Hi.
I'm Kyle Foffy from Cedar Park, Texas, and I golf at Twin Creeks Country Club.
Welcome to Golf Smarter. Hi.
This is Phil Calvert from Coming, Georgia. I play It Bears Best in Siwani. This is Golf Smart number oneenty twenty one.
The issue that we need to deal with is we've got to eradicate golf intimidation. It's okay to duffer shop, it's okay to not strip at two hundred and fifty yard drive. We don't really care if the golf balls are jacked or not jack. It's not going to make any difference to my game. I don't know if I need a new driver every year to pick up the extra ten yards for the golf that I want to play.
Because golf is happening everywhere. It's happened at the office, it's happening outside, it's happening with your kids, it's happening with your grandparents.
Everybody is playing golf.
And even what's more interesting, couples golf tournaments, formerly known as a divorce open, are now the rage.
More people want to play with their spouse.
That was always a top It's an event because of some of the tension.
Now people love it. They want to play nine and wine and dying.
And that's where we're at with golf as we understand that you don't play golf to get away from your family.
You can play golf to be with your family.
Not about golf, the life changing joy of playing the game. With the author Mike Berlin, this is Golf Smarter, sharing stories, tips and insights from great golf minds to help you lower your score and raise your golf IQ. Here's your host, Fred Green. Welcome to the Golf Smarter podcast.
Mike, Hey, Freg welcome back.
Thank you, Yeah, thank you. So he's referring to the fact that I've been traveling a lot, but I'm here now and getting to have more conversations for the podcast, which I love doing. And this one just based on our few minutes of introduction to one another. This is going to be lively.
We have a lot of sep We've had a common journey, so I'm glad to go through it with you.
Explain the common journey part.
I think we both came in the golf a little bit later. I didn't grow up with golf. It came to me when I was in my twenties, and it really surprised me because I didn't think golf.
Was for me.
And what was the moment that you went, oh, this is for me.
I was on a mandatory vacation doing my first job. I had gotten some irritable ball syndrome and my boss said, hey, you need to take a vacation. And I went down to Santabal Island in Florida with my mother and my stepfather. My stepfather was an adamant golfer. My father had never golfed in his whole life. And he said, well, let's go to the driving range. And I thought this is going to be kind of boring. I don't want to watch him hit golf balls, but he said, come anyway.
And then after he hit a few balls, he said, why don't you try it? And he had this driver called the Big Whale. And do you remember the big Wheel? It was by Wilson Whale. La, I have it now because I bogged on eBay And if the big wheel is not big at all compared to the big berth end some of these other ones that are out there. But he said, why don't you hit it? And I got up. I cheat the ball up and I hit it and in my mind that ball went three hundred yards straight in the.
Air and I was harked.
Looking back, it probably went one hundred and twenty yards and sliced, but in my mind it was the biggest driverver right down.
And I was hooked on golf.
And the rest of the trip I took lessons, I started to play, and I was hooked on golf.
And this was nineteen this was nineteen ninety.
Okay, perfect. And that's what it'll do to you. I mean, it just takes if you're not a golfer or you're new to golf, you know, and if you've been playing most of your life, you know, it takes one swing with contact and you see the ball in the air and it's like, oh, this is awesome.
Yeah, the dope rushes to your head and then it's you know, I as a as a researcher, I've looked into it. There's a dopamine rush that comes when you hit the ball in the air. There's a dopamine rush when you sink a pot. And it doesn't matter if it's a twelve footer or a one footer. That little noise when it goes down is dopamine rush, and you live for it. That's why I tell people, if you're
having trouble golfing, go putt for twenty minutes. Just go feel success or the ball going into the cup, and then go back to the range or go play golf and it will change your mind.
Your chemistry is different. You've had success.
Sometimes hitting seven irons for an hour can be a very frustrating experience.
Absolutely. I frequently get people going, hey, I'm I'm you know, I'm trying to come back into golf now that my kids are getting a little bit older, I've had to take a break from it. How do I get my kid into golf? And I'll say, take them to the putting green, give them, give them three foot putts that they can figure out that they can do. Hitting a golf ball's hard. Putting is easy, and if they get good at putting, the game's going to be easy for them.
Hey, Fred, I've worked on my putting and taking five strokes off all on eliminating three putts yep. And so I mean for all of us, whether we're kids or whether we're adults, getting your being a confident putter can just make the day so much better.
