December 25, 2024 • 33 mins
Mark Immelman shares stories from his experience as a pro, coach, broadcaster, and podcast host. Mark's unique perspective has shown him the importance of a holistic approach to golf including swing mechanics, golf fitness, and the mental game. More From Mark: Socials: @markimmelman Podcast: "On the Mark" https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/on-the-mark-golf-podcast/id1096925460 Book: "Lessons From The Best" https://www.amazon.com/dp/1956237208/ref=cm_sw_r_as_gl_api_gl_i_VYAJYZTFYR08V34Q8621?linkCode=ml1&tag=tracymartin00-20
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Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to the Golf Fitness Bomb Squad podcast with Chris Finn,
a production of.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
P for S Golf. Welcome to the Golf Fitness Bomb Squad.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
I'm your host, Chris Finn, and I'm excited today and
honor to be joined by another host of an amazing podcast.
If you haven't heard about it, you've probably been living
under a rock.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
On the mark. We have Mark Immlman here with us.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
And for those of you who don't know, he's not
just an amazing podcaster. Obviously, you've probably seen him somewhere broadcasting,
you know, some one of the top the top players
in the world and giving insights into what they're thinking
and how they're doing. But for those of you who
didn't know, he's also one hell of a player. All
American for four years in college, played on the tour.
(00:45):
He's also one of the top ten golf instructors in
the state of Georgia. So if you are anywhere around
the state of Georgia, a good guide to to potentially
reach out to.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
But definitely, you know, one.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
Of the the greats in the game, the most notable
as well as on the you know, the the college
coaching side has been a coach, Coach of the Year twice,
just just all around, very very knowledgeable in the space.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
Mark.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
I am honored to have you on the show, and
thanks for joining me today, Chris.
Speaker 3 (01:12):
It's my thrill. All I could say listening to all
of that is ain't golf grand? I mean, goodness, Grace.
We are in this really cool space that's ever evolving,
and you know, it's thanks to golf that I get
to talk to people like you. So I appreciate you having.
Speaker 1 (01:28):
Me, yeah, for sure, man, And so tell it for
any listeners who maybe don't know how you've gotten to
where you've gotten to. You know, just how did you
get into golf and how did you then go from
being a player to a coach and obviously you know
very well known now in the you know, in the
broadcasting and entertainment space, just because of all the expertise
that you can't like, how did that journey happen?
Speaker 3 (01:50):
Purely accidental and largely serendipitous, I would say growing up
in South Africa, I was just like any young kid
a number of sports. You know, we're very outdoorsy over there,
so I played cricket and tennis in the summer and
I played rugby in the winter, and I've never been
the biggest guy in the world. And so one rugby
(02:11):
match I got badly injured. I got my wrist broken
and I had to be it took a procedure to
get it reset, and so I just remember lying there
on the gurney ready to go into the operating theater,
and my coach came and visited and he said to
my parents and me and my groggy state, I got this.
He was like, look, Mark's too small to play a
(02:34):
rugby We're not going to do this sort of stuff anymore.
And so and look, thankfully I was. I excelled in
other sports too. And then coming back from the injury,
the one Saturday morning after I came out of the
cast and stuff, my buddies were going to the golf course.
I'm not sure why, and so they're like, come join me,
And so I looked at my dad and he said,
(02:57):
bowl means there's an old set of clubs in the garage.
I was left handed, they were right handed. That was
the conundrum, and so I went in the proverbial bug bit,
and so golf sort of stuck. Then I have a
younger brother. You might have heard of him, Trevor, and
and he's nine years my junior. So at that stage
(03:17):
I was about fourteen, so he was five ish. And
my mom quickly figured that this is a great way
for babysitting, especially during the summer.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
Sounds like a brilliant woman that she is.
Speaker 3 (03:29):
So trev would tag along to the golf course with us,
and you know, playing with teenage boys, he got good
very quick, almost like necessity is the mother of invention
kind of thing. Yeah, and just by pure athleticism, I
guess I got good and sort of winning some and
made my in South Africa provincial team and played at
(03:49):
the national championships and stuff, and it just largely progressed
from there and got to college eventually, and then college
went well, and then I turned professional after college after
being the All American winning tournaments and stuff, and I
was I turned prone so quickly. I realized that hold
(04:10):
on a second, if I want to be the best
golfer in the world and that's my goal, I can't
even beat my household consistently. Because my younger brother was
pipping me at the time, and this was this was
an unwelcome yet I'm thankful for it. Dose of realism,
and so I gravitated to coaching and teaching and my
(04:34):
dad told me, you know, looking back that apparently when
I was a kid, I said I wanted to be
a teacher, and so yeah, we are. I get to
teach a game that I love and moved you with.
Then I was teaching full time on the European Tour
and my old college coach called me up and he
select the golf coaching jobs, going we'd love you to interview,
and it was a way for me to and then
(04:55):
fiancee to get to the United States, because it's not
as easy as they make it sound on the news.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
No, no, it's not.
Speaker 3 (05:05):
So I came my interviewed, offered me the job, and
we moved over here to Columbus, Georgia in two thousand
and one, and heck, I'm still here. But it just
the whole thing just morphed into a place where I
did some guests announcing one time over in South Africa,
and someone realized I had a bit of a flare
for it because I bought a different angle. And then
(05:27):
looking back at it now, Chris, you know, I fell
into radio and from radio became PGA Tour alive and
then the folks at CBS heard me there and I'm
with them. But looking back at all those days giving
hundreds of lessons in the Georgia summertime, I realized that
that was kind of my experience where it was my
(05:48):
wilderness time, if you will, and it got me. It
taught me to see the game differently, you know, see
it as an instructor slash coach, but also realized that
when you're communicating with people, it's more than just calling
you know, yeah, balls and strikes kind of thing. And
so it afforded me a different sort of perspective, which
(06:08):
thankfully is the lane I walk in my current broadcast career.
So so that's kind of the short story. You know,
the podcast and all that sort of stuff came as
an offshoot of that, but it's all been very I've
lived a blessed existence. I mean, good golf has afforded
me a lot of stuff. And I get a voice now,
(06:29):
strangely because I'm sort of known, you know, when I
was being as a golf teacher to be the number
one guy. I was good. I taught a number of
really good players, but I was never the magazine cover
a guy you know. Yeah, so now all of a sudden,
now that I have a microphone in front of of
my face, people won my opinion. So it's it's kind
of weird, but it's really how Yeah, it's weird and cool,
(06:52):
and you know, looking back, I wouldn't have it any
other way.
Speaker 1 (06:57):
Yeah, And it's we've had a number of great destructors
on and that is a common theme that that I've
seen and even other coaches in the fitness space or
that is there is a certain definite commonality between In
one of the episodes, we talked about how in the
social media world today, you know, you coach one player
(07:18):
and immediately some guy is the top guy, and then
you look, you know, a year and a half later,
and they don't exist anymore. But the true, the truth coaches,
and is one of the big questions we get from
listeners and people listening right now is how do I
find the right coach? How do I find somebody who
actually knows what the heck they're talking about? And we
get that both in the fitness space as well as
(07:41):
in the instructional space. And one of the things that
we always talk about, you know, you kind of you
talked about the hot summer days of coaching you know,
hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of golfers, probably thousands, and
it's that you can't you can't replace experience.
Speaker 2 (07:56):
You can't speed it up. Right, A lesson in our
life and takes an hour.
Speaker 1 (08:00):
And you got to do over and over and over
and and to your point, I think that's one of
the one of the great things I love about listening
when you're when you're on the radio or TV and
just listen to you commentator at the pod is the
those perspectives and those those clearly come and I think
for those of you listening when you're you're looking at
coaches and when you think about the people you truly
do enjoy talking about the game and analyzing the game.
