[Applause] Welcome ladies and gentlemen to Virginia country club in the seventh annual California teaching and coaching Summit we are excited to host all of you for what should be an incredible day of learning today my name is Melanie futen I’m the membership director here at Virginia country club and I’ll be your
Host for the day at this time we’d like to welcome Jamie Mulligan CEO of VCC PGA professional and co-chair of the teaching Summit to say a few words thank you uh for you younger golf pros I would try shaving every other day every time I
Shave I cut myself so um just a little tip there I we’re going to start out not laughing at me again as we do every time here uh anyway it’s nice to have everybody to Virginia country club I think we’re have a great day this has
Been a labor of love for Randy and I to get to put this together along with the section and do all the great things that they do Randy thank you for all your behind the scenes and in front of the scenes uh work let’s give him a
Hand and we like to sit our members or when they have guests here when they come to the gates feel like you’re on vacation here and enjoy the country club the way that we do on a daily basis so really enjoy Virginia uh we’ve worked really hard on our practice facilities
We’re super proud of and want everybody to kind of see what we’ve done out there really excited about the speakers uh I have my buddy Boyd here Todd Anderson and uh tell you about these two guys we get to walk and watch golf a lot and I
Think that will be the theme of what we talk about today is a lot of golf happens on the driving range and many of our lives are on the pting green and that we’re getting to watch and watch golf all the time and we do it together
And that’s some of the best times of my life to get paired with one of those guys players and cruise around um he’s fabulous career and Todd had a fabulous career and uh you’ll have a great morning with them and then super excited about the afternoon Derek and his guys
With the uh Carl Welty kind of The Godfather of video and all the different things that you’re going to see that happen in that how to give a video Lesson etc etc uh Jim McAn son John Craig uh his son Doug Timmons and Derek they’ll put on a really nice show for
You and then as you look around the room when we used to do these Summits not everybody looked fit and now everybody in the room looks fit and if you look at tour players they look like they could play Major League Baseball or they could play football they all look super fit
And the game has turned that way and what Leo Rooney will tell you with ugp will be really helpful and then uh our uh guy Michael block is going to uh we’re going to have a lot of fun on the first te tonight talking about how to
Make your golf game better and what he does to make his golf game better so we should have a fabulous day uh uh from the bottom of my heart it’s nice to have everybody here thanks for all the good things that you do for the game welcome
To Virginia country club and the 7th California coaching and teaching Summit thank you Jamie uh let’s Dive Right into our first segment Boyd summer Hayes is a longtime friend to Jamie and our VCC family after a successful collegiate career at Oklahoma State University Boyd played golf on the PGA
Tour before shifting into teaching the game Boyd’s family has a rich golfing history his Uncle Bruce Sumer Hayes is a winner on the PGA Champions Tour and former instructor his younger brother Daniel played eight seasons on the PGA tour and his cousin Carrie is a former LPGA Tour player Boyd has been
Recognized by Golf Digest as one of the top 50 teachers in America and also as a Golf Magazine top 100 instructor he teaches out of Silver Leaf Club in Scottdale Arizona and coaches six-time PGA Tour winner and two-time rder CER Tony feno current US Champion wam Clark and 2023 live golf individual title
Winner Taylor gu he also enjoys helping golfers of all skill levels to improve one of the most impressive things about Boyd is his ability to take a player from junior golf to playing at the highest level which he will speak on today during his segment a prime example
Of this is his own children his son Preston is an All-American Junior at Arizona State University and it’s currently ranked number 12 in the men’s World amateur rankings and is also a former US Junior Amateur champion and a member of the Victorious USA Walker Cup team at St Andrews this past August his
Daughter Grace is also a junior at ASU and was a first team Pack 12 All Conference selection and ranked during her sopore season in the top 50 by golf stat his youngest son Cameron is also an upcoming Junior golfer with a bright future please join me in warmly welcoming Boyd summer
Hayes thank you for the introduction I appreciate it uh Virginia country club is I can see why everyone loves it so much it’s a special place it’s the people so Jamie I appreciate the invite I’ve known Jamie a long time always been super kind to me ever since I got out on
On tour with some players and it means a lot to me when you invited me to come I was like of course I don’t do this very often because the off weeks I’m always traveling with my kids at their tournaments and whatnot but I wanted to be here Jamie I appreciate your
Contributions in my career means a lot to me so so to talk about junior golf helping them through their development and getting them to college hopefully and on to the next level how many of you here who’s taught the longest here any uh anybody think they are up in the uh
Leaderboard there we have any plus 30s plus 40s plus 50s that’s awesome how many years in the business can’t count yeah very cool any teachers here that are relatively new hey how many years in the business uh I’ve been in business for a long time but I’ve been coaching how long coaching
Uh four years four years all right how about you three years three years anyone less than three years how many years there we go that’s great two years well we got a wide variety here and I’m excited to share in school I had that add piece where I’d
Sit there and unless it was a subject I was really interested in and obviously you guys are teachers and you’re interested in what you do and passionate but even the classes that I did I would sit there and almost try to remember everything and get a little overwhelmed
Nowadays when I listen to people speak if I feel like I learn one or two things that really stick out to me I feel like I walked away with some ideas and better and I know as we go through today I would like to get your feedback on some
Things and and learn from you all too on Instagram I follow a ton of teachers I’m always reading and learning from what other people do I know there’s different ways of doing things and I’m always trying to get better at what I do if we’re not trying to learn and we get
Stagnant and there’s some arrogance that comes with that that we think that we’re a finished product and in teaching there’s always something we can do better to help our students so first off by raise a hand who feels like they specialize or the the the majority
Of your teaching is junior golf by raise the hands yeah and if anyone at the beginning started teaching I’m sure that who’s ever done Junior programs or worked with Juniors even though maybe you don’t do now yeah almost all of us right so I feel like junior golf should be the most
Exciting to teach the most rewarding because we can make an impact with the younger kids when we get an adult that comes to see us the conversations change they’ve made their own decisions in life they’re set but Juniors we can teach them the game of
Golf but we can teach them The Game of Life and so you have two chances to help them and once a kid and a parent knows that you care about them as people I think it starts the relationship on the right foot so what are some of the
Challenges that you guys have had working with Junior golfers because it’s supposed to be the best but sometimes it can be pretty challenging who makes teaching Junior golfers tough okay let’s see uh parents all bolds underline starred okay so that’s where I start when I work with a junior
Golfer I don’t involve the parent as much once I get started but being a parent of three kids when my daughter swam I wanted to meet the teacher I wanted to see who my daughter was going to be training with or just not just for her swimming development
She turned into a golfer thank goodness but to see what type of person well see how they ran their um their school their swimming school and get a feel for what my daughter was going to be experiencing so the first thing I like to do is it
Doesn’t matter if people here have a reputation of being a good junior golf coach as a parent I still want to know what the philosophy is what the steps are going to be with my child and that’s what I would want to know so the first
Lesson is the longest usually I for me it’s a two if I have not worked with this junior golfer I’m going to be working with their parents too that’s going to be the biggest thing that I do to set the junior golfer up for Success because I
Haven’t met many Junior golfers that I haven’t liked I’ve met quite a few parents that make that challenging okay so I remember thinking one time man this kid is one kid stuck stuck out it’s like in all my years like I just don’t get it I don’t really enjoy teaching this kid
That it the thought cross my mind and then I’m like okay boy the parents that’s why he is the way he is if anything now help his parents see the game how the progression should be to take the heat off the kid and sure enough helping the parents made the
Child the kid act differently see his game differently and it changed things so number one the parents so what percentage of parents are crazy is this 99 or 95 98 let’s say generously 90 everyone agree with that or less so this used to bother me I’d go to
