It's the Son of a Butcher podcast, you know the drill. We come to you every Wednesday. This week's guest something that I've been wanting to do for a while and I thought i'd kind of run it back with She was the first guest of the podcast when I launched it a couple of years ago. Mel red. She's won a bunch of times on the LPGA Tour, It's been on the Solheim Cup team, and her coach, Jorge Parata.
Horge is the director of instruction at Liberty National. He works with mel He works with Carlotta Siganda, works with Bryan O'Toole, and is really one of the good young instructors out there in professional golf. But I thought it was cool. I was over at the Grant Thornton, which was the team event, and was talking to Melanjorge and was talking about being on the podcast, and I was like,
why don't I get both of them on? And it's a cool conversation to listen to a really, you know, an elite, elite player and their coach that kind of back and forth, and that's kind of the world that I live in, and I think it's a unique insight into kind of the relation between a player and a coach and what that relationship is, what kind of the rules and the boundaries are. So Melan Horgay do a really great job talking about it. There's some really cool stuff.
Mel's a new parent. She and her wife, Carly, they just celebrated having their first baby, so a lot of stuff to talk about. So really excited for this one, Melon Horge. Sit back and enjoy it. So this is a rarity for the pard mel you are our first guest for the podcast when we started back there, and that's that's a long time ago, because it seems like that was a long time ago, but that was pre you being a proud parent to a new baby. Boy, you're a you're a parent now.
That's kind of scary for a lot of people to definitely scary for me. I know it's a scary part. I think it's scary for Carl as well, my wife. But yeah, he's also he's coming out to a month old now and obviously life changing and yeah, my life looks are very different now and than it did a few months ago. So it's awesome. Yeah, we're obviously still learning and still adjusting. But wouldn't change it.
What's been the biggest surprise in being a brand new parent?
You just don't know what you're doing, do you. Let's be honest, you just try to do your best. You're just trying to keep the thing, you know, stopping from crying all the time. But he's a pretty good baby. He's sleeping pretty well through the night. Carlie's obviously a natural, which helps. And yeah, it's just awesome just seeing his little personality, even at a month old, to s grow every day is just kind of cool.
One of the things I've been wanting to do for a while, and you two are the first ones to do it, is to get a player and a coach on the pod at the same time. Orgeate, You've worked with a lot of really, really good players, Director of instruction at Liberty National. I mean, if there's not a better place to go to work every day than that golf course where you get the view of the skyline and you get a PG but a lot of times you get a PGA Tour event, you get a lot
of tournaments there. How many weeks are you're on the road you're working with mel give me a list of the other players you're working with.
Yeah, right now, Currently I have four players and they'll PG door tool, read any home quiz, and.
Then she should hit it further. What do you think she should Well, she should Carloda hit it further.
Yes, I've seen I hit it pretty further on the range. I'm not gonna lie that swings speach. She can get up on the range.
What'd she like to work with? I mean she when I watched her hit golf balls, it's like, Wow, that's a different, different sound.
Yeah, it's it's interesting. I've worked with thirsteince twenty fifteen, right.
And she's always been long.
She's always been long. She's always been very long. Matter of fact, I would probably argue she was maybe longer when she was younger. She used to hit not buy intention, but more of a draw, so she might have been even a little bit longer. But in twenty fifteen, when we started working together, she was someone that had never looked at her swing on video before, had never used any technology at all. I had worked with the same instructor since she begun when she was like five years old,
very old school teacher in Spain. He passed away months later. We started working together and the first thing when she came to At the time, I was working at TPC Sawgras, So she came to Sagrass to see me, and she said, I don't care about stats. Don't show me stats. I don't want to see my swing on video. You can take video and look at it.
That's a great start. Yeah, and why are you golfers also crazy? Why are you guys also crazy?
Now?
I don't want to see stats. I don't want to look at my golf swing. Don't talk to me about my golf swing. What the hell is she hiring you for? So travel with you on tour.
That's how it started, right, And I said, okay, well, I've looked at your stats, and for the last two years you've been between forty and forty five on the money list, and you've been around the same fairway accuracy, around the same green in regulation, around the same putting. So we need to do something better if you want to make more money next year.
She said, Okay, it's not about money, it's about trophies and legacy.
