Latest / Scene Projects Sports Network / Golf Insights with John Hughes: Coaching, Mental Game, and 1% Improvements

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Golf Insights with John Hughes: Coaching, Mental Game, and 1% Improvements · Scene Projects Sports Network

• 0:32
  Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Scratch Project presented by our friends at Skunk Golf
• 0:39
  Company.
• 0:40
  Look good even if your game stinks.
• 0:43
  Shout out to them for allowing me to have a very, very interesting opportunity, an awesome
• 0:51
  opportunity.
• 0:53
  If you are watching the recording, which should be up hopefully here in the next hour or two
• 1:00
  after we're done.
• 1:02
  Please welcome John Hughes.
• 1:09
  We've got a master PGA instructor, a in state coach of the year, an instructor in the state
• 1:20
  of Florida.
• 1:21
  Like, please welcome mister John Hughes.
• 1:28
  And, sir, how are you?
• 1:31
  Good, sir.
• 1:32
  How about yourself?
• 1:34
  A little giddy.
• 1:35
  Not gonna lie.
• 1:37
  I put my pants on just like you.
• 1:39
  Yeah.
• 1:40
  Let's let's just have some fun.
• 1:42
  That's what we're gonna do.
• 1:43
  So, my interview style, we talked about it briefly.
• 1:48
  I just wanna have a conversation with you and, you know, kinda just see how this all came
• 1:54
  about.
• 1:55
  Because I was reading your book, and we talked briefly on the phone before one of my
• 2:00
  tournaments.
• 2:01
  And you actually started at, college and semiprofessional, or was it completely
• 2:07
  professional soccer?
• 2:09
  It was, semi professional collegiate and professional soccer till I was about 20.
• 2:15
  Tore up the knee.
• 2:16
  The league I was in disbanded.
• 2:18
  I was still in school, and somebody was roaming down the the hallway in the dorm one day,
• 2:26
  clanking their golf clubs, woke me up really, really early after a late night out and gave
• 2:32
  him a piece of my mind.
• 2:33
  And at the end of giving a piece of my mind, I'm I'm like, why in the world are you playing
• 2:38
  golf at 06:00 in the morning?
• 2:40
  And there was another buddy there.
• 2:42
  He sort of leans over.
• 2:43
  He says, because you can drink beer at 06:00 in the morning at the golf course.
• 2:47
  I'm like, time out.
• 2:48
  Give me ten minutes.
• 2:49
  I'll shower.
• 2:50
  I'll be right there with you.
• 2:52
  And it's led to not just a lifestyle, but a very adventurous and very enjoyable career.
• 3:01
  I would say so.
• 3:03
  I mean, you go from having in from one person to another who's had a knee injury.
• 3:10
  I was a wrestler in high school my freshman and sophomore year.
• 3:17
  My freshman year, I blew out my entire knee, and I had to have arthroscopic surgery.
• 3:25
  The it was bad.
• 3:26
  It was, like, a year and a half recovery for me completely.
• 3:32
  So I couldn't imagine be playing at the level that you were playing at and then suffering a
• 3:38
  knee injury and then having the league disband.
• 3:42
  But, out of curiosity, what college were you at at the time?
• 3:47
  I'm a very proud mountaineer of Appalachian State University in Boone, North Carolina.
• 3:54
  At the time, I was there.
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  It was a really small school.
• 3:57
  It's now 20,000 plus students, really growing like a weed.
• 4:03
  We're known for our upset over Michigan years ago and some
• 4:08
  other football seven, baby.
• 4:11
  But it it's it's a fantastic place, especially during the summer, to just sit back, enjoy
• 4:19
  life, enjoy nature.
• 4:21
  There's a lot of things to do there.
• 4:24
  And and one of the how would I put it?
• 4:28
  One of the best kept secrets as far as vacations go for single people, families,
• 4:35
  retired.
• 4:36
  It's a wonderful so wonderful area of the country.
• 4:42
  I'm a have to put that down for when I'm traveling because I like, I one of my favorite
• 4:49
  spots you know, I've got a bucket list of places I wanna go.
• 4:52
  Right?
• 4:53
  We all do.
• 4:53
  Montana, Appalachia, Colorado.
• 4:59
  Like because, a, there's are just beautiful places, in my opinion, that I've only seen
• 5:06
  through the screen.
• 5:08
  But, b, it's like, those have gotta have some just picturesque golf courses and, you know,
• 5:13
  like, trails to go hiking with the wife and stuff like that.
• 5:18
  So
• 5:20
  Absolutely.
• 5:21
  There there's thousands of places like that in The US that somebody can go visit, depending
• 5:28
  upon your budget and really enjoy yourself and and enjoy the vistas that the golf courses
• 5:36
  provide, enjoy the the other amenities that the location provides.
• 5:43
  My wife travels with me some when I'm out coaching, and she's always finding these little
• 5:48
  hidden gems of places that she sequesters herself off to during the day as I'm working
• 5:54
  with clients, and I hear about it later that night, and my credit card sees it a month
• 5:58
  later.
• 6:01
  Yeah.
• 6:03
  Yeah.
• 6:07
  My wife I we've oh, you know, outside of me, I've traveled the most out of the two of us.
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  She's been up here in our hometown of Apple Valley, Victorville.
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  So so, like, depending on what side of the street you're on in certain parts, you could be
• 6:23
  in Apple Valley or Victorville.
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  So she's really never left this part.
• 6:29
  I think she said one time she went to Louisiana for something.
• 6:35
  I think she I I I think they were visiting a relative or something.
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  And she's like, I could never deal with the heat in Louisiana and the humidity.
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  And I'm just like, I dealt with that for years, and you have as well.
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  You live in Orlando.
• 6:51
  I live in the Orlando area, but with the retort to that is, hey.
• 6:55
  That's why it's called a vacation.
• 6:57
  Exactly.
• 6:58
  Exactly.
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  I actually graduated in Florida a little less I mean, it's a pretty big school now, in terms of
• 7:08
  students, but back then, it was still a little medium sized Harmony High School.
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  I don't know if you've ever
• 7:16
  heard about the Longhorns.
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  Exactly where it is.
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  There's a golf course right across the street, right across the highway.
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  Yeah.
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  Go Longhorns.
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  And and and just kinda piggyback and trace back to one of your earlier things that you said
• 7:33
  about Appalachia.
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  Thank you very much for beating Michigan all those years and making it the standard because
• 7:41
  I'm a Spartan fan.
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  I don't get a whole lot of joy as a Michigan State fan.
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  So getting to go back when I'm feeling a little down and go watch that 2007 upset gives me the
• 7:54
  warm and fuzzies inside.
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  So thank you for that.
• 7:57
  You're welcome.
• 7:58
  That's arguably the beginning of the NIL era.
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  It it it sort of showed that there was a little bit of parity, and we're all as Appalachian
• 8:07
  State alum waiting on our checks for that to happen.
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  So if you happen to know somebody writing a check from your local university, let us know.
• 8:16
  Oh, we will.
• 8:18
  Alright.
• 8:20
  Let's get into the book a little bit.
• 8:22
  Sure.
• 8:24
  So for those of you, just tuning in and don't know, instant golf improvement, the six pillars
• 8:35
  to golf success by yours truly.
• 8:40
  You can get it on Amazon for I think right now, it's $20.
• 8:45
  That's all it is.
• 8:47
  $20 on Amazon.
• 8:48
  You can also get it at instantgolfimprovement.com for $20 when you get
• 8:53
  it there.
• 8:53
  I actually hand sign the the the the book for you.
• 8:59
  Yeah.
• 9:00
  Just so people know, you ain't kidding.
• 9:05
  You got me a hand signed one, and let me tell you, that was probably the coolest thing I've
• 9:15
  had happen to me is this is the first time I'm having someone I know you say you put your
• 9:20
  pants on in the morning just like we all do, but to have a hand signed copy, personal
• 9:26
  message, and just, you know, like it it's one of those things where it's like, this I'm glad
• 9:35
  I do what I do because I get opportunities to interview people like you, and it's incredible.
• 9:42
  So with that being said, though, pillar number one, target and acquisition.
• 9:49
  What would you say, sir, the most important pillar is?
• 9:53
  Because I in my opinion, I feel like that's the most important one, and it's the first one.
• 9:58
  Oh, let me let me go backwards just a half step and give the genesis to the book.
• 10:03
  Having coached as long as I have, there's there's always pain points for my clients.
• 10:09
  But what we hide is really good golf coaches or just coaches in general is our pain points, our
• 10:17
  frustrations, and these these are I would call them random notes years ago about what my
• 10:24
  frustrations were.
• 10:25
  But at the same time, the constant and as as culture and and our society grows, this need
• 10:34
  for instant gratification just gets more and more intense.
• 10:39
  And people were asking me, well, I wanna get this done yesterday, not tomorrow.
• 10:44
  I only have it so much practice time.
• 10:46
  Or even better yet, they'd come for a lesson and not wanna practice at all.
• 10:51
  But then the second lesson in the series, it's like, why are we doing the same thing over?
• 10:56
  So that's the genesis of the book.
• 10:59
  What what if you took six things and totally change your attitude about these six things
• 11:05
  only with zero practice and found a process for all six that you could implement on the golf
• 11:14
  course?
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  Would that improve your scores?
• 11:17
  It may or may not.
