Speaker 1: Hi, This is Lisa THOMASO from Mystic, Connecticut and I
play Attnyton Country Club.
Speaker 2: BAFF Smarter number.
Speaker 3: Four hundred and eighty two published on March thirty one,
twenty fifteen.
Speaker 2: Welcome to golf Smarter Mulligans, your second chance to gain
insight and advice from the best instructors featured on the
Golf Smarter podcast. Great Golf Instruction Never gets old. Our
interview library features hundreds of hours of game improvement conversations
like this that are no longer available in any podcast app.
Speaker 1: The only person that's possibly thinking about your three point
in the world is you, So it's history.
Speaker 4: It doesn't even exist anymore. So you have to.
Speaker 1: Physically stop moving, take your four second time out a
couple seconds, in, a couple seconds out, eyes closed, and
then just revert back to what is my strategy for today?
In my strategy for today's relax or my strategy today
is quiet mind, or my strategy today is just total
or my strategy to say is calm, or my strategy say.
Speaker 4: Is just have fun.
Speaker 1: So that's why having a strategy and being highly cognizant
and aware of your and traps both on and off
the golf course is going to help you get through
those situations. And Fred, I'm not sitting here saying it's
going to work every single time guaranteed.
Speaker 4: There might be a day.
Speaker 1: Where you're just not allowing yourself to really buy into it,
or you're not totally committed to your strategy. So maybe
you're not one hundred percent there, maybe you're seventy eighty
percent of the way there, or you just haven't done
it enough so you're not conditioned enough to really be
effective at this.
Speaker 4: It takes time, it takes practice, it takes.
Speaker 1: Discipline, and like physical conditioning, it's thought conditioning. You have
to condition yourself to think better. And I have students
who start with me and say, Hey, Greg, you know what,
I'm getting so much out of your coaching, but I
feel like I'm thinking more. And it's not that you're
thinking more, you're just thinking differently.
Speaker 3: Three step approach to play your best golf ever with
the head coach Greg Loberto.
Speaker 2: This is Golf Smarter Premium.
Speaker 3: Here's your host, Fred Green. Welcome to the Golf Smarter Podcast. Greg.
Speaker 4: Hi, Fred, how are you? I am excited?
Speaker 3: How are you tell me why you're excited?
Speaker 1: Well, I'm talking to you number one, and I know
that we're going to be talking about an innovative three
step approach to help golfers play their best golf ever.
Speaker 4: So this is what I do, this is what I love.
Speaker 1: To do, and there's really nothing else I'd rather be
talking about today.
Speaker 3: Awesome. I'm glad that you're excited because I went through
your book. I really enjoyed it. It reinforced so many
things that I think about that I want to accomplish,
and to me, it really supported everything that Golf Smarter
has been about since episode number one.
Speaker 4: Great, great, So let's.
Speaker 3: Talk about it. Yeah, go ahead.
Speaker 4: You know, can we reverse the table so real quick?
Can I ask you? Can I to start by asking
you a question?
Speaker 3: Oh?
Speaker 4: No, all right, let's hey later.
Speaker 3: I asked the questions you, buddy. I gotta tell you
you're in New York, right, I gotta talk to you
like yo, I gotta ask ask. I got to ask the.
Speaker 4: Questions, just trying to throw you off a game a
little bit that.
Speaker 3: I'll go ahead, congratulations, No, go ahead, all right, I'll
let you. I'll let you ask the first one and
we'll see where it goes from there.
Speaker 1: And then I'm done asking questions for the rest of
the rest of the time. What what What was your
biggest takeaway from the book.
Speaker 3: Hm, I knew I don't like having tests. My biggest
takeaway from the book was, uh, I'm reviewing right now
my notes here to uh not not worry about what
your playing partners are doing. Nice, you know. I I
have an ongoing issue with my friends who want to
play from money, and I'm like, you know what, sure,
I'll play for money. I don't care. Tell me at
the end of the game what we're doing, right, tell
me what I owe you, and I'm fine, but let's
not talk about it the entire time. I don't like
to focus on the scorecard. I don't want to talk
about the scorecard. I don't want to hear oh this
is for Birdie. No, this is for my next shot,
you know. I mean it's like and if it's a part,
it's a par great so to me, it reinforced that.
Speaker 4: Awesome, awesome, good stuff, good stuff.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's I think it's an area that a lot
of players and I was just doing a webinar with
with a beta group for our Mental Game Assessment and
Learning app on Friday and one of the guys was
talking about how when he plays for money with his buddies,
which is pretty much every time he plays golf, that
he really allows them to get into their head and
he does better when he's chasing as opposed to in
the league. But he said, there's no question that playing
for money, especially in guys that are you know, like
to talk while they're playing, you know, so to speak
and try to get into his head, it really impacts
how he performs. So I think it's it's there's no question,
you know, whether it's for five dollars or five hundred
dollars or five million dollars, the dollar amount is almost irrelevant.
It's the fact that you're playing for something other than
maybe just you know, for trying to just play your
best on your own. It's amazing how that little, that
little nugget can really not only transform the way that
you think in a negative way, but really impact the
performance as well.