Junior golf tournaments and I thought I wasn’t crazy because I played I understand how hard the game is I understand the ups and downs and I’d be like man that parent’s crazy and then the more I thought about I was like well you’re crazy too I remember those times where you can overe
Explain something to your kid have that conversation after the tournament that last way too long and I’ve had to learn from my mistakes too but one of the keys to having successful kids in any sport or any Walk of Life is usually they come from motivated parents
That are a little bit crazy that are high energy that are willing to take their kid to the practices to the lessons to the events it’s a huge commitment so as my career went on I thought you know what I’m going to expect that every parent’s crazy just
Like I am and the ones that aren’t they’re going to be a huge blessing and and it does happen sometimes where a parent hasn’t played the sport hasn’t played golf so they truly are just watching to support so I remember I was teaching yian Lynn he was the Pacific uh
Asian am champ so he gotten the Masters at 16 and 17 and his mom didn’t he spoke perfect English he’s from China and his mom came to town and he said can my mom come down on the lesson te and that’s a no no for me after the first lesson I don’t allow
That she only cares cuz I care and sure enough both parents that’s just how they were and that helped Yan’s career on the course he tended to get over things pretty quick he wasn’t G to have to have a conversation with Mom and Dad after he wasn’t dreading that mid- round
So being a good junior golf coach is dealing with the parents okay so the first lesson is usually two to three hours I I do three but if you want to do two or three and some a parent may say well that’s a lot of time and I always
Look at it this way that’s how I do things that’s how I believe things are best for the junior t uh player if the parent doesn’t want to do that then it’s just not a fit no harm no foul but that’s what I believe in so the first
Time I get together with a parent I tell them hey this is your one chance to tell me everything about your child all his strengths and weaknesses the things he does wrong right and they’ll rattle them off but it gives them a chance to be feel like they’ve been heard seen and
Honestly you do get a great perspective from the parents you know I’m I’m going to learn what the kid is like what the student is like but having the advantage of having a parent really get to know let you get to know their their kid their personality and you get a feel
It’s very revealing when a parent talks about um their kids golf game and so then you already know what you’re a little bit up against okay so some of my favorite lines from a parent that usually they’re not that good of golfers but you decelerated how
Many how many times you hear that one never never up never in I always say and they have the funny saying hey 100% of putts left Shore 99% of putt short you know don’t go in and I would say 100% of putts that go past the hole don’t go in
So when you learn The Strokes gained you know that a tour pro from 32 feet if he two putts it’s zero Strokes gain well a junior golfer when they’re really young when they’re too putting from 20 ft they’re gaining against their competition so I never like the idea of
Never never end it doesn’t matter if it’s a little short a little to the right little to the left a little pass that’s a two-putt as they get better the expectation changes so I kind of in a joking way in a real way is talk about these things that I’ve seen that aren’t
Helpful to the kids so the parent in front of the kid they get held to that that standard because I can teach a junior golfer and we’ll talk about it later the proper expectations the proper steps and how it’s going to be up and down the process and getting a little
Better then a little worse and then a lot better then a little worse and it’s just a little climb well if the student understands the process but the parents don’t I’ve still failed and so I take educating the parent even more seriously than the Junior because I’m going to be able to
Make my impact on the junior the more time I get with them the more I see them play and just the more I get to know him as person so um what um what challenges have you seen with parents any any ideas or what’s the worst thing that you run into with a
Parent what’s some of the challenges because that is the biggest thing for me is if I can get a good Dynamic for the junior they can reach their potential a lot easier obviously yeah well and if you that’s a great point and if you understand the psychology of the game if the parent
Says that in front of their kid in front of their coach what does that child know what does that student know their parents are saying while they are playing a tournament round everything everything bad and you’ll get that in a tournament where the kid is looking at the parent wondering what that reaction
Is and yet the student the player should only be thinking where they can say hey he can’t chip she can’t putt has no course management we’ll get into that later I always think well why did your kid hit it over there well I’m like well he still or she still
Sucks still or they hit bad shots they weren’t trying to go over there we got to get their technique better and they’re supposed to make all these mistakes this is not a surprise Okay so um and then I like to go through I get this question too right in the first
Lesson can my kid play division one I’m like okay where are we starting from and then when you think about the steps because it takes What It Takes Nick Sabin says that and I like that no one really H takes a a shortcut they first
Got to get to their you know my daughter was a swimmer turned into a golfer her first few tournaments were miserable as far as how she felt she was so nervous it took her a year or two of getting in competition to start to learn how her body felt that
Became a little more familiar early on but then as she got better she had to deal with getting in contention not losing a lead all these steps that just experience can only provide okay so when I think of a parent saying okay can I get to D1 it’s like okay well let’s
First make their club team or their junior you know Junior High team then the high school team let’s just get us then we got to get in the top five or six depending on how many kids play in high school golf here it’s five in Arizona where we’re at and then once
You’re the fifth man then you’re trying to keep your spot and once you if you want to go D1 you probably got to be better than the fifth man on a high school team and so you got to get to the third spot and then the first spot and
There’s all these steps and then you got to get recruited and they got to play good in front of a coach and then once they go to college if they’re lucky enough they got to make that team and then they got to keep their spot on the
Team and then to go pro they eventually got to be unless their team is amazing probably the top player on that team and you just take them through all this process and if they’re lucky to get on tour well they got to get through the corn faery or the symmetra or the Epson
And then they got to get on tour keep their card and you got to get invited to the bigger events and it just the list goes on and on and on and on and so you want to just paint that picture but then the next step’s the only one that’s
Important right and it simplifies it so um dealing with a parents is a huge deal I let the parents in the first visit go through a strengths and weakness chart so I have it on History they get to list everything I give them the ideas in the
Strength and weakness chart to get the student and and the student and the parent are right at the same time it’s three of us three chairs got a clipboard and they’re writing it depends at this it depends at the skill level that they’re at as the player gets better
This strength and strength and weakness chart gets really detailed but depending on the quality of the player it’s going to be the glaring things and you might have to ask some questions to pull out some of the finer details so I I I let them know I want as detailed as possible
That and that in time if they miss more than I miss cuz who should know their game the most the student they know what they’re feeling thinking over shots um what what is going on and so obviously the first time I’ve seen him I’m trying to get the
Most in input from the player and then usually the parent is the one that has seen them play the most okay so I give a category for mental toughness or give them an idea putting and they’ll write down a good a strength of putting then I’m like okay lag putting how are you
There how are you from 25 to 15t how are you from 10 ft and in how are you from 5T and in left to right or right to left you tend to be short tend to be long I’m gathering all this information but also letting them know that okay as we move
Forward and we progress and get better we’re going to be way more detailed because we’re looking for the details right if we look at a lot of different areas of the game and we get just slightly better at those well they start to add up um physical attributes whether
That’s strength height um whether they have a limitation as well I want to know uh chipping pitches bunkers 50 yards and in recovery shots iron game their golf IQ course management game management two different things to me their experience wedge game and so as they’re writing and
I see that not much is getting put down I give them some areas of the game that kind of will spur their you know thought process to get a nice list okay were you guys able to pull up any of those photos okay let’s go to the um there’s like a