• 11:19
  But at the end of the day, what it will improve is your enjoyment of the game because you're
• 11:24
  gonna start realizing, hey.
• 11:25
  I am capable of playing better.
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  I am capable of making better decisions.
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  And without a doubt, the reason why pillar number one is aim is it's a target game.
• 11:38
  And most people just fail to realize what's the difference between shooting a gun and hitting a
• 11:44
  golf ball.
• 11:44
  It's still point a to point b.
• 11:47
  The difference is the gun's inanimate.
• 11:49
  You it's waiting for you to aim it.
• 11:52
  Whereas you're trying to aim a golf club, a particular part of the golf club, but most
• 11:58
  people aim themselves thinking that, hey.
• 12:00
  It's me.
• 12:00
  I gotta aim.
• 12:02
  90% of the reason why the ball flies in the direction it does is the face of the golf club.
• 12:07
  So that's really the important part.
• 12:10
  And I'd speak very little of alignment because people get those two things confused.
• 12:15
  Yeah.
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  That is the number one pillar for a reason.
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  And I've got years of videotape where all I've done is send somebody home aiming differently
• 12:26
  and committed to it.
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  And they come back and their posture changes, their grip's metamorphosized, their balance is
• 12:33
  better, ball position tweaks.
• 12:36
  There's a lot of things that happen because of what the supercomputer's gotta do with the
• 12:41
  algorithm called our golf swing.
• 12:43
  And when he can start with a consistent way of aiming, it makes the algorithm simpler and the
• 12:50
  game a little bit simpler.
• 12:54
  Right.
• 12:54
  Because I think in there, you you put in it's like, it's easier for your like, with the, with
• 13:01
  the darts drill with your least dominant hand.
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  If you're sitting there looking at the dart in your hand and trying to figure out how to grab
• 13:10
  it and adjust it, you're doing all this mental stuff and messing yourself up mechanically.
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  Whereas if you just center your mind on that bullseye and you just throw, you're more likely
• 13:22
  to hit the board more times than not because you're not worried about the mechanics.
• 13:27
  You're just worried about the target.
• 13:30
  And that's that story that you pulled out of the book is an actual real story, and it was
• 13:36
  sort of one of those moments for me.
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  This is about twenty five, twenty six years ago.
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  I've got people in a golf school.
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  I've got a room a little bit bigger in my office here at home and a dartboard in the back
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  because I was still trying to throw darts semi competitively with some buddies at the local
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  bars.
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  And some one of the clients during a rain delay picked up the darts, started throwing, and it
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  it dawned on me.
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  This person's always thinking about how to hold it, looking at it.
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  So I made him do it left handed, and that's exactly the epiphany that person had.
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  So and that's where every story in the book is a true story in one of those moments.
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  For me, one of those random thoughts that collectively, as a book, as a system per se,
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  not a methodology, a system of rethinking how to play golf.
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  It it works simply because you take your mind off of the minutiae and keep your mind on what
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  the real mission is.
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  And in this case, can you get the ball from point a to point b?
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  It doesn't matter how it gets there.
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  You just gotta get it there.
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  And when you're doing simpler things with a simpler process and not worried about how
• 14:53
  you're holding something and you just take dead aim and and hit it, chances are that mistake
• 15:01
  you think you've made is better than the mistake you're gonna make by over manipulating
• 15:06
  things.
• 15:07
  Right.
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  And just another thing too, like, this is a basic lesson that I've learned in golf or not
• 15:15
  lesson, but just, you know, information.
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  Once you start getting in your head about the swing and you're standing over the ball and
• 15:25
  you're thinking about your swing, you've already lost that stroke.
• 15:29
  You know?
• 15:30
  Like, you've already lost.
• 15:32
  If you like, you put it perfectly is your decision making is backstage while you're doing
• 15:40
  your practice swings and stuff like that.
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  Because if you come on to the stage on the main stage and you're having backstage thoughts,
• 15:49
  that that stroke, that golf, you know, that golf swing in your mind, that's in your mind,
• 15:56
  not your target.
• 15:59
  100% agree.
• 16:00
  That's not my idea.
• 16:02
  That's the a lot of different golf coaches, a lot of different coaches, and a lot of sports
• 16:08
  have talked about that when it comes to acting and reacting.
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  Golf's an action sport, meaning you're starting from scratch.
• 16:16
  Everything else you play or have been involved with, including wrestling, you're reacting to
• 16:22
  something.
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  So when there's reaction time, it's so small.
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  Point seven five seconds is typical human reaction time.
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  There's no time to think.
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  You just react.
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  So there's, what, four, five minutes in between each shot that you execute on the golf course.
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  How how long do you have that club in your hand?
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  You're forcing the action.
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  So the concept of backstage and and the forward stage is more once you walk across that curtain
• 16:51
  line, you're trying to be more reactive.
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  And most amateur golfers can't do that because they're so fixated on how to fix their swing
• 17:01
  versus just go play golf.
• 17:05
  Absolutely.
• 17:06
  I know man.
• 17:08
  I've got this kid that, he plays for Granite High School out here.
• 17:12
  He's their number two player on varsity.
• 17:15
  And I'm friends with him, and I'm also friends with the number one on the golf course.
• 17:21
  You know?
• 17:22
  And these kids are set I think I think he's 16 and the number one seventeen.
• 17:30
  And number one and number two play basically an identical game, but number one tinkers a lot
• 17:38
  less than number two.
• 17:40
  And his results are more consistent, and, like, mentally, he tinkers a lot less too.
• 17:48
  He's like, okay.
• 17:48
  This is what I've got.
• 17:50
  This is what I brought to the, you know, to the dance floor, and this is what I'm gonna go
• 17:56
  with.
• 17:56
  Whereas on the course, the number two player, he's always trying to adjust things on the fly,
• 18:03
  and I'm like, you can't do that.
• 18:05
  I told him I told him, just as a regular person and as a athlete in, high school and stuff, I
• 18:14
  was like, the only thing that you can do that you need to worry about is what you have that
• 18:19
  day.
• 18:20
  Do you have that shot in your bag?
• 18:23
  Do you have that recovery shot?
• 18:26
  Do you have that mentality that day?
• 18:28
  Because if you don't, you can't be using things you don't have or things you think you're gonna
• 18:33
  have or had in the past.
• 18:35
  You show up to play golf that day and your golf game is what it is that day.
• 18:42
  So you gotta work with what you got and the tools that are currently in your bag, not what
• 18:46
  you think you have or what you had.
• 18:49
  The the other thing to add on to that, and you you you've got a great thought and and trying
• 18:55
  to get the direction of these young people in that direction is is positive.
• 19:00
  It's should be that way.
• 19:02
  But one of the things I I would have asked the second person, the number two person is what
• 19:08
  are your standards that you're tinkering off of?
• 19:12
  When you start tinkering, it's it's like a recipe that you're gonna go make bread, and you
• 19:19
  you're just sort of winging it off the top of your head with no measuring cups, no measuring
• 19:24
  spoons, no thermometer for the water temperature kinda thing.
• 19:28
  You're just going, well, let's try this and let's try this and let's try this.
• 19:32
  Where this book, one of the underlying themes is what are your standards?
• 19:37
  What what are the things that you standardly do that now you can tweak off of even at at a high
• 19:43
  handicap level?
• 19:45
  And from a skill standpoint of view, it's six pillars, six skills.
• 19:50
  Can you aim?
• 19:51
  Do you know your distances?
• 19:53
  Those are standards.
• 19:54
  Those aren't gonna change that much on the golf course.
• 19:57
  Can you hit a chip shot?
• 19:59
  And and how well can you hit this chip shot, not just around the green, but around the golf
• 20:04
  course?
• 20:04
  Can you putt?
• 20:05
  And can you have a standard way of understanding how to distance control your
• 20:09
  putting?
• 20:10
  The other standard is why why are you playing stupid golf?
• 20:15
  When my son was about two or three, I had to sort of set some standards in for him because I
• 20:22
  was a part time dad.
• 20:23
  I lived 300 miles away from him.
• 20:25
  So I would always look at him and say, there's a difference between dumb and stupid.
• 20:30
  Stupid knows better.
• 20:32
  And to this day, he lives by that, and he's a great young man because of it twenty one years
• 20:37
  later.
• 20:38
  But that's where golfers, they've lived through the situation, yet they'll try it again.
• 20:45
  That's Freud's definition of insanity.
• 20:48
  Right.
• 20:48
  You just created a standard by living through it once, and that standard is, hey.
• 20:53
  To your point, do you have that shot?
• 20:55
  Do you have the skills and ability?
• 20:57
  Have you practiced that shot?
• 20:58
  Is it an eighty to ninety percent success rate of that shot?
• 21:02
  If all those answers are no, why are you even doing That that's stupid as far as I'm
• 21:09
  concerned.
• 21:10
  Right.
• 21:10
  But, again, it's a standard.
• 21:13
  It's a standard way of creating a process, a decision making methodology that allows you to
• 21:20
  navigate the golf course in fewer strokes.
• 21:24
  Absolutely.
• 21:26
  And to your point, the the number two, we'll just call them magic from here.
• 21:33
  The number two magic.
• 21:35
  Right?
• 21:37
  I think the reason, you know, you say and when you have a lack of data and something you
• 21:43
  haven't done before, that can be considered a dumb shot because it's just something you
• 21:47
  haven't done.
• 21:50
  So it's not that you're making a stupid shot.