Speaker 3: What does it say about people or what do you
learn from people? When there are those who excel when
the pressure is on, you know, the guys who are like,
give me the ball type of guy, and then they
are the people who the pressure is just too much.
And they completely collapse.
Speaker 4: And I'm sorry for what we're asking specifically about it.
Speaker 3: Well, what how do you identify if you're which one
of those people? It's pretty obvious to yourself, But how
do you get past the fact that if you're one
of those people that crumbles under the pressure? How do
you get past that?
Speaker 4: Sure? I think you know.
Speaker 1: I think the first step is is golf is so
much like life, and you can your perspective on it
is everything. So let's say that you know, you go
out and you play in a tournament, whether it's against
your friends or if it's in competition at whatever level.
Speaker 4: And you allow that round where.
Speaker 1: You think you had a very poor performance, maybe based
on one particular swing that may have cost you the
match at the end of the round to really impact
how you view yourself as as a player. And I
think a really good example is remember when Billy Horses
showed before he won the FedEx Cup last year, he
had put that one ball in the water and he
lost one of the tournaments prior to that, and then
I think it was literally the next week he bounces
back or maybe two weeks later and he ends up
winning the FedEx Cup. Those are the types of shots
where you could really allow that to define yourself as
a player, or you can say, okay, if that's my
weakest link is not being able to perform, And that
particular shot on the eighteenth hole, when the quote unquote
pressure was really on, what can I do to get
better and how can I get started? To make that happen,
you have to put yourself in those situations, number one,
to allow yourself to perform. And everybody knows about all
of the game winning baskets that Michael Jordan hit, but
there's also the ones that he missed.
Speaker 4: Okay, so how many times are you missing? How many
times are you performing?
Speaker 1: Sure that's relative to the whole conversation, but you're going
to learn way more the times where you quote unquote
failed to perform or you let your ants or automatic
negative thoughts get in your own way and negatively impact
your performance. So I'm just going to sum it up
by saying, take that as an opportunity to improve yourself.
Recognize that what I call an ant trap or a
specific situation where you know you're going to have those
negative thoughts and negative emotions, and just figure out what
you need to do to get.
Speaker 4: Better the next time. And that's what we're going to
talk about today.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, it's you talk about Michael Jordan making
the shot or missing the shot, or anybody on the tour.
But when Michael Jordan misses the shot on game thirty
seven of the season, no big deal. When he makes
the shot on game forty two to win the game,
no big deal. It's doing it in playoff time. It's
doing it when the shot is the end of the
season or not. Which There's guys who like, give me
the ball. I'm going to do this. The Lebron James
characters right now, Steph Curry of the Warriors, it's like,
just give me the ball. You can see it in
their eyes. They want the ball absolutely.
Speaker 4: And I think you hit a key point here is.
Speaker 1: In golf or in any sport, when you're in that
pressure situation, you have to want it. You really have
to welcome that opportunity because that's all it is. It's
an opportunity to escalate your game to the next level
and win, lose your draw, whatever the outcome is. It's
it is, But you have to put yourself in a
situation where number one, you want to be there and
then you have to put yourself in a position mentally
and emotionally where you're allowing yourself to perform in your
in your most natural state. So very true of everything
of what we're talking about here. But number one is
you have to want it. And number two, if you
do not get the outcome that you desire, it as
a learning opportunity to improve.
Speaker 3: Okay, you mentioned ants. Let's you talk about ants throughout
your book, and you just brought it up, So let's
let's clarify that and get into depth on that.
Speaker 1: Sure, Yeah, where would you Where would you like to
start with that one? Because it's a it's a it's
a pretty broad broad concept, Fred, and I think if
we talk, well, let's let's do this.
Speaker 4: Let's talk about your game specifically.
Speaker 1: What are the one or two or maybe three whatever whatever,
What are those situations within your game where you know
you're going to have that negative energy you always you
already talked about, you know, playing against certain opponents, But
what else, and maybe it's maybe it's off the course.
Are there certain things that you think about a certain
ways that you feel in certain situations where you know
you're going to have negative energy? What what comes to
mind when you think about that for your game.
Speaker 3: Well, I really try to avoid the negative energy, so
I'm trying to focus on where would it be in
my game during my round that I just you know,
the obvious one I guess for me and for so
many people is, oh, I have this hole always gives
me problems. Yeah, walking up to a t box of
a hole that I remember some of the good shots
that I had, but of course I'll remember most of
the bad shots, including the last time I was here.
And I always always try to remind myself that history
has nothing to do with those shot. It really is
irrelevant to the next shot, So you know, and I
think what happens to me is I think so hard
about what what happened last time that that that is
I'm overcompensating it and it introduces pressure and tension into
my swing, which recreates the problem absolutely.
Speaker 4: So we'll we'll.
Speaker 1: You know a lot of a lot of players like
determine as their their nemesis hole, you know that one
that one course that you know just gets their number
every single time. So yes, there's absolutely specific holes are
certainly one of those. I think some other common and
traps for golfers are the first t you know, you're
standing on the first tea and maybe you know whether
you're whether there's people there or it's just your foursome.
