Latest / Scene Projects Sports Network / Mastering Golf: Insights from John Hughes and the Art of Purposeful Coaching

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Mastering Golf: Insights from John Hughes and the Art of Purposeful Coaching · Scene Projects Sports Network

• 0:14
  Welcome into the Scene Project Sports Network.
• 0:17
  I am your host, Bubba Starts.
• 0:18
  And with me today, PGA master professional of instruction, John Hughes.
• 0:23
  John, welcome to the show.
• 0:25
  Thanks for the opportunity to share a little wisdom, share a little passion with you and
• 0:30
  your viewers.
• 0:32
  Yeah.
• 0:32
  Well, we we really appreciate it.
• 0:34
  Obviously, doing a lot of golf content this summer.
• 0:37
  We just got back from a big charity golf tournament, the Skunk Classic with our sponsor
• 0:43
  Skunk Golf Company.
• 0:45
  So perfect timing here today, John.
• 0:47
  Before we get into everything that you're doing now and and the various places that you're
• 0:53
  working at currently.
• 0:55
  I'd love to get a little bit of your backstory, and then we'll pick it up from there.
• 1:00
  Sure.
• 1:00
  Well, as you said, I'm a PJ master professional of instruction, but I got my start in another
• 1:06
  sport and in another way.
• 1:09
  I played professional soccer till I was 20, and due to knee injuries and the league disbanding
• 1:15
  way back in the early eighties, I'm still in school, still living in the dorm, and a couple
• 1:20
  of buddies wake me up one morning at six clanging their clubs down the down the hallway,
• 1:25
  and I had gotten in probably not too soon before them and had some choice words for them
• 1:31
  and asked them why they're playing golf at six.
• 1:34
  And one leaned over and said, hey.
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  You can drink beer at 06:00 in the morning at the golf course.
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  I'm like, count me in.
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  Give me ten minutes.
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  And off I went, and it became a hobby like most people, most of your viewers, became a
• 1:48
  lifestyle and then eventually a profession, which I've been at now for thirty six plus
• 1:53
  years.
• 1:54
  I've been in the golf school business for twenty seven.
• 1:58
  I'm fortunate to be ranked amongst some of the best golf instructors in North America through
• 2:04
  the various magazines.
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  Golf Magazine is a top, watch list instructor.
• 2:10
  Golf Digest Magazine is a top in the state of Florida.
• 2:13
  And perennially, with Golf Tips Magazine, I'm always ranked in their top 25 and provide
• 2:19
  content to all those magazines.
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  And right behind me, I have to give kudos to my home, the Omni Orlando Resort at Champions
• 2:28
  Gate.
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  They're wonderful hosts.
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  Treat me like family.
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  Treat our guests and mutual clients like family.
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  It's a wonderful place to come improve your golf skills.
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  And as most most of the best things in life start, with a six pack and a couple of buddies.
• 2:47
  Sometimes.
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  Sometimes.
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  Absolutely.
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  What was it about the instruction side of it?
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  Because a lot of us pick up the hobby.
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  Some people get fairly good at this game, but I think very few people take a step into that.
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  I wanna teach others how to improve their game.
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  What was it about, you know, maybe those early years of playing that really pushed you into
• 3:10
  that?
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  Well, I like most golfers, you have these dreams of grandeur that you're gonna play the
• 3:17
  tour.
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  And and through my own athleticism, I played very competently, very quickly, and had those
• 3:24
  dreams of grandeur and quickly found out that I could make a check on a regular basis doing
• 3:31
  anything but playing golf.
• 3:33
  That golf, you had to make a cut, very top heavy payment system as far as winners and
• 3:39
  everybody else, and come to realize that trying to create another another professional career
• 3:48
  out of golf might be more than difficult.
• 3:52
  But internally, having come out of soccer, I knew the love for sports, the love for
• 3:57
  athletics, what it taught me as a human being, as well as having this desire to give back at a
• 4:03
  very early age, sort of saw me trying to take one of two pathways, coaching.
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  And I believe great coaching not only can teach you and can tell you, I can show you some props
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  and demos.
