July 24, 2025 • 52 mins
Claude welcomes back Senior Instructor and Coach Ryan Crysler for a deep dive into how everyday golfers can stay competitive, even when their swing isn’t cooperating. They explore practical strategies like having game plans A, B, and C, using tactical pauses, and relying on “auto-pars” to keep scores on track when technique falters.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
It's the Son of a Butcher podcast. I'm your host,
Claude Harmon. It's kind of a summer series we've got
going with Ryan Chrysler, who works with me here at
the Floridian RC. Having just watched JJ spawn, you know,
an unbelievable win at the US Open. But Oakmont one
of the toughest golf courses on the planet when the
USJA gets involved. I think it's the hardest golf course.
(00:24):
There is the setup, the questions it asks of the players.
But I was thinking that what the tour players and
what the best players in the world are trying to
do around Oakmont is as close to the average golfers
game as tour players are ever going to get right.
I think we always think about it in reverse. We're
(00:44):
always thinking, Okay, how could I possibly do something that
a tour player is going to do. I think everybody
that was sitting glued to their couch watching the US
Open at Oakmont that's the way they play. Meaning if
you hit it offline at Oakmont during the US Open,
you're struggling to make par, You're probably struggling to make bogie,
(01:05):
so you're bringing big numbers into play. That's due to
how penal the rough was. But that's basically the game
off the t that the majority of the people listening,
that's their game. They get in trouble off the tee
and they.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
Struggle to play right there in the rough. They're behind trees,
they're trying to hit the hero shats. What we saw
the US Open was they're playing in the slop. The
rough is basically you lose your ball without the marker
there or Marshall helping you find that ball, and it
really kind of leveled the playing field, and you saw
(01:40):
a guy like JJ Spama was his final score, he.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
Was even on the back nine, one under, one under
the back nine, no one under total.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
One under total. But on the back nine a Sunday,
what was this?
Speaker 1 (01:49):
I can't remember what he shot on the back shot
forty on the front, forty on the front. And that
was another thing. I mean, that is the gulf that
most people listening play. They start off their round with
five fives in a row. That doesn't happen to tour players.
Tour players don't start off five five, five five, It
(02:11):
just doesn't happen. But that tournament, the US Open at Oakmont,
I think if you go back in. There'll be some
probably some YouTube, or you can go back in and
watch every shot that JJ Spahn hit, or go back
in and watch the highlights. Look at the way the
guys that were leading that golf tournament and had a
chance to win that golf tournament, look at the way
(02:31):
they're playing it, and then apply that to your own
damn game. Hit fair ways, hit greens, and it's easy
to look in hindsight. I mean, I think he got
a big break. I talked about it with Gary Coch
when I had him on the podcast. He was on
the call. But the rain delay I think really helped
him because he shot forty on the front. He wasn't
(02:52):
playing good. I mean, he didn't look like he was
in control at all. Big rain delay, I think that
helped him reset. But I think he won the golf
tournament on Saturday. Where on Saturday afternoon, on the weekend,
in one of the last couple of groups in the
US Open, on one of the hardest golf courses known
to man, he made pars from the fifth to the
(03:15):
sixteenth hole. He just parned making pars. Now the announcers
kept calling it making a US Open par making a
US Open Oakmont par You know, that's what you have
to do to win these things. But for everybody listening,
if you could just do that string together two and
(03:38):
a bit hours of just making pars. Now some of
those pars he's holding ten footers. But it doesn't matter
how you're making the pars, specifically in a US Open
on a golf course like Oakmont, with the way the
setup is, it doesn't matter how you make them. The
only thing that matters is making them and putting a
lot of them together. You know, four, five, six, seven, eight,
(04:02):
whole stretches. We're just making pars. If the average golfer
would just say, Okay, I am just going to try
and make as many pars and bogees today as I can,
because that's the mantra. JJ Spond didn't make a double
bogie for the entire week. Entire week, I'm gonna say
that again, did not make a double bogie for the
(04:24):
entire week. He may have been the only player with
that stat, Dude, there were a couple of I think
Bobby Mack didn't have one. So talk to me, RCI
about the way that the best players in the world
were trying to play Oakmont in the US Open, and
how the average golfer listening can take that strategy and
apply it to their own game.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
Well, I think what you don't see is the work
they put in Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday.
Speaker 1 (04:49):
Yeah, right, and nine hole practice rounds at Oakmont were
taken three and a half hours, right. I mean, if
you're gonna try play eighteen holes, you'd have been out
there for well over sixss because once we got to
the greens twenty minutes, fifteen minutes, I mean.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
Because you're kind of guessing with the pins.
Speaker 1 (05:07):
Are they know where? You know, everybody all the you
know DJ's brother Aj, I mean they won there in sixteen.
Aj had his book from sixteen, so he was like, yeah,
they had a pin here in sixteen, they had a
pin here in sixteen, they had one here, they had
everyone here, or they'd go listen, they're probably gonna put
one at the front and then three at the back,
or three at the front and one at the back
or wherever. But my point behind that is we spent
(05:28):
the entire practice rounds just trying.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
To We're trying to figure out where to put it.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
The other thing that I think is so helpful and
you can expand on this for everybody listening. Where do
you want to miss the golf ball? Go around your
home course, go out. We do this with our players,
you know, at a team float standpoint, but we actually
have them go out and you can talk about this. Okay,
you're in the middle of the fairway, Okay, don't hit
the green. Where's the easiest place to get it up
(05:55):
and down from and hit it there.
Speaker 2 (05:57):
It's a great little game, mandatory miss.
Speaker 1 (05:59):
Mandatory miss is the name of the game. And when
we do that game with juniors and people trying to play,
talk everybody through. It's a game that I think is
really really powerful that everybody could play at home on
their home course, regardless of their handicapling right.
Speaker 2 (06:12):
It's a great template to plan your tournament rounds. Basically,
find out where you need to go. Do I need
to be short of this bunker?
Speaker 1 (06:21):
So start from the tee. Let's work backwards from the
green and start at the tee. So when you stand
on the tee when you're playing the mandatory miss game,
what's the strategy strategies?
Speaker 2 (06:30):
What do I need? Where do I need to put
this ball off the tee? Meaning is there a bunker
out there? Can I carry it handily? If I can't,
what is the number to that bunker? And what is
the club I need to make sure I hit that
has no chance of getting into that bunker.
Speaker 1 (06:44):
And then do the math accordingly and then say, okay,
let me work backwards to where Okay, can I carry
those bunkers? Okay, that's the risk reward off the tee.
So if I can carry the bunkers, the bunkers are
whatever the distance out is, but it's an X amount
to carry that bunker. If you can't comfortably carry that bunker,
then work backwards from where the bunker is and then say, okay,
(07:07):
what can I hit off the tee that isn't going
to get me to that bunker? Right? But also what
can I hit off the tee that isn't going to
get me in that bunker that I can't carry, But
is a club that.
Speaker 2 (07:20):
I have confidence and that I have a chance to
get to the green?
Speaker 1 (07:23):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (07:23):
Right, So we hit that number, we get that number
whatever it is. Let's say it's two twenty five, whatever
that is for the average person five with Let's say
and then let's look at the green and the difference
between your home course, and a major championship course is
one day at a major championship course does not mean
you can put the ball in the same spot every
day because the pins are on a three slope and
(07:46):
it's a.
Speaker 1 (07:47):
Fourteen green, so a lot of undulation.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
Versus a normal course where typically you can usually place
the ball let's say it's front right where there's no bunker,
let's say, and you can have an easy chips even
a putt up the hill to any location on the green.
So what makes major so complicated is that one spot
does not fit all based on the conditions of the
(08:11):
course and the pen placements. That's why it's a major championship.
Speaker 1 (08:13):
Yeah, one of the things that we always tell juniors
to do, and what we tell, you know, people trying
to break one hundred and ninety eighty seventy for the
first time, just dump it in the middle of it.
The majority of people listening to this podcast, unless you're
a member at Saint Andrew's, unless you're a member at Oakmann,
unless you're a member at a place where they are
going to play a major championship or a place where
(08:35):
they're going to play a tour event. The majority of
people listening to this, if every single hole on their
home course they dumped it and put it in the
middle of the green, they'd have a pretty good chance
to make Paul pretty good.
Speaker 2 (08:47):
Chance, regardless of the pen locations and regardless of the
speed of the green. And they're going to have let's
say max forty feet on a putt and then hopefully
they can two put, and even they don't, if they
three put twice and they hit twelve greens, let's say
the math still favors breaking ninety basically, right. So we
focus on, especially in those practice rounds, where do I
(09:10):
need to go and where do I need to go
on this particular day. That's literally it. And what we
tend to see is what do I need to avoid?
And they write down I can't go right, where do
I need to hit my second shot onto the green?
And then they go to the most difficult part of
the green and try to work on that up and down,
And it's really just a waste of time because if
(09:32):
you're hitting into a bad spot, you need to cut
your losses and make bogie anyway, like, just cut your losses,
get it on the green on the chip to thirty
feet and just to putt and get out of there.
Professionals are always focused on where they wanted to go.
Amateurs seem to be always focused on what they want
to avoid.
Speaker 1 (09:50):
That is a very interesting scenario because I went through
this back in Oh gosh, the Open that Tiger won
in Liverpool where he really didn't hit driver and it
was super, super baked out. I was working with Trevor
Immelman at the time, and I set up for Tred
to play a practice round with Tiger, and I just
wanted him to watch how Tiger and Stevie kind of
(10:12):
planned a practice round and so we got done. Neil
Wallace was caddying for him at the time. Neil Wallace
currently caddy in for Sergio Garcia. Neil caddied for Ernie
in two thousand, I think, and all those classic duels
with Tiger and Neil Wallace and I we sat down
after that practice round with Tiger and said, what'd you notice.
I wanted to see if he noticed something that was different,
(10:33):
and I hoped he would key in on the thing
that I wanted him to. And he hit the nail
on the head. He goes. All they talk about is
where they're going. They never talk about where they're trying
not to go. And he said, Stevie's always going, hey,
we go here, And he said, and Stevie says, hey,
and if we're gonna miss it, this is where we
miss it, not this is where we don't want to
(10:53):
miss it.
Speaker 2 (10:53):
Right.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
And I've said this before, but I talked to Adam
Scott when Scotty said when he had that stint, when
Stevie on the bag, I said to him, I said, listen,
You've had amazing caddies throughout your entire career. Alistair McLain
who caddied for Colin Montgomery for all those Order of Merits,
Davey Rennick who caddied for VJ and one Majors. You know,
I mean Tony Navarro who caddied for Greg Norman. I
mean Adam Scott has had an embarrassment of riches when
(11:17):
it comes to great caddies. And I said, what is
so different about Stevie Williams. He's like, he just makes
the game easy in the way that he's trying to
get me around the golf course. And I think that's
something that we preach constantly to all of our players,
is don't make the game harder, make the game easier.
But I think a lot of people listening, like you said,
(11:39):
are making the game harder because they're constantly trying to
not do things. They're trying to constantly try and not
hit bad shots, not hit it in the water, not
hit it out of bounds, not miss this screen, not
miss this fair way. That is a big, big mindset
shift to what you're what are you trying to do?
(11:59):
So I've talked about this on the pod, but intention RC,
how important do you think intent and formula and purpose
is on the golf course?
Speaker 2 (12:10):
It's everything because every other sport does it that way,
and for some reason, golfers find a way to explain that.
Speaker 1 (12:16):
Expand on that a little bit more in how you
think other sports do it differently than golf.
