Emilia Migliaccio is an American Women’s Professional Golfer. As a standout Amateur, Emilia won the gold medal in the Women’s Individual event at the Pan American Games, as well as multiple wins as an All America golfer at Wake Forest University. She has also represented the USA in the Curtis Cup, Junior Solheim Cup, The Junior Ryder Cup and The Palmer Cup.
Emilia is still competitive at the highest level but has focussed her attention on broadcasting for The PGA TOUR, and The Golf Channel. She joins Mark on the #OntheMark podcast to help you to bring out your best under pressure in competition.
Emilia addresses important performance topics such as:
What working hard looks like What to do when things aren’t going well Keeping a proper perspective and dealing with hardship Positive attitudes and never quitting Processes, routines and dealing with nerves, and Acceptance of results and moving forward. She also breaks down some positive practice habits as she elaborates on:
Simulating pressure environments in practice On-course practice, and Performance drills.
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ABOUT ON THE MARK: Mark’s knowledge, insight and experience have made him a sought-after mind on the PGA and European tours. Through his career, he has taught and/or consulted to various Major Champions, PGA Tour winners and global Tour professionals such as: Larry Mize, Loren Roberts, Louis Oosthuizen, Patton Kizzire, Trevor Immelman, Charl Schwartzel, Scott Brown, Andrew Georgiou and Rourke can der Spuy. His golf teaching experience and anecdotal storytelling broadcasting style makes him a popular host for golf outings.
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[Music] you know once in a while I get to meet someone that catches my attention very very fast and if you’re watching this on YouTube there she is she can’t help but smile and she’s Amilia migao your last name and my last name together are a thing Hey listen it’s was good to meet you here recently it’s so good to have you I know you’ve been busy welcome to the show thank you Mark I I love your podcast it’s an honor that you asked me and really excited to be here well yes’s the backstory folks um we were doing PGA Tour live we weren’t on the same show and we were sitting having lunch and Amelia mentioned this to me that she enjoyed the podcast and I was like oh really cool and then I was like well we need to have you on because I feel like everything you’ve done in golf from all the competition and the success now to seeing it from the other side of the lens pardon the pun or inside the ropes from not a non-playing point of a view is people can learn from this I’m happy to have you so to that um let’s put you into context for our Global audience because it’s a cool you got a cool sounding name you got a lot of uh Charisma about you um but I don’t think a lot of folks around the world would know who you are so tell us a little bit about you please yeah so my mom and dad are actually from outside the US my mom was recruited from Sweden to play golf she played golf at Arizona played with anuka for year actually so I’ve been fortunate enough to get not only my mom’s wisdom but also anuka throughout the years when I started playing in her tournaments and my my grandparents on my dad’s side are Italian they moved to Venezuela and raised their four kids so my dad’s the youngest of four and uh he came to the states to study not a golfer he plays golf now but wasn’t wasn’t a golfer until he met my mom and then went to grad school at Arizona where he met my mom so uh that my mom was who I got introduced um who introduced me to golf and was a really good Junior player I had and still have just a lot of drive to work hard at something whatever that is and so golf was always this really hard thing as a kid and you know golf you grow up quickly when you learn the game of golf as a child there’s rules and penalties and all of these things that can be very hard for a kid to understand and I just felt compelled to get as good as I could at the sport and played really well um my in my junior years and my mom did a great job at guiding me through the recruiting process it can be really stressful for a lot of kids because the parents are really wrapped up in the rankings and all of those things but she was always telling me you know college will will come because your goals are greater than college at the time I wanted to play on the LPGA and pursue a professional career so she always did a great job at telling me okay if this is what you want to do you have to work really hard at it and I’m going to show you what working hard looks like and so she gave me the perfect balance of giving me the choice but then also you know a kid doesn’t know what it means to have discipline and so she really uh guided me so well to the point where once I got in high school in college she was telling me okay Amia maybe you need to take a break here or there whereas before she was getting me to the course and so yeah fast forward I played college golf at wake Wake Forest which is in Winston Salem North Carolina there is also a Wake Forest North Carolina but uh years many many years ago uh Wake Forest got moved to Winston Salem the