November 24, 2023 • 31 mins
Dr. Joseph Parent, author of Zen Golf returns to discuss the book's P.A.R. approach and celebrate his incredibly popular mental game book's 10th anniversary. Dr. Joe is a regular on GOLF SMARTER because of his advice and insights on how to be a better golfer by getting out of your own way. Originally episode 331 from Golf Smarter published May 1, 2012.
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(00:00):
Welcome to Golf Smarter Mulligans, yoursecond chance to gain insight and advice from
the best instructors featured on the GolfSmarter podcast. Great Golf Instruction never gets
old. Our interview library features hundredsof hours of game improvement conversations like this
(00:21):
that are no longer available in anypodcast app. You know, most people
say I'll take that one. Now, that's an interesting expression. Don't you
have to take that one? It'sgolf, you know. They say I'll
take it. I say, yeah, yeah, you have to take it.
That was your shot. No,no, you know what. I'm
going to go out and play thisafternoon, and I swear the first guy
to say I'll take that. No, no, no, sorry, that
(00:42):
one doesn't count. That doesn't count. Yeah you have to take No,
I'll take it. No. Youwant to say, yes, that's the
way I hit it. When Ido a good routine and trust my swing,
you say something that reinforces your preparation. So if you keep reinforcing the
preparation, your preparation'll keep being better. If you have a picture of the
target and connection to the target andthe shot you want to hit, that
(01:06):
you've done your breathing and gotten settled. And if you reinforce them in the
post shot routine, then they'll keepgetting better. If you just say,
yeah, that's how I always hitit, that's a great confidence building.
With another interview from the archives ofGolf Smarter, here's your host, Fred
Green. Welcome back to Golf Smarter, Doctor Joe. Great to be here,
(01:26):
Fred, Happy anniversary, my friend, Thank you very verch and the
anniversary of Zen Golf. Are youamazed that we're still talking about your book?
I'm always amazed because I went intoit with very, very few expectations.
It was my first book. Aliterary agent had heard about what I
(01:49):
did of using Buddhist mindfulness practice andWestern psychology to teach the mental game of
golf, and she said that soundsgreat. Let's work on a book,
and lo and behold, Zen Goolfcame out of that Zen Goolf we decided
to subtitle it Mastering the Mental Game, and it came out in May of
two thousand and two. So thiscoming month is the is the annivers tenth
(02:15):
anniversary? And what were you doingbefore you wrote this book? Were you
were you? I was teaching themental game in golf. Yeah, it's
really important for people to know.Zen Golf is not a theoretical book.
It's not a book on zen philosophyand how the experience of golf is like
the experience of zen and quiet mind. It's really a practical application of the
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practice of mindful awareness, of thepractice of the psychology of the game,
performance psychology which I was teaching asstress management in business and performance psychology in
business and in individuals and life coachingbefore I started teaching golf. But I
had already been teaching golf, andI'd already worked with pros, so that
(03:07):
Zen Golf is a description of thelessons that worked for all levels of golfers.
That's why it has been so successful. A lot of people come up
and it just I was giving atalk I was mentioning. I was giving
a talk to the Beverly Hills RotaryClub the other day and the guy who
introduced me was talking about the book, and he said, have you ever
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read a book where you felt likeit was written specifically for you? And
a lot of golfers tell me thatthey feel like the book was about them,
and it is. It's about howall golfers' minds work. And so
that's why it's been so universally accepted, and that's been hugely gratifying for me.
(03:50):
I'm humbled and honored. Oh,and we're humbled and honored to have
you on again. When was zengolf something that phrase that term? Was
that always what you were doing?Or was there a moment when you were
preparing the book and you went zengolf? Where did the zeno? Where
(04:11):
was the chicken in the egg onthis? Well, it's an interesting story
because I was originally going to callit enlightened golf. A lot of the
teachings in there came from what's calledthe Shambala traditions. It's like the Asian
version of Camelot of enlightened society andnobility. The principles are discipline and humor
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and friendship, which I apply inmy teaching and I got from my Buddhist
meditation teachers, and one of themI played golf with. That That's a
really amazing experience. To see someonewith that kind of mastery of the mind
applying it to golf is really whatinspired me to be able to do this.
(05:01):
It was calling lighting goolf. Thepublisher said, Well, the salespeople
think that that's a little soft asa title, and you have zens stories
in the book already, we're thinkingit should be called Zen Golf. And
I said, no, I don'tknow. I'm not that thrilled with that.
It's okay, but you know,and the publisher, the editor,
(05:25):
said, well, there are twoways we can go is your book.
We can call it what you want, but I just don't think the salespeople
are going to get behind it.And I said, okay, let me
see if I understand this, right, I call it what I want,
but nobody ever gets to see it, or you call it what you want
and people will read the book.I said, call it whatever you want.
I want people to read the book. So they asked me to add
(05:47):
a few more Zen stories, acouple of which I did, and a
couple of which I took my teachingsand I wrote and crafted stories in the
in that model. So I actuallywrote little Zen stories to go with the
teachings in the book. And asit turned out, they were right.
It's a great title and people reallyconnected to it. So it was a
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win win. Oh. When itfirst came out in May of two thousand
and two, I was fairly newto the game, and if I remember
correctly, I was in the SanFrancisco airport on away on vacation and the
book jumped off the shelf at meand I read it while on vacation and
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felt like it was speaking to meas well. And so when I started
thinking about doing this podcast and havingconversation actually with a good friend of mine
from radio Days, my Radio Daysguy named Leo Laporte, and anybody who
listens to podcasts, oh yeah,yeah, I've heard him on the radio.