Aqua um big board with some strengths and weaknesses on it this is Grace’s about four years ago and then I’ll show you Preston’s from after he got done with his um let’s go through it no it’s going to be an aqua background with a bunch of strength and
Weaknesses hey boy real quick what age would you start this with oh it doesn’t just right from the beginning right from the beginning and it’s going to be pretty generic when they’re they’re younger I mean cuz they’re it’s pretty easy to help a player that’s not as good
And so they it may only take them 10 15 minutes as the player gets better this list can get a lot bigger so um I like to have them put their goals their strengths weaknesses so I don’t know if it’s visible there but when I have
Students do goals I like a lot of goals because you want one big goal and then if they don’t accomplish that they feel like they’re a failure so there’s a lot of process or skill set goals that they have um and she has that in her room
Every student I have has a clipboard and we’ll go through what they kind of have in their clipboard and they bring to lessons and they keep in their bag um during the lessons and group lessons and camps um can you go to the other one
That has like six pages with a bunch of small writing and I I don’t want people to see my kids strengths and weaknesses and goals but you get some IDE a of what they’re doing here so Preston he’s trying to make it out on the tour he
Wants to win major championships and he wants to be the best player in the world so his strengths and weaknesses are going to get a lot more detailed so he GES goes into the very specific strengths as far as what type of shots he’s good at around the greens what type
Of Bunker shots um he’s not he’s going to put a weakness that he’s not great at Rough play yet but he puts a as a strength he has the speed and face control that he could be a good rough player okay so and then he has his goals
For the off season he doesn’t put them too far out in advance he he knows what he wants to do long term but when you look at some of this detail that’s a that’s someone that is trying to find a quarter of a shot uh half a shot over a
Season and he keeps that in front of him so ever since my kids have been young they have a stack of of all their strengths and weaknesses and to me when I look at the we need to know the strengths because I’m a huge believer in that that becomes your identity as a
Player and you got to Double Down triple down on your strengths okay um Rory practices a lot of drivers well if he gets off and and a lot of people say Okay Rory he needs to practice he’s wedges more he’s putting um well sometimes he drives it so good it
Doesn’t even matter but that’s his identity if Rory starts hitting his driver bad then he’s huge trouble okay so and then when it’s a weakness I’m not trying to put that into a strengths category the goal would be hey let’s just make it less crappy less shitty and
Then let’s get it to maybe it’s an average tour Pros there’s very few players ever that have been good at everything okay Tiger Woods I didn’t get to see Jack Nichols play but you know tiger and Jack are considered the two best what was Tiger’s weakness okay driver
Okay Phil Mickelson what was his weakness driver Jordan spe Tony feno okay we’re spot on okay we could go down and down the list and these are the very best players Patrick kentley is the only player in the world that doesn’t have a weakness and Billy horel
But oh oh you are okay Patrick’s terrible you saw on that 16th and 17th and 18th hole you just can’t handle the pressure at the the rider Cup right you guys can work on that but yeah exactly Virginia country club on it or a money sign both yeah that’s
Right so once a student so the what was the best part of Tiger’s game well he had yeah he had some huge strengths that’s right sorry one of his greatest strengths was iron play he’s arguably one of the best iron players there ever has you agree with that so bad
Driving doesn’t set his irons up as much as he could but tiger had one of his strengths as power so he was able to Dan around the bad driving by hitting a bunch of three woods and two iron Stingers he played his way he would sometimes lay it way back because he was
Going to play to his strengths so I like to explain and these are the top players in the world once you get to the 50th in the world the 100th and the 150th you start to see some glaring weaknesses but every great player has a few strengths you don’t need that many
Strengths you could have a couple strengths and a couple average things in maybe one week weakness and you can work around that so I like to explain that to the kids early on that even the best players in the world have weaknesses I like to explain that to the parents and
Start having them think that hey my kid can have strength and weaknesses they’re just beginning on their Journey so um huge huge process to me is start the lessons with the parents try to you know set an expectation and get their strength and weaknesses and then the parents I tell them hey moving
Forward you can drop your child off if they’re younger go ahead and be there but you’re going to be off to the side of the lesson te because that is not what is best for the student I understand that the parent is paying but that’s my my job is to help the junior
Golfer and I’m very firm on that and if they don’t like that it’s not a fit they’re not wrong for wanting to be there and I’m not wrong for not wanting them to be there it’s just a different style so I’ve just found the first few years of
Teaching I was trying to teach anybody anytime any place I was just trying to transition out of golf and just try to be the best teacher I could be where I was teaching in Utah and it got to the point where I’m like boy you got to do something
Different the parent feels validated but the kid it it’s hurting his he’s looking at his parent the whole time during the lesson and how many times does a parent say see I told you so how many times we hear that all the time see I told you you were
Doing that wrong and they’re putting heat on the teacher to tell them work on the area that they want the kid to work on well I’m going to eventually listen to the kids strength and weakness chart and I’m going to be able to see them
Play and I’ll start to add to that so anyway with parents that’s the goal to me another thing that helps the parents and I’ll uh it’s for the kids too but can you put up some of those stats we’ll just go through through them they’re pretty generic but that’s the first thing I
Like the parent to know if a kid knows that a Tor Pro makes half of eight Footers but the parent thinks it’s 80% conversation in the car you suck a putting you got to get better you see on TV the Tor pros make everything so can you pull a couple of those up
I’ll just kind of guide you there’s just some number like some uh pages with some numbers on there okay right there go back there good case so so right there I like this it’s a simple chart where it’s doesn’t have too many distances away but it has
The one putt percentage and then the two Putt and then the three putt percentage so it’s pretty obvious that the better the putter is they hardly three putt from a distance from 20 25 ft right it gets to the point where and and I like to set my
Own benchmarks with the Juniors of what would be a healthy expectation but if you’re showing them the T four pros and then you’re trying to back off the expectation from that to make it more feasible for them at least they know hey how many times we see a junior golfer
Miss A eight-footer and get pissed a lot and the parent obviously is pissed but if I can get them both on the same page with the stats or the golf IQ I got a lot better chance let’s go to another one one more okay never up never in too hard shrinks the whole
Too soft makes it bump off the line so I just H I’m ready with the doubt or the issue I deal with parents before we start I never want to hear never up never in okay yeah of course from 10 feet and in we don’t want to be leaving
Putts short but if a kid can two putt from 20 feet and that becomes easy than it’s 25 ft but the expectation even on the tour 32 feet you’re not losing Strokes let’s go to another one okay some of some of these right here okay so this is a length of putt
Sometimes a kid will get off the side of the green and he’ll hit a 30 yard chip to 6 feet and the parents like that that’s just not close enough Jordan spe hits it right up next to the hole well uh it’s not really true the Tor proo from 45 ft
Let’s just make it simple it’s to 4T would be on a lag putt zero Strokes gained 55 ft 4 feet 4 in 65 ft 4T 11 in that’s with the putter in their hand so obviously when we get further away from the hole chips aren’t going to be as
Close too okay and then from the Fairway from 100 yards 150 200 it’s always shocking to the parent and the student okay so let’s go to another one right here I like to ask questions in this evaluation of strength and weaknesses ask the parent I like asking the parents first
So and these are all just you know this is a decade I want to give credit to I I like to take screenshots and keep whatever information who made it on there but this is so available you can just punch in uh you know any any Google
And you’ll get all these numbers um so I like to put the parents on the spot and I always say okay from the middle of the Fairway tour pro how close they hit it they’re always at that 56 foot Mark but then I remind him wait a minute from 65 ft
Putton they don’t hit it to what you just said so one then we got a chance and this is the Tor Pro when when a Tor Pro is hitting from 150 yards what club are they usually hitting wedge to a nine iron one of your Junior golfers how what club are they
