"Why We Golf" with author Paul Staley

We ponder, we pontificate, yet we can be at a loss when others ask us. Why DO we golf? Author Paul Staley has self published the answer in his book “Why We Golf”. In this Members Only episode, Paul and host Fred Greene break down chapters in his book to see if there really is an answer. Does it really matter? Not as long as we love to play!
Originally published on January 17, 2012 as a Members Only episode, so it’s the first time it’s been released to the public.

Episode Transcript

(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. There's that old cliche,
it's fear and greed that move themarket. I think the Dad explains an
incredible amount of what happens to usout on the golf course. And a
talk in the book about how youcan take all your bad shots and you
can put them into two buckets.You've got the fear bucket and the green

(00:41):
bucket. You've got the short sightedyou've got to get over a bunker.
You've got a narrow t shot,you've got a difficult downhill put. Anytime
that you wait stays on your backside. That the fear shot, you're already
backing away from it before you evenfinished it, you know. And then
there are the green shots. We'replaying, well, we were stroking it
right down the middle. So thenext time we're out there, we're just

(01:03):
going to go for a couple moreyards off to tea. So you start
coming over the top, you're pullingit into the trees, or you were
seeing the line well on your putts, so you're gonna be able to get
a bit more aggressive. Now you'vegot three feet coming back like this metronome,
and you go back and forth betweenthose in terms of how you play
the game. With another interview fromthe archives of Golf Smarter, here's your

(01:26):
host, Fred Green. Welcome toGolf Smarter from members only. Paul,
Well, Fred, how are you. I'm good. How are you doing
this morning? I'm doing fine.I have a very simple question for you,
and that is why do we golf? Well, the simple answer is,
I don't think we know any better. We're What we're doing out there

(01:48):
is basically hanging out with our friends, going out into this wonderful expanse of
trees and meadows, launching objects intothe air, going and retrieving them,
sort of celebrate those rare occurrences whenit all works out for us. And
when you think about it, allwe're doing really is we're reenacting the hunter
gatherer experience. It's kind of inour genes. We're actually were doing what

(02:12):
we've did, you know, millionsof years ago, and we just go
out and do it on weekends andkeep score. You know, at first
your answer was like, yeah,but why do we golf? I mean,
why do we go back? Right? Well, we're Gladden's for punishment,
and we keep thinking we can doit better, so you know,
we keep trying. I mean,it's you know, it's that whole quest
thing that uh, you know,drives us to try to do this better

(02:38):
and to you know, we getdrawn back by you know, the shots
that work out, and you know, maybe we can get a couple more
of those next time around. Ilike the idea of the hunter gatherer?
How did you How did you getto that? How did I get to
that? I think actually by goingout and behaving a little like a caveman

(03:00):
myself. You know, if youthink about it, you start acting in
a really sort of you know,primordial way. You know, you start
talking to objects and you think theycan listen to you. You know,
you think trees have certain sort ofmagnetic attraction for your ball. I mean,
I think it throws you back intothis much more primitive mindset. And

(03:20):
it just occurred to me one day, well, wait a minute, you
know, maybe this is what's goingon, maybe this is why I can't
stop myself from playing something that actuallymakes me miserable some of the time.
And how did you get there?I mean, what where did you?
Okay, so obviously I haven't beenclear with anybody, but you you know
what I'm talking about. But you'vecome out with a book as is self

(03:42):
published I'm assuming if ye, yesit is, and in the book is
called Why We Golf? And I'myou're not a PGA professional, correct,
that would be correct, So you'rejust like one of us. You're just
a guy who loves to play weekendgolf and would love to play more than
just weekends. Exactly have you beenplaying your whole life? Well, that's

(04:08):
kind of interesting. I my momintroduced me to the game when I was
around twelve, and just as aside note, at that point in my
life, I sort of what Idid is I melded two sports together,
much to my detriment. So Iwas still playing little league baseball golf,

(04:30):
and I started hitting some of thehighest fly balls in the history of Paloasa
Little League. I'll never forget therewas a dad sitting in the back of
me in one game, and Iswung and the guy goes four, and
so then I kind of then Istarted playing tennis, and I kind of
dropped golf, and then I pickedgolf back up, maybe fifteen twenty years

(04:51):
ago. But I have this habitof sort of moving my feet around and
kind of getting up on my toeslike you want to do when you're hitting
U a good forehand. So youknow, I left the game, came
back to it a little bit tomy wife's chagrin because when we met many,
many, many years ago, Iwas this ponytailed, kind of hippie
kid from northern California. And thenI exposed myself to her like twenty years