(06:56):
Yeap. He is the tech guyand he's also one of the godfather
of tech podcasting and of podcasting.So he and I got together for lunch
and I was saying, so,tell me about this podcast thing, because
I have this idea that I wantto pursue and I think it would be
an interesting way of approaching a podcaston golf. And I'd never done anything
around golf before. I mean,I was new to the game and I'd
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been in sports marketing for a while. And he said, well, look,
whatever you do with it, makesure that the first show that you
have features somebody that is recognizable,that has a name that people will go
oh right, because if you canlaunch it with something like that, then
you may get some traction. SoI thought, I'm going to take a
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shot, and I reached out toyou, and episode number one of the
Golf Smarter podcast is Zen Golf withDoctor Joseph Parent. I remember that was
great, and here you are nowin the three hundreds. Well, it's
been a wonderful journey together and Ireally appreciate it. Do you want to
get that Nope, okay, realgood. Thank you. If you were
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to write Zen Golf today, whatwould you do differently? Well, I
would do the chapters, which aretwo to three page chapters, pretty much
the same. I would do themodel of stories. People love the stories,
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and the anecdotes about lessons very verymuch the same. It would be
refined. I have some additional materialwhich has come out in Zen Putting,
and then some more came out inGolf The Art of the Mental Game.
And I have another book. Iguess it's going to be Zen Golf two
or Zen Golf ten years later thatwill expand on a lot of the contents,
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and that's in process right now.Okay, all right, so you'll
see what it'll look like ten yearslater. Well, I you know,
I'm glad to hear that you wouldpretty much go the same way, because
it still speaks to me, andit's still it's still if if people have
not read this book and you're atall a well, if you listen to
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this podcast, you must buy intothe the idea that the Metal Game has
a powerful effect on how you playgolf. And this is where you should
start. This is the book whereyou should start. And I'm really happy
to say that I recently announced thatour book section on golfsmarter dot com has
returned because Amazon and the State ofCalifornia have made an agreement. So Zen
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Golf, Zen Putting, and GolfThe Art of the Metal Game are all
available on golfsmarter dot com and youshould definitely, if you've not read it,
go get them now. Thank you, Thank you Fred. And you
know we have gone multimedia and theseobviously if you're listening to this podcast,
(10:01):
you're a listener. Yeah. Andall of my books, all three are
available in audiobook form full. Iread them myself and produced them and they're
the full book, not abridged.Can we pick out a couple things in
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Zen Golf and talk about the relevanceas you know. I've always told people,
I said, Look, the thingabout golf Smarter is the conversations that
we have are ever green in nature, meaning that if you go back to
episode number one with Doctor Joseph Parent, this is exactly what I say.
Go back to episode number one withDoctor Joseph Parent of Zen Golf. The
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tips and messages that you get inthat episode are just as powerful today and
useful today as they were when werecorded it in two thousand and five.
Well, that's true, and that'swhy it's been very gratifying that ten years
later, Zen Golf is still onthe first page when you search for golf
books on Amazon dot com, becausebecause the message still resonates and the mind
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hasn't changed, the way people's mindswork hasn't changed. They still get in
their own way, and they playbetter when they get out of their own
way. So that's really what it'sabout. And that's that's the line that
sets out from episode number one.I teach golfers how to get out of
their own way. That's what yousaid, all right, So say it's
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still saying still saying it. Itstill resonates, So I want to it's
hard to condense you know, overone hundred and thirty pages into into one
section of a podcast here. Butwe've got some time, and I would
like to talk about what the parapproach that you have the preparation, action
and response to results. Can wejust do an overview on that as a
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taste of how good zen golf is. Can we talk about the par approach?
Sure? That's that is the basicstructure. And when I talk to
people, I say, well,you know, how do you get out
of your own way? It's easyto say, just get out of your
own way, and a lot ofsports psychologists will say stay in the present,
clear your mind, free your swing. Yeah, well that's easy to
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say, and people say, yeah, well they say to do that,
but right now I'm not doing that. How do I get from a muddled
mind, an uptight swing, andmy mind full of the past and future
to where you want me to be? That's the key to ziend Golf,
that I give people a path toget from where you are to where you
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want to be. Rather than justsaying, you know, be different,
No, you need a path tobecome that different way of looking at things,
to take that different perspective. Sothe power approach simply represents beginning,
middle, and end. That's whyit applies to business and life coaching that
I do. That you you havea preparation for everything you do. Then
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there's the action, and then there'ssome consequence, and what do you do
with the feedback? How do yourespond to the results? And you want
to respond to the results in away that makes your preparation and action better
next time. So it's a cycleof continuous improvement. You prepare, you
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act, you see what happened,and then you make your adjustment and you
do a better job with the preparation, and then the action turns out better.
One of the things that I havenoticed in myself and in golfers that
I play with that here in yourresponse to results, which I was introduced
to this concept in your book.And it's still not the easiest thing to
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do, because golfer you're always talkingabout you lash shot in your next shot,
your lashot in your next shot.But the post shot routine so critically
important, but so easy to forget. That's true, and that's really where
some discipline is necessary. If youmake it a habit, it's not that
hard. And there are three aspectsto the posher routine based on three different
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levels of the results that you get. If they're really great results, then
I want you. You know,most people say I'll take that one.
Yep. Now, now that's aninteresting expression. Don't you have to take
that one? It's calf you know. They say I'll take it. I
say, yeah, yeah, youhave to take it. That was your
shot. No, no, youknow what, I'm going to go out
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and play this afternoon, and Iswear. The first guy to say I'll
take that, I go, no, no, no, I'm sorry,
you don't get to take that.Take it again. Sorry, that one
doesn't count. That doesn't count.Yeah you have to take no, kay,
I'll take it. No you wantto say, yes, that's what
you know. That's the way Ihit it when I get out of my
own way, or that's the wayI hit it when I do a good
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routine and trust my swing. Yousay something that reinforces your preparation, you
see, So if you keep reinforcingthe preparation, you'll your preparation will keep
being better. You'll have a youknow, if you have a clear image
of the shot. You want thepicture of the target and connection to the
target and the shot you want tohit that You've done your breathing and gotten
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settled and all of those aspects ofpreparation. If you reinforce them in the
post shot routine, then they'll keepgetting better. If you just say,
yeah, that's how I always hitit, that's a great confidence builder.