university and uh played five years there six years total um during covid I was still in school and um my senior year of college which is a year after Co that’s when I was really you know trying to decide what I wanted to do and if professional golf was the route I wanted to pursue I was starting to realize that the that golf was taking just too much of a toll on me when things weren’t going well um but just in general like it was just very all consuming and I was just starting to think okay you know do I want my life to look like that for the next 20 years because it is all consuming um as as you know Mark so um I decided everyone who was in school during covid all the athletes got an extra year of Eligibility didn’t think I was going to use it so I applied for a two-year master’s program at wake um just to give myself some time because broadcasting opportunities started to open up or just uh that industry uh so applied for a two-year master’s program got it was a teacher assistant for a year that’s how I got uh tuition paid for it wake cuz it’s not cheap and um you know I I found myself up at the facility pretty much every single day I was still very close to the team and coaches and I was like you know I still don’t want to pursue professional golf but man I miss competing and I love competing I love the camaraderie so fortunately I was able to use that eligibility I still had for my second year of grad school and uh it was one of the best decisions I ever made and if I had turned professional wouldn’t have been able to experience that coming back to col like back to college golf with a renewed sense of just what it is to to be in that environment um and then we won the National Championship so it it’s really one of the best ways to go out um and now working for NBC and PJ Tour live and broadcasting and been learning so much so that’s kind of my story up until this point uh you’ve achieved a lot uh look if went and read your resume I think you’re’ being awfully humble with everything you have achieved um won the Pan-American games you’ve been on Palmer cup you’ve been on the Curtis cup both winning teams um you made a statement earlier that kind of caught my attention and you talked about your mom’s influence um and you to you said she taught me what working hard looks like now I feel like a lot of young people can really benefit from your observations and this is how I kind of teed up our original conversation CU I don’t think the young golfer at large and even the club golfer listening to this really doesn’t doesn’t understand what really hard work looks like and not just not just time invested so so so talk to us a little bit about your take on what is hard work but more importantly what is kind of focused directed hard work and not just kind of hitting balls for for filling time sick yeah exactly kind of what you hit on it’s not just the hours but the way you practice ice um putting yourself in positions the that you’re you’re simulating pressure Focus drills I never thought about going into a practice how many hours I was going to be there it was you know what drills was I going to do that day what did I need to work on and I wanted to get that done I think a lot of parents are afraid of forcing their kids into a sport or into an activity because there’s the flip side of that right where you see parents that force their kid into something and then they burn out and and have a lot of struggles later on in life but you can’t just let your kid make all the decisions either that’s why we have parents so I think my mom did a great job at teaching me that hard work comes with sacrifice I was a kid that wanted to be everywhere and do everything I was very extroverted definitely wanted a lot of people to like me I was well-liked but you know the friends that like me were also bummed when I couldn’t go sleepovers and do things like that and she always reminded me because I did golf meant a lot to me at a young age and so she reminded me that you know when you’re in school and you’re in in this house you know I’m going to teach you a lot of things but you know you want to play golf and so that’s your that’s one of your priorities and school is the other priority and and um so I think the sacrifice was was the big thing that I learned um and she really helped me with that and then one thing that really motivated me in golf um was also that you can if if you shoot a number there’s not a question to how good you are sometimes when you get on a team sport as much as I love team sports it can get a little political on I mean just the Friends that I’ve talked to who are athletes and their recruiting process looked so different from mine you know if you start shooting in the 60s when you know you’re a young teenager people are going to notice you whether it’s a local qualifier or a national t tournament so that motivated me to do the hard work but then when it gets to the actual work itself as a young kid a lot of it was just refining technique so I was on the Range a lot just because I hadn’t developed those skills but we would go immediately to the course and then try to simulate what we had worked on and then over time it was little technique uh maybe 20% and then a lot