Well, let me blow your mind for a minute and see if you're familiar with this. A couple episodes ago we had Eric Alpenfels, who is the head golf instructor at Pinehurst, has been for decades, and well, he wrote a book called Instinct Putting, and his whole point is looking at the hole, not at the ball when you're.
Putting nice, which you can easily do, right, it's not hard once you get used to it.
Well, it's a commitment and I love that. Right, you've got to trust it exactly. But think about this. You ever play corn hole?
Yeah, of course, sure?
What do you looking at?
You look at the hole? Man?
Exactly? You ever shoot a basket?
Yeah?
Yeah, right? You ever shoot a basket?
Look at hoot?
Right? You ever hit a baseball?
Yeah exactly.
You're looking at the ball. You don't look at And so what happens when you're putting with instinct, With most putting, you look at the hole, you look at the ball, You look at the hole, you look at the ball. You stay at the ball. You stay at the ball, You stay at the ball, and you forget where the hole is. But you take a putt right and you come up short and you're like, how did that happen? Well,
you you're not connected to it. But when you look, even on short puts especially, but I've been using on short and long putts and having great success with my distance control and holding out long putts, including holding out ten footers regularly.
Wow.
By looking at a very specific spot where I wanted to go, you know, and and it works so well. When I played Riviera. We were talking about I played Riviera first the first hole, guy, I've got like a thirty foot putt, and the caddies like, hit it right here, and I was looking at that spot the whole time and it went in. We don't won't.
But when we played courses that we haven't played before and we don't quite know the contours and we don't know the speed, you got to trust the spot because you know. And so if that gives you that confidence. If I don't do my putting routine, which I do in a point, but if I don't do the putting routine, I miss every time and I don't even know why
I do. But I've got to go through the routine to know the distance, to know the spot, and then the commitment comes, and without the commitment, I'm just I'm just hacking it.
I'm I'm not I'm not in it. I'm not committed right right.
And that's the thing I mean, We've talked to so many instructors on the show. It's all about your preshot routine, consistency, right, doing it over and over, and just being comfortable with it, and including being comfortable with the dog barking because she wants to come in. Okay, good, she's driving me nuts, all right anyways.
But when you play with a partner, if you're a good part of somehow your partner calms down, you know, like somebody somebody you're with. I noticed that spending time on the green can really annoy the other golfers in the foursome, can annoy your partner like they want to play kind of quickly, and a slow, slow golf on the green is actually emerging as one of the biggest hang ups that golfers are having. Like you've got to be sort of quick and methodical, but don't be slow.
It's just as bad as being slow in the fairway now, right, I maybe think they should put a shock clock on a pup.
Talk you never watch TGL.
Finally they have it.
I love the shot clock.
You're making bitter decisions. I don't think so, No, just do it.
And I know I'm very deliberate about my preshot routine on the green and in my shot and I have a feeling that there's people that are like, come on, Fred, just if you make it, if you ever watch it on TV, and they take a whole lot more time than I do. Relax.
As long as you're three party, nobody cares. Yeah, right, exactly, it's a three part that takes a long.
Time, right, especially when you go through that routine again.
Exactly.
You know we're here because you wrote a book. It's called not about Golf, right.
Yeah, that's the biggest mistrack. Not about golf.
All about golf, but it's not the golf that most people think about. Most people think about golf as the tips and tricks, how to get a lower score, how to improve your game, how to get some distance. I don't think that that really matters for the golf I play. For the golf I played. How to have a more fun time with your friends, how to find more fulfillment on the golf course, how to build a better network.
And there's you can't take a lesson on that you talked about your son learning etiquette on the golf course. What a magical lesson for him to learn early in life. A few places to have behaviors that will lead to a more enjoyable experience by everybody who's playing with them. And I think for social golf and for golf networking, you can see into the soul of the person you're playing with.
By the fourteenth hole.
You know if they're a good person, an honest person, a caring person, or a person who will a generous person will help you look for their ball, a person who can deal with frustrating situations, who will celebrate your good shots. And for me, those are the people who
I want to be with. And if I blased somebody who I see can't control their anger, or who gets frustrated easily, or who'll get or who doesn't want to help me look for a lost ball, are these people that I really want in my life in other areas?
And most of the time the answer is no, I don't. I don't.
