3: Like I said, I probably need to plot a little
bit more.
Speaker 2: And that's the type of golf that we're into now.
And I say that because golf is happening everywhere. It's
happened at the office, it's happening in your building, it's
happening outside, it's happening with your kids, it's happening with
your grandparents. Everybody is playing golf and all the and
even what's more interesting, couples golf tournaments, formerly known as
the Divorce Open, are.
Speaker 3: Now the rage.
Speaker 2: More people want to play with their spouse, whether it's
your husband or your wife. That was always a toxic
event because of some of the tension. Now people love it.
They want to have play nine and wine and dine.
And that's where we're at with golf. And so I
think as we understand that you don't play golf to
get away from your family, you play golf to be
with your family. It's a very different mindset.
Speaker 1: It really is. It really is, really.
Speaker 2: Is, and I think the golf When I talked to
the Golf Channel about it, I was surprised that they
were my first interview because I was worried with golf,
you know, with the with the golf hierarchy. Would think
about a guy writing a book called Not about Golf,
like how serious is he? And they were like, yeah,
maybe we should maybe we are a little intimidating, and
maybe people don't understand that if you talk to a
PGA professional, they don't really care. If they're playing with
you in a social game, they don't care how you play.
They just want to like you. And that if they're
in a match to win some money, or you know,
an amateur event where they're going to you know where
they're going to be, you know, the champion, sure they
want to take it. But if they're just playing a
social match where you're having a few drinks, he just
wants someone who's who's engaging and quite frankly, they say,
not an asshole.
Speaker 1: Part of what your book talks about is a lot
about your golf. Your your experience is going and playing
in some of the greatest courses. And I was like,
I don't want to know, guy, you keep talking about
these great courses that I'll never go to play. This
is so cool and it's all about your experience. But
tell me more about debunking myths in golf.
Speaker 2: Well, I think the biggest myth about golf is that
it's older people, it's wealthier people, it's whier people, and
that might have been a version and it's more male.
That might have been a golf in the past, but
it isn't what golf is today. Golf is more accessible
than it's ever been. Golf is as much younger people
as older people.
Speaker 3: It's as many women as men.
Speaker 2: And so I think getting rid of this older image
of golf and getting to a modern image golf fashion
like I'm still waiting for being able to untuck my
shirt everywhere I go. It hasn't happened yet, but it's
starting to. Golf is mirroring society and the values. Golf
is inclusive. If I say, do you golf, I'm not
trying to keep you out of my life. I'm trying
to bring you into my life. I want to If
I say to you golf, it means I want to
spend time with you. I want to hang out with you.
And I'm not going to I'm not going to judge you,
hire you golf. I'm going to judge you as a person.
I'm going to judge your character. I'm going to judge
are you engaging? Are you caring? And that's where golf
is changing. I'm not going to I mean, I might
tease you a little bit if you if you make
a fundy shot, but I'll do it with a smile,
and I'll do it in an endearing way.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So one of the things that other people are like, yeah,
I don't I don't know. I can't. What a stupid
game that putting a ball in a little hole.
Speaker 2: That's not what golf is because they don't get it,
and they won't spend the time I have. People say,
I wouldn't spend four hours doing that. I want something
more athletic, I want something more strategic. I want something
more engaging. And I say to them, well, why don't
we come out and walk eighteen holes and you tell
me how you're feeling. Why don't we think about these
shots and all the different options, and you can tell
me if your mind was engaged, or if you want
to play inside, and let's have a few drinks and
talk and then you tell me at the end what
you thought, because you've made up this mental mind of
what you think golf is based on some understanding that
you had, and the truth of the matter is you
haven't opened.
Speaker 3: Your mind to try it. And that's what I wanted
to do with the book.
Speaker 2: That one of the reasons I even did the color
is I didn't do like the classic Bucolic scene of
a fairway with trees, I put a big golf ball
with his textured because that is the universal sign that
everybody recognized. Whether you play championship golf, simulator golf, mini golf,
pot pop golf, everybody would no matter what language you
play in, if you play in Korean, Japanese, Spanish, English,
you know what a golf fall is.
Speaker 3: And we all know what a golf fall is.
Speaker 1: Yes. Yes. One of my favorite lines in the book
is the game itself is a laboratory for positive life
skills such as generosity, humility, humor, kindness, and friendship.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's and you certainly know, you certainly know
after fourteen holes. I don't think you have to play
with someone twice. They cannot control their impulses, good or bad.
Because you have adversity in golf no matter who you are.
Something doesn't exactly work out the way you planned, or
you have unexpected success in golf, and both of those
require a certain temperament. If we are something great happen
in our life, we don't instantly jump up for joy
and start hugging each other. And if something bad happens,
in life. You know, we don't start throwing stuff. If
you know people who throw their club I'll never talk
to them again.
Speaker 3: Like, I'm not into that. I want to know you
need help.