Speaker 2 (12:22):
Let's talk about football, American football. American football, they call play,
they focus maybe on two potential receivers, or they have
an out or an audible All right, let's say it's
a passing play. So they're not trying to hit the
home run or the hail mary unless they're at the
end of the game and they need to.
Speaker 1 (12:42):
Or unless they have the perfect setup, the perfect play
called to take advantage of a weakness and score a
home run type play.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
How many hail Mary's per game are there usually maybe
one or two at the end of each half.
Speaker 1 (12:58):
How many hail Mary's.
Speaker 2 (12:59):
Are on the golf golfers who are.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
Trying to break one hundred and ninety eighty tap, I
mean the road every shot, every shot to hail Mary.
Speaker 2 (13:07):
Every shot to hell Mary, and so to me the
hail Mary, it's almost luck to pull off that play,
right Aaron Rodgers is really good at it. But in golf,
being able to have an intent where I don't have
this shot, I don't have this scenario to pull off
this shot. I just need to move it here with
(13:27):
full intent, as opposed to maybe I can get us
through these trees or maybe I can hit it over
this water. I need to be fully intent and sure
that I can put it here and it's safe and
get ready for the next shot. And we had a
player I played with last week, Read and I talked
about a little bit from your other podcast about having
(13:49):
a real intentional and extreme stare down with your target
and just a real like intentional stare down like you're
ten years old, having a staring contest with your.
Speaker 1 (14:00):
And you're hoping that the target doesn't blink first.
Speaker 2 (14:02):
And you're hoping the target doesn't blink first. You're in
the address position and you're looking at it, and maybe
you got a couple of waggles, and you're just really
intent on that target. Golfers tend to think, up now,
I see the water, now, I see the house, now
I see the trees, now I see out of bounds.
When you're in that steering contest with that target, it
seems to simplify.
Speaker 1 (14:22):
It just quieting the white.
Speaker 2 (14:26):
Noise and you slowly bring it back into the golf
ball and then off you go. And so that to
me is full intent for a golfer. And other sports
have different scenarios, but golfers seem to be really good
at creating distractions that take away from their intent.
Speaker 1 (14:46):
I was watching I watch a lot of Formula one,
and you look at the strategies from Formula one and
they kind of, okay, they look at what the car
is doing, right, They kind of look at what the
temperature is going to be doing, They look at the
tire they have available, and then they look at what
the track is going to look at. And so they're
like Okay, are we on a one stop? Are we
(15:09):
on a two stop? Are we on a three stop?
And if you watch Drive to Survive or if you
watch Formula one, one of the things I love is
they'll say, we're sticking with plan A, so they have
one hundred percent gone through in the briefing for the race. Okay,
we have a strategy today. This is our strategy for
Plan A, and this is plan B, and then if
(15:30):
we really need to, we go to Plan C. And
I think that's a great way taking some of the
way Formula one looks at setting up the car, dealing
with the temperature, dealing with the track, dealing with the conditions.
Based off of all of those calculations they have, you know,
the tons upon tons of data that F one does,
(15:51):
to where they've got, you know, a million sensors on
the car they're looking at, whether they're looking at track condition,
everything like that. They say, based off of all of
this information, based off of what the car is doing
this week, we have a plan A, we have a
Plan B, and we maybe have a plan see. And
once the race starts, they basically pivot off of that, right,
(16:13):
And I think for the average golfer listening going out
and saying, Okay, what is my plan A strategy today?
What is my plan B strategy today? I don't. First
of all, I think most golfers go out with no
plan and then they never and I keep talking about
this on the podar seat. Most golfers go out and go, Okay,
(16:36):
nothing's going to go wrong today. I'm a twenty five handicap.
Speaker 2 (16:39):
I just had a great practice session.
Speaker 1 (16:41):
So nothing's going to go wrong on the golf course today,
and I'm going to plan accordingly. Basically, I'm planning for
nothing to go wrong on the golf course once the
game is being played, and as soon as something wrong happens,
there is no plan and it's okay, I'm in trouble.
(17:03):
Straight offense now, straight offense. You know, internally I sent
I think it was lou Stagner who posted this stat.
Tour players make bogie eighty percent of the time when
they get in trouble off the tee, which is an
unbelievable stat. You do that at Oakmont in the US Open.
You're gonna have a chance to win when you get
(17:25):
in trouble if you can make a bogie eighty percent
of the time, Because there are no birdie chances at
the US Opened at Oakmont maybe fourteen, which was a
short part four. Bob Ford told me that he thinks
that's kind of the only legit birdie chance that there is.
So the majority of us are playing the US Open
(17:47):
every single time we play, there are no birdie chances
out there relative to our skill level.
Speaker 2 (17:54):
Correct, So there might be one, maybe I'd say one.
Speaker 1 (17:58):
But the average golfer plays golf on their home course,
which might be sixty six, sixty seven, sixty eight, sixty nine,
thousand yards whatever, the yardage is, the skill set that
they have, the tools that the majority of golfers have
in their toolbox is basically like they're playing Oakmont every
(18:21):
single day, Meaning there are no legit birdy chances. You
miss a fair way, you're struggling to make bogie, you
miss a green, you're struggling to make par or a bogie.
So game planning, I mean, that's all we did. Right,
We're looking at old videos at Oakmont, We're looking at
(18:41):
old yardage books, We're looking at okay, what do we
do when the wind switched this? Right? So the US
Open at Oakmont, that JJ spawnwin at one under is
basically your home course every single day. It's all about
minimize mistakes. And I think JJ Spawn also did a
(19:04):
great job. How many people out there get off to
a bad start and then don't string together an hour
and a half worth of pars and say, listen, I'm
gonna spend the next hour. I'm gonna spend the next
nine holes wherever I am in my round. Okay, you
start off bogie double okay, cut it in half and say, okay,
(19:27):
what am I going to do for the next five holes?
What am I going to do for the next nine holes,
and start to strategize. That's Plan C, that's Plan B. Okay,
didn't get off to a good start, Okay, now I
go to plan A to where now I am ultra
ultra conservative. Right.
Speaker 2 (19:44):
One of the only golfers and one of my favorite
golfers to watch is Patrick Reid, and he talks when
you have a chance to see his stuff on YouTube
or wherever. He has multiple plans for each hole based
on how he's planning. And I see another golfer talking
about that you need to have at your own course
multiple plays on number one, multiple players and number two
multiple plays and number three based on how your honest
(20:08):
assessment is of how your plan.
Speaker 1 (20:10):
And based on the condition of the golf course, the
condition of the weather, and based off there are so
many variables that are out of your control every time
you go out on the golf course. You can't control
the weather, you can't control the condition of the golf course,
you can't control the setup of the golf course. You
can't control where they put the pin. So it's all random, right,
(20:33):
every time you go play a competitive round of golf,
every time you put a scorecard in your pocket and
you're gonna go play nine or eighteen holes and keep score,
everything is random and is out of your control. So
if you start from that premise, then going into that
with no plan, with no formula, with no contingency plan
(20:54):
is just a recipe for failure.
Speaker 2 (20:57):
For sure, being undisciplined. And you know, I'm writing this
book on discipline and golf, and one of the things
that keeps coming back to is like every round of
golf there should be a win somewhere, either play well, win,
play bad. Bad, Start turn it around, win play bad,
come up with a different swing thought and start to
play good win. So everything in golf and around typically
(21:21):
to me, there's always some sort of lesson you can learn.
And if you start focusing on what can I learn
today when you're playing golf, you take away all the confusion,
the hero shots, the bad decision, whatever it is, and
you start to learn about yourself. You can really aware. Basically, man,
(21:43):
for example, I have not hit two drives or three
drives in a row where I wanted to hit them.
I need to choose something else. And then it's three wood.
Let's say maybe you start hitting that three wood in
the fairway. Now we start to build momentum, and when
there's a chance to maybe hit a driver, you have
an option. I can risk Plan A, which which is driver,
(22:06):
or stick to my Plan B. And for the most
part I would tell people just stay with Plan B,
keep hitting three what because we're minimizing the risk. Essentially,
I guarantee that you can shoot a low score or
lower than average if you're hitting more fairways off the team,
if you're struggling with your T shot. And so that's
(22:26):
one simple fix is just I don't care about the distance,
get it in the fairway, minimize the chance to make
bogie lay up if you have to unapart four, figure
out ways to avoid the double. That's how you can
learn and minimize your mistakes and not necessarily break ninety.
(22:47):
But you have all the things in your control that
give you the opportunity to break ninety.
Speaker 1 (22:53):
Yeah. We talk all the time about people whose goals
are to break one hundred and ninety eighty and seventy
for the first time. And I think being able to
adapt on the golf course is something that people don't
even think is helpful. When you're trying to you have
to be able to adapt.
Speaker 2 (23:12):
Scottish chefer Pga scottis Cheffler adapted.
Speaker 1 (23:15):
Yeah, snap hooking it off the tee. Every missus left
left left on the front nine and then I've talked
about it on the pod before, but then all the
misses are left. His caddy Teddy Scott says, hey, they're
good shots, they're solid shots, they're just left. Maybe we're
aiming over there, Maybe just aim a little bit more
to the right, and in three holes the tournament was over. Right.
(23:36):
But that is adapting, yes, on the golf course. And
I think so many people listening to this if if
you can just learn to adapt better to it, Okay,
Plan A, Plan B and then if things go really bad,
Plan C. So if a player was going to kind
of take the Formula one model and say, Okay, this
starts strategy for Plan A, this starts strategy for Plan B,
(23:59):
and then and super super contingent plan C, talk me
through what a Plan A strategy looks like, Plan B
and Plan C.
Speaker 2 (24:08):
Right, So I would say plan A would be all
golf scenes are great, I'm hitting all my targets, I'm
making putts, let's go right.
Speaker 1 (24:16):
For the majority of people listening to this podcast, that
probably rarely, if ever happens once around or once a year, man.
And for competitive players that are trying to play at
an elite competitive level, they will get into spells and
phases of their game and of their year to where Yeah,
I mean we hear players on tour saying that all
(24:36):
the time. Listen, Man, I didn't really my ball striking
wasn't where I really needed to be at the beginning
of the year, but I kind of found something and
then you know, kind of rode that through the summer
and really kind of turn things around. So Plan A
for most players is Okay, conditions are good, right, give
myself a lot of good looks you know, I'm hitting
it good on the range. My practice sessions would be
(24:58):
good on the range. So based off of that, my
plan A strategy would be what.
Speaker 2 (25:03):
I'm gonna admit this target aggressive swinging out a conservative target,
make sure on bulletproof, no mistakes. Off we go.
Speaker 1 (25:09):
What does Plan B look like for the average golfer?
Speaker 2 (25:12):
Plan B?
Speaker 1 (25:13):
And I think plan B is where you should be living.
Speaker 2 (25:15):
Yeah, somewhere between B and C probably most of the time.
Speaker 1 (25:18):
Yeah. I mean, the amount of people listening to this
podcast that are ever really going to have the necessary
tools to go to a plan A strategy is pretty small.
And that's not a diss that's not being disrespectful, that's
just math. That's just talent level. I think if you
(25:40):
can have a better and more honest opinion and a
more honest conversation with yourself as a player about what
my skill set is, what are the things that I
can do, what are the things I can't do? Stay
away from the things that I can't do, and try
and ride and dear the ship towards the shore of
(26:02):
the things that I can do.
Speaker 2 (26:04):
Right, So plan B looks like this, what are the
conditions and the course that typically create a big mess
up for me. Water left, what club do I hit?