(08:23):
It's because of those many pounds of sweat, loss in
the sun coaching and learning what actually works for people.
Speaker 3 (08:32):
Well, it's it's interesting you say that and you observe
that because the origin of my podcast, because when the
tour came to me, the PGA torn said to me,
we want you to do the show, and it was
like a magazine recap show. And after a few weeks
of getting zero downloads kind of thing, I was like, man,
this is not my lane. So without their blessing, I
(08:54):
just turned it into golf instruction and I called up
the coaches and players I knew and asked them on
and quickly I realized that everyone's wanting to get better.
And it occurred to me in a moment of clarity
where I was like, you know, I was that kid
growing up in South Africa who didn't have a coach,
didn't have access to the Golf channel, got magazine sporadically,
(09:16):
I read voraciously to learn, but I never had access
to these great coaches, so reading books I could. And
then I was like, but hold on a second, I
have the opportunity with this podcast to introduce people around
the world kids like me couldn't get to coaches, to
bright minds. Then I was like, well cool, and now
(09:39):
I've got giving away for the young aspirin coach. I
think of a young Chris Finn before he became a
behemoth in the fitness industry to shine a bride light
on a bright mind as well. And so it was
almost double timing everything. And the people that were winning
from all of this were the folks that were just
looking for good information and so when you look at
(10:00):
some coaches. I'm happy to say that my show and
yours to a large extent as well, is just bringing
an all encompassing sort of a viewpoint as to golf improvements.
And that's why I featured teachers and players and fitness
experts and psychologists and we've had you know, neurosurgeons on
you before too, because we sitch holistic beings and and
(10:23):
you're right, finding the right coach is difficult, but I
hope that by way of what you and I do
were opening the we opening up the lines of communication
a bit more so folks can get access to people
and realize, like, Okay, who fits the bill when it
comes to me understanding what I'm trying to do.
Speaker 1 (10:41):
And I think one of my favorite parts of my
learning experience coming into the industry was I didn't play
golf until after grad school, picked it up and started
a business, and I quickly realized I wasn't a good employee,
so I had to figure out something.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
So I got the bug a little later in life
than you did.
Speaker 1 (10:59):
But part of starting the business, nobody knew who that
gu I was, and I went around to every single
golf coach at every single golf club in the area,
and I basically said, hey, let me, I'll show you
what I do, you show me what you do. And
by way of that, I probably got, you know, thirty
to forty different lessons from thirty to forty different guys,
And it very quickly to me became like, very clearly
(11:20):
evident not all golf coaches were created equal, because I'm
pretty sure I showed up with the same terrible habits
and swinging to every single lesson and everybody had a
different thing, And it blew my mind. You know, fast
forward now, you know, fifteen years later and talking to
you guys like yourself and just people who are truly
at the top of the instructional side of It's one
(11:43):
of my what I would call soapbox moments is really
getting people to understand, hey, you got to find somebody
who actually knows what they're doing, who's actually put in
the ten thousand hours to understand how to help you
personally and not just teach the same thing to every
single person and hopefully it works for you.
Speaker 3 (11:58):
Yeah, you're preaching there. Know, for a while, maybe when
I was younger and a little more virus I took
I've not took offense, but I was bothered by the
number of folks that would buy Launch monitor just hang
out coaching shingle kind of thing, and a lot of
us are failed players, and you're, okay, well, the next
(12:20):
best thing is to teach, and so you have this
technology at your disposal and you're basically just plugging and playing,
and that to me ruins more golfers than anything else.
You know, I can look at data. I could come
to your office and look at some data and try
and make some educated guests when not educated guests. So
(12:41):
you're right there. There was a proliferation of golf instructors,
and then the advent of social media gave them a
loud voice, right, and you just have to say the
right thing at the right time, and all of a
sudden you're a massive following. And so look, more power
to them, because as long as if a person is
truly trying to help someone there and I am, then
(13:01):
I admire you. But folks have to be very careful
when it comes to information, because like when I write
articles or when I do podcasts or whatever, somewhere in
the back of my mind there's this voice that goes, hey, careful,
first off, don't don't screw up talent, and then be
very careful because my message is only as good it's
what it's understood. And I could be well meaning, but
(13:24):
if it's misunderstood, then I'm really ruining someone and I'm
casting the money I'm bringing them a lot of I'm
ruining the joy of our great game. And so there's
there's a responsibility to be had here that I was
kind of a little upper tea about at one stage,
and I still am to a certain extent. But people searching,
(13:44):
our teachers have to be smart and people teaching the
onus is on us to to to be true to
our craft and to be prepared to say, you know what,
I don't know. If you really don't know, don't guess,
Rather send someone somewhere else. Because they investing their hard
earned dollars in this. They have goals, they have dreams, aspirations,
that sort of stuff, and the coach shouldn't be the
(14:07):
one ruining that thing. He or she shouldn't.
Speaker 1 (14:11):
Yeah, I mean, it's it's one of my favorite parallels
of you know, golf instruction and all fitness or rehab, physicotherapy,
physio whatever is the what you just said. Struck the
number of times I've told somebody, hey, I can give
you the greatest program in the world, but if I
can't figure out how to get.
Speaker 2 (14:29):
You to do it, it's a terrible program.
Speaker 1 (14:33):
Based on data or whatever it could it could look great,
but if if I can't connect with you as a
coach and understand what you actually need and which order
to do it. And I can't tell the number of
people who in the fitness space come in and they say, hey,
I want to get better physically, and you know, you
have to really say, well, how much are you working
out now? And they're like, well, I don't do anything,
and they're like, I want to go seven days a week,
and know, hey, I'm just going to tell you, let's
(14:56):
let's start with fifteen minutes, five days a week, and
let's see if we can win, make some little wins there,
and then we'll talk about snowball and more. Because I
give you seven days a week, you're going to start
missing days, get demotivated you, and then you get into
the whole psychology of coaching. But I think what I'd
love to hear Mark is you know, obviously you've been
around the game in many facets for a long time,
you know, on the physical side, like how have you
(15:18):
seen that evolve in terms of what the great players
or great coaches? Whether I guess two parts, what are
the great players? What did they used to do? Versus
how has that evolved to this day? And then obviously
the great coaches, like how have the great coaches evolved
along with that as there's been more science and research
and kind of evidence that's come out.
Speaker 3 (15:40):
Really good question, you know, I will start with a
hero of mine and fortunately a mentor and Gary player
who was well for his time. You know, when he
is a young man. Mit said to me, he came
over to the States and Gary's a small guy and
he's like, you know, Jack Nicholas and Arnold Palmer were
big and there was strong and they hit the ball far.
(16:01):
And so I realized that I had to get stronger.
And you know, to look at the guy and now
he's what eighty seven, I don't know, he's not his age,
that's for certain, No, not at all. And he said
to me, he goes, you know, it proved me right,
It proved me that eating proved to me that eating right,
you know, working out, being strong, being healthy, just overall
(16:23):
well being has extended my capacity to not just you know,
enjoy a fruitful life, but to be able to play golf.
Still if you watch still the guys, ever, he's ever
green on the golf course. So I would say that,
you know, as you watch the industry now, maybe they're
just catching up with Gary Player because he was like
(16:44):
he was the outlier back then on the tour. Now
Gary Player is the normal on tour at the highest level.
I'm sorry, you cannot compete with the world's best unless
you're strong, healthy, mobile, well you know all the stuff. Well,
I guess you could, but you're not going to be
(17:04):
very consistent, and you're going to be you know, spotting strokes.