Hitting from there fivewood six iron what kind of spin can a Young Junior golfer put on it zero not as much as a a tour pro okay so not only are they hitting three four five clubs more they can’t spin it they can’t hit it high enough for the most
Part there are some that that can but the majority and so I’m trying to just talk them down and get a proper expectation okay so when the kids were young and Preston say is hitting it from a 100 yards or 100 let’s say 150 he was hitting that at a five iron
All the way up until he was 13 years old well I’m not even going to go to the 200 yard is about a tour pro five or six iron I’m not going to say hey Preston we got to get that I think it’s pretty reasonable say hey Preston from 150
Yards since you’re hitting that with a five iron which would be a Tor proo 200 yard shot we need to get it to 53 ft no we don’t he doesn’t have the landing angle or the spins we just keep on backing that expectation off as they get better and they’re moving up into
College and D1 and trying to go to the next level yeah these become very applicable okay so one last one do we have right here right here so here I had Rich hunt make these so it doesn’t just have the average but it has you know
Average to so let’s just say there’s 200 players ranked on tour on these stats you know the best doesn’t mean just the very best he’s taken top 10 best between average we’re saying you know 50ish average the 90 to 100 and so on just so
Kids no hey I don’t need to be average or better on everything there’s people that you can look up the players and I challenge them to do that look at some of the players are average or below average on some things but it’s when you get way less than average that really
Hurts okay so I give these to the parents in a folder give these uh kids the folder sometimes as they get better I start having a lot of stats okay another thing that I so once I done that the parent goes okay and they’ll say well well I
Just want to be here I just want to make sure he does what you’re telling him to okay I’ll make a video but even then what does it matter I don’t even necessarily want you to see it because how bad is that to be taught by your
Parent that is just sent you to a coach so I’m very adamant that hey your kid is going to have a video he’s going to have the notes or she’s going to have the notes and when they get in a bind they’re going to text me you’re not
Going to text me that’s not how we’re going to do it occasionally a parent I’m fine with them you know with healthy questions and healthy things I’m okay with but for the most part I haven’t found that okay so that’s how I do things anybody that’s had a lot of
Success with teaching Juniors any anything that you feel like you’ve done that’s somewhat unique that’s helped you with Junior ji that could help us here any ideas oh man I may start doing that I like that put in writing yeah just take it that next step
Further I’m taking it on their honor but when they put pen to paper that’s kind of you know the terms of the agreement the boundaries the expect because frustration starts with unmet expect you know unmet expectations okay and so if I if the parent expects to communicate with me all the time about
Their kid and then I don’t well that’s going to frustrate them but if they already know that it’s out in front of them then they can choose to work with me or not well then they know when they reach out to me at 10:00 at night and do
A whole email and paragraph about how bad their kid is and how many bad decisions and he doesn’t work hard enough and they wish they they had an attitude like Sally or Tommy and blah blah blah like they’ve already broken that agreement so all right I want to move on to
Um a couple of my keys I have so there’s summer haze golf keys that every kid that I’ve taught knows it’s evolved you add one or two sometimes you take one off over the years but the first thing that I do with the kids is go over the
Mental game okay golf I always challenge him I say golfers are the softest athletes I may be wrong but basketball players they have all these other teammates and coaches if their kid if their player gets negative out there and is moping what can the coach do pull them just bench him right also
That Sports moving so fast that a player May react to a Miss layup in basketball kind of just a natural reaction but they’re already chasing the guy they got to get on the other end of the court so in football basketball um soccer these team sports and sports that move so
Fast the mental game is going to be sharper there because you’ll just get sat or you’ll get ripped by your teammates and also the game is moving at a speed that it doesn’t allow you to sit there and mope okay so you got five hours and sometimes unfortunately six
Hours in a junior golf round to keep your mind in a good space that doesn’t mean you concentrate for 6 hours on Golf but you learn strategies to stay in a good frame of mind because once a kid goes down that road of wo was me negativity that not only drains the
Mental energy but the physical energy and then they’re frustrated decision- making process goes down their body feels different all the studies show that so I’m working on the mind and I try to make it simple there’s a lot that goes into what makes someone mentally tough coach you’ve been doing this a
Long time what’s one of the biggest characteristics that you find or want in a player to to call them mentally tough there’s a lot of things but what do you think being able to overcome adversity yeah being able to overcome right golf is so up and down
You got the rub of the green you get bad bounces we’ll talk about that the perception of luck but um there’s always that mental hurdle to stay positive fight through the bad times Billy had a rough patch this year came out of it right they just don’t quit the better
Players just have this I’m just going to get through this and that’s why I like starting with the mind is because once that becomes a habit that you don’t know how to quit and that you do expect the game to be tough and have up and downs
Then they’re more ready to accept that challenge and get through it anyone else characteristics of someone mentally tough oh I was yeah go ahead yeah does that sense yeah you’re saying how do you build up that that mental strength or okay so the first rule with
The kids to build that is no excuses accountability okay the parents are still here during the education part how many how many uh times do you hear oh I just switch drivers oh I I’m I’m just I’ve been sick I haven’t been able to practice and here’s one here’s one that
I don’t let my students use or the parents I’m going through swing changes how many tour Pros are are working on their technique as the season goes every single one of them so they’re making swing changes swing tweaks right so I don’t like that to be an excuse now
That’s a pretty we the obvious ones are um oh I got the worst tea time there wasn’t any wind and then there was well tough you know that’s everybody gets good tea tea times and bad tea times and the person that is more mentally tough and has a positive
Attitude tends to think he he is lucky or she is lucky they see what they want to see okay um what are some of the excuses you guys here the most common or or some of the most most common huh bades bad lies okay so great
Story of that I was playing with a a player he had played on the PJ tour for a year we were at Q school together and he was known as a pretty grumpy player pretty negative player and he hits it in a divot and before we could get to the
Ball he’s let his caddy know me know my caddy everybody know right you see Tiger Woods hitting a divot he goes up there lie dick takes the shot he knows how to hit the shot he hits the shot it’s a really bad break to be in a divot for someone that doesn’t
Have any low Point control and hasn’t practiced that shot so if a student says oh I hit it in a divot I say well what kind of divot sand divot front of the divot back of the divot and you work on acquiring that shot okay so not wasn’t a
Bad break that’s called rub of the green okay so no excuses be accountable a good way to do this how many of you teach juniors in a group have you found that effective I find it really effective gives a you know competition uh the camaraderie good learning environment they can learn from
Other players so when I get into groups or camps we all have a clipboard in the camp and I allow the players to count the excuses or the complaints of the other players I can go from the most complaining player to where they won’t make an excuse or a complaint all day
Long because everyone’s looking for each other’s BS right so that’s been the most effective is not me saying hey don’t complain about this that’s an excuse I let the players call each other out I think that’s a super healthy way and it over the years I just found that oh my
Gosh I wish I would have thought of that earlier so um I warn him straight up hey who’s going to make an excuse today so let’s write them all down it goes away real quick the next is so there’s five things there’s so many go ahead sorry we
Have a huge mental game camps they’re very successful that helps I think I wanted to just give it out there we put six te’s in their pocket and every excuse someone points out they have to take a te into the other pocket and so whoever’s left with the most te’s on the
Positive side uh gets like a prize back so there constantly they’re like they’ll start saying an excuse and one them be like oh and you’s got to put a te back in before he finishes and so at the end of the camp Whoever has the most teeth is obviously the winner so they’re