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  They they you've gotta be able to actually do what you're wanting your client, your golfer to
• 4:23
  do.
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  And that was something I could no longer do with soccer due to knee injuries.
• 4:27
  But I also wanted to get into the front office part.
• 4:30
  As I played, I got to meet a lot of the general managers, the assistant general managers.
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  I got to see behind the scenes.
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  It was very intriguing.
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  So owning my own business, my own academy here in Orlando gives me the best of both worlds.
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  From a coaching standpoint of view, we're never ever gonna get rich.
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  There's very few of us that are.
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  But every night, I can go to bed with myself and say, you know what?
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  I did something in a positive way.
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  I made myself proud by helping someone else out, which gives you the fuel, the energy to
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  get up out of bed when those bones and muscles are aching or when you're thinking, man, I do I
• 5:09
  really have to go do this?
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  I mean, what better office can I imagine getting up and going to and and providing some
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  insight, a third party objective insight to golfers like yourself because you get stuck in
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  this hamster wheel of not just drills, but of how you think you should be fixing yourself?
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  And to me, it's not a fix.
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  It's let's start with working backwards and knowing that what you did with that golf ball
• 5:38
  was a result of everything else you did prior.
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  And once somebody buys into that, which all great golfers do, sky's the limit.
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  It's just a matter of how much time, how much commitment you wanna be into the sport.
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  And what's been cool about my academy and coaches that work with me is the more committed
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  to the golfer is the more committed we can get for them.
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  I think it's incredible that you continue to find, I think, I would say, joy in helping
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  others and in seeing those small wins with people out during a lesson and watching them
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  grow.
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  And no doubt that's what's kept you going all of these years is finding that and not
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  necessarily, like you said, getting rich.
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  That's just not something that's going to happen in the instructor world.
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  It doesn't.
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  Every clients every golfer jumps to us has a different story, a different reason for playing
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  golf, a different y mentality, w h y, but also a different skills, both physically and
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  mentally.
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  John, I'm gonna cut you off.
• 6:49
  Hold on.
• 6:49
  Our audio kinda Alright.
• 6:52
  Coming back in.
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  Had some technical difficulties to fix there.
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  The hot Florida sun, baking out the iPads.
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  But, John, we were speaking about, you know, your love for helping other people and that
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  really being a driving force for why you continue to do what you do, but also the reason
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  that you wrote the book that you did as well.
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  Can we talk a little bit about your book?
• 7:15
  Yeah.
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  Thanks for mentioning that.
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  I'm I've actually got three or four manuscripts always going on, and you're only as good as the
• 7:23
  last manuscript.
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  So I looked at this a couple years ago and said, I gotta get one of them done.
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  And through the frustration of coaching, I'll I'll say higher handicaps that have other life
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  priorities such as family and job and maybe not enough money to make a commitment or the
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  commitment they wanna make.
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  There are some frustrating moments throughout my coaching career when somebody was coming in
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  and looking for Cheech and Chong's magic dust that makes Santa's reindeer fly.
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  And I'm sorry.
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  I don't have that.
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  But as I started taking notes and looking at things retrospectively, there were six things
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  that really stood out, which comprise instant golf improvement, the book I published in
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  October of last year.
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  Basically, what it boils down to is without practice or very minimal practice, can you
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  implement these six things?
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  And I'll go over them very quickly.
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  Aim, understanding your carry yardage, being able to putt, particularly with your distance
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  control, understanding that a chip shot can navigate you all the way around the golf
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  course, and playing smart, not stupid because there's a difference between dumb and stupid.
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  Stupid knows better.
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  So can you stop playing stupid golf?
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  And that six pillar is how do you take the first five and put it into an action plan that
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  requires little to no effort when it comes to actually making a mechanical improvement to
• 8:53
  your golf swing.
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  That's where most amateurs right now fail to see the light at the end of the tunnel.
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  They're always searching for this newest and greatest and latest fix on how they're gonna
• 9:04
  fix their golf swing, but they don't have the time to do it.
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  They they don't even spend five minutes maybe making an exercise that allows your body to
• 9:14
  have more mobility.
