July 24, 2025 • 53 mins
In this episode of The Golf Intervention, we take a sledgehammer to some of the most persistent myths in golf improvement. From obsessing over perfect swing positions to blindly hitting thousands of range balls, we break down what actually works—and what’s just noise. If you've ever been told you need to "get worse before you get better," this episode is your wake-up call.
We also expose other common misconceptions like:
❌ Watching the club hit the ball—why this cue may be destroying your contact
💸 Spending outrageous money on aftermarket shafts and gear with little to no performance gain
🔁 The dangerous myth of needing to go backwards before progress happens
📈 Why real improvement is often simpler and smarter than you think
We discuss how to separate feel-good advice from fact-based strategies, and what to focus on if you want to actually lower your scores without overhauling your swing or emptying your wallet.
What You’ll Learn:
- Why you don’t need a perfect swing to shoot lower scores
- Smarter alternatives to endless range sessions
- How to improve your game without expensive equipment upgrades
- The truth about “watching the ball” and why it might be sabotaging your consistency
- How to identify and avoid common golf improvement traps
🔗 Links & Resources:
Ask ChatGPT
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Tyler (00:00):
Today's episode is brought to you by the premium
(00:02):
content subscribers on the golfintervention substack.
And we would of course like tothank all of our listeners for
tuning in, you make it all worthwhile.
If you would like to support theshow or sign up for our free
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or follow the link in the shownotes.
Eric (00:26):
And welcome back to the Golf Intervention Podcast.
I'm so excited to be on with myfriend Rob Fails tonight.
There's a thunderstorm inRichmond, Virginia, so if you
can hear that, I don't know ifthat actually takes away from
the podcast or not.
I kinda like thunderstorm.
It's
Rob Failes (00:40):
Oh man, I think it adds to it.
Oh, oh.
Hey buddy.
Is, that's my, that's my dog.
Eric (00:46):
and Robbie's dog is on, so it's it's gonna be exciting.
We got thunder.
maybe he's on, because there'sthunder there.
Is there thunder inCharlottesville too?
Is it
Rob Failes (00:54):
Yeah, I think, yeah, we're getting a storm too, and
he's not, so, not so keen on it.
Hey, buddy.
Eric (01:01):
got
Rob Failes (01:01):
Hey,
Eric (01:01):
bougie AST
Rob Failes (01:02):
you're good.
Eric (01:03):
he's drinking, drinking.
Is it red wine?
What kind of wine you got going
Rob Failes (01:07):
Oh, yeah.
No, it's, it's a, it's, it's redwine.
Eric (01:10):
red wine in a, what do you call that?
A Yeti goblet.
Rob Failes (01:16):
It's a Yeti.
Yeah, it's a Yeti, like a go.
Right.
Eric (01:19):
Yeti Goblet from Cypress Point, like the, a ouest thing
I've ever seen.
Rob Failes (01:24):
I spent a lot of money in that golf shop, Eric.
Eric (01:27):
And so that's the byproduct of being invited to
nice places.
Like
Rob Failes (01:31):
Yeah.
Eric (01:32):
to just drop like a thousand dollars in the shop,
which is the credit
Rob Failes (01:36):
We didn't have a choice.
We had to,
Eric (01:38):
You gotta buy some things.
So anyway, on tonight's editionof the Golf Intervention
Podcast, we're gonna go somethrough some things you
absolutely do not have to do toimprove your
Rob Failes (01:51):
yes.
Eric (01:53):
And I was thinking so much about this, Robbie, because you
know when you get to be an oldperson like me and you got kids
and you got a mortgage andyou're trying to figure out all
these like keys to being morehealthy or being better with
your
Rob Failes (02:06):
Yeah.
Eric (02:07):
or being better with your time management.
Like all these things that youwant to do, most of us anyway,
want to do.
Two, be better at whatever allthese things are.
We do
Rob Failes (02:16):
Mm-hmm.
Eric (02:17):
husbanding, going to church, being a, a whatever,
being a good human, right?
So we're
Rob Failes (02:22):
Yep.
Eric (02:22):
seeking this out and there's always some guru out
there who's willing to sharewith you their thoughts about
that, right?
And so I'm sitting therewatching Instagram one day,
scrolling through doom,scrolling this stuff like
nobody's
Rob Failes (02:38):
Mm-hmm.
Eric (02:39):
morning coffee.
And I'm thinking there are somany things that golfers think
they need to do.
Like they, it's like an
Rob Failes (02:46):
Yeah.
Eric (02:46):
I have to do this.
It's a belief system.
I have to do this to
Rob Failes (02:50):
Mm-hmm.
Eric (02:51):
And they're told that through these media channels.
And today, golfers, we are gonnatake you through a list which is
negative.
I get it.
We're not the negative people.
This is ne, it's actually meantto be funny.
So hopefully this episode is alittle bit humorous of things
you absolutely do not have todo.
To get better at golf.
'cause again, going back to theself-help sort of, moment I'm
(03:14):
going through in my life, likewe all do, we all do this.
It's not like a moment, it'sjust part of my life,
Rob Failes (03:19):
Yeah.
Eric (03:19):
to get better.
You realize you have to allocateresources whatever it is that
you're trying to do.
So if you have a hobby, youallocate resources.
What time, energy, money.
Those are your main things thatyou're allocating.
allocate it to your hobbies, youallocate it to your, to your
lifestyle.
You allocate it to your healthand wellness.
Like all these things,apparently, the type of wine
(03:41):
that you buy, you're allocatingthis time, energy, and money are
your main resources, okay?
And
Rob Failes (03:50):
I.
Eric (03:50):
the truth is, to get better at golf, can't waste your
time with these things thatdon't matter.
You just can't do it.
Because if you do, you're gonnabe limiting your ability to
improve.
And we only have so much time.
put into golf.
So today we're gonna go througha list things you absolutely do
(04:11):
not have to do to improve agolf.
So hopefully you can listen tothis and be like, the golf
intervention has set me free andwe are not making fun of you if
you do these things, by the way,we've done these,
Rob Failes (04:22):
Correct.
And I was, I was just gettingready to say that.
Yeah,
Eric (04:26):
I know.
I've done a lot of these thingsto try to figure out maybe
Rob Failes (04:31):
probably me too.
Eric (04:31):
Yeah.
And some of
Rob Failes (04:32):
Yeah.
Eric (04:33):
It's just that they're not be all end all, you've gotta do
this.
Or you're, or you're
Rob Failes (04:38):
They're not moving the needle much.
Eric (04:40):
Yeah.
So I wrote this big list.
I could just read'em.
It'd be
Rob Failes (04:45):
Yeah.
Eric (04:45):
But we're gonna go, we're gonna go through some
Rob Failes (04:47):
Yeah, like this past week?
Yeah, this past week we wentlike back and forth.
We had text, text chain goingwhere it was like you would send
something, then I would sendsomething and we were going back
and forth for a while there.
Eric (04:58):
Yeah, with a
Rob Failes (04:59):
So it should be fun.
Eric (05:01):
not have to do to play a better call.
Rob Failes (05:04):
Yeah.
Eric (05:04):
so I think that one of the most interesting ones that you
said, which I could not agreewith you more, is the one I'm
gonna start off today.
And these are not in any order,it's just a haphazard list of
things and there's many more.
But one of the things you do notto do to be better at golf is to
beat thousands upon thousands ofrange balls.
(05:26):
You just really, you just reallydon't have to do it.
I know this because I wentthrough a 10 year period where I
practiced way less than I didfor the previous 10 year period,
and I improved a lot more duringthat time.
So, Robbie, this is one fromyour list.
So tell a listener why you thinkyou do not have to pound tens of
(05:47):
thousands of golf balls toimprove at golf.
Rob Failes (05:52):
Yeah, and I think it starts with the belief that if
you have a certain level ofcompetency in that, like very
sort of like sterile, kind ofcontrolled environment of the
range.
It means that you are gonna doit when you go play.
And golfers have this belief of,you know, and it might be like
(06:14):
they get to a thousand and we'rejust putting a number there, but
for you it might be, let's say200, right?
That's actually like, sadlyenough.
Like that's not an unreasonablelike, number For some people is
like, okay, well is it becauseyou have the belief like, oh,
you need to hit like, I don'tknow, like 10 in a row within a
certain dispersion to, to beable to, to leave or something
(06:36):
like, something like that.
There's just a lot of thingsthat people have that belief of.
Is that okay?
Like,, I'm gonna pick on, youknow, some high school coaches
that, or college coaches of, ofgolf teams and they say, oh, you
gotta make a hundred in a row,three footers.
Now we can debate like maybethey're learning some other
skills from like a perseveranceor grit standpoint that that
(07:00):
gives them some, some benefit inthe long term and, and.
We'll, we'll just put thatargument aside, but really
that's a very, very, veryoutdated, and it's not an
accurate assertion that if youdo it in one context, you're
gonna be able to do it inanother.
Um, really the, the point oftraining and kind of the point
of the range is we see it is todevelop reference points, is to
(07:23):
develop, feel, is to basicallycalibrate your sensation of
where the bottom of the swing isin space, where the face is
relative to the path, the amountof momentum it has, an impact,
things like that.
Maybe to have some referencepoints and check what you're
doing swing wise with betweenyou and your coach, whether it
be your grip, your posture,anything geometry wise that you
feel like gives you better oddsof line the skills up.
(07:45):
Great.
Or it might just be kind ofrunning through, Hey, this is,
these are the few things that Ineed to do when I go play from
a, from a behavior standpointthat are gonna gimme the best
odds, such as how I'm walkinginto the golf shot, how I'm
aligning myself to a target,things like that.
We also don't mind using therange for just tracking what
your current dispersion is,right?
So we use fingers to try tofigure out, hey, what, what is
(08:07):
the golf ball doing with acertain sample size?
May say, 15, 20 golf balls.
I think re like any of thoseoptions that I just listed, you
can do in the context ofprobably 50 ball, 50 golf balls,
60 golf balls, if not less.
If you're getting up at, youknow, a hundred, 200 in that
(08:28):
range, then I guarantee that youare searching for confidence,
which does not come fromresults, in your practice.
I can tell you that confidenceis, if, if you think of it as
like an outcome driven thing.
It's gonna be, you're gonna bechasing your tail.
It's more about the behaviors,it's more about the things that
(08:50):
you can actually control.
That's what we kind of want youto develop confidence in.
Not, oh, did this one golf shotend up on the green?
Or did this one golf shot endup, you know, within a certain
dispersion or whatnot.
So I think that's what peopleare doing.
They're trying to find a certainnumber of outcomes that are
gonna tell them that it's gonnabe like, quote unquote okay.
Right.
When they go out and play thenext day.
(09:11):
And it doesn't typically bearfruit.
So, that, that's what, that'swhat I would say is, is kind of
the, some of the main points,with that myth.
Eric (09:18):
Well, I think it's just, it's this linear like effort So
like I, I, I'm gonna put moreeffort in,
Rob Failes (09:24):
Yes.
Yes.
Eric (09:26):
and in a lot of
Rob Failes (09:26):
Correct.
Yeah.
Agreed.
Eric (09:28):
If I wanna.
I wanna be better at reading,I'm just gonna read more.
I'm gonna read more and readmore.
Rob Failes (09:33):
I.
Eric (09:33):
smarter.
That's great.
That's effort, right?
And that's paying off with thetime.
If you're not very focused inyour practice, you're just
probably gonna practice yourselfinto maybe staying exactly the
same as you've always been.
Or maybe even worse, maybe alittle better.
It's just not, it's not thislinear X time equals X
performance.
I wish it was, if it was, we'dall just put more time in,
(09:56):
hopefully, and become, you know,great players.
So,
Rob Failes (10:00):
Right.
Eric (10:00):
practice a lot.
Some don't.
I watch it.
I run a tour event range, right?
I've run it for nine years.
I've seen Hall of Famerspractice right in front of me.
Some hit a lot of balls.
VJ Sing.
Darren Clark, some don't.
I would say Steve Alker is asgood as anybody on that tour
right now.
Bernhard Langer, they don't hittons of balls, so it's not like
they're, so I think there's notthis correlation between how
(10:22):
much time I'm putting in andplaying better golf.
And then the other thing tendsto be is that golfers are always
just trying to, when theypractice, this leads me to my
next point, to practice theirquote unquote swing.
They're like, I'm changing myswing or
Rob Failes (10:35):
Yeah.
Eric (10:36):
my swing.
So bullet point number two isyou don't have to find certain
positions in your swing, okay?
I don't care
Rob Failes (10:44):
Mm-hmm.
Eric (10:44):
favorite golfers do, that's another bullet points.
I'm gonna combining'em together.
Your swing doesn't have to looklike Roy McElroy's.
His doesn't have to look likeScotty Scheffler.
Mine doesn't have to look likeRob Fields.
None of that matters.
And.
So that's another bullet point.
Who cares what they do?
Okay?
There is no perfect positions.
Now, I will tell you, I see thisevery single day on the social
(11:07):
media feeds.
This person has a perfectbackswing.
Oh, this is a perfect backswing.
Here's three tips to a perfecttakeaway.
of that exists.
If it did, you would see themall do the same thing, and they
don't.
They're great
Rob Failes (11:20):
Exactly.
Eric (11:21):
So
Rob Failes (11:21):
Yes.
Eric (11:22):
you're just, you're working off a false narrative.
So when you believe that thereare certain positions or certain
things that you have to do,you're really gonna struggle
because you're gonna search forthese things in your swing,
right?
So I, I kinda, I've never once,and I tell people this is true,
my students will tell you this,I've taught 20,000 plus golf
(11:45):
lessons, and I've never once,and I do use video for feedback
purposes, but I've never oncesaid that here's exactly where
you need to go.
And I definitely have never,ever.
C put somebody's swing up besidea tour player and said, Hey,
look at this position.
Look at this
Rob Failes (12:02):
Yeah,
Eric (12:02):
It has never once happened.
again, we're all different.
there are no perfect there'sonly who we are and how it
affects what we're trying to doand how we're trying to learn,
right?
And
Rob Failes (12:14):
exactly.
Eric (12:15):
I think that when you're searching for perfect swing
stuff, this is what probablydrives me the most crazy about
social media, golf instructionis the perfect swing, the
perfect setup, the perfect aim.
So there's certain things thatyou just gotta, you gotta take,
but from your mind and just wipeit out.
Okay?
See how easy that was.
Let it go.
See, we do that on the show alot.
(12:36):
We're like, let it go.
See how
Rob Failes (12:38):
Yep.