It doesn't seem to go left that often. Okay, is
it a hybrid? I don't care how far it goes.
Is it a hybrid? Is it my driver? Right? So
the plan B is basically what does it take to
(26:24):
be in the right center of this fairway and either
off the tee or on my second shot if I
miss the fairway, that's plan B. Plan B is you
have a built in layup back on plan on the
right side of the golf hole to avoid the trouble
right happens, whatever the trouble is.
Speaker 1 (26:42):
Yeah, and I think that I liked what you said.
You know, if you think about a plan A strategy,
a plan B and a plan.
Speaker 2 (26:49):
C, plan B is that you have a built in
pitch out right and if you can still get yourself
on the green in three on approferable.
Speaker 1 (26:55):
Getting into the mindset of kind of game planning between
plan B and plan C, because I think what everybody
does across the board is just go for plan A.
Plan A is I'm hitting it great, right, I'm gonna
hit every fairway, I'm gonna hit every green, I'm gonna
have legit birdy chances on all the par fives, you know,
all of that stuff that is just not a reality,
(27:19):
I'd say for ninety five percent of the people that
play this sport, right, So, no, Plan B.
Speaker 2 (27:24):
To me is what side of the hole do I
need to be on? And can I get myself over
there and not just one shot but maybe it requires
two shots? And then plant C is okay, not much
is working. What can I do? Plants is tough. However,
Plant C has hope because hope is basically you've got
to wait and be patient with all the plans essentially.
(27:44):
But Plant C is I've got to wait. I can't
let my playing partner distract me from hitting this particular shot,
where I can't react to my competitor hitting this particular shot.
I need to be on this particular side of the whole,
no matter matter what, And it doesn't matter what the
shot looks like. Is it a hybrid, is the three wood?
Is it a six iron? Put me on this side
(28:07):
of the hole.
Speaker 1 (28:07):
I went and saw the New f One movie the
other night, and Brad Pitt's character says too, they're in
a team meeting and he was into one of the
other drivers, the other drivers talking about all the things
that they hoped would happen in great line that One
of the big takeaways for me is Brad Pitt's character said,
hope is not a strategy. And I think a lot
of people go out and they hope that they do
this and they hope that they do that, and that's
(28:28):
not a strategy. It's not a way to lower your scores.
So having realistic expecition, I mean I talk about this
a lot on the pod arc. How do we get
people to have more realistic expectations with their own game?
Where do you think that starts? How do we help
players have more realistic expectations and evaluations of what they do?
Speaker 2 (28:52):
One thing for sure, as we beat the shit out
of them in practice, we make practice super hard and
they can't move on to the next task until they
can put it the first desk.
Speaker 1 (29:02):
So you think task driven practice is a great way
to have a more realistic approach or a realistic evaluation
of what your skill set is.
Speaker 2 (29:14):
Yeah, task driven and also time driven too. So given
someone talking me through that, given someone five minutes to
complete let's say six particular puts made on the grin.
Speaker 1 (29:25):
Did you see that one on Instagram the other day,
the impossible putt one where the guy put the teas
up and not you know, you could do this at
any length. But find a putt that's you know, got
some brek on it and then walk out. You know,
you could start from your ball. You could start two
steps away, right, put a tea down and then put
your foot down and wherever your toe is, put another
(29:46):
tea down and do that, and do that and do
that right, and it was okay, putt that breaks a lot.
And then those are gates, right, So let's say you've
got five, six, seven gates that you've got to put
it through on a left right put that's got a
lot of slope, right to left put that's got lot
of slope. But you've only got thirty minutes to do it.
So the thirty minute thing puts you under what you're
(30:06):
going to feel on the golf course, right, because trying
to replicate the feeling of okay. And I think the
time gap and the time limit in these type of
drills when you practice one, if you're running out of
time and you've got to produce or perform, it teaches
(30:28):
you how, okay, what is my reset here, I'm running
out of time, okay, a couple of deep breasts.
Speaker 2 (30:33):
Reset Refocus teaches you how to have that tactical pause
the way the quarterback slows the game down and kind
of teaches you to kind of have that reset tactical pause.
Speaker 1 (30:42):
We have to have the podcast before. But for people
that aren't listening, you talk about this a lot. I
know you're, you know, a huge fan of trying to
help the military and our troops and stuff like that.
But what is a tactical pause?
Speaker 2 (30:54):
Technical pause is basically, you go find some cover and
kneel down so you don't get shot.
Speaker 1 (30:59):
So give me an example of where you're going to
be in a situation from a military standpoint, where you
would need to take a tactical pause.
Speaker 2 (31:07):
Yeah, maybe you're the story that Captain Richards told us.
You know, you're you're taking a terrorist inside a city
and there's a sniper that you never accounted for. Tactical
pause means you go run for covering and assess the situation.
A normal army group may try to attack that sniper
because they took out the leader. A special Forces Army
(31:30):
group would backtrack and try to assess and get back
on the mission. So for a golfer, that tactical pause
could actually literally be a kneel down at your back
and just saying what do I need to do to
get out of this situation? And it's just like either
a ten second breathe, one minute hold wait for the
(31:52):
other players to hit. It's just basically a reset.
Speaker 1 (31:56):
A lot of times on tour, guys will hit the
portage right, they'll go, they'll hit their drive. Things aren't
going well, and they'll go off by themselves. They'll go
to the portage on you know, on the course, and
sometimes they don't have to do anything there. They just
need that kind of break. And the portagehn is kind
(32:16):
of it symbolizes Okay, I'm gonna go somewhere else, probably
isn't gonna be very nice, right, shut the door and
stand there for thirty secs and to just kind of
go okay, what am I doing here? And reevaluate and
then say okay. Because that's basically what JJ spawn got
in the rain delay at the US Open and Oakmod
(32:38):
he got a tactical pause. There was a time to
where they were talking about on tour there and I
talked to Gary Cooke about this when I had him
on the pod. Sometimes you shelter in place. And the
one thing about the weather at Oakmont is they when
we were there, we would get the alerts from the
guys when we were on the course. There's no electricity
in the air, there's no lightning, so this rainstorm is
(32:59):
only gonna be you know, ten, fifteen, five, whatever. But
sometimes they'll say, listen, just shelter in place, everybody, stay
on the course. We're not gonna pull everybody off because
this is gonna blow through in five, ten minutes, right,
fifteen minutes. But they pulled everybody off the golf course
and then kept getting rolling updates, rolling updates, and then
everybody got a chance to warm back up. But that
(33:20):
is the definition of a tactical pause. That rained delight. Now,
that tactical pause seemed to help JJ spawn for some
of these and we seem to not help Scutty and
Sam Burns.
Speaker 2 (33:33):
Right. Tough break for those guys too, if they had
any momentum before that rain. Right.
Speaker 1 (33:38):
But I do think most golfers listening, you know, find
out what your tactical pause is. Right.
Speaker 2 (33:44):
Every sport has a time out, except for golf and
golfers tend to rush through it, right, and.
Speaker 1 (33:49):
A great I think tactical pause could be for everyone listening.
Let's say you're at home and you're on a on
the bogie train and you've gone bogie bogie double and stuff,
and you're playing, you're riding in carts. To me, the
tactical palls would be, Okay.
Speaker 2 (34:04):
I'm gonna walk to the next shot.
Speaker 1 (34:05):
I'm gonna walk to the next shot, and everybody else
is gonna go, and I'm probably going to be the
last to hit because obviously you're not trying to hold
up play and all of that. Say to everybody, Hey,
I'm just gonna walk to the next hole. I just
hit my t shot. You guys go, Hey, I'll get
there when I get there. You guys go ahead and play.
You guys play ready golf. So when you get up
there and you're ready to go, go and I'll get
there when I get there. But that walk, either from
(34:28):
the tee to your approach shot, or from your approach
shot to the green, or from the green to the
next tee, just that kind of reset on your own
could be your tactical pause.
Speaker 2 (34:44):
Sure that time out you're looking for it yeah, the
game down.
Speaker 1 (34:47):
I've never thought about that. We're the only sport where
there isn't a time out, but there's also an enormous
amount of time in.
Speaker 2 (34:54):
Between shots right to it effectively.
Speaker 1 (34:57):
Yeah, so that time between shots, how do you think
everyone listening ORC could use that time better? And in
that time what should they be doing? Because there's two
ways of thinking about this, right, you can try and
turn your brain off, which is what I think the
best players in the world are trying to do. I
remember when in seventeen when Brooks won his first US
(35:18):
opened at Aaron Hills. It's on the back nine, I
think it was fourteen, really really difficult shot. Pin was
kind of tucked back right, you know, cut very very
close to the right edge. You missed it to the right,
you've fallen off a mountain ro off, you're gonna make
bogie or double right. And nobody is hitting it anywhere
close to that flag. And Brooks stood up and I
(35:40):
think it was Brad Faxon. You know, it was just marveled.
He was just left of the pin, hit it inside
of fifteen to ten feet and the announcers like, wow,
nobody's hit it there right when they were walking up
to that shot, I asked Brooks afterwards, what were you
guys talking about it? He was like, we're actually talking
about where we were going to stay when we went
to ty Land in the offseason. And He's like, we
(36:03):
were talking about so much that when we got to
the ball, we were kind of in conversation trying to
win the US Open on the back nine on Sunday
and we're not even talking about golf. So tour players
are trying to not think about golf right right when
they're on the golf course in competition, whereas I think
the average golfer needs to use that time in between
(36:26):
shots to think more about what they're trying to do,
think more about what their intent is, make a plan
for the next shot.
Speaker 2 (36:36):
I've got a few players that basically the Sabin has
the twenty four hour rule golf, when you're the twenty
four second rule, so you have twenty four seconds.
Speaker 1 (36:44):
To what is the nick Saban twenty four hours.
Speaker 2 (36:46):
You have twenty four hours to think about the last
game because we got six days into the next game
and then you gotta let it go. So in golf,
it's like you got the twenty four second rule, you
got twenty four seconds to kind of evaluate that last shot,
and off you go, clubs in the bag boom. But
the other thing I have a few players do, not
all of them, is just write down something positive about
(37:06):
each shot. And that might take like a minute or two,
but that's a good minute of thinking, Okay, maybe I
had a good routine. Maybe that's the shape that I
was looking for, and maybe that was a fly. Whatever
was something positive that you can write down, put it
in the notes, scorecard wherever it is, and you can
take that sentiment into the next shot. It takes maybe
(37:27):
a minute, and then maybe there's two minutes between each shot,
and now you have a kind of a fresh mindset.
You came up with something positive, even though you maybe
missed the actual shot. There has to be something positive
that you can draw out of the last shot, and
you've got twenty four seconds to evaluate it and maybe
a minute to come up with your positive thought.
Speaker 1 (37:51):
I meant to send this to you the other day.
I saw something online Roger Federer's fifteen second rule.
Speaker 2 (37:57):
Yep, have you seen this the fifteen second Yeah? Yeah,
so so just from the speech, the.
Speaker 1 (38:02):
Fifteen seconds, so zero to five seconds, reflect on the
previous point. So try to take a deep breath, look
back at what happened, who won the point and why,
so what happened on the shot and why? Right, he's
trying to take five seconds to that. What the average
golfer does is they just get stuck into the bad shot,
(38:23):
the bad shot, the bad shot, the bad position. So
then that's zero to five seconds, and then five to
ten seconds focus on relaxation. Federer said that this was
the most important part. Right, walks around to the towel. Again,
that's the tactical The five to ten seconds is the
tactical reset, breathing techniques to kind of relax his mind
(38:46):
and everything like that. And then next phase was prefare
for what's next. So ten to fifteen seconds is okay,
what's the next point? Often reflecting on a tactical change.
