We're on a mission to help golfers from all over the world, achieve their goals by understanding what it actually takes to play their best golf. We're talking with leading instructors, researchers, and players themselves to find what is actually working. Hey everyone, welcome back to the podcast. Today we are starting three days in a row of podcasts. Yes, this is that this is the week for your mental game. We're going to dive in the first two days are going to answer some questions.
The third day, we're going to chat with a with a player and our special guest dr. Craig Carton Greg. How's it Go Courtney? It's going well looking forward to it. Absolutely, Greg, you're one of my favorite people to chat, all things, mental game with. And I think one of the reasons is you approach it from such a, just simple, not a bad. So do you like simple understandable, approach? Sure, that's no matter who you are. You can understand kind of the
method. I don't know if you like that word, but the method and the way that you approach things, yeah, I think I find that a lot of my work is helping to simplify some Concepts that may seem confusing or difficult to pull off. Yeah. And kind of, I guess maybe it is set a little bit of context that the lens that you talk about performance. Who is the lens of mindfulness approach? Yeah correct.
Yeah a little bit less sort of controlling more of a acceptance or observation type model or method. You'll see that here pretty quickly. If you haven't heard Gregg on the podcast in the past, let's dive in. We've got a handful of questions today. We're tackling questions about kind of golf swing. We're going to focus on that tomorrow. We're going to focus a little bit on playing golf. And then third day kind of it more for the competitive golfer, a little bit, kind of things you
can, you can look at then. So I think we all have a lot of questions about the golf swing, and our mental game, in our approach toward it. I'm going to start you off with kind of one that we all have and if it's a thought about it, you - thought. So here's a question, it's how do I block out a negative thoughts? Once my swing starts to struggle in the middle of around, which, which always seems to happen, I mean I relate to that, right?
Like, we all get going pretty well, you know, six seven holes in then all of a sudden my we find a creek or you know, whatever it might be. Yeah, sure. I think, you know, this is sort of the classic misconception or
consent us down. and a very frustrating path when we think that we can block out negative thoughts, or that actually negative thoughts or even bad to begin with the reason that positive thoughts and positive thinking gets a good reputation when it comes to Performance is that when we're having those thoughts, like, if you stay, if you're staying on the First Tee and you the only thought you have is piping one down the middle, you're going to be engaged with the swing as
opposed to the thought, so we don't Do anything when we have a positive thought when we start to have negative thoughts about things we've done in the past or bad things that have happened or what might happen that could be bad. Well now we've placed some of our attention on trying to stop thinking those thoughts, trying to maybe change, those thoughts or judging ourselves for even having those thoughts. So you can see the difference between the two in the end.
I believe that regardless of the content of our thoughts, good or bad, we can still engage with the physical action of the Of Swing without being hindered by our thoughts through awareness. If we're aware, we're having a negative thought we understand. It's just a thought, it's not bad. We can move on to that engagement versus trying to fight ourselves and swing at the same time.
Now, the other interesting thing that I that I hear in this, this tweet that we got this question is my swing starts to struggle in the middle of the round? I think a lot of that comes, you know, from this idea of we're all going to have bad. Shots. You know, in a round of golf is shot and a lot of us struggle with really high expectations and then when you do hit that shot awry your mind just starts
to spiral. And then you start seeing every water hazard and every out of bounds on the golf course. Yeah. And then we think that's wrong, right? So it's the incorrect expectation. That everything is going to be work out. Well, when we play once in a while, maybe that does happen. But again, as golfers were, only going to hold ourselves to our highest standard. So golfers will identify with the best score they ever shot or their handicap into. That's who I am as a golfer.
And if things aren't up to that, then our thoughts start to rev up, we think something's wrong and the warning signals go off and now we've created a whole mess. But yeah, I think that it's the most challenging thing that golfers face is that one, the inconsistency of the game and then to trying to fix things when they're perceived to be
broken. And usually, they're not, so those who accept bad shots, you don't be happy with them, but understand that they are part of I round not the end of my round. Are much easier to move on to the next shot versus trying to fix and fight ourselves in the next shot when we can't do anything about the prior bad shot.
It's story to relate to those negative thoughts as yesterday, got out and played around a golf, those super fun one, the first rounds back here in Minnesota and the First Tee Box, there's a water hazard, all down the left side of the aisle down left side of the Fairway, and you're standing on. That First Tee, It had to range balls, prior to this, to warm up, that's my recommendation. Amended warm-up routine is to range balls. A you know standing there and I
absolutely thought like crap. I don't hit the snow water and some might perceive that is you know not very mentally tough or not very strong, whatever might be but end up standing there. I have that thought of like man, I really don't want to start start my round by hitting a, my drive in the water. But I actually at the best driver, the day and hit it right down the middle, that's a great example of thoughts.