Especially again if you're playing, you know, for in competition
of any of any sort, you have that your hands
might be shaking, you might have that pit in your stomach,
or that you know, that tension in your shoulders or
your grip wherever it might be, and you know, you
have a tendency to think about all the wrong things
in the same time. So your thoughts are a direct
link to your emotions, and they're they're literally committing petty
larcy on your game because the impact your performance directly.
If you're you know, if you're standing on the first
team and you're thinking about your opponent, or you're thinking
about the ball going out of bounds or in the
water or maybe missing it depending on your skill set,
those are obviously all the wrong thoughts. So you want
to basically put yourself in a position where I call
being one hundred percent ready, not only on the first tea,
but on every single shot right.
Speaker 4: And you know, the.
Speaker 1: Way that you do that is a process that we
talk about in the book but the very first step
to becoming one hundred percent ready is you have to
you have to eliminate your ants or your automatic negative thoughts,
because there's you hear a lot of times golfers talk
about how there's really uh, you know, Matt every talked
about it after his when on Sunday at the Bayhill.
He said, there's just really no room for for negative
thoughts or negative emotions out on the golf course.
Speaker 4: And it's so true. It's so true.
Speaker 1: And you know, I like to talk to my golfing
students about you know, compare this game to being a
Formula one race car driver or you know, maybe you're
doing what you know, maybe you're you're walking across a
rope or a cable like nik We Lenda does over
a canyon or over Niagara Falls, and he has to
be totally focused and calm and confident for two to
three minutes. You know, an F one driver is doing
it for a couple of hours at a time. I mean,
their focus level is at a level that is obviously,
you know, higher than what most people can even conceive of,
and they're doing it for an extended period of time. Now,
golf is you're talking about seconds of time where you're
actually swinging the golf club, and all you need to do,
or what you really need to do first and foremost
is you need to eliminate those conscious thought or those
negative thoughts and just allow yourself to swing. Just swing
the golf club. If you if you, if you have
a repeatable swing that works on the range, the only
reason it's not working on the golf course is because
you're getting in your own way or you're allowing your
own conscious thought to directly and negatively impact your swing.
Speaker 3: I'm so conscious of the the the jitters and the
situations like the first t jitters, which is how you
open your book. I'm so conscious of that that I
embrace it and even like if I hit a ball
in the bunker, I'll embrace that. I'll like, oh, this
is going to be fun, And I know that helps
me as opposed to freaking out like oh my god,
there's people watching.
Speaker 4: Sure, absolutely, And that's that's where you know.
Speaker 1: One of the things that that you know is in
the book is having a mental game strategy. And if
you have a mental game strategy going into the round
of relax or have fun or take it easy, that
way when you're in that and trap or you hit
that Aaron shot, and you can.
Speaker 4: Just say to yourself, Hey, you know what, relax.
Speaker 1: Just relax, just like what you're talking about, Fred, because
it can mean the difference between number one enjoying your
round of golf at much higher level, but not allowing
one ant to cascade into another, and all of a
sudden you have an entire colony of ants and your
entire round is ruined. And then what you focus on
in the nineteenth hole is how that one shot and
that one hole really started to allow the wheels to
start falling. So you're basically making excuses for yourself before
you round, during your round, and after your round as
to why you didn't play as well as you should have.
Speaker 4: Oh, the word should have cut us absolutely.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And why is it that when we get to
the nineteenth hole, And I'm not sure that's exactly what
you're referring to in your book when you're talking about
when you get to the nineteenth hole, everybody wants to
talk about all the crap that went on. No one
wants to go. I had said, you know, you didn't
want to see the going Boy, did I have a
great put on seventeen? Boy was I good? No, it's
like I screwed that up. Okay? Are we allowed to
brag it all? Or is it just taking the guy's
money at the bar? This is all you need to do?
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's about listening to how you talk.
Speaker 1: I think it would be good to actually and I'm
going to devn meaning to do this, but I'm going
to do this now that we're having this conversation. I
think if golfers were to just videotape themselves and they're
playing partners talking on the nineteenth hole about their game,
and then actually watching it and listening to themselves, I
think that might be their first sign that they need
to change their communication post round. But you know, and
I ask the same question all the time, like why
are golfers constantly focusing?
Speaker 4: Think about it.
Speaker 1: If you just let's say you just scored, or let's
just say you shot the best round of your life, right,
what are you going to do after the.
Speaker 4: Round is over. You're going to tell your score and
you're gonna go, hey, I.
Speaker 1: Shot a you know, a seventy eight or a sixty
two or a ninety eight, whatever the number is for you,
it's totally irrelevant and then you're going to immediately go.
But it could have been a yep, right, three or
four or five strokes better. Now, I don't think Michael
Jordan or any other great athlete, if they have a
phenomenal performance, is going wow, you know what could have
scored four more points or you know what, I not
only I could have had a hat trick plus, or
you know what, I could have pitched even a little
bit better than that perfect game.
Speaker 3: Oh yes, they do. Yeah, no, I think that everybody.
But I think that's what draws us back to golf,
is that you can always do better. That is why
we don't quit, even though you know, we've been shooting
in the low eighties and all of a sudden we
shoot ninety two and it's like, that's it. I quit.