Now what if you have an okayshot, it wasn't great. You know,
if somebody said you want it over, yeah, I would take that
one over. But it's usable,but I would take it over. Then
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I want you to say, oh, that was close, and make another
swing that you would have rather madeif they said you could take it over,
what swing would you make? Andwhat you're doing there is you're erasing
the last swing and replacing it witha better one, so you never leave
that spot. You never leave yourspot with a bad swing. Otherwise,
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if you make a swing that youdidn't like and it goes to the right,
chances are the next one you'll makea swing that makes it go to
the left and you'll be playing armygolf left right, left, right,
left, you know, just justcompensating all over the place. You want
to get rid of. You wantto replace what you did with what you
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would rather do. And then you'llleave that spot feeling like you made a
good swing, and you'll find akey in that better swing that you'll use
to put into your preparation. SayI need to feel this in my practice
swing so that I can execute inmy next shot. Now. The third
situation is if it's really if it'sreally sideways what I call shots with very
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little redeeming value. And in thatcase, almost always, it's not that
you forgot how to swing the club. There was a significant amount of mental
interference. Maybe there was trouble onthe right and you snap hooked it to
the left. Well, you dida good job of avoiding the trouble,
but you didn't hit a very goodshot. Or you were so excited about
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how it was going to turn outthat you looked up long before you hit
the ball and you topped it.These kinds of things happen. You have
to recognize, don't change your swing, change your mind, change your mindset
beforehand, and do your preparation betterand say, you know what, I'm
not looking up until I see theclub head go through the ball or through
the grass. That's one of myfavorite actually for high handicappers who tend to
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hit shots. Then usually they're comingup out of it looking, So I
say, watch the club go throughthe grass, well to go. If
it's going to go through the grass, you're not going to hit it then.
So these kinds of things are whatyou need to do. If you
hit a really sideways one, don'tthink that your swing is that bad.
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I think that there was a lotof interference to that swing, and you
need to get out of your ownway more. Those are the three aspects
of the post shot routine. Ifyou keep doing that, you'll actually improve
during a round. It's how youstop the bleeding if you're hitting a number
of bad shots. It really keepsyou on track and makes you better as
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you play. And something that similarto that we talked about when Zen putting
came out, and it's a linethat I've used for years. I've repeated
your line for years, and thisyear, when my buddies and I traveled
on our annual golf weekend, somebodyuse that line. I went, that's
my line, because yeah, wellwhat do you think I heard it?
And it basically is on the greenwhere he had a great putt, it
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didn't fall. So the line isyou made the putt you just didn't hold
it. That's exactly right. Igive you credit for that. I appreciate
that I decided to change the definitionand change the language. As usually,
when we say I made the putt, that means it went in the hole.
But I want your confidence to bemore based on execution. You know,
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PGA tour players from eight feet away, they only hold half of their
putts, So we're going to probablyhold less than that. And that means
if our confidence is based on howmany go in the hole, we're going
to stroke. We're not going totrust our putting stroke very much. But
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if we feel like, you know, I executed the putt I wanted,
I just misread it, or theball hit a spike mark and didn't go
in, then it isn't a matterof execution. It's a matter of reading
it better or recognizing that greens arenot perfect surfaces. So I separate out.
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And if you rolled the putt andyou know it after it comes off
the putter, if it's going inthe direction you want, it came off
the sweet spot and it's rolling justat the pace you want put then you
see if it's going to go inthe hole. If it goes in then
you hold your putt, So weseparate out making and holding. Making is
something you can control. Holding youcan get the ball started, but after
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that a lot of other factors areinvolved. And you know, there was
there was a that's well, therewas a you know, Dave Peltz did
a study where he rolled ten ballsdown a ramp on a very nice country
club green from twelve feet away andonly seven of them went in. Wo
And that's down a ramp. That'sthat's like a rope patrol. That's like
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a robut rolling the ball and it'sthe exact same putt, but only seven
out of ten go in. Sowe can't control that completely. What I
really want players to understand is ifthey can. You know, putting is
like a relay race. If youif you're running a relay ration, it's
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a two person race and you dothe first The best you can do is
run your leg of the race thebest you can and make a good hand
off of the baton, and afterthat all you can do is root for
it. So in the same wayyou move the putter, you transfer the
energy to the ball the best youcan, and after that all you can
do is root for it. Andreferring back to this post shot routine when
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someone's a ball, take it.You know. My tendency now, I
know it's still funny. I'll takethat shot. My tendency now will be
to say no, no, no, don't take it, buy it,
own it. What did you doright now? Yeah you can. I
like that a lot better. Andthe group that I was out with yesterday,
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it was a client appreciation group,a businessman and two of his clients,
and really at the start, everybodyis just picking every shot apart.
And I said, as soon asyou do that, as soon as you
start saying what's wrong with it?Somebody said, oh, I pushed it?
I said, really, is thata news item? We thought you
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were aiming. We thought you wereaiming at that bunker to the right of
the green. Come on, obviouslyyou pushed it. You don't have to
proclaim it to the universe. Yeah, we just I said, why don't
we say? I hit it ona really good trajectory. It's pin high,
just to just and and if Ihad, if I had hit it
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ten yards left of there, itwould have been a great shot. So
what do I need to do?Maybe I was aimed there. Maybe you
know, I left the face opena little bit, but it was close.
Instead of picking out what's so wrongwith it, say oh, that
was close. There was there werea lot of good things about it,
and and I liked what you saidfor that's really a better idea instead of
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I'll take it. You say,why don't you say what you liked about
it? Yeah, I want totalk about one thing of it and disconnects
with putting it as well. Andit's really a somewhat scientific approach, and
that is simplifying the variables that areinvolved, not mixing them up. And
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you can cut this out of it'stoo complicated. But in science they talk
about confounding variables. If you havetwo or three things going on at the
same time, you can't tell whatis affecting what. The other way of
describing what I'm going to talk aboutis a very simple thing that everybody's parents
have probably told them when they werea kid, saying, you know,
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do one thing at a time,Finish one thing before you start the next
thing. Yeah, okay, onething at a time, finish it and
then do the next thing. SoI want to do that with putting.