Eric (12:39):
Let it go.
You're not
Rob Failes (12:40):
Mm-hmm.
Eric (12:41):
What do you think
Rob Failes (12:42):
Yeah.
It's just searching for aguarantee, right.
Eric (12:44):
If I do this, it's the if then proposition.
If I can find this magical pieceto my takeaway, then I will have
this great, perfect swing, andthen I'm gonna go hit a thousand
balls and groove it and perfectit and repeat it until
perpetuity, and it just doesn'twork like that.
Right?
That's why we
Rob Failes (13:05):
Mm.
Eric (13:05):
variability skill practice, right?
This is the things that reallymake you a better player.
And so you can see we've alreadyhoned in a lot on swing stuff,
right?
This is like swing, swing,swing, swing golf, swing golf,
swing.
What's it look like?
What, where's my position?
What I need to repeat it, Thisis, these are the biggest,
(13:26):
probably fallacies in all ofgolf.
And I will tell you, I feel likesometimes we're shouting into
the void with this, but uh,there's some pretty wild stuff
out there.
And I'm like, this is, thiscan't be, this can't be a
reality.
Um, do you think about theperfect swing positions?
Robbie, have you found
Rob Failes (13:46):
Yeah.
Like I said earlier, I, I thinkit's, oh, no, no.
I mean, it's, it's stuff thatwe've talked about ad nauseum on
this podcast, but it's like theidea of like.
Swing does not equal shot.
Meaning like if you think of,oh, what's my perfect shot?
Alright, let's just call it, youknow, the ball ended up exactly
(14:07):
where you aimed it, right?
Well, that's because the skillsall lined up for what you were
trying to do.
It wasn't necessarily because ofa certain position at the top of
your backswing halfway down, youknow, anything like that.
I, I've had a, a lesson with aclient I think two or three days
ago where we were actuallydisassociating the two.
(14:28):
So there was something really,really clear that we were
working on in like the earlypart of his backswing, just to
give him better odds of kind ofmanaging the face to path stuff.
And so what I was having him dois like, all right, I want you
to make the, the backswing thatwe're going for and leave the
face wide open intentionally.
Now I want you to make thebackswing that you were doing
(14:49):
earlier that was really biasingyour club face way open.
And then I want you to use yourskill to close it too much,
right?
Just to teach him that, hey,like, yes, this backswing is
gonna give you potentiallybetter odds.
We need to play it out and justtest it and see how it's doing
for over a long enough period oftime to see if it's true or not.
(15:09):
But it's not a guarantee.
Meaning like if, if, if you didthis clubface stuff that we're
doing in the backswing, itdoesn't necessarily guarantee
anything at, you know, the, thefour 10 thousandths of a second
or, or three or however is it,is it one 10?
Eric (15:26):
It is
Rob Failes (15:26):
forget how long impact is
Eric (15:28):
small.
Rob Failes (15:28):
it?
But it's a, it's a, it's a very,very small period of time,
right?
And the, and the ball's gettingall its information from the
club, like however much the,the, the, the in plane
rotational club, the A planerotational, the club, the about
the shaft.
It's getting the path, it'sgetting where it's hitting on
the face.
All of that information in that.
Really, really small period oftime.
(15:49):
So you can't tell me that, thata certain like macro position in
the backswing is gonna make thedifference, guaranteed.
When we talk about like those,those very, very minute skills,
that's just what I see over andover.
Eric (16:05):
Yeah, no, totally agree.
And, it's hard.
It's hard when a student walksin and has a belief system that
they have to do something right.
That's what this, that's whatthis is really all about.
I want you to ask yourself,listener like, are there things
I feel like I have to do?
'cause someone told me once andnow I'm Trying to do it and I
struggle with it, right?
So sometimes like the
Rob Failes (16:25):
Yep.
Eric (16:26):
lessons, and they're a little bit hard.
But I will say, because myrelationships tend to be, long
term in coaching, right?
Rob Failes (16:33):
Mm-hmm.
Eric (16:33):
when you have a, when you have the respect of the people
that come to see you, They trustwhat you're gonna tell them, you
can have that authority, to setthem free from some of that,
where they're like, really butmy dad told me that when I was
12 he was a good golfer but myhusband tells me this, but.
My friends who are bettergolfers than me tell me that.
But I took a lesson, this is areally hard one.
Rob Failes (16:54):
Mm-hmm.
Eric (16:55):
lessons from this person who told me these things that
Rob Failes (16:58):
Yeah.
Eric (16:58):
do.
those are tricky moments as acoach, right?
Because then you gotta go, welllet's work through that.
Let's just like, it's
Rob Failes (17:07):
Yeah.
Eric (17:08):
it's not me gonna be like, oh well that's so stupid.
Like it doesn't work like that,right?
We just say,
Rob Failes (17:13):
Mm-hmm.
Eric (17:14):
let's talk about maybe if that's actually true or not,
right?
And we'll go through it.
One, one that I hear all thetime from people, which is
really interesting, and I'm not,this is definitely me not
picking on anybody, is, if theymake bad contact, it's'cause
they didn't watch the club hitthe ball.
Did you ever get this one?
Like I took my eye off it and Ididn't
Rob Failes (17:33):
Oh yeah,
Eric (17:33):
ball.
Rob Failes (17:34):
Oh, yeah.
Stood up or, yeah, yeah.
Eric (17:37):
one go most of the
Rob Failes (17:38):
Yeah.
Eric (17:38):
I don't know how to communicate this to them, but
that doesn't matter at all.
You know,
Rob Failes (17:43):
I think it's incredibly important to
communicate that to him.
Eric (17:46):
I, I, I
Rob Failes (17:47):
Yeah.
Eric (17:48):
let it go
Rob Failes (17:48):
I think you've got to,
Eric (17:49):
Yeah.
Have you,
Rob Failes (17:51):
oh, I will.
No, I never, I I never let thatgo.
There's like, I will, becauseagain, it's, it like I am, I
will take, I will take everysingle opportunity I possibly
can to get them to disassociate,swing from shot,
Eric (18:06):
No, I, no,
Rob Failes (18:06):
And then understand the skill in between.
And I'll go in there and I'lldemonstrate, I'll say, okay, I'm
going to have my eyes.
Off the ball.
I'm gonna pick my head up, I'mgoing to stand up, I'm gonna do
all this stuff, and I'm gonnaline the skill up, and then I'm
gonna do, I'll demonstrateeverything they said they think
they should do.
I'm gonna keep my head down, I'mgonna keep my eyes down until I
hit impact.
(18:27):
And then I'll like top it orI'll like, he'll shank it or
like, and I'll just demonstrateto that like, Hey, like the
thing that you think is gonnaguarantee impact does not
guarantee impact.
And so I think golfers justcan't hear that enough because
A, it'll free them from thatidea that we were talking about
earlier.
Like, Hey, I've got to hone thisswing and do it enough times in
(18:50):
practice so that I know, quoteunquote, that it's going to be
there for me on the golf course.
I, I mean, I guarantee that'swhy people practice as much as
they do is for that reason.
Eric (19:02):
Yeah, they're trying to, they're trying to guarantee so,
which is, there's just noguarantees.
Right?
Rob Failes (19:06):
Mm-hmm.
Eric (19:07):
I had one the other day.
That was really a fun lesson.
Rob Failes (19:11):
Did I say?
I guarantee that's why peoplepractice.
Eric (19:14):
I'll
Rob Failes (19:15):
I, I definitely used the word guarantee there.
Eric (19:17):
I just said, I just, I
Rob Failes (19:19):
I guarantee there's no guarantees.
Eric (19:20):
yeah, the only guarantee is no guarantees.
Write that down.
People write
Rob Failes (19:23):
Yes.
Ah, I love that.
That's the show title.
Ooh,
Eric (19:27):
We're gonna get that on a shirt.
intervention shirt.
Rob Failes (19:31):
it.
Eric (19:31):
The only guarantee is there's no guarantees.
but the belief systems run deep,right?
That's why we
Rob Failes (19:36):
I love it.
Eric (19:37):
why we have this episode.
We're gonna go through some, avast array of topics, but so
we're gonna be jumping all overthe place, but adolescent the
other day where, really goodplayer, I would say competitive,
competitive um, on the amateurside at the state level, really
struggling with their short gameand, just making really bad
(20:00):
contact on wedges, like just nothitting them well.
And, the way we had to solve itin 30 minutes, was I had to
unwind this really good player'sbelief system about how to make
contact with a we shot, right?
Rob Failes (20:14):
Hmm
Eric (20:15):
it took a little while.
highly coachable person, butalso someone that's like really
into golf, right?
Who has
Rob Failes (20:23):
mm-hmm
Eric (20:24):
about how they hit the ball.
And a lot of it is true.
so I had to unwind, some thingswhen it came to how the club
moves down and moves up on thearc and what we're trying to do
there.
And it was a little moment oflike, alright, not sure Eric's
right about this.
I could sense it a little bit,right?
Like
Rob Failes (20:44):
mm.
Eric (20:44):
I, I don't know.
And great relationship with theperson, but No, no, no.
Very coachable.
And so it was trying it, andthen after, we
Rob Failes (20:53):
What was the idea?
I'm just curious.
Eric (20:55):
an arch height issue, right?
Like it's the, it's the,
Rob Failes (20:57):
Yeah.
Eric (20:58):
I gotta hit down on the shot and compress like
Rob Failes (21:01):
Uh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Eric (21:02):
And it was getting diggy really like big fat divots.
Like
Rob Failes (21:07):
Yes.
Eric (21:07):
behind it.
Well, you're not really hittingbehind it.
You're just like, the arc is solow, like you're just
Rob Failes (21:11):
Too low,
Eric (21:12):
of it.
Rob Failes (21:12):
right?
Eric (21:13):
Okay.
so we talked about the conceptof our kite unwind it.
And, we're not gonna go intothat.
We discussed that on a show, butessentially, it was pretty
technical in 30 minutes, right?
And was very open, and then allof a sudden he's hitting
probably five outta six, really,really crispy, picking him right
(21:35):
off the top of the turf like hehadn't before.
And I, had to wrap the lesson upand go, it was 30 minutes.
So to get somebody's
Rob Failes (21:43):
Mm-hmm.
Eric (21:43):
to kind of change, a pretty technical concept, get
him to learn how to practice it,and then onto my next lesson,
'cause I got one coming in,right?
I just have to move on, right?
So I saw him a couple dayslater, I'm like, how's the wedge
play going?
He goes, my gosh, that wasphenomenal.
It's changed everything aboutwhat I think about that shot.
(22:04):
He goes, I was totally wrongabout what I was trying to do.
He wasn't stubborn about it byany means.
He was totally open.
But, that was what we, this iswhat we battle all the, all the
time.
And that was not from somebodylearning something on social
media.
I assure you.
He doesn't care about any ofthat.
This is what we deal with whenpeople walk in the bay and
they're like, oh, I know I haveto do this.
(22:25):
I know I have to do this.
I saw this release pattern thingI have to do.
I gotta, and I'm like, okay, isit working?
Is it not working?
Like, what, what's the
Rob Failes (22:34):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Eric (22:35):
And so we spend most of our time gently unwinding
people's belief systems thesedays at times, because of all
the things they hear from allthe random people.
And so it, it's a reallyinteresting time, I think in
golf instruction.
That's why we put the show outin a lot of ways.
We always say that.
(22:55):
We're trying to help you wadethrough all that, maybe just
ignore it all
Rob Failes (22:58):
Yes.
Eric (22:59):
but whatever.
It's fine.
And try to hone in on the thingsthat matter.
What are the relevant things toyour game and what aren't?
So let's spitball a couple more,like just off the top of our
head, you, things you don't haveto do to be good at golf.
Ready?
I got one for you.
Rob Failes (23:19):
Yep.
Eric (23:19):
You do not have to get$300 up chart shafts on your irons.
You do not.
I promise you.
I promise you, you don't, you donot to use a line on your ball
to put.
You could, but you don't haveto.
Rob Failes (23:39):
Yep.
Eric (23:40):
you do not have to ignore bad thoughts.
You don't have to ignore badthoughts when you're on the golf
course.
You don't have to think positivethoughts when you're on the golf
course.
Do you
Rob Failes (23:56):
Yep.
Eric (23:57):
I mean, this is
Rob Failes (23:58):
Nope.
Eric (24:00):
if I've had the biggest growth in my, probably last five
years as a person, whatever,golfer, teacher, friend,
husband, parent, it's somethings I've learned from Dr.
Pryor for sure.
um,
Rob Failes (24:17):
Oh my God.
Yeah.
Eric (24:19):
and I think that this notion of, of you're gonna,
you're gonna ignore the thingsthat come into your mind or
you're gonna create these likemagical, positive situations.
It's like, it set me free.
See what I'm saying?
Rob Failes (24:36):
Yes.
Eric (24:36):
it set me free to just be me, right.
And
Rob Failes (24:41):
Yes.
Eric (24:41):
best me in the moment, and then be very.
Accepting of myself in alloutcomes and that I'm good.
You know what I mean?
Like really
Rob Failes (24:50):
Yep.
Eric (24:51):
And and I can be really present in the stuff that I'm
doing and, and that's helped mea ton.
So, out of those things that Ijust named off there, Rob,
anything jump out to you?
Things you don't have to do tobe a good
Rob Failes (25:05):
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, I mean, obviously the, thethink positive thoughts one
would be my number one, right?
Um, again, like it, it just goesback into our propensity to
judge stuff, I think is, is wayoverblown.
I mean, we, we get into judgingeverything like, Hey, this, you
(25:26):
know, that shot was good.
That shot was bad.
This thought was good.
That thought was bad.
This, it, it was great.
It was terrible.
And we just don't have to alwaysjudge everything.
We can just say, Hey, it is whatit is.
And, you know, it's, it's, it'snot that it shouldn't have
happened.
It's not that it should happen,it's just, it, it is what it is.
(25:46):
Let's, let's observe itnonjudgmentally and then stay
present because again, it's,it's, it's always in the past,
right?
Or in, or in the future.
Like whenever we're making thosejudgements, we're always
comparing what I experienced towhat I should have experienced
in quotations, right?
And so by definition, that's offtime.
(26:07):
Like as soon as you start to,to, to go down that rabbit hole,
now you are in a timeframe thatdoesn't exist.
And that is not whereperformance happens.
That's not where happiness is,that's not where thinking
clearly is.
That's not where, uh, reallyanything, any, like you were
talking about, any highperformance, um, state does not
(26:30):
happen in a timeframe thatdoesn't exist.