I'm going to leave the game. No, No, you like,
I'm going back because I know I'm better than that. Sure,
And so I think that even when when I think
about the time that I shot my lowest round and
I had a great round there, I still there was
a ooh if I only you know hmm. Yeah. I try.
I try to remain calm and not get too excited
and let other people talk about my score then, you know,
than me talking about it. And I think that I
don't know, Humility's got to come in at some point.
You just want people to patch you on the back,
but you don't want to walk up to them and say, hey,
pat me on the back.
Speaker 4: Absolutely.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's uh, it's communication is is such a big
part of life, and it's it's a major part of golf.
And you know, that's I think if I were to
sum up, you know, the book is eighteen game Changing
Tips to Play your Best Golf Ever is a subtitle,
but it's really about improving your communication both internally and
externally on and.
Speaker 4: Off the golf course.
Speaker 1: Because that's really what we need to do, is we
just need to really clean up the way that that
we communicate about our game.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, and I'm again I want to pick stuff
out of the book. What do you do about playing
to the competition? You have a chapter about playing if
you're playing partners horrible and it's interesting how sometimes you
step up to the game when you're playing partners better
than you and you can get maybe you do get
more focused or do you just kind of let it
go when you're playing with somebody that you know, you know,
you can give him a stroke a hole and still
beat them.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, that's a great question, because this is
just this could certainly be a very in depth conversation,
but we'll keep it relatively short. Let's let's think about
again what happened this past weekend at Bayhill. Hendrick Stenson
was in the lead after fifty four holes, and he
was in the zone and he was just firing, just
firing at pins on Saturday and making all of his putts,
and you know, things changed a little bit on Sunday
and then we all found out after the round that
he was put on the clock.
Speaker 4: I think it was on the fifteenth hole.
Speaker 1: He ended up i think three putting three of the
last four holes, and he really talked about how being
put on the clock, you know.
Speaker 4: It threw him off his game.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, well, you know again, I'm just going to
go back to you have to use these opportunities as
learning opportunities as well as an opportunity to really improve
your mental toughness, because I think playing with a difficult
or slow or angry player is really one of the
most challenging areas in golf. I think from a mental perspective,
because you can really allow their negativity to cascade into
your own game.
Speaker 4: It's very very easy to do.
Speaker 1: And you know, I talked in the book about how
one of my students, Patrick had, you know, he had
gone through my coaching with me, and he was, you know,
he had identified his top ten and traps. You know,
what are the situations that are going to bring me
the most negative energy in my game. And he was
on a part three and he hit his t shot
into the bunker and he knew that if he jumped
into it, into the cart, that his playing partner was
going to fill his head with all kinds of negativity.
So he said, you know what, on this whole, I'm
going to just I'm going to grab my sand wedge,
my putter, and I'm just going to walk up and
I'm just going to allow myself to stay in my
own little world here. He ended up getting up in
down and saving it for a power. But the key
story there was he had taken the time to now
really become aware of the fact that these an traps
were negatively impacting his game, and he put them on
high alert. So this was a very specific situation where
he said, you know what, I know what I need
to do. I also know that I need to stay
awake from my playing part or in this particular shot,
because I want to go and do what I'm supposed
to do.
Speaker 4: When he did it, you know, he got up and
down for his power.
Speaker 1: So part of it is really number one again identifying
the fact that, okay, that this is just an ant trap.
This person is just going to make things a little
bit more challenging for me today. So maybe my strategy
for today is just to have fun because I know
that when I play with this particular individual, a lot
of times I do not have fun. Or maybe my
strategy is just to focus on me, do not allow
them to fill to let their negativity cascade into my
own game, but really use it as an opportunity to
test and challenge yourself. Because think about it, that the time,
the only time that really matters is when you're in
your your preshot routine and you're standing over the golf
ball getting ready to hit. Everything else that happens outside
of that is irrelevant to what happens when you're hitting
the golf ball.
Speaker 4: So again I go back.
Speaker 1: To you know, allowing yourself to put yourself in a
situation where you're you're totally calm, you're free of negative thought,
and just just swing, just swing, because you can still
perform even though you're playing with the difficult playing partner.
Speaker 3: I'm going to take you back to the beginning of
that that rant, that beginning of your answer there when
you're talking about Hendrick Stenson and right that we were
talking about how he was put on the clock.
Speaker 4: Yes, isn't that.
Speaker 3: Interesting, how even at that level that something like that
which to me if we have to equate it to
our game. And I don't like to sit here and
compare what we're doing to what they're doing on the tour,
but if there's a way to compare it, it will
take me to the thing that fries me on the
golf course more than anything, and that is a marshal
coming up to me to tell me to pick up
the pace when you know we've spent two of the
last three holes with one or two guys trying to
find their ball right. And I go on about this forever,
but I think that marshals, if they're sitting at the
end of the fair way and they see the ball
going errant, they should run over, put their hat where
the ball is and help us pick up the pace
we're picking up. We're losing time on it because we're
looking for balls, and we lose balls on a regular
basis on the tour, they don't because there's people standing
around going it's right here, right. So yeah, getting put
on the clock being told to hurry up, that's gonna
throw off even some of the best players at the
moment in the world.