To people, and to me as a former instructor to
elite golfers, you're always just trying to find some sort
of an edge or a separator, and if you're not
working out you are giving up strokes. That that's a
negative separator to me. So so in terms of the
(17:25):
development it's wide ranging. Now in terms of the development
of the industry, you could talk to me better than
I could. But just from kind of the layman's viewpoint,
movement has gone more from like just lifting heavy weights
back in the day. Now it's a lot more speed, mobile, dexterity,
(17:48):
all that sort of stuff, dynamic movement kind of deal
And with the advent of what you guys do in
like golf specific for fitness and that sort of thing,
that's it huge growth in the industry as well. And
I would almost say now there's a new frontier that's
beginning to happen that was there also, but not it's
beginning to be respected more where people have realized that, Okay,
(18:11):
yes me, I'm golf guy, and now I get in
shape fantastic, But you know, then I'm an overall being too,
and now the mental emotion and the mental and emotional
aspect of it all that's being dealt with too. So
it's uncanny how this view of the golfer is, this
entire being as opposed to just an individual with a
golf club in his or her hand, has changed and
(18:35):
it's fun to watch. I'll tell you what. I listen.
I'm an avid listener to guys like you because I
just take this going god Lee. You know, if someone
goes for a less comes for a lesson with me,
I might have grand intention, but if they can't do
this to your thing, like they can't do it in
terms of time. If they can't just perform the move
(18:58):
because they're not mobile or flexible enough or strong enough,
then then my words are empty, honestly, and I'm giving
them a challenge they can't pull off. So so I
almost would almost say to any aspirin cofer, it's mandatory
not to say. You get in there and you get
like Victor Holand or someone in the gym, but you
(19:18):
just get moving and you get mobile and that sort
of stuff, and you hook up with someone like you
and you start to identify that area of the game
because it will make golf easier and most importantly, it
will make you more injury averse, like all of us
golf as we are traveling internationally. A bunch that wears
you out, it really takes its toll on the body.
(19:40):
And Gary still flies millions of miles a year. Pops
off an aeroplane looking like it's a sprightly young verrall man.
Speaker 2 (19:49):
It's crazy, like you just woke up ten hours sleeping
in his own bed.
Speaker 3 (19:52):
Yeah, and when he sees me, he's like, Mark, you
grabs me on my side. He goes a little little
flabby there. So it's it's it's never ending. And I
would add I'm a big advocate of it, and I
challenge everyone to start start moving at least.
Speaker 2 (20:09):
Yeah, it's it's funny. I mean I haven't.
Speaker 1 (20:12):
I probably started. I just about fifteen years ago. Is
when I had started kind of. I had my little
shed on a little driving range and I had a
little trifold sign.
Speaker 2 (20:20):
I joke.
Speaker 1 (20:21):
Now you know, I had ninety nine dollars for an
evaluation in three sessions, like it's literally giving it away.
I couldn't get anybody to work with me. And you know,
they'd come up and you know, it's fine, I talk.
I sound like the old guy now talking to my team.
Yeah I am. Yeah, he goes to me and they'll say,
I say, man, it's it's hard to get people to
buy in. I say, man, you have it easy. When
I started, they didn't even know what the heck golf
(20:42):
fitness was. I would they'd be like, what are you doing?
So not only did I have to try to convince
them that you know, hey and show them, hey, your
hip doesn't move or your your shoulders isn't whatever it
may be, but it was also like, hey, they don't
even know what the heck golf fitness is. And I
think what's been cool for me is over the last decade,
I feel like the the amateur population has caught up
and at least is aware of, oh, that is something
(21:04):
that we should do. And I think now, really to me,
the next generation is is to what you're what you
just said is understanding that your golf lesson are going
and working with a pro becomes multitudes more beneficial when
your body can actually do what they're they want you
to do and what they need you to do. And
I think it's just it's been a really cool evolution
(21:24):
for me just from the inside of you know, where
people didn't even know what the heck I was doing,
so it was kind of a twofold convincing them to
let me help them to now that people at least
know what it is and they accept, oh, that's probably
something to do, but you know that there is still
that awareness of I maybe don't know what I should
do or you know, it's been very cool.
Speaker 3 (21:45):
I'm glad you say that because you know I'm older
than you and I have the benefit of hindsights, and
I would call myself. I came from the Sony handicamp
era of golf instructors. No you'd see us coming, we'd
show it with this little bag over our shoulder and
our little Sony handicam and all the golf swing footage
we had assembled was if we're lucky enough to video
(22:07):
Tiger or Ernie or one of these, and then you
just kind of compare people.
Speaker 2 (22:11):
Right.
Speaker 3 (22:12):
And now this has evolved into technology and you could
basically measure almost everything, but everyone back then operated in
silos because information was just so valuable, like I know
a secret kind of thing, and I don't know to
this is my thing. But now the industries are just
(22:32):
the lines are getting blurred, and any golf instructor worth
his or her soul is going to consult with somebody
with you, like you, for an assessment before they go.
Otherwise you're kind of throwing, you know, stuff into the wind,
and then you're making not long ranging change, you know.
And so I'm finding the whole industry is kind of
(22:53):
the lines are getting blurred a little bit more because
you know, you know how the thing is, if all
you have in your tool bell as a hammer, everything
in the world is going.
Speaker 2 (23:02):
To become a nail. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (23:04):
And I find golf instructors still that way, and sadly
I find some fitness people that way too. But when
you start to learn about everything, and that's why I'm
thankful for my podcast. Man, I've heard it all, and
I can't tell you I was a holistic guy starting this.
I've been even more so. I mean, I will say categorically,
(23:24):
and I will sit on a board or a council
or whoever with a number of golf teachers and I'll
say to them, I'm like, changing a dude's golf swing
is the intellectually lazy way of getting him to improve.
There's just more too than that. I'm sorry.
Speaker 2 (23:40):
Yeah, and it's it's just always so interesting to me.
Speaker 1 (23:44):
You're talking about the lines blurring and just in the
I mean, it's funny because you'll see some you know,
I see some people in the fitness world trying to
do it all. Still, you still see people trying to
you know, to your point the handicam Oh, I know
all this stuff, and so I have everything.
Speaker 2 (23:59):
I'm the ones stop shop.
Speaker 1 (24:00):
And I can and people really and you see it
on the you see it on both sides, and you know,
I think the important thing that I always try to
just I think in part on the listeners is like
you need the team. The team is you want somebody
who is the expert in the swing but also understands
enough of the body and the mental. But also you
(24:21):
want the expert in the mental who understands enough. And
that's what I always a preach to our guys that
you know on our team here is look, you need
to understand the golf swing. We did, like we had
an education yesterday for all of our coaches, and we're
looking at a swing of one of a client that
sent it in and his lead elbows like popping out,
like before his club even clears through. Right, I said, look,
(24:43):
you don't need to understand what that technically occurred or
but you need to understand that's not efficient and and
and does it? And and then our job on the
physical side is does he have the lead hip rotation,
the trunk rotation and the lead arm rotation to not
do that? And the answer in this case was yes.
And so then the question is the education for our
(25:03):
guys is well, have you connected with their instructor because
physically there's no reason, you know, when we looked at
his testing. It was Hey, when he started six months ago,
he had to do that because he couldn't move. But
now physically you've fixed his inability to move, so there's
no Now it's just a bad habit, right. And now
at this point, now the instructor can have a hay day.