I'm not looking for the most competitive games. I'm not looking to destroy my opponents. I'm looking to have friends and colleagues and people who I enjoy spending time with. Fred I spend If I spend four hours golfing with someone, that's probably the biggest time commitment I'm going to make that day, and so I want to enjoy it.
There's no question that golf exposes character. Yeah, like you were just talking about how how you know doing it? I did an episode once talking about doing business on the golf course and what the person was explaining this woman was great and it's always stayed with me, is that when you're going out to play golf with somebody who you may do business with, whether be an lawyer, employee, or a client customer, whatever it is, you don't do
business during the round. What you do is you learn if you want to do business with that person while watching them play golf, what is their temperament, like, what is their anger level, what is you know, what gets them going? And then if you decide that yes, you do want to play golf, you do want to do business with them, then you do that in the nineteenth fold, you go to the bar and then you start talking about it to your thoughts.
It's the ultimate character referrals.
But you you're finding out they're honest, and that means are they calling their true score?
Are they committed? Are they you know, do they have this stick to it? Noess?
Can they deal with adversity? All of those things? Are they going to rip you off? Are they fairer? Those are all the things that you want to know, and you can't find out in a phone call, like oftentimes, you have to do business to find out if you want to keep doing business well on the golf course. If it doesn't go well on the golf course, is not going to go well in the business deal. So no, I've never negotiated a single business term or completed a
deal on the golf course. Have I made relationships where people trust me and I trust them and I want to spend more time with them.
Absolutely. Have we had conversation that proves.
Because I was a political and brand consultant, where I had something interesting to say or they had a problem that I can help.
Them with, for sure.
But most of the time we're you know, we're chit chatting about life, and then we talk about this shot, and then we're chitchatting about something else and then we say great pot. So it's always golf sprinkled in conversation. And what I like about golf is golf is the natural chit chat. When you run out of chitchat great drive, you can talk about top break. Oh you lost that ball.
That's going to be expensive hole because you just put your pro v one in the world water and you know what, you have another one that's exactly or I think the ultimate thing is I love this will of somebody finding a golf ball, Like I just I love when they delight in finding a new gol and it put they put it in their back and I'm like, I'm really happy for you found a new golf ball.
St people to light in that.
Yeah, oh absolutely absolutely. So do you play for money? Do you are you gambler on the golf course or I.
Mean, I mean my biggest bet are two, two, four, five, five, ten, Those are the nassaus that that's my you know, and if I splurge, it's you know, dollar skins. Yeah, that's that's that's what I was big as a catch. I don't need to bet money in golf. That doesn't it doesn't get me more engaged or energize.
It just gets me nervous.
The exact same way. It's like part of the problem with my son. Even when we went to top golf, He's like, all right, bucks on this. I'm like, come on, man, just let's hit the ball. I can't do it unless I have skin in the games, like.
Because he can't.
He didn't play with his dad enough skin in the game, like I mean, either rooting for his dad or rooting against his dad would be. My son and I used to play twenty dollars. I think we played twenty dollars skinned until maybe he was fourteen, because he needed money and he could always beat me, so it was I always knew it was a good way to give him some money, spend some time with him, keep him engaged.
And then I think somewhere around when he graduated high schools like, dad, we don't need to play for money anymore. I just want to be out here with you.
And I thought that was very sweet.
And then he asked for a couple hundred bucks afterwards for some you know, with him spending money.
But he didn't have to win it off me.
Right we were, my son and I were playing. Once he goes I have fifty bucks, I'm like five, because no fifty. I said, do you need fifty bucks. If you need fifty bucks, I'm happy to give it. Right, don't torment me, don't.
Humiliate me, right, don't don't make me.
You know, he can't beat me.
He can't beat you.
No, he cannot beat me. But he can. But he gets into my head better than anybody. And one time we were going out and I'm like, okay to no, I'm just going to get into his head. I know I can beat him. I'm just going to get into his head. And what happens. He has one of the worst rounds of his life and I can't do it. It's like, my son, I can't beat you up. You're beating yourself.
Up so much.
Now you're going to take off him and he is. He calculating for holes. So he's like putting it out down, six down, seven.
Times over and said, just tell me at the end of the round and at it up. I don't want to know during the run.
Did he have money to pay you?
Oh? Yeah, always. I haven't had to give this kid an allowance since he was eight. He's always got a scam going.
That's I mean, that's a pretty entrepreneurial kid.
So that's good. So I mean something's working.
Yes, he's and he's working it.