Speaker 4: Absolutely, absolutely, yeah.
Speaker 1: And there's so many things in golf that are just
completely out of our control and that that is certainly
a great example of one of them.
Speaker 4: And you just have to know sometimes you just have
to accept it. Fred As.
Speaker 1: I know that sounds really really simple as we're sitting
here talk about it, but when you're in you know,
when you're in that environment and in that situation, I
know how frustrating it is and I know how challenging
it can be to really just stay focused on your game.
But you just also have to realize that there are
rules to the game. You know, most sports play with
a clock or some kind of a timer, so you know,
most sports are timed as well. And again I'm just
going to you know, just reconfirm here that there's just
there's just things that are out of our control. The
only thing that we really have control of is how
we think standing over the golf ball and our ability
to put a nice swing on it. Everything else, you know,
a bad balance, augusta wind, you know, an unlucky break
or what a sprinklert had anything, those are just you know,
the marshal that somebody can coughing and your back swing.
There's so many things that are just completely out of
our control. And playing with a mental game strategy, constantly
focusing on identifying and crushing your stopping those ants whenever,
whenever they crop up is what's going to bring you
back and get you focused and allow yourself to play
in the zone in every shot.
Speaker 3: How do we get to that zone? And do we
need to be in the zone? Who I hate asking
two questions at once. Let me just ask this then.
Do we need to be in the zone the entire round?
Speaker 4: Absolutely not, No, It's it's impossible to be.
Speaker 1: The time in between your shots is when you want to,
you know, really just kind of let your mind go
and relax, enjoy the walk or enjoy the ride, depending
on you know what your preference was for transportation for
the day, but you know, you want to use that
time to really enjoy just being out there and enjoying
the fact that you're healthy enough to play a great
game that you love. But now the time, the time
to get you know, to clear yourself of that conscious
thought is you know, we're talking about seconds of time
here when you're when you're standing over the golf ball.
So you know, once you the process really starts when
you take your club out of the bag and you
you know, in your preshot routine, you want to visualize
the type of shot that you're going to hit, pick
the specific target, and take what I call a four
second time out. And what that is is just closing
your eyes for four seconds, taking a nice deep breath
in through your nose, breathing from your belly or from
your diaphragm, and then two seconds in and then two
seconds out through your mouth with your eyes closed while
you are physically stopped. When you physically stop moving, it
stops your thought process, it changes your physiology. And when
you take literally four seconds to a couple couple seconds in,
a couple seconds out to just breathe and relax, it
is the most calming feeling that that you can imagine.
It literally takes four seconds. Now, if you're getting further
and further on in the match, and you know what,
my hands are still shaking, I'm still feeling that anxiety
that four seconds didn't do it. Well, Just you do
it again, and do it a third time. If you
need to do it behind the ball, do it away
from the ball, do it in between shots, do it
prior to your round, do it off the course, do
it throughout the day. I do it all the time, Fred.
It is the most simplistic, relaxing, calming thing that you
can do for yourself, and it completely completely changes your
physiology immediately and changes your perspective.
Speaker 4: So now that.
Speaker 1: You've taken that time behind the ball, you visualize your shot,
you've identified your target. As you walk up to the ball,
you let all of that go. Now all you're going
to do. You already rehearse your swing. So now all
you're going to do is just step up to the ball,
make sure that you're aligned properly, and swing, just swing.
You want to swing free of any conscious thought. And
it takes time, It takes practice, it takes conditioning. But
if you're doing it at the range. It's so much
easier to do on the golf course because what do
we do with the range.
Speaker 4: We fire golf balls or golf balls or.
Speaker 1: Golf ball we feel great, we're hitting the same club
over and over. Why not practice this pre shot routine
every single time at the range. Now, what you're doing
is you're balancing the scale between play and practice, and
you're going through the same process and the same pre
shot routine to get into the zone every time you
practice and every time you play.
Speaker 3: You know, we've been talking for almost a half hour
now and you opened up with and we've never followed
up on your three step approach, So let's start talking
about the three step approach.
Speaker 1: That sounds great, yeah, and from an on course perspective,
but it's really simple. It's showing up to the course
feeling one hundred percent ready. And the way that that
happens is with the mental game strategy. That step one
is playing one hundred percent ready. Step two is getting
in the zone and every shot, and we talked about
the process to do that, and then step three is
focusing on three positives. Is at the end of every
round in every practice session. Again, we talked about all
the would have, could have, should have is that golfers
like to focus on. But let's transform that communication process
and that thought process post round, post practice session and
immediately identify, Okay, what are three positives from today? Because
what that does it allows you not only allows you
to enjoy the game better, but really identify some good
things that happened today even though you feel like maybe
nothing really did.
Speaker 4: But it also allows you to view your.
Speaker 1: Game more objectively, so you're not getting so caught up
and man, what happened with my swing today? I was
great on the range. Yesterday I was great on the range.
Before my round I fell apart on the course again.
So if you're constantly focusing on the positives, you're not
going to put so much focus on your swing. So
step one is to show up one hundred percent ready.
Step two is to get in the zone in every shot,
and then step three is to always focus on the
positives that's on the course, off of the golf course.