Fifteen seconds okay, so what just happened? All right? All right,
let me just kind of reset. My dad used to
say to Tiger, he'd give them it was either five
(39:08):
or ten steps, right, make a double for five to
ten steps you can. I'm not advocating this for everyone listening,
but my dad was like, don't carry it to the
next hole, So get it out. If that means you've
got to scream, if that means you've got to bang
a club, if it means you've got to kick. I'm
not advocating all of that, but get it out so
(39:30):
that you're not carrying it to the next hole. And
so coming up with I mean, for Roger Federer, of
fifteen seconds is probably lot. But use that time in
between shots to say, Okay, I've just did a bad shot.
Do I have any ideas to what just happened? Right? Right? Okay?
If the answer is yes, okay, what's my plan now?
(39:52):
And let me go execute that plan? Right?
Speaker 2 (39:54):
These professional offers are so good between chats it's it's crazy.
It's the complete player. Right. We had Matthew Vaughan last
year talk about how he won Tory Pines, how he
was reading his journal, his little inspirational quotes before every shot.
It's all these players, all these great players have these
hacks between shots that we never get to hear about.
Speaker 1 (40:14):
Yeah, they write stuff down in their yardage book. They're
sports psychologists, or their coach will give them something to
keep repeating. All of that. But again, going back to
what we talked about, it's all of that is intentional. Right.
All of that is what am I going to try
to plan to do as opposed to I'm going to
(40:36):
try and not hit the iceberg yep, instead of I'm
going to do everything in my planning to make sure
we don't come anywhere near icebergs, right, and if we
do get into an ice field in a ship and everything.
This is the contingency plot. But everything about charting, I mean,
I've talked about this on the pod. That kid that
we had for Teamflow, whose dad was a pilot for
(40:58):
Norse Airways, right Airline, He showed me once flight from
Norway to Miami. The book was seventy almost eighty pages
long of all of the things that could go wrong,
all the contingency plans, and based off of all of
that information, everything was planned. So if this happens, we
(41:19):
do this. If that happens, we do that. If that happens,
we go there. If the weather it comes this, we
do this everything. But all of that is intentional, right.
The checklist for a pilot before they fly, all of
that is intentional making sure everything is working. They do
that religiously every time they fly. And I just think
(41:41):
more intent and more planning is a way.
Speaker 2 (41:46):
Versus kind of reacting, especially reacting emotionally to the next shot.
Speaker 1 (41:50):
How can players not RCI give us some tools to
not react emotionally because it's just so hard to do
that on the golf course.
Speaker 2 (41:59):
It's hard. It takes time, you know you even.
Speaker 1 (42:01):
It takes practice and intent. I mean, I think it's
a choice. I mean, if you're on the bogie train
and on the front nine and you just start pushing
all in and going for every shot and all that,
that is a choice as a player you're making. You
are making a choice. You've had three or four drinks
and you are making the choice to drive. Yep, right,
(42:24):
So that is a choice you're making. So when you
get pulled over and you're getting the back of a car,
don't be surprised because that's the choice you made. And
you end up in a jail cell because you chose
to drink and then you chose to Nobody forced you
to drive. You can leave your car, you can take
(42:44):
an uber, you come back and get it. You know
you're not fit to drive, So I look a lot
of course management right now, Like people that get in
twenty twenty five, if you get a DUI you deserve
one you can find. I mean back in the day,
I mean taxis were hard to find. Now pretty much
(43:06):
every city you live in there's gonna be some sort
of ride share that you can get. So just plan
accordingly and go Okay, I've had too much to drink.
I've gotten off to the bad start. I'm not now
going to go do something even more dumb now and
put myself at risk and put other people at risk.
Speaker 2 (43:25):
Right the choices are simply basically thought replacements. If you
are angry over the shot, you have to switch it
to what can I learn from the shot? Or switch
it to okay, curiosity why was I so off on
that chat? And so being able to flip those takes practice.
But I think having the mindset before you even get
(43:47):
to the course that I'm gonna learn from something today.
Every round I play is a win and I'm not
getting shot at, I'm not getting hurt. I'm playing golf.
Every round is a win, and you're gonna play well,
I'm gonna learn something about myself if you put that
and to play that kind of sets the stage to
control those control those emotions.
Speaker 1 (44:05):
I always say to tour players every competitive round of
golf you play is an opportunity for you to learn
something about yourself and learn something about your game. Yeah,
and the best players in the world adapt, they accept
what they have, they're honest with themselves, and then based
off of that they form a game plan tournament golf.
(44:29):
What's a good game plan for tournament golf for a
course that you've never played before?
Speaker 2 (44:35):
A game plan going into it. Yeah, variety of apps
out there to look at the course from a GPS prepared.
Speaker 1 (44:41):
Google maps, like if you don't want to, if you
don't want to subscribe to an app that can, you know,
there's a bunch of them. Marcos has the eighteen Burns
eighteen Bird's right. You can go and look at all
the courts you're gonna play. It can kind of plot
where you know, you can drag something. It's gonna tell
you if you drive here, you're gonna have that. So
golf for dummies. If you don't have that, go online,
(45:01):
find a scorecard from the course that you're gonna play,
and then go to the website and then go to
Google Maps or Google Earth and go and look and
then go, Okay, we're probably going to be playing the
golf course from this distance. If I'm playing it from
this tee, how far is this hole? I tend to
average drive. Be honest with yourself. I average drive it.
(45:23):
My drives kind of average around to You know, when
I go play golf, I average two thirty to two
forty off the tee. If I really really bust one,
you know, when I'm swinging really good and my body's good,
I can get one out there to eighty to ninety.
But I don't live in that world. So I live
(45:43):
in kind of the two twenty five to two fifty
at a push off the tee. So be honest with Okay,
if I really tattoo one, if I'm a twenty five
handicapper and I really hit one good, center of the face,
hit the fair way. On the high end, my ball
goes this far, and on the low end it goes here.
(46:05):
If I hit it really bad and kind of I
have a lot of drives that kind of go this
far right. Go to Google Maps, look at the scorecard
that's where you're gonna play from, and then say, okay, yeah,
I'm probably going to hit on this hole. I'm probably
going to get it here. That's probably going to leave
me this shot ye and this distance, And then I
(46:26):
talked about this on the podcast.
Speaker 2 (46:28):
I was gonna say that nowadays, there's really no excuse
not to have some sort of plan going into a tournament. Yeah,
and that could be this the normal tournament, remember guest,
that could be the club championship where that could be
a major tournament.
Speaker 1 (46:40):
We did this in Singapore when and I talked about
it after DJ had a chance to win, was in
the final group on LIV. We knew, we got all
of the recent course data scoring, and so we pretty
much knew that the majority of the iron shots that
DJ was going to have for that week was going
to be from this yardage to this yardage yep. And
(47:02):
then basically we spent that week just looking at Okay,
let's say it was he was gonna have a lot
of shots from one seventy five to twenty five, one
fifty to whatever. So if you know that going in,
and you know you're going to be playing that tournament,
then just go dial in those numbers and say, Okay,
I'm gonna hit a lot of shots in practice with
(47:24):
the clubs that I know. I've looked at the course.
It's a course I can hit a lot of drivers on. Okay,
it's a course I can't hit a lot of drivers on.
I'm going to be hitting three woods. I'm going to
be hitting hybrids or irons off the tee. Look at
the par threes and say, okay, how far are these
par threes. You can kind of gauge which teas you're
going to play off of. So, okay, the four par
(47:45):
threes on this golf course are kind of all going
to be in this area. So let me practice that
and get ready.
Speaker 2 (47:52):
Right, we'd like to take care of the par fives,
so we got to make sure we make par better
than the purfives. And so if you're at the longest center,
let's plan three just playing three shots four part fives.
That's going to be four easy chances and possible legit
birdy chances. There's probably going to be one shortest par
three one p fifty could be the shortest, which might
(48:14):
be a seven nine or eight arn. And there's probably
going to be two par fours that are probably one
on each side. That's the shortest par four into the nine.
So we're looking at almost eight holes, nine holes that
if you just play are scorable, that are scorable.
Speaker 1 (48:30):
And if scorable for everyone listening. Scorable is par Scorable
is for the majority of the people listening to this podcast.
When we're talking about scorable, that is making parts. It's
not making birdies and eagles because most of us just
don't have those tools in the toolbox.
Speaker 2 (48:48):
Right, So we're looking at least eight almost auto parts,
So that leaves maybe nine or ten holes that will
be an expected challenge, and that'll be the key to
the tournament round is how to we handle those nine
to ten holes.
Speaker 1 (49:02):
I love that term. Look at your home course that
you play all the time, and look at what you
would deem are the auto pars, meaning the holes that
maybe don't have water, that don't have out of bounds
that give you room off the tee, that are big
greens that don't have Look at the holes and say, okay,
(49:23):
my auto pars on my home course are these holes?
So this is the holes where I'm really really focused
on making pars.
Speaker 2 (49:34):
Right. That's almost a half of the course.
Speaker 1 (49:37):
Again. That's JJ spawn on Saturday at the US Open
on one of the toughest, if not the toughest tests
in professional major championship golf. On Saturday five through sixteen,
all pars. That is so hard to do, but it
also requires a tremendous am amount of planning and a
(50:02):
tremendous amount of intent as well. Hey, I've just got
to write the ship now. And that's the other thing.
When things go bad, just try to stop the ship
from sinking, right, and just limit the damage.
Speaker 2 (50:16):
Keep the race car on the track, Keep the race.
Speaker 1 (50:18):
Car on the track, move over to the slow lane,
get out of the fast lane, control the car a
little bit better, and say, listen, I'm just going to
try and not beat myself yep, for the next five
to nine holes, for the next hour. I'm just going
to try and have really good intent, really good focus,
(50:38):
really good game plan. That's not to say you're gonna
pull it off, but I would much rather have players,
wouldn't you agree or see? I would much rather have
players fail the game plan then have no game plan
and fail anyway.
Speaker 2 (50:54):
Right, I have a score that's full failure because we
had no plan or no proactive plan going into those holes.
Speaker 1 (51:01):
Auto pars that is.
Speaker 2 (51:03):
Yeah, let's say it's three point fifty par four maybe less.
Speaker 1 (51:06):
The short par fours on your home course. If there's
not a ton of trouble if they're not super super demanding.
And again, the majority of people listening to the pod
aren't playing championship caliber golf courses, so they are going
to get short par fours on their home course that
aren't short par fours with ob left and water right,
(51:29):
a tiny green rolling fourteen with a bunch of undulation
and a shelf at the back and bunkers and thick
rough So if you don't take anything away from this podcast,
find the auto pars. That to me is the hack
that can really start to have you think differently about
your rounds.
Speaker 2 (51:50):
Yeah, there's probably six, seven, maybe eight of them.
Speaker 1 (51:52):
Are see great stuff. We'll keep doing this because I
think this combination of technique and execution is to me,
the execution part of this is the lowest hanging fruit
because you can control the execution part.
Speaker 2 (52:05):
All we talk about is how you play, and that's
executing those shots and those strategies. Whether your technique is
working that day or not, most likely not, you have
to be able to still overcome and adapt to those
situations out there.
Speaker 1 (52:19):
Scottie Scheffler didn't have his best off at the PGA
and still one. Scotti Scheffler didn't have his best off
at the US Open was still top ten and had
a chance to win, so you're not always going to
have your best stop. Can't thank everybody enough for listening, rate, review,
Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Son of a Bunch,
(52:40):
we will see you next week.