Really working in accountability and everything as as well with it that’s a great idea I love that um the next one is negative selft talk or positive selft talk the way we talk to ourselves okay the Navy Sills talk about the brain the mind being the software the body being the hardware so
To me in junior golf we can know what the player is shooting from three Fairways away right usually for the most part slump shoulder slower walk look ejected now there’s some players my brother Daniel inside he was probably saying some things that were tough on himself
And and and going to a a a negative place like we’re just golfers we’re human it happens but he held his outward emotions pretty good wasn’t a club breaker wasn’t a club thrower so if a student you see can’t control or have good body language you already know for a fact that it’s
Reacting to what you’re saying in your mind okay so I always say the selft talk before the outward but if I can get a student to at least control the outward then I have a chance at the inward talk okay but if I have a student that knows
How to talk to himself I never have to you know hey shoulders back hey go on to the next what’s important the next shot I don’t need to say that stuff they’re already saying positive things to themselves to keep themsel in it okay and so a lot of the times I’ll say hey
Write down the things that you’ve said negatively to yourself what are some of the things you’ve said positively to yourself to get yourself through the round and that becomes a big thing you can also just you know try to Envision that hey if you’re catting for yourself
How would you talk catties are the most positive because that’s how they make their living okay so to me you can learn a lot about what you think a cadd would be saying hits it to the right of this green God we can’t leave it there caddy
Never says that else they are fired right okay they immed huh you go to they’ll say okay there you go but a good caddy would say all right we can get that up and down they’re constantly staying positive to keep their player in a great frame of mind because as players
You know I was tough on myself I was too hard on myself there’s a reason why I’m a coach fa fa players sometimes don’t turn into good coaches but my experience was I’ve been trying to teach the Juniors the good things maybe I did but tried to help them on the things I
Didn’t do good and that was one thing I did I always controlled my outward emotions I never uh threw a club or broke a club my whole career but I was tough on myself inside and so yeah I wasn’t going to get my parents uh pissed
Off at me for breaking clothes or acting like a clown cuz my parents were strict on that and that is always nice when you have a parent that cares more about the behavior than the actual golf result but I had to learn in time in my career to
Control what I was saying to myself um body language okay we talked about that and so but I like to truly convince the kids that if they can learn how to talk to themselves then the body language just kind of takes care of itself now this is a big one because I
Think Junior golfers more than any group ah all all of all ranges of golfers they get frustrated and one of the things they get really frustrated about is being in that divot the bad breaks okay to me I used to say there is no such
Thing as a bad break with you know I was saying it just but I changed it to perception is reality our perception of luck is how we view luck I sometimes I play with the kids and I don’t play as as good anymore and in the Arizona golf you know if you
Hit a foul ball you’re in the desert well I didn’t grow up hitting it really from ages 17 to 20 I didn’t hit it as straight as I did when I was younger and so I got a lot of experience with Escape shots I was good at it it was a skill
Set Escape shots so I’d hit in the desert hit it out and they’d be like oh my gosh coach you got so lucky and I’m thinking give me a swing I’ve got a shot that’s a skill set for me so that player thought it was a good break but in
Reality they could have had the same lie and they wouldn’t have been able to hit it on the Green so it’s just perception right what are some of the excuses we’ve had or bad so one of the things I do with the kids is I say okay say we have
A lesson one week and then it’s two weeks in between or a week in between I said hey I want you to come back and tell me all about the bad breaks you got and they already know I’m really strict so they get kind of nervous about explaining their bad
Breaks Preston had one bad break in 2021 it was a greyhawk national championship and it ran up against a rake that shouldn’t have been there and it got caught right under the lip well it was a pretty high lip to where even if it didn’t get stuck on the rake in
All likelihood he was still going to have to put it out and not get to the green so instead of being 50 yards from the green he could get it out to 100 yards to the green Strokes gain that break costed him very little okay and a
Lot of times our bad breaks what they perceive are times that don’t even matter matter it could be in a round that you’re shooting 85 and it’s not even in contention but a player that sees bad breaks tends to always see them and players that like to think they’re lucky
Find a way to see that and I and then you think about the players that think they’re getting unlucky they never for the most part remember the good break so I tell a student hey if you got lucky in the first six holes and you really truly
Know it well when you get what you perceive as a bad break we’re just Strokes gain luck back to zero okay and I like them to think that way okay write down what if they have an issue with being a complainer about bad breakes I like them to list in around what they
Perceived as a good break bad break but in general luck to me and rub of the green are not the same so Tony used to uh spin the ball a lot well he he you know he spins it a decent amount but he spends a lot less
Now he would consistently plug in the Li lips of bunkers with mid irons to lower irons and he kept on just saying gosh that is so unlucky what did I do when I was young to to mess up and and piss off the the bunker gods and I heard that complaint or that
Perception of what happened and finally I said okay tone all right from 150 yards in in you’re going to be spinning that ball at 9,000 or more if you’re into a little wind and you leave it short with that much spin what should the ball
Do if it’s decently soft in the lips and you would have known that from a practice round that’s on you it’s going to plug and if it doesn’t I consider that a lucky break so once I kind of explain that is like hey when you’re going in with that much Spin and you
Come up short it should plug well instead of thinking it’s a bad luck and keep on doing the same thing it’s like oh okay even though it’s only a 5 mph wind if I’m spinning it from 9,000 to 12,000 that’s going to affect the distance a lot and then it was never an
Issue he never said anything about that okay so even great players even though they’re not TR Tony is not a complainer he’s not an excuse maker but he just perceived the situation different than I did so I think as coaches we can help with that because once a student feels
Like they’re getting unlucky it’s so easy to go to that frustration and that bad place mentally okay so perception is luck or perception is the way we see it some players see the exact same situation as a good break or a bad break okay so same thing make the list of
Where people are making excuses you can do the same thing where the all the students write a list of their bad breaks they got in a tournament and we can all decide together whether that was really a bad break okay the bad breaks they list get smaller and smaller as the
Weeks go by okay and then the next thing to I consider being mentally tough is getting over bad shots immediately okay the most important shot in golf is the next one now this is where it’s tricky I have three kids and all the junior golfers you teach Through The
Years everyone has a different personality my oldest Preston off the course he’s easy easy going chill laidback forgets everything typical boy but I’m super add he is too he gets over his bad Shots by literally forgetting he doesn’t have like an emot not an emotional kid so he doesn’t put a huge
Emotional response into the bad shot makes it way easier to get over but there aren’t that many players that are like that on on tour on both tours lpj or PJ tour who do you classify as someone that just literally just forgets and moves on Dustin Johnson
Okay I would say Tony Fen is great at that paty now do you feel like he just forgets or uses a different tactic to get over it and on to the next shot cuz I’m going to talk about that he he says whenever like we a kid we
Telling that he’s a fireman he’s got to put the fire in the FI put the fire is the water so you have the water all’s got back up keep just move on and go we got circum really good that’s awesome so to me I actually wouldn’t have classified Patrick as someone that
Just forgets off the course what’s he like super intelligent studious thoughtful thinks a lot that’s like my daughter Grace so I can’t treat her like Preston who on the lpj tour just kind of gets over their and moves on Lydia Co anybody else you can think
Of you think tiger is easy come easy go and just forgets about it no I don’t think so Jack Nicholas 19 what finished second 19 times I he was a champion at that yeah so the best players in the world get over their bad shots the quickest for
Junior golfers I call it let that one shot cost you one shot not the next and the next and the next so to me it’s either a person that just forgets or it’s a person that truly has learned how hard the game is acceptance that they’re going to hit bad shots