It happens right here, rightnow.
So, yeah, I mean that's, that'swhat I try to, to get all of,
you know, the people who, whotrust me with some of the mental
stuff, um, that, that I've kindof, you know, delved into.
I stay in my lane as much aspossible and as soon as it
starts to look and feel like.
(26:51):
You know, like quote unquotetherapy.
I stop real quick'cause like,hey, like it's outta my, it's
not my lane.
My, my goal is to, my job is toget you to perform on the golf
course.
And so to perform on the golfcourse, I need you to just
understand a couple thingsabout,, acceptance.
I need you to understand aboutbeing on time and on task and
that's about it, right?
(27:11):
So having low acceptance of yourthoughts is a really big deal.
And I think that's a, that's avery, very important thing to,
to develop over time is anacceptance of anything that
could possibly come through yourhead.
If you do any sort of meditationstuff, you'll learn really
quick.
'cause like your mind isdesigned to tell you a story and
(27:33):
it's not always true.
It's very rarely true, right?
It's, it's your perception ofwhat you're thinking about, you
know, and it's not alwaysactual, right?
So just appreciating that Ithink is a, is a huge deal.
Eric (27:48):
I remember a long time ago there was this like I.
Prodigy young golfer, this isprobably 20 plus years ago, and
I'm pretty sure I remember hisname, but I'm not gonna say it
because I don't want to attachto the wrong person.
But I remember this, thesituation, and I remember seeing
on the golf channel, this sportspsychologist who was working
with this kid, he was a kid, hewas 18 years old, 19 years old,
(28:11):
trying to make a run at the PGAtour.
Really, really talented.
the sports psychologist said,we've been, um, measuring how
many thoughts he has per hour.
And now we're learning toeliminate thinking like we're,
we're trying to limit we havethese
Rob Failes (28:31):
Nice.
Eric (28:32):
for him to turn off
Rob Failes (28:33):
fantastic.
Eric (28:35):
The guy, I mean the guy Implo,
Rob Failes (28:36):
Oh, man.
Eric (28:37):
never made it.
Rob Failes (28:39):
Yeah, it's really, it's really rough.
Eric (28:40):
a young, much younger person back then thinking really
doesn't make any sense to me.
Like I didn't know anything
Rob Failes (28:46):
makes no sense.
Eric (28:47):
I didn't know anything from anything.
But that really made no
Rob Failes (28:50):
Yeah,
Eric (28:50):
to me.
um, I, I don't know.
I don't know why the guy nevermade it.
'cause he didn't, he did notmake it.
but that seemed to be the wrongroute.
So I think that, again, yeah,we're not sports psychologists
by any means.
But you can't create anenvironment and a framework for
your own development or us ascoaches to help people create
(29:11):
their framework for developmentwithout understanding what it
means to have acceptance.
Right.
Because the whole coaching, thewhole coaching framework that
you and I talk about is based onthese principles, right?
Of
Rob Failes (29:24):
Mm-hmm.
Eric (29:25):
able to go, oh yeah, I have a shot dispersion pattern,
right?
Oh yeah.
I'm
Rob Failes (29:29):
Yep.
Eric (29:30):
yeah, yeah.
Like I, I'm a, I'm a husband anda father and I'm not attaching
that to any of this stuff.
There, there's gotta
Rob Failes (29:37):
Yep.
Eric (29:38):
building blocks, that help us develop the whole framework
of performance.
And so we
Rob Failes (29:43):
A hundred percent
Eric (29:44):
speak to them.
In some way, shape, or form toour students because we have
such a belief system in that.
Rob Failes (29:49):
Correct.
Eric (29:50):
and so you, you're gonna have, and I'm gonna have people,
we're gonna hit a, we're gonnahit a shot in a lesson, and
they're gonna go, they're gonnago, oh, that was like, it was
like way left.
I'm like, well,
Rob Failes (30:00):
Mm-hmm.
Eric (30:01):
way left.
It was like 20 feet left fromone 70.
Rob Failes (30:05):
It was actually just inside your dispersion last.
Eric (30:07):
Correct.
And so maybe this is a newstudent.
And then you have to communicateto them dispersion is and why
we're accepting
Rob Failes (30:14):
Yep.
Eric (30:14):
Right.
And so that's just
Rob Failes (30:17):
And.
Eric (30:18):
And so it, it's, it's super interesting to me, this
whole discussion of thoughts andand negativity and all this
stuff.
It's
Rob Failes (30:28):
And if
Eric (30:30):
yeah.
Rob Failes (30:31):
for, for those of you all who, who haven't been,
if this is the first episodethat you're listening to, if, if
you go back and listen to ourepi, our episode with, uh, Dr.
Pryor, Dr.
Raymond Pryor, you'll, you'llget a lot of this.
But when we talk aboutacceptance, it's not about like
resigning yourself to less, it'snot about, you know, just being
complacent.
(30:51):
It's just about observing whatis happening as it actually is.
Not telling yourself a storyabout it.
It's not, it's saying, okay, theball was here, it is now over
there, and you can pretty muchdrop it after that.
Like, if you want to, right?
If you want to, if you wannalearn from it, if you wanna have
a growth mindset about it, youcan say, okay, well what did the
(31:12):
club do to the ball to make itdo that?
You can say, all right, wellball hit the toe face was a
little closed.
Cool.
Let's go find it.
Uh, what you don't have to sayis, that was a bad strike.
That was a bad shot.
That was, I shouldn't do that.
Like, that is all, in myopinion, lower acceptance levels
(31:32):
because you're not viewing thething that's happening as it
actually is.
You're viewing it as you wouldwant it to be.
And that's very, very, verydifferent.
Right?
So, um, high, you know, having ahigh level of acceptance of your
thoughts is the same thing,right?
I cannot have you trying to fixyour thoughts on the golf course
that is multitasking withsomething that is non-relevant.
(31:54):
The ball does not care whatyou're thinking about.
Like, from a, i I shouldbacktrack.
Um, your intention for the shotand what you're trying to do is
relevant, obviously.
And then the ball, you're gonnamove the club based off of that
and the club's gonna move theball.
So that's obviously veryrelevant, but the ball does not
care if you were.
(32:16):
Thinking, oh, this is gonna be agood one.
This is gonna be a bad one.
Right?
This is, um, a hard shot.
This is an easy shot.
Like the ball doesn't care aboutany of that stuff.
Okay.
The only thing the ball caresabout is what the club the club
is telling it.
And by extension, like whatyou're telling the club, not
(32:36):
from a conscious standpoint, butfrom like a feel perception,
kind of a, a predictionstandpoint.
Um, aside from that, I mean, youcan pretty much drop everything
else.
You don't have to, you don'thave to think positively.
You don't have to fix yourthoughts.
You don't have to, um, push outor avoid bad quote unquote bad
ones.
'cause again, we're like, what'sa bad thought?
What's a good thought?
(32:57):
I, I have no idea.
Right?
It's, it just, it's a, it's asubjective judgment, right?
Eric (33:04):
What you do need, need to do is move on.
Play the next shot, uh, and beon time for that one.
played,
Rob Failes (33:12):
Yep.
Eric (33:12):
in a little pro member thing a couple weeks ago with a
great, couple that I teach, andthe guy hit, he played great all
day, pretty much had a littlebit of a stretch, a couple hole
stretch, hit a ball in the wateron the fifth hole and on the
12th hole, he was stillliterally lamenting the shot
and, and so his wife and I weremaking fun of him a little bit.
We were like making, makinglight of it.
Rob Failes (33:34):
Yeah,
Eric (33:34):
goes, he'll be mad about that for weeks.
So I saw him the other day, acouple weeks later and I'm like,
you still still upset about thatball on five?
He's like, oh yeah.
So I said, you know, you'relamenting.
He said, I'm la I'm a lament.
Rob Failes (33:49):
yeah,
Eric (33:50):
But, he was able to rate the ship and sh he shot a, I
think he shot an even par on theback nine, even with lamenting.
Rob Failes (33:55):
yeah.
Eric (33:56):
um, he was able, he was able to rate the ship
Rob Failes (33:58):
There you go.
Eric (34:00):
one
Rob Failes (34:00):
it was relevant, right?
When it was time to play theshot, he was able to to be on
time and on task to that shot,
Eric (34:08):
I
Rob Failes (34:08):
right?
Eric (34:09):
point you, you
Rob Failes (34:09):
that's cool.
Eric (34:10):
just made, the broader point of this episode is define
what's relevant, right?
What is relevant to yourimprovement and hopefully on,
we've made the case for thisalmost what, 50 episodes in,
what are the relevant things foryour improvement
Rob Failes (34:23):
Mm-hmm.
Eric (34:24):
And
Rob Failes (34:25):
Yep.
Eric (34:28):
It's so easy to get caught up in the things that are
irrelevant.
Right?
And we were pointing some of'emout like.
A$300 shaft upcharge, like,yeah, do you need that?
Probably not.
You know, that's irrelevant toyour
Rob Failes (34:39):
Yeah.
Eric (34:40):
Like most of the
Rob Failes (34:41):
Nah.
Eric (34:41):
no matter what they're selling you on there.
Swing positions relevant, notrelevant.
Definitely when you're about tohit the ball, not that relevant.
All these things like in yourpractice, just time, just
energy.
What is the things that reallymatter for you to improve?
And usually it's just one littlething at a time.
Like, let's take this one littleskill development step forward
(35:03):
learn to play a little bitbetter.
Um, so
Rob Failes (35:08):
And can I add a little point to that?
This is gonna be back to theshaft thing.
Um, hunter and I were asking,Paul Wood about shafts and we
asked him like point blank,like, Hey, ping measures more
than just about any other.
I, I, I gotta imagine theyprobably do in like testing,
quote unquote for like more, asmuch as any company out there,
(35:30):
right?
They're always doing theseresearch projects.
They're always like trying tohelp us push forward.
Would you ever design a shaftbecause Ping does have their own
shafts in in-house that theydesign with all the testing that
you've done.
Would you ever, ever, everdesign a stock shaft that does
not perform.
(35:51):
As optimally as you can, andthey said, Nope.
Eric (35:55):
No,
Rob Failes (35:55):
it's like,
Eric (35:55):
not.
Rob Failes (35:56):
why, why on earth?
Everyone's different.
Okay.
I want to want to, like,everyone has different launch
characteristics.
Everyone has plays in differentconditions.
Everyone has different goals,like nuanced things that you
need.
You might be the, the levelthree golfer, right?
Who for your goals and where youwanna get to.
You need a certain type of, youknow, shaft for the shot that
(36:16):
you're trying to hit.
And you know, you've done enoughtesting where this, I really
like this shaft.
And it might be an upchargeshaft, it might be an off the
market shaft.
Great.
But what we're talking about iswhen you talk about big data,
like of all golfers, we'retalking about level one golfers
shooting higher than 88, leveltwo golfers, 88 to 77, 76, and
(36:36):
then level three golfers 76down.
We talk about that big dataaspect of it.
The difference in a stock shaftthat is developed in Ping versus
an aftermarket shaft is gonna belike, you're, you're looking at
like the, the smallest, I mean,it's, it is, it's not relevant.
(36:56):
It doesn't move the needle.
Eric (36:57):
Doesn't move the new, you put your resources into
something else.
Right.
That, that's all I'm saying.
Rob Failes (37:01):
Yeah.
Eric (37:02):
I guarantee you I could fit pretty much any developing
golfer into Ping stock.
Ping stock.
To your point, they're, they'reproducing their own shafts,
right?
They, this is like the othercompanies after HFS too.
But Ping to your point, has thePing Ulta shaft.
They have the, they have the TorChrome and the Tor Black.
(37:24):
They've got these lines ofshafts,
Rob Failes (37:25):
The one you fit me for, it's great shaft.
Eric (37:28):
It's a great shaft.
It's a great shaft.
So what I'm saying is you couldbecome a great golfer with those
shafts too.
Right?
So that's, that's the point.
Rob Failes (37:34):
Yep.
Eric (37:34):
if you're gonna put your resources into something, um,
put it into something else,right?
Don't put it into that because
Rob Failes (37:41):
Yeah,
Eric (37:41):
not gonna matter to you.
Um,
Rob Failes (37:43):
lessons, right?
Eric (37:44):
to
Rob Failes (37:44):
Yeah, yeah.
Eric (37:45):
I'm sorry.
You don't need shaft puringeither.
Rob Failes (37:47):
No, please God.
Don't do that.
Eric (37:50):
so there's all these little, there's all these little
things that I was gonna pointout.
Things you don't need to,there's other things like speed
training.
Rob Failes (37:58):
Keep going.
Let's, yeah,
Eric (37:59):
have to do speed training?
No.
Um, could you hire a personaltrainer or work on your fitness
all day long to get better?
Yeah.
Do you have to?
No.
Most of us.
So, there's all these thingsthat you like, go ahead.
You're cutting.
Rob Failes (38:13):
so,
Eric (38:13):
me
Rob Failes (38:13):
so just to be very sorry.
Okay.
So again, for our lessers whoare, are new to the show, when
Eric's saying speed training,he's really talking about over
speed training, because speed isone of our core essential
skills.
It's the third skill that weneed to train when it comes to
touch and feel.
And you do need to develop acertain level of speed with
driver for the level of golferthat you are, again, like level
(38:36):
two golfers, that's where thisstarts to become really pretty
darn important because we needto get the ball on the green
regulation.
And fortunately, more par foursto get through level two.
Level three.
Again, very important.
So we do need to be pushingspeed, but the way that we do
that does not have to be out ofcontext.
(38:57):
Speed sticks.
Ripping the, the thing as hardas we can in both directions
Eric (39:02):
It
Rob Failes (39:02):
doing all this stuff.
It could be, but you don't haveto do it.
Eric (39:06):
Correct.
So a lot of people could get alot better at golf and never hit
the ball with more swing speed.
I would say a high percentagecould improve without swinging
faster.
So again, what are you putting
Rob Failes (39:18):
Yeah.
Eric (39:18):
energy into?
And I know this because I'm, I'ma limited resource guy with all
the things I do in my life,right?
Mainly starting with time andenergy because I just don't have
that much of it, right?
When you're dividing yourselfout as a golf pro, golf pro
schedule, which is, I work 11and a half hour days, and then
you've got,, four kids at homeand a wife and a small business
(39:39):
that she runs, and then you andI have got the podcast you wanna
talk about time allocation, likeit's gotta be pretty good,
right?
Rob Failes (39:45):
Yeah.