Once you've read the putt and you'vechosen the line you wanted to start on,
and you set the putter pointing rightdown that line, and you set
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your stance to so that the putterwill swing down that line you need.
That's the first thing you need totake care of. And you say,
I got the direction. I'm donewith direction, and you make a commitment
where I've chosen to set that putterand aim that putter. That's the direction
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I'm hitting this putt. So everyputt is a straight putt from that point
of view. But it's the startingline of the putt. You know gravity's
going to affect it or grain's goingto affect it. Then once you're over
the putt and you're in your stanceand your grip, then you take a
good long look at the length ofthe putt uphill downhill, how fast the
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greens are, get a feel forthe pace, how you need to roll
it to make it go the distanceyou want it to go, and you
say, okay, I got thepace. Now here's the interesting thing.
You when you look back down atthe ball, bring the picture to your
mind of what you were just lookingat, and then roll it into the
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picture. So you take care ofthe path, You take care of the
pace, and then you put agood roll on it, and when you
roll it into the picture, you'rereally reacting to a target the way most
hand eye coordination sports do. Youknow, if you're throwing a if you're
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shooting a free throw, you don'tlook to the side and shoot the three
free throw at a ninety degree angleto where you're looking. Yeah, hook
shot. But if you're putting,you do. You're looking down, but
you're putting to a ninety degree anglefrom where your eyes are looking at.
You're putting straight left of your righthander, but you're looking straight down.
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So what I want you to dois shift the mental image from what your
eyes are telling you to a memoryof what you saw when you took a
good two or three second look thewhole path of the putt, and then
you put into that picture. Andthat's been tremendously successful in my teaching putting
the last couple of years. Thatparticular routine and you say it to yourself.
(26:14):
You set the putter in your stantsand you say, I got the
direction. You take a good longlook, you say I got the pace.
You look down, and you sayroll it into the picture and that's
it. Yeah, when I wasgetting a little stumbled there, I was
trying to remember that and I dothat. How often I play with people
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who pick apart. And these arepeople who maybe never have had a lesson,
they watched the golf channel, orthey just watch on TV, or
they've played golf with the friend,but they'll pick apart every single shot as
if they are the teacher, andthey know exactly what they did wrong,
and yet they're focusing on the wrongthings times. Again, that's true that
that happened to me yesterday with thisthis group out and the guy said,
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oh, I pushed it and Isaid, no, you didn't. He
said, what do you mean?I said, you hit a great chat
right where you were aimed. Wespent most of the day on alignment.
It was really amazing peoples, andthe lesson yesterday. Most of almost every
hole I had to call somebody offof the ball and say, really,
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did you want to hit it straightinto that tree? They go, no,
I wasn't aimed there. I said, yeah, yeah, you kind
of were, and we lay thesticks down. They come back and they
go, oh, you've got tobe kidding. That completely didn't feel that
way, and I say old sayingin golf what you feel isn't necessarily real.
He said if and if if aimingright felt straight, then aiming straight
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is going to feel like you're aimingleft. Okay, well you have to
believe the sticks and what you've laiddown. So so we were on one
tee and the guy hits the balland the other eighteen handicapper says, you
did this, and I said,no, no, he didn't. Don't
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listen to him. He doesn't knowwhat he's talking about. I said,
please stop telling him what he did, especially when it's wrong. So you're
paying me to be here, damnit. We do it. We do
it are We do it to ourselvesand then we're all that helpful and we
do it to others. And it'slike the three stooges of people, who
(28:32):
three guys who don't know what they'retalking about, teaching each other and getting
more and more confused. So it's, uh, it's quite an it's quite
an experience. And and when Iwhen I was telling one person something,
the other guy says, what didyou say? And I said, I
wasn't talking to you, this wasabout him. I don't want you to
(28:53):
hear this because you'll put this intoyour game, and it's not about your
game. And I explained that Harveyp taught Ben Crenshaw and Tom Kite for
twenty years, and for those wholetwenty years, neither one was allowed to
listen in on the lesson of theother one. Ever, Wow, Ben
Kite, Ben ben Kite, BenCrenshaw never was there for a lesson that
(29:18):
Harvey Panick taught Ben Crenshaw, andBen Crenshaw was never there for a lesson
than Harvey Panick talk Tom Kite.I don't know if I said that right,
I've better said that again. Ithink you, yeah, I think
we. Ben Crenshaw was never therefor a lesson that Harvey Pannick talked Tom
Kite, and Tom Kite was neverthere for a lesson that Harvey Pannick taught
(29:40):
Ben Crenshaw. Okay, why don'tyou give me one more time in a
different order? And then Mitzie,if no, I'm kidding, we can
I can edit this all together.Well, listen, we've run out of
time for today's show, But canI invite you to come back because I
have so many more questions. Iwould love to do a member's only episode
with you, and a couple ofthings you had before we started recording.
(30:03):
You had been talking about some lessonsthat you've been giving three different lessons last
week that I'd like to talk toyou about. Also, I want to
talk about short game routines. Absolutely, I would love to all Right,
well again, happy anniversary, DoctorJoe. I'm so happy for you that
zen Golf has not only been aroundfor ten years, but it's been so
successful for ten years. Again,the book is zen Goolf Mastering the Mental
(30:26):
Game by doctor Joseph Parent. Zenputting is there and also the Art of
the Mental Game, and of coursego to zendolf dot com. We will
have links to it on our website. If you click on doctor Joe's name
in today's show notes, it willtake you to zenngolf dot com and sign
up for his free newsletter. DoctorJoe will talk to you again on our
(30:47):
next episode. All right, thanksvery much for I appreciate it.
