Golf Smarter number four hundred and twenty seven.
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There's the external confidence and that internal confidence. External confidence isn't long lasting. External confidence is based on how long you're playing, and most people think that confidence is a result of how well you just played the lost shot, or played the lost hole, or played the lost round, when really we want to think about confidence being something that you can generate within, which then affects your play.
If you're thinking about confidence as being you have to be playing well to build confidence, then you put more pressure on your game and you don't feel like you're as good a player after hitting a couple of bad shots.
Whereas confidence can be built from the inside out if you can stop to imagining yourself as a good player and convincing yourself that you're a good player, and talking to yourself in the like way running out on the golf course, you can build confidence that is much more long lasting and enduring.
Golf state of Mind Part two in our conversation with David Mackenzie. This is Golf Smarter. Thank you again for joining us, for sticking around for the rest of this conversation because I have so many more questions that I wanted to talk about with you on golf state of Mind. Right, yeah, thank you were And where are you based? If somebody wants to start taking lessons from you? How do you how does that work?
I'm in Washington, BC, so I do give you face to face lessons in the in the DC metropolitan area Northern Virginia, Ireland. But I do a lot of lessons on Skype. It's become quite it's quite popular, and uh, you know it works. You know, we can fit lessons around people's schedules, and you know, we've got to just switch on your computer and I use a couple of programs. One of them is e Golf Plan and that players
are able to record stats after their round. So I go in and I can check, you know, exactly how how someone's you know that how their performance was during rounds, and then we you know, a weekly on a weekly basis. We meet and we talked about the experience of the round, and we also refer to these these stats for areas of improvement.
Okay, all right. One of the things you said towards the end of our last part of the conversation was you talked about practicing and going to the range, but you were referring to practicing the mental game, not just working on your swing mechanics. Is that right?
Yeah, yes, I'm not. I'm not discounting swing coaches and the need for swing coaching, you know. I think that that's you know, that is an element of the game that you know, people that players need to work on. But for me, the more you can you can synchronize your body and your mind through visualization, through feel and ingraining ingraining those those feelings and is becoming aware of
your body. So I wouldn't you know, for example, uh, an example of a bad session, bad practice session for me would be to stand on the driving range one target, a bucket of balls, you know, perhaps a couple of clubs, and just hitting hitting straight to that same target. That's not to me, that's not affective practice. Why effective? Because that's nothing like you would be there's nothing like it
would be on the golf course. On the golf course, you're changing shots all the time, and you're you're having to play different kinds of shots. So my idea for a fulfilling, an effective practice session on the driving range would be to hit hit no more than three balls with the same club. I'd be picking different targets. I'd be trying to hit different trajectories, moving the ball around in my stan saying different trajectories I would do. I would try to hit as many different kinds of shots
as I could. I would even try to hit you a slice, a hook, a draw. You know, I've got a practice drill on the website called the nine Shots where you know, you're playing a fade and a draw and a straight shot with three different trajectories, and so you end up with with nine shots. So it's that variety.
Otherwise you just get into range with them. I think it's very very easy to think that you've mastered the game on the driving range, and that's why a lot of golfers say, you know, I wish I could take my diving range game to the golf course. And there's so many things that are wrong with what they're doing on the driving range that you know they wouldn't want to take that game to the golf course.
No, we don't, you know. But like if you go to the driving range and you'll see, let's just say there's twenty five people out there, and you just kind of stand back and watch for a while, I can almost that ninety nine percent of those guys are hitting one club over and over and over again. Why is it that that just seems the way you're supposed to do it? And what's really interesting, especially if you're warming up for a round. I'm guilty of this myself, going Okay,
that was a shot I wanted. I don't want to do that again. I mean, you just as soon as you get one that you like, it's like, okay, I can move on now.
Yeah, if I'm under saying the question, I.
Don't even know if I asked one? Did I long pause and like, did I ask him anything?
Sorry? No, I think I know, I know. You know, yeah, they you hit one club, you know, one shot one club, and you know, because you're working on a swing drill, you know, you're trying to ingrain that that swing into your into your your muscle memory and that's that's how a lot of golfers spent a lot of the time. And it's just, you know, to me, it's not effective.