We put together a process that is backed by science.
So we've developed a mental game assessment with PhD. Jonathan
Rich that assesses you in eight key mental and emotional
traits and Once you complete the assessment, you go through
a review session with me where I can allow you
to understand what all this information means to you and
your game, but also give you a custom learning path
that's going to allow you to play your best golf ever.
So step one off of the golf course is to
take the mental game assessment, go through the review.
Speaker 4: Session with me.
Speaker 1: Step two is to go into our one hundred percent
Ready coaching program.
Speaker 4: Whether that be one on one with me or our live.
Speaker 1: Group sessions that are going to be held via Google
Hangout and they're also recorded, allowing you to have this
information forever. That's done in the group format. And then
step three is to use one of the most what
I think are innovative coaching tools as well as playing
tools for the mental and emotional game, which is called
our Head Coach Learning App. And what that is Fred,
It's an opportunity for you to track some mental and
emotional data from your round. Have you identify what your
mental game strategy was prior to your round, how effective
it was, how committed you were to it, what was
your confidence level today? What percentage of shots were you
one hundred percent ready? What were your three positives from
the round. So now what you're doing is you're starting
to track that intangible information from the mental and emotional
game and not only do it on a daily basis,
but allow yourself to use it as a learning tool
to go back and say, Okay, I'm not going to
use my swing as my benchmark for performance today. Let
me start with what I was thinking about, what I
was feeling, Did I fall into any specific and traps.
What was my confidence level on a scale of one
to ten going into today's round. Now you're allowing yourself
to view some really critical data with an objective perspective.
So it allows you to become your own coach, so
to speak. But if you're a coach working with a player,
whether it be a high school team or a collegiate team,
or a PGA teaching pro working with your student, this
gives you a whole new perspective on your player's game
or your own game, because now you're able to tangibly
identify some key data points on the mental and emotional
side of the game, and the way that you perceive
your game is totally different. The way that you view
your game is completely different. The way you approach the
game becomes completely different and you have data that you
can use to constantly learn from every single time you
go to the golf course.
Speaker 3: You mentioned an app.
Speaker 4: Did you yes?
Speaker 3: Tell me more about the app and how we can
find it.
Speaker 1: Excellent question. We are in a beta phase with it
right now. We're in phase two of the beta phase
with it currently fed. We're looking for ten golfers actually
we're down to nine currently that want to participate in
the beta of the product, and it's going to become
a mobile app within the next ninety days. But right now,
what we have is a way for you to gather
all this information online and the best part about it
is it takes about ninety seconds to two minutes to
complete after the round. So we've got a couple of
PhDs that we're working with on the front end with
the mental game Assessment with PhD Jonathan Rich and now
we're working with PhD Casey Debrian to further develop the
head Coach learning app and making a mobile tool that
you can that you can bring to the golf course
with you.
Speaker 3: You only want ten people.
Speaker 4: That's what we're looking for currently.
Speaker 3: Okay, so you're gonna get that from this audience. That
sounds great, So how do they get in touch with you?
How do they get to be the first ten? And
what if they're number eleven, we'll have well thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, we'll.
Speaker 4: Have to set up beta group number two.
Speaker 1: But now it's a great question, Fred, and the best
way to contact me is Greg Jerg at my Mental
game coach dot com and let me know that you're
interested in participating in the beta. It really is everybody
talks about all I have a revolutionary product for the
game and innovative product. This is something that I'm not
saying it doesn't exist anywhere else.
Speaker 4: I just we haven't seen it anywhere else.
Speaker 1: And what we're doing is we were taking a very
very good product and we're going to make it great.
So if anybody wants to take control of their game
and be part of a very innovative mental and emotional
coaching tool, please contact us to get started with it.
Speaker 3: And please, if you do contact Greg to be part
of this study, let him know that you heard about
it on Golf Smarter. Absolutely yeah, And if you don't,
he's going to ask how'd you hear about this? I'm
want to go back into the book and pick on
some more things that you talk about in there, and
I want to know what you mean by being an
emotional mess and how that we can get past that.
Speaker 4: Sure, yeah, and we're gonna we'll go back to the ends.
Speaker 1: But you know, again, it's it's a mentally having a
mental game strategy is such a big part of this.
Speaker 4: And we'll use this as a quick exam both.
Speaker 1: You know, let's say you're going out to play in
a pro am, for example, and you know there's going
to be a gallery there, and there's going to be
cameras there, and you're not used to playing in this environment,
and you know you've played in front.
Speaker 4: Of people before, but this is this is at a
whole other level.
Speaker 1: So now you know, it's very easy to be an
emotional mess going into that situation because you're going to
start to think about all the wrong things of you know,
I hope I don't embarrass myself, and you know, I
hope I don't play as bad as I did the
last time I played at that particular course, or all
of these things are going to go through your head.