(25:23):
They can do whatever the heck he wants. You can say, hey,
green light. Physically they're good. And I think that's so
important for people to hear is there's different elements at play,
and you sometimes need a different person. You know, a
really great coaches to me on all sides understand the
elements to identify, Hey, that may be a problem, but
they don't necessarily try to fix everything themselves.
Speaker 3 (25:45):
So true. And I mean people might have thought, if
they were truly listening earlier, that I was crazy when
I said, you have to be kind of brave enough
and certainly have a small enough ego to say I
don't know, yeah, and that that's exactly what you talk
about there. You know one's going to be able to say, well,
this is happening. I think there's more to it than
just the visuals of it. I don't know. So this
(26:06):
is where I seek out a fitness person or I
seek out whoever the case might be, so we can
make sure that there's nothing underlying that's actually causing that.
And I'm not just trying to sort of bend or
break some guy into some position because of that when
you're doing is wrong.
Speaker 2 (26:20):
Yeah, yeah, and we see it.
Speaker 1 (26:22):
Yeah, we see it all the time, whether it's equipment
or we'll see guys where physical metrics, you know, like say, hey,
physically you should be able to swing ten miles an
hour faster, and yeah you can't, Like this is nothing
physical at this point, Like, hey, let's let's get you
with a golf pro or maybe you know you're screwing
up on the golf course, but you're great, a great
range player, or just in a friendly game. Well, let's
(26:44):
talk to who's the mental person that we can connect with.
And I think that's so important for everybody to hear
that when you're looking for really that great coach or
that great team around you, it truly is a team.
Speaker 2 (26:54):
And I love what you said to me.
Speaker 1 (26:56):
Is one of the most powerful and telling signs of
somebody is when they're confident enough to say I don't know,
I know it's not right but I don't know necessarily
the best way to fix it. And that's to me.
I've never said that to a player and had a
negative response. It's always been like, oh, that's awesome, Okay,
well who do we go to, right? And it just
further deep into your relationship with the student at that point.
Speaker 3 (27:18):
Build trust if you can honestly be like I say,
courageous enough to look at someone and say I'm not
sure people trust you more, because look, everyone who goes
for a lesson. I The analogy I would draw would
be like, okay, it's the baseball player on first base.
My definition is successful, but now he wants to get
(27:39):
to second, and he's getting the signal to go and
try and steal second. But there's safety in first and
every person who comes for a lesson, they've gotten to
a certain level and there is an element of risk
involved to go to a lesson. I don't care who
you are, because you're venturing into a somewhat unknown place,
and so you're like, then this is the mental aspect
(28:01):
of it to say, Okay, I'm placing my complete trust
in this person, to say I'm going to leave first
base on my way to something better and I'm not
going to it's there's not too much risk involved. And
and that that's where if you look at a person
you're like, I'm not sure, they'll go like, Okay, yes,
I'm on board with this guy, because because he's not
(28:23):
just saying oh, just go and do it, everything will
be you know, sunshine lollipops at the end of the journey.
Speaker 1 (28:28):
Yeah, And I think, yeah, I think to hear somebody say,
you know what, I'm not sure, but we're going to
find out to get it, We're going to figure out
I know where to look, but you know, And I
think that to me is probably one of the most
reassuring things you can hear from a coach. But but Mark,
I know we have you have a book coming out,
and so I love to hear for you to talk
a little bit, tell us, you know everyone listening and myself, well,
(28:49):
I've heard, I've I've I've read.
Speaker 2 (28:50):
Some of the teasers.
Speaker 1 (28:51):
I've seen little bits of you know, for everyone listening
maybe and has not heard, like what's what's the book
about and what's what people have to look forward to.
Speaker 3 (28:58):
I have just been, like I say, I've lived a
very fortunate life and through the show of mine, and
through my career as an instructor now broadcaster, I get
to talk to super great minds, outstanding minds in the
industry daily. And my book is called Lessons from the Best,
(29:20):
and the byline is holistic tips and Tricks to help
you elevate your game or something to that effect. It's
just a culmination of some of the best stuff I've
heard on the on the Mark podcast. Yeah, and it's
PGA tour players, everyone from Victor Holand to Jordan'speith. It's
some of the great golf instructors like Watch Harmon and
(29:42):
David Ledbetter, and it's there's some fitness folks in there.
You didn't make it, sadly, but in the definitely. And
each chapter is basically a summary, well not a summary,
it's it's drawing nuggets of wisdom from each show. And
all I do is I elaborate in them because, as
you know, with a show like this, time is your enemy.
(30:05):
You can get into something and then you start mining
that and there's just so much that you can be
talked about. So I've just looked at this and I've
taken all these nuggets in each chapter and I just
elaborate on them, because the goal is to help the
golfer from the top of his head to the soles
of his feet and to say, look, we're going to
hit you with some mental stuff, some emotional stuff, some
physical stuff, and you're hearing it from the best with
(30:27):
Mark just kind of coloring between the lines a little bit.
And so that's what it is. So I'm very excited
about it. I'm glad the publisher was and and I've
found it as it's been written. It's almost grown. And
I'm loving the fact that the publisher is almost the
impetus for this, because when you uncover something, it's like
he is reading this like a golf guy goes, yeah,
(30:49):
but what about this? You know, let's talk about this
a little bit. And so it's it's it's nearly there
and and I'm excited about it.
Speaker 2 (30:57):
That's awesome.
Speaker 1 (30:58):
So what we're what's the least date could where could
people kind of get more information or kind of follow
to when they can grab a copy of this.
Speaker 3 (31:05):
Well, folks can get more information just by following me,
I guess on social And the release date is scheduled
for Masters months. I say months because the Masters is
coming up. It's very special to the entire golfing world.
It's super special to me and my family and so
not too kind of like crib on the Master's thing.
(31:28):
But it'll be released shortly thereafter, just while there's still
a celebration of springtime and everything's new and fresh and
we got our first major champion of the year, and
so it'll be towards I shouldn't date this because it's
a podcast, but the end of April twenty twenty four,
that's the day.
Speaker 2 (31:47):
Awesome.
Speaker 1 (31:47):
Well, we'll make sure definitely to have all of the
notes and everything into the show notes for all the
listeners so they can make sure they grab a copy.
And finally, what's the best platform obviously on the Mark
podcast is definitely I must listen on social or where's
the best places you're most active for people?
Speaker 3 (32:04):
For an old guy, I'm kind of everywhere Instagram, Twitter X,
I should say, is at Mark and the Score. Im Molman, Yeah,
I'm tiktoking as well. Just search for Mark Illman there
and I have a YouTube channel that's growing pretty quickly.
You can find the visuals of the podcast there and
some golf tips and stuff. Just search, search and subscribe
to Mark and Moldman. And then I have a website
(32:26):
which is Markimilman dot com, so basically my name wherever
you go and you'll find me.
Speaker 1 (32:31):
So if you can't find him, then you you have
a bigger problem. So he is everywhere. Uh, definitely go,
you know, give him follow, subscribe. Mark is one of
the best in the game and in the industry. Uh,
and I will. I'm definitely going to be first on
that list as close to first as I can from
that bookcase.
Speaker 2 (32:50):
I'm excited to read that.
Speaker 1 (32:51):
So Mark, thank you so much for hanging out with
today on the golf at is bomb squat and uh
and it really I think tons of nuggets here for
for thesteners, and I appreciate you being on.
Speaker 3 (33:02):
If I shouldn't be stilling your closing podcast Thunder right
now as a podcast, but I want to say this, Chris,
it's because of guys like you that my podcast gets
to thrive like it does. And in the acknowledgments, I
recognize all the hundreds of guess we've had that have
been prepared to join and share their time and their
(33:23):
insights and their experiences. You talked about that that sort
of stuff, So thank you for what you do in
the industry, and thank you for making something that I
do a whole lot better to my pleasure.