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  But if they had some information, used that information correctly, understood how to
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  control what they could control both physically, emotionally, and mentally, and put
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  it into a plan instant improvement with golf, which is what most people are looking for.
• 9:32
  It's at your fingertips.
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  It's a lot simpler than most people think.
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  Well and I think something that you touched on there, and it it's funny how the world work.
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  Everybody wants to drive the ball 350 yards.
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  Right?
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  And and we're all searching for that.
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  But, really, if you worked on your short game, twice as much, you would lower your score maybe
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  two or three times as fast than adding an extra 10 yards to your drive.
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  You're not even using driver on every hole, but you're definitely going to putt.
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  And it's sad that people spend a lot more time investing in that new driver technology or a
• 10:08
  ball that's gonna go farther and all these things when really they could be spending a
• 10:13
  little bit more time on the green, understanding their distance, having a lot
• 10:16
  better feel on the green for a club that you're gonna use on every single hole.
• 10:22
  And it it you're correct, Bubba.
• 10:23
  And the math for the higher handicapper, say, the person shooting 95 or worse, the math adds
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  up to exactly what you said along with, hey.
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  I'm off the green.
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  I only hit one or two greens per round.
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  How am I gonna get that ball closer so my putts are not as distant?
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  Three putts are caused by your first putt, not your second or your third.
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  You've probably left the putt either too short or way too long.
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  It's rare that you're gonna leave it wide right or wide left like a field goal kicker.
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  So how are you gonna manage that remaining distance because you didn't get it close enough
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  to tap it in or have a buddy go, hey.
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  Pick it up.
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  You that's a gimme.
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  The math is there for that.
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  But the other thing that I really try to put forth, only in the book, but coaching any skill
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  level golfer, the elites that I work with down to the bare beginners, is decision making.
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  Golf is probably the best problem solving game we can play physically.
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  The next best one is chess, and that's totally mental.
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  And you're always thinking 12 to 13 moves ahead, plus you can't you're trying to
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  anticipate what somebody else is doing.
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  The beauty to golf is all you've gotta do is soak in the elements and anticipate what you're
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  gonna do and stay in the moment as you do that to solve the problem that you have right there,
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  and that's the shot you have right now.
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  Some people call it one shot at a time.
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  I call it one task at a time because multiple tasks are gonna lead up to the decision that
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  you make as to whether I'm gonna play this shot or that shot.
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  Does that decision include, can I actually physically pull it off?
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  Can I mentally be there to be committed to do it?
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  And, emotionally, can I keep all the distractions out?
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  So beyond just the math, to play more instantaneous improvement with your golf, it
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  requires a little bit of this and understanding what I can and can't do.
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  And I'll I'll literally look at people and ask them, what's the difference between dumb and
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  stupid?
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  Stupid knows better.
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  Did you know better than to hit that shot?
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  Well, that's not a physical thing.
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  That's not a quick fix drill.
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  That's up here trying to have you understand the math and trying to have you understand
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  what's a better decision for you.
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  Those two things right away can reduce scores minimally 10 strokes if most people would take
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  that hard.
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  Yeah.
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  And I think that a lot of and speaking from experience, a a lot of those high handicappers
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  aren't thinking about that next shot even.
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  Right?
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  You're very rarely am I going up there off the tee box or or anywhere, and I'm thinking about
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  my second or third shots and how I'm setting myself up for those.
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  When that little bit of thought process can maybe shave two or three strokes off of my
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  round and then compounding those good decisions over time can really start to lower that
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  handicap over the course of a season.
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  So back to what you were saying, everybody wants to hit at 350, and you're thinking
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  distance, but yet your dispersion could be in a totally different ZIP code.
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  And then when you finally find the ball in that ZIP code, it's like, oh, okay.
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  What do I do now?
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  To your point, that should have been part of the thinking when you hit it in the other ZIP
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  code trying to hit at 350.
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  I'm not saying you can't hit at 350.
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  Strokes gained by doctor Mark Brody says, hey.
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  The closer you get to the hole, the easier the game becomes.
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  But this is not an easy game.