And I've been there, and you know I used to throw eight dollars down for a bucket of balls, and bucket ball off the bucket of balls, and uh and and and make those same mistakes over and over again. Now I practice in a completely different way. It's it's about imagining, imagining holes. It's about trying to create pressure
on myself playing games. I think that games should be a big part of practice, and I actually have a book on practice drills which is designed for that purpose, to to to create score even on the driving range. You can play games against yourself to try and create the same thin kind of pressure. Not get into that that habit of just you know, you hit one ball. Oh I didn't like that shot. Oh hit you know, I've got another one here, you know, to pull it
out of the basket. It's about every shot you know should have, should have a purpose and a consequence.
Give me an example of what you mean by these games that you play while you're on the range.
So you would be I would be practicing, I would be visualizing holes in my mind, and so you could, you know, essentially play holes and you know imagine. I mean, I Ben Hogan used to talk about this, like playing
holes in his mind. So you can actually play, you play against yourself on the driving range and imagine that you're in a certain situation, Imagine that you're on the of course, you know, try to you know, I heard heard about Gray and McDowell like running on the spot, like on the on the driving range to try and get his heart ate up. Not that I can imagine many listeners are gonna want to do that on a
pack driving range. But the the point is that you know he's trying to he's trying to simulate that feeling on the golf course, being under pressure, feeling that, yeah, exactly. And so you know, it's it's that most of most authors just practice thinking that you know, there's just there's always that next ball, and that's not the mentality that we're trying to practice. Because I think, you know, practicing practicing an opportunity to practice your mental game just as
just as it is your your your physical game. And I think that bank gets that gets missed. But yeah, so I've got you know, I've got a number of different games in my my practice for this book, where you know you're you're playing games and get and getting schools, so every shot has a meaning on you.
On your website, I was noticing that you have in your mental Game section one of the lessons that you have here is how to play non conscious golf. And how is that different than unconscious golf. I just answered my own question in my head unconscious Golf.
That I didn't write that article a I called calling Chromac, who's a contributor to Golf State of Mind, wrote that article. And I'm still conscious, but is subconscious? So I might not be able to be able to answer that as well as I would like it this at this time.
But that's fair.
Yeah, he's ahead, Yeah, he's uh yeah. I mean, for me, the subconscious your your swing is made with your subconscious mind. And so those are just those are just important things to think about, like the division, the division of what your mind, what what these different parts of your mind plays, or the roles of the different parts of your mind play in a game of golf. You know, the conscious mind, the logical analytical brain, is going to be at work
only during the pre shot routine. So that's you know, that's deciding on which the right shot to play, that's calculating you know, the yardage. That's you know, making sure that you're going through that sequence of steps throughout your routine, keeping you you're focused on the on the right things
throughout your routine. But when you're ready to go, and you you know, you might have some some some confidence triggers and some go triggers in your as a part of your routine, as soon as you're ready to go, that's in the conscious mind shuts off completely. And whether it's non conscious or subconscious, it's you know, there's there's there's absolutely nothing, but there's you know, a thoughtless swing, I thought free, I should say thought free swing. Yeah, being executed.
Actually, Colin Cromac was on the Golf Smarter podcast back in two thousand and eight, so and we all right, yeah, yeah, and we talked to him about target oriented golf, which which was an epiphany for me. I love talking about target golf.
Yeah, I mean that's you know, that's one of one of the fundamentals of his program. But I mean, for me, the precise I mean, I tell the players that I work with you know, where is your target? Where's your target? Always comes down to where is your target? And you know a lot of the average players that I speak to just aiming center of fairway, center of green. They
don't even have like a precise target. And it's amazing, how I mean, especially for the short game, you know, just having like spots that you're aiming at and just you become connected with the target, connected with the shot, and that takes away, you know, any focus on on your swing, which is a negative, which is negatively going to impact you your play. It's you know, it's always you're always thinking about the shot and the target, and you're seeing that in your mind's eye right up until
you know you take you take the club back. And so you know, I can't emphasize enough how you know, target shot shape, visualizing becoming connected with that particular shot
you know is going to help. And I know that a lot of players, you know, when they're making their practice swings, they're just you know, they're working on a drill or they're trying to correct, you know, what they thought that problem was in the swing on their on their last shot, instead of using that time to really become connected with that shot that they're about to play for seeing the target, seeing the shot shape, and really uh really becoming connected with it. You know.