Welcome to Golf Smarter Mulligans, yoursecond chance to gain insight and advice from
the best instructors featured on the GolfSmarter podcast. Great Golf Instruction never gets
old. Our interview library features hundredsof hours of game improvement conversations like this
(00:21):
that are no longer available in anypodcast app. You know, most people
say I'll take that one. Now, that's an interesting expression. Don't you
have to take that one? It'sgolf, you know. They say I'll
take it. I say, yeah, yeah, you have to take it.
That was your shot. No,no, you know what. I'm
going to go out and play thisafternoon, and I swear the first guy
to say I'll take that. No, no, no, sorry, that
(00:42):
one doesn't count. That doesn't count. Yeah you have to take No,
I'll take it. No. Youwant to say, yes, that's the
way I hit it. When Ido a good routine and trust my swing,
you say something that reinforces your preparation. So if you keep reinforcing the
preparation, your preparation'll keep being better. If you have a picture of the
target and connection to the target andthe shot you want to hit, that
(01:06):
you've done your breathing and gotten settled. And if you reinforce them in the
post shot routine, then they'll keepgetting better. If you just say,
yeah, that's how I always hitit, that's a great confidence building.
With another interview from the archives ofGolf Smarter, here's your host, Fred
Green. Welcome back to Golf Smarter, Doctor Joe. Great to be here,
(01:26):
Fred, Happy anniversary, my friend, Thank you very verch and the
anniversary of Zen Golf. Are youamazed that we're still talking about your book?
I'm always amazed because I went intoit with very, very few expectations.
It was my first book. Aliterary agent had heard about what I
(01:49):
did of using Buddhist mindfulness practice andWestern psychology to teach the mental game of
golf, and she said that soundsgreat. Let's work on a book,
and lo and behold, Zen Goolfcame out of that Zen Goolf we decided
to subtitle it Mastering the Mental Game, and it came out in May of
two thousand and two. So thiscoming month is the is the annivers tenth
(02:15):
anniversary? And what were you doingbefore you wrote this book? Were you
were you? I was teaching themental game in golf. Yeah, it's
really important for people to know.Zen Golf is not a theoretical book.
It's not a book on zen philosophyand how the experience of golf is like
the experience of zen and quiet mind. It's really a practical application of the
(02:43):
practice of mindful awareness, of thepractice of the psychology of the game,
performance psychology which I was teaching asstress management in business and performance psychology in
business and in individuals and life coachingbefore I started teaching golf. But I
had already been teaching golf, andI'd already worked with pros, so that
(03:07):
Zen Golf is a description of thelessons that worked for all levels of golfers.
That's why it has been so successful. A lot of people come up
and it just I was giving atalk I was mentioning. I was giving
a talk to the Beverly Hills RotaryClub the other day and the guy who
introduced me was talking about the book, and he said, have you ever
(03:28):
read a book where you felt likeit was written specifically for you? And
a lot of golfers tell me thatthey feel like the book was about them,
and it is. It's about howall golfers' minds work. And so
that's why it's been so universally accepted, and that's been hugely gratifying for me.
(03:50):
I'm humbled and honored. Oh,and we're humbled and honored to have
you on again. When was zengolf something that phrase that term? Was
that always what you were doing?Or was there a moment when you were
preparing the book and you went zengolf? Where did the zeno? Where
(04:11):
was the chicken in the egg onthis? Well, it's an interesting story
because I was originally going to callit enlightened golf. A lot of the
teachings in there came from what's calledthe Shambala traditions. It's like the Asian
version of Camelot of enlightened society andnobility. The principles are discipline and humor
(04:36):
and friendship, which I apply inmy teaching and I got from my Buddhist
meditation teachers, and one of themI played golf with. That That's a
really amazing experience. To see someonewith that kind of mastery of the mind
applying it to golf is really whatinspired me to be able to do this.
(05:01):
It was calling lighting goolf. Thepublisher said, Well, the salespeople
think that that's a little soft asa title, and you have zens stories
in the book already, we're thinkingit should be called Zen Golf. And
I said, no, I don'tknow. I'm not that thrilled with that.
It's okay, but you know,and the publisher, the editor,
(05:25):
said, well, there are twoways we can go is your book.
We can call it what you want, but I just don't think the salespeople
are going to get behind it.And I said, okay, let me
see if I understand this, right, I call it what I want,
but nobody ever gets to see it, or you call it what you want
and people will read the book.I said, call it whatever you want.
I want people to read the book. So they asked me to add
(05:47):
a few more Zen stories, acouple of which I did, and a
couple of which I took my teachingsand I wrote and crafted stories in the
in that model. So I actuallywrote little Zen stories to go with the
teachings in the book. And asit turned out, they were right.
It's a great title and people reallyconnected to it. So it was a
(06:13):
win win. Oh. When itfirst came out in May of two thousand
and two, I was fairly newto the game, and if I remember
correctly, I was in the SanFrancisco airport on away on vacation and the
book jumped off the shelf at meand I read it while on vacation and
(06:34):
felt like it was speaking to meas well. And so when I started
thinking about doing this podcast and havingconversation actually with a good friend of mine
from radio Days, my Radio Daysguy named Leo Laporte, and anybody who
listens to podcasts, oh yeah,yeah, I've heard him on the radio.
(06:56):
Yeap. He is the tech guyand he's also one of the godfather
of tech podcasting and of podcasting.So he and I got together for lunch
and I was saying, so,tell me about this podcast thing, because
I have this idea that I wantto pursue and I think it would be
an interesting way of approaching a podcaston golf. And I'd never done anything
around golf before. I mean,I was new to the game and I'd
(07:17):
been in sports marketing for a while. And he said, well, look,
whatever you do with it, makesure that the first show that you
have features somebody that is recognizable,that has a name that people will go
oh right, because if you canlaunch it with something like that, then
you may get some traction. SoI thought, I'm going to take a
(07:41):
shot, and I reached out toyou, and episode number one of the
Golf Smarter podcast is Zen Golf withDoctor Joseph Parent. I remember that was
great, and here you are nowin the three hundreds. Well, it's
been a wonderful journey together and Ireally appreciate it. Do you want to
get that Nope, okay, realgood. Thank you. If you were
(08:07):
to write Zen Golf today, whatwould you do differently? Well, I
would do the chapters, which aretwo to three page chapters, pretty much
the same. I would do themodel of stories. People love the stories,
(08:28):
and the anecdotes about lessons very verymuch the same. It would be
refined. I have some additional materialwhich has come out in Zen Putting,
and then some more came out inGolf The Art of the Mental Game.