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  You have to remember, let's try to make it simpler, and let's try to stay in the ZIP code.
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  Let's try to stay in the yard that you're playing in and not jump the fence too much.
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  And when you can do that, the decisions become a little bit simpler.
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  The execution becomes a little bit simpler.
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  More so than the scores, the enjoyment of the game becomes that much more incredible.
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  Yeah.
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  Perfect example of that was, the golf, and and we're playing a four man scramble.
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  Three men and a and a woman on the team.
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  It was a coed tournament, so a lot of fun there.
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  I got to play with my wife.
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  But that I really just slowed my swing down.
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  Right?
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  I went, hey.
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  I'm gonna try to hit this into the fairway, and I'm not gonna worry about trying to bomb this
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  thing out there, especially if I was teeing off first just to get us one safe.
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  And I realized that I felt a lot better about my game the whole time and usually had one of
• 14:53
  the better shots to play off the tee box because I was able to say, hey.
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  I I might not get that extra 30 yards that I may get if I swing my hardest, but I'm also not
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  ending up in another ZIP code.
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  And then I'm setting our whole team up for another chance at that second shot and possibly
• 15:11
  being able to, you know, land that green in regulation and have four shots at a birdie
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  there instead of being, you know, on the other fairway, of the course and and being completely
• 15:23
  out of it and doing myself a disservice and playing against it.
• 15:28
  I think I need to come in with the team mentality when I'm out golfing grounds by
• 15:32
  myself as well and starting to think about me as a teammate on that second shot alternating.
• 15:39
  You just said it.
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  It's a mouthful.
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  Three words, me, myself, and I.
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  That's what golf's about.
• 15:46
  Yeah.
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  What the other point to make when you're talking about, I'm gonna slow it down.
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  That's what I hear from most mid to high handicap.
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  So I gotta slow my swing down.
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  I gotta slow my swing down.
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  That's counterproductive, counterintuitive to trying to hit it further.
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  The real explanation here is you're not slowing it down.
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  You're actually smoothing things out, and you're using less energy at the at the proper
• 16:11
  times versus using more energy at the wrong times.
• 16:15
  When you think about physics, and this is something I preach to all my clients, you can't
• 16:19
  fight physics and there's only a 100% worth of energy and you're you're trying to expand an
• 16:25
  extra 20 that you don't have to hit it that much further, then what what are you
• 16:30
  sacrificing energy wise?
• 16:31
  Most likely your balance, and when you're off balance, your smoothness goes away, and there's
• 16:37
  no way you're gonna swing any faster than you can remain balanced.
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  Most higher handicappers call that I'm gonna get slower.
• 16:45
  No.
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  You're just getting more balanced so the swing can smooth out.
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  And as you're smoothing out and relaxing, organically, you create more club head speed.
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  And, oh, by the way, if you happen to put it in the sweet spot of the club, even more ball
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  speed.
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  And that's exactly what I saw, this last weekend, that my my drives were much better and
• 17:08
  carrying just as far sometimes as I would because I'm not putting a ton of side spin on
• 17:13
  the ball and watching it careen, you know, either into the rough or OB or, you know, in
• 17:19
  play, but on another hole.
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  And, you know, that that's what we're trying to build here and what the essence of the Scratch
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  project and everything that we've been trying to build over the last six months is, you know,
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  reaching out to people like you that can give us a little bit of advice and to provide some
• 17:38
  intelligence behind it.
• 17:40
  Get us to, you know, play a little bit less stupid.
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  I don't wanna say smart yet, but maybe a a little less dumb on the course and to not take
• 17:49
  so many chances.
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  And it's funny to watch it kinda play out in the professional ranks as well, right, with
• 17:55
  the, you know, the two US you know, the the US Open and the PGA Championship.
• 18:02
  PGA obviously at Aronomink and then the US Open just being at Shinnecock Hills.
• 18:07
  These are courses that don't necessarily reward the heavy hitters.
• 18:12
  Case in point, Bryson DeChambeau missing the cut, you know, now three big tournaments in a
• 18:18
  row and not being in play.