I would think that if people had a better sense, if golfers had a better sense of strategy or what they like to call course management, I think that everybody out out on the fairways and at the tea box would would be better golfers. They would cut down some strokes. But getting onto the putting green, to me, is where the mental game seems to have the most powerful impact. You recently wrote a piece, uh called you called the five most common putting mistakes. Can we talk about that?
Yeah? I can, and have that article in front of me, but yeah.
I'll try command I wrote it. You know what it is. You wrote it. You know what it is.
Yeah, Well, the I mean the closer you get to the to the whole, you know, the closer you get to your score. So that's that's where we feel pressure. I mean, it's the you know, it's the easiest, the easiest shot to play. I mean that, you know, it's easier than than any other shot that you're facing on the golf course. But yeah, it's where it's where we make the most. It seems like it's where we make make the most mistakes and.
Feel the most pressure. I would think, yeah, it's.
Where we feel the most pressure, and it's where we need to have, you know, where we need to have a lot of discipline, where we need to make sure that the process is good, make sure that breathing is good, and you know, not not thinking, not thinking about the consequences of you know, of the part and the score
and what it might do for you. And these are things that you know, with with the right techniques, the right you know, knowing how to switch off and not think about think about score and focusing on process because process is just one of those things that that you know, you can rely on in any situations that's always going to help you calm down. And you've got a good putting process, that's that's that's really going to help you,
and that's that's what you know. Jack Nicholas said that he never missed a putt in his mind, and you know, and like the you know, I think that's a good a good way to think about it, because if you know that you've gone through your process, you've you know, you've visualized, you've you've felt the part, you've seen it, you've done everything you can you possibly can, you've read given the part a good read, and you've gone through your process. That's all you can do. The rest is
out of your control. And something another. I think that another thing that's important in the mental gain is self talk and phrases that you can you can you can include in your game. So when you're standing over you know ten to fifteen foot part, say to ask yourself a question, is this possible? And by asking yourself that question, and you know your response should be yeah, it is possible, instead of you know, I've got to manke this. You know I'm going to make this. It's you know, you
take pressure off yourself. You're not you're not expecting to make anything. You're expecting to go through your process as well as you can. And when you think that, you know, even on the PGA tour, them is in fifty percent of parts of about five feet you know it's there's there's there really shouldn't be be any pressure. The best thing you can do is just go through your pre your routine.
Yeah, but you know I know that if I were to ask myself is this possible? The answer as always of course it's possible. Is it probable that I'm gonna make it? That's when doubt enters the conversation in my head. But if I walk up to a putt and you know, you know, and I'm looking at the putt as I'm walking towards the green, I'm going, I got this one. I know I got this one. This one, I walk in with total confidence instead of questioning myself. I feel
more comfortable. But then then when I'm standing over the ball, that the doubt enters and I start questioning, do you really got this one? So, yeah, it's a very thin line. You're walking between asking yourself can I do this? Versus telling yourself I can do this? Do you agree?
Yeah? I think that you know, the intention is to make every shot within I mean, I say within fifty odds. I think the intention should be to make every shot. The closer, the more positive, and the more precise your your visualization for the shot, the closer you're going to get to the target. So I would always say that
the intention is to is to make the shot. But I think that there's no I don't think there's any harm in sort of pre accepting you know, a miss, you know, the worst thing you can do is to you know, say you know, I'm going to make this. Well, not the worst thing, but it doesn't help you to say I'm going to make this because you're you're you're setting that expectation that if you don't make that part,
then you failed. And and so I think the intention through your routine, the intention is to is to make every part you're seeing it go in. I mean, you're even being as detailed as to see you know where on the whole that the ball is going to fall in. But I think that those you know, building in a bit of acceptance into your routine so that you don't disappoint yourself when you do this, you know, can can can help study the ship.
Excellent advice in your putting mistakes article. I'm curious why you say it's a mistake to Are you saying it's a mistake to not find out whether you're a straight back, straight through putter or an arc putter, or are you saying it is a mistake to worry about that.