Eric (39:45):
I'm still trying to exercise some as much as, as
much as seems reasonable at thistime of year, playing golf still
as much as reasonable this timeof year.
Being someone that has friendsand goes to church and has other
activity, you've gotta figureall this stuff out, right?
Like you're limited
Rob Failes (40:03):
Yeah.
Eric (40:03):
your time and energy and so.
When you take on any one ofthese quote unquote tips that
you're hearing, you've gotta putit into, you've gotta just put
it into a balance sheet and belike, okay, time, energy, money,
relevancy.
Rob Failes (40:19):
Yes.
Eric (40:20):
out the other
Rob Failes (40:21):
Yes,
Eric (40:21):
That, that's the, that's the point.
And if you wanna
Rob Failes (40:24):
correct.
Eric (40:25):
just go back to our other previous, however many episodes
and listen.
'cause I think that's what wetry to hone in
Rob Failes (40:30):
Just listen to the podcast.
Eric (40:31):
Um, but it was, I didn't even mention some of the
Rob Failes (40:34):
Subscribe.
Eric (40:35):
I hear.
'cause I don't want, peoplethink I'm making fun of'em.
But I hear these things and I'mlike, oh my gosh.
Somebody told me one the otherday, Robbie, about this crazy
swing
Rob Failes (40:43):
Oh boy.
Eric (40:44):
Um, he, he literally hunted me down between lessons.
Big fan of the pod, Lee Mal, Imentioned him by name, big fan
of the pod.
he, he found me in betweenlessons.
He goes, Eric, you've gotta hearthis one.
I said, what's that?
He goes, I saw this swing tipand it said, it said on your
back swing.
(41:05):
You need to pretend you'redumping water out of your left
ear.
Rob Failes (41:09):
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Eric (41:12):
Do we have any idea what that means?
Rob fails.
Rob Failes (41:15):
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Eric (41:17):
I don't know where it came from.
I'm like, what if someonebelieved that was true?
What if someone listened to thatand was like, my gosh,
Rob Failes (41:26):
gosh, dude.
Eric (41:27):
been dumping
Rob Failes (41:27):
Uh,
Eric (41:28):
outta my left
Rob Failes (41:28):
oh,
Eric (41:29):
I gotta get to the range right now.
I am.
I am
Rob Failes (41:33):
a hunter.
Eric (41:33):
to be the king of
Rob Failes (41:36):
and I got on a, on a, on a, on a binge of, uh, of,
you know, pre pretty great onesEarlier.
The other later, uh, last week,we saw one again.
No disrespect, but this one guyhad a, um, he had a tennis ball
wrapped, wrapped around.
He had a, he had a string aroundhis right knee with a tennis
(42:00):
ball hanging from it, and he wasjust standing up, no club, just
like making from set up rightinto his follow through, getting
the tennis ball to like swingaround his left foot.
He was like, alright, you'regonna just sit here, you're
gonna go and you're gonna gethome and you're gonna do this
for 20 minutes and, and that'llfix everything.
Eric (42:20):
You are ready.
You're ready for the tour.
Rob Failes (42:22):
It was just the most ridiculous thing.
Eric (42:24):
ear, can you imagine how good you'd be at golf?
Oh my gosh.
Rob Failes (42:28):
good.
Eric (42:28):
watching the ball, watching the club hit the ball
with your line
Rob Failes (42:32):
Yes.
Eric (42:33):
railroad tracks like these are, it's all coming
Rob Failes (42:35):
Mm-hmm.
Eric (42:35):
The picture is coming together.
So I don't know who, I don'tknow who
Rob Failes (42:40):
Just the, Ima
Eric (42:41):
they,
Rob Failes (42:42):
I, well,
Eric (42:43):
the
Rob Failes (42:43):
I will send this to you.
It's, it's, it's really hard topicture, but it's just like the
most hysterical image of thisguy taking this tennis ball,
hanging from a string from hisright knee and just like
swinging the tennis ball aroundhis left leg, into this ball
through It was like you had, youhad to see it kind of thing.
Eric (43:01):
The more absurd it is, the more likely it is gonna hit the
algorithm and start
Rob Failes (43:06):
Yes.
Like that's what gets views,right?
Eric (43:09):
And so that's why we, sat down and thought, can we have an
impact?
I thought, I thought, um,podcasts was the way to do it
because it's not as
Rob Failes (43:20):
Yeah.
Eric (43:21):
driven.
It's a long form.
And I thought we could say, Hey,let's teach a principal.
Let's talk about it.
Let's have people
Rob Failes (43:29):
Yep.
Eric (43:30):
if you were
Rob Failes (43:30):
A hundred
Eric (43:30):
for a lesson, a lot of times what we do is we just help
people gain understanding, We'renot tying them up.
Rob Failes (43:37):
percent.
Eric (43:37):
One of the other, you do not need to use swing training
aids to play
Rob Failes (43:44):
Mm-hmm.
Eric (43:44):
good
Rob Failes (43:44):
Yeah, you don't have to do it.
Yeah.
Eric (43:46):
have to.
every now and again, there's alittle something that may help a
little bit, I don't know.
But at the end of the day, youdon't need to use swing training
aids either.
And so I have to feel like.
Having taught golf now for along time, decades.
And I think, I kind of feel likefor me, I'm just in this mode
(44:06):
where it feels like people arejust really improving at golf.
And it's fun.
Like, it's just, it's justreally fun.
I don't know what that meansother than I think that the
communication's gotten better.
And my goal, is to help educatepeople when, when it comes to
education, education means todraw out of people, not to put
into people, And I'm alwaystrying to draw out of them their
(44:29):
best abilities to play thisgame.
I think that, I don't know,after 20,000 plus lessons of 20
years of doing this,
Rob Failes (44:37):
Yes.
Eric (44:37):
happening right?
A lot of times.
so.
Can we help people gainunderstanding?
That's all we ever wanted to doin this podcast.
I think it's working.
I mean, we hear that from peopleall around the, all around the
globe, really, who say that youall have really, really helped
us.
So if you got those stories,share'em with us.
We don't really do anything withit.
We just like to hear, we justlike to hear, we love to build
(44:58):
relationships with people.
So anyway, let us know howyou're doing, if you learned
anything, any other, dyingtidbits you wanna share for
people that they just don't haveto do.
You do not have to
Rob Failes (45:09):
Oh man.
All right.
Eric (45:10):
get better at golf,
Rob Failes (45:12):
Let's look back here.
Eric (45:15):
or you're looking at the text thread now.
Rob Failes (45:17):
Yeah.
Eric (45:18):
a lot of'em.
Rob Failes (45:20):
Oh, plumb Bob.
Eric (45:22):
Oh plumb.
Bob,
Rob Failes (45:23):
Don't have to plumb Bob.
Eric (45:24):
you don't have to.
Plumb
Rob Failes (45:25):
I.
Eric (45:25):
I've seen some good punters of plumb.
Bob.
I'm, I will say you do have touse aim point.
You can't put right without me,I'm just telling you.
But that's true.
You, if you're not using it bynow, you're just kidding
Rob Failes (45:37):
Yeah.
I like guess get worse beforeyou get better.
I like that one.
Eric (45:43):
my number one reason for the show and I totally forgot
about it.
You do not have to get worsebefore you get better
Rob Failes (45:48):
No.
Eric (45:49):
And anybody that tells you that is completely lying to you.
I just have to say that I'mgetting fired up now.
It's getting late.
The thunder's world boomingthrough my house, I think that
was actually the thing thatspurred me on to this episode.
Rob Failes (46:03):
Yeah.
Eric (46:03):
that I had heard that multiple times.
Like I know I gotta take acouple steps back before I
improve.
And I'm thinking, why
Rob Failes (46:11):
Yep.
Eric (46:11):
in here and you wanna improve, we're gonna talk about
the thing that takes, takes youto the next step to improve.
It's not about taking threesteps back.
I think that's, that.
I, I will tell you that'sprobably in the
Rob Failes (46:21):
What do you think that is?
Eric (46:23):
Um, why do you think that is?
I think it
Rob Failes (46:26):
Like, what do you think that is?
Eric (46:28):
I think it comes from, 'cause I'm older than you, so
I've been through some more ofthis.
I think it comes back from thegolf guru days where people were
like, oh, you're the, you're theswing teacher.
You're the, and you have thisphilosophy of swing positions,
right?
Rob Failes (46:45):
Mm-hmm.
Eric (46:46):
when you're trying to put everybody into a model like
that, many people get worse.
They never actually get better.
And so then you're, then you'relike.
Rob Failes (46:56):
Yes.
Eric (46:56):
Do you see what I'm saying?
So now you're selling
Rob Failes (46:58):
Yeah.
Yeah,
Eric (46:59):
like, oh, you may get worse because now you're doing,
this is the opposite of how youand I would teach somebody.
You're making
Rob Failes (47:06):
yeah.
Eric (47:06):
thing rather than you helping them
Rob Failes (47:08):
Yeah.
Eric (47:09):
better, if that makes sense.
Rob Failes (47:11):
Yep.
Mm-hmm.
Eric (47:13):
the whole notion that you're gonna get worse before
you get better, just isn't, itisn't true for me.
And I think that some moreegocentric instructors,, I'm not
trying to be critical, but it'sjust true.
they just believe so much inwhat their philosophy or their
model of quote unquote the
Rob Failes (47:33):
Yeah,
Eric (47:35):
that they have to, they have to, they have to say that
because some people are justgonna get worse, and maybe they
do get worse before they getbetter.
Rob Failes (47:43):
So, so I think I can put that into context a little
bit.
So I think in, in the context ofwhat, what you said earlier,
it's like, okay, here's a swingposition because this is the
correct thing to do.
A hundred percent, like most,like a lot of people get worse
and never get better.
(48:04):
There are times where, and wewant to be able to, to separate
when this happens, when, whenchange the swing in order to
bias the skills in a moreadvantageous way.
But the overall dispersion getsbigger because the pattern is
different and you haven't skilltrained enough.
Uh, AKA play golf enough withthat different movement.
(48:27):
So the key there is like whenyou are changing your swing or
when you're doing somethingdifferent swing wise, is it in
order to bias the skills in adesirable way.
So like a good example would belike, Hey, you got X Tour Pro.
He hits it 70, 80 feet high.
Now he's gonna go play in acourse where he needs to be able
to hit it higher and stop theball in some really firm greens.
(48:50):
Like, okay, so we're gonnaimplement some, some ideas to
try to get his peak heighthigher.
Cool.
So you see in training, likewith what you're doing, uh, the
peak height's definitely gettinghigher, especially on the ones
where he is hit in the middle ofthe face.
Problem is, is that because it'sdifferent and he just hasn't
skill trained with it enough?
The overall dispersion of where,in terms of like where it's
(49:13):
hitting on the face or the faceof the path gets a little bit
bigger.
That's where I might say, okay,well because of this, what we're
doing, it's gonna be worth it.
Because you are actually, you'renot necessarily getting worse.
You're, you are getting betterbecause you're accessing a skill
that you, that previously wasn'tas accessible.
You just need to learn how toreduce your dispersion of the
(49:36):
other skills with that samemovement.
Right?
So I think in a lot of timesgolfers will misinterpret that.
They'll, they'll hit a coupleshots that they don't like
because again, that dispersionthat just gets bigger, say, oh,
well this swing is making meworse.
Like, no, like, let's actuallytake a look at the data it's
doing the thing we want it todo.
It's increasing your peak heightor it's getting the ball to
(49:58):
curve.
Uh.
To the right or left a littleless or the ball's going
further.
Right.
But you're just seeing a littledifferent dispersion like,
that's okay.
We're gonna skill train withthis new pattern and we're gonna
get that dispersion a little bittighter.
Two very different things.
In one scenario, it's theinstructor is saying, this is
the correct thing to do.
Here you go.
(50:20):
And another hand, and on anotherend of the spectrum it's
alright, we want the skills tobe biased in a different way.
Let's test some things to seewhat works.
Oh, we see something thatactually works, but your
dispersion a little bit big.
Who cares?
Like we can definitely trainand, and, and get that
dispersion a bit tighter justthrough some skill training.
Eric (50:36):
Right.
And I think that that 30 yearsago didn't exist for the most
part.
Right?
Rob Failes (50:41):
Mm-hmm.
Eric (50:42):
have
Rob Failes (50:42):
Yep.
Eric (50:42):
help with skill trade.
Didn't have the technology fordispersion, So what happened?
People know the names, BobbyClampett, Ian Baker Finch.
There were some guys that wantedto.
Improve and it was just swingchanges, It was just someone's
notion of how they should swingit.
And some these teachers taughtgreat players, and so it did
(51:02):
work at times and it didn't workat times, and to your point, you
gotta gain access to skillthrough a swing change.
Although we don't reallyunderstand skill, we can't
measure skill, we don't know howto train skill.
Back then that much, was reallyhard to do that.
So everything was just about theswing.
Rob Failes (51:17):
Yep.
Eric (51:18):
just the swing.
It's the
Rob Failes (51:19):
Mm-hmm.
Eric (51:19):
It's the swing.
Everything's a swing.
So I hope that we on this showhave giving you that InBetween
swing and shot aren't exactlythe, there's an InBetween called
skill, and those are the thingsthat
Rob Failes (51:31):
Yep.
Eric (51:31):
lost in the equation.
So most of the time when peoplecome to see me for lessons,
there might be some swingtweaking, but a lot of it's
skill development, or we'reworking on things like strategy
or we're working on theirroutines or their processes to
help them play better.
And so they just play better,but the point is, you can
improve at this game prettyquickly most of the time, right?
Rob Failes (51:52):
Mm-hmm.
Eric (51:53):
You, the listener out there can find a good
instructor, can take you throughthat process too.
And if you need to take lessons,you can fly to Charlottesville
on your private plane and go seeRob fails at the Boris Head
resort, Birdwood golf coursehome of UVA.
I think he would love to helpyou out, don't you think Rob
fails?
Just bring your, bring your
Rob Failes (52:11):
I would.
Eric (52:12):
in there, Dr.
Drive your car,
Rob Failes (52:14):
Mm-hmm.
Eric (52:14):
come see him.
Anything you want to add at theend of this episode?
Rob, anything else, any funstories?
Rob Failes (52:20):
was fun, as we said it would be.
Eric (52:22):
It's always fun being with you, my man.
Like we said, when we got on,it's been a
Rob Failes (52:26):
Likewise,
Eric (52:27):
It's been hard to get stuff out.
We've both had a lot
Rob Failes (52:29):
I.