That’s how my daughter Grace and my youngest son camar off the course they’re more high energy they remember things they’re a little more emotional and so Grace has had to learn okay tour Pros have X amount of great tournaments this season how many great tournaments not let’s not say the
Top five or top 10 but a 50th player on either tour how many great tournaments do they have in a season one maybe two right great tournaments how many good tournaments they have let’s call it a 20 20 event season five five or six kind of good how many blah
Weeks do they have just kind of whatever decent amount and then how many terrible tournaments do they have yeah they have a hand you know three or four so if the student isn’t the type that forgets you have to educate them on just how hard the game is you have to educate
Him on the percentages Preston would have reacted the same after a shot whether he would have known the percentages or not it clearly helped him once he knew those things but he it was already easier for him to let go of bad shots I love teaching the stats and the
Numbers of it so that that player that can’t forget about things that’s not their nature that they can use knowledge golf IQ and stats to be able to move on to the next shot and just accept okay it is what it is I also like helping
Students that you can tell have a hard time letting go is a post shot routine okay react is the number one four hours react tiger was gosh dang it mother I mean whatever right slam a club uh Tony will kind of be like tone pretty chill but that’s his natural
Just instinctive reaction and the reaction changes every time okay it’s just you got to have a release everyone releases that initial reaction different then it’s review what do I think I did wrong with that shot a lot of times a player doesn’t doesn’t really know for
Sure else they’d fix it in play but they know what they’ve been working on they know their Tendencies so they have a good idea and even if it they’re not dead on I like the idea that if they process it they’re not over the neck shot thinking oh gosh wait was that from
Too far in out was it a close face what was it so review it then the third R rehearse it rehearse the proper technique the best you can you see that all the time with tour pros and great players they’re off to the side after they’ve hit a bad t-ball kind of feeling
A feel then four refocus Let It Go move on so some players wouldn’t even need that some players need that process to get back into the right frame of mind and then I would say um don’t on that line I used to get this all the time parents would watch would
Be paired with Preston and he is just really laidback and he understands the difficulty of the game that combo makes it to where he hits a bad shot and he just moves immediately on and a parent will say well I just wish my kid was more like Preston and I’m like that’s
Not your kid they’re totally different okay trying to make someone that’s a more anxious person my daughter talks to her golf ball Non-Stop and I used to I didn’t talk to my golf ball so it kind of annoyed me and I’m like Grace like just play like that’s that’s negative
Energy I was making a mistake if she didn’t let that out it would build build build and guess what would happen five or six holes later you could tell she was pissed and it was affecting her game so I let her react I tell her hey you model yourself
After a a Jordan speed or a player that has a lot of fire and kind of learn from how they get over bad shots and then the players that have the more personality of a laidback or middle of the rad player model your person you know your
Way of going about things with that player that makes sense um next thing is so that’s the mental game if you can have those five things no excuses positive selft talk positive body language improve your perception of luck and get over bad shots immediately of course there’s other techniques
Breathing techniques visualiz you know visualizing all the techniques that you know whether they have a sports psychologist or you’re going to be the one that teaches them that you’re going to be you’re going to be be at least a a B+ a minus mental player if you can get
Those five down okay go ahead I was say before you leave the mental game um the value of letting players and parents know that mistakes are okay things they they’re wonderful things in some ways because they’re road maps for us but they’re not bad things the word failure
Is not a big fan of it yeah that that sort of as you said numbers to help share your players with reality of maybe what is a good shot that can be okay fre people to not be so worried about the B see I love that I cadd for my kids a
Ton growing up it was a great experience but I also felt like that was the best way to just see what was happening and help them with their thought process on the course I’m an alpha I’m stubborn my kids are I don’t view stubbornness as a negative thing I think that’s an
Essential quality that 90% of that is positive 10% of maybe stubbornness you know keeps you from maybe seeing your weakness soon enough or you know wanting to learn a little bit but Preston has always played a an extremely aggressive style of golf and I wanted that to he
Wanted to be the best in the world he wants to be on the tour there’s some calculated players and there’s some really aggressive players he’s always driven it great so the tea hey play to your strength but he would go for everything he need to he needed to learn
Bogey avoidance he needed to learn hey when to when to bite the bullet and when to go for it but the great thing so when I was catting for him there’d be a situation and I just ask hey what are your two sit what are your two scenarios
Instead of saying hey this is you’re going to hit this because I know what he should hit I know that three-wood on a downhill lie and he’s already a shut faac player he doesn’t have any ball speed that thing is going to go really low dribble in the hazard or the rough
But he’s a stubborn person I am too the best lessons I’ve ever learned are just from doing it so if I keep Preston or Grace or cam or these other students that I watch play and you evaluate them if I explain it as a mistake or don’t let
Them make what someone would call mistake pressing puts that in the computer oh God that was kind of like dumb well I take a step further it wasn’t dumb it’s just you didn’t understand the launch was was going to happen what the lie was already going to
Do with the the launch and so on and then it’s like ah that makes sense okay so let your players play and then they can learn from their own mistakes or own decisions and nothing and so I try to teach and coach Juniors as if they were tour Pros
When’s the last time who who’s Brian good to see you when’s the last time that you didn’t have the final say on what you were going to do when it was you and a player caddy situation who always had the final say player the player every time so if
I’m trying to train a kid to learn to think the right way guess what they get the final say and then that just breeds confidence in their proper decisions or they get information on okay maybe that wasn’t the best you know decision I’ll I’ll um adjust accordingly next time but don’t
Cheat your students out of learning the real lessons that stick by using your experience yes we’ve all been in the game a lot longer than them we kind of know what they should do or what the percentages say but at a really young age don’t over don’t keep them from making that
Mistake once you see it you can explain it later and you explain it instead of just saying don’t do that explain why okay what was the other option so I think that helps kids is ask hey what were your options there what was your next and a lot of times
They’re like there wasn’t they were never thinking that but the value in me letting Preston play Super aggressive he was playing at the Walker cup and he made a he hit his best Drive of the day at San Andrews on 16 it was light rough on the left he should have just bailed
Left he went down the middle hit a good drive went in the pop bunker his opponent Preston was tied hit it to the right hit out of bounds bounced in well number one his training was good because he knows yeah that he would consider a
Lucky break it’s hard not to but it is what it is okay he made a mistake on the course management side pitch it out lost the hole he one down he wins 17 going at the back left pin at St Andrews which is extremely risky he’s one down he understands match
Play situations but still the other opponent was in the pot bunker he didn’t necessarily need to go for it but he had been playing aggressive his whole life that he was used to the feeling in his body of going to pull off a difficult shot wins the hole ties it all summer he
Had been fighting a right shot he never shot fought a right shot his whole career shot face player if he pushed it you know it would curve to the right he was hitting some curvers to the right make his body feel anything different my roommate Charles howed Oklahoma state was a very conservative
Player amazing player but in situations where you got to take on a shot it’s going to make your body feel a little bit different because you haven’t conditioned it that way so not always some players need to play conservative based on their skill sets Okay I find
That coaches and parents they have their kids play way too conservative when course management and game management are different Grace was playing great as a freshman at the state championship and there was a hole where all the girls in the group before laid up tle and the two
Players in her group laid up and she she was very inexperienced she just laid up and she had like a five iron into the green and so after she ended up taking second or third place bogey the hole I said Grace what’s your greatest strength driving all right when