And I have another book. Iguess it's going to be Zen Golf two
or Zen Golf ten years later thatwill expand on a lot of the contents,
(08:52):
and that's in process right now.Okay, all right, so you'll
see what it'll look like ten yearslater. Well, I you know,
I'm glad to hear that you wouldpretty much go the same way, because
it still speaks to me, andit's still it's still if if people have
not read this book and you're atall a well, if you listen to
(09:16):
this podcast, you must buy intothe the idea that the Metal Game has
a powerful effect on how you playgolf. And this is where you should
start. This is the book whereyou should start. And I'm really happy
to say that I recently announced thatour book section on golfsmarter dot com has
returned because Amazon and the State ofCalifornia have made an agreement. So Zen
(09:39):
Golf, Zen Putting, and GolfThe Art of the Metal Game are all
available on golfsmarter dot com and youshould definitely, if you've not read it,
go get them now. Thank you, Thank you Fred. And you
know we have gone multimedia and theseobviously if you're listening to this podcast,
(10:01):
you're a listener. Yeah. Andall of my books, all three are
available in audiobook form full. Iread them myself and produced them and they're
the full book, not abridged.Can we pick out a couple things in
(10:22):
Zen Golf and talk about the relevanceas you know. I've always told people,
I said, Look, the thingabout golf Smarter is the conversations that
we have are ever green in nature, meaning that if you go back to
episode number one with Doctor Joseph Parent, this is exactly what I say.
Go back to episode number one withDoctor Joseph Parent of Zen Golf. The
(10:43):
tips and messages that you get inthat episode are just as powerful today and
useful today as they were when werecorded it in two thousand and five.
Well, that's true, and that'swhy it's been very gratifying that ten years
later, Zen Golf is still onthe first page when you search for golf
books on Amazon dot com, becausebecause the message still resonates and the mind
(11:09):
hasn't changed, the way people's mindswork hasn't changed. They still get in
their own way, and they playbetter when they get out of their own
way. So that's really what it'sabout. And that's that's the line that
sets out from episode number one.I teach golfers how to get out of
their own way. That's what yousaid, all right, So say it's
(11:31):
still saying still saying it. Itstill resonates, So I want to it's
hard to condense you know, overone hundred and thirty pages into into one
section of a podcast here. Butwe've got some time, and I would
like to talk about what the parapproach that you have the preparation, action
and response to results. Can wejust do an overview on that as a
(11:54):
taste of how good zen golf is. Can we talk about the par approach?
Sure? That's that is the basicstructure. And when I talk to
people, I say, well,you know, how do you get out
of your own way? It's easyto say, just get out of your
own way, and a lot ofsports psychologists will say stay in the present,
clear your mind, free your swing. Yeah, well that's easy to
(12:18):
say, and people say, yeah, well they say to do that,
but right now I'm not doing that. How do I get from a muddled
mind, an uptight swing, andmy mind full of the past and future
to where you want me to be? That's the key to ziend Golf,
that I give people a path toget from where you are to where you
(12:41):
want to be. Rather than justsaying, you know, be different,
No, you need a path tobecome that different way of looking at things,
to take that different perspective. Sothe power approach simply represents beginning,
middle, and end. That's whyit applies to business and life coaching that
I do. That you you havea preparation for everything you do. Then
(13:01):
there's the action, and then there'ssome consequence, and what do you do
with the feedback? How do yourespond to the results? And you want
to respond to the results in away that makes your preparation and action better
next time. So it's a cycleof continuous improvement. You prepare, you
(13:24):
act, you see what happened,and then you make your adjustment and you
do a better job with the preparation, and then the action turns out better.
One of the things that I havenoticed in myself and in golfers that
I play with that here in yourresponse to results, which I was introduced
to this concept in your book.And it's still not the easiest thing to
(13:50):
do, because golfer you're always talkingabout you lash shot in your next shot,
your lashot in your next shot.But the post shot routine so critically
important, but so easy to forget. That's true, and that's really where
some discipline is necessary. If youmake it a habit, it's not that
hard. And there are three aspectsto the posher routine based on three different
(14:16):
levels of the results that you get. If they're really great results, then
I want you. You know,most people say I'll take that one.
Yep. Now, now that's aninteresting expression. Don't you have to take
that one? It's calf you know. They say I'll take it. I
say, yeah, yeah, youhave to take it. That was your
shot. No, no, youknow what, I'm going to go out
(14:37):
and play this afternoon, and Iswear. The first guy to say I'll
take that, I go, no, no, no, I'm sorry,
you don't get to take that.Take it again. Sorry, that one
doesn't count. That doesn't count.Yeah you have to take no, kay,
I'll take it. No you wantto say, yes, that's what
you know. That's the way Ihit it when I get out of my
own way, or that's the wayI hit it when I do a good
(14:58):
routine and trust my swing. Yousay something that reinforces your preparation, you
see, So if you keep reinforcingthe preparation, you'll your preparation will keep
being better. You'll have a youknow, if you have a clear image
of the shot. You want thepicture of the target and connection to the
target and the shot you want tohit that You've done your breathing and gotten
(15:20):
settled and all of those aspects ofpreparation. If you reinforce them in the
post shot routine, then they'll keepgetting better. If you just say,
yeah, that's how I always hitit, that's a great confidence builder.