• 21:53
  It's it's a dumb shot because, well, you've never done it before.
• 21:56
  You don't have the data for it.
• 21:58
  They're forgivable.
• 21:58
  Know whether you can do it or not.
• 22:02
  With him, he's got a lot of shots in his bag, way more shots than I have, and he's still
• 22:08
  tinkering.
• 22:10
  And I tell him, I'm like, just because you're changing something about your grip or you're
• 22:16
  changing something about your weight shift or anything like that doesn't mean that all of a
• 22:22
  sudden you're gonna be able to hit that shot just because you're changing something.
• 22:27
  You're like, well, maybe if I change this, then I can hook it around that tree.
• 22:32
  Like, why even why even attempt it?
• 22:35
  Why not just go with what you know you can do?
• 22:38
  Take the shot out.
• 22:39
  It's a it's gonna be, like, 40 yards out from the green, and then ship on.
• 22:44
  Why even try to put yourself in the bunker again or in the tree line?
• 22:47
  Like, it's unnecessary.
• 22:51
  So to to your point, when it comes to a more elite player, the the more elite player has
• 22:57
  some standards, and and I wouldn't discourage this young man so much as reword it.
• 23:03
  If you're gonna tinker, what are you tinkering off of?
• 23:07
  What what is your standard shot here, and what is one, maybe two adjustments to how you set up
• 23:15
  that could pull the shot off without you having to tinker your swing.
• 23:20
  Most people don't realize they have a very repeatable swing.
• 23:24
  At any skill level, at any handicap level, it repeats more often than you realize.
• 23:30
  So is why standards are really key.
• 23:33
  Look at any industry.
• 23:35
  Look at any sport.
• 23:36
  There's always standards.
• 23:37
  With golf, you can tinker nine to 10 different things in your setup and get a different result
• 23:43
  from a ball from a in your ball flight.
• 23:47
  Right.
• 23:47
  But what do you know to tinker?
• 23:49
  Which which thing should you tinker?
• 23:52
  If this young man's doing it with a tournament round that counts, then that could be in the
• 23:58
  stupid column.
• 23:59
  But if he's doing it out, playing, experimenting, that's not necessarily even in
• 24:04
  the dumb category unless he doesn't have the standards.
• 24:08
  And, again, the the book is written more about the higher handicapper, the one who doesn't
• 24:14
  wanna practice, but you can take some of the learning lessons from the book to this young
• 24:19
  man and go, okay.
• 24:20
  Do you know your carry outages?
• 24:22
  Do you know where you aim and how you're aiming it?
• 24:25
  And are you what kind of shot are you trying to hit here?
• 24:28
  And what are the one, maybe two things you can change to actually pull this off?
• 24:34
  Tour players, that's why they become tour players.
• 24:37
  They do that experimentation, but they always find early in the experimentation without a
• 24:43
  standard to tweak off of.
• 24:46
  The results are scattered.
• 24:47
  Once they can tweak off a standard, then they see a lot more you'll use the term consistency.
• 24:54
  I'm gonna use the term they see a more repeated result.
• 25:00
  Right.
• 25:01
  I think dispersion's probably a good thing on that too because it's like when they're
• 25:07
  experimenting with something, that dispersion's probably gonna look like a buckshot where the
• 25:11
  ball is gonna end up in a bunch of different places.
• 25:13
  And that's idea is to get it down to a slug where it's a more concentrated area.
• 25:19
  Absolutely.
• 25:21
  Now with this young man, Magic, the only thing I tell him to do, you know, like, as advice is
• 25:28
  you and you you just said it.
• 25:30
  Most people have a very repeatable swing.
• 25:32
  They don't even realize it.
• 25:35
  He has a beautiful swing.
• 25:37
  Just gorgeous swing.
• 25:40
  And I'm like, I I tell them all the time.
• 25:44
  I'm like, Magic, you don't need to adjust and 10 tinker with your swing.
• 25:48
  You like you said, there's other things you can tinker with, like ball position.
• 25:53
  You know?
• 25:54
  Like, there's variables you can do.
• 25:57
  You don't need to you know, essentially, you don't need to change what brought you to the
• 26:01
  dance and got you to number two at Granite.
• 26:04
  And you asked what he tinkers off of.
• 26:07
  Right?
• 26:08
  And this is where me because I I help as a volunteer with the kids on the golf team during
• 26:15
  the season.
• 26:17
  He tinkers off a YouTube video, so I'm like, don't do that.
• 26:20
  That's a bad rabbit hole to fall down because everybody's gonna say they have the the cure
• 26:26
  all for what you may have experienced during that round.
• 26:30
  And then you're gonna get off a base, you know, when you could have actually been starting to
• 26:34
  find something because you think, oh, this instant or quick fix is gonna fix me when you
• 26:41
  may not have even needed fixing at all.
• 26:43
  You know?
• 26:45
  You're hitting on the probably the Ross nerve of all amateur golfers that they believe I'm
• 26:53
  dating myself, and you may or may not remember these two, Cheech and Chong.
• 26:58
  Cheech and Chong's famous Christmas skit where Santa has magic dust that he gives the
• 27:03
  reindeer.
• 27:04
  It's on broadcast radio every Christmas.
• 27:08
  And I tell my people, if I had Cheech and Sean's magic dust that made Santa's reindeer
• 27:12
  fly, do you really think I'd be giving it to you?
• 27:15
  You you have to reach into your own pocket and find it.
• 27:19
  That experimentation's fine to go find it.
• 27:22
  But if you're trying to pull it out in the heat of the battle, good luck.
• 27:27
  It it's it may or may not show up.
• 27:30
  The odds are so against it that you you deserve the score you got from that.
• 27:38
  And that's the other sort of life lesson that the book there's an underpinning theme to it is
• 27:45
  you get into it.
• 27:46
  You get out of it what you put into it.
• 27:48
  And if you wanna put in the minimal, here is the minimal that you'll get, and you should be
• 27:53
  happy with that.
• 27:54
  You should be happy that you're hitting better missed shots.
• 27:58
  You should be happy that you're incrementally lowering your score.
• 28:03
  You should be happy that you're learning a skill, not trying to relearn something that
• 28:09
  might or might not be broken.
• 28:12
  You should be happy with, wow.
• 28:15
  I'm I've actually seen my potential.
• 28:17
  I've seen what I'm capable of doing.
• 28:20
  That shot that brings everybody back, that's that could be the definition of potential.
• 28:27
  But at some point and this is where a couple more books down the road off of this initial
• 28:35
  one will help people out is where do you go from there?
• 28:40
  Once you can establish these standards and and get to the point where you know what?
• 28:45
  I'm ready to commit a little bit more to my game.
• 28:47
  I'm ready to do a little bit more.
• 28:49
  Most people go to YouTube.
• 28:51
  They they read magazines.
• 28:54
  They they do a lot.
• 28:55
  I'm guilty of contributing that some of that content.
• 29:00
  What people don't realize, I use the word standards.
• 29:04
  What are your priorities as you watch those YouTube videos?
• 29:08
  Do those videos actually hit what you and your coach are working on or what the buzzword, the
• 29:14
  buzz phrase right now is what's your root cause?
• 29:17
  Right.
• 29:18
  If you're watching videos that have nothing to do with your priorities, go have fun
• 29:24
  experiment.
• 29:25
  Keep it in the back of the filing cabinet here, but be be very cautious is the term I'll use.
• 29:35
  Conservative aggression is something that's outlined, in pillar number six as far as going
• 29:41
  out and playing.
• 29:42
  Can you be conservative as you take in this content, understand how it applies to your
• 29:48
  priorities, and not necessarily play fearlessly, but play with some parameters that
• 29:54
  allow you to play aggressively with the tools that you have.
• 30:00
  I'm just expanding on the simplicity of how you've been telling this young man, but it's
• 30:06
  good for the audience to know that that the roots run a little bit deeper here than what
• 30:12
  most coaches will tell will say and what really good coaches trying to get you to do is pull
• 30:19
  this out from your minutiae so you can get to the bottom of things.
• 30:23
  So one of the ultimates is golf is a hard game.
• 30:28
  You don't make it easy.
• 30:29
  You make it simpler.
• 30:32
  And that's what the book tries to do for you, and that's what a great golf coach is trying to
• 30:37
  do for you.
• 30:39
  Right.
• 30:40
  And I think that's touches a lot of things with him.
• 30:45
  And I have been very I wouldn't say gentle with him, but I would say I've been very optimistic
• 30:52
  with him because he gets so down on himself after a bad shot, and I'm like, hey.
• 30:56
  One shot.
• 30:58
  You don't need to change everything about the shot you just had.
• 31:01
  You just gotta go and approach the next shot with the full confidence that you're gonna make
• 31:05
  that shot.
• 31:07
  That's, you know, that's a hard thing too, especially with younger athletes is they hold
• 31:11
  themselves, and a lot of golfers do too because let's be real.
• 31:15
  We we love this game so much.
• 31:18
  We're we're all a little cuckoo with what this game does to us sometimes because we keep going
• 31:24
  back for more punishment.
• 31:27
  It's it's one of those it's one of those things you can do recreationally where you can beat
• 31:34
  yourself up, but learn a little something along the way.
• 31:38
  Right.
• 31:40
  And I think one of the things, the last thing really when I think of the pillars and just
• 31:45
  your book in general, but your book is as much as, like, it's helping a high handicapper like
• 31:51
  me who's trying to get lower.