But it's true. So I said, I said, I'm gonna give you one thing only. I said, I'm gonna give you greens in regulation. To start, all I want you to do when you go play a tournament, look at how many greens you hit for the week, and then look at the first three players on the leader board and see if you hit more or less. And let's start there. If you talk to her now, these many years, she knows every player. She looks at everything, not everything,
but like she looks and she still consults. Right, She doesn't analyze herself, but she loves like understanding that she'll put track man. She doesn't look at all the numbers, but she'll put a track man down with the driver. She'll look at club head speed, attack, angle, ball speed, and then wearing the face is being hit and that's it. With the wedge, she looks at launch, angle, spin, axis, carry these things. That's it. Did She like loves that
part of it. So it's it's being interesting over these many years to see somebody grow that way, right, more into a more understanding full.
Completely if I had to describe that more of a professional, right, I mean, you can't play competitive golf and never look at your stats, never look at your golf swing, never want to look at your golf swing. I mean, that's just that's that's an impossibility. That's that's not a recipe for success. Now as a player, Porge just described Carlos.
If you had to describe yourself as no bullshit, not not trying to be funny, not making a joke, but if you had to describe yourself as a golfer and as a player, how do you tell me what you feel like?
Your game is?
What?
So?
What Horge is? When you're looking at a coach, what do you want? What do you want to look at? What you don't want to look at? I think everybody is different, right and I work with you know, players across the board. I work with for a long time, and he's a very close friend. He's been on the podcast Trevor Mulman, who now does an amazing job at CBS. Trevor wanted. I couldn't give Trevor enough information. I couldn't give him enough video. I couldn't send him enough video.
We couldn't look the swing, We got the dinner and we'd be looking. You know, it's he just he needed it, he wanted it. And then Brooks and DJ they want no information. Now, what kind of player would you say you are with regards to your game.
Yeah, I'm a bit of a nutter in a different way. He's I don't know, you might agree or disagree with me here. I get very obsessed with my own golf swing, and I like to ask a lot of questions, but not really helpful questions, like I'm like, why do I do this? Though? Why don't? And he's like, stop, just do what I'm trying to tell you to do and just trust me. And I'm like, but why. I ask a lot of whys. It's just the way that my
brain works. I like to understand why things work. So he has to just basically just take me aside and just how many shut up?
Most of the time because I've talked me down yet, I've talked to players.
It stresses me out.
I've had players on the podcast to say, listen, I'm a soldier. I just want some to tell me what to do. I just want someone to go do this in my golf swing. Okay, I'll do that. Do this from a caddie. Want my caddie do this on the golf course. This is the yardage. Hit this shot right. So there's that thing to where I think as a player. I think a lot of players struggle. We see Orge, We see players struggle because they're trying to be somebody
they're not. They're trying to have someone else's pre shot routine, someone else's view of golf, someone else's approach to golf. Do you think it's important Mel to kind of not get wrapped up because you can, right you ask you You've asked me tons of questions. You know when when we were in the pandemic and you were down in Jupiter at the Floridian, you played a lot with Brooks. Indeed, you were asking them a lot of questions.
Yeah, Like I liked it.
Then.
I've always I've always loved to learn, like especially with athletes, Like I've just always been fascinated, not necessarily just with golf, Like I'm you know, you want to see other athletes. I ask them about the workout, Like what do they do for their practice. I'm just very intrigued by athletes and how they get the best out of themselves. So yeah, but it's funny like when I'm on the golf course, like I take full control. Like Greg my Caddy, he's awesome,
but he's more there for support. He's great at his job and don't get me wrong. And there's obviously times I do rely on him, but I take a lot of that. You want to make the decision, make the decisions. Yeah, like I enjoy that, but with well, hey, I just I just like driving him nuts. To be honest, I just I know I'm a bit hard work. Sometimes we all are in a different way. But I just I love learning. But sometimes it's a bit of a detriment because I don't just do what he tells me and
trust what he's telling them. I do trust him, but just understand that this is what we're trying to do and stop getting on a spiral over here somewhere.
So all right, I'm gonna ask you both this question. I'm gonna ask Mel first, and then I'll ask you, now, what do you like about your golf swing? And what don't you like about your golf swing? And we only have the memory cards don't have a lot of yeah, hours of memory.