of performance drills and I kind of just stuck with what worked um you know I would get to the point where I’d be on the Range if I was practicing okay and I’m like okay I’m gonna hit five shots in a row just right at the Target but they can’t be too far right but they can’t cross Target because you know you have tucked hole locations and things like that so that’s an example of you know like a focus drill um that that is something I would do or you know I have to make a certain amount of putts in a row or got to start over just things like that but you know you you got to um you have to put in that time and and assimilate that pressure and I was really good at that like I would get over a putt if it was you know my 15th you know four-footer and I I could get myself to be nervous so I think that was something that I was pretty good at like I could trick my brain pretty easily this this makes me wonder too because I love the the performance drills I love kind of testing oneself Under Pressure because that to me is the big change between in practice versus in performance which is something we’re going to talk about competition um but help us package this you know okay I’m all well intending now I’ve I’ve listened to Amelia’s advice I’m going to the course this afternoon and I got myself 10 five Footers in a row I have to make before I go home and I just don’t get it done and hours later I’m still there what then happen what’s your what would your advice be to me because sometimes you kind of have to put the lid on it so what would you say there 100% so I you set a timer okay I’m gonna give myself 30 minutes to do this so that way you’re not sitting there okay well this might take me you know one try or a hundred and you know that the time limit can vary on you know if you have to go pick up your kids at home or you know whatever you have going on but setting a time limit is good and if you don’t complete it don’t get down on yourself but say okay well actually there could be a positive and to not making it making the first 10 5-footers on the first try because I just made probably a hundred five- Footers I really worked on my start line and uh you know you were also assimilating the frustration which comes when you’re when you’re playing you know if you lip out a couple or you miss a short one how do you deal with the frustration overcoming that so there actually can be a lot of benefits to struggling on a drill and not finishing it but you definitely giving yourself the time limit then you’re like okay now I have to just move on I love how you’ve made that because I’m very holistic as an instructor and this podcast bent is that way inclined where it’s like look it’s not just the physical skill it’s the emotional and mental wherewithal to deal with the disappointment because look you’ve got this glittering resume but it wasn’t all Sunshine Lollipops the whole time you had to deal with some tough times yes yeah 100% I mean especially you know you’re you’re pursuing something I think I would still argue that golf could be one of the most difficult games but any anything that you’re pursuing at a really high level is going to come with just so much you know hardship you lose perspective I feel like I lost perspective a lot in my adolescent years and in my college Years it’s crazy what a couple of years removed from college can do to your perspective and I was really really lucky to just have great people around me my coaches at Wake Forest Kim and Ryan just as omal and in really helping me shape my identity and not have it be centered around golf but yeah there are times where you know you’re struggling and I’m I’m a pretty emotional person I get really excited and it’s not the Swedish in you that’s the Italian inside of you yeah exactly exactly and you know when things don’t go well I can you know get internalized that and so internalizing my outcomes was something that I you know I’m still working on to this day um and something where that’s where it it came it can come with a lot of hardship if you really you know um I if you have a bad tournament you think about it for I would think about it for a lot longer than if I played if I played well and that’s where you know I later in my career I won the North the women’s North and South which is one of the bigger Amer events in Pinehurst two years ago um but leading up to that I said because I was still competing a little bit and I said if I ever have the chance to win again I would never take it for granted because I when you are removed from it you know just like how much it means not the title but just all the hard work and then finally getting it done and so that win two years ago and then the national championship I felt like I held on to those those wins so much not in the sense of oh like this win is making me a happier person because that’s not where my identity is rooted in but just appreciating how hard it is to to win and and do something great like that and then just really treasuring those moments because I felt like earlier in my years when you’re growing and you have goals you do well and then like okay great now I want to do this and those that’s good because you’re you always want to have drive and get better