• 31:53
  Like, my goal for this summer, is by October to get down to at least 16 to 15 handicap from 21
• 32:01
  right now.
• 32:03
  I don't think that's a crazy goal.
• 32:05
  I think that's achievable.
• 32:08
  There's a plan that can be put in place to get there.
• 32:12
  Now with him, though, the one skill that I have that he still struggles with and I told him
• 32:22
  this before I got your book, which is crazy because I didn't know I was a person who used
• 32:28
  this instead.
• 32:29
  Because I don't believe in course management.
• 32:31
  The course doesn't change.
• 32:32
  The pin locations change unless they're making an older course longer.
• 32:37
  But, like, the course doesn't change all that much.
• 32:40
  The course has no emotions.
• 32:42
  It just has variables, but you have emotions.
• 32:48
  You can only control how you react to every shot and every situation.
• 32:53
  You gotta have self management, not course management.
• 32:58
  Yeah.
• 32:58
  That that's a term that was oh, this is easily twenty some odd years ago.
• 33:05
  I was at the Golf Academy of Hilton Head at Sea Pines, and my mentor there, Skip Malik, who I
• 33:13
  still keep in touch with, he sorta hinted that during a discussion with a couple of other
• 33:19
  coaches.
• 33:20
  We all sort of agreed that it it's a misnomer.
• 33:24
  There's two things that manage a course, the superintendent or whatever higher being you
• 33:29
  might believe in.
• 33:31
  The rest of it's managing yourself and understanding those variables as as you said,
• 33:36
  and I'm glad you got that out of that chapter.
• 33:40
  Most people don't get that, but they also don't get the concept of do you have a pre shot
• 33:47
  routine that has you aimed consistently?
• 33:52
  That is something you do have control over.
• 33:55
  And when you're worried about where pins are yet, you don't have the capability of hitting
• 34:00
  the pin and you decide, let's hit the middle of the green, and you do it, and you do it
• 34:05
  successfully, and you do it successfully more than once, you start building trust.
• 34:12
  And trust begets the confidence that everybody's looking for.
• 34:16
  The the commonality that I see in the higher handicap is they don't trust what they're
• 34:21
  doing.
• 34:22
  And what this book tries to pull out is, hey.
• 34:26
  Follow these steps.
• 34:28
  Start trusting yourself with these steps.
• 34:32
  Yeah.
• 34:32
  Stay the course, pun intended.
• 34:36
  And then maybe somewhere down the road, not a long road.
• 34:41
  Quite honestly, not a not a long road.
• 34:43
  I've had some readers of this book try this out in one round, see some positive results.
• 34:48
  It's a matter of staying the course after.
• 34:52
  Absolutely.
• 34:53
  And I'm gonna go to pillar number two.
• 34:58
  I wanna get that stat.
• 35:01
  Yes.
• 35:02
  Here it is.
• 35:04
  So one thing as a high handicapper and I'm trying to get better, and I'm gonna get there.
• 35:09
  I got that belief.
• 35:10
  But one thing I always see too, especially, like, when I go to play with my brother, is
• 35:17
  when you're trying to hit an approach shot and you're looking in your bag, you're like,
• 35:21
  alright.
• 35:22
  What do I need to get there?
• 35:24
  And you put it in such, like, perfect wording for me because it's like, well, what what is in
• 35:33
  your bag that you can hit and you'll know you can hit the green versus, well, let me get a
• 35:39
  club that I can get it right next to the hole, but I'm gonna have to make a harder swing or
• 35:44
  some kind like, as soon as you start making that thought process, 83% of the time, you land
• 35:51
  short.
• 35:52
  You land short.
• 35:54
  All the statistical platforms show that.
• 35:57
  I'm a user of Arcos.
• 35:59
  I encourage all my clients to use it.
• 36:01
  I'm able to go on to the coaching dashboard, and I I see that number time after time after
• 36:08
  time at the beginning of our coaching relationship.
• 36:11
  And as I convince them, let's let's take the club that goes the average carry distance.
• 36:18
  That number starts shrinking.
• 36:21
  A really acceptable number for a higher handicap is, hey.
• 36:25
  If I'm only hitting three or four greens in regulation, which is really good for someone
• 36:29
  shooting in the high nineties, but only 30 to 35% of the time I'm landing short, that's
• 36:37
  that's a huge win, because now at least you're taking clubs that you have a chance to get hold
• 36:44
  high or pin high as some people call it or pass.
• 36:47
  The other thing for most people to realize is 95% of all danger lies in front of the green.
• 36:55
  So why are you taking a club that keeps that in play?
• 36:59
  This particular story is a true story, but it happens almost on a regular basis.
• 37:05
  I had a I had a client years ago.
• 37:09
  I've got FlightScope out to evaluate them him as he starts his golf school, and I asked him
• 37:16
  to pull out his one fifty club, and he hits nine iron 10 times, and his average carry was
• 37:21
  one twenty eight.
• 37:23
  And as we sit down and go over the evaluation over I I show them that.
• 37:27
  Hey.
• 37:27
  And he's like, well, it was a bad day or it's this.
• 37:30
  I'm nervous.
• 37:31
  He had a lot of excuses for it.
• 37:34
  Third hole of that golf course, par three, one fifty, water down the right side, a big bunker
• 37:43
  down the right side, and the pin's tucked right.
• 37:46
  And he hits a fade, and he pulls out nine iron.
• 37:49
  And I reminded him, hey.
• 37:51
  Is it nine iron?
• 37:52
  Can I ask you when was the last time you hit nine iron one fifty?
• 37:56
  And this was his exact reply.
• 37:58
  I'll paraphrase it.
• 37:59
  He says, well, it was about five years ago.
• 38:01
  I was hitting a a par three down a hill with a 10 mile an hour, 15 mile an hour wind behind
• 38:07
  me, and I flushed it.
• 38:10
  And I'm like, okay.
• 38:11
  Where are we now?
• 38:12
  Is are all these circumstances the same now?
• 38:16
  And he he's like, well, I still say this is my one fifty club.
• 38:20
  Where did the ball end up?
• 38:22
  In the pond.
• 38:24
  And it wasn't even remotely close, was it?
• 38:27
  Nowhere close.
• 38:28
  So I end up giving him not a eight iron, not a seven iron.
• 38:31
  I give him a six iron.
• 38:34
  And I'm like, make the same swing, but I want you to aim towards the left side of the green.
• 38:40
  Let aim at the left edge of the green.
• 38:42
  Let your ball come back.
• 38:44
  He was pin high middle of the green.
• 38:47
  He looks at me and says, well, that's a fluke.
• 38:50
  Do it again.
• 38:51
  Well, we did.
• 38:52
  I forced him the rest of the nine holes of encore's coaching that day, and it it took him
• 38:59
  overnight to come back and go that and aim just startled me.
• 39:05
  I'm like, that that's the beginning.
• 39:08
  Here's the beginning of your journey.
• 39:11
  Let's take real numbers, not fantasy numbers when it comes to your carry distances.
• 39:17
  Let's not take total distances either.
• 39:20
  What's the carry distance?
• 39:22
  It's okay to be behind greens.
• 39:24
  95% of the time, it's okay to be behind the green.
• 39:29
  You you gotta look at the whole depiction and make sure that's not one of the 5%, but 95% of
• 39:35
  the time, let it go back behind you.
• 39:37
  But pick the club that carries that, not totals it, and make a normal swing.
• 39:43
  And and when you do that, chances are I'm not gonna say your scores are gonna come down, but
• 39:49
  you're gonna have more opportunities for that score to come down.
• 39:53
  Right.
• 39:55
  I think a perfect example of that, actually, my my wife, when we were gonna go when we were
• 40:02
  practicing for the tournament the day before, we went.
• 40:06
  And I have this golf journal that I picked up, so it's like, can log my practice and stuff.
• 40:14
  But one of the things that she actually did, which is nuts, because I wanna show it off a
• 40:22
  little bit.
• 40:23
  You know?
• 40:25
  Oh, there goes her alarm.
• 40:27
  Hold on.
• 40:32
  She was asking me she's like, well, I'm taking notes of all these greens.
• 40:37
  Right?
• 40:38
  Because we're looking at the locations of the greens and the pen locations.
• 40:43
  And here, I wanna show you this.
• 40:47
  So this is some of the shapes that she drew of the greens and where the pins were.
• 40:52
  Pretty good.
• 40:53
  Yeah.
• 40:54
  And one of the things she goes is she goes, why is there always two to three bunkers just in
• 41:00
  front of the green?
• 41:01
  Why is there, you know, water left side front of the green?
• 41:05
  Why I'm like, because that's the most enticing spot that people wanna get it is right at that
• 41:11
  pin, right at that front of the green.
• 41:13
  They wanna roll on and go to the hole when they're far away, and it tricks them into
• 41:18
  making bad shots because they're like, oh, I can totally get it there.
• 41:22
  When you really can't, You know, you when you're sitting there like, I have this thought
• 41:27
  process now.
• 41:29
  If I look at a shot, right, and I go, like, perfect example, par three, second hole at my
• 41:37
  home course.
• 41:38
  It's an elevated par three a little bit, and it's a 145 yards, but it can die sometimes
• 41:45
  depending on the wind.
• 41:47
  So, like, a 145 yards for me is my eight iron to seven iron depending on my shoulder and how
• 41:54
  it feels that day.