• 18:20
  A guy that can hit the ball a tremendous distance, but sacrificing the accuracy for
• 18:27
  that.
• 18:27
  And, you know, you saw the guys that were able to play consistent, that ended up winning both
• 18:33
  of these tournaments and that were able to just go out there and not make the big mistake.
• 18:38
  And I think that as high handicappers, we can take a lot from that.
• 18:43
  Maybe we're not shooting, you know, even par rounds or under at Shinnecock Hills anytime
• 18:48
  soon, but we're able to limit those double digit one.
• 18:52
  And eliminating that and shooting maybe, you know, a series of sixes instead of eights or
• 18:58
  tens on any hole is going to dramatically improve your scores at the end of the day.
• 19:03
  Absolutely.
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  And going to Shinnecock with Wyndham Clark, the eventual winner, when you look at how he played
• 19:09
  the last two days, he was not the most accurate off the tee.
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  And what really made his game to me was what he did with his second shots when he was in,
• 19:20
  quote, unquote, trouble.
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  The he took the path of least resistance.
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  He, to your point, smart or dumb or stupid, and he said, hey.
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  A calculated risk or taking risks.
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  If you're thinking about taking risks, then you're smart enough to know better.
• 19:37
  And if you watch what he did, he was smart enough to know better to not play ultra
• 19:41
  aggressive with some of the holes with the lies that he had and where the chance, where the
• 19:46
  where the circumstance is a lie was in his favor from a let's look at the odds, it was
• 19:53
  okay to go green light with some of those because he knew where the miss could be.
• 19:58
  You gotta remember, they've got millions, if not tens of millions of reps over you, and that
• 20:04
  builds experience.
• 20:05
  What the average golfer can learn from Wyndham was, look.
• 20:10
  I'm out of play.
• 20:11
  These are arguably some of the widest US Open fairways you'll ever play, but I'm still out of
• 20:16
  play.
• 20:17
  How do I put the ball back into play and save par to keep par in play?
• 20:22
  Which would be a really good tip for most people is you don't have to make par your par.
• 20:27
  It could be a personal par.
• 20:29
  If you're shooting a 100, you're always making triples and quads.
• 20:32
  Why not make doubles your personal par?
• 20:36
  You're trying to break a 100.
• 20:37
  Why not make bogey your personal par on every hole?
• 20:41
  When I get to the person who's really trying to break 90, become a little bit more net
• 20:46
  competitive using their handicap, I'll throw out the adage of let's look at threes and fives
• 20:52
  and learn to make pars.
• 20:54
  Those are typically the higher handicaps, ultra aggressive holes.
• 20:58
  They think they gotta make they can make up strokes there, and they ended up they end up
• 21:03
  having two or three squares around that hole when it's all said and done.
• 21:07
  Those are the holes that tour players walk away from with pars, particularly in a major
• 21:12
  championship like the PGA, Augusta, the US Open, even the Open Championship at Brookdale
• 21:18
  this year.
• 21:19
  If they can walk away from those holes with par, they haven't given a stroke back to the
• 21:23
  field.
• 21:24
  In the high handicapper's place, you haven't increased the ceiling back to the milestone
• 21:30
  you're trying to break.
• 21:32
  I think that's a great piece of advice, that the par on the course and your own personal
• 21:40
  par, I think that's gonna be something that I take away for myself.
• 21:43
  And it's a reason that, you know, often I'm golfing with my wife and she sees anytime that
• 21:47
  I'm writing a score down as a competition against her when really, I'm just competing
• 21:53
  against myself and trying to improve my own game.
• 21:56
  And for me, I'm not breaking 90 anytime soon with the amount of reps that I get currently.
• 22:01
  Now, hopefully, as the scratch project continues to go and I have an opportunity to
• 22:05
  come down and to work with John Hughes and, improve my game in a way that I've never done
• 22:11
  before, that will be more in play.
• 22:13
  But starting out and saying, hey.
• 22:15
  Can you just go out and make bogey on these holes that you have been triple or quad, you
• 22:21
  know, or or just erasing off the score sheet entirely?