and focus on the process process but when things aren’t good or or or you’re struggling and you haven’t held on to those good things or reminded of those good things that’s where you can lose perspective so those are the kind of things that I that I dealt with and felt like I’ve really grown over the years from okay um this leads me to something because as I listen to you and I sort of have seen your progression through all of the ranks from afar now I know you a little bit better and I’m getting to know you more and I’m listening to you going this is a case study in Breaking barriers and every golfer has these you know whether you’re the club golfer who’s looking to break 100 the first time or whether you’re the aspiring golfer now who’s good and you kind of sense it and now you want to break 80 consistently and then eventually there’s a 70 and and such and then there’s winning tournaments which sometimes happens by accident and sometimes you finished the job yourself what is your take what advice do you share on that I’m out there and I’m playing and I’m trying and I look at my scorecard and I’m three over through 15 and I’m going to break 80 right now and then I have a rough finish and I shoot 80 what what is from your experience what’s your advice there yeah I would say that you can always first I mean literally you could bu the last six holes and you have no idea I feel there are times if I have not given up because I feel that was a strength of mine even I was playing playing poorly I was always trying to get one back and and just like keep getting better so um like that was something I always did but um the times where I did get down on myself like oh man I’m kind of out of it or missed the cut and then and then you birdie then you Birdie the last three holes or even if you don’t you’re like dang if I had just stayed in it yeah I actually could have done really well or finish strong so I think that that comes with experience too just knowing that you’re it golf is 18 holes and so much of the birdie bogey stretch comes in those clusters because you’re in you’re either SP spiraling good or spiraling poorly but I think also again like depending on what kind of handicap you have I think my husband is a great example of just how you should go out to play he is so competitive like he wants he pars the first hole and I know he’s thinking oh man this is going to be the day like I break 80 for the third time but then you know will hit it out of bounds in the next hole and you know he’s like he’s like a 10 12 handicap but what he does so well is he TR he tries his best on every hole but he recognizes that his caliber of game like he is just not is not there to where he can perform weeken and and you know he can you can play that level so I think you know you have to be honest with yourself as okay you know just because I’m a single digit a single digit is not an underpar round every time so I think the managing the expectations is really important um and if also if you’re a golfer that you’ve been struggling with your game and you know you’re starting to not enjoy it out there just don’t keep score just hit if you hit out of the trees like like if you hit in the woods just put it in the Fairway hit one like enjoy the game because that’s really why you’re supposed to be playing and you’re not play if you’re not playing in tournaments or competing you know just really try and figure out different tactics you can do to actually have fun with the people you’re playing with or whether you’re going out is just kind of taking a mental break from work and things like that and then to the side of of people who are you know pursuing golf at a high level just you’re you’re you’re never out of it you you really never are you can always you can always I always tell myself all I need is one good shot to get myself back so that’s what I always told myself and golf is a long game like if you’re G to I remember you know my coach telling me she was like Amelia if you’re going to play professional golf like this one score like means nothing like you’re going to have a lot of these and you’re also gonna have a lot of good rounds but don’t don’t take this one tournament to mean everything because it’s not your last tournament You’re Gonna Play hundreds and so I feel like that that also just helped when you know you start off poorly you know just like well I have like a ton of golf rounds that I’m going to play in my life and this one is one that I’m going to learn from and just try and finish as strong as I can that is awesome Insight it it it gets me to thinking because you know I’ve played the game at a fairly high level and then for the last how many years I’ve I’ve sort of watched the game from the front seat um now you’re in that seat and this sort of prompts me to our topic which is you know getting the best out of yourself under pressure or in in competition whatever insert whatever you want towards the end of it just in the bed with your buddy even um now you’re a young lady calling the best golfers in the world men so I I respect you because that’s an attitude change in itself but I think the mechanics the nuts and bolts of the game are kind of the same and now that you get to