Eric (52:30):
I've had a lot going on with my family, which has caused
me to have a routine that hasbeen un-normal.
And so our time has been veryminimal.
So I apologize to the listener.
I know you've been waiting for anew episode of the Golf
Intervention Podcast and here itis.
And we are glad you that you aretuning in anyway, hope you get
to play some golf this week andplay really well.
(52:51):
Anything else, Rob?
Rob Failes (52:54):
Think we got it.
Eric (52:55):
Alright, until next time, have a great week everybody.
Rob Failes (53:01):
Cheers.
Today's episode is brought to you by the premium
(00:02):
content subscribers on the golfintervention substack.
And we would of course like tothank all of our listeners for
tuning in, you make it all worthwhile.
If you would like to support theshow or sign up for our free
newsletter, you can do that atthegolfintervention.substack.com
or follow the link in the shownotes.
Eric (00:26):
And welcome back to the Golf Intervention Podcast.
I'm so excited to be on with myfriend Rob Fails tonight.
There's a thunderstorm inRichmond, Virginia, so if you
can hear that, I don't know ifthat actually takes away from
the podcast or not.
I kinda like thunderstorm.
It's
Rob Failes (00:40):
Oh man, I think it adds to it.
Oh, oh.
Hey buddy.
Is, that's my, that's my dog.
Eric (00:46):
and Robbie's dog is on, so it's it's gonna be exciting.
We got thunder.
maybe he's on, because there'sthunder there.
Is there thunder inCharlottesville too?
Is it
Rob Failes (00:54):
Yeah, I think, yeah, we're getting a storm too, and
he's not, so, not so keen on it.
Hey, buddy.
Eric (01:01):
got
Rob Failes (01:01):
Hey,
Eric (01:01):
bougie AST
Rob Failes (01:02):
you're good.
Eric (01:03):
he's drinking, drinking.
Is it red wine?
What kind of wine you got going
Rob Failes (01:07):
Oh, yeah.
No, it's, it's a, it's, it's redwine.
Eric (01:10):
red wine in a, what do you call that?
A Yeti goblet.
Rob Failes (01:16):
It's a Yeti.
Yeah, it's a Yeti, like a go.
Right.
Eric (01:19):
Yeti Goblet from Cypress Point, like the, a ouest thing
I've ever seen.
Rob Failes (01:24):
I spent a lot of money in that golf shop, Eric.
Eric (01:27):
And so that's the byproduct of being invited to
nice places.
Like
Rob Failes (01:31):
Yeah.
Eric (01:32):
to just drop like a thousand dollars in the shop,
which is the credit
Rob Failes (01:36):
We didn't have a choice.
We had to,
Eric (01:38):
You gotta buy some things.
So anyway, on tonight's editionof the Golf Intervention
Podcast, we're gonna go somethrough some things you
absolutely do not have to do toimprove your
Rob Failes (01:51):
yes.
Eric (01:53):
And I was thinking so much about this, Robbie, because you
know when you get to be an oldperson like me and you got kids
and you got a mortgage andyou're trying to figure out all
these like keys to being morehealthy or being better with
your
Rob Failes (02:06):
Yeah.
Eric (02:07):
or being better with your time management.
Like all these things that youwant to do, most of us anyway,
want to do.
Two, be better at whatever allthese things are.
We do
Rob Failes (02:16):
Mm-hmm.
Eric (02:17):
husbanding, going to church, being a, a whatever,
being a good human, right?
So we're
Rob Failes (02:22):
Yep.
Eric (02:22):
seeking this out and there's always some guru out
there who's willing to sharewith you their thoughts about
that, right?
And so I'm sitting therewatching Instagram one day,
scrolling through doom,scrolling this stuff like
nobody's
Rob Failes (02:38):
Mm-hmm.
Eric (02:39):
morning coffee.
And I'm thinking there are somany things that golfers think
they need to do.
Like they, it's like an
Rob Failes (02:46):
Yeah.
Eric (02:46):
I have to do this.
It's a belief system.
I have to do this to
Rob Failes (02:50):
Mm-hmm.
Eric (02:51):
And they're told that through these media channels.
And today, golfers, we are gonnatake you through a list which is
negative.
I get it.
We're not the negative people.
This is ne, it's actually meantto be funny.
So hopefully this episode is alittle bit humorous of things
you absolutely do not have todo.
To get better at golf.
'cause again, going back to theself-help sort of, moment I'm
(03:14):
going through in my life, likewe all do, we all do this.
It's not like a moment, it'sjust part of my life,
Rob Failes (03:19):
Yeah.
Eric (03:19):
to get better.
You realize you have to allocateresources whatever it is that
you're trying to do.
So if you have a hobby, youallocate resources.
What time, energy, money.
Those are your main things thatyou're allocating.
allocate it to your hobbies, youallocate it to your, to your
lifestyle.
You allocate it to your healthand wellness.
Like all these things,apparently, the type of wine
(03:41):
that you buy, you're allocatingthis time, energy, and money are
your main resources, okay?
And
Rob Failes (03:50):
I.
Eric (03:50):
the truth is, to get better at golf, can't waste your
time with these things thatdon't matter.
You just can't do it.
Because if you do, you're gonnabe limiting your ability to
improve.
And we only have so much time.
put into golf.
So today we're gonna go througha list things you absolutely do
(04:11):
not have to do to improve agolf.
So hopefully you can listen tothis and be like, the golf
intervention has set me free andwe are not making fun of you if
you do these things, by the way,we've done these,
Rob Failes (04:22):
Correct.
And I was, I was just gettingready to say that.
Yeah,
Eric (04:26):
I know.
I've done a lot of these thingsto try to figure out maybe
Rob Failes (04:31):
probably me too.
Eric (04:31):
Yeah.
And some of
Rob Failes (04:32):
Yeah.
Eric (04:33):
It's just that they're not be all end all, you've gotta do
this.
Or you're, or you're
Rob Failes (04:38):
They're not moving the needle much.
Eric (04:40):
Yeah.
So I wrote this big list.
I could just read'em.
It'd be
Rob Failes (04:45):
Yeah.
Eric (04:45):
But we're gonna go, we're gonna go through some
Rob Failes (04:47):
Yeah, like this past week?
Yeah, this past week we wentlike back and forth.
We had text, text chain goingwhere it was like you would send
something, then I would sendsomething and we were going back
and forth for a while there.
Eric (04:58):
Yeah, with a
Rob Failes (04:59):
So it should be fun.
Eric (05:01):
not have to do to play a better call.
Rob Failes (05:04):
Yeah.
Eric (05:04):
so I think that one of the most interesting ones that you
said, which I could not agreewith you more, is the one I'm
gonna start off today.
And these are not in any order,it's just a haphazard list of
things and there's many more.
But one of the things you do notto do to be better at golf is to
beat thousands upon thousands ofrange balls.
(05:26):
You just really, you just reallydon't have to do it.
I know this because I wentthrough a 10 year period where I
practiced way less than I didfor the previous 10 year period,
and I improved a lot more duringthat time.
So, Robbie, this is one fromyour list.
So tell a listener why you thinkyou do not have to pound tens of
(05:47):
thousands of golf balls toimprove at golf.
Rob Failes (05:52):
Yeah, and I think it starts with the belief that if
you have a certain level ofcompetency in that, like very
sort of like sterile, kind ofcontrolled environment of the
range.
It means that you are gonna doit when you go play.
And golfers have this belief of,you know, and it might be like
(06:14):
they get to a thousand and we'rejust putting a number there, but
for you it might be, let's say200, right?
That's actually like, sadlyenough.
Like that's not an unreasonablelike, number For some people is
like, okay, well is it becauseyou have the belief like, oh,
you need to hit like, I don'tknow, like 10 in a row within a
certain dispersion to, to beable to, to leave or something
(06:36):
like, something like that.
There's just a lot of thingsthat people have that belief of.
Is that okay?
Like,, I'm gonna pick on, youknow, some high school coaches
that, or college coaches of, ofgolf teams and they say, oh, you
gotta make a hundred in a row,three footers.
Now we can debate like maybethey're learning some other
skills from like a perseveranceor grit standpoint that that
(07:00):
gives them some, some benefit inthe long term and, and.
We'll, we'll just put thatargument aside, but really
that's a very, very, veryoutdated, and it's not an
accurate assertion that if youdo it in one context, you're
gonna be able to do it inanother.
Um, really the, the point oftraining and kind of the point
of the range is we see it is todevelop reference points, is to
(07:23):
develop, feel, is to basicallycalibrate your sensation of
where the bottom of the swing isin space, where the face is
relative to the path, the amountof momentum it has, an impact,
things like that.
Maybe to have some referencepoints and check what you're
doing swing wise with betweenyou and your coach, whether it
be your grip, your posture,anything geometry wise that you
feel like gives you better oddsof line the skills up.
(07:45):
Great.
Or it might just be kind ofrunning through, Hey, this is,
these are the few things that Ineed to do when I go play from
a, from a behavior standpointthat are gonna gimme the best
odds, such as how I'm walkinginto the golf shot, how I'm
aligning myself to a target,things like that.
We also don't mind using therange for just tracking what
your current dispersion is,right?
So we use fingers to try tofigure out, hey, what, what is
(08:07):
the golf ball doing with acertain sample size?
May say, 15, 20 golf balls.
I think re like any of thoseoptions that I just listed, you
can do in the context ofprobably 50 ball, 50 golf balls,
60 golf balls, if not less.
If you're getting up at, youknow, a hundred, 200 in that
(08:28):
range, then I guarantee that youare searching for confidence,
which does not come fromresults, in your practice.
I can tell you that confidenceis, if, if you think of it as
like an outcome driven thing.
It's gonna be, you're gonna bechasing your tail.
It's more about the behaviors,it's more about the things that
(08:50):
you can actually control.
That's what we kind of want youto develop confidence in.
Not, oh, did this one golf shotend up on the green?
Or did this one golf shot endup, you know, within a certain
dispersion or whatnot.
So I think that's what peopleare doing.
They're trying to find a certainnumber of outcomes that are
gonna tell them that it's gonnabe like, quote unquote okay.
Right.
When they go out and play thenext day.
(09:11):
And it doesn't typically bearfruit.
So, that, that's what, that'swhat I would say is, is kind of
the, some of the main points,with that myth.
Eric (09:18):
Well, I think it's just, it's this linear like effort So
like I, I, I'm gonna put moreeffort in,
Rob Failes (09:24):
Yes.
Yes.
Eric (09:26):
and in a lot of
Rob Failes (09:26):
Correct.
Yeah.
Agreed.
Eric (09:28):
If I wanna.
I wanna be better at reading,I'm just gonna read more.
I'm gonna read more and readmore.
Rob Failes (09:33):
I.
Eric (09:33):
smarter.
That's great.
That's effort, right?
And that's paying off with thetime.
If you're not very focused inyour practice, you're just
probably gonna practice yourselfinto maybe staying exactly the
same as you've always been.
Or maybe even worse, maybe alittle better.
It's just not, it's not thislinear X time equals X
performance.
I wish it was, if it was, we'dall just put more time in,
(09:56):
hopefully, and become, you know,great players.
So,
Rob Failes (10:00):
Right.
Eric (10:00):
practice a lot.
Some don't.
I watch it.
I run a tour event range, right?
I've run it for nine years.
I've seen Hall of Famerspractice right in front of me.
Some hit a lot of balls.
VJ Sing.
Darren Clark, some don't.
I would say Steve Alker is asgood as anybody on that tour
right now.
Bernhard Langer, they don't hittons of balls, so it's not like
they're, so I think there's notthis correlation between how
(10:22):
much time I'm putting in andplaying better golf.
And then the other thing tendsto be is that golfers are always
just trying to, when theypractice, this leads me to my
next point, to practice theirquote unquote swing.
They're like, I'm changing myswing or
Rob Failes (10:35):
Yeah.
Eric (10:36):
my swing.
So bullet point number two isyou don't have to find certain
positions in your swing, okay?
I don't care
Rob Failes (10:44):
Mm-hmm.
Eric (10:44):
favorite golfers do, that's another bullet points.
I'm gonna combining'em together.
Your swing doesn't have to looklike Roy McElroy's.
His doesn't have to look likeScotty Scheffler.
Mine doesn't have to look likeRob Fields.
None of that matters.
And.
So that's another bullet point.
Who cares what they do?
Okay?
There is no perfect positions.
Now, I will tell you, I see thisevery single day on the social
(11:07):
media feeds.
This person has a perfectbackswing.
Oh, this is a perfect backswing.
Here's three tips to a perfecttakeaway.
of that exists.
If it did, you would see themall do the same thing, and they
don't.
They're great
Rob Failes (11:20):
Exactly.
Eric (11:21):
So
Rob Failes (11:21):
Yes.
Eric (11:22):
you're just, you're working off a false narrative.
So when you believe that thereare certain positions or certain
things that you have to do,you're really gonna struggle
because you're gonna search forthese things in your swing,
right?
So I, I kinda, I've never once,and I tell people this is true,
my students will tell you this,I've taught 20,000 plus golf
(11:45):
lessons, and I've never once,and I do use video for feedback
purposes, but I've never oncesaid that here's exactly where
you need to go.
And I definitely have never,ever.
C put somebody's swing up besidea tour player and said, Hey,
look at this position.
Look at this
Rob Failes (12:02):
Yeah,
Eric (12:02):
It has never once happened.
again, we're all different.
there are no perfect there'sonly who we are and how it
affects what we're trying to doand how we're trying to learn,
right?
And
Rob Failes (12:14):
exactly.
Eric (12:15):
I think that when you're searching for perfect swing
stuff, this is what probablydrives me the most crazy about
social media, golf instructionis the perfect swing, the
perfect setup, the perfect aim.
So there's certain things thatyou just gotta, you gotta take,
but from your mind and just wipeit out.
Okay?
See how easy that was.
Let it go.
See, we do that on the show alot.
(12:36):
We're like, let it go.
See how
Rob Failes (12:38):
Yep.
Eric (12:39):
Let it go.
You're not
Rob Failes (12:40):
Mm-hmm.
Eric (12:41):
What do you think
Rob Failes (12:42):
Yeah.
It's just searching for aguarantee, right.
Eric (12:44):
If I do this, it's the if then proposition.
If I can find this magical pieceto my takeaway, then I will have
this great, perfect swing, andthen I'm gonna go hit a thousand
balls and groove it and perfectit and repeat it until
perpetuity, and it just doesn'twork like that.
Right?
That's why we
Rob Failes (13:05):
Mm.