• 41:56
  So if I'm in between clubs, sometimes I'll look at that and I'll go, well, I'm feeling seven
• 42:02
  iron, so I should probably hit a six iron.
• 42:06
  Good decision.
• 42:07
  And that's kinda how I've been approaching golf now for the last couple of weeks, is I'm trying
• 42:14
  to approach it with, okay.
• 42:18
  What I feel has no bearing on my game.
• 42:21
  It's what I should do.
• 42:22
  So if I'm feeling this way, ego wise, then I should club up one.
• 42:28
  You just said the operative three letter word ego, and ego is not gender centric.
• 42:37
  Check the ego at the door.
• 42:40
  Understand the data that you can produce.
• 42:43
  Start writing it down as your wife has.
• 42:47
  Journaling is a great way of remembering things on the golf course.
• 42:51
  And that book, by the way, by USGA rules, perfectly legal for her to have in the bag and
• 42:58
  pulling out at any time just because it's her words, it's her writing, it's her references.
• 43:03
  It's not asking for information from anybody.
• 43:07
  Totally legal.
• 43:08
  And when when a golfer starts doing that, I know they're making a better commitment to not
• 43:14
  just the game, but to themselves.
• 43:18
  As most golfers know, golf's a microcosm of life.
• 43:21
  And and when you're taking the notes of the decisions or the discoveries that you're making
• 43:28
  on the course, using them for later.
• 43:31
  When I patted my head in the filing cabinet, she's making the filing cabinet right there.
• 43:36
  You'd be very surprised years from now what comes out of that filing cabinet that says,
• 43:44
  Let's let's do this instead.
• 43:47
  Right.
• 43:48
  Another thing, though, too, and I I have to ask this because I should've asked you this in the
• 43:55
  beginning, but we were getting into it so good.
• 43:58
  I didn't do it.
• 43:59
  You did do it.
• 44:00
  You did.
• 44:01
  You did do this.
• 44:03
  What was that shot that you had that, like, okay.
• 44:09
  This is what I wanna do.
• 44:11
  I wanna golf.
• 44:15
  You're talking about career wise?
• 44:17
  No.
• 44:17
  Just like what got you into the game where you're just like you know, you had that you
• 44:22
  went with your buddies early in the morning.
• 44:24
  Got it.
• 44:24
  But, like, what shot was it?
• 44:27
  So we had an off camera discussion about how I got into golfing, and I'm a former collegiate
• 44:35
  professional soccer player who had to retire at the tender age of 20 while I was still in
• 44:41
  school, and some buddies were walking through the hallway of the dormitory, woke me up one
• 44:46
  morning after a late night out and woke me up.
• 44:49
  And what convinced me to go play was me asking them why they're going to play at 06:00 in the
• 44:56
  morning, and one of them said, well, you can drink beer on the golf course at six.
• 45:00
  So I'm like, count me in.
• 45:02
  I've only been sleeping couple hours.
• 45:04
  Why not?
• 45:05
  And I don't think it was any particular shot at that given moment so much as it was a release
• 45:13
  of competitive frustration, number one.
• 45:16
  Number two, right away, I could see with my athleticism that this was a great escape back
• 45:26
  into potentially being competitive at what level at that point.
• 45:30
  I had no clue.
• 45:32
  But I think the shots that brought me back each and every time, some of them were misses, but
• 45:40
  they were unintended misses that actually did something I wasn't counting on in a positive
• 45:45
  way.
• 45:48
  I'll give you an example.
• 45:49
  Trying to pull a two iron out because I'm watching on TV that they can hit at two forty.
• 45:54
  I'm trying to get it to go a 190 maybe, and it goes two thirty five by sheer accident.
• 46:01
  And I can't find the ball where I think it is.
• 46:04
  It's 40 yards past.
• 46:06
  Everybody has a couple of shots like that, and that is what brings you back are those shots.
• 46:12
  What brings you back is, can I repeat it?
• 46:15
  Can it happen again?
• 46:17
  Am I capable of am am I capable of doing it?
• 46:21
  And that's when you tend to forget how it happened.
• 46:25
  And and a lot of times, that miraculous shot happens.
• 46:29
  I'll use this term very loosely because you're not caring.
• 46:33
  You're not caring about an outcome, and and all you're just trying to do is make your best
• 46:38
  effort forward.
• 46:40
  The that is what brings most people back to this game or for any game that matter.
• 46:47
  Yeah.
• 46:47
  The real key, though, with golf is the it's it's not a journey for perfection.
• 46:55
  And that's where a lot of high handicappers jump off the diving board and never return back
• 47:01
  to golf because they're seeking this perfect shot that happens once every 930 times
• 47:08
  according to ChatGPT.
• 47:10
  The the numbers from some of the technology partners I have is 1,200,000,000 shots it takes
• 47:17
  to hit a hit a perfect one.
• 47:20
  I think when you get caught up in perfection, you get caught up in the moment of this has to
• 47:25
  be absolutely precise or else, I think you lose perspective of the game.
• 47:31
  You lose perspective of what it is you're trying to accomplish in in ultimate marathon,
• 47:39
  not just a sprint.
• 47:40
  And if you're looking for just that one shot, go to Topgolf and find it.
• 47:45
  Go go to these other places and find it.
• 47:47
  That's where you will find it, and that's where you're gonna get the most enjoyment out of it.
• 47:51
  Can you string 80 of that shot into three or four shots on the golf course?
• 47:59
  That's how you start the marathon.
• 48:00
  That's how you end it.
• 48:03
  Yeah.
• 48:03
  I going back to Magic, actually, I told him one time when we were playing, I'm like, you had a
• 48:12
  good miss.
• 48:13
  You had a great miss.
• 48:15
  Don't be upset that it wasn't the perfect shot right where you wanted it to go.
• 48:19
  You still put yourself somewhere where you can have success.
• 48:22
  Correct.
• 48:23
  And I told him, I'm like, golf's not a game of perfect.
• 48:25
  Golf is a game of how good did you miss?
• 48:30
  Like, it's dispersion.
• 48:31
  It's not always gonna go point a to point b.
• 48:35
  Sometimes it might go from point a to point c, but c can still help you.
• 48:42
  A b plus or minus 5% is fantastic.
• 48:46
  B plus or minus 10% is even better.
• 48:50
  Well, not better than minus five plus or minus five, but that's how I talk.
• 48:56
  I I talk about point c as somewhere where they're aiming incorrectly because we want that
• 49:02
  dispersion to be a plus or minus off of what that target slash label b is.
• 49:09
  With my elite players, we're always talking about yards or feet plus or minus based on the
• 49:15
  shot, the quality of the shot, the ease of the shot, the the club they have in their hand.
• 49:21
  I think if people start looking at it is right now on plus or minus 50 to be.
• 49:27
  All you're trying to do by tomorrow, it can you make it plus or minus 49%?
• 49:33
  Can you make it plus or minus 48 the next day?
• 49:37
  I'm constantly talking about what can you do 1% better, and that's really the genesis of the
• 49:45
  book.
• 49:46
  You want instant?
• 49:47
  Well, instant is get it 1% better today.
• 49:51
  Right.
• 49:54
  One thing that really stuck with me because I am now getting to that point, where I'm
• 49:59
  practicing more and more.
• 50:01
  And even though I'm still a high handicapper, I'm just trying to trust the process.
• 50:06
  Like, the more I put into this, the more I'm gonna get out of it.
• 50:10
  I may not see it right now, but I'm gonna see it eventually.
• 50:14
  And it's baby stuff.
• 50:15
  Like, right now, I'm learning how to, to chip better from green side, and I'm working on
• 50:22
  that.
• 50:22
  And I'm also learning to go and putt.
• 50:26
  Like, I now when I'm done with my round of golf, I I play for, like, an hour at the end on
• 50:32
  just the putting green or the eighteenth or ninth green just chipping and putting.
• 50:36
  Like, I play a I play a game called up and down where I chip onto the green, and then wherever
• 50:43
  that ball lands up, I try to two putt it or one putt it depending.
• 50:48
  Great.
• 50:49
  That's a great practice, and it's very purposeful versus just banging balls from a
• 50:55
  learning new movement and trying to ingrain this neuropathically.
• 51:01
  Whenever you're putting some circumstance, whenever you're using some simulated types of
• 51:06
  practice like that, your brain's gonna recall it much easier when the chips are down in a in
• 51:12
  a pressurized moment.
• 51:14
  Right.
• 51:17
  And then one other thing I like to do as far as drills go, my friend just showed me this, and
• 51:22
  it was actually I think you have a variation of it in the book with the three feet drill
• 51:29
  Mhmm.
• 51:29
  And the long distance with the three feet drill.
• 51:32
  We put we actually and I have these still because I accidentally did not return them to
• 51:38
  him because, oops, they were in my pocket.
• 51:42
  We had four tees that we put around the cup or around an area, and that was considered three
• 51:50
  feet.
• 51:51
  So if you got it within that, that was, alright, one point.
• 51:55
  Because three feet's supposed to be what you refer to in the book as your short comfort
• 52:00
  zone.
• 52:01
  Correct.
• 52:01
  Where you should start is your short comfort zone should start at about three feet.
• 52:05
  Gotta build the trust from there.
• 52:07
  If you don't have the trust from within three feet, how are you gonna put a 30 footer within
• 52:11
  three feet?
• 52:14
  Guilty as charged.