It's the Son of a Butcher podcast. I'm your host,
Claude Harmon. It's kind of a summer series we've got
going with Ryan Chrysler, who works with me here at
the Floridian RC. Having just watched JJ spawn, you know,
an unbelievable win at the US Open. But Oakmont one
of the toughest golf courses on the planet when the
USJA gets involved. I think it's the hardest golf course.
(00:24):
There is the setup, the questions it asks of the players.
But I was thinking that what the tour players and
what the best players in the world are trying to
do around Oakmont is as close to the average golfers
game as tour players are ever going to get right.
I think we always think about it in reverse. We're
(00:44):
always thinking, Okay, how could I possibly do something that
a tour player is going to do. I think everybody
that was sitting glued to their couch watching the US
Open at Oakmont that's the way they play. Meaning if
you hit it offline at Oakmont during the US Open,
you're struggling to make par, You're probably struggling to make bogie,
(01:05):
so you're bringing big numbers into play. That's due to
how penal the rough was. But that's basically the game
off the t that the majority of the people listening,
that's their game. They get in trouble off the tee
and they.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
Struggle to play right there in the rough. They're behind trees,
they're trying to hit the hero shats. What we saw
the US Open was they're playing in the slop. The
rough is basically you lose your ball without the marker
there or Marshall helping you find that ball, and it
really kind of leveled the playing field, and you saw
(01:40):
a guy like JJ Spama was his final score, he.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
Was even on the back nine, one under, one under
the back nine, no one under total.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
One under total. But on the back nine a Sunday,
what was this?
Speaker 1 (01:49):
I can't remember what he shot on the back shot
forty on the front, forty on the front. And that
was another thing. I mean, that is the gulf that
most people listening play. They start off their round with
five fives in a row. That doesn't happen to tour players.
Tour players don't start off five five, five five, It
(02:11):
just doesn't happen. But that tournament, the US Open at Oakmont,
I think if you go back in. There'll be some
probably some YouTube, or you can go back in and
watch every shot that JJ Spahn hit, or go back
in and watch the highlights. Look at the way the
guys that were leading that golf tournament and had a
chance to win that golf tournament, look at the way
(02:31):
they're playing it, and then apply that to your own
damn game. Hit fair ways, hit greens, and it's easy
to look in hindsight. I mean, I think he got
a big break. I talked about it with Gary Coch
when I had him on the podcast. He was on
the call. But the rain delay I think really helped
him because he shot forty on the front. He wasn't
(02:52):
playing good. I mean, he didn't look like he was
in control at all. Big rain delay, I think that
helped him reset. But I think he won the golf
tournament on Saturday. Where on Saturday afternoon, on the weekend,
in one of the last couple of groups in the
US Open, on one of the hardest golf courses known
to man, he made pars from the fifth to the
(03:15):
sixteenth hole. He just parned making pars. Now the announcers
kept calling it making a US Open par making a
US Open Oakmont par You know, that's what you have
to do to win these things. But for everybody listening,
if you could just do that string together two and
(03:38):
a bit hours of just making pars. Now some of
those pars he's holding ten footers. But it doesn't matter
how you're making the pars, specifically in a US Open
on a golf course like Oakmont, with the way the
setup is, it doesn't matter how you make them. The
only thing that matters is making them and putting a
lot of them together. You know, four, five, six, seven, eight,
(04:02):
whole stretches. We're just making pars. If the average golfer
would just say, Okay, I am just going to try
and make as many pars and bogees today as I can,
because that's the mantra. JJ Spond didn't make a double
bogie for the entire week. Entire week, I'm gonna say
that again, did not make a double bogie for the
(04:24):
entire week. He may have been the only player with
that stat, Dude, there were a couple of I think
Bobby Mack didn't have one. So talk to me, RCI
about the way that the best players in the world
were trying to play Oakmont in the US Open, and
how the average golfer listening can take that strategy and
apply it to their own game.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
Well, I think what you don't see is the work
they put in Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday.
Speaker 1 (04:49):
Yeah, right, and nine hole practice rounds at Oakmont were
taken three and a half hours, right. I mean, if
you're gonna try play eighteen holes, you'd have been out
there for well over sixss because once we got to
the greens twenty minutes, fifteen minutes, I mean.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
Because you're kind of guessing with the pins.
Speaker 1 (05:07):
Are they know where? You know, everybody all the you
know DJ's brother Aj, I mean they won there in sixteen.
Aj had his book from sixteen, so he was like, yeah,
they had a pin here in sixteen, they had a
pin here in sixteen, they had one here, they had
everyone here, or they'd go listen, they're probably gonna put
one at the front and then three at the back,
or three at the front and one at the back
or wherever. But my point behind that is we spent
(05:28):
the entire practice rounds just trying.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
To We're trying to figure out where to put it.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
The other thing that I think is so helpful and
you can expand on this for everybody listening. Where do
you want to miss the golf ball? Go around your
home course, go out. We do this with our players,
you know, at a team float standpoint, but we actually
have them go out and you can talk about this. Okay,
you're in the middle of the fairway, Okay, don't hit
the green. Where's the easiest place to get it up
(05:55):
and down from and hit it there.
Speaker 2 (05:57):
It's a great little game, mandatory miss.
Speaker 1 (05:59):
Mandatory miss is the name of the game. And when
we do that game with juniors and people trying to play,
talk everybody through. It's a game that I think is
really really powerful that everybody could play at home on
their home course, regardless of their handicapling right.
Speaker 2 (06:12):
It's a great template to plan your tournament rounds. Basically,
find out where you need to go. Do I need
to be short of this bunker?
Speaker 1 (06:21):
So start from the tee. Let's work backwards from the
green and start at the tee. So when you stand
on the tee when you're playing the mandatory miss game,
what's the strategy strategies?
Speaker 2 (06:30):
What do I need? Where do I need to put
this ball off the tee? Meaning is there a bunker
out there? Can I carry it handily? If I can't,
what is the number to that bunker? And what is
the club I need to make sure I hit that
has no chance of getting into that bunker.
Speaker 1 (06:44):
And then do the math accordingly and then say, okay,
let me work backwards to where Okay, can I carry
those bunkers? Okay, that's the risk reward off the tee.
So if I can carry the bunkers, the bunkers are
whatever the distance out is, but it's an X amount
to carry that bunker. If you can't comfortably carry that bunker,
then work backwards from where the bunker is and then say, okay,
(07:07):
what can I hit off the tee that isn't going
to get me to that bunker? Right? But also what
can I hit off the tee that isn't going to
get me in that bunker that I can't carry, But
is a club that.
Speaker 2 (07:20):
I have confidence and that I have a chance to
get to the green?
Speaker 1 (07:23):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (07:23):
Right, So we hit that number, we get that number
whatever it is. Let's say it's two twenty five, whatever
that is for the average person five with Let's say
and then let's look at the green and the difference
between your home course, and a major championship course is
one day at a major championship course does not mean
you can put the ball in the same spot every
day because the pins are on a three slope and
(07:46):
it's a.
Speaker 1 (07:47):
Fourteen green, so a lot of undulation.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
Versus a normal course where typically you can usually place
the ball let's say it's front right where there's no bunker,
let's say, and you can have an easy chips even
a putt up the hill to any location on the green.
So what makes major so complicated is that one spot
does not fit all based on the conditions of the
(08:11):
course and the pen placements. That's why it's a major championship.
Speaker 1 (08:13):
Yeah, one of the things that we always tell juniors
to do, and what we tell, you know, people trying
to break one hundred and ninety eighty seventy for the
first time, just dump it in the middle of it.
The majority of people listening to this podcast, unless you're
a member at Saint Andrew's, unless you're a member at Oakmann,
unless you're a member at a place where they are
going to play a major championship or a place where
(08:35):
they're going to play a tour event. The majority of
people listening to this, if every single hole on their
home course they dumped it and put it in the
middle of the green, they'd have a pretty good chance
to make Paul pretty good.
Speaker 2 (08:47):
Chance, regardless of the pen locations and regardless of the
speed of the green. And they're going to have let's
say max forty feet on a putt and then hopefully
they can two put, and even they don't, if they
three put twice and they hit twelve greens, let's say
the math still favors breaking ninety basically, right. So we
focus on, especially in those practice rounds, where do I
(09:10):
need to go and where do I need to go
on this particular day. That's literally it. And what we
tend to see is what do I need to avoid?
And they write down I can't go right, where do
I need to hit my second shot onto the green?
And then they go to the most difficult part of
the green and try to work on that up and down,
And it's really just a waste of time because if
(09:32):
you're hitting into a bad spot, you need to cut
your losses and make bogie anyway, like, just cut your losses,
get it on the green on the chip to thirty
feet and just to putt and get out of there.
Professionals are always focused on where they wanted to go.
Amateurs seem to be always focused on what they want
to avoid.
Speaker 1 (09:50):
That is a very interesting scenario because I went through
this back in Oh gosh, the Open that Tiger won
in Liverpool where he really didn't hit driver and it
was super, super baked out. I was working with Trevor
Immelman at the time, and I set up for Tred
to play a practice round with Tiger, and I just
wanted him to watch how Tiger and Stevie kind of
(10:12):
planned a practice round and so we got done. Neil
Wallace was caddying for him at the time. Neil Wallace
currently caddy in for Sergio Garcia. Neil caddied for Ernie
in two thousand, I think, and all those classic duels
with Tiger and Neil Wallace and I we sat down
after that practice round with Tiger and said, what'd you notice.
I wanted to see if he noticed something that was different,
(10:33):
and I hoped he would key in on the thing
that I wanted him to. And he hit the nail
on the head. He goes. All they talk about is
where they're going. They never talk about where they're trying
not to go. And he said, Stevie's always going, hey,
we go here, And he said, and Stevie says, hey,
and if we're gonna miss it, this is where we
miss it, not this is where we don't want to
(10:53):
miss it.
Speaker 2 (10:53):
Right.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
And I've said this before, but I talked to Adam
Scott when Scotty said when he had that stint, when
Stevie on the bag, I said to him, I said, listen,
You've had amazing caddies throughout your entire career. Alistair McLain
who caddied for Colin Montgomery for all those Order of Merits,
Davey Rennick who caddied for VJ and one Majors. You know,
I mean Tony Navarro who caddied for Greg Norman. I
mean Adam Scott has had an embarrassment of riches when
(11:17):
it comes to great caddies. And I said, what is
so different about Stevie Williams. He's like, he just makes
the game easy in the way that he's trying to
get me around the golf course. And I think that's
something that we preach constantly to all of our players,
is don't make the game harder, make the game easier.
But I think a lot of people listening, like you said,
(11:39):
are making the game harder because they're constantly trying to
not do things. They're trying to constantly try and not
hit bad shots, not hit it in the water, not
hit it out of bounds, not miss this screen, not
miss this fair way. That is a big, big mindset
shift to what you're what are you trying to do?
(11:59):
So I've talked about this on the pod, but intention RC,
how important do you think intent and formula and purpose
is on the golf course?
Speaker 2 (12:10):
It's everything because every other sport does it that way,
and for some reason, golfers find a way to explain that.
Speaker 1 (12:16):
Expand on that a little bit more in how you
think other sports do it differently than golf.
Speaker 2 (12:22):
Let's talk about football, American football. American football, they call play,
they focus maybe on two potential receivers, or they have
an out or an audible All right, let's say it's
a passing play. So they're not trying to hit the
home run or the hail mary unless they're at the
end of the game and they need to.