• 22:26
  And that's a mindset.
• 22:28
  That's not physical.
• 22:29
  What I see amongst the higher handicappers are always blaming it on physical.
• 22:34
  They're not blaming it on the emotional or mental, and that's okay because that's their
• 22:40
  way of buff ering and sort of blaming somebody else because golf, you can't blame anyone else
• 22:47
  but yourself.
• 22:47
  You're playing a team sport.
• 22:49
  There's how many other people on the field or on the board or on the pit that you can blame.
• 22:54
  So being able to blame it on a physical thing, some realism to it, some nonrealism to it.
• 23:01
  But at the same time, if you're fitting this physical and you're spending time, and that's
• 23:06
  where a lot of the client come to see me and my coaches, They've reached a plateau.
• 23:11
  They feel they've worked the physical to the point they can't go any further for whatever
• 23:15
  reason.
• 23:16
  It's typically a more holistic look at it.
• 23:19
  Do you can your body do that?
• 23:22
  Number one.
• 23:23
  Number two, if your body can do it, how is setting up to do it?
• 23:28
  And then number three, are you evaluating what you just did?
• 23:31
  Are you putting the pieces together to say, this is what caused that result, and now I know
• 23:37
  why that result happened.
• 23:39
  Now I can go back and not playing.
• 23:42
  So that's most I just had a group of nine guys in here over the weekend, and every one of them
• 23:48
  went out on the golf court that were asking, what did I do?
• 23:50
  What did I do there?
• 23:51
  I'm like, we're fixing it here.
• 23:53
  We're fitting it at the range behind me.
• 23:55
  We're not in play.
• 23:56
  Just go play.
• 23:58
  So you once you get off the physical and realize there's other components to this,
• 24:03
  particularly if you want physical with it, Where are aimed?
• 24:06
  How are you setting up correctly?
• 24:09
  And allow your body to move with some feet, you know, so you can do what you're capable of
• 24:14
  doing.
• 24:14
  It's top handicaps, mid handicaps.
• 24:17
  Just totally for that.
• 24:19
  We're the elite of the world over those things.
• 24:27
  Just abusing these iPads today, John.
• 24:31
  Another camera
• 24:32
  another camera switch.
• 24:34
  Well, that Florida sun is powerful, and that's why most people aren't out golfing this time of
• 24:40
  year down there.
• 24:42
  I'd love to talk about you mentioned Omni Resorts and having a home down there Omni
• 24:46
  Orlando, but you also work at one of their other resorts a little bit farther north.
• 24:51
  Would love to just give them a little plug in here.
• 24:53
  And then before I let you go, wanna get some of your thoughts on the on the PGA and some of
• 24:58
  these changes that we're seeing there as well.
• 25:00
  But tell us more about the Omni Resorts that you have the pleasure of working at.
• 25:05
  Sure.
• 25:05
  Well, first off, I've gotta thank two good friends, Patrick Dill here in Orlando, who's
• 25:10
  the director of golf, who brought me in a little over two and a half years ago.
• 25:15
  I was searching to up my game a little bit.
• 25:18
  The facility where I was was okay, but it wasn't going into the direction I wanted to.
• 25:24
  And Patrick and I go back quite a ways, and he provided me an opportunity to move my coaching
• 25:29
  practice here, and it's been wonder wonderful for us all.
• 25:34
  And then I had some summer gigs at different places that parts of it were working out and
• 25:40
  other parts weren't.
• 25:41
  And I sat down with Patrick one day and said, hey.
• 25:44
  I know Omni has some other properties with some golf courses, and I like these four or five.
• 25:50
  Can you hook me up with these people at those four or five?
• 25:54
  And he rekindled an old friendship with Mark Fry, who's the director of golf, his
• 25:59
  counterpart at Omni Homestead Resort.
• 26:02
  And in very short order, Mark invited me up.
• 26:05
  I'm now in my second season doing a coaching residency there.
• 26:10
  Omni Homestead Resort is just so quiet, so serene.
• 26:14
  There's nothing to do there but the resort.
• 26:17
  But the cool thing about that resort is its history dating back to 1766.