It comes to loseing and win in a tournament I’d rather lose with my strength I can live with that so sure enough the very next year same scenario she hit driver and it’s not if she hit it in the desert hitting a driver I would have said that’s just the wrong
Play you could have laid up no for her that’s the right shot and then if she hits it in the desert that’s a bad shot not a bad decision and bad shots happen every for the most part when a parent sees a kid hit a bad shot it was a bad
Decision no or or get in a situation where they they thought wow how could they go over the green well they bladed it that’s why it went over the green why they hit it in the you know desert well people hit bad shots and another thing when I was explaining like the
Expectations I always tell the parent and the student when you watch golf on TV on a Thursday Friday it’s the Highlight Reel it’s condensed what’s the most exciting thing to show when you’re showing a condensed coverage on a Thursday and Friday what do you see chips chip-ins putts hit iron shots
Uptight for the longer players some drives but they don’t really show that many unless it’s a feature group they’ll show just the very best shots and it gives these kids and parents a very skewed perception of what they’re really doing out there um and so and then on
The weekend Saturday and Sunday they’re showing the lead groups and what are those lead we how many great great um weeks does a great player a tour player have we just said it already one or two and so they’re showing the players that are having the best week possibly of
Their year so once again it gets skewed but but if you watch a true final round you start to see all these mistakes by the people that lose and that’s a great thing for the student to see too that hey they’re they’re human as well okay um we talked about the strength and
Weaknesses um I always challenge the kid hey in time if I see too many things that I add to your charts then you aren’t thinking hard enough okay you’re not being detailed enough um then the last thing we are products of our environment and training so as a failed player one of
The things that I did really well my dad did well with me and Daniel is we were always competing always playing some range work if something needed to be worked on but we were always playing on the course so when I failed as a player I hurt my back
In 2004 and a lot of my friends and family trying to make me feel better were like oh that’s why I didn’t have a successful career compared to what I we I thought it would be that wasn’t the truth when I got hurt I started bouncing around instructor to
Instructor trying to make up for I’d already played a few events on tour and I made the mistake of comparing my bad golf to someone’s good golf and comparing me as a rookie with some of the best players in the world it’s going to make you feel inadequate I try
To prepare my students for that saying hey at each level that you move up you’re going to have someone that’s better than you and don’t just that person at one time had to take that step to get better so I compared my good golf to their bad golf compared myself to the
Very best players in the world which wasn’t fair and it put me down this road of constant new instructor okay work hard on that didn’t work okay go to the next one next one and pretty soon I made an okay Coach I’d learned a lot from
Other teachers and I like wow this whole time I was getting ready to be a coach and I didn’t even know it so um I’ve aired on the side of being on the course because I went from a kid that grew up on the course learning shots and scoring
And competing and feeling that buzz of playing for something to I sat on the range for hours and hours and hours and I lost my scoring ability that’s what happened is the strengths I had I couldn’t keep strength because I’ve spend so much time on the Range so with
The junior T students the practice sessions are three things on the Range or when you’re teaching them a skill set whether it’s putting chipping bunkers rough play any of the things that they mention on their strength and weakness charts the technique through exaggeration and repetition then once
They make it look different and it looks like we made some change then it’s okay you don’t look at the camera anymore to compare feel and real then you’re into on the Range okay let’s start choosing some shots change change the angle change the club and then third let’s go
See if that feel is playable I don’t like wasting a ton of time having a lesson having them work on it for two weeks and all Define that on the course it’s just not a reasonable feel because we can say things the same thing in so
Many different ways if we can find out quicker that it’s not now the person has to stick to the to the changes but in general we do that with Tony Tony is not a range rat he does the work on the Range but then it’s always okay I got to go see if
It’s playable and we find out real quick if it is and so I’ve always aired on being on the course and then airing on um the scoring side okay so one of the things when we’re trying to simulate tournament play and some of us don’t
Have the ability to get on the course as much as others so we’ll kind of take some suggestions and I will too of how to make range work more simulated um but the whole goal to me in practice is to make it demanding to make it intense sometimes make it
Unfair um but it’s to put a simulation in and I’ve haven’t found many simulations better than peer pressure okay nothing can substitute the feelings of being actually in competition nothing does but peer pressure a money game new players to play with new people taking a
Look at a shot I’ll put students on the spot a good player will come up on the Range and I’ll introduce them to the student the Junior and say hey hit one ball for him and I’ll kind of mess with their head and say hey if you hit a good
One they think you’re a great player if you hit a bad one they don’t think you’re any good obviously I don’t believe that but I’m trying to create a little bit of a little heat okay so what are some ways you guys have found that create a more competitive or
A more pressure fi build situation in your lessons or camps or or practice sessions uh I out yeah there you go I do that too I was a gambler growing up so that’s a great idea yeah we play like we’ll play we’ll play whatever five ORS or whatever it is they
Win KS cheer that’s awesome that’s a great idea peer pressure money games on tour how many people play money games all the time so you might as well start them and that’s one of the disclosures with the parents I said hey I may be paying them out we may be
Playing for money I’m not going to play for their money but are you okay with that and if they’re not then I don’t give up on the parent I just say hey every every great player usually is a degenerate you know Gambler so so just get used to it so I started
Playing money games when I was 13 I came back with $40 and my dad was so mad cuz he wasn’t a gambler and I was like this is what all my buddies they’re good players do and so I told him I wasn’t doing it but I was doing it and just you
Know kept the money from or him from seeing the money so love that pay him out what are other ideas to create a little bit more simulation more expectation I would always sum that’s awesome play for some but they play so many GES around crazy yeah thank you yeah I love that
Um same thing you’re trying to simulate the thing I like about some heckling and some needling is a lot of the times the things that we say to each other are kind of things that we’ve already said to each said to ourselves subconsciously okay so I played for coach holder Mike
Holder at Oklahoma State and he was known as being a tough tough guy so in the qualifying these are qualifying rounds that are qualifying us to go to tournaments for Oklahoma State and we were we were a very good team Charles Hal Bo velt Edward lore we you want to
Play on your college team and he’s up in the qualifiers Carson Creek’s already really intimidating Golf Course okay and he’d be like oh left to right win isn’t that the isn’t that the win you struggle with and then he would continue to say things that he thought that you possibly
Could be thinking that’s a pretty big area but if you miss the Fairway it’s a lost ball just kept on needling and needling needling to where some of the other players would kind of fold under it but some of the for me it made me more I’m going to prove him wrong it
Turned it into a positive emotion like watch watch what I do here and so it was kind of interesting as he was doing it I realized oh okay he’s trying to see what response I have to him and so that helped me a lot to where when I got in
Situations where I felt a little bit of um self-doubt it was almost like I was trying to challenge myself into that situation like well I know where holder would think this is going so let’s go right any other um ideas that’s awesome once again giving a new situation a new person to prove
Themselves in front um awesome idea I used Instagram Instagram live Instagram stories okay when Preston in Grace I don’t do it as much with Cam because he’s a different developmental stage okay I don’t want to put too much pressure on him until he’s ready for that there’s always a breaking point of
Which players we know what to do and push and some there’s a saying that says make uncomfortable the comfortable that would be your better players and comfort the others right you’re trying to be more supportive and get them to not get discouraged if they keep showing up they
Got a chance to get better but um Preston and Grace once they told me they wanted to be the best in the world well have having a few thousand or how many ever people watching a round that you play every shot not just the highlights with my youngest son I I do