Speaker 1 (12:42):
Or unless they have the perfect setup, the perfect play
called to take advantage of a weakness and score a
home run type play.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
How many hail Mary's per game are there usually maybe
one or two at the end of each half.
Speaker 1 (12:58):
How many hail Mary's.
Speaker 2 (12:59):
Are on the golf golfers who are.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
Trying to break one hundred and ninety eighty tap, I
mean the road every shot, every shot to hail Mary.
Speaker 2 (13:07):
Every shot to hell Mary, and so to me the
hail Mary, it's almost luck to pull off that play,
right Aaron Rodgers is really good at it. But in golf,
being able to have an intent where I don't have
this shot, I don't have this scenario to pull off
this shot. I just need to move it here with
(13:27):
full intent, as opposed to maybe I can get us
through these trees or maybe I can hit it over
this water. I need to be fully intent and sure
that I can put it here and it's safe and
get ready for the next shot. And we had a
player I played with last week, Read and I talked
about a little bit from your other podcast about having
(13:49):
a real intentional and extreme stare down with your target
and just a real like intentional stare down like you're
ten years old, having a staring contest with your.
Speaker 1 (14:00):
And you're hoping that the target doesn't blink first.
Speaker 2 (14:02):
And you're hoping the target doesn't blink first. You're in
the address position and you're looking at it, and maybe
you got a couple of waggles, and you're just really
intent on that target. Golfers tend to think, up now,
I see the water, now, I see the house, now
I see the trees, now I see out of bounds.
When you're in that steering contest with that target, it
seems to simplify.
Speaker 1 (14:22):
It just quieting the white.
Speaker 2 (14:26):
Noise and you slowly bring it back into the golf
ball and then off you go. And so that to
me is full intent for a golfer. And other sports
have different scenarios, but golfers seem to be really good
at creating distractions that take away from their intent.
Speaker 1 (14:46):
I was watching I watch a lot of Formula one,
and you look at the strategies from Formula one and
they kind of, okay, they look at what the car
is doing, right, They kind of look at what the
temperature is going to be doing, They look at the
tire they have available, and then they look at what
the track is going to look at. And so they're
like Okay, are we on a one stop? Are we
(15:09):
on a two stop? Are we on a three stop?
And if you watch Drive to Survive or if you
watch Formula one, one of the things I love is
they'll say, we're sticking with plan A, so they have
one hundred percent gone through in the briefing for the race. Okay,
we have a strategy today. This is our strategy for
Plan A, and this is plan B, and then if
(15:30):
we really need to, we go to Plan C. And
I think that's a great way taking some of the
way Formula one looks at setting up the car, dealing
with the temperature, dealing with the track, dealing with the conditions.
Based off of all of those calculations they have, you know,
the tons upon tons of data that F one does,
(15:51):
to where they've got, you know, a million sensors on
the car they're looking at, whether they're looking at track condition,
everything like that. They say, based off of all of
this information, based off of what the car is doing
this week, we have a plan A, we have a
Plan B, and we maybe have a plan see. And
once the race starts, they basically pivot off of that, right,
(16:13):
And I think for the average golfer listening going out
and saying, Okay, what is my plan A strategy today?
What is my plan B strategy today? I don't. First
of all, I think most golfers go out with no
plan and then they never and I keep talking about
this on the podar seat. Most golfers go out and go, Okay,
(16:36):
nothing's going to go wrong today. I'm a twenty five handicap.
Speaker 2 (16:39):
I just had a great practice session.
Speaker 1 (16:41):
So nothing's going to go wrong on the golf course today,
and I'm going to plan accordingly. Basically, I'm planning for
nothing to go wrong on the golf course once the
game is being played, and as soon as something wrong happens,
there is no plan and it's okay, I'm in trouble.
(17:03):
Straight offense now, straight offense. You know, internally I sent
I think it was lou Stagner who posted this stat.
Tour players make bogie eighty percent of the time when
they get in trouble off the tee, which is an
unbelievable stat. You do that at Oakmont in the US Open.
You're gonna have a chance to win when you get
(17:25):
in trouble if you can make a bogie eighty percent
of the time, Because there are no birdie chances at
the US Opened at Oakmont maybe fourteen, which was a
short part four. Bob Ford told me that he thinks
that's kind of the only legit birdie chance that there is.
So the majority of us are playing the US Open
(17:47):
every single time we play, there are no birdie chances
out there relative to our skill level.
Speaker 2 (17:54):
Correct, So there might be one, maybe I'd say one.
Speaker 1 (17:58):
But the average golfer plays golf on their home course,
which might be sixty six, sixty seven, sixty eight, sixty nine,
thousand yards whatever, the yardage is, the skill set that
they have, the tools that the majority of golfers have
in their toolbox is basically like they're playing Oakmont every
(18:21):
single day, Meaning there are no legit birdy chances. You
miss a fair way, you're struggling to make bogie, you
miss a green, you're struggling to make par or a bogie.
So game planning, I mean, that's all we did. Right,
We're looking at old videos at Oakmont, We're looking at
(18:41):
old yardage books, We're looking at okay, what do we
do when the wind switched this? Right? So the US
Open at Oakmont, that JJ spawnwin at one under is
basically your home course every single day. It's all about
minimize mistakes. And I think JJ Spawn also did a
(19:04):
great job. How many people out there get off to
a bad start and then don't string together an hour
and a half worth of pars and say, listen, I'm
gonna spend the next hour. I'm gonna spend the next
nine holes wherever I am in my round. Okay, you
start off bogie double okay, cut it in half and say, okay,
(19:27):
what am I going to do for the next five holes?
What am I going to do for the next nine holes,
and start to strategize. That's Plan C, that's Plan B. Okay,
didn't get off to a good start, Okay, now I
go to plan A to where now I am ultra
ultra conservative. Right.
Speaker 2 (19:44):
One of the only golfers and one of my favorite
golfers to watch is Patrick Reid, and he talks when
you have a chance to see his stuff on YouTube
or wherever. He has multiple plans for each hole based
on how he's planning. And I see another golfer talking
about that you need to have at your own course
multiple plays on number one, multiple players and number two
multiple plays and number three based on how your honest
(20:08):
assessment is of how your plan.
Speaker 1 (20:10):
And based on the condition of the golf course, the
condition of the weather, and based off there are so
many variables that are out of your control every time
you go out on the golf course. You can't control
the weather, you can't control the condition of the golf course,
you can't control the setup of the golf course. You
can't control where they put the pin. So it's all random, right,
(20:33):
every time you go play a competitive round of golf,
every time you put a scorecard in your pocket and
you're gonna go play nine or eighteen holes and keep score,
everything is random and is out of your control. So
if you start from that premise, then going into that
with no plan, with no formula, with no contingency plan
(20:54):
is just a recipe for failure.
Speaker 2 (20:57):
For sure, being undisciplined. And you know, I'm writing this
book on discipline and golf, and one of the things
that keeps coming back to is like every round of
golf there should be a win somewhere, either play well, win,
play bad. Bad, Start turn it around, win play bad,
come up with a different swing thought and start to
play good win. So everything in golf and around typically
(21:21):
to me, there's always some sort of lesson you can learn.
And if you start focusing on what can I learn
today when you're playing golf, you take away all the confusion,
the hero shots, the bad decision, whatever it is, and
you start to learn about yourself. You can really aware. Basically, man,
(21:43):
for example, I have not hit two drives or three
drives in a row where I wanted to hit them.
I need to choose something else. And then it's three wood.
Let's say maybe you start hitting that three wood in
the fairway. Now we start to build momentum, and when
there's a chance to maybe hit a driver, you have
an option. I can risk Plan A, which which is driver,
(22:06):
or stick to my Plan B. And for the most
part I would tell people just stay with Plan B,
keep hitting three what because we're minimizing the risk. Essentially,
I guarantee that you can shoot a low score or
lower than average if you're hitting more fairways off the team,
if you're struggling with your T shot. And so that's
(22:26):
one simple fix is just I don't care about the distance,
get it in the fairway, minimize the chance to make
bogie lay up if you have to unapart four, figure
out ways to avoid the double. That's how you can
learn and minimize your mistakes and not necessarily break ninety.
(22:47):
But you have all the things in your control that
give you the opportunity to break ninety.
Speaker 1 (22:53):
Yeah. We talk all the time about people whose goals
are to break one hundred and ninety eighty and seventy
for the first time. And I think being able to
adapt on the golf course is something that people don't
even think is helpful. When you're trying to you have
to be able to adapt.
Speaker 2 (23:12):
Scottish chefer Pga scottis Cheffler adapted.
Speaker 1 (23:15):
Yeah, snap hooking it off the tee. Every missus left
left left on the front nine and then I've talked
about it on the pod before, but then all the
misses are left. His caddy Teddy Scott says, hey, they're
good shots, they're solid shots, they're just left. Maybe we're
aiming over there, Maybe just aim a little bit more
to the right, and in three holes the tournament was over. Right.
(23:36):
But that is adapting, yes, on the golf course. And
I think so many people listening to this if if
you can just learn to adapt better to it, Okay,
Plan A, Plan B and then if things go really bad,
Plan C. So if a player was going to kind
of take the Formula one model and say, Okay, this
starts strategy for Plan A, this starts strategy for Plan B,
(23:59):
and then and super super contingent plan C, talk me
through what a Plan A strategy looks like, Plan B
and Plan C.
Speaker 2 (24:08):
Right, So I would say plan A would be all
golf scenes are great, I'm hitting all my targets, I'm
making putts, let's go right.
Speaker 1 (24:16):
For the majority of people listening to this podcast, that
probably rarely, if ever happens once around or once a year, man.
And for competitive players that are trying to play at
an elite competitive level, they will get into spells and
phases of their game and of their year to where Yeah,
I mean we hear players on tour saying that all
(24:36):
the time. Listen, Man, I didn't really my ball striking
wasn't where I really needed to be at the beginning
of the year, but I kind of found something and
then you know, kind of rode that through the summer
and really kind of turn things around. So Plan A
for most players is Okay, conditions are good, right, give
myself a lot of good looks you know, I'm hitting
it good on the range. My practice sessions would be
(24:58):
good on the range. So based off of that, my
plan A strategy would be what.
Speaker 2 (25:03):
I'm gonna admit this target aggressive swinging out a conservative target,
make sure on bulletproof, no mistakes. Off we go.
Speaker 1 (25:09):
What does Plan B look like for the average golfer?
Speaker 2 (25:12):
Plan B?
Speaker 1 (25:13):
And I think plan B is where you should be living.
Speaker 2 (25:15):
Yeah, somewhere between B and C probably most of the time.
Speaker 1 (25:18):
Yeah. I mean, the amount of people listening to this
podcast that are ever really going to have the necessary
tools to go to a plan A strategy is pretty small.
And that's not a diss that's not being disrespectful, that's
just math. That's just talent level. I think if you
(25:40):
can have a better and more honest opinion and a
more honest conversation with yourself as a player about what
my skill set is, what are the things that I
can do, what are the things I can't do? Stay
away from the things that I can't do, and try
and ride and dear the ship towards the shore of
(26:02):
the things that I can do.
Speaker 2 (26:04):
Right, So plan B looks like this, what are the
conditions and the course that typically create a big mess
up for me. Water left, what club do I hit?
It doesn't seem to go left that often. Okay, is
it a hybrid? I don't care how far it goes.