Speaker 1 (33:35):
So it's been awesome having you on Mark and I
We'll look forward to hopefully having you and I'm sure
sometime again soon.
Speaker 2 (33:39):
Look forward to
Welcome to the Golf Fitness Bomb Squad podcast with Chris Finn,
a production of.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
P for S Golf. Welcome to the Golf Fitness Bomb Squad.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
I'm your host, Chris Finn, and I'm excited today and
honor to be joined by another host of an amazing podcast.
If you haven't heard about it, you've probably been living
under a rock.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
On the mark. We have Mark Immlman here with us.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
And for those of you who don't know, he's not
just an amazing podcaster. Obviously, you've probably seen him somewhere broadcasting,
you know, some one of the top the top players
in the world and giving insights into what they're thinking
and how they're doing. But for those of you who
didn't know, he's also one hell of a player. All
American for four years in college, played on the tour.
(00:45):
He's also one of the top ten golf instructors in
the state of Georgia. So if you are anywhere around
the state of Georgia, a good guide to to potentially
reach out to.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
But definitely, you know, one.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
Of the the greats in the game, the most notable
as well as on the you know, the the college
coaching side has been a coach, Coach of the Year twice,
just just all around, very very knowledgeable in the space.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
Mark.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
I am honored to have you on the show, and
thanks for joining me today, Chris.
Speaker 3 (01:12):
It's my thrill. All I could say listening to all
of that is ain't golf grand? I mean, goodness, Grace.
We are in this really cool space that's ever evolving,
and you know, it's thanks to golf that I get
to talk to people like you. So I appreciate you having.
Speaker 1 (01:28):
Me, yeah, for sure, man, And so tell it for
any listeners who maybe don't know how you've gotten to
where you've gotten to. You know, just how did you
get into golf and how did you then go from
being a player to a coach and obviously you know
very well known now in the you know, in the
broadcasting and entertainment space, just because of all the expertise
that you can't like, how did that journey happen?
Speaker 3 (01:50):
Purely accidental and largely serendipitous, I would say growing up
in South Africa, I was just like any young kid
a number of sports. You know, we're very outdoorsy over there,
so I played cricket and tennis in the summer and
I played rugby in the winter, and I've never been
the biggest guy in the world. And so one rugby
(02:11):
match I got badly injured. I got my wrist broken
and I had to be it took a procedure to
get it reset, and so I just remember lying there
on the gurney ready to go into the operating theater,
and my coach came and visited and he said to
my parents and me and my groggy state, I got this.
He was like, look, Mark's too small to play a
(02:34):
rugby We're not going to do this sort of stuff anymore.
And so and look, thankfully I was. I excelled in
other sports too. And then coming back from the injury,
the one Saturday morning after I came out of the
cast and stuff, my buddies were going to the golf course.
I'm not sure why, and so they're like, come join me,
And so I looked at my dad and he said,
(02:57):
bowl means there's an old set of clubs in the garage.
I was left handed, they were right handed. That was
the conundrum, and so I went in the proverbial bug bit,
and so golf sort of stuck. Then I have a
younger brother. You might have heard of him, Trevor, and
and he's nine years my junior. So at that stage
(03:17):
I was about fourteen, so he was five ish. And
my mom quickly figured that this is a great way
for babysitting, especially during the summer.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
Sounds like a brilliant woman that she is.
Speaker 3 (03:29):
So trev would tag along to the golf course with us,
and you know, playing with teenage boys, he got good
very quick, almost like necessity is the mother of invention
kind of thing. Yeah, and just by pure athleticism, I
guess I got good and sort of winning some and
made my in South Africa provincial team and played at
(03:49):
the national championships and stuff, and it just largely progressed
from there and got to college eventually, and then college
went well, and then I turned professional after college after
being the All American winning tournaments and stuff, and I
was I turned prone so quickly. I realized that hold
(04:10):
on a second, if I want to be the best
golfer in the world and that's my goal, I can't
even beat my household consistently. Because my younger brother was
pipping me at the time, and this was this was
an unwelcome yet I'm thankful for it. Dose of realism,
and so I gravitated to coaching and teaching and my
(04:34):
dad told me, you know, looking back that apparently when
I was a kid, I said I wanted to be
a teacher, and so yeah, we are. I get to
teach a game that I love and moved you with.
Then I was teaching full time on the European Tour
and my old college coach called me up and he
select the golf coaching jobs, going we'd love you to interview,
and it was a way for me to and then
(04:55):
fiancee to get to the United States, because it's not
as easy as they make it sound on the news.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
No, no, it's not.
Speaker 3 (05:05):
So I came my interviewed, offered me the job, and
we moved over here to Columbus, Georgia in two thousand
and one, and heck, I'm still here. But it just
the whole thing just morphed into a place where I
did some guests announcing one time over in South Africa,
and someone realized I had a bit of a flare
for it because I bought a different angle. And then
(05:27):
looking back at it now, Chris, you know, I fell
into radio and from radio became PGA Tour alive and
then the folks at CBS heard me there and I'm
with them. But looking back at all those days giving
hundreds of lessons in the Georgia summertime, I realized that
that was kind of my experience where it was my
(05:48):
wilderness time, if you will, and it got me. It
taught me to see the game differently, you know, see
it as an instructor slash coach, but also realized that
when you're communicating with people, it's more than just calling
you know, yeah, balls and strikes kind of thing. And
so it afforded me a different sort of perspective, which
(06:08):
thankfully is the lane I walk in my current broadcast career.
So so that's kind of the short story. You know,
the podcast and all that sort of stuff came as
an offshoot of that, but it's all been very I've
lived a blessed existence. I mean, good golf has afforded
me a lot of stuff. And I get a voice now,
(06:29):
strangely because I'm sort of known, you know, when I
was being as a golf teacher to be the number
one guy. I was good. I taught a number of
really good players, but I was never the magazine cover
a guy you know. Yeah, so now all of a sudden,
now that I have a microphone in front of of
my face, people won my opinion. So it's it's kind
of weird, but it's really how Yeah, it's weird and cool,
(06:52):
and you know, looking back, I wouldn't have it any
other way.
Speaker 1 (06:57):
Yeah, And it's we've had a number of great destructors
on and that is a common theme that that I've
seen and even other coaches in the fitness space or
that is there is a certain definite commonality between In
one of the episodes, we talked about how in the
social media world today, you know, you coach one player
(07:18):
and immediately some guy is the top guy, and then
you look, you know, a year and a half later,
and they don't exist anymore. But the true, the truth coaches,
and is one of the big questions we get from
listeners and people listening right now is how do I
find the right coach? How do I find somebody who
actually knows what the heck they're talking about? And we
get that both in the fitness space as well as
(07:41):
in the instructional space. And one of the things that
we always talk about, you know, you kind of you
talked about the hot summer days of coaching you know,
hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of golfers, probably thousands, and
it's that you can't you can't replace experience.
Speaker 2 (07:56):
You can't speed it up. Right, A lesson in our
life and takes an hour.
Speaker 1 (08:00):
And you got to do over and over and over
and and to your point, I think that's one of
the one of the great things I love about listening
when you're when you're on the radio or TV and
just listen to you commentator at the pod is the
those perspectives and those those clearly come and I think
for those of you listening when you're you're looking at
coaches and when you think about the people you truly
do enjoy talking about the game and analyzing the game.
(08:23):
It's because of those many pounds of sweat, loss in
the sun coaching and learning what actually works for people.