The highlights I’m trying to build self-belief I’m trying to build you know that whole idea I see my best shots sear those in the brain but with Preston and Grace I did that at the same age as cam basically the positive shots the positive things but as they got better
And better I was like this is an invaluable way for people to see a practice r with their teammates or people in the camps they’re going to show every shot well you’re going to have to play in front of thousands and thousands and then you’re going to get
Comments on social media that are rough and you have to deal with all those things as you get better so I always like using that as a tool to put eyeballs on them right put eyeballs on them um you hear often on the course or or parents and some students I can’t seem
To take it to the course okay so those of us that maybe at certain courses we don’t have as much access access to get on the course early in the mornings or early or late at nights if that’s not an option on the Range how can you simulate um can you
Show the picture of the tree trunks here Jamie and Patrick practice on so I thought this was a great idea I’m always trying to learn I saw something I like took a picture of it so this would be a great way to simulate an expectation a pressure so Patrick just goes down his
Clubs and puts them in side there curves them left to right right to left it’s 20 yard uh wide all of a sudden that creates a feeling of expectation right there okay and so I call it the illusion of competence even I fall into that I’m hitting balls for fun and I’m hitting
And I’m like oh this feels really good well boy you’re aiming down the middle of the range the pole draw looks good the push cut looks good it’s the illusion of competence and I’m hitting ball after ball you don’t have the timing of the break in between the shots
Um if you’re going to be stuck on the Range change clubs wash the grooves shoot it with a laser go through the pre-shot routine and chart everything can you show the slides where we have some of the the charts I always have whiteboards out for any station that I’m
Doing every single person in that group lesson or the camp is seeing exactly what everybody else is doing once again just putting balls expectation on it um one more oh right there so it doesn’t matter what the skill set is I just like people seeing exactly what they’re doing you
Have payouts top two something like that top three depending on how many players can you go to another slide with some charts it’s with the yeah same thing every player has a a a chart they were doing some wedges six yards long 95 yards what club if some of them have
Contact issues they put that heel thin chunk and so every shot they’re competing but they’re charting it not just hey who won oh let’s see by how much and then the one thing I do is the last shot of any skill set that they’re testing out in a
Competition if they’re the person that has the shot to win we all stop and we all watch and we pull out the camera okay so we call it the Money Ball I’ll do that on when we’re on the course hey hole number three and hole number seven
Today count twice ah coach that’s not fair I’m trying to get you on that tea and saying don’t screw up this counts double right just trying to make the players a little bit more uncomfortable than they normally are when they practice will you go back to that whole
Loc uh the one that you first showed this is what Preston and the junior students I have start to do when they get better and better and they’re needing to find that quarter of a shot the e of a shot just go back one more right there okay so huge fan of
Kids they have lasers nowadays they’ll shoot a number and they hit the shot once they get good enough to where they can hit the back of the ball consistently to where it’s worth charting yardages carry distance carry carry carry and the kids that don’t spin
As much they will have to have a general rollout idea too but as the player gets better and better it becomes just a carry number okay so Preston and my students will be charting in real time what distance they are how far it went and then all these writings on a whole
Would have been somewhat in real time the gems that he could be learning or the mistakes that he wants to rectify and then he’ll file those away and has them so it’s one of those things that in real time um or he’s making a note of that course
As you play a course the first round of a tournament second round you should be learning some things about it he may put them right in there okay just a way to have it on your mind put it down okay um excuse me boy yeah go ahead you
Talked about earlier about you know not being able to get on a golf course so with today’s the simulator simulation playing into the simulators as far as transitioning from there the open the indoor place and have seen that that EAS I don’t know if you had any um
Experience on that practicing all day in the simulator on a golf course to takeing out to the golf course and I know there’s people in here that have done that and wondered if how that transitioned I I have’t I don’t have any experience with that does anyone have
Any advice on that that teaches a lot of have a simulator and then is trying to transition from that onto the course my suggestion is the transition from indoor in a simulator and off the mat would to be get on a range and make sure they’re they’re truly hitting the
Back of the ball first that’s what I would do me if I’m just thinking real quick because a lot of times now A lot of times you can tell if you chunk it or not based on if you have a launch monitor up there the spin changes and
Whatnot but that’s you know off the top of my head just start with their low point after being on a mat and then go from there I actually work out of a by City DOL finding the low point and seeing how that translates on the Range and I try
To encourage them to get on the p as quick as possible to see how they’re delivering the club the but as far as playing golf yeah I feel like in my opinion it transl yeah I’ve seen success with it like I said it’s just getting them from the indoor facility out to the
GOL very cool I have a Golf Center and um I do a lot of indoor and I I think it’s learning cause and effect so that they understand you know a pull is because of this and a push is because of that or it’s fading because I didn’t
Soup or whatever it is um because then when they’re out there on their own they’ll know what they should start trying to do yeah that’s great I love that just knowledge of their game just gives them a baseline right um I’m going to end with one thing so when the kids
Were young just to kind of show you that that’s what we always doing I want to go to a couple of those slides of the videos so as a kid isn’t very good the younger Junior golfers you start with I say and I did it with my kids good shot
Good swing or good swing good shot if they miss the ball good swing they hit it good shot so first one let’s go right here and this is Preston teaching cam so the things that I’ve taught Preston when cam started playing he would talk the
Same way so this is just in our backyard can you turn the audio up on that please no audio anyway Preston says good shot cuz he hit the ball hit another one and it’s just constant reinforcement positive at that age that’s all it should be okay so let’s go to uh Grace
The the girl in The Purple hit in a shot how happy she is because I said great shot she comes back and says I want to hit another one okay so I’m trying to build that psyche but same girl three years later once she got serious of golf being good
At something is fun make it fun for them all fun until they show a true interest to get better then being fun is good or being good at something is fun then it gets into the skill sets okay I’ll leave you with um let’s go there one oh one last video of Preston
Okay he’s eight years old putting in the backyard his stroke’s terrible he’s putting from three feet his goal is to be oh yeah I got two okay so he makes the uh 10th Putt and at the US junior he does like this odd like left-handed fist
Pump that I’ve never seen before and I thought I have seen this before so as a kid his 10th putt from 3 feet and it was generous probably two and A2 we get to the money ball he lines it up Gets behind he makes it and he goes
Yes as he got older and older and older he just kept that same drive that same comp competitive spirit that was just him and me and he still cared so the more we can simulate things it it’s going to be better off for our students and then when they
Play I always say play for you my kids play for them that it’s not selfish that’s the most unselfish thing they can do is play for them you’re the one that’s competitive you’re the one that’s put in the time and you’re the one that sacrificed that’s all the pressure you need that’s
A healthy pressure if a student and individual sports players are competitive for the most part and golf requires so much time and to be great it requires sacrifice so those three things I teach the parents and the players that’s the proper pressure and let’s keep all the other unnecessary pressures
Away from our kids so I appreciate you all being here it was a privilege and honor and uh let’s go help our junior golf first thank you Boyd that was fantastic um our next segment is going to take place out on our field driving range and
So we’ll give you a few minutes to get out to the golf carts which we have staged on the far end of the parking lot um we encourage you to sit three to a cart if possible because we have a limited number of carts and then if you
Just sit tight our staff will direct you out to the field range You