Is it a hybrid? Is it my driver? Right? So
the plan B is basically what does it take to
(26:24):
be in the right center of this fairway and either
off the tee or on my second shot if I
miss the fairway, that's plan B. Plan B is you
have a built in layup back on plan on the
right side of the golf hole to avoid the trouble
right happens, whatever the trouble is.
Speaker 1 (26:42):
Yeah, and I think that I liked what you said.
You know, if you think about a plan A strategy,
a plan B and a plan.
Speaker 2 (26:49):
C, plan B is that you have a built in
pitch out right and if you can still get yourself
on the green in three on approferable.
Speaker 1 (26:55):
Getting into the mindset of kind of game planning between
plan B and plan C, because I think what everybody
does across the board is just go for plan A.
Plan A is I'm hitting it great, right, I'm gonna
hit every fairway, I'm gonna hit every green, I'm gonna
have legit birdy chances on all the par fives, you know,
all of that stuff that is just not a reality,
(27:19):
I'd say for ninety five percent of the people that
play this sport, right, So, no, Plan B.
Speaker 2 (27:24):
To me is what side of the hole do I
need to be on? And can I get myself over
there and not just one shot but maybe it requires
two shots? And then plant C is okay, not much
is working. What can I do? Plants is tough. However,
Plant C has hope because hope is basically you've got
to wait and be patient with all the plans essentially.
(27:44):
But Plant C is I've got to wait. I can't
let my playing partner distract me from hitting this particular shot,
where I can't react to my competitor hitting this particular shot.
I need to be on this particular side of the whole,
no matter matter what, And it doesn't matter what the
shot looks like. Is it a hybrid, is the three wood?
Is it a six iron? Put me on this side
(28:07):
of the hole.
Speaker 1 (28:07):
I went and saw the New f One movie the
other night, and Brad Pitt's character says too, they're in
a team meeting and he was into one of the
other drivers, the other drivers talking about all the things
that they hoped would happen in great line that One
of the big takeaways for me is Brad Pitt's character said,
hope is not a strategy. And I think a lot
of people go out and they hope that they do
this and they hope that they do that, and that's
(28:28):
not a strategy. It's not a way to lower your scores.
So having realistic expecition, I mean I talk about this
a lot on the pod arc. How do we get
people to have more realistic expectations with their own game?
Where do you think that starts? How do we help
players have more realistic expectations and evaluations of what they do?
Speaker 2 (28:52):
One thing for sure, as we beat the shit out
of them in practice, we make practice super hard and
they can't move on to the next task until they
can put it the first desk.
Speaker 1 (29:02):
So you think task driven practice is a great way
to have a more realistic approach or a realistic evaluation
of what your skill set is.
Speaker 2 (29:14):
Yeah, task driven and also time driven too. So given
someone talking me through that, given someone five minutes to
complete let's say six particular puts made on the grin.
Speaker 1 (29:25):
Did you see that one on Instagram the other day,
the impossible putt one where the guy put the teas
up and not you know, you could do this at
any length. But find a putt that's you know, got
some brek on it and then walk out. You know,
you could start from your ball. You could start two
steps away, right, put a tea down and then put
your foot down and wherever your toe is, put another
(29:46):
tea down and do that, and do that and do
that right, and it was okay, putt that breaks a lot.
And then those are gates, right, So let's say you've
got five, six, seven gates that you've got to put
it through on a left right put that's got a
lot of slope, right to left put that's got lot
of slope. But you've only got thirty minutes to do it.
So the thirty minute thing puts you under what you're
(30:06):
going to feel on the golf course, right, because trying
to replicate the feeling of okay. And I think the
time gap and the time limit in these type of
drills when you practice one, if you're running out of
time and you've got to produce or perform, it teaches
(30:28):
you how, okay, what is my reset here, I'm running
out of time, okay, a couple of deep breasts.
Speaker 2 (30:33):
Reset Refocus teaches you how to have that tactical pause
the way the quarterback slows the game down and kind
of teaches you to kind of have that reset tactical pause.
Speaker 1 (30:42):
We have to have the podcast before. But for people
that aren't listening, you talk about this a lot. I
know you're, you know, a huge fan of trying to
help the military and our troops and stuff like that.
But what is a tactical pause?
Speaker 2 (30:54):
Technical pause is basically, you go find some cover and
kneel down so you don't get shot.
Speaker 1 (30:59):
So give me an example of where you're going to
be in a situation from a military standpoint, where you
would need to take a tactical pause.
Speaker 2 (31:07):
Yeah, maybe you're the story that Captain Richards told us.
You know, you're you're taking a terrorist inside a city
and there's a sniper that you never accounted for. Tactical
pause means you go run for covering and assess the situation.
A normal army group may try to attack that sniper
because they took out the leader. A special Forces Army
(31:30):
group would backtrack and try to assess and get back
on the mission. So for a golfer, that tactical pause
could actually literally be a kneel down at your back
and just saying what do I need to do to
get out of this situation? And it's just like either
a ten second breathe, one minute hold wait for the
(31:52):
other players to hit. It's just basically a reset.
Speaker 1 (31:56):
A lot of times on tour, guys will hit the
portage right, they'll go, they'll hit their drive. Things aren't
going well, and they'll go off by themselves. They'll go
to the portage on you know, on the course, and
sometimes they don't have to do anything there. They just
need that kind of break. And the portagehn is kind
(32:16):
of it symbolizes Okay, I'm gonna go somewhere else, probably
isn't gonna be very nice, right, shut the door and
stand there for thirty secs and to just kind of
go okay, what am I doing here? And reevaluate and
then say okay. Because that's basically what JJ spawn got
in the rain delay at the US Open and Oakmod
(32:38):
he got a tactical pause. There was a time to
where they were talking about on tour there and I
talked to Gary Cooke about this when I had him
on the pod. Sometimes you shelter in place. And the
one thing about the weather at Oakmont is they when
we were there, we would get the alerts from the
guys when we were on the course. There's no electricity
in the air, there's no lightning, so this rainstorm is
(32:59):
only gonna be you know, ten, fifteen, five, whatever. But
sometimes they'll say, listen, just shelter in place, everybody, stay
on the course. We're not gonna pull everybody off because
this is gonna blow through in five, ten minutes, right,
fifteen minutes. But they pulled everybody off the golf course
and then kept getting rolling updates, rolling updates, and then
everybody got a chance to warm back up. But that
(33:20):
is the definition of a tactical pause. That rained delight. Now,
that tactical pause seemed to help JJ spawn for some
of these and we seem to not help Scutty and
Sam Burns.
Speaker 2 (33:33):
Right. Tough break for those guys too, if they had
any momentum before that rain. Right.
Speaker 1 (33:38):
But I do think most golfers listening, you know, find
out what your tactical pause is. Right.
Speaker 2 (33:44):
Every sport has a time out, except for golf and
golfers tend to rush through it, right, and.
Speaker 1 (33:49):
A great I think tactical pause could be for everyone listening.
Let's say you're at home and you're on a on
the bogie train and you've gone bogie bogie double and stuff,
and you're playing, you're riding in carts. To me, the
tactical palls would be, Okay.
Speaker 2 (34:04):
I'm gonna walk to the next shot.
Speaker 1 (34:05):
I'm gonna walk to the next shot, and everybody else
is gonna go, and I'm probably going to be the
last to hit because obviously you're not trying to hold
up play and all of that. Say to everybody, Hey,
I'm just gonna walk to the next hole. I just
hit my t shot. You guys go, Hey, I'll get
there when I get there. You guys go ahead and play.
You guys play ready golf. So when you get up
there and you're ready to go, go and I'll get
there when I get there. But that walk, either from
(34:28):
the tee to your approach shot, or from your approach
shot to the green, or from the green to the
next tee, just that kind of reset on your own
could be your tactical pause.
Speaker 2 (34:44):
Sure that time out you're looking for it yeah, the
game down.
Speaker 1 (34:47):
I've never thought about that. We're the only sport where
there isn't a time out, but there's also an enormous
amount of time in.
Speaker 2 (34:54):
Between shots right to it effectively.
Speaker 1 (34:57):
Yeah, so that time between shots, how do you think
everyone listening ORC could use that time better? And in
that time what should they be doing? Because there's two
ways of thinking about this, right, you can try and
turn your brain off, which is what I think the
best players in the world are trying to do. I
remember when in seventeen when Brooks won his first US
(35:18):
opened at Aaron Hills. It's on the back nine, I
think it was fourteen, really really difficult shot. Pin was
kind of tucked back right, you know, cut very very
close to the right edge. You missed it to the right,
you've fallen off a mountain ro off, you're gonna make
bogie or double right. And nobody is hitting it anywhere
close to that flag. And Brooks stood up and I
(35:40):
think it was Brad Faxon. You know, it was just marveled.
He was just left of the pin, hit it inside
of fifteen to ten feet and the announcers like, wow,
nobody's hit it there right when they were walking up
to that shot, I asked Brooks afterwards, what were you
guys talking about it? He was like, we're actually talking
about where we were going to stay when we went
to ty Land in the offseason. And He's like, we
(36:03):
were talking about so much that when we got to
the ball, we were kind of in conversation trying to
win the US Open on the back nine on Sunday
and we're not even talking about golf. So tour players
are trying to not think about golf right right when
they're on the golf course in competition, whereas I think
the average golfer needs to use that time in between
(36:26):
shots to think more about what they're trying to do,
think more about what their intent is, make a plan
for the next shot.
Speaker 2 (36:36):
I've got a few players that basically the Sabin has
the twenty four hour rule golf, when you're the twenty
four second rule, so you have twenty four seconds.
Speaker 1 (36:44):
To what is the nick Saban twenty four hours.
Speaker 2 (36:46):
You have twenty four hours to think about the last
game because we got six days into the next game
and then you gotta let it go. So in golf,
it's like you got the twenty four second rule, you
got twenty four seconds to kind of evaluate that last shot,
and off you go, clubs in the bag boom. But
the other thing I have a few players do, not
all of them, is just write down something positive about
(37:06):
each shot. And that might take like a minute or two,
but that's a good minute of thinking, Okay, maybe I
had a good routine. Maybe that's the shape that I
was looking for, and maybe that was a fly. Whatever
was something positive that you can write down, put it
in the notes, scorecard wherever it is, and you can
take that sentiment into the next shot. It takes maybe
(37:27):
a minute, and then maybe there's two minutes between each shot,
and now you have a kind of a fresh mindset.
You came up with something positive, even though you maybe
missed the actual shot. There has to be something positive
that you can draw out of the last shot, and
you've got twenty four seconds to evaluate it and maybe
a minute to come up with your positive thought.
Speaker 1 (37:51):
I meant to send this to you the other day.
I saw something online Roger Federer's fifteen second rule.
Speaker 2 (37:57):
Yep, have you seen this the fifteen second Yeah? Yeah,
so so just from the speech, the.
Speaker 1 (38:02):
Fifteen seconds, so zero to five seconds, reflect on the
previous point. So try to take a deep breath, look
back at what happened, who won the point and why,
so what happened on the shot and why? Right, he's
trying to take five seconds to that. What the average
golfer does is they just get stuck into the bad shot,
(38:23):
the bad shot, the bad shot, the bad position. So
then that's zero to five seconds, and then five to
ten seconds focus on relaxation. Federer said that this was
the most important part. Right, walks around to the towel. Again,
that's the tactical The five to ten seconds is the
tactical reset, breathing techniques to kind of relax his mind
(38:46):
and everything like that. And then next phase was prefare
for what's next. So ten to fifteen seconds is okay,
what's the next point? Often reflecting on a tactical change.