Now what if you have an okayshot, it wasn't great. You know,
if somebody said you want it over, yeah, I would take that
one over. But it's usable,but I would take it over. Then
(15:43):
I want you to say, oh, that was close, and make another
swing that you would have rather madeif they said you could take it over,
what swing would you make? Andwhat you're doing there is you're erasing
the last swing and replacing it witha better one, so you never leave
that spot. You never leave yourspot with a bad swing. Otherwise,
(16:07):
if you make a swing that youdidn't like and it goes to the right,
chances are the next one you'll makea swing that makes it go to
the left and you'll be playing armygolf left right, left, right,
left, you know, just justcompensating all over the place. You want
to get rid of. You wantto replace what you did with what you
(16:27):
would rather do. And then you'llleave that spot feeling like you made a
good swing, and you'll find akey in that better swing that you'll use
to put into your preparation. SayI need to feel this in my practice
swing so that I can execute inmy next shot. Now. The third
situation is if it's really if it'sreally sideways what I call shots with very
(16:52):
little redeeming value. And in thatcase, almost always, it's not that
you forgot how to swing the club. There was a significant amount of mental
interference. Maybe there was trouble onthe right and you snap hooked it to
the left. Well, you dida good job of avoiding the trouble,
but you didn't hit a very goodshot. Or you were so excited about
(17:15):
how it was going to turn outthat you looked up long before you hit
the ball and you topped it.These kinds of things happen. You have
to recognize, don't change your swing, change your mind, change your mindset
beforehand, and do your preparation betterand say, you know what, I'm
not looking up until I see theclub head go through the ball or through
the grass. That's one of myfavorite actually for high handicappers who tend to
(17:40):
hit shots. Then usually they're comingup out of it looking, So I
say, watch the club go throughthe grass, well to go. If
it's going to go through the grass, you're not going to hit it then.
So these kinds of things are whatyou need to do. If you
hit a really sideways one, don'tthink that your swing is that bad.
(18:00):
I think that there was a lotof interference to that swing, and you
need to get out of your ownway more. Those are the three aspects
of the post shot routine. Ifyou keep doing that, you'll actually improve
during a round. It's how youstop the bleeding if you're hitting a number
of bad shots. It really keepsyou on track and makes you better as
(18:22):
you play. And something that similarto that we talked about when Zen putting
came out, and it's a linethat I've used for years. I've repeated
your line for years, and thisyear, when my buddies and I traveled
on our annual golf weekend, somebodyuse that line. I went, that's
my line, because yeah, wellwhat do you think I heard it?
And it basically is on the greenwhere he had a great putt, it
(18:45):
didn't fall. So the line isyou made the putt you just didn't hold
it. That's exactly right. Igive you credit for that. I appreciate
that I decided to change the definitionand change the language. As usually,
when we say I made the putt, that means it went in the hole.
But I want your confidence to bemore based on execution. You know,
(19:07):
PGA tour players from eight feet away, they only hold half of their
putts, So we're going to probablyhold less than that. And that means
if our confidence is based on howmany go in the hole, we're going
to stroke. We're not going totrust our putting stroke very much. But
(19:27):
if we feel like, you know, I executed the putt I wanted,
I just misread it, or theball hit a spike mark and didn't go
in, then it isn't a matterof execution. It's a matter of reading
it better or recognizing that greens arenot perfect surfaces. So I separate out.
(19:48):
And if you rolled the putt andyou know it after it comes off
the putter, if it's going inthe direction you want, it came off
the sweet spot and it's rolling justat the pace you want put then you
see if it's going to go inthe hole. If it goes in then
you hold your putt, So weseparate out making and holding. Making is
something you can control. Holding youcan get the ball started, but after
(20:15):
that a lot of other factors areinvolved. And you know, there was
there was a that's well, therewas a you know, Dave Peltz did
a study where he rolled ten ballsdown a ramp on a very nice country
club green from twelve feet away andonly seven of them went in. Wo
And that's down a ramp. That'sthat's like a rope patrol. That's like
(20:37):
a robut rolling the ball and it'sthe exact same putt, but only seven
out of ten go in. Sowe can't control that completely. What I
really want players to understand is ifthey can. You know, putting is
like a relay race. If youif you're running a relay ration, it's
(20:59):
a two person race and you dothe first The best you can do is
run your leg of the race thebest you can and make a good hand
off of the baton, and afterthat all you can do is root for
it. So in the same wayyou move the putter, you transfer the
energy to the ball the best youcan, and after that all you can
do is root for it. Andreferring back to this post shot routine when
(21:26):
someone's a ball, take it.You know. My tendency now, I
know it's still funny. I'll takethat shot. My tendency now will be
to say no, no, no, don't take it, buy it,
own it. What did you doright now? Yeah you can. I
like that a lot better. Andthe group that I was out with yesterday,
(21:47):
it was a client appreciation group,a businessman and two of his clients,
and really at the start, everybodyis just picking every shot apart.
And I said, as soon asyou do that, as soon as you
start saying what's wrong with it?Somebody said, oh, I pushed it?
I said, really, is thata news item? We thought you
(22:07):
were aiming. We thought you wereaiming at that bunker to the right of
the green. Come on, obviouslyyou pushed it. You don't have to
proclaim it to the universe. Yeah, we just I said, why don't
we say? I hit it ona really good trajectory. It's pin high,
just to just and and if Ihad, if I had hit it
(22:27):
ten yards left of there, itwould have been a great shot. So
what do I need to do?Maybe I was aimed there. Maybe you
know, I left the face opena little bit, but it was close.
Instead of picking out what's so wrongwith it, say oh, that
was close. There was there werea lot of good things about it,
and and I liked what you saidfor that's really a better idea instead of
(22:48):
I'll take it. You say,why don't you say what you liked about
it? Yeah, I want totalk about one thing of it and disconnects
with putting it as well. Andit's really a somewhat scientific approach, and
that is simplifying the variables that areinvolved, not mixing them up. And
(23:11):
you can cut this out of it'stoo complicated. But in science they talk
about confounding variables. If you havetwo or three things going on at the
same time, you can't tell whatis affecting what. The other way of
describing what I'm going to talk aboutis a very simple thing that everybody's parents
have probably told them when they werea kid, saying, you know,
(23:33):
do one thing at a time,Finish one thing before you start the next
thing. Yeah, okay, onething at a time, finish it and
then do the next thing. SoI want to do that with putting.