(05:15):
later as a golfer and she's like, well, you know, you didn't
tell me you were a golfer,but yeah, he was always in there
inside me. That's very interesting.Palo Alto a little league. Did you
come across Steve Jobs growing up?I mean we're in the same area at
the same time. It is thesame area now we know, for better
for worth, our path not cross. Okay, just a side note here,

(05:41):
So what brought to you brought youto the point of taking your frustrations
of the golf course when you Iguess got back into it as you got
older and said, I need towrite a book about this. Well,
I've always liked writing, and II started sort of having these little sort
of riffs that would occur to meand I jot them down. And I'm

(06:05):
a member at Lake Mersett Golf Clubin Daily City and San Francisco. Exactly,
you know part of that complex orgreat courses down to that corner of
the world, and that's I'm sorry, but that's right near where the Olympic
Club is, correct, correct,We can see the Olympic Club from uh

(06:25):
clearly from a couple of our holeson the course. Right. So you've
got the Olympic Club, Harding Parkand Lake Merced and San Francisco and San
Francisco, all these great golf coursesand just you can't get into Olympic Club.
That's why you go to Lake merseid, what's the what's the deal there?
Or you just can't afford Olympic clubsyou go to Lake Marissette. Well
you know the story there is thatUh you know, I've started playing golf

(06:48):
again and at the time I wasplaying my round at Glenn Eagles. Uh.
It's a great little nine hole layouton in McLaren Park in San Francis.
Let's go where a couple of holesrun across the Sunnydale housing projects.
It's an interesting environment in which toplay. But our oldest son was playing

(07:11):
for the junior mccabee team and practicingat Lake Merseid, and I'll never forget
there was one day I had togo out and pick him up and I
started walking out on this pristine fairwayof at Lake Merced and I think to
myself, wait a minute, I'mthe guy has to worry about getting robbed
or shot on the third or fourthholes of Glenn Eagles and my son's out

(07:33):
here. No, no, thisis we got to do something about this.
And you know, I had alittle money in the bank, and
I went to Merced and applied andyou know been there, been a member
there now for about fourteen years.Well okay, so I interrupted you.
You were starting to tell this storyof playing at Lake Merseid. Oh yeah.

(07:53):
So then I said, look,I'll start writing these things down and
put them in as columns in thenewsletter. So I started publishing what I
called It's All in your Head asmonthly columns in our club newsletter and people
just love them. And you know, it started out as a series of
articles about the mental and psychological challengesof the game, and the response was

(08:18):
so positive, I said, well, you know what, let me see
if I can't expand this into abook. So I made it, this
eighteen chapter book that looks at golffrom a variety of angles. And it
has been, you know, areal labor of love. It's taken me
more than a few years, butnow it's done, and I'm hoping to
get it in as many people's handsas possible. Sure. Sure, and

(08:41):
it seems kind of some parallels heretogether. You know, you write a
column called It's All in Your Head, and I do the podcast called Golf
Smarter. I think we're trying to, you know, do the same thing,
is talk about the mental side ofthe game and how to improve your
game by just understanding, you know, getting a good mental game going,
and under standing of course of managementand strategy. Right. Yeah, I

(09:03):
mean, I I honestly, Idon't know if I'm what I write is
really there to help people as muchas to help them by making them feel
like, hey, you're not alone. You know, I'm going to help
you this could be therapeutic in termsof helping express uh you know, the
frustrations that I think a lot ofus have. Yeah. Well, I

(09:24):
also, you know, also developanother an appreciation of the game by just
looking at it from a variety ofdifferent angles. Yeah. And I think
that I don't go into this thinkingI can help people. It's just that
I have a lot of questions exactly. So so let's pick it apart.
Let's talk about some of your writing, some of your chapters. I'm assuming

(09:46):
that each chapter is a different basedon a different column. Actually I did,
You just are like, yeah,I stopped writing the columns when I
decided the the objective was to,uh, you know, do a book.
So you know that stage I starteddoing some of the uh you know,

(10:07):
the chapter on golf and psychology,or golf and politics, or golf
and religion. You know again,you know, taking that sort of very
different kind of angle on the gamethan what people normally, right, golf,
politics and psychology. Where do yougo with that? Do you start

(10:31):
doing interviews and what is it thatthat chapter would be about. We're just
picking chapters at random to talk about. Now, Well, in that chapter,
no, I didn't do any uh, didn't do any interviews. I
probably shouldn't an expanded version, butI started with, you know, the
observation that you know, most golfersare fairly conservatives politically, and now the

(10:54):
yeah, well that's at least whatyou know comes across in the media or
if you you look at some articlesabout out it, and the conventional explanation
for that is, well, lookat them, you know, they're hanging
hanging out for the most part.You know, these exclusive golf clubs,
they play in the pro ams,you know, with big you know,
CEOs and rich business types. Youknow, of course they're going to become

(11:16):
conservative. And my response to thatin the book is what kind of makes
them sound a little canine like,you know, oh, here's a little
money. You know, who's agood little golfer? You know, it's
what you love your corporate sponsor,Yeah, you're a good boy. And
I'm like, no. But theyou know, maybe it's a little different.