I told you before, and yeah it works. And that's my son. Matthew is is too. I don't. He doesn't.
He doesn't bet on the golf course anymore. Maybe maybe with his friends, but it's not for money, it's for honor, it's for points. They do a Ryder Cup. All his college friends get together a couple of times year and they do a Rider Cup format. And that's just fun to see that they love golf so much that they'll fly to Arizona or they'll fly up here to New York and just play.
That's exciting.
Absolutely. So you mentioned about using golf to build a better network.
Yeah, let's.
Bring that out. Let's tease that out for just a moment here.
I've think fortunate to be part of a group called a Young Professionals Young President's Organization, which is a group of which is a group of young presidents all under fifty years old, and they have something called the Golf Network. And originally I thought the Golf Network was for all
these young presidents who were you know, scratch golfers. No, the Golf Network is for like fifteen to twenty handicaps who just enjoy getting together for golf, and White is spread all over the world, and so I would look at the website and find all these different places they were hosting golf events. So the first one I found was the YPO World Championship, which I thought that sounds like a big thing, and it was in Dubai, and I'm going to go play in the YPO World Championship.
It turned out to be a bunch of fifteen and twenty handicappers and Dubai was just coming together. And I've gone to events in Australia and Tasmania. I've gone to events.
Events these are young that's Young Presidents organization.
All Young Presidents. And so that was that was one form of my golf network. And then in New York, I know New York has a lot of golf, there's there's public I mean, we have the Ryder.
Cup coming in just a couple of pages.
Yeah, that case, which will be that's going to really be a major event from there. That will be as big as any Yankee World Series or Nicks basketball or you know, even they're going to have the World Cup. I don't I don't think New York expects what the Ryder Cup has become because it hasn't been here in a while, and New York is going to go absolutely crazy for their for their for the Ryder Cup.
So but I have so, I have friends and we each are.
Either members of private courses golf clubs or have public courses and we just play. I never I never play more than five rounds at my home club because I'm always going to my friend clubs and having home and homes and that's something I really enjoy.
That's awesome. That's awesome. So, so your book about not about golf, you know. The line that I was fed here is that it explores the life changing joy of the game, debunking myths and highlighting how golf's momentum fosters social and networking benefits for everyone.
Yes, well, because golf brings people together together of all abilities. With the handicap system, we can all play golf. So the handicap, I'm a fourteen handicap, I don't know you're something.
You're a five handicap more you were a five handed. But even when in the days when you were lowered.
We could play together because you would you know, you would give me a couple of strokes on different holes and we'd have very competitive matches. Equals the playing field a little bit and allows us to stay engaged, and no other sports.
Really allow that.
You know, you always have to have similar level of players playing or it's not satisfying. So golf brings together that way. It also brings together people in different formats at different times, and it's outdoors. It's a way to
spend time with each other. And now after the pandemic where golf was completely discovered as the one sport that we could all do together, people realize that no one really cares how you're playing golf as long as you're playing fast and as long as you're keeping accurate scores. What golfers don't like is they don't like because it's one golf course for all of us, no matter what the level. So the golf course has to keep moving
and golfers like to keep things honest. So if you're playing fast and you're playing honest, everybody will want to be out with you. And it's a great equalizer. And there's very few things like that that bring communities together. Men, women, children, gen Z's are playing more golf than ever, and they're not just playing on golf course, they're also playing in simulators. I think you know that half of there's seventeen million golfers who are playing in simulators, which is indoor like
a five iron, which is a big simulator. Here in New York. We talked about top golf, and that's where a lot of golf is being played.
Let's continue have thought about simulator golf, indoor golf, because it is really exploding right now. The technology has gotten so good. TGL has helped promote it, and I think that young people are discovering that, hey, wait, I can play golf. I can play eighteen holes of golf in under two hours and I don't have to walk or ride a cart. This sounds wonderful.
And you get amazing feedback.
Because Jenz loves to have feedback, how long did ago, how high did it go?
What was this spin?
Because they're used to video games, so they get that instant feedback, but they get the dopamine rush. If the simulator says it was too sixty two down the fairway, it's too sixty two down the fairway. There's no disputing that. And unlike en course golf, where you know, there might be a pond on the right, or there might be trees on the left. They don't see those, they don't really see those ferriers. So some of the stress that can come from just you know, looking at the site
or the bunker doesn't exist. You're always hitting at the screen. So it's it's actually a more enjoyable experience where they can groove their swing get good results. And the simulative golf translates to encorese So if they play.