Don't hit golf shots. Totally totally so, so I cut you off quick there, but I got excited. That was a perfect example, right? The idea that we've just been told that you can't think that way are good players. Don't think that way. So this is a subconscious thing that takes place. We have that thought there's a sense of there's a resistance to it or Judgment of ourselves. Well, good players. Don't think this way I just did. I must not be good. I need to do something different.
I have to block this out. I have to change at all while trying to hit a golf shot, right? So the idea is that all we're trying to do is create freedom from ourselves. Not not swinging the club, well or hick. Good shots or any of that. From a mental perspective. It's only to create an environment where we're free so that we can access the skill that we've worked so hard to develop and freedom can be taken away from us. When we're fighting are
resisting ourselves, right? There's no Freedom that there's, it were filled with tension. So, the next time we have one of those thoughts, it's not. What do I do to stop this? It's let's hit the shot and have this thought. Because thoughts don't hit shots. It's like maybe answer those questions for Some of our listeners, they would guess that tour pros and you were players
top 100 top 50 in the world. They don't think about, oh, I could miss this for footer or they don't think about, oh, there's a water hazard right there. Is that true or not? Or how do you to oppose think? I mean, everyone sort of has those thoughts that occur to them at different times, but I think the idea of being the more engaged we are with what we're doing in this moment. The less are thinking is going to register.
And so when God, God said that when they play, well, they they feel like they're not thinking at all. That's what that is. It's a total engagement in the moment so that our thoughts no longer really register. But we do everyone. If you're a human being is going to have those thoughts, in fact, probably more than not, because as humans, we all sort of have this negative bias, right? We're always sort of on the lookout for danger, we use that
to survive. So on the golf course, it's no different when we need to see what the danger is. And we have to avoid it and that's sort of built into our DNA. So Nothing wrong with thinking, those thoughts. I think that's the important difference there is that maybe not even Pros. Just when people are playing well and they have those thoughts. They don't register when we're
not playing well. Those send-off, even deeper signals of fear and the need to sort of stop and do something about it. And that's where our problems come from. Not the thought itself though, I think maybe they're kind of summarize. This is that thoughts don't hit golf shots is kind of that is aligned, you said in there and then whether it's a negative or positive thought, Thought that particularly doesn't have an impact, maybe just to close. What does have an impact?
If that's not the thing that has an impact Freedom, right? Because again, we're trying to create a space where we can act with total freedom. And we can't do that if we're judging ourselves or thinking, we should be doing something different than we are. Let us dive into our second question. This is another feel like one that A lot of us can relate to. I really do it from yesterday. Everyone says trust your swing, what if it can't be trusted and it? Hey, I mean, a lot of us were
starting our season here. Probably not much trust in many golf swings is we're getting back into it, but what are some of your thoughts around trusting? Yeah, I mean in an ideal situation we would have full trusted our swing but let me run you through this sort of little example. So as and we maybe call that confidence, right? Trust our Parents are selling. So what that comes from is sort of a data set, right? Like we've hit a lot of good shots, so we trust that.
The next one will probably be good or we trust our swing over confident. The next one is going to be good, all these being recollection of things that have already happened, right? And as golfers know, that, we could work really hard to get confident and that competence could go away. Literally, if the shot were trying to pull off is three to four millimeters off what we're trying to. Contact with it. That confidence is Stripped Away.
All that hard work, right? And it takes a lot to gain that back. I'm more of the school that we don't need to be confident or we don't need to trust to hit good shots, because again, trust and confidence are products of thoughts of things that have already happened and as we just covered in that last question that our thoughts, don't hit golf shots, good or bad. They don't hit golf shots. So next time when you're out there and you're not trusting
your swing, remind yourself. What's that coming from? It's coming from thinking. We still possess the ability to hit a decent shot, that doesn't disappear with bad thoughts. It may seem like that and that's really difficult to sort of navigate through, especially when we're, you know, in competition or were, you know, stressed out. It's just, it's much harder to see that to step away from that.
But that trust and confidence are all products of our thoughts, all of things that have already happened and then a slight peek into the future and guessing based on what's already happened. What might happen. And again, more thinking about what might happen instead of being totally engaged in what you're doing in that moment.