• 52:17
  What's funny is that my wife, she always tells me she's like, you are way better at your long
• 52:22
  putts than you are your short putts.
• 52:25
  And she asked me.
• 52:26
  She's like, why is that?
• 52:27
  And I'm like, well, to be honest and now that I've read your book, it kinda confirms it.
• 52:33
  I put way too much pressure on my short putts than I do my long putts.
• 52:37
  My long putts, I'm like, let me just try to lag it close.
• 52:40
  And then I'm sitting over my short putt like, oh, I gotta make this.
• 52:42
  I gotta make this.
• 52:44
  You know?
• 52:45
  The closer you get to the hole, the more the anxiety temperature gauge goes up.
• 52:51
  And when somebody gives you a three foot putt, do you not feel like cinder blocks have been
• 52:56
  lifted from your shoulders?
• 52:59
  That's probably because you've never practiced three foot putts.
• 53:02
  What was funny when I was a assistant professional at two or three different private
• 53:07
  facilities years ago, there everybody for the club championship, the member guest, the the
• 53:15
  average scores went up easily four to five strokes simply because they had to play it down
• 53:20
  and putt it out, and nobody's ever putting it out.
• 53:24
  And and they complain, why you change rules?
• 53:26
  Wait a minute.
• 53:27
  That's always been the rules.
• 53:28
  Why have you been giving yourself
• 53:30
  Gimmies are not part of professional or tournament stuff.
• 53:34
  Part of the rules.
• 53:35
  It's just that's that's not part of the rules.
• 53:37
  Because if there was gimmies correct me if I'm wrong.
• 53:42
  Tiger Woods, Scottie Scheffler, Roy McIlroy, and the likes would be shooting minus 21 in a
• 53:47
  round easily.
• 53:49
  Yeah.
• 53:50
  Absolutely.
• 53:52
  The other misconception you see this amongst people my age or older is, hey.
• 53:58
  It's in the leather.
• 53:58
  It's good.
• 54:00
  In the leather, the the real definition of that was back when clubs were made out of hickory
• 54:06
  shafts.
• 54:07
  They were wrapped with leather grips, and that leather grip could be as long as 20 inches
• 54:12
  long.
• 54:13
  So when you were given a putt within the leather, they'd literally lay the butt end of
• 54:18
  the golf club down, the putter down in the hole.
• 54:21
  And if the ball was within the leather grip you got, it's okay.
• 54:25
  No problem.
• 54:26
  20 inches, you can have it.
• 54:27
  Nowadays, I see these people take forty, fifty inch putters, put the head of the club in the
• 54:32
  cup, and go, okay.
• 54:33
  It's with it's within the length of the putter.
• 54:37
  No.
• 54:37
  It's not.
• 54:38
  It's, like, almost five feet.
• 54:39
  You're fooling yourself.
• 54:41
  Yeah.
• 54:42
  Like, let's to put this into perspective for, everybody else, 20 inches is a foot and a half
• 54:52
  getting some change.
• 54:54
  Right.
• 54:55
  That's a gimme.
• 54:55
  Okay.
• 54:56
  That's a tap in.
• 54:58
  50 inches is four feet two inches.
• 55:03
  That's not a gimme.
• 55:04
  That's you need to putt that out.
• 55:06
  You need to make that.
• 55:07
  And if you ever find yourself I'm just gonna say this is like, for me personally, I don't do
• 55:11
  gimmes anymore because gimmes only shortchange yourself when you're trying to get better.
• 55:17
  Can you do gimmes when you're with your buddies?
• 55:19
  Sure.
• 55:20
  If you're doing a scramble and you're doing stuff like that, sure.
• 55:23
  For the fun, doesn't matter.
• 55:25
  Just don't be putting that on your USGA again because it doesn't count.
• 55:30
  Agreed.
• 55:31
  And you're only gonna hurt yourself.
• 55:33
  So last thing that I really wanted to touch on with you that I did not get a chance to touch
• 55:41
  on earlier, when did you start coaching?
• 55:47
  Like, what got you into coaching golf?
• 55:51
  So I I gotta go back to my soccer career where I knew that being a professional athlete was
• 55:58
  something I truly was passionate about and enjoyed.
• 56:03
  And because of an early knee injury, I had to start thinking of an exit strategy.
• 56:08
  Oh, it wasn't called that then.
• 56:10
  It was called, hey.
• 56:11
  You gotta quit playing because.
• 56:14
  And what intrigued me a lot was the great coaches that my parents surrounded me with.
• 56:20
  And they always had a way of inspiring me to become more self motivated.
• 56:27
  What a lot of people don't realize about coaching is a coach isn't there to motivate.
• 56:32
  Motivation comes from within.
• 56:34
  These coaches found a way for me to relight the fire when it needed to be relit.
• 56:41
  They knew how to stoke it when it needed to get a little bit hotter.
• 56:45
  They knew how to quench it when I was going too fast and needed to slow down and realize some
• 56:52
  details that were staring me in the face that were preventing me from reaching the goal that
• 56:57
  I had for myself.
• 56:59
  So that was always intriguing to me in the various styles and the various personalities.
• 57:05
  And then the front office part was really intriguing.
• 57:08
  I I got along great with the admin people, whether it's in college or professional, And
• 57:13
  what they did and the people they were interacting with and all the behind the scenes
• 57:17
  things was very intriguing.
• 57:20
  So when golf became the outlet of choice at first, it was it was a very, very intense
• 57:29
  lifestyle.
• 57:30
  I was playing every chance I could, but then as I realized through what I did professionally,
• 57:36
  it wasn't quenching those two thirsts.
• 57:38
  That's when I decided maybe I should become a golf professional.
• 57:42
  At first, it was, let me go try to play and realized early on, if you don't make a cut, you
• 57:49
  don't get paid.
• 57:50
  And was I wanting to go through that again?
• 57:53
  Was I wanting to go through that type of training again?
• 57:56
  And, ultimately, I decided no.
• 57:59
  But I still remain very competitive as far as trying to get through class a qualifiers,
• 58:05
  played a number of them, missed some PGA tournaments by a stroke or two a couple of
• 58:10
  different times.
• 58:11
  But the coaching aspect always intrigued me.
• 58:14
  And now that I run my own academy, doing that front office is a lot of fun.
• 58:19
  It it sort of quenches my tripod of passions.
• 58:23
  Let me go play.
• 58:24
  Let me keep my skills up.
• 58:26
  Let me continue to be the athlete that I enjoyed being at a younger age.
• 58:30
  Let me let me go as deep as I can as a coach to find and help somebody get what they can get
• 58:41
  out of themselves for them to understand and actually accomplish something that they didn't
• 58:47
  think they could, or maybe they didn't understand how to accomplish it.
• 58:52
  And then from the front office standpoint of view, being competitive in in the workspace,
• 58:57
  being competitive in the industry, in the small niche that's golf instruction has been very
• 59:03
  rewarding, Not necessarily monetarily.
• 59:06
  You don't get rich doing this, but you can certainly live a somewhat comfortable life
• 59:12
  doing this.
• 59:13
  The people you get to meet, the places you get to go and travel to, your off time activities.
• 59:22
  There's really not too many other sports in the world that offer that kind of diversity no
• 59:30
  matter who you are, no matter where you come from, no matter what your age or gender.
• 59:35
  Some other sports are very limited that way.
• 59:38
  But from a coaching standpoint of view, back to your original question, I think it has more to
• 59:45
  do with giving back.
• 59:46
  I think every professional athlete, when they reach a certain point, says, you know what?
• 59:52
  I've gotten everything I can from this, and it's now time to share the wealth.
• 59:56
  It's now time to share the experiences and help somebody else have just as much fun, if not
• 1:00:02
  more fun, than what I had experienced and what I've experienced.
• 1:00:07
  And that's what gets me up every morning is what can I do today to continue what I did from
• 1:00:14
  yesterday, but doing it a little bit differently?
• 1:00:16
  And I try to live by my own 1%.
• 1:00:19
  What can I do 1% better today?
• 1:00:22
  Typically, that's passed on to my clientele showing them that they are capable of reaching
• 1:00:27
  their potential.
• 1:00:29
  They might have to do it differently.
• 1:00:31
  They might have to feel something different.
• 1:00:33
  It might even be awkward.
• 1:00:34
  It might be uncomfortable, but that's okay.
• 1:00:37
  I'm there to support them through that journey.
• 1:00:40
  And it is a journey.
• 1:00:41
  It's not just a one and done.
• 1:00:43
  And that's what makes golf special.
• 1:00:45
  That's what makes coaching special.
• 1:00:48
  Yeah.
• 1:00:49
  I could not have said that any better myself.
• 1:00:52
  Like, I am you know, I'm trying to get to the point where I can play pros.
• 1:00:59
  At first, when I first started this game, it started as a weight loss thing for me.
• 1:01:04
  I went from two ninety two.
• 1:01:06
  I'm down to two sixty now.
• 1:01:08
  Good for you.
• 1:01:10
  And at first, I'm like, oh, man.
• 1:01:13
  I wanna be as good as the pros and play the pros, and I still wanna do that.
• 1:01:17
  But I don't want to, like, necessarily go I'm 30, so I don't necessarily wanna go through
• 1:01:24
  qualifiers and all that.
• 1:01:26
  You know, at this age, like, I'd like to be competitive to where I can do something on the
• 1:01:31
  YouTube scene and give back to people more than take.