One on one on green.
Grass for every three simulators, that's a beautiful ratio. And it's also very cost effective, very cost effective, sixty five dollars an hour for similar to golf. Maybe you can get it down as though many buildings are putting simulated golf as an amenity in residential and it's an amenity and commercial now is it really?
Yes?
If you look at the Empire State Building here in New York City, the world's most famous building, they have a simulator, and they have they have tournament and they are using it as a way to get their tenants to convene groups. And it's a wonderful amendy in a building that is legendary and historic and epic as the Empire State.
And as we were discussing, it builds your network. It's a great way to build your network.
It builds your network, and you're talking to people. One person hits seven people are talking.
I didn't.
I wonder if they even played foursomes. I bet simulator golf allow us for all different formats.
Sure, sure, right.
Right, well right now, let's let's get back to or let's get not even back. We haven't gotten there yet. We've been chatting like this but not about golf. Is not your first book, but it's your first golf topic book. Let's establish where you came from and now you got to this spot.
Well, I'm a researcher.
I started off doing polling for an audacious congressman named Ed Kotch who wanted to New York City. I worked for Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton. I worked for Mike Bloomberg, and I worked for some of the top brands I worked for. I worked for Open Ai, worked for Airbnb. I've worked for all these different brands who really for politician. They wanted to get elected, for the brands who were
disrupting the way that people do business. They wanted to get momentum, and so I was a momentum seeker, and so as a polster, I find information and I share it with large groups. And the book that I'm probably most well known for is called maxim Momentum, How to Get It and How to Keep It was a book about modern momentum, and momentum was always this very emotional
feeling like I have momentum, I've lost momentum. I was able to quantify momentum using social media analytics and create an algorithm to decide a brand, a person, a sport, who you know who has momentum and how to keep it?
And I used.
So Isaac Newton's definition of mass time's velocity to calculate momentum. And so in the book, I showed how modern politicians, Donald Trump, whether you liked him or hate him, a momentum master who in politicians you always have to have maximum momentum on election day or you lose. And Trump seems to figure out how to get that momentum. And so we admired and we see politicians who couldn't get the momentum or peaked too early and lost. So that was a lesson I learned in politics and with golf.
I always thought that I found golf at twenty one and it had been a real life changer for me and my family and my wife, and we played and my friends played. But I didn't understand the cultural significance of golf until the pandemic happened. And during the pandemic, golf was really one of the few things that we could do as a society, as a neighborhood, as a community to go out in golf because we had all the social protections to be outside.
It wasn't contagious.
We could do as for it, be together, but we could still be separated, right And so golf sturge. Eight hundred thousand more women started to play golf. Gen Z came into golf, and there were golfers who were starting to play at sixty year old golfers for the first time. We're coming out to play because they wanted to be part of it. They weren't trying to win the club championship, although maybe some of them were. Most of them just
wanted to be social and be with their friends. And I could see the momentum of golf just absolutely taking off, and that's why I wanted.
To share it.
Because I knew they could take lessons to get their swing better, but who was going to teach them the social and networking parts of golf? And I felt that this was my opportunity to share with them.
You know, in the years that I've been doing this, we've seen two momentum factors in golf, the second one being COVID where the pandemic to industries that really benefited from from the pandemic were golf and podcasting. So I seemed to be right in the right spot. Yeah, podcasting exploded at that point, but also the Tiger Woods effect in their early two thousands was another thing. So where are we now as far as momentum in golf to
continue to grow the sport. Are we in a good spot or is it kind of waning because we're no that far outside of no?
I think so.
Tiger Woods brought in athletes and brought in people who wanted to be like Tiger play like Tiger, And I actually think that while it was amazing for the sport, that was an intimidating version of golf because Tiger Woods was an amazing player who made great shots, and that was still the era where there were golf I mean there was Nie Arnold, Palmer, Jack Nicholas and and we can go through Gary Player, all these amazing golfers and you wanted to be a PGA pro. Right, this isn't
what we're talking about. We're talking about a grass roots led from the people wanting to go into the golf court. It's a very different movement that's going on right now. Which I think that as I've gone through these book tour and understanding the issue that we have Freds that we need to deal with is we've got to eradicate golf intimidation. And what I mean by golf intimidation is it's okay to duffer shot. You know, it's okay to not have to stripe a two hundred and fifty hours drive.