• 26:23
  It's ten years prior to her declaration of independence signing.
• 26:28
  The warm springs that got it done, but the got the two golf courses are outstanding.
• 26:34
  Donald Ross' old course, 6,000 yards, and it plays like 6,800 quite often for that average
• 26:41
  amateur.
• 26:42
  Lot of uphill, downhill, sidehill lies, very small greens, the upside down saucers.
• 26:47
  He only completed six of it.
• 26:50
  But by time everything else came into play and they built the Cascades Course, which is a
• 26:56
  William Flynn masterpiece.
• 26:58
  As Sam Snead said, if there's a plaque right there on the first hole, if you can play the
• 27:02
  cascades, you can play anywhere.
• 27:04
  And I can tell you firsthand, that is a very true statement.
• 27:08
  Perennial top 100 course, it's held nine USGA championships, which only Oakmont and one other
• 27:15
  course in the country can boast that.
• 27:18
  And they have two more on the schedule and a third that will be probably announced here
• 27:23
  shortly.
• 27:25
  Two wonderful facilities.
• 27:26
  I I can't thank Omni enough.
• 27:28
  I can't thank Homestead enough and Championskate enough for allowing me to enjoy
• 27:34
  this little piece of the world they have.
• 27:37
  How important are those relationships and having a home base for you?
• 27:42
  Because, obviously, with your stature in the business, right, people are reaching out to you
• 27:48
  and and finding that, you know, it's not exactly easy to find facilities that are going
• 27:55
  to open their doors to you and provide that kind of space.
• 27:58
  So what does it mean for you to have, you know, the the Omni Resorts really opening their doors
• 28:04
  to you?
• 28:04
  Oh, it means a tremendous amount.
• 28:08
  A little bit about my background is I'm the last brick and mortar director of instruction
• 28:14
  for Golf Digest Schools.
• 28:16
  I was in that position for a little over ten years for the license for the company that had
• 28:20
  the licensing agreement.
• 28:22
  And one of the biggest thing parts of my job wasn't actually coaching.
• 28:26
  I had a doc in a portfolio of clients that I coached.
• 28:29
  It was the relationship with the facilities.
• 28:33
  We're at 13 properties just like this across the country, 55 instructors that I supported
• 28:40
  and leaned on to get our programs done.
• 28:44
  The facility means a lot when you know you can go to a facility with good golf balls, good
• 28:50
  grass turf, and then right behind the camera is a fantastic 30 bay top tracer facility that if
• 28:58
  it rains, I can go underneath the awnings and continue to and use that kind of technology.
• 29:03
  That's a huge plus.
• 29:05
  It's an absolute huge plus.
• 29:07
  And then knowing that you're with a global brand who's very family oriented, very golfer
• 29:13
  and corporate oriented, meaning a lot of what Omni does is family and corporations.
• 29:19
  The the bonus of having a 16 group guide trip here is just that.
• 29:24
  It's a bonus.
• 29:25
  But I think from the other standpoint of view, those 16 guys receive a lot of bonus when
• 29:30
  they're visiting a place like Omni Orlando ChampionsGate or Omni Homestead.
• 29:36
  There are two great facilities that literally turn the key for you.
• 29:39
  Just show up.
• 29:41
  We'll get everything else done for you.
• 29:42
  Let's make it convenient.
• 29:44
  Let's make it enjoyable.
• 29:45
  I think the bigger thing is let's make it memorable.
• 29:48
  And these two facilities can definitely do that for any level golfer.
• 29:55
  Yeah.
• 29:55
  That's it sounds like it's a beautiful relationship and really a a match a a match
• 30:02
  that you you've probably been searching for for a long time.
• 30:05
  Not always easy to accommodate large groups like that at these courses that don't see your
• 30:11
  vision and what you're really trying to do to provide that experience.
• 30:16
  Not every golf course is necessarily opening their doors for that.
• 30:20
  So really glad that you found Omni and and got to rekindle and build new friendships there.
• 30:26
  And now to spend, hopefully, the next few decades making a lot of memories for the people
• 30:31
  that you're instructing.