Speaker 3 (08:32):
Well, it's it's interesting you say that and you observe
that because the origin of my podcast, because when the
tour came to me, the PGA torn said to me,
we want you to do the show, and it was
like a magazine recap show. And after a few weeks
of getting zero downloads kind of thing, I was like, man,
this is not my lane. So without their blessing, I
(08:54):
just turned it into golf instruction and I called up
the coaches and players I knew and asked them on
and quickly I realized that everyone's wanting to get better.
And it occurred to me in a moment of clarity
where I was like, you know, I was that kid
growing up in South Africa who didn't have a coach,
didn't have access to the Golf channel, got magazine sporadically,
(09:16):
I read voraciously to learn, but I never had access
to these great coaches, so reading books I could. And
then I was like, but hold on a second, I
have the opportunity with this podcast to introduce people around
the world kids like me couldn't get to coaches, to
bright minds. Then I was like, well cool, and now
(09:39):
I've got giving away for the young aspirin coach. I
think of a young Chris Finn before he became a
behemoth in the fitness industry to shine a bride light
on a bright mind as well. And so it was
almost double timing everything. And the people that were winning
from all of this were the folks that were just
looking for good information and so when you look at
(10:00):
some coaches. I'm happy to say that my show and
yours to a large extent as well, is just bringing
an all encompassing sort of a viewpoint as to golf improvements.
And that's why I featured teachers and players and fitness
experts and psychologists and we've had you know, neurosurgeons on
you before too, because we sitch holistic beings and and
(10:23):
you're right, finding the right coach is difficult, but I
hope that by way of what you and I do
were opening the we opening up the lines of communication
a bit more so folks can get access to people
and realize, like, Okay, who fits the bill when it
comes to me understanding what I'm trying to do.
Speaker 1 (10:41):
And I think one of my favorite parts of my
learning experience coming into the industry was I didn't play
golf until after grad school, picked it up and started
a business, and I quickly realized I wasn't a good employee,
so I had to figure out something.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
So I got the bug a little later in life
than you did.
Speaker 1 (10:59):
But part of starting the business, nobody knew who that
gu I was, and I went around to every single
golf coach at every single golf club in the area,
and I basically said, hey, let me, I'll show you
what I do, you show me what you do. And
by way of that, I probably got, you know, thirty
to forty different lessons from thirty to forty different guys,
And it very quickly to me became like, very clearly
(11:20):
evident not all golf coaches were created equal, because I'm
pretty sure I showed up with the same terrible habits
and swinging to every single lesson and everybody had a
different thing, And it blew my mind. You know, fast
forward now, you know, fifteen years later and talking to
you guys like yourself and just people who are truly
at the top of the instructional side of It's one
(11:43):
of my what I would call soapbox moments is really
getting people to understand, hey, you got to find somebody
who actually knows what they're doing, who's actually put in
the ten thousand hours to understand how to help you
personally and not just teach the same thing to every
single person and hopefully it works for you.
Speaker 3 (11:58):
Yeah, you're preaching there. Know, for a while, maybe when
I was younger and a little more virus I took
I've not took offense, but I was bothered by the
number of folks that would buy Launch monitor just hang
out coaching shingle kind of thing, and a lot of
us are failed players, and you're, okay, well, the next
(12:20):
best thing is to teach, and so you have this
technology at your disposal and you're basically just plugging and playing,
and that to me ruins more golfers than anything else.
You know, I can look at data. I could come
to your office and look at some data and try
and make some educated guests when not educated guests. So
(12:41):
you're right there. There was a proliferation of golf instructors,
and then the advent of social media gave them a
loud voice, right, and you just have to say the
right thing at the right time, and all of a
sudden you're a massive following. And so look, more power
to them, because as long as if a person is
truly trying to help someone there and I am, then
(13:01):
I admire you. But folks have to be very careful
when it comes to information, because like when I write
articles or when I do podcasts or whatever, somewhere in
the back of my mind there's this voice that goes, hey, careful,
first off, don't don't screw up talent, and then be
very careful because my message is only as good it's
what it's understood. And I could be well meaning, but
(13:24):
if it's misunderstood, then I'm really ruining someone and I'm
casting the money I'm bringing them a lot of I'm
ruining the joy of our great game. And so there's
there's a responsibility to be had here that I was
kind of a little upper tea about at one stage,
and I still am to a certain extent. But people searching,
(13:44):
our teachers have to be smart and people teaching the
onus is on us to to to be true to
our craft and to be prepared to say, you know what,
I don't know. If you really don't know, don't guess,
Rather send someone somewhere else. Because they investing their hard
earned dollars in this. They have goals, they have dreams, aspirations,
that sort of stuff, and the coach shouldn't be the
(14:07):
one ruining that thing. He or she shouldn't.
Speaker 1 (14:11):
Yeah, I mean, it's it's one of my favorite parallels
of you know, golf instruction and all fitness or rehab, physicotherapy,
physio whatever is the what you just said. Struck the
number of times I've told somebody, hey, I can give
you the greatest program in the world, but if I
can't figure out how to get.
Speaker 2 (14:29):
You to do it, it's a terrible program.
Speaker 1 (14:33):
Based on data or whatever it could it could look great,
but if if I can't connect with you as a
coach and understand what you actually need and which order
to do it. And I can't tell the number of
people who in the fitness space come in and they say, hey,
I want to get better physically, and you know, you
have to really say, well, how much are you working
out now? And they're like, well, I don't do anything,
and they're like, I want to go seven days a week,
and know, hey, I'm just going to tell you, let's
(14:56):
let's start with fifteen minutes, five days a week, and
let's see if we can win, make some little wins there,
and then we'll talk about snowball and more. Because I
give you seven days a week, you're going to start
missing days, get demotivated you, and then you get into
the whole psychology of coaching. But I think what I'd
love to hear Mark is you know, obviously you've been
around the game in many facets for a long time,
you know, on the physical side, like how have you
(15:18):
seen that evolve in terms of what the great players
or great coaches? Whether I guess two parts, what are
the great players? What did they used to do? Versus
how has that evolved to this day? And then obviously
the great coaches, like how have the great coaches evolved
along with that as there's been more science and research
and kind of evidence that's come out.
Speaker 3 (15:40):
Really good question, you know, I will start with a
hero of mine and fortunately a mentor and Gary player
who was well for his time. You know, when he
is a young man. Mit said to me, he came
over to the States and Gary's a small guy and
he's like, you know, Jack Nicholas and Arnold Palmer were
big and there was strong and they hit the ball far.
(16:01):
And so I realized that I had to get stronger.
And you know, to look at the guy and now
he's what eighty seven, I don't know, he's not his age,
that's for certain, No, not at all. And he said
to me, he goes, you know, it proved me right,
It proved me that eating proved to me that eating right,
you know, working out, being strong, being healthy, just overall
(16:23):
well being has extended my capacity to not just you know,
enjoy a fruitful life, but to be able to play golf.
Still if you watch still the guys, ever, he's ever
green on the golf course. So I would say that,
you know, as you watch the industry now, maybe they're
just catching up with Gary Player because he was like
(16:44):
he was the outlier back then on the tour. Now
Gary Player is the normal on tour at the highest level.
I'm sorry, you cannot compete with the world's best unless
you're strong, healthy, mobile, well you know all the stuff. Well,
I guess you could, but you're not going to be
(17:04):
very consistent, and you're going to be you know, spotting strokes.