Speaker 1: Yeah. One of my listeners told me when he was
playing with his dad when he was a kid, and
he got upset and threw his club and his dad said,
you're not good enough to throw your clubs yet.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't.
Speaker 2: I wonder what that would feel like, because don't you
need that club, you know, like.
Speaker 3: Like right, like that.
Speaker 2: I have a practical thing, so like if you throw
your wedge, you're going to need to be hit that
wedge again. So probably I see it like I see people,
you know, slam a club, even in simulators, I see it.
Speaker 3: I'm like, it's it's golf.
Speaker 2: You have another shot, Like there's always another shot, another one.
Speaker 1: People have expectations of, like, and golf's not that easy.
Speaker 3: Who makes every who makes one hundred percent of anything?
Speaker 1: Nobody?
Speaker 3: You know, no one.
Speaker 2: The spelling test, I don't spell all the words right.
It's just it's just not what I do. But I
went to a golf psychiatrist. It wasn't really a golf psychiatrist.
It was a sports psychiatrist. I had lost my game.
I love golf.
Speaker 3: It was the most important thing to me.
Speaker 2: And then I was in a business deal, like the
best business deal I'd ever had in my life, and
I was deep in due diligence, and you know, they're
asking me all these questions. I have just no idea
what the answer to and I couldn't golf and keep
my head in the due diligence, and I thought that
it was gone. And I played several rounds and I
said to my friend at dinner, I said, I really
need to find a new golf coach because I thought
I needed to work on my swing. And his wife,
who never has played a round of golf in her life, says,
you don't need a golf coach, you need a psychiatrist.
And I said, yes, I need a psychiatrist. And so
I went to the performance coach and the coach said, okay, let.
Speaker 3: Me get this right.
Speaker 2: He said, when you're I've done iron Man before as
part of my afflets, and he said, like, when you're
riding your bike.
Speaker 3: Do you ever see yourself just falling off?
Speaker 2: I'm like no, And he said, when you're doing a
presentation in the meeting. Do you ever just see yourself
going off the right rails and saying something so ridiculous
that they never want to talk to you again. I said, no,
when you're skiing, do you see yourself just rolling down
the mountain? No? He said, so, why when you play
golf do you see your ball? Why do you see
the future and you see your ball going into the
pond or the trees? And so he gave me this exercise,
and I at first was very skeptical.
Speaker 3: And he said, five things you.
Speaker 2: See, four things you hear, three things you touched, two
things you taste, and et cetera. And I, if you've
ever tried that, it can knock your train of thought
off from anything you're thinking, and it works. And I
found out that professional golfers have tricks to also, you know,
when they're when they're playing, to distract themselves a little bit.
And I never knew and so like even I was
playing in a golf tournament two weeks ago in Aspen,
and it was a pretty tight golf tournament.
Speaker 3: I was with a friend.
Speaker 2: It was our eighteenth year and my friend had told me,
you know, I spent a lot of time playing golf.
I want to be competitive in this and so he
really raised there and I felt a lot of pressure,
but my golf was at the game. So in between shots,
I would start to look at the trees and I'm like,
I was starting to count the leaves, I was counting
the birds. I was looking anything I could to not
think about golf, so that when I got up to
my shot, it just went and I thought, the mind
is really active and you know, calming it down, and
then I use it in work. It has the same effect.
I just chill out and start to think about something else,
and when the question comes to me, I know exactly
what to say.
Speaker 1: Well, you just recapped over a thousand episodes of golf spread.
Speaker 2: That's why I wanted to come on this show, because
I thought, you're into this stuff.
Speaker 1: Oh yes, it's I mean. Episode one was with doctor
Joe parent of Zen Golf. Oh, Zen Golf is my book,
and that's why I had him on episode one in
two thousand and five. He's been on the show many times.
Speaker 2: Round as you walk, absolutely, oh Zen, I'd read Zen
Golf over and over again.
Speaker 3: You can't meet it enough. Oh then golf here the birds.
Speaker 1: Or one of my favorites. I mean, I have lots
of lines that I quote for is it if things
aren't going right, if you have a bad shot, treat
it like an Etra sketch. Flip it over, shake it off,
and then move of.
Speaker 3: Oh my god.
Speaker 2: I love when he said yeah, he said, feel the ground,
smell what's going on here, the birds that are barely chirping,
and you can then golf.
Speaker 3: That was the first.
Speaker 2: Time I started to practice that, because no one, you know,
they don't tell you that when you first start golf
that you have to clear your mind after every shot.
Speaker 3: No, no, you're just focus on the next one.
Speaker 1: A couple of years ago, I was in Japan and
we were at a with a meeting with a Buddhist
monk on top of a mountain in his a little
monastery there, right, and we talked about sitting meditation and
walking meditatis, and then he started talking about Zen Golf,
the book Zen Golf, and I'm like, wait a minute,
that's one of my teachers. He called it The Golf
the golfing Zen, and I'm like, no, no, you mean
Zen Golf. My doctor goes, yes, yes, yes, one.