Eric (13:05):
variability skill practice, right?
This is the things that reallymake you a better player.
And so you can see we've alreadyhoned in a lot on swing stuff,
right?
This is like swing, swing,swing, swing golf, swing golf,
swing.
What's it look like?
What, where's my position?
What I need to repeat it, Thisis, these are the biggest,
(13:26):
probably fallacies in all ofgolf.
And I will tell you, I feel likesometimes we're shouting into
the void with this, but uh,there's some pretty wild stuff
out there.
And I'm like, this is, thiscan't be, this can't be a
reality.
Um, do you think about theperfect swing positions?
Robbie, have you found
Rob Failes (13:46):
Yeah.
Like I said earlier, I, I thinkit's, oh, no, no.
I mean, it's, it's stuff thatwe've talked about ad nauseum on
this podcast, but it's like theidea of like.
Swing does not equal shot.
Meaning like if you think of,oh, what's my perfect shot?
Alright, let's just call it, youknow, the ball ended up exactly
(14:07):
where you aimed it, right?
Well, that's because the skillsall lined up for what you were
trying to do.
It wasn't necessarily because ofa certain position at the top of
your backswing halfway down, youknow, anything like that.
I, I've had a, a lesson with aclient I think two or three days
ago where we were actuallydisassociating the two.
(14:28):
So there was something really,really clear that we were
working on in like the earlypart of his backswing, just to
give him better odds of kind ofmanaging the face to path stuff.
And so what I was having him dois like, all right, I want you
to make the, the backswing thatwe're going for and leave the
face wide open intentionally.
Now I want you to make thebackswing that you were doing
(14:49):
earlier that was really biasingyour club face way open.
And then I want you to use yourskill to close it too much,
right?
Just to teach him that, hey,like, yes, this backswing is
gonna give you potentiallybetter odds.
We need to play it out and justtest it and see how it's doing
for over a long enough period oftime to see if it's true or not.
(15:09):
But it's not a guarantee.
Meaning like if, if, if you didthis clubface stuff that we're
doing in the backswing, itdoesn't necessarily guarantee
anything at, you know, the, thefour 10 thousandths of a second
or, or three or however is it,is it one 10?
Eric (15:26):
It is
Rob Failes (15:26):
forget how long impact is
Eric (15:28):
small.
Rob Failes (15:28):
it?
But it's a, it's a, it's a very,very small period of time,
right?
And the, and the ball's gettingall its information from the
club, like however much the,the, the, the in plane
rotational club, the A planerotational, the club, the about
the shaft.
It's getting the path, it'sgetting where it's hitting on
the face.
All of that information in that.
Really, really small period oftime.
(15:49):
So you can't tell me that, thata certain like macro position in
the backswing is gonna make thedifference, guaranteed.
When we talk about like those,those very, very minute skills,
that's just what I see over andover.
Eric (16:05):
Yeah, no, totally agree.
And, it's hard.
It's hard when a student walksin and has a belief system that
they have to do something right.
That's what this, that's whatthis is really all about.
I want you to ask yourself,listener like, are there things
I feel like I have to do?
'cause someone told me once andnow I'm Trying to do it and I
struggle with it, right?
So sometimes like the
Rob Failes (16:25):
Yep.
Eric (16:26):
lessons, and they're a little bit hard.
But I will say, because myrelationships tend to be, long
term in coaching, right?
Rob Failes (16:33):
Mm-hmm.
Eric (16:33):
when you have a, when you have the respect of the people
that come to see you, They trustwhat you're gonna tell them, you
can have that authority, to setthem free from some of that,
where they're like, really butmy dad told me that when I was
12 he was a good golfer but myhusband tells me this, but.
My friends who are bettergolfers than me tell me that.
But I took a lesson, this is areally hard one.
Rob Failes (16:54):
Mm-hmm.
Eric (16:55):
lessons from this person who told me these things that
Rob Failes (16:58):
Yeah.
Eric (16:58):
do.
those are tricky moments as acoach, right?
Because then you gotta go, welllet's work through that.
Let's just like, it's
Rob Failes (17:07):
Yeah.
Eric (17:08):
it's not me gonna be like, oh well that's so stupid.
Like it doesn't work like that,right?
We just say,
Rob Failes (17:13):
Mm-hmm.
Eric (17:14):
let's talk about maybe if that's actually true or not,
right?
And we'll go through it.
One, one that I hear all thetime from people, which is
really interesting, and I'm not,this is definitely me not
picking on anybody, is, if theymake bad contact, it's'cause
they didn't watch the club hitthe ball.
Did you ever get this one?
Like I took my eye off it and Ididn't
Rob Failes (17:33):
Oh yeah,
Eric (17:33):
ball.
Rob Failes (17:34):
Oh, yeah.
Stood up or, yeah, yeah.
Eric (17:37):
one go most of the
Rob Failes (17:38):
Yeah.
Eric (17:38):
I don't know how to communicate this to them, but
that doesn't matter at all.
You know,
Rob Failes (17:43):
I think it's incredibly important to
communicate that to him.
Eric (17:46):
I, I, I
Rob Failes (17:47):
Yeah.
Eric (17:48):
let it go
Rob Failes (17:48):
I think you've got to,
Eric (17:49):
Yeah.
Have you,
Rob Failes (17:51):
oh, I will.
No, I never, I I never let thatgo.
There's like, I will, becauseagain, it's, it like I am, I
will take, I will take everysingle opportunity I possibly
can to get them to disassociate,swing from shot,
Eric (18:06):
No, I, no,
Rob Failes (18:06):
And then understand the skill in between.
And I'll go in there and I'lldemonstrate, I'll say, okay, I'm
going to have my eyes.
Off the ball.
I'm gonna pick my head up, I'mgoing to stand up, I'm gonna do
all this stuff, and I'm gonnaline the skill up, and then I'm
gonna do, I'll demonstrateeverything they said they think
they should do.
I'm gonna keep my head down, I'mgonna keep my eyes down until I
hit impact.
(18:27):
And then I'll like top it orI'll like, he'll shank it or
like, and I'll just demonstrateto that like, Hey, like the
thing that you think is gonnaguarantee impact does not
guarantee impact.
And so I think golfers justcan't hear that enough because
A, it'll free them from thatidea that we were talking about
earlier.
Like, Hey, I've got to hone thisswing and do it enough times in
(18:50):
practice so that I know, quoteunquote, that it's going to be
there for me on the golf course.
I, I mean, I guarantee that'swhy people practice as much as
they do is for that reason.
Eric (19:02):
Yeah, they're trying to, they're trying to guarantee so,
which is, there's just noguarantees.
Right?
Rob Failes (19:06):
Mm-hmm.
Eric (19:07):
I had one the other day.
That was really a fun lesson.
Rob Failes (19:11):
Did I say?
I guarantee that's why peoplepractice.
Eric (19:14):
I'll
Rob Failes (19:15):
I, I definitely used the word guarantee there.
Eric (19:17):
I just said, I just, I
Rob Failes (19:19):
I guarantee there's no guarantees.
Eric (19:20):
yeah, the only guarantee is no guarantees.
Write that down.
People write
Rob Failes (19:23):
Yes.
Ah, I love that.
That's the show title.
Ooh,
Eric (19:27):
We're gonna get that on a shirt.
intervention shirt.
Rob Failes (19:31):
it.
Eric (19:31):
The only guarantee is there's no guarantees.
but the belief systems run deep,right?
That's why we
Rob Failes (19:36):
I love it.
Eric (19:37):
why we have this episode.
We're gonna go through some, avast array of topics, but so
we're gonna be jumping all overthe place, but adolescent the
other day where, really goodplayer, I would say competitive,
competitive um, on the amateurside at the state level, really
struggling with their short gameand, just making really bad
(20:00):
contact on wedges, like just nothitting them well.
And, the way we had to solve itin 30 minutes, was I had to
unwind this really good player'sbelief system about how to make
contact with a we shot, right?
Rob Failes (20:14):
Hmm
Eric (20:15):
it took a little while.
highly coachable person, butalso someone that's like really
into golf, right?
Who has
Rob Failes (20:23):
mm-hmm
Eric (20:24):
about how they hit the ball.
And a lot of it is true.
so I had to unwind, some thingswhen it came to how the club
moves down and moves up on thearc and what we're trying to do
there.
And it was a little moment oflike, alright, not sure Eric's
right about this.
I could sense it a little bit,right?
Like
Rob Failes (20:44):
mm.
Eric (20:44):
I, I don't know.
And great relationship with theperson, but No, no, no.
Very coachable.
And so it was trying it, andthen after, we
Rob Failes (20:53):
What was the idea?
I'm just curious.
Eric (20:55):
an arch height issue, right?
Like it's the, it's the,
Rob Failes (20:57):
Yeah.
Eric (20:58):
I gotta hit down on the shot and compress like
Rob Failes (21:01):
Uh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Eric (21:02):
And it was getting diggy really like big fat divots.
Like
Rob Failes (21:07):
Yes.
Eric (21:07):
behind it.
Well, you're not really hittingbehind it.
You're just like, the arc is solow, like you're just
Rob Failes (21:11):
Too low,
Eric (21:12):
of it.
Rob Failes (21:12):
right?
Eric (21:13):
Okay.
so we talked about the conceptof our kite unwind it.
And, we're not gonna go intothat.
We discussed that on a show, butessentially, it was pretty
technical in 30 minutes, right?
And was very open, and then allof a sudden he's hitting
probably five outta six, really,really crispy, picking him right
(21:35):
off the top of the turf like hehadn't before.
And I, had to wrap the lesson upand go, it was 30 minutes.
So to get somebody's
Rob Failes (21:43):
Mm-hmm.
Eric (21:43):
to kind of change, a pretty technical concept, get
him to learn how to practice it,and then onto my next lesson,
'cause I got one coming in,right?
I just have to move on, right?
So I saw him a couple dayslater, I'm like, how's the wedge
play going?
He goes, my gosh, that wasphenomenal.
It's changed everything aboutwhat I think about that shot.
(22:04):
He goes, I was totally wrongabout what I was trying to do.
He wasn't stubborn about it byany means.
He was totally open.
But, that was what we, this iswhat we battle all the, all the
time.
And that was not from somebodylearning something on social
media.
I assure you.
He doesn't care about any ofthat.
This is what we deal with whenpeople walk in the bay and
they're like, oh, I know I haveto do this.
(22:25):
I know I have to do this.
I saw this release pattern thingI have to do.
I gotta, and I'm like, okay, isit working?
Is it not working?
Like, what, what's the
Rob Failes (22:34):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Eric (22:35):
And so we spend most of our time gently unwinding
people's belief systems thesedays at times, because of all
the things they hear from allthe random people.
And so it, it's a reallyinteresting time, I think in
golf instruction.
That's why we put the show outin a lot of ways.
We always say that.
(22:55):
We're trying to help you wadethrough all that, maybe just
ignore it all
Rob Failes (22:58):
Yes.
Eric (22:59):
but whatever.
It's fine.
And try to hone in on the thingsthat matter.
What are the relevant things toyour game and what aren't?
So let's spitball a couple more,like just off the top of our
head, you, things you don't haveto do to be good at golf.
Ready?
I got one for you.
Rob Failes (23:19):
Yep.
Eric (23:19):
You do not have to get$300 up chart shafts on your irons.
You do not.
I promise you.
I promise you, you don't, you donot to use a line on your ball
to put.
You could, but you don't haveto.
Rob Failes (23:39):
Yep.
Eric (23:40):
you do not have to ignore bad thoughts.
You don't have to ignore badthoughts when you're on the golf
course.
You don't have to think positivethoughts when you're on the golf
course.
Do you
Rob Failes (23:56):
Yep.
Eric (23:57):
I mean, this is
Rob Failes (23:58):
Nope.
Eric (24:00):
if I've had the biggest growth in my, probably last five
years as a person, whatever,golfer, teacher, friend,
husband, parent, it's somethings I've learned from Dr.
Pryor for sure.
um,
Rob Failes (24:17):
Oh my God.
Yeah.
Eric (24:19):
and I think that this notion of, of you're gonna,
you're gonna ignore the thingsthat come into your mind or
you're gonna create these likemagical, positive situations.
It's like, it set me free.
See what I'm saying?
Rob Failes (24:36):
Yes.
Eric (24:36):
it set me free to just be me, right.
And
Rob Failes (24:41):
Yes.
Eric (24:41):
best me in the moment, and then be very.
Accepting of myself in alloutcomes and that I'm good.
You know what I mean?
Like really
Rob Failes (24:50):
Yep.
Eric (24:51):
And and I can be really present in the stuff that I'm
doing and, and that's helped mea ton.
So, out of those things that Ijust named off there, Rob,
anything jump out to you?
Things you don't have to do tobe a good
Rob Failes (25:05):
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, I mean, obviously the, thethink positive thoughts one
would be my number one, right?
Um, again, like it, it just goesback into our propensity to
judge stuff, I think is, is wayoverblown.
I mean, we, we get into judgingeverything like, Hey, this, you
(25:26):
know, that shot was good.
That shot was bad.
This thought was good.
That thought was bad.
This, it, it was great.
It was terrible.
And we just don't have to alwaysjudge everything.
We can just say, Hey, it is whatit is.
And, you know, it's, it's, it'snot that it shouldn't have
happened.
It's not that it should happen,it's just, it, it is what it is.
(25:46):
Let's, let's observe itnonjudgmentally and then stay
present because again, it's,it's, it's always in the past,
right?
Or in, or in the future.
Like whenever we're making thosejudgements, we're always
comparing what I experienced towhat I should have experienced
in quotations, right?
And so by definition, that's offtime.
(26:07):
Like as soon as you start to,to, to go down that rabbit hole,
now you are in a timeframe thatdoesn't exist.
And that is not whereperformance happens.
That's not where happiness is,that's not where thinking
clearly is.
That's not where, uh, reallyanything, any, like you were
talking about, any highperformance, um, state does not
(26:30):
happen in a timeframe thatdoesn't exist.
It happens right here, rightnow.
So, yeah, I mean that's, that'swhat I try to, to get all of,
you know, the people who, whotrust me with some of the mental
stuff, um, that, that I've kindof, you know, delved into.
I stay in my lane as much aspossible and as soon as it
starts to look and feel like.
(26:51):
You know, like quote unquotetherapy.
I stop real quick'cause like,hey, like it's outta my, it's
not my lane.
My, my goal is to, my job is toget you to perform on the golf
course.
And so to perform on the golfcourse, I need you to just
understand a couple thingsabout,, acceptance.