see golf from The Spectators vantage point and you don’t have your hands on the rubber end of the golf club sometimes a lot of the golfers I talk to they’re like wow did I do that or if only I had done that have you seen anything now you’ve been on course with these guys you’re like God you know they do there’s a common denominator that they all sort of apply to bring out their best is there something like that yeah definitely I think one of the so two things that strike me initially one thing I love about pedor live is we we watch every single shot of someone’s round so you really see like okay you know they they shot six under you see on the leaderboard you’re like wow they literally shoot six under every day and then you watch their round like well they hit that was a you know 56 degree and they just hit it to like 25 ft that was kind of a bad shot so they hit mediocre shots as well they don’t hit perfect shots every time Scotty Sheffer doesn’t hit perfect shots every single time if you watch an entire golf round I promise you he’s going to hit a mediocre shot and um I think that was one that you know it’s something that everyone says but until you actually see it week in and week out it it just amazes you it just amazed me just okay like it’s not like they’re just some perfect robot they do everything perfect and but what they do is they they make very little bogeys and they’re really good at chipping so like that’s that’s how they clean up their score and um you know have a have a six seven under round and then I think the other thing that I noticed just so quickly was when you’re when you’re competing yourself and you’re you made make two bogeys you’re trying to get out of that cycle and and birdie but you don’t you don’t actually know how you’re carrying yourself and when I remember my coach telling me one time she said you know Amelia you when you bogey I I do have a good bogey birdie bounceback but sometimes I could fall into the habit of making a couple Bogies in a row and then I’ll make a couple birdies in a row and so she was just kind of reminding me like just how to get back into an elevated state to make birdies and when I when I’m watching these players play I can see I was like oh if they just knew that if if they just had a better mindset going on to the next te like they bogey the last and they hit one of the trees like oh that was just clearly a result of just the last shot which you don’t think when you’re playing so um though those were two things right off the bat that uh I feel like I noticed um when I when I’ve been calling Golf and then the then the third thing because I think a lot of a lot of you know everyday golfers you know whether you know single digit or you know 10 15 handicap not all of them not everyone has the best attitude they get really frustrated and and like man I just made had like five three putts today or whatever and the best players in the world men and women they car like overall they carry themselves so well like I’ve been so impressed with the guys um and and women if they miss a cut and they have to go into the press conference and talk about you know maybe a struggling season they just they’re so just practical about it and they see it objectively they don’t at least on the outside they don’t seem to internalize it which you can’t if you’re you know playing week in and week out so I think those things were just so uh eye openening to me and the thing that I would recommend for anyone especially especially if you’re I mean pursuing at a high level but even anyone is just trying and watch as much golf as you can but not just watch like really see how they carry themselves because it it really it kind of blew me away and I think a lot of people would learn from it I yes to everything there I want to build a little bit on how you talked about how they’re really good chippers yeah because I firmly believe that golf is a game of recovery I really do and I’ve got the the I guess I’m 53 and hanging on I’ve been in golf since I was 13 so that’s 40 something years um where like you said they aren’t perfect all the time but even on their best days you know the really good ones who post good scores Under Pressure are able to just kind of keep the round alive and then and you said it your coach said to you hey just hang around for a little while you never know when the momentum’s likely to change um did you ever try and almost Force the momentum change or did you just kind of paddle and all of a sudden you hit that one shot and that turned the tide for a little bit what’s your take there I think for me it was the strike like if I hit a really solid shot like what I was trying to do that that was enough for me to get back into not get back into it but just be like okay like that was really good um and you know I can I can take momentum there and something that I also have done in the past when I’ve been competing especially if I felt a little more just tight over the ball like a little bit wanting to force the outcome I’ll make a little process scorecard checklist so over each shot I’ll either write a check mark or I won’t but I say okay I have to completely just commit to my to my swing and to my routine and and people say that