(11:41):
Maybe there's a selection process here,and golf attracts people who are naturally
inclined to be conservative. So youknow, if you think about a golfer
as opposed to other professional athletes,you know, they aren't part of a
team. They're independent business man.You know, they're pretty self sufficient and

(12:03):
it's all on them. So they'regoing to have an orientation towards life that
makes them emphasize personal initiative, personalresponsibility, and I think that coincides with
more of a conservative outlook on theworld. So I'm just sort of,
you know, that's an example ofkind of just exploring something about the game

(12:24):
from you know, again, aslightly different perspective. I will buy into
the fact that professional golfers maybe thebest entrepreneurs in sports, you know,
compared to team sports. But I'lltell you, listening to the way you

(12:46):
describe your observations and golfers, clearlyyou're playing You're you're playing country club golf
because you know, you come uphere and play the public courses in Marin
County just north of the Golden GateBridge. And I gotta tell you,
I don't come across very many conservativegolfers. They're pretty liberal people out here.
Oh no, I look, I'dhave to say, uh, membership

(13:09):
at my club is fairly liberal aswell in terms of yeah, there's this,
but this is an interesting topic andone that I didn't get into in
the book. But I have todiscuss in my blog. You know,
here in the Bay Area, youknow, we've had this you know,
interesting and rather annoying challenge to sharpPark uh down in Pacifica, which is

(13:33):
an Alistair McKenzie design course that certainfaction in San Francisco wants to close down
and they base a law of theirargument on this sort of nasty stereotype of
what golfers are all about, whenin actuality, you know, it's not
that way at all, And thatis that's an unfortunate obstacle to challenge that

(13:56):
I field golf faces that people,you know, people think about off like,
oh yeah, I know what golfLike I saw Caddyshack, which is
like saying, you know what,you know it's like to be in the
medical core or the army because yousaw mash. So it's frustrating, absolutely
absolutely so. Is the entire bookjust based on observation from you or did

(14:20):
you do research and interviews? Well, I know I did. I'm kind
of shying away from saying it's allthe stuff that came out of my head
because right, but I did.I looked at some research in terms of
uh, you know, there wasthat Columbia professor who analyzed results of putts

(14:43):
uh in terms of you know thefact that pros can to get cautious on
Birdie putts, just like the restof us will kind of get a little
cautious on par puts, because youknow, you're no more worried about missing
a bad outcome than being a restivein making the good outcome. So you

(15:03):
know, I have I picked uphere and there were some other stuff in
there about you know, how themind works. But basically the starting point
is, Hey, whatever was poppinginto my head and when I was strolling
down the fairway, And do youmind if I just throw out the topics
of the of the chapters and youcan riff on that, because it sounds
like you were leading into chapter three, which is fear and greed. Oh

(15:24):
sure, yeah, well fear ingreed. And I used to work on
Wall Street, and you know there'sthat old cliche, it's fear and greed
and move the market. And youknow, I think the dad explains an
incredible amount of what happens to usout on the golf course. And I
talk in the book about how youcan take all your bad shots and you

(15:46):
can put them into two buckets.You've got the fear bucket and the greed
bucket. So the fear bucket Ithink we're pretty familiar with. Right,
You've got you know, you're shortsighted, you've got to get over a
bunker, you've got a narrow tshirt. You've got a you know,
difficult downhill put Uh. You know, any time that your weight stays on
your backside, that's a fear shot. You're already backing away from it before

(16:11):
you even finished it, uh,you know. And then there are the
green shots, right, which wewere all familiar with the phenomenon. You
know, we were playing well,we were stroking it right down the middle.
So the next time we're out there, we're just gonna go for a
couple more yards off the tea,you know. So you start coming over
the top, you know, you'repulling it into the into the trees,
uh, you know, or youwere seeing the line well on your putts,

(16:33):
so you're gonna be able to geta bit more aggressive, you know,
and you know now you've got threefeet coming back. You know.
It's just interesting. It's like thismetronome and you go back and forth between
those in terms of how you playthe game, and I just find it
fascinating. I see it happened tomyself all the time, I see it
in my buddies. It's a It'san interesting dynamic. Absolutely. I think