And I can relate to being an emotional mess because
I carried a crippling fear of public speaking with me
for many, many years, and every time that I found
out that I had to speak, my heart would raise immediately,
my hands would start to sweat. Almost It's almost like
having a shot of adrenaline pumped into you immediately knowing
that I had to go speak somewhere. I just it
was my greatest weakness, and I really abhorred the thought
of speaking in front of others. Well, when I finally
had the the courage to join an organization called Toastmasters
and overcome this faces fear and overcome it and now
use it as one of my strengths. You know, it
wasn't until then that I was really able to take
my whole emotional mess of how I perceive myself as
a public speaker, in my own self image and really
transform it. And now it's it's one of my strengths.
So it's the same thing with your golf game. You
have to change your perception of who you are as
a golfer, but you have to start practicing and playing
with a mental game strategy that's going to allow you
to focus on playing your best. So going back to
playing in this pro am, there's a lot of different
strategies that you can have. But what you want to
do is put yourself in a situation where you're totally calm,
totally confident, you're excited.
Speaker 4: Let's reverse that fear.
Speaker 1: Because it's it's the same chemical that's going through your body.
You're just sending it down the wrong track basically, So
let's take that adrenaline that's in your body, that excitement
that's in your body. I talk about it in chapter
one where your mind says, your mind sets stop, but
your body is saying, oh, so you're feeling excited, but
your mind is telling you all the wrong things.
Speaker 4: So there's a conflict that occurs. So now if you
just change.
Speaker 1: Your thought process and say, hey, this is what an
exciting opportunity to play in this program.
Speaker 4: I'm going to meet some great people. I'm going to
go out and play the best I can play.
Speaker 1: Whatever happens happens, but you know what, I'm just going
to go out and have a great time today. So again,
it's it's changing your perspective. It's having a mental game strategy.
It's conditioning yourself to think this way both on and
off the golf course. So it all goes back to communication.
But it's really about putting yourself in a situation where
you're feeling one hundred percent ready going to the course
on the first he standing over the golf ball every
single golf shot. So playing with the mental game strategy
is by far and away the most powerful concept that
I teach, and it's one that can really level the
playing field between practice and play.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, and it's so helps to get past those first
tee issues. I can't tell you how many times I've
played with people who after their first t shot, they're like, Oh,
this is gonna be a long day. And it's like, really,
you're gonna let that shot dictate what's going to happen
the rest of the four hours here?
Speaker 4: Oh, isn't an amazing Absolutely.
Speaker 3: Yes it is. It's like what And then, of course
the front nine to the back nine always two completely
different rounds of golf, and you're still talking about that
first the first shot that you had, come on, Get
past it, Get past it. How lastly, because we're gonna
break soon. But increasing confidence. I know that playing with
confidence is so huge. I mean when you are out
there going I got it. I got this shot. Again,
as we talked about early, give me the ball. But
when you're playing with that kind of confidence, it really
it really lowers your scores. But it only takes a
three put It only takes one ball in the water
to have it all come crumbling.
Speaker 1: Down, no question, no question about that one. And you know,
you you you it. It happens at every level or
that that that one shot, that one three putt, it
can it can absolutely throw your game off. And and again,
not to sound like a broken record, but that's you know,
that's why playing with the mental game strategy is so important.
We didn't really talk about the specific three step process
to stop your answer your automatic negative thoughts, but this
is a perfect example, I think to talk about it.
So you know, let's say you have that three button.
You're just you're cruising, You're on the fifteenth hole. You're
you're just unconscious, you're not even you're not keeping track
of your score, which is the proper way to play golf,
by the way, you know, you're just you're just you're
on cruise control and you're not thinking about the wheels
falling off, and you're you are you're just beaming with confidence.
Speaker 4: You're just enjoying it.
Speaker 1: You're relaxed, you're calm, you're not getting overly excited, You're
just playing right. And then all of a sudden that
three button. Then you go ooh, and then maybe a
thought of score might creep in and you might go, well,
you know what if I can just par out here still,
I know I'm going to have a great round. So
now you start thinking about score, right, So it's it's
interesting how that one little that one little nugget, that
one little window of opportunity of a three put can
cascade into another ant in another and another. So what
you need to do is to what I call stop
the ants dead in their tracks. And the way that
you physically do it is by being aware of the
fact that, Okay, hold on, this is just a trap.
This is just an ant trap that I'm falling into
right now. That hole is over. It never even it's
it's history. The only person that's possibly thinking about your
three put in the world is you.
Speaker 4: Okay, So it's history. It doesn't even exist anymore.
Speaker 1: So you have to physically stop, stop moving, take your
four second time out a couple of seconds, in, couple
seconds out, eyes closed, and then just revert back to
what is my strategy for today? And my strategy for
today's relaxed, or my strategy today is quiet mind, or
my strategy today is just total focus, or my strategy
today is calm, or my strategy today is.
Speaker 4: Just have fun.
Speaker 1: So that's why having a strategy and being highly cognizant
and aware of your and traps both on and off
the golf course, is going to help you get through
those situations. And Fred, I'm not sitting here saying it's
going to work every single time guaranteed.
Speaker 4: If there might be a day.
Speaker 1: Where you're just not allowing yourself to really buy into it,
or you're not totally committed to your strategy, so maybe
you're not one hundred percent there, maybe you're seventy eighty
percent of the way there, or you just haven't done
it enough so you're not conditioned enough.