• 1:01:37
  You know?
• 1:01:37
  Like, I I the entire time I've been with Magic and I've gotten to play with him, it's I've
• 1:01:44
  gotten more fulfillment out of helping him with his mental game and just small things here and
• 1:01:50
  there than anything I've ever done on the course.
• 1:01:54
  And it's kinda weird because this is coming from someone whose first second I think it was
• 1:02:00
  my second round of golf that I ever played.
• 1:02:03
  I had these really juiced up Wilson Launchpads, and I hit an eight iron from about one forty.
• 1:02:10
  And it had some side spin on it, and it rolled out to about two inches from the hole or two
• 1:02:17
  feet from the hole, and I made my first ever par.
• 1:02:22
  Know?
• 1:02:23
  People remember that first par.
• 1:02:24
  They remember that first birdie.
• 1:02:26
  That's what brings them back.
• 1:02:27
  That's I think that's what you're trying to pull out of me.
• 1:02:31
  There's like I said, there's not really one shot that comes to mind.
• 1:02:35
  It it's more of the total experience that comes to mind with that.
• 1:02:39
  Let me take you with me real quick.
• 1:02:42
  So this is my little golf case, and I've got, like, achievements that I've done on here.
• 1:02:50
  This was my first ever ball that I rode on.
• 1:02:57
  Seven thirteen twenty five, my first ever par at my home course.
• 1:03:02
  And here's the funniest part I didn't even realize until I picked the ball up that I've
• 1:03:06
  been playing that entire time.
• 1:03:08
  It's a tailor made Calia.
• 1:03:10
  I was playing, what is quote unquote a woman's ball.
• 1:03:17
  It's only a label.
• 1:03:19
  It's only a label.
• 1:03:20
  Because I'll tell you right now, man, Kayleigh's, they roll great around the green.
• 1:03:25
  It's only a label.
• 1:03:27
  What what matters is that you made the effort for that to happen.
• 1:03:32
  Yeah.
• 1:03:34
  And to me, like I said, that was that was my oh my gosh.
• 1:03:38
  That was my moment that stuck, and I have it in that case.
• 1:03:42
  And I'll tell you, I felt more joy getting my first par than I did my first birdie.
• 1:03:48
  And that that's what a lot of coaches live off of, that little bit of adrenaline that you
• 1:03:54
  share, that little smile or smirk that I did that, and that's what brings us back the next
• 1:03:59
  day.
• 1:04:01
  Yeah.
• 1:04:03
  I guess to finish up here, and I would love to have you on again at some point, is to finish
• 1:04:10
  it up, is there anything you're doing that you'd like to tell the people about?
• 1:04:15
  Like, what's what is John Hughes doing?
• 1:04:18
  Sure.
• 1:04:18
  That there's a lot going on.
• 1:04:20
  This is technically my off season.
• 1:04:23
  I'm going into a six week stretch that historically is a very slow time for us in
• 1:04:29
  Florida.
• 1:04:31
  Now, I I occupy my time during this downtime.
• 1:04:35
  I'm doing a fur well, let me start with I'm in Orlando at the Omni Orlando Resort at Champions
• 1:04:41
  Gate, and that's where people can find me.
• 1:04:43
  You can find my website, johnhuesgolf.com, and the various programs I have there.
• 1:04:49
  Those same programs I do as a residency at another sister Omni property, Omni Homestead
• 1:04:56
  Resort in Hot Springs, Virginia, America's oldest resort.
• 1:04:59
  It predates the declaration of independence by ten years.
• 1:05:03
  Really special place.
• 1:05:06
  It's where Sam Snead grew up, where he gave his first lesson, where he honed his skills, two
• 1:05:13
  wonderful facilities, a perennial top 100 in the Cascades Course.
• 1:05:17
  It's a big Boy golf course.
• 1:05:19
  It's a lot of fun.
• 1:05:21
  But both places as omnis are extremely family oriented, very friendly, and and warm staffs.
• 1:05:30
  They treat me like family there at both facilities.
• 1:05:33
  And I'm back and forth.
• 1:05:34
  I leave here in a couple weeks for about a ten day stint, and then I've got about a twenty day
• 1:05:40
  stint late September through October.
• 1:05:42
  If you're interested in seeing me there, contact me.
• 1:05:44
  I can give you what available dates are left there.
• 1:05:48
  And I'm I plan to do that for the next couple of years.
• 1:05:51
  I'm helping them try to resurrect their instructional program, which was once one of
• 1:05:57
  the go to places for golf schools years ago.
• 1:06:01
  The other thing we're working on through the book is coming up with a golf school format to
• 1:06:06
  this.
• 1:06:07
  And myself and my lead assistant here, we're working every day to try to figure out the
• 1:06:13
  details to that.
• 1:06:14
  We'll be announcing the launch of those schools here shortly with dates leading into 2027.
• 1:06:22
  Just we're we're trying every day to do something different and improve ourselves that
• 1:06:27
  way.
• 1:06:27
  And I I think the franchise of the instant golf improvement book is something where I'm
• 1:06:33
  focusing on for the long term.
• 1:06:35
  It's sort of the legacy I'm trying to leave behind.
• 1:06:39
  Then to that end, there's two more books of that.
• 1:06:42
  I'm writing the the genesis to this book I've talked about, and it's six chapters.
• 1:06:47
  It's a forward.
• 1:06:48
  It's an intro, but it's in essence the six main chapters.
• 1:06:53
  And I wrote those chapters before COVID and didn't think I had a book.
• 1:06:57
  I didn't think there was enough content there.
• 1:07:00
  In 2024, I got to writing.
• 1:07:02
  I have two manuscripts at that time I'm I'm working on.
• 1:07:06
  And I decided, let's work on instant golf improvement.
• 1:07:09
  That should be the easier one to finish.
• 1:07:10
  And I write 28 more chapters.
• 1:07:13
  Put it together as a book, give it to a literary consultant for just some ideas.
• 1:07:20
  Is it is it publishable, that kind of thing.
• 1:07:23
  And this person turned around and said, I wanna publish it, but it's two books.
• 1:07:27
  And the first book ends with the sixth chapter.
• 1:07:30
  So the ironic thing was I had this book sitting around for a few years and didn't know the gold
• 1:07:36
  I had in that.
• 1:07:37
  So the other 28 chapters are now being edited down to two more books.
• 1:07:42
  The first one, it's working title, is pillars to success.
• 1:07:47
  Still haven't come up with the title to the third one yet, but I'm trying to diligently get
• 1:07:52
  that together and possibly have it published before the holiday season when books are a
• 1:07:58
  popular gift for people.
• 1:08:00
  So there's a lot going on in the John Hughes golf world right now.
• 1:08:05
  I tell you, John, if I, find a book in my mailbox holiday season, be the best Christmas
• 1:08:11
  gift I could get.
• 1:08:12
  That's for sure.
• 1:08:14
  There you go.
• 1:08:16
  I'm totally not pining for a copy.
• 1:08:18
  You know, I'm just
• 1:08:19
  Yeah.
• 1:08:20
  If it's if it's available, I'll send you one.
• 1:08:22
  Right now, I've gotta get get to work on getting the editing done.
• 1:08:27
  Yeah.
• 1:08:29
  You mentioned doing some stuff at the Omni.
• 1:08:32
  So there's an Omni Resort in Virginia, and there's an Omni Resort in Orlando?
• 1:08:37
  Correct.
• 1:08:38
  There's I wanna I don't know the exact count worldwide, but there are 13 omni properties in
• 1:08:44
  North America that have golf courses as part of their operation or strategy, whether it's
• 1:08:52
  actually on a piece of property or adjacent to a piece of property.
• 1:08:57
  I'm very lucky in that.
• 1:08:59
  I'm at a 36 hole facility here in Orlando.
• 1:09:03
  Two great golf courses designed by Greg Norman, a fantastic practice facility, really good
• 1:09:09
  staff that allows some flexibility for me and my clients to access the golf course.
• 1:09:14
  We have a 10 hole par three course that we use for short game and beginners as well, where
• 1:09:21
  Omni Homestead, a very traditional resort, very old school resort.
• 1:09:26
  The history to it's incredible.
• 1:09:29
  The golf courses are over a 100 years old each.
• 1:09:33
  And the real the the real how would I put it?
• 1:09:37
  The amazing thing behind those two courses as compared to the ones in Orlando is those two
• 1:09:44
  courses were built with mules, not bulldozers.
• 1:09:48
  And the conceptual ideas of Donald Ross and William Flynn seeing what they saw on
• 1:09:55
  topographical maps and clearing trees and using very little mechanisms to do what they did with
• 1:10:03
  those golf courses.
• 1:10:05
  Absolutely incredible.
• 1:10:07
  And and Omni's got a really good collection of courses like that.
• 1:10:11
  I'm really pleased to say that I'm part of the Omni family in a very indirect way, but very
• 1:10:19
  proud to say that you can go play any of these courses anywhere in North America and have a
• 1:10:24
  challenge and a lot of fun time with that challenge.
• 1:10:28
  John, do you know if there's any Omni resorts out here in California?
• 1:10:33
  Absolutely.
• 1:10:33
  La Costa.
• 1:10:36
  And is that Northern, or is that Southern Cal?
• 1:10:39
  So that's Southern Cal.
• 1:10:40
  I said I don't know the portfolio very well out west, but La Costa is one of those go to
• 1:10:46
  destinations.