(16:55):
that we would generally, as youcall it fear, fear and greed,
we call it risk reward, rightright, exactly exactly kind of the same
concept. M Yeah. So youknow, maybe we should team up and
I should do a book, becausewe should do a Golf Smarter book because

(17:15):
some of the things that you havein these chapters. I'm thinking about all
the interviews that I've done, allwhat you know, various experts have said,
and just pull, you know,short quotes and and and comments out
of these podcasts and turn that intoa book. Because I going down your
list here, I'm curious how youapproach what you talk about when you say
the pre shot routine, Well,the pre shot routine is in fact,

(17:40):
I just posted on someone's blog thismorning, I think golf magic, uh,
you know, and he's talking aboutthe importance of the pre shot routine.
Now in the book, you know, as is my want, I
do a riff on why that's notso easy? You know, why visual
in this shot doesn't always work outfor all of us because we'll often just

(18:03):
go through this, you know,low light reel of all the ways we
screwed up that shot in the past. Uh, you know, and then
like you know, committing to thisshot can be tough when that's just what
you saw, like you know,spool through your head, uh, and
then trusting your swing. I mean, you know, why should I?

(18:26):
Uh, you know, it hasn'talways worked for me. Why should I
start trusting it now? So youknow, the routine is there, there's
a standard prescription. You know.I try to follow it, but you
know, look at in the book, I'm the first to admit that it
doesn't always work for me. AndI'm actually trying to work on something now
where yeah, I kind of Itry to clue in on what's what's kind

(18:51):
of nagging at me before a particularshot and do a routine that addresses that
and then hit it and I'll getback to you, Fred, I'll let
you know whether that works. WhatI have found in talking to so many
different golf professionals is that what soundslike you're when you're doing your pre shot

(19:14):
routine, you're focused on the outcomeand not the process. And to me,
the pre shot routine is not youknow history. As I like to
remind people, history has nothing todo with your next shot. You know
what you've done every time you've playedthis hole, It's like all these mistakes
you've made, It's like, then, why are you approaching it the same

(19:34):
way? Right? Right? Youknow, It's like I've just played around
recently where I said my driver hasbeen getting me in trouble lately, and
I'm trying to get myself out oftrouble. So and I know that if
I pull out a three wood,I've not just much more comfortable. I'm
much more confident of just hitting itstraight and definitely not as far, but

(19:56):
I'm closer in so many more ways. So I just hit my three wood
instead of the fourteen times i'd hitmy driver, I hit my three wood
like ten times, and I didpull out the driver a couple times,
and I had a great round.So it's like, you know that that
definition of insanity doing the same thingover and over expecting different results. No,
No, there's no question. Andyou know you were spot on in

(20:21):
terms of identifying, uh, youknow the problem that I wrestle with and
I think a lot of other peoplein terms of getting hung up on outcome
instead of process. And you knowI talk about that in the book.
Well, you know, outcomes orhow I you know, pay the mortgage
and do everything right. So it'skind of hard to shift gears from being
you know, thought oriented, analytic, et cetera, and then turn that

(20:45):
switch off and do something else.And uh, you know, that's one
of the one of the really fascinatingand somewhat addictive challenges of the game.
Well, and I think that comesback to the title of why we golf.
I think it's trying to get awayfrom that hustle, bustle, grind
and the daily crap that we gothrough which we call life, you know,

(21:07):
and just be able for four hoursto say nothing matters right now except
for the next shot, right exactly, only the next shot, which is
I like to say, the hardestshot in golf is the next shot.
Well there's yeah, I mean,and I guess you know, my and
I talked about this in the bookthat you know, there's this advice you

(21:30):
know that Bob Rotella and others willhave you know, you're supposed to fall
in love, you know, withwith the next shot, But my problem
is breaking up with the last one. Good point. Yeah, don't love
hate relationship. It's the uh oh, what how come I'm blanking on the

(21:53):
term when you a rebound relationship?That's right, right, It's like I
hated her, but I'm coming backanyway with that club. Okay, I'm
gonna toss out another one. Let'sgo to h U Rules and Handicaps Chapter
eight. What do you have tosay about that? I have lots of
thoughts about the rules of golf andhandicaps and things like that. How do

(22:18):
you approach it well? With rules? It's you know, I'm not I'm
not real. I'm not a realrule hound, right, so I'm not
one of these guys can memorize andquote it. I don't carry around the
little booklet with me. I thinksometimes, you know, I love reading
the uh you know, dispatches orpress releases. If the USGA will put