To people, and to me as a former instructor to
elite golfers, you're always just trying to find some sort
of an edge or a separator, and if you're not
working out you are giving up strokes. That that's a
negative separator to me. So so in terms of the
(17:25):
development it's wide ranging. Now in terms of the development
of the industry, you could talk to me better than
I could. But just from kind of the layman's viewpoint,
movement has gone more from like just lifting heavy weights
back in the day. Now it's a lot more speed, mobile, dexterity,
(17:48):
all that sort of stuff, dynamic movement kind of deal
And with the advent of what you guys do in
like golf specific for fitness and that sort of thing,
that's it huge growth in the industry as well. And
I would almost say now there's a new frontier that's
beginning to happen that was there also, but not it's
beginning to be respected more where people have realized that, Okay,
(18:11):
yes me, I'm golf guy, and now I get in
shape fantastic, But you know, then I'm an overall being too,
and now the mental emotion and the mental and emotional
aspect of it all that's being dealt with too. So
it's uncanny how this view of the golfer is, this
entire being as opposed to just an individual with a
golf club in his or her hand, has changed and
(18:35):
it's fun to watch. I'll tell you what. I listen.
I'm an avid listener to guys like you because I
just take this going god Lee. You know, if someone
goes for a less comes for a lesson with me,
I might have grand intention, but if they can't do
this to your thing, like they can't do it in
terms of time. If they can't just perform the move
(18:58):
because they're not mobile or flexible enough or strong enough,
then then my words are empty, honestly, and I'm giving
them a challenge they can't pull off. So so I
almost would almost say to any aspirin cofer, it's mandatory
not to say. You get in there and you get
like Victor Holand or someone in the gym, but you
(19:18):
just get moving and you get mobile and that sort
of stuff, and you hook up with someone like you
and you start to identify that area of the game
because it will make golf easier and most importantly, it
will make you more injury averse, like all of us
golf as we are traveling internationally. A bunch that wears
you out, it really takes its toll on the body.
(19:40):
And Gary still flies millions of miles a year. Pops
off an aeroplane looking like it's a sprightly young verrall man.
Speaker 2 (19:49):
It's crazy, like you just woke up ten hours sleeping
in his own bed.
Speaker 3 (19:52):
Yeah, and when he sees me, he's like, Mark, you
grabs me on my side. He goes a little little
flabby there. So it's it's it's never ending. And I
would add I'm a big advocate of it, and I
challenge everyone to start start moving at least.
Speaker 2 (20:09):
Yeah, it's it's funny. I mean I haven't.
Speaker 1 (20:12):
I probably started. I just about fifteen years ago. Is
when I had started kind of. I had my little
shed on a little driving range and I had a
little trifold sign.
Speaker 2 (20:20):
I joke.
Speaker 1 (20:21):
Now you know, I had ninety nine dollars for an
evaluation in three sessions, like it's literally giving it away.
I couldn't get anybody to work with me. And you know,
they'd come up and you know, it's fine, I talk.
I sound like the old guy now talking to my team.
Yeah I am. Yeah, he goes to me and they'll say,
I say, man, it's it's hard to get people to
buy in. I say, man, you have it easy. When
I started, they didn't even know what the heck golf
(20:42):
fitness was. I would they'd be like, what are you doing?
So not only did I have to try to convince
them that you know, hey and show them, hey, your
hip doesn't move or your your shoulders isn't whatever it
may be, but it was also like, hey, they don't
even know what the heck golf fitness is. And I
think what's been cool for me is over the last decade,
I feel like the the amateur population has caught up
and at least is aware of, oh, that is something
(21:04):
that we should do. And I think now, really to me,
the next generation is is to what you're what you
just said is understanding that your golf lesson are going
and working with a pro becomes multitudes more beneficial when
your body can actually do what they're they want you
to do and what they need you to do. And
I think it's just it's been a really cool evolution
(21:24):
for me just from the inside of you know, where
people didn't even know what the heck I was doing,
so it was kind of a twofold convincing them to
let me help them to now that people at least
know what it is and they accept, oh, that's probably
something to do, but you know that there is still
that awareness of I maybe don't know what I should
do or you know, it's been very cool.
Speaker 3 (21:45):
I'm glad you say that because you know I'm older
than you and I have the benefit of hindsights, and
I would call myself. I came from the Sony handicamp
era of golf instructors. No you'd see us coming, we'd
show it with this little bag over our shoulder and
our little Sony handicam and all the golf swing footage
we had assembled was if we're lucky enough to video
(22:07):
Tiger or Ernie or one of these, and then you
just kind of compare people.
Speaker 2 (22:11):
Right.
Speaker 3 (22:12):
And now this has evolved into technology and you could
basically measure almost everything, but everyone back then operated in
silos because information was just so valuable, like I know
a secret kind of thing, and I don't know to
this is my thing. But now the industries are just
(22:32):
the lines are getting blurred, and any golf instructor worth
his or her soul is going to consult with somebody
with you, like you, for an assessment before they go.
Otherwise you're kind of throwing, you know, stuff into the wind,
and then you're making not long ranging change, you know.
And so I'm finding the whole industry is kind of
(22:53):
the lines are getting blurred a little bit more because
you know, you know how the thing is, if all
you have in your tool bell as a hammer, everything
in the world is going.
Speaker 2 (23:02):
To become a nail. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (23:04):
And I find golf instructors still that way, and sadly
I find some fitness people that way too. But when
you start to learn about everything, and that's why I'm
thankful for my podcast. Man, I've heard it all, and
I can't tell you I was a holistic guy starting this.
I've been even more so. I mean, I will say categorically,
(23:24):
and I will sit on a board or a council
or whoever with a number of golf teachers and I'll
say to them, I'm like, changing a dude's golf swing
is the intellectually lazy way of getting him to improve.
There's just more too than that. I'm sorry.
Speaker 2 (23:40):
Yeah, and it's it's just always so interesting to me.
Speaker 1 (23:44):
You're talking about the lines blurring and just in the
I mean, it's funny because you'll see some you know,
I see some people in the fitness world trying to
do it all. Still, you still see people trying to
you know, to your point the handicam Oh, I know
all this stuff, and so I have everything.
Speaker 2 (23:59):
I'm the ones stop shop.
Speaker 1 (24:00):
And I can and people really and you see it
on the you see it on both sides, and you know,
I think the important thing that I always try to
just I think in part on the listeners is like
you need the team. The team is you want somebody
who is the expert in the swing but also understands
enough of the body and the mental. But also you
(24:21):
want the expert in the mental who understands enough. And
that's what I always a preach to our guys that
you know on our team here is look, you need
to understand the golf swing. We did, like we had
an education yesterday for all of our coaches, and we're
looking at a swing of one of a client that
sent it in and his lead elbows like popping out,
like before his club even clears through. Right, I said, look,
(24:43):
you don't need to understand what that technically occurred or
but you need to understand that's not efficient and and
and does it? And and then our job on the
physical side is does he have the lead hip rotation,
the trunk rotation and the lead arm rotation to not
do that? And the answer in this case was yes.
And so then the question is the education for our
(25:03):
guys is well, have you connected with their instructor because
physically there's no reason, you know, when we looked at
his testing. It was Hey, when he started six months ago,
he had to do that because he couldn't move. But
now physically you've fixed his inability to move, so there's
no Now it's just a bad habit, right. And now
at this point, now the instructor can have a hay day.
(25:23):
They can do whatever the heck he wants. You can say, hey,
green light. Physically they're good. And I think that's so
important for people to hear is there's different elements at play,
and you sometimes need a different person. You know, a
really great coaches to me on all sides understand the
elements to identify, Hey, that may be a problem, but
they don't necessarily try to fix everything themselves.