Speaker 4: To really be effective at this.
Speaker 1: It takes time, it takes practice, it takes discipline, and
like anything else, physical conditioning is is like thought. It's
like physical conditioning. It's thought conditioning. You have to condition
yourself to think better. And I have students who start
with me and say, hey, Greg, you know what, I'm
getting so much out of your coaching, But this is
very very early on, maybe the first one or two
times out on the course, somebody might say, you know,
but I feel like I'm thinking more. And it's not
that you're thinking more, you're just thinking differently.
Speaker 4: Okay.
Speaker 1: So it's like when you when you hear that song
by your favorite artists for the first time and you go, oh, yeah,
you know what that's it's it's pretty good. You know,
I kind of like not it's not like it as
much as the other stuff, but I kind of like it.
And then you hear three, four or five times and
you go, wow, you know what want Because what happens is,
you know there was there was new pathways that were
being created in your brain the first time that you
heard it, so it was a little bit foreign, but
the more that you listen to it, the more that
you liked it because now now as familiar. It's the
same thing with conditioning yourself to overcome your ants or
overcome these ant traps, is maybe you aren't great at
it the first time out or the second or the third,
but if you're constantly working at conditioning yourself to stop
those ants on and off the golf course, that particular
situation and maybe you know maybe it's in that that
that that pressure pack situation, that's when it might really
pay off because you've been working at it for so
long and you've conditioned yourself to become very adept at it.
So it definitely takes time, it takes practice, and it
absolutely takes conditioning.
Speaker 4: Okay.
Speaker 3: I have a suggestion for everybody, including you, that when
you start to get into your aunt traps, if you
need a visual to help you remind you to get
out of it, just think of the duck right and trapped,
the flex duck and traps and traps.
Speaker 4: I love it. I thought I thought, you know, I
thought you were gonna have to.
Speaker 1: Take take take take your ant spray out of your
golf bag and spray yourself with.
Speaker 3: No no, do do that.
Speaker 4: I love the traps trap.
Speaker 3: I'm sorry it's your accent that got me there, but
it's the upstate New York accent.
Speaker 1: Uh. It worked, But we just get we just with
something that's going to work for something for everybody.
Speaker 3: I love it exactly.
Speaker 4: Great.
Speaker 3: Tell us how to get the book.
Speaker 1: Sure, it's either at our website at my Metal gamecoach
dot com. You can you can find it there on
the blog page and feel free to subscribe to our blog.
Speaker 4: We're doing two video blog posts every single week.
Speaker 1: Now and they're they're fun, they're creative, they're innovative, they're
all unique, and it's it's you know, they're they're about
a minute or two in length, so they're they're very
short and very direct to the point, and they will
definitely help transform the way you think about your game
on and off the golf course. So that the book
is definitely available through the website, but it's also available
on Amazon. It's just if you just type in eighteen holes.
I think it might come up first. I don't know,
I Fred it comes up first on my left the.
Speaker 3: Search because exactly you typed it in many times.
Speaker 1: Eighteen holes. Greg Loberto l I B E r t O.
Will absolutely help you find it on Amazon. So you
can get the print version on Amazon or the Kindo version.
It's a little bit less than eighteen dollars. Eighteen Holes
is eighteen game changing tips to play your best golf ever.
It's literally, as you probably saw, Fred, it's about an
eighteen minute read, it's about a minute per chapter, and
it really is the bestest way to improve your game.
Speaker 3: Great how about a quick tip here on the three
step approach from your book Eighteen Holes.
Speaker 4: Sounds great.
Speaker 1: So step one is to definitely play with the mental
game strategy, and we want you to be one hundred
percent ready arriving to the golf course on the first
tee and every te elsewhere. And step two is to
get in the zone in every single shot. And one
of the ways that we talked about doing that is
to take a four second timeout, which is to demonstrate
very quickly here Fred, it's to close your eyes and
you're going to breathe in from the belly or from
the diaphragm for two seconds, so it's in through the nose.
Speaker 4: And two seconds out. Okay. So I know it's hard
for most people to do that.
Speaker 1: They think, Oh, I don't want to embarrass myself in
front of other players or especially in front of my opponent.
Speaker 4: It feels kind of weird.
Speaker 1: Practice it on the range, practice it away from your shot,
but allow yourself to be totally calm, totally confident, and
just eliminate those ants or those automatic negative thoughts that
are going to creep in the way when you're playing
in competition or whenever it might be out on the
golf course and just allow yourself to perform in your
most natural state and just swing. So that's step two
is to get in the zone. And then step three
is to focus on three positives at the end of
your round or the end of your practice session. What
do we talk about earlier today every golfer likes to
focus on that would have, could have, should have? Is
how about the three things that went well today? You
probably made a putt if you played eighteen holes of golf,
maybe somewhere along the way you got a lucky bouncer,
you made a great par saving put or maybe you
know what, you had that one t shot on that
one hole that you usually have a tendency to go
out and bounds in that hole, but for some reason,
I striped it right down the middle. Okay, So three
positives after every single round, every single every single practice session.
And you said, simple three step approach to allow yourself
to transform the way that you communicate from start to
finish and go out and play your best golf ever.