(22:41):
out on on rulings, and someof its stuff almost seems like talmudic and
there you know, the degree inwhich they sort of parse, you know
the implications of this and that,And I have some fun with that.
In terms of talking about the book, uh, you know, in terms
of handicaps, I uh, youknow, it's you know, if you

(23:03):
look at and you listen to peopletalk about them. And I discussed this
in the book you know handicaps youknow, came out around the same time
in the US as the income taxdid. There to talk about them in
kind of the same way, sothat you know, you know, the
people that have to give strokes feellike it's this you know, kind of

(23:26):
corrupt you know, system of redistributionand the people who get strokes. I
think it's only beginning to approximate whatkind of makes things a level playing ground.
So you have you know, thisthis this back and forth that goes
on, and you know, thenI talk about handicaps in terms of,
like, you know, what aboutyou know, using them in different ways,

(23:47):
you know, instead of just gettingyou know, like say you're you're
six shots on the six toughest holes, uh, you know, being able
to tell you know your opponent,okay, five for four, why not
you know, have something and whereyou could say, at any point in
the round, all right, I'musing one of my six shots. You're
gonna have to hit that one overAnd you know, if I have fun

(24:07):
with the idea that that would completelytweak your opponent. There's no way he
could strike the five iron two timesin a row, and that would be
just a kind of a you know, so much statistic but just for the
sake argument, you know, adifferent way of using the handicap. When
you play, I frequently think aboutrules and golf and the USGA and how

(24:29):
to In my mind, the USGAis an advocate for the golf course,
not the golfer. Oh good point, you know. I think that their
their rules are when they talk aboutthe preservation and the respect of the game,
it's they don't have the golfer inmind. And I think there's a
direct correlation on why there are fewerand fewer golfers every year, and the

(24:49):
industry is, you know, bleedingto death because the business is not good.
But the USGAS, you know,got their feet planted in the sand,
going no, this is how it'sgoing to be. No. It
feels to me like the game isalmost like some sort of stuffy French restaurant,
you know, with you know,pria fixating menu and then this is

(25:11):
what you get and these are theportions that you get, and these are
the rules that govern how you eatand how we made things and you know,
so it's yeah, I think thatit's it's it's choking off the game
and it's making it hard and atime when people are so time pressured and
there's so many conflicting demands on people'stime to get them, you know,

(25:33):
to take up something that's you knowit and it's standard format is four plus
hours of you know, a fairlychallenging game. Do you have any suggestions
on what they could do to makegolf fit today's lifestyle better? Uh?
Well, actually, you know Imentioned this in the book. Now,

(25:56):
I'm fortunate enough to be a memberof a private club, and you know,
people who aren't would think, oh, man, if you born into
a golf club, that means youcan play as much golf as you want.
Actually, the real benefit is youcan play as little as you want
on certain times. So like yesterdayafternoon, I took a break from work,
I went out, I played sixholes and then you know, I
went back to work. It wasgreat, you know, I mean,

(26:18):
you're you're right on the other sideof the bridge. You know how nice
the weather has been around here recently, And yes, it's a little scary
actually it is scary. Yeah,yeah, it's good for us then,
So to get back to that thoughtof plan as little as you like,
I think the big big thing thatyou know, challenges that the sport confront

(26:44):
is time. And you know,if you go online and there are these
discussions about time and golf, peopletalk about, well a piece of play
is an issue. But I reallythink that's kind of splitting hairs. I
mean, that's sort of all right, that's a difference between four hours and
twenty minutes and four hours, right, and that's not that's not going to
move the dial for a lot ofpeople, like you were saying, it's

(27:07):
the ability to go out, youknow, you know, stroll out there,
be outside play for an hour,hour and a half and then get
all with your life. The gameshould be able to offer that to people.
Well, the book is called WhyWe Golf? And tell us how
we can find it, how wecan get a copy for ourselves. Go
on Amazon and just you don't searchfor Why We Golf. It's available in

(27:30):
kindle format and in paperback, anduh yep, I hope people check it
out. Most people who've been readingit, they've been telling me how much
they enjoyed it. You know,I've got a golf rap song in there,
I've got a science sation chapter,modern romance chapter. You' I can

(27:51):
guarantee you you have not read agolf book like this. Ever. This
is a completely different take on thegame. And the main point is,
Hey, let's have some fun withthis. Let's laugh at ourselves, let's
laugh at the game, but let'skeep on playing. Yeah, it's a
fun read. It's definitely a funread. And uh, this has been
really interesting. Thank you so muchfor coming on. And if you want

(28:12):
to learn more your website why weegolf dot WordPress dot com. Correct,
that's correct, and I thank youso much for the conversation and best of
luck with the book. Hey,fred, I really enjoyed it.