Speaker 3: Of the great books. Because like, look when when when
you and I started chit chatting before, I never thought
this that we wouldn't have report. But it's never it's
not it's not a possibility.
Speaker 2: I looked at your profile like this is exactly what
I like to talk about, and so and yet on
the golf course, I probably tends up all of it
when we got to the first hole because we haven't
golf together, you know, and so like, why how can
we be so natural here? And then we get to
the first t and we're like, let's see where it goes.
Speaker 1: Oh I'm flattered. Oh that's so great. Yeah, yay, Zen Golf. Okay,
and again, anybody who's never read it.
Speaker 2: Get it again and again again.
Speaker 1: And he's got Zen putting, and he's got a lot
of different books. I read them all, and he's just
a wonderful, wonderful person. Last thing I want to touch
on as far as what golf brings to the table.
And you know a lot of people are like, oh,
I'm playing I play golf once or twice a year
at a charity tournament. And what golf does for charity
in itself, whether it's on the tour and the millions
they get raised or billions too locally.
Speaker 3: You know, it's interesting. I have two responses to that.
Speaker 2: One, I think charity golf is just scratching the surface.
It is because charity golf brings people together and it
raises so much money, and yet I think the possibilities
are so much more to bring in it to all
different areas because charity golf is community. And my wife
and I sponsored a boys and Girls club tournament and
we raised hundreds of thousands of dollars in one golf event.
And I'm like, if we can raise this in one
golf this is the power of golf to convene people,
to convene people who are like minded to support things.
And so the reason I had the reaction when you
said that I golf one or two times and charity,
I'm like, this is somebody who we should get golfing
all the time because they like golf. And then we
should find different ways for charities to not just have
golf events to play golf, but golf events to bring
in new golfers, because it shouldn't just be that we're
playing to scramble or we're playing, you know, best ball.
We should have something for new golfers. If you're new
to golf and you've never played, We're going to do
introductory golf. We're going to teach you that etiquette that
your son went through. We're going to teach you the
basics of holding a club. We're going to teach you
out of putt, and so we should have different levels
to charity golf. I want to reinvent the way that
charity golf has been. I don't want anybody at the
table signing people in. I want them to sign in
on their iPhone before they get there. I want all
the people who are participating in the tournament on the
course and interacting and golf and not being left behind
in anyway. So I have a strong point of view
on the power of charity golf because I just think
it's starting and it's I mean.
Speaker 3: I don't even know the number of twits. I'm sure
it's billions, but it's just starting.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. I was on a committee putting together a
charity tournament a number of years ago, and I suggested,
I said, why not at the turn have some messuses
there in those chair chair massage and give you a
chair massage. It's like, that's.
Speaker 3: Wait.
Speaker 2: I played, I played the best tournament I play in
is called the trash Masters. It's the Trash Masters is
played at snow Mask Club in uh snow Mask, Colorado.
And you get points for the trash, so you get hu,
you get points for a sandy you get which is
out of the sand.
Speaker 3: You get a barkie.
Speaker 2: If you hit a tree, you get an otis if
you go up and down and and as long as
you get net par you get the points. And that
is the most fun way to play golf because you're
just joking around with your friends trying to You don't
need to score, you know, five hunder. You're looking to
just get some junk. They put a tractor out there
and they call it a ford like And these are
just fun events. And I think a charity golf is
where we should bring people in have them get unusual experiences.
The massages, the drinks, the what have you to make
golf fun and engaging. You know, they don't all have
to be structured as a as a as a PGA event.
Speaker 1: An otis up and down way I mean to send
you to send you.
Speaker 2: I'm going to send you the trash Master's Book, and
I'm going to connect you trash Masters is one of
the most unique tournaments. And and and Jim Nanats.
Speaker 3: Was involved that you talked about him.
Speaker 2: He's he's one of the the guys to get behind it,
and it's brought this whole community together to appreciate what
golf is and to enjoy this in this most unusual way.
Speaker 1: Mike, tell people how they can check out all your
books and your websites and you're on social media.
Speaker 2: The best way is Not about Golf dot com, which
is you can find about all the things I'm doing.
You can go to Amazon and get Not about Golf,
which is the book, and you can always find me
at Mike Berlin dot com. But Not About Golf is
the best way to learn about what we're doing and
where we're going with this. The response has been absolutely phenomenal.
I was quite nervous with the golf community, the hardcore
golf community would think, and they love it because they
know that golf intimidation is an issue that we have
to overcome to grow to the next level. When it
comes up from the grassroots, that's when it's sustainable.
Speaker 1: Awesome, Mike, this has been a blast. Thank you so
much for your time and for sharing and for wanting
to be on the show so we can have this
guy conversation.
Speaker 3: This has been great, This is absolute pleasure.
Speaker 2: But I'm looking forward to I'm gonna we're gonna get
out and play.
Speaker 1: Okay, I'm in take you
Speaker 3: To one of my magical courses.