I need you to understand aboutbeing on time and on task and
that's about it, right?
(27:11):
So having low acceptance of yourthoughts is a really big deal.
And I think that's a, that's avery, very important thing to,
to develop over time is anacceptance of anything that
could possibly come through yourhead.
If you do any sort of meditationstuff, you'll learn really
quick.
'cause like your mind isdesigned to tell you a story and
(27:33):
it's not always true.
It's very rarely true, right?
It's, it's your perception ofwhat you're thinking about, you
know, and it's not alwaysactual, right?
So just appreciating that Ithink is a, is a huge deal.
Eric (27:48):
I remember a long time ago there was this like I.
Prodigy young golfer, this isprobably 20 plus years ago, and
I'm pretty sure I remember hisname, but I'm not gonna say it
because I don't want to attachto the wrong person.
But I remember this, thesituation, and I remember seeing
on the golf channel, this sportspsychologist who was working
with this kid, he was a kid, hewas 18 years old, 19 years old,
(28:11):
trying to make a run at the PGAtour.
Really, really talented.
the sports psychologist said,we've been, um, measuring how
many thoughts he has per hour.
And now we're learning toeliminate thinking like we're,
we're trying to limit we havethese
Rob Failes (28:31):
Nice.
Eric (28:32):
for him to turn off
Rob Failes (28:33):
fantastic.
Eric (28:35):
The guy, I mean the guy Implo,
Rob Failes (28:36):
Oh, man.
Eric (28:37):
never made it.
Rob Failes (28:39):
Yeah, it's really, it's really rough.
Eric (28:40):
a young, much younger person back then thinking really
doesn't make any sense to me.
Like I didn't know anything
Rob Failes (28:46):
makes no sense.
Eric (28:47):
I didn't know anything from anything.
But that really made no
Rob Failes (28:50):
Yeah,
Eric (28:50):
to me.
um, I, I don't know.
I don't know why the guy nevermade it.
'cause he didn't, he did notmake it.
but that seemed to be the wrongroute.
So I think that, again, yeah,we're not sports psychologists
by any means.
But you can't create anenvironment and a framework for
your own development or us ascoaches to help people create
(29:11):
their framework for developmentwithout understanding what it
means to have acceptance.
Right.
Because the whole coaching, thewhole coaching framework that
you and I talk about is based onthese principles, right?
Of
Rob Failes (29:24):
Mm-hmm.
Eric (29:25):
able to go, oh yeah, I have a shot dispersion pattern,
right?
Oh yeah.
I'm
Rob Failes (29:29):
Yep.
Eric (29:30):
yeah, yeah.
Like I, I'm a, I'm a husband anda father and I'm not attaching
that to any of this stuff.
There, there's gotta
Rob Failes (29:37):
Yep.
Eric (29:38):
building blocks, that help us develop the whole framework
of performance.
And so we
Rob Failes (29:43):
A hundred percent
Eric (29:44):
speak to them.
In some way, shape, or form toour students because we have
such a belief system in that.
Rob Failes (29:49):
Correct.
Eric (29:50):
and so you, you're gonna have, and I'm gonna have people,
we're gonna hit a, we're gonnahit a shot in a lesson, and
they're gonna go, they're gonnago, oh, that was like, it was
like way left.
I'm like, well,
Rob Failes (30:00):
Mm-hmm.
Eric (30:01):
way left.
It was like 20 feet left fromone 70.
Rob Failes (30:05):
It was actually just inside your dispersion last.
Eric (30:07):
Correct.
And so maybe this is a newstudent.
And then you have to communicateto them dispersion is and why
we're accepting
Rob Failes (30:14):
Yep.
Eric (30:14):
Right.
And so that's just
Rob Failes (30:17):
And.
Eric (30:18):
And so it, it's, it's super interesting to me, this
whole discussion of thoughts andand negativity and all this
stuff.
It's
Rob Failes (30:28):
And if
Eric (30:30):
yeah.
Rob Failes (30:31):
for, for those of you all who, who haven't been,
if this is the first episodethat you're listening to, if, if
you go back and listen to ourepi, our episode with, uh, Dr.
Pryor, Dr.
Raymond Pryor, you'll, you'llget a lot of this.
But when we talk aboutacceptance, it's not about like
resigning yourself to less, it'snot about, you know, just being
complacent.
(30:51):
It's just about observing whatis happening as it actually is.
Not telling yourself a storyabout it.
It's not, it's saying, okay, theball was here, it is now over
there, and you can pretty muchdrop it after that.
Like, if you want to, right?
If you want to, if you wannalearn from it, if you wanna have
a growth mindset about it, youcan say, okay, well what did the
(31:12):
club do to the ball to make itdo that?
You can say, all right, wellball hit the toe face was a
little closed.
Cool.
Let's go find it.
Uh, what you don't have to sayis, that was a bad strike.
That was a bad shot.
That was, I shouldn't do that.
Like, that is all, in myopinion, lower acceptance levels
(31:32):
because you're not viewing thething that's happening as it
actually is.
You're viewing it as you wouldwant it to be.
And that's very, very, verydifferent.
Right?
So, um, high, you know, having ahigh level of acceptance of your
thoughts is the same thing,right?
I cannot have you trying to fixyour thoughts on the golf course
that is multitasking withsomething that is non-relevant.
(31:54):
The ball does not care whatyou're thinking about.
Like, from a, i I shouldbacktrack.
Um, your intention for the shotand what you're trying to do is
relevant, obviously.
And then the ball, you're gonnamove the club based off of that
and the club's gonna move theball.
So that's obviously veryrelevant, but the ball does not
care if you were.
(32:16):
Thinking, oh, this is gonna be agood one.
This is gonna be a bad one.
Right?
This is, um, a hard shot.
This is an easy shot.
Like the ball doesn't care aboutany of that stuff.
Okay.
The only thing the ball caresabout is what the club the club
is telling it.
And by extension, like whatyou're telling the club, not
(32:36):
from a conscious standpoint, butfrom like a feel perception,
kind of a, a predictionstandpoint.
Um, aside from that, I mean, youcan pretty much drop everything
else.
You don't have to, you don'thave to think positively.
You don't have to fix yourthoughts.
You don't have to, um, push outor avoid bad quote unquote bad
ones.
'cause again, we're like, what'sa bad thought?
What's a good thought?
(32:57):
I, I have no idea.
Right?
It's, it just, it's a, it's asubjective judgment, right?
Eric (33:04):
What you do need, need to do is move on.
Play the next shot, uh, and beon time for that one.
played,
Rob Failes (33:12):
Yep.
Eric (33:12):
in a little pro member thing a couple weeks ago with a
great, couple that I teach, andthe guy hit, he played great all
day, pretty much had a littlebit of a stretch, a couple hole
stretch, hit a ball in the wateron the fifth hole and on the
12th hole, he was stillliterally lamenting the shot
and, and so his wife and I weremaking fun of him a little bit.
We were like making, makinglight of it.
Rob Failes (33:34):
Yeah,
Eric (33:34):
goes, he'll be mad about that for weeks.
So I saw him the other day, acouple weeks later and I'm like,
you still still upset about thatball on five?
He's like, oh yeah.
So I said, you know, you'relamenting.
He said, I'm la I'm a lament.
Rob Failes (33:49):
yeah,
Eric (33:50):
But, he was able to rate the ship and sh he shot a, I
think he shot an even par on theback nine, even with lamenting.
Rob Failes (33:55):
yeah.
Eric (33:56):
um, he was able, he was able to rate the ship
Rob Failes (33:58):
There you go.
Eric (34:00):
one
Rob Failes (34:00):
it was relevant, right?
When it was time to play theshot, he was able to to be on
time and on task to that shot,
Eric (34:08):
I
Rob Failes (34:08):
right?
Eric (34:09):
point you, you
Rob Failes (34:09):
that's cool.
Eric (34:10):
just made, the broader point of this episode is define
what's relevant, right?
What is relevant to yourimprovement and hopefully on,
we've made the case for thisalmost what, 50 episodes in,
what are the relevant things foryour improvement
Rob Failes (34:23):
Mm-hmm.
Eric (34:24):
And
Rob Failes (34:25):
Yep.
Eric (34:28):
It's so easy to get caught up in the things that are
irrelevant.
Right?
And we were pointing some of'emout like.
A$300 shaft upcharge, like,yeah, do you need that?
Probably not.
You know, that's irrelevant toyour
Rob Failes (34:39):
Yeah.
Eric (34:40):
Like most of the
Rob Failes (34:41):
Nah.
Eric (34:41):
no matter what they're selling you on there.
Swing positions relevant, notrelevant.
Definitely when you're about tohit the ball, not that relevant.
All these things like in yourpractice, just time, just
energy.
What is the things that reallymatter for you to improve?
And usually it's just one littlething at a time.
Like, let's take this one littleskill development step forward
(35:03):
learn to play a little bitbetter.
Um, so
Rob Failes (35:08):
And can I add a little point to that?
This is gonna be back to theshaft thing.
Um, hunter and I were asking,Paul Wood about shafts and we
asked him like point blank,like, Hey, ping measures more
than just about any other.
I, I, I gotta imagine theyprobably do in like testing,
quote unquote for like more, asmuch as any company out there,
(35:30):
right?
They're always doing theseresearch projects.
They're always like trying tohelp us push forward.
Would you ever design a shaftbecause Ping does have their own
shafts in in-house that theydesign with all the testing that
you've done.
Would you ever, ever, everdesign a stock shaft that does
not perform.
(35:51):
As optimally as you can, andthey said, Nope.
Eric (35:55):
No,
Rob Failes (35:55):
it's like,
Eric (35:55):
not.
Rob Failes (35:56):
why, why on earth?
Everyone's different.
Okay.
I want to want to, like,everyone has different launch
characteristics.
Everyone has plays in differentconditions.
Everyone has different goals,like nuanced things that you
need.
You might be the, the levelthree golfer, right?
Who for your goals and where youwanna get to.
You need a certain type of, youknow, shaft for the shot that
(36:16):
you're trying to hit.
And you know, you've done enoughtesting where this, I really
like this shaft.
And it might be an upchargeshaft, it might be an off the
market shaft.
Great.
But what we're talking about iswhen you talk about big data,
like of all golfers, we'retalking about level one golfers
shooting higher than 88, leveltwo golfers, 88 to 77, 76, and
(36:36):
then level three golfers 76down.
We talk about that big dataaspect of it.
The difference in a stock shaftthat is developed in Ping versus
an aftermarket shaft is gonna belike, you're, you're looking at
like the, the smallest, I mean,it's, it is, it's not relevant.
(36:56):
It doesn't move the needle.
Eric (36:57):
Doesn't move the new, you put your resources into
something else.
Right.
That, that's all I'm saying.
Rob Failes (37:01):
Yeah.
Eric (37:02):
I guarantee you I could fit pretty much any developing
golfer into Ping stock.
Ping stock.
To your point, they're, they'reproducing their own shafts,
right?
They, this is like the othercompanies after HFS too.
But Ping to your point, has thePing Ulta shaft.
They have the, they have the TorChrome and the Tor Black.
(37:24):
They've got these lines ofshafts,
Rob Failes (37:25):
The one you fit me for, it's great shaft.
Eric (37:28):
It's a great shaft.
It's a great shaft.
So what I'm saying is you couldbecome a great golfer with those
shafts too.
Right?
So that's, that's the point.
Rob Failes (37:34):
Yep.
Eric (37:34):
if you're gonna put your resources into something, um,
put it into something else,right?
Don't put it into that because
Rob Failes (37:41):
Yeah,
Eric (37:41):
not gonna matter to you.
Um,
Rob Failes (37:43):
lessons, right?
Eric (37:44):
to
Rob Failes (37:44):
Yeah, yeah.
Eric (37:45):
I'm sorry.
You don't need shaft puringeither.
Rob Failes (37:47):
No, please God.
Don't do that.
Eric (37:50):
so there's all these little, there's all these little
things that I was gonna pointout.
Things you don't need to,there's other things like speed
training.
Rob Failes (37:58):
Keep going.
Let's, yeah,
Eric (37:59):
have to do speed training?
No.
Um, could you hire a personaltrainer or work on your fitness
all day long to get better?
Yeah.
Do you have to?
No.
Most of us.
So, there's all these thingsthat you like, go ahead.
You're cutting.
Rob Failes (38:13):
so,
Eric (38:13):
me
Rob Failes (38:13):
so just to be very sorry.
Okay.
So again, for our lessers whoare, are new to the show, when
Eric's saying speed training,he's really talking about over
speed training, because speed isone of our core essential
skills.
It's the third skill that weneed to train when it comes to
touch and feel.
And you do need to develop acertain level of speed with
driver for the level of golferthat you are, again, like level
(38:36):
two golfers, that's where thisstarts to become really pretty
darn important because we needto get the ball on the green
regulation.
And fortunately, more par foursto get through level two.
Level three.
Again, very important.
So we do need to be pushingspeed, but the way that we do
that does not have to be out ofcontext.
(38:57):
Speed sticks.
Ripping the, the thing as hardas we can in both directions
Eric (39:02):
It
Rob Failes (39:02):
doing all this stuff.
It could be, but you don't haveto do it.
Eric (39:06):
Correct.
So a lot of people could get alot better at golf and never hit
the ball with more swing speed.
I would say a high percentagecould improve without swinging
faster.
So again, what are you putting
Rob Failes (39:18):
Yeah.
Eric (39:18):
energy into?
And I know this because I'm, I'ma limited resource guy with all
the things I do in my life,right?
Mainly starting with time andenergy because I just don't have
that much of it, right?
When you're dividing yourselfout as a golf pro, golf pro
schedule, which is, I work 11and a half hour days, and then
you've got,, four kids at homeand a wife and a small business
(39:39):
that she runs, and then you andI have got the podcast you wanna
talk about time allocation, likeit's gotta be pretty good,
right?
Rob Failes (39:45):
Yeah.
Eric (39:45):
I'm still trying to exercise some as much as, as
much as seems reasonable at thistime of year, playing golf still
as much as reasonable this timeof year.
Being someone that has friendsand goes to church and has other
activity, you've gotta figureall this stuff out, right?
Like you're limited
Rob Failes (40:03):
Yeah.
Eric (40:03):
your time and energy and so.
When you take on any one ofthese quote unquote tips that
you're hearing, you've gotta putit into, you've gotta just put
it into a balance sheet and belike, okay, time, energy, money,
relevancy.
Rob Failes (40:19):
Yes.