all the time what does that look like so for me if I pick my target as soon as I pick my target I am not allowed like I I I tell myself like you are not allowed to think about where you don’t want to go like you have picked your target like do not do anything else except think about that Target like I get really strict and so then you know I see the shot um but I’m still I’m like don’t don’t you think about anything else and you know after I’ve you know have like a little play thoughts usually like finish finish the Target or something but I’m like okay I have to complete complete my swing and just swing as freely as I can um and if I do that regardless of where it goes I I should be I I should be fine happy with it um because the worst feeling in the world is hitting a bad shot because you didn’t commit to it everyone knows that feeling and what I found is most of my shots were good and if they weren’t perfect they were pretty good enough to make par and so that was one thing that I I found very successful that I think a lot of people could learn from how about this um because I love that take about swinging freely but I’m like yeah I’m feeling you she’s preaching to me here yeah played golf at a pretty high level too and they’re just those days you know when you warm up and you can’t freaking find the golf ball and your golf swing feels like an unfolding lawn chair and you trying to be positive but you get over every ball and you trying to be focused but there’s this apprehension and I’m speaking for the golfers at large here yet I still find there C certain golfers you’re one of those um who can still kind of make the best of a bad situation was there something mentally that you did or was it just like all right I’m just going to game this out as much as I can and kind of hope for the best and see where the chips fall yeah I feel like there’s a couple things that I would do I there’s it’s a funny story when uh my husband and I we were in the Dominican earlier this year we played a coup’s tournament it was it was so much fun but we both I mean I like he’s never really played in a tournament before so and it was pretty hard golf courses so it wasn’t not surprising but you know he he was definitely in a new environment um but I I did not play well at all like I’ve never had a beverage on the golf course and I was like I was like babe can we get Margaritas at the turn like just I need to we need to change something but so anyway we I told him I said okay the last day we’re gonna go and we’re gonna get a good warmup in and we’re gonna like figure out some of these thoughts well we’re both hitting it so bad on the Range I’m like dang like what is going on why can’t I figure this out and you know instead of instead of getting like tense and being like man like and just feeling you know that feeling over the ball we were like gosh like I just I don’t know where this is gonna go I I told Charlie I said well hitting it in the Fairway or close to it is gonna be a win for us today like I was just like you know what let’s just who yeah like who who cares like if we both like shoot or not both but like because he if he shot 8 really good but like who cares like what we’re going to shoot today and it was so funny because I um I shot 66 that day the other days I was like high 70s um and not not everything was perfect but I was okay with not playing well that day and as a result I was able to hit the ball better and I kind of worked with what I had had kind of a bigger draw that day and sort of was able to okay I’m just going to play it um and then I you know ended up making every putt I looked at so it’s just funny how things go like that and that kind of leads to my second point where you know if you’re missing it to the right or you’re hitting it thin or something just instead of trying to correct it sometimes you know you can either try and correct it on the course and then accept that it’s not going to work and you know you’re just have going to work on your short game more like okay this is going to be a scrambling day that that’s I do that often if I’m not hitting the ball well I’m like okay well uh don’t really always have a place to practice chipping so I’m gonna be able to practice chipping today um or you play with I want to stop you there I think this yeah and I’m G to do this and people will say you’re interrupting and I’m sorry oh no please interrupt that’s the thing though right because you’ve just shared something Super Wise where you’re like okay it’s this acceptance of the fact that to day I don’t have it and so now it’s going to be a day where I’m going to use one of my other facilities my short game to salvage the day I it reminds me of a conversation I had here recently with a young South African professional Christian bote who’s been back and forth between coaches and stuff and he asked for my tech and I’m like hey look the chances of you driving it longer are small but you a very rounded player who excels in this area good wedge and I said what is that I’m like wedge player he goes yes I’m good with wedges and I’m good with the Putter and I’m like well that is kind of your weapon and I look for the overall player who on any day can figure out a way to make a