Fifteen seconds okay, so what just happened? All right? All right,
let me just kind of reset. My dad used to
say to Tiger, he'd give them it was either five
(39:08):
or ten steps, right, make a double for five to
ten steps you can. I'm not advocating this for everyone listening,
but my dad was like, don't carry it to the
next hole, So get it out. If that means you've
got to scream, if that means you've got to bang
a club, if it means you've got to kick. I'm
not advocating all of that, but get it out so
(39:30):
that you're not carrying it to the next hole. And
so coming up with I mean, for Roger Federer, of
fifteen seconds is probably lot. But use that time in
between shots to say, Okay, I've just did a bad shot.
Do I have any ideas to what just happened? Right? Right? Okay?
If the answer is yes, okay, what's my plan now?
(39:52):
And let me go execute that plan? Right?
Speaker 2 (39:54):
These professional offers are so good between chats it's it's crazy.
It's the complete player. Right. We had Matthew Vaughan last
year talk about how he won Tory Pines, how he
was reading his journal, his little inspirational quotes before every shot.
It's all these players, all these great players have these
hacks between shots that we never get to hear about.
Speaker 1 (40:14):
Yeah, they write stuff down in their yardage book. They're
sports psychologists, or their coach will give them something to
keep repeating. All of that. But again, going back to
what we talked about, it's all of that is intentional. Right.
All of that is what am I going to try
to plan to do as opposed to I'm going to
(40:36):
try and not hit the iceberg yep, instead of I'm
going to do everything in my planning to make sure
we don't come anywhere near icebergs, right, and if we
do get into an ice field in a ship and everything.
This is the contingency plot. But everything about charting, I mean,
I've talked about this on the pod. That kid that
we had for Teamflow, whose dad was a pilot for
(40:58):
Norse Airways, right Airline, He showed me once flight from
Norway to Miami. The book was seventy almost eighty pages
long of all of the things that could go wrong,
all the contingency plans, and based off of all of
that information, everything was planned. So if this happens, we
(41:19):
do this. If that happens, we do that. If that happens,
we go there. If the weather it comes this, we
do this everything. But all of that is intentional, right.
The checklist for a pilot before they fly, all of
that is intentional making sure everything is working. They do
that religiously every time they fly. And I just think
(41:41):
more intent and more planning is a way.
Speaker 2 (41:46):
Versus kind of reacting, especially reacting emotionally to the next shot.
Speaker 1 (41:50):
How can players not RCI give us some tools to
not react emotionally because it's just so hard to do
that on the golf course.
Speaker 2 (41:59):
It's hard. It takes time, you know you even.
Speaker 1 (42:01):
It takes practice and intent. I mean, I think it's
a choice. I mean, if you're on the bogie train
and on the front nine and you just start pushing
all in and going for every shot and all that,
that is a choice as a player you're making. You
are making a choice. You've had three or four drinks
and you are making the choice to drive. Yep, right,
(42:24):
So that is a choice you're making. So when you
get pulled over and you're getting the back of a car,
don't be surprised because that's the choice you made. And
you end up in a jail cell because you chose
to drink and then you chose to Nobody forced you
to drive. You can leave your car, you can take
(42:44):
an uber, you come back and get it. You know
you're not fit to drive, So I look a lot
of course management right now, Like people that get in
twenty twenty five, if you get a DUI you deserve
one you can find. I mean back in the day,
I mean taxis were hard to find. Now pretty much
(43:06):
every city you live in there's gonna be some sort
of ride share that you can get. So just plan
accordingly and go Okay, I've had too much to drink.
I've gotten off to the bad start. I'm not now
going to go do something even more dumb now and
put myself at risk and put other people at risk.
Speaker 2 (43:25):
Right the choices are simply basically thought replacements. If you
are angry over the shot, you have to switch it
to what can I learn from the shot? Or switch
it to okay, curiosity why was I so off on
that chat? And so being able to flip those takes practice.
But I think having the mindset before you even get
(43:47):
to the course that I'm gonna learn from something today.
Every round I play is a win and I'm not
getting shot at, I'm not getting hurt. I'm playing golf.
Every round is a win, and you're gonna play well,
I'm gonna learn something about myself if you put that
and to play that kind of sets the stage to
control those control those emotions.
Speaker 1 (44:05):
I always say to tour players every competitive round of
golf you play is an opportunity for you to learn
something about yourself and learn something about your game. Yeah,
and the best players in the world adapt, they accept
what they have, they're honest with themselves, and then based
off of that they form a game plan tournament golf.
(44:29):
What's a good game plan for tournament golf for a
course that you've never played before?
Speaker 2 (44:35):
A game plan going into it. Yeah, variety of apps
out there to look at the course from a GPS prepared.
Speaker 1 (44:41):
Google maps, like if you don't want to, if you
don't want to subscribe to an app that can, you know,
there's a bunch of them. Marcos has the eighteen Burns
eighteen Bird's right. You can go and look at all
the courts you're gonna play. It can kind of plot
where you know, you can drag something. It's gonna tell
you if you drive here, you're gonna have that. So
golf for dummies. If you don't have that, go online,
(45:01):
find a scorecard from the course that you're gonna play,
and then go to the website and then go to
Google Maps or Google Earth and go and look and
then go, Okay, we're probably going to be playing the
golf course from this distance. If I'm playing it from
this tee, how far is this hole? I tend to
average drive. Be honest with yourself. I average drive it.
(45:23):
My drives kind of average around to You know, when
I go play golf, I average two thirty to two
forty off the tee. If I really really bust one,
you know, when I'm swinging really good and my body's good,
I can get one out there to eighty to ninety.
But I don't live in that world. So I live
(45:43):
in kind of the two twenty five to two fifty
at a push off the tee. So be honest with Okay,
if I really tattoo one, if I'm a twenty five
handicapper and I really hit one good, center of the face,
hit the fair way. On the high end, my ball
goes this far, and on the low end it goes here.
(46:05):
If I hit it really bad and kind of I
have a lot of drives that kind of go this
far right. Go to Google Maps, look at the scorecard
that's where you're gonna play from, and then say, okay, yeah,
I'm probably going to hit on this hole. I'm probably
going to get it here. That's probably going to leave
me this shot ye and this distance, And then I
(46:26):
talked about this on the podcast.
Speaker 2 (46:28):
I was gonna say that nowadays, there's really no excuse
not to have some sort of plan going into a tournament. Yeah,
and that could be this the normal tournament, remember guest,
that could be the club championship where that could be
a major tournament.
Speaker 1 (46:40):
We did this in Singapore when and I talked about
it after DJ had a chance to win, was in
the final group on LIV. We knew, we got all
of the recent course data scoring, and so we pretty
much knew that the majority of the iron shots that
DJ was going to have for that week was going
to be from this yardage to this yardage yep. And
(47:02):
then basically we spent that week just looking at Okay,
let's say it was he was gonna have a lot
of shots from one seventy five to twenty five, one
fifty to whatever. So if you know that going in,
and you know you're going to be playing that tournament,
then just go dial in those numbers and say, Okay,
I'm gonna hit a lot of shots in practice with
(47:24):
the clubs that I know. I've looked at the course.
It's a course I can hit a lot of drivers on. Okay,
it's a course I can't hit a lot of drivers on.
I'm going to be hitting three woods. I'm going to
be hitting hybrids or irons off the tee. Look at
the par threes and say, okay, how far are these
par threes. You can kind of gauge which teas you're
going to play off of. So, okay, the four par
(47:45):
threes on this golf course are kind of all going
to be in this area. So let me practice that
and get ready.
Speaker 2 (47:52):
Right, we'd like to take care of the par fives,
so we got to make sure we make par better
than the purfives. And so if you're at the longest center,
let's plan three just playing three shots four part fives.
That's going to be four easy chances and possible legit
birdy chances. There's probably going to be one shortest par
three one p fifty could be the shortest, which might
(48:14):
be a seven nine or eight arn. And there's probably
going to be two par fours that are probably one
on each side. That's the shortest par four into the nine.
So we're looking at almost eight holes, nine holes that
if you just play are scorable, that are scorable.
Speaker 1 (48:30):
And if scorable for everyone listening. Scorable is par Scorable
is for the majority of the people listening to this podcast.
When we're talking about scorable, that is making parts. It's
not making birdies and eagles because most of us just
don't have those tools in the toolbox.
Speaker 2 (48:48):
Right, So we're looking at least eight almost auto parts,
So that leaves maybe nine or ten holes that will
be an expected challenge, and that'll be the key to
the tournament round is how to we handle those nine
to ten holes.
Speaker 1 (49:02):
I love that term. Look at your home course that
you play all the time, and look at what you
would deem are the auto pars, meaning the holes that
maybe don't have water, that don't have out of bounds
that give you room off the tee, that are big
greens that don't have Look at the holes and say, okay,
(49:23):
my auto pars on my home course are these holes?
So this is the holes where I'm really really focused
on making pars.
Speaker 2 (49:34):
Right. That's almost a half of the course.
Speaker 1 (49:37):
Again. That's JJ spawn on Saturday at the US Open
on one of the toughest, if not the toughest tests
in professional major championship golf. On Saturday five through sixteen,
all pars. That is so hard to do, but it
also requires a tremendous am amount of planning and a
(50:02):
tremendous amount of intent as well. Hey, I've just got
to write the ship now. And that's the other thing.
When things go bad, just try to stop the ship
from sinking, right, and just limit the damage.
Speaker 2 (50:16):
Keep the race car on the track, Keep the race.
Speaker 1 (50:18):
Car on the track, move over to the slow lane,
get out of the fast lane, control the car a
little bit better, and say, listen, I'm just going to
try and not beat myself yep, for the next five
to nine holes, for the next hour. I'm just going
to try and have really good intent, really good focus,
(50:38):
really good game plan. That's not to say you're gonna
pull it off, but I would much rather have players,
wouldn't you agree or see? I would much rather have
players fail the game plan then have no game plan
and fail anyway.
Speaker 2 (50:54):
Right, I have a score that's full failure because we
had no plan or no proactive plan going into those holes.
Speaker 1 (51:01):
Auto pars that is.
Speaker 2 (51:03):
Yeah, let's say it's three point fifty par four maybe less.
Speaker 1 (51:06):
The short par fours on your home course. If there's
not a ton of trouble if they're not super super demanding.
And again, the majority of people listening to the pod
aren't playing championship caliber golf courses, so they are going
to get short par fours on their home course that
aren't short par fours with ob left and water right,
(51:29):
a tiny green rolling fourteen with a bunch of undulation
and a shelf at the back and bunkers and thick
rough So if you don't take anything away from this podcast,
find the auto pars. That to me is the hack
that can really start to have you think differently about
your rounds.
Speaker 2 (51:50):
Yeah, there's probably six, seven, maybe eight of them.
Speaker 1 (51:52):
Are see great stuff. We'll keep doing this because I
think this combination of technique and execution is to me,
the execution part of this is the lowest hanging fruit
because you can control the execution part.
Speaker 2 (52:05):
All we talk about is how you play, and that's
executing those shots and those strategies. Whether your technique is
working that day or not, most likely not, you have
to be able to still overcome and adapt to those
situations out there.
Speaker 1 (52:19):
Scottie Scheffler didn't have his best off at the PGA
and still one. Scotti Scheffler didn't have his best off
at the US Open was still top ten and had
a chance to win, so you're not always going to
have your best stop. Can't thank everybody enough for listening, rate, review,
Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Son of a Bunch,
(52:40):
we will see you next week.
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