We don't really care if the golf balls are jacked or not jacked. It's not going to make any difference to my game. I don't know if I need a new driver every year to pick up the extra ten yards for the golf that I want to play.
Like I said, I probably need to plot a little bit more.
And that's the type of golf that we're into now. And I say that because golf is happening everywhere. It's happened at the office, it's happening in your building, it's happening outside, it's happening with your kids, it's happening with your grandparents. Everybody is playing golf and all the and even what's more interesting, couples golf tournaments, formerly known as the Divorce Open, are.
Now the rage.
More people want to play with their spouse, whether it's your husband or your wife. That was always a toxic event because of some of the tension. Now people love it. They want to have play nine and wine and dine. And that's where we're at with golf. And so I think as we understand that you don't play golf to get away from your family, you play golf to be with your family. It's a very different mindset.
It really is. It really is, really.
Is, and I think the golf When I talked to the Golf Channel about it, I was surprised that they were my first interview because I was worried with golf, you know, with the with the golf hierarchy. Would think about a guy writing a book called Not about Golf, like how serious is he? And they were like, yeah, maybe we should maybe we are a little intimidating, and maybe people don't understand that if you talk to a
PGA professional, they don't really care. If they're playing with you in a social game, they don't care how you play. They just want to like you. And that if they're in a match to win some money, or you know, an amateur event where they're going to you know where they're going to be, you know, the champion, sure they want to take it. But if they're just playing a social match where you're having a few drinks, he just wants someone who's who's engaging and quite frankly, they say, not an asshole.
Part of what your book talks about is a lot about your golf. Your your experience is going and playing in some of the greatest courses. And I was like, I don't want to know, guy, you keep talking about these great courses that I'll never go to play. This is so cool and it's all about your experience. But tell me more about debunking myths in golf.
Well, I think the biggest myth about golf is that it's older people, it's wealthier people, it's whier people, and that might have been a version and it's more male. That might have been a golf in the past, but it isn't what golf is today. Golf is more accessible than it's ever been. Golf is as much younger people as older people.
It's as many women as men.
And so I think getting rid of this older image of golf and getting to a modern image golf fashion like I'm still waiting for being able to untuck my shirt everywhere I go. It hasn't happened yet, but it's starting to. Golf is mirroring society and the values. Golf is inclusive. If I say, do you golf, I'm not trying to keep you out of my life. I'm trying to bring you into my life. I want to If I say to you golf, it means I want to spend time with you. I want to hang out with you.
And I'm not going to I'm not going to judge you, hire you golf. I'm going to judge you as a person. I'm going to judge your character. I'm going to judge are you engaging? Are you caring? And that's where golf is changing. I'm not going to I mean, I might tease you a little bit if you if you make a fundy shot, but I'll do it with a smile, and I'll do it in an endearing way.
Yeah. So one of the things that other people are like, yeah, I don't I don't know. I can't. What a stupid game that putting a ball in a little hole.
That's not what golf is because they don't get it, and they won't spend the time I have. People say, I wouldn't spend four hours doing that. I want something more athletic, I want something more strategic. I want something more engaging. And I say to them, well, why don't we come out and walk eighteen holes and you tell
me how you're feeling. Why don't we think about these shots and all the different options, and you can tell me if your mind was engaged, or if you want to play inside, and let's have a few drinks and talk and then you tell me at the end what you thought, because you've made up this mental mind of what you think golf is based on some understanding that you had, and the truth of the matter is you haven't opened.
Your mind to try it. And that's what I wanted to do with the book.
That one of the reasons I even did the color is I didn't do like the classic Bucolic scene of a fairway with trees, I put a big golf ball with his textured because that is the universal sign that everybody recognized. Whether you play championship golf, simulator golf, mini golf, pot pop golf, everybody would no matter what language you play in, if you play in Korean, Japanese, Spanish, English, you know what a golf fall is.
And we all know what a golf fall is.
Yes. Yes. One of my favorite lines in the book is the game itself is a laboratory for positive life skills such as generosity, humility, humor, kindness, and friendship.
Yeah, and it's and you certainly know, you certainly know after fourteen holes. I don't think you have to play with someone twice. They cannot control their impulses, good or bad. Because you have adversity in golf no matter who you are. Something doesn't exactly work out the way you planned, or you have unexpected success in golf, and both of those require a certain temperament. If we are something great happen in our life, we don't instantly jump up for joy
and start hugging each other. And if something bad happens, in life. You know, we don't start throwing stuff. If you know people who throw their club I'll never talk to them again.