score and not suddenly go well my wedges and my putting are off so that means it’s going to be a bad day well well you’ve said you know it’s just a day where I’ve got to use something else to somehow make this as good as possible yeah definitely and I think it’s easy to lose that perspective and to just try and everyone focuses on their ball striking or their putting and you know doesn’t think about okay well I’m gonna get really good at my recovery shots today like I’m you know I know I’m gonna be in the woods a lot today because my swing my swing is off but I’m gonna make sure that if I’m out of play I get myself back in position not try and hit you know a silly shot where I TR want to hit it in a narrow Gap and then all of a sudden you’re looking at a double or a triple so things like that uh just can be very helpful you know to actually having a lower golf score but then you know just enjoying it more and not getting so like man I can’t I can’t fix this it’s getting me so frustrated yeah okay um I’d be remiss if I didn’t ask you you played in five anoas the Augusta National Women’s Amateur um look going to Augusta National is a dream of many just going playing it is a dream of everybody I think competing there I think is a dream of every one but it’s reserved for a select few um you’ve done that now and so I can only imagine what you felt like the morning of your first go around Augusta National in competition I I well I know I’ve been close to someone who won I wasn’t even playing and I was nervous so I I I need you to help people with nerves first of describe the situation how you felt so everyone can go it’s not just me that feels this way when I go to a tournament and then help us with some insights as to now I don’t know perhaps not even Conquering the nerves but just dealing with the nerves yeah it’s it’s so it’s so nerve-wracking it it’s very easy to get out there and just I just hope I just get it in a fair way I hope I just I hope I just play good enough to just be able to enjoy it and and you know what at the end of the day just be you know so content um so yeah it’s it’s really nerve-wracking it’s so funny because I feel every I don’t know the distance of like where the where the guys tee up and if they can um can they carry the bunker on the right on one or do they have to hit it through uh a few of them can but a lot of s even with them yeah yeah so for us it’s the same thing where we te off so people are like oh do I hit three wood and open the Fairway a little bit and I feel like most of us like well there’s no way I’m going to hit with a that a tea that small because if I hit before the ball that just not going to be a good idea so yeah like that’s it was it’s such a magical week first of all especially you know I love where I am in my life in in broadcasting but it was special to be able to block off you know a week before and just be a professional golfer for a week focus on golf the day before was only about Golf and I I loved it it was it was so fun um and just really embrace you know the whole week but yeah nerves are a real thing for everyone um and if you listen to any professional golfer Mo most of them are pretty open about feeling nervous um before the first te and you know a lot of people say they deal with nerves feeling you know reminding themselves of the preparation they’ve put in I feel like we’ve we’ve kind of all heard that um and it it does it does help um for sure but I think there was something that uh I had the uh really great opportunity to be on a panel with Tim TBO I don’t know how Tim TBO and I were sitting next to each other but we were and there was something that he said that I I brought with me to ANW because it was it was before but he said you know who are you to think you’re you’re rare enough to be the only one who’s nervous or the only one who’s afraid of missing a three-footer or the only one who’s afraid of missing the cut like do you really think you’re that special like everyone everyone has has those nerves and has those nerves to a high degree at certain times you just have to be the one to deal with it better than everyone else yeah and it just it just really stuck with me it was just a great way to how he he phrased the nerves just a little bit differently and you know I was watching uh people in front of me tea off in the first tea at Augusta and honestly I didn’t see a lot of good shots like there were a lot of of like there was a lot of poor shots on the first te and I told myself I’m like you know I’m hitting my driver so good this week like everyone’s nervous on this tea and it shows because best players are kind of spraying it off this tea like let me just go up there and freaking hit the best shot I can um and I was just so proud of myself because on a stage where I would be as nervous as possible I I went up there and I hit an incredible Drive um and I was just really proud of myself but I just think the words that Tim TBO said is really stuck with me um and something that you know I’m GNA continue to carry but I just think it was like a really good way to put it like who are you to think you’re that special like almost like uh accusing you like you don’t pity yourself for being nervous like