Once you've read the putt and you'vechosen the line you wanted to start on,
and you set the putter pointing rightdown that line, and you set
(23:56):
your stance to so that the putterwill swing down that line you need.
That's the first thing you need totake care of. And you say,
I got the direction. I'm donewith direction, and you make a commitment
where I've chosen to set that putterand aim that putter. That's the direction
(24:17):
I'm hitting this putt. So everyputt is a straight putt from that point
of view. But it's the startingline of the putt. You know gravity's
going to affect it or grain's goingto affect it. Then once you're over
the putt and you're in your stanceand your grip, then you take a
good long look at the length ofthe putt uphill downhill, how fast the
(24:40):
greens are, get a feel forthe pace, how you need to roll
it to make it go the distanceyou want it to go, and you
say, okay, I got thepace. Now here's the interesting thing.
You when you look back down atthe ball, bring the picture to your
mind of what you were just lookingat, and then roll it into the
(25:03):
picture. So you take care ofthe path, You take care of the
pace, and then you put agood roll on it, and when you
roll it into the picture, you'rereally reacting to a target the way most
hand eye coordination sports do. Youknow, if you're throwing a if you're
(25:23):
shooting a free throw, you don'tlook to the side and shoot the three
free throw at a ninety degree angleto where you're looking. Yeah, hook
shot. But if you're putting,you do. You're looking down, but
you're putting to a ninety degree anglefrom where your eyes are looking at.
You're putting straight left of your righthander, but you're looking straight down.
(25:48):
So what I want you to dois shift the mental image from what your
eyes are telling you to a memoryof what you saw when you took a
good two or three second look thewhole path of the putt, and then
you put into that picture. Andthat's been tremendously successful in my teaching putting
the last couple of years. Thatparticular routine and you say it to yourself.
(26:14):
You set the putter in your stantsand you say, I got the
direction. You take a good longlook, you say I got the pace.
You look down, and you sayroll it into the picture and that's
it. Yeah, when I wasgetting a little stumbled there, I was
trying to remember that and I dothat. How often I play with people
(26:37):
who pick apart. And these arepeople who maybe never have had a lesson,
they watched the golf channel, orthey just watch on TV, or
they've played golf with the friend,but they'll pick apart every single shot as
if they are the teacher, andthey know exactly what they did wrong,
and yet they're focusing on the wrongthings times. Again, that's true that
that happened to me yesterday with thisthis group out and the guy said,
(27:02):
oh, I pushed it and Isaid, no, you didn't. He
said, what do you mean?I said, you hit a great chat
right where you were aimed. Wespent most of the day on alignment.
It was really amazing peoples, andthe lesson yesterday. Most of almost every
hole I had to call somebody offof the ball and say, really,
(27:25):
did you want to hit it straightinto that tree? They go, no,
I wasn't aimed there. I said, yeah, yeah, you kind
of were, and we lay thesticks down. They come back and they
go, oh, you've got tobe kidding. That completely didn't feel that
way, and I say old sayingin golf what you feel isn't necessarily real.
He said if and if if aimingright felt straight, then aiming straight
(27:48):
is going to feel like you're aimingleft. Okay, well you have to
believe the sticks and what you've laiddown. So so we were on one
tee and the guy hits the balland the other eighteen handicapper says, you
did this, and I said,no, no, he didn't. Don't
(28:08):
listen to him. He doesn't knowwhat he's talking about. I said,
please stop telling him what he did, especially when it's wrong. So you're
paying me to be here, damnit. We do it. We do
it are We do it to ourselvesand then we're all that helpful and we
do it to others. And it'slike the three stooges of people, who
(28:32):
three guys who don't know what they'retalking about, teaching each other and getting
more and more confused. So it's, uh, it's quite an it's quite
an experience. And and when Iwhen I was telling one person something,
the other guy says, what didyou say? And I said, I
wasn't talking to you, this wasabout him. I don't want you to
(28:53):
hear this because you'll put this intoyour game, and it's not about your
game. And I explained that Harveyp taught Ben Crenshaw and Tom Kite for
twenty years, and for those wholetwenty years, neither one was allowed to
listen in on the lesson of theother one. Ever, Wow, Ben
Kite, Ben ben Kite, BenCrenshaw never was there for a lesson that
(29:18):
Harvey Panick taught Ben Crenshaw, andBen Crenshaw was never there for a lesson
than Harvey Panick talk Tom Kite.I don't know if I said that right,
I've better said that again. Ithink you, yeah, I think
we. Ben Crenshaw was never therefor a lesson that Harvey Pannick talked Tom
Kite, and Tom Kite was neverthere for a lesson that Harvey Pannick taught
(29:40):
Ben Crenshaw. Okay, why don'tyou give me one more time in a
different order? And then Mitzie,if no, I'm kidding, we can
I can edit this all together.Well, listen, we've run out of
time for today's show, But canI invite you to come back because I
have so many more questions. Iwould love to do a member's only episode
with you, and a couple ofthings you had before we started recording.
(30:03):
You had been talking about some lessonsthat you've been giving three different lessons last
week that I'd like to talk toyou about. Also, I want to
talk about short game routines. Absolutely, I would love to all Right,
well again, happy anniversary, DoctorJoe. I'm so happy for you that
zen Golf has not only been aroundfor ten years, but it's been so
successful for ten years. Again,the book is zen Goolf Mastering the Mental
(30:26):
Game by doctor Joseph Parent. Zenputting is there and also the Art of
the Mental Game, and of coursego to zendolf dot com. We will
have links to it on our website. If you click on doctor Joe's name
in today's show notes, it willtake you to zenngolf dot com and sign
up for his free newsletter. DoctorJoe will talk to you again on our
(30:47):
next episode. All right, thanksvery much for I appreciate it.
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