• 30:32
  Now you mentioned the 16 man, instruction.
• 30:35
  What into the nitty gritty of that, I guess, what does that look like, you know, when you're
• 30:40
  instructing one of these groups as opposed to a one on one instruction?
• 30:44
  Well, the it's it's the obvious.
• 30:47
  It's one and me or 16 and me.
• 30:51
  So I've never been able to take even a butter knife and divide me up 16 equal ways.
• 30:57
  So when a group comes, we customize everything down to do you want curly fries or straight
• 31:05
  fries kind of thing if that's has to be included in your experience.
• 31:10
  But you said it.
• 31:11
  It's it's the word experience.
• 31:13
  What will you experience whether I'm 16 people or one person?
• 31:18
  When it comes to the coaching, groups tend to get watered down, vanilla ed, a little bit, a
• 31:24
  little generic, And that's where I bring in my set of coaches, and I can bring in as few as
• 31:29
  one and as many as 20 to really try to customize it to have that personable experience
• 31:36
  be a part of every golfer's enjoyment while they're here.
• 31:40
  With one to one, you're gonna get more detailed.
• 31:42
  And I equate it to when you were a child, if you played a musical instrument or you were
• 31:47
  learning any kind of new sport, you probably learned in a group setting first, and it took a
• 31:53
  lot of the pressure off.
• 31:54
  It allowed you to realize that, hey.
• 31:56
  I share the same commonalities of of golfing traits or experience or physicality with these
• 32:03
  other people in the group.
• 32:05
  But at some point, you're either recognized because you're moving faster than the group or
• 32:10
  you're moving slower than the group.
• 32:11
  And if you're moving slower, you're pulled aside to do the individual because you need the
• 32:15
  remedial work.
• 32:17
  But maybe in a group setting, it's moving too fast for you.
• 32:20
  While at the same time, if you're moving faster than that group, you're not a prodigy per se,
• 32:25
  but you're showing talent.
• 32:27
  You're showing raw ability.
• 32:28
  How can we take that raw ability, organize it in a manner that you're more efficient with
• 32:34
  your time commitment to that musical instrument or that sport, and how far can we take you with
• 32:40
  your curiosity and creativity levels?
• 32:42
  With that, that that's what individual coaching's about.
• 32:46
  How far can we take you based on those goals you have?
• 32:50
  I think at the end of the day, though, whether it's a group or an individual, if you're not
• 32:54
  purposeful, if you're not seeing a goal prior, hey.
• 32:58
  I wanna get this out of my session.
• 33:00
  I wanna get this out of this coaching session.
• 33:03
  And that that has to be clearly communicated with coach.
• 33:07
  When that happens, the world's world that you can achieve most anything when that happens.
• 33:14
  Fantastic, John.
• 33:16
  Well, it sounds like the iPad has thrown another fit, and, we we've talked for quite a
• 33:21
  long enough.
• 33:21
  We'll have to bring you back, maybe on an episode of the Scratch Project one Saturday
• 33:26
  here for our cut line show and get some of your thoughts on the PGA as a whole and talk some
• 33:32
  more golf with us in the professional ranks.
• 33:35
  It's been an absolute pleasure.
• 33:36
  Everyone can go find you at John Hughes Golf.
• 33:39
  John, common spelling, Hughes is h u g h e s golf dot com, and then you can get the book at
• 33:46
  instantgolfimprovement.com.
• 33:48
  It's been an absolute pleasure sharing some time with you here, John.
• 33:51
  And I look forward to maybe putting my own group of guys together.
• 33:55
  We can come down and get a group lesson and make some memories with you someday soon as
• 33:59
  well.
• 34:01
  Come on down.
• 34:01
  You're welcome, Bubba.
• 34:03
  Bring bring them on.
• 34:04
  We're ready for you.
• 34:06
  Well, thank you, John, for spending some time with me today, and thank you for being part of
• 34:10
  the scene.
• 34:12
  Thank you.
• 34:13
  Appreciate the opportunity.
• 34:30
  Skunk Golf.
• 34:31
  Look good even if your game stinks.