Like, I'm not into that. I want to know you need help.
Yeah. One of my listeners told me when he was playing with his dad when he was a kid, and he got upset and threw his club and his dad said, you're not good enough to throw your clubs yet.
Yeah, I don't.
I wonder what that would feel like, because don't you need that club, you know, like.
Like right, like that.
I have a practical thing, so like if you throw your wedge, you're going to need to be hit that wedge again. So probably I see it like I see people, you know, slam a club, even in simulators, I see it.
I'm like, it's it's golf.
You have another shot, Like there's always another shot, another one.
People have expectations of, like, and golf's not that easy.
Who makes every who makes one hundred percent of anything?
Nobody?
You know, no one.
The spelling test, I don't spell all the words right. It's just it's just not what I do. But I went to a golf psychiatrist. It wasn't really a golf psychiatrist. It was a sports psychiatrist. I had lost my game. I love golf.
It was the most important thing to me.
And then I was in a business deal, like the best business deal I'd ever had in my life, and I was deep in due diligence, and you know, they're asking me all these questions. I have just no idea what the answer to and I couldn't golf and keep my head in the due diligence, and I thought that it was gone. And I played several rounds and I said to my friend at dinner, I said, I really need to find a new golf coach because I thought
I needed to work on my swing. And his wife, who never has played a round of golf in her life, says, you don't need a golf coach, you need a psychiatrist. And I said, yes, I need a psychiatrist. And so I went to the performance coach and the coach said, okay, let.
Me get this right.
He said, when you're I've done iron Man before as part of my afflets, and he said, like, when you're riding your bike.
Do you ever see yourself just falling off?
I'm like no, And he said, when you're doing a presentation in the meeting. Do you ever just see yourself going off the right rails and saying something so ridiculous that they never want to talk to you again. I said, no, when you're skiing, do you see yourself just rolling down the mountain? No? He said, so, why when you play golf do you see your ball? Why do you see the future and you see your ball going into the
pond or the trees? And so he gave me this exercise, and I at first was very skeptical.
And he said, five things you.
See, four things you hear, three things you touched, two things you taste, and et cetera. And I, if you've ever tried that, it can knock your train of thought off from anything you're thinking, and it works. And I found out that professional golfers have tricks to also, you know, when they're when they're playing, to distract themselves a little bit. And I never knew and so like even I was playing in a golf tournament two weeks ago in Aspen, and it was a pretty tight golf tournament.
I was with a friend.
It was our eighteenth year and my friend had told me, you know, I spent a lot of time playing golf. I want to be competitive in this and so he really raised there and I felt a lot of pressure, but my golf was at the game. So in between shots, I would start to look at the trees and I'm like, I was starting to count the leaves, I was counting
the birds. I was looking anything I could to not think about golf, so that when I got up to my shot, it just went and I thought, the mind is really active and you know, calming it down, and then I use it in work. It has the same effect. I just chill out and start to think about something else, and when the question comes to me, I know exactly what to say.
Well, you just recapped over a thousand episodes of golf spread.
That's why I wanted to come on this show, because I thought, you're into this stuff.
Oh yes, it's I mean. Episode one was with doctor Joe parent of Zen Golf. Oh, Zen Golf is my book, and that's why I had him on episode one in two thousand and five. He's been on the show many times.
Round as you walk, absolutely, oh Zen, I'd read Zen Golf over and over again.
You can't meet it enough. Oh then golf here the birds.
Or one of my favorites. I mean, I have lots of lines that I quote for is it if things aren't going right, if you have a bad shot, treat it like an Etra sketch. Flip it over, shake it off, and then move of.
Oh my god.
I love when he said yeah, he said, feel the ground, smell what's going on here, the birds that are barely chirping, and you can then golf.
That was the first.
Time I started to practice that, because no one, you know, they don't tell you that when you first start golf that you have to clear your mind after every shot.
No, no, you're just focus on the next one.
A couple of years ago, I was in Japan and we were at a with a meeting with a Buddhist monk on top of a mountain in his a little monastery there, right, and we talked about sitting meditation and walking meditatis, and then he started talking about Zen Golf, the book Zen Golf, and I'm like, wait a minute, that's one of my teachers. He called it The Golf the golfing Zen, and I'm like, no, no, you mean Zen Golf. My doctor goes, yes, yes, yes, one.