It's kind of reminds me of that this idea of accessing your skill, like, you know, trusting your swing a lot of, you know, a lot of us most golfers, have the skill to be able to do something. It's accessing that which is so difficult because you don't have the freedom and you have the tension I think about like playing a two ball Scramble with
yourself, right? Like most of the time, you're Gonna play really, you know, you're going to shoot par break a break par, if you're playing it, you know, it's scramble it yourself because you have the skill, it's just accessing. That is very difficult on the first try when you want it to happen under pressure etcetera. Yes, so that's it that mental game. Again, it comes down to the skill access and that comes from creating enough space and freedom. So that we can allow that skill
to emerge. Do you like that idea of playing a scramble like that? To kind of prove it to yourself that like all I do have the yeah, it's me. Using that as like your one marker of your success because I think what happens sometimes to is people tell me that, you know I always thought, you know, if I played by myself, things would be easy. Like I would have. And what happens then is now we start to think. Well, what if I can't play well in these conditions, things must
really be bad, right? So sometimes people even in find that to be, even more complicated from a mental perspective, because I think it's the same thing as, like, with a one foot putt or two-foot, putt. Right? You're just supposed to make those. Right? So the closer we get to the hole sometimes the harder it gets mentally to perform. Same thing with playing, you know, playing a scramble by yourself, or playing, you know, by yourself on a Sunday afternoon when the weather is
perfect. And there's nowhere to be, and be just because the setting is set and everything supposed to be workout. There's no guarantee. All right, we've got one more question. Going to tackle in today's episode, kind of talking about the swing and the mental game. One kind of Swing thoughts. This is that fall on here we got a little bit so here we go. I've always played with one mechanical, swing key and tried to ride it for 18. Holes top-level players.
Always talk about simply pre visualizing, the shot. And the shape only am I limiting my ability to get to the next level by thinking of a swing key when he says Twinkie thing that mechanical Swanky. Well, a big quite Yeah question. Be, you know, how are things working out for you so far? I think we really we can get ourselves into danger when we aspire to think the way the way someone else thinks right now, top level players may talk about that.
Who knows what's actually really going on, right? A lot of these you know visualization pre-shot routine and one or two or three, swing, whatever it may be. There's a lot of Buzz around people. Having those are using those I guess and very easy to latch on those. And you know, when, when a guys Winning or is playing well and being interviewed. Those are the things they say that come to mind because when we are playing well, it seems like that's what we're doing.
But I think anytime we fall into the Trap of trying to think, like somebody else, we're creating a resistance to who we are, what works for us. So if this works for you and you, you are able to create freedom and provide yourself an environment to access your skill by doing what you're doing right now, then keep doing that. But just because someone said, it works for them, doesn't mean mean that works for everyone and especially when it comes to thinking.
So I always offer that up to golfers like play around with, you know, different ideas. And even if you intended to go out to the golf course, with one's swinging key to 34, it doesn't necessarily mean that you're going to have that. And every shot and it doesn't mean that you need to have that on every shot. So things are constantly evolving and changing throughout Iran develop as well. It reminds me as question. Jason.
A, when he's doing his eyes closed, visualization thing behind the ball, he talked about it a lot, right? Is very prominent, he's playing well at the time, you know, I think tiger talk to his talked about, you know, kind of visualization behind the ball. What not to your anecdotes like that, right? But then you also your anecdotes from. I think about Rory, other players, talking about swing thought that is mechanical. All right. All right.
And so I think if you were doing a study and you're asking everybody that won on the PGA tour for a year, what there? Swing thought was on on Sunday. I think you'd hear different things every time. Almost I agree in to take one step further in this happens. A lot as we've always been told that we have to think a certain way to play well right. You have to think positively have to think a certain way to play while you have to have one swing better, all these things
yet. If you were to ask yourself or anybody when they played their best, what they were thinking about the majority of them, if not close to all of them would say, I don't know, right? That sensation of Thinking, so why why is it that were so gung ho on trying to create a specific way to think? When what we're trying to achieve, is this idea of no thinking at all, or at least that sensation, it doesn't happen. But the sensation is that there isn't it?
So why ramp it up more by adding things to think about absolutely? Hey, that leads us really well into tomorrow's podcast. We're going to actually start with a question, just along that. So we'll cut this episode here. These were three questions. Kind of tackle in the mental game in your golf swing. I hope this helped we'd love to hear from you on on Twitter Instagram if it did and then also Greg you are diving into our 2020 session where you're going to coach us all for for a
few weeks. Take we're going to take people through a course and then you're going to get on get on calls with us on a weekly basis and really help set the foundation for a for a good mental game for golfers and coaches alike. Yeah, I'm super excited about it. I really enjoyed filming that content and hoping that a lot of people get to access that and enjoy some of the things that you and I talked about Often and hopefully it can apply them to your game as well. Awesome.
Yeah, we've taken probably about 250 people threw it over the past couple years and would love to take you through this. This course and kind of understanding Greg's approach as well it works. I've seen him work with tour players and whatnot on is just a really effective strategy toward better performance with your golf game, but how it works. I will be back tomorrow. Make sure to join us for that. Greg will see you then. Thanks Courtney. Thank you guys.