I would say, I mean this is this is it's more of a technical thing actually, but but everyone has you know, some players take it straight back, straight through in some pots, you know, the putter going on a narc and you want to make sure you have the right equipment for that. You know, there's there's a you know, face balance putter and a you know heure or toe
toe weighted putter. So if you're a you know, if you're a straight back straight through, you want to have a face balance putter and know and know what the difference is because that can that can extra stroke.
Can you explain face balance for those who don't know.
So, face balance potter is when there's equal weight across across the face of the potter, and you can you can test this out by holding the potter, you know, a few inches from the from the head of the potter on the shaft and you can see how the potter is is balanced, whether it's it's balanced in the toe or the heel, or it just lies it just lies flat.
So if you are a straight back straight through, then you do want face.
Balanced You want to face balanced potter.
Yeah, okay. And if you are if your your stroke is on an arc around like and that arc is like around your body, not the arc of a full swing, that arc you want to you want to have a a heel weighted putter.
Why is that that's that's a that's a technical question. Okay, It's just to do with the the you know, the movement that the the put is naturally going to take when it gets you know, when you when you would if you were to take it back on a pendulum. So I would have thought that if you're if you're taking it straight back and you've got to you know, a heel weighted putter, you're going to be kind of like fighting against against the potterst natural movement.
Getting too technical is is what you think is also a very big issue for most people as they spend too much time forcing that. Is that what you mean by being too technical?
Yeah? I do. I think that putting, you know, as we just discussed, putting is probably the most mental part of the game, and it should for me. It's it's
an art, not a science. And I think that you know, even with you know, I don't I could use a you know, one of those old bull's eye putters and and plays as well as you know, using one of the the most recent uh super luper potters, because for me, it's all about you know, how while I've visualized the line how while I've felt it and and really got got into the putt itself instead of anything to do with with my stroke. I think that same with the
with the longer, the long game. If you've got a good if you've got if you've got strong fundamentals and you know you're setting up consistently to every part and
you know, I mean, alignment is absolutely key. And that's another another one of the mistakes is that you know, you could have a you know, a great visualization and great great feel and then great green reading, but if you don't actually put the potter face down in line with where you want the ball to start, then then you're not going to you know, you're going to miss
the put. So good fundamentals and then really good alignment and making sure that you are making sure that your alignment is absolutely spot on.
The place where I find the mental game, uh intersects so much with the physical elements the swing mechanics are in my short game, whether it be bunker play or chipping, because where I think I understand what I'm supposed to be doing and I have the tools to do it properly, but my head gets into you know, like the amount of pressure the amount of the back swing, the you know, how how much do I hit down on it?
How?
You know, there's so many different technical elements that get in the way of the mental game when when the metal game is so important when it comes to the short part of.
Your game, Yeah it is. I mean there's there's so many different ways that you can play those short shots. And you know, I know exactly what you mean when you're when you're in a bunker and you've got a certain kind of lie and you're thinking, you know, well, you know how it's going to you know, how it's going to pop out, how deeps the sand, and you know, there's all sorts of things that are going through your head.
And I think that you know, commitment is commitment. Commitment to a bad shot is going to result better than you know, not committing to a good shot, if you understand what I mean, so.
Not at all committed to have no idea what.
Man so for for example, I would say that whatever whatever you decide, no matter how good a player you are around the greens or you know, out of bunkers, committing and believing that you can hit those shots is going to help you out more than any kinds of thought thoughts, technical thoughts about you know, how far you should open the club face and how far you know, you know, how deep you should hit through the sand.
Those are things that you can figure out in your in your practice, your practice things and your preparation for
the shot. And I think that if you you've had more meaningful practice sessions where you actually like put yourself in tricky situations and and and you have, you know, you're experimenting with different rise and you're experiment experimenting that open the club, opening the club place to various degrees the game, the game can become more instinctive, and those shots can become more instinctive, so that you'll have you'll have a lot more confidence over them instead of having
to fulfill your head with with all the technical stuff. But I would just say that committing, committing to the shot you've chosen and setting up in the correct way to be able to play that shot is all you really need to all you really need to focus on.
Is it possible to convince yourself that you're confident?