Of the great books. Because like, look when when when you and I started chit chatting before, I never thought this that we wouldn't have report. But it's never it's not it's not a possibility.
I looked at your profile like this is exactly what I like to talk about, and so and yet on the golf course, I probably tends up all of it when we got to the first hole because we haven't golf together, you know, and so like, why how can we be so natural here? And then we get to the first t and we're like, let's see where it goes.
Oh I'm flattered. Oh that's so great. Yeah, yay, Zen Golf. Okay, and again, anybody who's never read it.
Get it again and again again.
And he's got Zen putting, and he's got a lot of different books. I read them all, and he's just a wonderful, wonderful person. Last thing I want to touch on as far as what golf brings to the table. And you know a lot of people are like, oh, I'm playing I play golf once or twice a year at a charity tournament. And what golf does for charity in itself, whether it's on the tour and the millions they get raised or billions too locally.
You know, it's interesting. I have two responses to that.
One, I think charity golf is just scratching the surface. It is because charity golf brings people together and it raises so much money, and yet I think the possibilities are so much more to bring in it to all different areas because charity golf is community. And my wife and I sponsored a boys and Girls club tournament and we raised hundreds of thousands of dollars in one golf event.
And I'm like, if we can raise this in one golf this is the power of golf to convene people, to convene people who are like minded to support things. And so the reason I had the reaction when you said that I golf one or two times and charity, I'm like, this is somebody who we should get golfing
all the time because they like golf. And then we should find different ways for charities to not just have golf events to play golf, but golf events to bring in new golfers, because it shouldn't just be that we're playing to scramble or we're playing, you know, best ball. We should have something for new golfers. If you're new to golf and you've never played, We're going to do introductory golf. We're going to teach you that etiquette that your son went through. We're going to teach you the
basics of holding a club. We're going to teach you out of putt, and so we should have different levels to charity golf. I want to reinvent the way that charity golf has been. I don't want anybody at the table signing people in. I want them to sign in on their iPhone before they get there. I want all the people who are participating in the tournament on the course and interacting and golf and not being left behind
in anyway. So I have a strong point of view on the power of charity golf because I just think it's starting and it's I mean.
I don't even know the number of twits. I'm sure it's billions, but it's just starting.
Yeah. Yeah. I was on a committee putting together a charity tournament a number of years ago, and I suggested, I said, why not at the turn have some messuses there in those chair chair massage and give you a chair massage. It's like, that's.
Wait.
I played, I played the best tournament I play in is called the trash Masters. It's the Trash Masters is played at snow Mask Club in uh snow Mask, Colorado. And you get points for the trash, so you get hu, you get points for a sandy you get which is out of the sand.
You get a barkie.
If you hit a tree, you get an otis if you go up and down and and as long as you get net par you get the points. And that is the most fun way to play golf because you're just joking around with your friends trying to You don't need to score, you know, five hunder. You're looking to just get some junk. They put a tractor out there and they call it a ford like And these are just fun events. And I think a charity golf is where we should bring people in have them get unusual experiences.
The massages, the drinks, the what have you to make golf fun and engaging. You know, they don't all have to be structured as a as a as a PGA event.
An otis up and down way I mean to send you to send you.
I'm going to send you the trash Master's Book, and I'm going to connect you trash Masters is one of the most unique tournaments. And and and Jim Nanats.
Was involved that you talked about him.
He's he's one of the the guys to get behind it, and it's brought this whole community together to appreciate what golf is and to enjoy this in this most unusual way.
Mike, tell people how they can check out all your books and your websites and you're on social media.
The best way is Not about Golf dot com, which is you can find about all the things I'm doing. You can go to Amazon and get Not about Golf, which is the book, and you can always find me at Mike Berlin dot com. But Not About Golf is the best way to learn about what we're doing and where we're going with this. The response has been absolutely phenomenal.
I was quite nervous with the golf community, the hardcore golf community would think, and they love it because they know that golf intimidation is an issue that we have to overcome to grow to the next level. When it comes up from the grassroots, that's when it's sustainable.
Awesome, Mike, this has been a blast. Thank you so much for your time and for sharing and for wanting to be on the show so we can have this guy conversation.
This has been great, This is absolute pleasure.
But I'm looking forward to I'm gonna we're gonna get out and play.
Okay, I'm in take you
To one of my magical courses.