• 1:10:48
  The Omni just just for the thing.
• 1:10:51
  Omni La Yep.
• 1:10:54
  Omni La Costa Golf Course.
• 1:10:58
  Golf at Omni four point two.
• 1:11:01
  It has two championship golf courses, the North Champions and the South Legends, offering 36
• 1:11:07
  holes for all skill levels with a rich history of hosting tour and NCAA championships.
• 1:11:12
  They just tell four hours from me.
• 1:11:14
  Yeah.
• 1:11:15
  They just tell I wanna say the the NCAA women's championship there.
• 1:11:20
  They just hosted the entire golf operations of Omni.
• 1:11:25
  All 13 met out there recently.
• 1:11:27
  Their annual meeting was held there.
• 1:11:30
  I've been there once years ago.
• 1:11:33
  It's a fantastic property as all the Omni properties are.
• 1:11:37
  The Rowling family who own the Omni brand do a fantastic job of reinvesting back into the
• 1:11:45
  assets, back into the people who care for the assets.
• 1:11:49
  Well, John, if you ever find yourself in, Southern California, you gotta let me know
• 1:11:53
  because I have to meet at the Omni.
• 1:11:56
  We can do that.
• 1:11:57
  It's been a little while since I've been there.
• 1:11:59
  It's been about ten, twelve years since I've been there, but I'm I'm due to get back.
• 1:12:05
  What's interesting is the the Omni in Orlando, actually, is probably about forty five minutes
• 1:12:13
  away from where my mother lives, and that's Mhmm.
• 1:12:17
  I grew up you know?
• 1:12:20
  Harmony Saint Cloud.
• 1:12:21
  Yeah.
• 1:12:21
  I grew up back and forth between Kansas and Florida, but my stepfather got me into golf.
• 1:12:27
  You know, he tried to get me into golf when I was, like, 15, and it just didn't stick because
• 1:12:30
  I was a big baseball guy.
• 1:12:33
  So I was like, no.
• 1:12:34
  I'm gonna play baseball.
• 1:12:36
  But I would ask him to go golfing every once in a while because I found it, like, very
• 1:12:41
  therapeutic to just go out there and hit a ball and not have to worry about, like, okay.
• 1:12:47
  Am I gonna fly out?
• 1:12:48
  Am I gonna ground out?
• 1:12:50
  Or something like that.
• 1:12:51
  Yeah.
• 1:12:51
  It didn't always end up where I wanted it to, but I'm like, yeah.
• 1:12:54
  This is kinda fun.
• 1:12:56
  And then I picked it up fourteen years later as a thing for weight loss because I'm like, I'm
• 1:13:00
  really heavy.
• 1:13:01
  This was after COVID.
• 1:13:03
  You know?
• 1:13:04
  I let myself go a little bit, and I'm like, alright.
• 1:13:07
  Summer of twenty four, I'm like, what is something that I can do that I can, you know,
• 1:13:12
  lose weight and not really think about and kinda compartmentalize the fact that I'm trying
• 1:13:17
  to lose weight but focus on something else?
• 1:13:21
  And golf was it.
• 1:13:23
  And, I mean, last year alone, the last, you know, year and a half when I started in '25, I
• 1:13:31
  did 650 miles last year just walking on the course.
• 1:13:36
  A lot to be said about that.
• 1:13:37
  That's how the game was intended to play back in the early, what is it, fifteen hundreds when
• 1:13:43
  shepherds and their crooks hit rocks in the moleholes, and you had to walk from molehole to
• 1:13:47
  molehole as you're watching the sheep cries.
• 1:13:52
  Yeah.
• 1:13:52
  And, point being, maybe be able to hear in the next year or so depending on how things go.
• 1:14:03
  I really wanted to make it this summer.
• 1:14:04
  I still might.
• 1:14:05
  I'm not sure.
• 1:14:07
  You know, it's up to how, money goes and everything.
• 1:14:10
  But, man, if I could get out to the Omni and watch you do your thing, that would be awesome
• 1:14:18
  because I I was watching a YouTube video of yours, before I, I went to bed last night after
• 1:14:24
  reading the book.
• 1:14:25
  It was the swing through, not at mentality.
• 1:14:29
  Like, you need to swing through the ball, not at it because those who swing at the ball will
• 1:14:33
  slice it more times than not than those who focus on swinging through the ball.
• 1:14:39
  Everything everything you do, you've gotta go through and follow through with everything.
• 1:14:45
  It's not just a golf swing, and I'm glad you got some something out of that and something
• 1:14:50
  out of the book and appreciate the opportunity to be on your podcast.
• 1:14:54
  And when you're out here next time, just let me know ahead of time.
• 1:14:58
  You're more than welcome.
• 1:15:00
  Wish you really well with trying to get back into shape and and be good to yourself doing
• 1:15:06
  so.
• 1:15:07
  Oh, man.
• 1:15:08
  I got physic right after this, I have to go to physical therapy for my shoulder.
• 1:15:12
  So, I mean, it's been getting better, though, day by day, and now I really
• 1:15:16
  have to
• 1:15:16
  take those lessons.
• 1:15:17
  1%.
• 1:15:19
  Well, I would say the last two physical therapy sessions I've had closer to the three to 4%
• 1:15:25
  range every time I go.
• 1:15:26
  So Good.
• 1:15:27
  I'm sitting, last week went before I started.
• 1:15:31
  I was sitting at probably about 60%.
• 1:15:33
  Right now, after a few sessions and some home stuff, I think I'm sitting at, like, 68, 70%.
• 1:15:39
  So 1% a day.
• 1:15:41
  That's all it takes.
• 1:15:42
  Yep.
• 1:15:43
  Alright.
• 1:15:44
  John, thank you so much for making time for me and taking time out of your day for this
• 1:15:50
  interview.
• 1:15:50
  This was incredible.
• 1:15:52
  We gotta do this again.
• 1:15:53
  If I'm in Orlando or you're in Southern Cal, we gotta we gotta meet up, man.
• 1:15:58
  Like, I just this was incredible.
• 1:16:00
  You got it.
• 1:16:02
  Before we go, is there anything else you'd like to say to the people?
• 1:16:05
  Or
• 1:16:05
  No.
• 1:16:06
  Like I said, you can reach me, John Hughes golf dot com.
• 1:16:09
  That's the easiest place to reach me.
• 1:16:11
  My email address, my telephone number's there.
• 1:16:14
  Social media, whether it's an ampersand, hashtag John Hughes golf.
• 1:16:20
  We made it really simple early on.
• 1:16:21
  I subscribed to your YouTube channel, sir.
• 1:16:24
  I did that.
• 1:16:25
  The more people I can get on that YouTube channel, the better.
• 1:16:30
  Right.
• 1:16:31
  Actually, real quick.
• 1:16:32
  Let me let me before we get out of here, let me pull this up.
• 1:16:36
  And then
• 1:16:36
  the is also instantgolfimprovement.com.
• 1:16:40
  If somebody wants to buy the book there, like I said, I'll hand sign the book if you purchase
• 1:16:45
  it through that website.
• 1:16:48
  Absolutely.
• 1:16:49
  Alright.
• 1:16:50
  Your video's boom.
• 1:16:52
  Okay.
• 1:16:53
  So to reach you on YouTube Is John Hughes Golf.
• 1:17:00
  John Hughes Golf.
• 1:17:03
  John, capital j, space, Hughes, capital h, space, golf, capital g.
• 1:17:11
  That is important because well, in YouTube, it can kinda narrow it down.
• 1:17:15
  You are one of the first search results when I look up John Hughes golf.
• 1:17:18
  So
• 1:17:19
  I would hope so.
• 1:17:20
  If there's another John Hughes with well, I do know one, but he spells it j o n, not j o h n.
• 1:17:25
  So
• 1:17:27
  Right.
• 1:17:28
  Well, John, this was incredible.
• 1:17:31
  Everyone, go check out his book.
• 1:17:33
  You can get it on Amazon for $20, or you can get it at
• 1:17:38
  ansongolfimprovement.com.
• 1:17:41
  And you will get a signed copy from the man himself.
• 1:17:46
  And for those of you who are in Orlando, is there any spots still open for that at the
• 1:17:50
  Omni?
• 1:17:52
  We work by appointment.
• 1:17:53
  You just gotta give us a call, tell us what you wanna do.
• 1:17:57
  We customize everything one to one for everybody, and we get you in the schedule as
• 1:18:02
  quickly as our availability will allow.
• 1:18:05
  Awesome.
• 1:18:07
  So for everyone here, thank you all for tuning in.
• 1:18:11
  Looking forward to the things that we're gonna do on this channel, and I'm also looking
• 1:18:15
  forward to the things that mister Hughes here is gonna do in the future.
• 1:18:19
  I'm pining for that book, sir.
• 1:18:21
  So until we get to speak again, it was a pleasure.
• 1:18:25
  Thank you so much for your time, and I wish you all the best.
• 1:18:29
  Thank you for the opportunity.
• 1:18:31
  Alex, wish you the best as well.
• 1:18:33
  Alright.
• 1:18:35
  Guys, this was the Scratch Project with special guest John Hughes.
• 1:18:40
  Until next time, this was Paz Plays Golf.
• 1:18:44
  Have a good one.
• 1:19:01
  Skunked golf.
• 1:19:03
  Look good even if your game stinks.