Eric (40:20):
out the other
Rob Failes (40:21):
Yes,
Eric (40:21):
That, that's the, that's the point.
And if you wanna
Rob Failes (40:24):
correct.
Eric (40:25):
just go back to our other previous, however many episodes
and listen.
'cause I think that's what wetry to hone in
Rob Failes (40:30):
Just listen to the podcast.
Eric (40:31):
Um, but it was, I didn't even mention some of the
Rob Failes (40:34):
Subscribe.
Eric (40:35):
I hear.
'cause I don't want, peoplethink I'm making fun of'em.
But I hear these things and I'mlike, oh my gosh.
Somebody told me one the otherday, Robbie, about this crazy
swing
Rob Failes (40:43):
Oh boy.
Eric (40:44):
Um, he, he literally hunted me down between lessons.
Big fan of the pod, Lee Mal, Imentioned him by name, big fan
of the pod.
he, he found me in betweenlessons.
He goes, Eric, you've gotta hearthis one.
I said, what's that?
He goes, I saw this swing tipand it said, it said on your
back swing.
(41:05):
You need to pretend you'redumping water out of your left
ear.
Rob Failes (41:09):
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Eric (41:12):
Do we have any idea what that means?
Rob fails.
Rob Failes (41:15):
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Eric (41:17):
I don't know where it came from.
I'm like, what if someonebelieved that was true?
What if someone listened to thatand was like, my gosh,
Rob Failes (41:26):
gosh, dude.
Eric (41:27):
been dumping
Rob Failes (41:27):
Uh,
Eric (41:28):
outta my left
Rob Failes (41:28):
oh,
Eric (41:29):
I gotta get to the range right now.
I am.
I am
Rob Failes (41:33):
a hunter.
Eric (41:33):
to be the king of
Rob Failes (41:36):
and I got on a, on a, on a, on a binge of, uh, of,
you know, pre pretty great onesEarlier.
The other later, uh, last week,we saw one again.
No disrespect, but this one guyhad a, um, he had a tennis ball
wrapped, wrapped around.
He had a, he had a string aroundhis right knee with a tennis
(42:00):
ball hanging from it, and he wasjust standing up, no club, just
like making from set up rightinto his follow through, getting
the tennis ball to like swingaround his left foot.
He was like, alright, you'regonna just sit here, you're
gonna go and you're gonna gethome and you're gonna do this
for 20 minutes and, and that'llfix everything.
Eric (42:20):
You are ready.
You're ready for the tour.
Rob Failes (42:22):
It was just the most ridiculous thing.
Eric (42:24):
ear, can you imagine how good you'd be at golf?
Oh my gosh.
Rob Failes (42:28):
good.
Eric (42:28):
watching the ball, watching the club hit the ball
with your line
Rob Failes (42:32):
Yes.
Eric (42:33):
railroad tracks like these are, it's all coming
Rob Failes (42:35):
Mm-hmm.
Eric (42:35):
The picture is coming together.
So I don't know who, I don'tknow who
Rob Failes (42:40):
Just the, Ima
Eric (42:41):
they,
Rob Failes (42:42):
I, well,
Eric (42:43):
the
Rob Failes (42:43):
I will send this to you.
It's, it's, it's really hard topicture, but it's just like the
most hysterical image of thisguy taking this tennis ball,
hanging from a string from hisright knee and just like
swinging the tennis ball aroundhis left leg, into this ball
through It was like you had, youhad to see it kind of thing.
Eric (43:01):
The more absurd it is, the more likely it is gonna hit the
algorithm and start
Rob Failes (43:06):
Yes.
Like that's what gets views,right?
Eric (43:09):
And so that's why we, sat down and thought, can we have an
impact?
I thought, I thought, um,podcasts was the way to do it
because it's not as
Rob Failes (43:20):
Yeah.
Eric (43:21):
driven.
It's a long form.
And I thought we could say, Hey,let's teach a principal.
Let's talk about it.
Let's have people
Rob Failes (43:29):
Yep.
Eric (43:30):
if you were
Rob Failes (43:30):
A hundred
Eric (43:30):
for a lesson, a lot of times what we do is we just help
people gain understanding, We'renot tying them up.
Rob Failes (43:37):
percent.
Eric (43:37):
One of the other, you do not need to use swing training
aids to play
Rob Failes (43:44):
Mm-hmm.
Eric (43:44):
good
Rob Failes (43:44):
Yeah, you don't have to do it.
Yeah.
Eric (43:46):
have to.
every now and again, there's alittle something that may help a
little bit, I don't know.
But at the end of the day, youdon't need to use swing training
aids either.
And so I have to feel like.
Having taught golf now for along time, decades.
And I think, I kind of feel likefor me, I'm just in this mode
(44:06):
where it feels like people arejust really improving at golf.
And it's fun.
Like, it's just, it's justreally fun.
I don't know what that meansother than I think that the
communication's gotten better.
And my goal, is to help educatepeople when, when it comes to
education, education means todraw out of people, not to put
into people, And I'm alwaystrying to draw out of them their
(44:29):
best abilities to play thisgame.
I think that, I don't know,after 20,000 plus lessons of 20
years of doing this,
Rob Failes (44:37):
Yes.
Eric (44:37):
happening right?
A lot of times.
so.
Can we help people gainunderstanding?
That's all we ever wanted to doin this podcast.
I think it's working.
I mean, we hear that from peopleall around the, all around the
globe, really, who say that youall have really, really helped
us.
So if you got those stories,share'em with us.
We don't really do anything withit.
We just like to hear, we justlike to hear, we love to build
(44:58):
relationships with people.
So anyway, let us know howyou're doing, if you learned
anything, any other, dyingtidbits you wanna share for
people that they just don't haveto do.
You do not have to
Rob Failes (45:09):
Oh man.
All right.
Eric (45:10):
get better at golf,
Rob Failes (45:12):
Let's look back here.
Eric (45:15):
or you're looking at the text thread now.
Rob Failes (45:17):
Yeah.
Eric (45:18):
a lot of'em.
Rob Failes (45:20):
Oh, plumb Bob.
Eric (45:22):
Oh plumb.
Bob,
Rob Failes (45:23):
Don't have to plumb Bob.
Eric (45:24):
you don't have to.
Plumb
Rob Failes (45:25):
I.
Eric (45:25):
I've seen some good punters of plumb.
Bob.
I'm, I will say you do have touse aim point.
You can't put right without me,I'm just telling you.
But that's true.
You, if you're not using it bynow, you're just kidding
Rob Failes (45:37):
Yeah.
I like guess get worse beforeyou get better.
I like that one.
Eric (45:43):
my number one reason for the show and I totally forgot
about it.
You do not have to get worsebefore you get better
Rob Failes (45:48):
No.
Eric (45:49):
And anybody that tells you that is completely lying to you.
I just have to say that I'mgetting fired up now.
It's getting late.
The thunder's world boomingthrough my house, I think that
was actually the thing thatspurred me on to this episode.
Rob Failes (46:03):
Yeah.
Eric (46:03):
that I had heard that multiple times.
Like I know I gotta take acouple steps back before I
improve.
And I'm thinking, why
Rob Failes (46:11):
Yep.
Eric (46:11):
in here and you wanna improve, we're gonna talk about
the thing that takes, takes youto the next step to improve.
It's not about taking threesteps back.
I think that's, that.
I, I will tell you that'sprobably in the
Rob Failes (46:21):
What do you think that is?
Eric (46:23):
Um, why do you think that is?
I think it
Rob Failes (46:26):
Like, what do you think that is?
Eric (46:28):
I think it comes from, 'cause I'm older than you, so
I've been through some more ofthis.
I think it comes back from thegolf guru days where people were
like, oh, you're the, you're theswing teacher.
You're the, and you have thisphilosophy of swing positions,
right?
Rob Failes (46:45):
Mm-hmm.
Eric (46:46):
when you're trying to put everybody into a model like
that, many people get worse.
They never actually get better.
And so then you're, then you'relike.
Rob Failes (46:56):
Yes.
Eric (46:56):
Do you see what I'm saying?
So now you're selling
Rob Failes (46:58):
Yeah.
Yeah,
Eric (46:59):
like, oh, you may get worse because now you're doing,
this is the opposite of how youand I would teach somebody.
You're making
Rob Failes (47:06):
yeah.
Eric (47:06):
thing rather than you helping them
Rob Failes (47:08):
Yeah.
Eric (47:09):
better, if that makes sense.
Rob Failes (47:11):
Yep.
Mm-hmm.
Eric (47:13):
the whole notion that you're gonna get worse before
you get better, just isn't, itisn't true for me.
And I think that some moreegocentric instructors,, I'm not
trying to be critical, but it'sjust true.
they just believe so much inwhat their philosophy or their
model of quote unquote the
Rob Failes (47:33):
Yeah,
Eric (47:35):
that they have to, they have to, they have to say that
because some people are justgonna get worse, and maybe they
do get worse before they getbetter.
Rob Failes (47:43):
So, so I think I can put that into context a little
bit.
So I think in, in the context ofwhat, what you said earlier,
it's like, okay, here's a swingposition because this is the
correct thing to do.
A hundred percent, like most,like a lot of people get worse
and never get better.
(48:04):
There are times where, and wewant to be able to, to separate
when this happens, when, whenchange the swing in order to
bias the skills in a moreadvantageous way.
But the overall dispersion getsbigger because the pattern is
different and you haven't skilltrained enough.
Uh, AKA play golf enough withthat different movement.
(48:27):
So the key there is like whenyou are changing your swing or
when you're doing somethingdifferent swing wise, is it in
order to bias the skills in adesirable way.
So like a good example would belike, Hey, you got X Tour Pro.
He hits it 70, 80 feet high.
Now he's gonna go play in acourse where he needs to be able
to hit it higher and stop theball in some really firm greens.
(48:50):
Like, okay, so we're gonnaimplement some, some ideas to
try to get his peak heighthigher.
Cool.
So you see in training, likewith what you're doing, uh, the
peak height's definitely gettinghigher, especially on the ones
where he is hit in the middle ofthe face.
Problem is, is that because it'sdifferent and he just hasn't
skill trained with it enough?
The overall dispersion of where,in terms of like where it's
(49:13):
hitting on the face or the faceof the path gets a little bit
bigger.
That's where I might say, okay,well because of this, what we're
doing, it's gonna be worth it.
Because you are actually, you'renot necessarily getting worse.
You're, you are getting betterbecause you're accessing a skill
that you, that previously wasn'tas accessible.
You just need to learn how toreduce your dispersion of the
(49:36):
other skills with that samemovement.
Right?
So I think in a lot of timesgolfers will misinterpret that.
They'll, they'll hit a coupleshots that they don't like
because again, that dispersionthat just gets bigger, say, oh,
well this swing is making meworse.
Like, no, like, let's actuallytake a look at the data it's
doing the thing we want it todo.
It's increasing your peak heightor it's getting the ball to
(49:58):
curve.
Uh.
To the right or left a littleless or the ball's going
further.
Right.
But you're just seeing a littledifferent dispersion like,
that's okay.
We're gonna skill train withthis new pattern and we're gonna
get that dispersion a little bittighter.
Two very different things.
In one scenario, it's theinstructor is saying, this is
the correct thing to do.
Here you go.
(50:20):
And another hand, and on anotherend of the spectrum it's
alright, we want the skills tobe biased in a different way.
Let's test some things to seewhat works.
Oh, we see something thatactually works, but your
dispersion a little bit big.
Who cares?
Like we can definitely trainand, and, and get that
dispersion a bit tighter justthrough some skill training.
Eric (50:36):
Right.
And I think that that 30 yearsago didn't exist for the most
part.
Right?
Rob Failes (50:41):
Mm-hmm.
Eric (50:42):
have
Rob Failes (50:42):
Yep.
Eric (50:42):
help with skill trade.
Didn't have the technology fordispersion, So what happened?
People know the names, BobbyClampett, Ian Baker Finch.
There were some guys that wantedto.
Improve and it was just swingchanges, It was just someone's
notion of how they should swingit.
And some these teachers taughtgreat players, and so it did
(51:02):
work at times and it didn't workat times, and to your point, you
gotta gain access to skillthrough a swing change.
Although we don't reallyunderstand skill, we can't
measure skill, we don't know howto train skill.
Back then that much, was reallyhard to do that.
So everything was just about theswing.
Rob Failes (51:17):
Yep.
Eric (51:18):
just the swing.
It's the
Rob Failes (51:19):
Mm-hmm.
Eric (51:19):
It's the swing.
Everything's a swing.
So I hope that we on this showhave giving you that InBetween
swing and shot aren't exactlythe, there's an InBetween called
skill, and those are the thingsthat
Rob Failes (51:31):
Yep.
Eric (51:31):
lost in the equation.
So most of the time when peoplecome to see me for lessons,
there might be some swingtweaking, but a lot of it's
skill development, or we'reworking on things like strategy
or we're working on theirroutines or their processes to
help them play better.
And so they just play better,but the point is, you can
improve at this game prettyquickly most of the time, right?
Rob Failes (51:52):
Mm-hmm.
Eric (51:53):
You, the listener out there can find a good
instructor, can take you throughthat process too.
And if you need to take lessons,you can fly to Charlottesville
on your private plane and go seeRob fails at the Boris Head
resort, Birdwood golf coursehome of UVA.
I think he would love to helpyou out, don't you think Rob
fails?
Just bring your, bring your
Rob Failes (52:11):
I would.
Eric (52:12):
in there, Dr.
Drive your car,
Rob Failes (52:14):
Mm-hmm.
Eric (52:14):
come see him.
Anything you want to add at theend of this episode?
Rob, anything else, any funstories?
Rob Failes (52:20):
was fun, as we said it would be.
Eric (52:22):
It's always fun being with you, my man.
Like we said, when we got on,it's been a
Rob Failes (52:26):
Likewise,
Eric (52:27):
It's been hard to get stuff out.
We've both had a lot
Rob Failes (52:29):
I.
Eric (52:30):
I've had a lot going on with my family, which has caused
me to have a routine that hasbeen un-normal.
And so our time has been veryminimal.
So I apologize to the listener.
I know you've been waiting for anew episode of the Golf
Intervention Podcast and here itis.
And we are glad you that you aretuning in anyway, hope you get
to play some golf this week andplay really well.
(52:51):
Anything else, Rob?
Rob Failes (52:54):
Think we got it.
Eric (52:55):
Alright, until next time, have a great week everybody.
Rob Failes (53:01):
Cheers.
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I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.