Speaker 3 (25:45):
So true. And I mean people might have thought, if
they were truly listening earlier, that I was crazy when
I said, you have to be kind of brave enough
and certainly have a small enough ego to say I
don't know, yeah, and that that's exactly what you talk
about there. You know one's going to be able to say, well,
this is happening. I think there's more to it than
just the visuals of it. I don't know. So this
(26:06):
is where I seek out a fitness person or I
seek out whoever the case might be, so we can
make sure that there's nothing underlying that's actually causing that.
And I'm not just trying to sort of bend or
break some guy into some position because of that when
you're doing is wrong.
Speaker 2 (26:20):
Yeah, yeah, and we see it.
Speaker 1 (26:22):
Yeah, we see it all the time, whether it's equipment
or we'll see guys where physical metrics, you know, like say, hey,
physically you should be able to swing ten miles an
hour faster, and yeah you can't, Like this is nothing
physical at this point, Like, hey, let's let's get you
with a golf pro or maybe you know you're screwing
up on the golf course, but you're great, a great
range player, or just in a friendly game. Well, let's
(26:44):
talk to who's the mental person that we can connect with.
And I think that's so important for everybody to hear
that when you're looking for really that great coach or
that great team around you, it truly is a team.
Speaker 2 (26:54):
And I love what you said to me.
Speaker 1 (26:56):
Is one of the most powerful and telling signs of
somebody is when they're confident enough to say I don't know,
I know it's not right but I don't know necessarily
the best way to fix it. And that's to me.
I've never said that to a player and had a
negative response. It's always been like, oh, that's awesome, Okay,
well who do we go to, right? And it just
further deep into your relationship with the student at that point.
Speaker 3 (27:18):
Build trust if you can honestly be like I say,
courageous enough to look at someone and say I'm not
sure people trust you more, because look, everyone who goes
for a lesson. I The analogy I would draw would
be like, okay, it's the baseball player on first base.
My definition is successful, but now he wants to get
(27:39):
to second, and he's getting the signal to go and
try and steal second. But there's safety in first and
every person who comes for a lesson, they've gotten to
a certain level and there is an element of risk
involved to go to a lesson. I don't care who
you are, because you're venturing into a somewhat unknown place,
and so you're like, then this is the mental aspect
(28:01):
of it to say, Okay, I'm placing my complete trust
in this person, to say I'm going to leave first
base on my way to something better and I'm not
going to it's there's not too much risk involved. And
and that that's where if you look at a person
you're like, I'm not sure, they'll go like, Okay, yes,
I'm on board with this guy, because because he's not
(28:23):
just saying oh, just go and do it, everything will
be you know, sunshine lollipops at the end of the journey.
Speaker 1 (28:28):
Yeah, And I think, yeah, I think to hear somebody say,
you know what, I'm not sure, but we're going to
find out to get it, We're going to figure out
I know where to look, but you know, And I
think that to me is probably one of the most
reassuring things you can hear from a coach. But but Mark,
I know we have you have a book coming out,
and so I love to hear for you to talk
a little bit, tell us, you know everyone listening and myself, well,
(28:49):
I've heard, I've I've I've read.
Speaker 2 (28:50):
Some of the teasers.
Speaker 1 (28:51):
I've seen little bits of you know, for everyone listening
maybe and has not heard, like what's what's the book
about and what's what people have to look forward to.
Speaker 3 (28:58):
I have just been, like I say, I've lived a
very fortunate life and through the show of mine, and
through my career as an instructor now broadcaster, I get
to talk to super great minds, outstanding minds in the
industry daily. And my book is called Lessons from the Best,
(29:20):
and the byline is holistic tips and Tricks to help
you elevate your game or something to that effect. It's
just a culmination of some of the best stuff I've
heard on the on the Mark podcast. Yeah, and it's
PGA tour players, everyone from Victor Holand to Jordan'speith. It's
some of the great golf instructors like Watch Harmon and
(29:42):
David Ledbetter, and it's there's some fitness folks in there.
You didn't make it, sadly, but in the definitely. And
each chapter is basically a summary, well not a summary,
it's it's drawing nuggets of wisdom from each show. And
all I do is I elaborate in them because, as
you know, with a show like this, time is your enemy.
(30:05):
You can get into something and then you start mining
that and there's just so much that you can be
talked about. So I've just looked at this and I've
taken all these nuggets in each chapter and I just
elaborate on them, because the goal is to help the
golfer from the top of his head to the soles
of his feet and to say, look, we're going to
hit you with some mental stuff, some emotional stuff, some
physical stuff, and you're hearing it from the best with
(30:27):
Mark just kind of coloring between the lines a little bit.
And so that's what it is. So I'm very excited
about it. I'm glad the publisher was and and I've
found it as it's been written. It's almost grown. And
I'm loving the fact that the publisher is almost the
impetus for this, because when you uncover something, it's like
he is reading this like a golf guy goes, yeah,
(30:49):
but what about this? You know, let's talk about this
a little bit. And so it's it's it's nearly there
and and I'm excited about it.
Speaker 2 (30:57):
That's awesome.
Speaker 1 (30:58):
So what we're what's the least date could where could
people kind of get more information or kind of follow
to when they can grab a copy of this.
Speaker 3 (31:05):
Well, folks can get more information just by following me,
I guess on social And the release date is scheduled
for Masters months. I say months because the Masters is
coming up. It's very special to the entire golfing world.
It's super special to me and my family and so
not too kind of like crib on the Master's thing.
(31:28):
But it'll be released shortly thereafter, just while there's still
a celebration of springtime and everything's new and fresh and
we got our first major champion of the year, and
so it'll be towards I shouldn't date this because it's
a podcast, but the end of April twenty twenty four,
that's the day.
Speaker 2 (31:47):
Awesome.
Speaker 1 (31:47):
Well, we'll make sure definitely to have all of the
notes and everything into the show notes for all the
listeners so they can make sure they grab a copy.
And finally, what's the best platform obviously on the Mark
podcast is definitely I must listen on social or where's
the best places you're most active for people?
Speaker 3 (32:04):
For an old guy, I'm kind of everywhere Instagram, Twitter X,
I should say, is at Mark and the Score. Im Molman, Yeah,
I'm tiktoking as well. Just search for Mark Illman there
and I have a YouTube channel that's growing pretty quickly.
You can find the visuals of the podcast there and
some golf tips and stuff. Just search, search and subscribe
to Mark and Moldman. And then I have a website
(32:26):
which is Markimilman dot com, so basically my name wherever
you go and you'll find me.
Speaker 1 (32:31):
So if you can't find him, then you you have
a bigger problem. So he is everywhere. Uh, definitely go,
you know, give him follow, subscribe. Mark is one of
the best in the game and in the industry. Uh,
and I will. I'm definitely going to be first on
that list as close to first as I can from
that bookcase.
Speaker 2 (32:50):
I'm excited to read that.
Speaker 1 (32:51):
So Mark, thank you so much for hanging out with
today on the golf at is bomb squat and uh
and it really I think tons of nuggets here for
for thesteners, and I appreciate you being on.
Speaker 3 (33:02):
If I shouldn't be stilling your closing podcast Thunder right
now as a podcast, but I want to say this, Chris,
it's because of guys like you that my podcast gets
to thrive like it does. And in the acknowledgments, I
recognize all the hundreds of guess we've had that have
been prepared to join and share their time and their
(33:23):
insights and their experiences. You talked about that that sort
of stuff, So thank you for what you do in
the industry, and thank you for making something that I
do a whole lot better to my pleasure.
Speaker 1 (33:35):
So it's been awesome having you on Mark and I
We'll look forward to hopefully having you and I'm sure
sometime again soon.
Speaker 2 (33:39):
Look forward to
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