I think so. I think that there's there's a couple of types of confidence. There's there's the external confidence and
there's internal confidence. External confidence isn't long lasting. It's you know, external confidence is based on how well you're you're playing, And most people think that confidence is a result of how well well you just played, played the last shot, or played the lost hole, or played the last round, when really we want to we want to think about confidence being something that you can generate within, which then
affects your your playing. If you're thinking about confidence as being you know, you have to be playing well to build confidence, and you put it, you put more pressure on your game, and you you know, you don't feel like you're as good as good a player after hitting it, you know, a couple of black bad shots. Whereas confidence can be built through through you know, from from the
inside out. If you can start to imagine yourself as a good player and convincing yourself that you're a good player and talking to yourself in the right way right now golf course, you can you can build confidence that is is much more long lasting and enduring.
And at what point does the the confidence uh over what's the word I'm looking for take control over your mechanics? Does that make sense? Like, how do I word this properly? So it makes sense, at what point in your game that does the mental game have a stronger impact than then your mechanics in helping you get get to lower scores? Am I is this working? Is is that question making any sense?
It? Does it? Uh?
You know, because you know we talked earlier about how you went from an eighteen or you went from an eleven down. You know, you had all the mechanics there, and then we talked about, well what about a middle handicapper who would love to go from an eighteen nineteen down to ten or eleven? I mean, just getting close to ten is is a great accomplishment for somebody, you know, knowing that the single digits may never be part of my life.
Right, I think that I think that no matter what level of player you are, you can instantly take shots off your game with a better mental approach. And I do understand a completely agree with question. But most people that you know, people that either visit my website or talk to me about the mental game. And you know, when I'm out on the golf course and I'm talking to people, they don't think they're ready for the mental game.
They think that it's for the elite player, and you know, they haven't mastered the golf swing yet, so why you know what, why would they be thinking about, you know, trying to learn learn the mind game when I I would say that there's no sooner time than than now to start learning the mental game, no matter what player
you are. I mean, that's just it's just you know, when I when I watch tour players or walk around with very good players, there's just things that they do that don't require any physical skill that probably you know, you know, makes them like, you know, four or five
shots better go round? And you know who doesn't want to knock four or five shots off the off their score, no matter you know what, you know, whether twenty eight handicapper or sixteen handicapper, it's just it's it's it's stuff that doesn't require any physical skill and just you know, following following a process. I mean, these you know, these things, it's not instantaneous. You know, you have to go through the practice, just like you do with the mental game.
But it is it gets you there, It gets you there quicker.
And I think you can help us get there too, yes, yeah.
You know, and I certainly can. It's it's it's a fascinating area of the game. And you know, my eyes, you know, were just you know, open to it through through my in my performance that you know, when I when I started on this route of really trying to understand about the mental side of the game and how it is a game of of of of mostly you know, emotional and mental management. And you know, as I said before,
I'm not discounting looking swing mechanics. What I am saying is that there's way too much focus on swing, on equipment, and you know there's other things like ego and score stuff like that. But if you if you can and can refocus on what's really important and really and it's really going to uh to take you, take you to the next level quicker and more effectively, and and you'll have more fun as a result.
I hope so, and I think so well, David, You've got I was saying before on the previous episode that your your website, Golf State Offmind dot com is just a wealth of video and and and writings and articles on the mental game. But it's not just focused on mental part. You go into the short game and putting and practice and make recommendations on books. It's really a great website and I want to thank Nick Chirtak, who's a golf long time Golf Smarter listener, for introducing us.
Yes, yeah, I appreciate that too. Yeah, he's been he's been a friend for quite a few years now and I always enjoy you know, his little his his him sparking the conversations on on Facebook, and you know, he knows his stuff.
And if anybody wants to contact David, you can do so. Just go to his website and again you can get his free newsletter and he's got a lot of goodies he's given away. But if you want to spend more time with him, I'm sure he's not given that away, but you can check it out. David Mackenzie, thank you so much for coming on to the Golf Smarter podcast and sharing your methods and your teachings.
Thank you very much, fred I. You know I love talking about this stuff. This is my passion and you know I've been a big fan of your your You're Both Smart podcast for for a long time now and it's been an absolute pleasure talking to you.