everyone is so I don’t know I really like that look that’s very helpful um I’d like your parting shot to sort of go something along the lines of this um to share your Insight because it’s easy in that situation when you’re nervous and you’ve got that putt to make a cut or to win a tournament um or you got that first t-shot or you got that long iron overwater you know that sort all those shots that come with a certain amount of anxiety fear maybe anticipation definitely um to kind of direct your attention to to swing to be great as opposed to swing not to fail um I I’d love your takeover there because I I encounter so many golfers at the level where they’re wanting to be elite but they’re just short because when they’re in that place they’re playing not to fail with when you break through that barrier those folks are like whatever it’s like Bob Jones to use an Augusta nationalism he said hit the ball hard it’s going to land somewhere um but but but that’s such a mindset shift when you look see a bunker down the right and trees on the left and everyone’s watching me so help us there please yeah definitely I think in order to get over that to swing to hit a good shot not a bad shot for me what I’ve done for a very long time is and I did this leading up to anall especially because with my life now I’m not competing on a day-to-day basis I’m not practicing on a day-to-day basis and you have to simulate the shots in the course whether you have a friend you know pretending to announce you on the first te like you have to you have to play the course you have to L the shot over water in your head um and you and and you have to do it as many times as possible in in as much situations as possible so that’s the first thing for me that helped a lot because I I did I probably hit almost a hundred t- shots um simulating Augusta National and simulating the first tea and it was actually funny because when I got to AUST I was like wow the Fairway is actually wider than I pictured because in my head in my head I’m like my gosh this is like five yards of room like there’s just you have to hit a straight shot and there’s no no else to describe it so that’s the first thing then the second thing is okay I mentioned earlier about you know trusting your preparation well trusting your preparation is kind of a general phrase but write down after you play around a golf write down the the hard shots you hit that were good like man I this was a tucked flag and you know this was number five that you know Oldtown club and you know I had this beautiful draw in there I mean it doesn’t have to be a whole paragraph but you know beautiful draw into five Oldtown Club three feet like and then because you’ll forget about it you think you won’t but you will and then before you’re gonna play a tournament you read that over I and I’ve done that and I’m like wow like I forgot that I hit that good shot and so I think that that is how you trust your preparation over a hard shot uh in in my opinion and then going back to the third the third thing is when you do get over that shot for me I have to tell myself okay when you pick the target you’re not allowed to think about anything else and we’re human we’re going to mess up some of the times but those three things have really allowed me to be able to hit those hard shots I love that you know because as human beings we have this propensity to remember the failure over the success especially with good golfers like you know in all my years of teaching they’re not so good golf for they remember the good ones good goer because you guys are in the mindset of eliminating mistakes to lower those scores they become Idols in one one’s Liv so appreciate that take um thank you you’ve been super insightful I didn’t expect anything less honestly um for the folks who want to find more from you Amelia um is there a website social media where where can they find you yeah social media it’s just my name Amelia miao has two underscores on either side but yeah I I post just where I’m where I’m traveling the tournaments I’m covering a couple tournaments I’m playing we’ll see if I’ll be playing any more this year um so yeah Instagram and then Twitter it’s uh my first and last name but instead of the zero it’s a one so mil miao but zero is replac with the one so more active on Instagram but yeah that’s kind of that’s kind of what I got uh and you know I share a lot of my life and I love I love sharing it but then also ESPN plus I’m working this week the vron Nelson so tune in uh to the main feed and all the other all the other feeds so and then I do a lot of a lot of the Amer tournaments and and um USGA events for Golf Channel so that’s where you can listen to me and uh you can get the updates on my social media so thank you and she’s very good at it folks um you need to forgive me I’m G to forgive you for not correcting me I’ve been mispronouncing your last name saying migia but it’s miao right oh I honestly didn’t even hear it in the beginning don’t worry I I’ll correct you next time listen thanks for your time keep up the great work you’re a fun watch you’re certainly fantastic to listen to and very insightful thank you thank you Mark looking forward when we’re working together again was