I mean, I think it looks an athletic golf swing.
So you think your golf swing passes the eye test.
For yeah, most people? Yes. And then I think I.
Would say, for if anyone's listening, it hasn't seen I would say, and I think you bucked up. You have a more classic golf swing, a old school classic in the vein of kind of Tiger two thousand, Adam Scott to where the club gets in a good position. You you don't have a lot of idiosyncrasies or a lot of extremes in your golf swing.
Yeah, Like my face is usually pretty stable through the golf ball. Things that I don't like about it. I don't like the way my legs work. I don't know. I just I feel like I don't utilize them the way that I should.
But all right, all right, coach, all right, coach went one, you got more? Okay. So when you when you first met Mel, right, it's always the eye test for an instructor is if you're going to work with a player, you either think you can help them, you like them, you like their swing, you like their game. So when you met well Mel, what did you like about her golf swing? And what were the things that you went I think I think these things could improve.
Yeah, I mean, I would say I'm and when I work, when I start working with that plan. This is something I developed obviously over the years. But I have a questionnaire that I send players and I remember when Susanne first, Susann Petterson, when she first approached me, and she had just finished working with your dad because your dad was not able to travel as much, she wasn't able to see him. And she asked me, hey, would you help me next year? And I said, and then you.
Sent her the questionnaire and she told you to go fuck yourself.
Basicly, yes, she called me that.
Yes, pardon, I apologize for any kids listening. But I knew as soon as you told that story and you said you were going to send Susanne Penderson a questionnaire, I pretty much knew the answer was going to be two words, maybe three. Yeah.
And if I honestly, if I had, I would have done the same thing, because I was like, what the hell is this question?
Wait a minute, Wait a minute, I'm trying to hire you. You're the I said, wait a minute, who's hiring? Am I auditioning for you?
Right? So, and and honestly, a lot of those questions and I have them now, and I just sent them to a national team that I'm gonna work with. But I sent them to sixteen girls, so we'll see how many answer them. Right. But the idea is to for me to get to know the player. First of all, what you were talking about earlier, Every player is different.
Every player has a different mentality. So one of the questions I have in the question is do you consider yourself a structure or unstructured human beings?
Mel Or you're a structured or unstructured human being? Oh, I don't. I'm not. I'm not going to ask you about your personal life because I know the answer to the personal life question. I think it's not structured.
Every single day works because there he's like, where's your a liments stick? And I'm like, oh, oh yeah, I was just sitting like you know, and he's like, no, just get your linments stick out. I'm like, okay, I mean for alignments.
Alignment is the lowest hanging fruit on the planet. Day and the reason why I think I said this to a kid the other day, he was like, well, how do you know?
Kid?
He was over from Finland. Kid's got really good action and he hit one and it was miles off line and I was like, okay, what was that? What caused that? And he was like I'm like okay, first and foremost are you aim there? So where's your target? Okay? It was a flag. I said, We've got the alignment stick. I said, so you just miss your target by twenty five yards to the left. So the alignment stick on the ground you can eliminate. Okay, I wasn't aim there.
So then you can start to work backwards from that right right, And I think the alignment rod. You hate him telling you to get the alignment rod because you forget Yeah, And I would say, right like she okay, whatted what percentage of the girls you asked that? Or the plan or you asked that? When you send a player a question and you say, listen, are you an unstructured person or are you a structured person? From a practice golf standpoint, what's the ratio of structured to nonstructured?
So I would say when I answer that in two parts, if I can, and.
I'm gonna throw a caveat in there, is have you noticed a difference in players that are higher up the rankings in their structured nonstructure?
So I have not noticed a difference, and that, but where I have noticed the difference is most people, majority of people, not everybody. Majority of people answer structure. Okay, But after we get to know each other, I would say about fifty percent of the people that I answer structure, we switch it months into working together to go on structured, to go on structure, because they realize they answer that question based on what society made him think is the
right thing to do. They think when I worked with Jonahs, which is when we met started working with Jonahs Blacks, he was extremely unstructured. And what I mean by that is he woke up in the morning and he knew he wanted his lag putting to improve. Let's say it was a Tuesday before a tournament. He knew his lag putty needed to get better. He knew he wanted to work a little bit on his wedges. He knew he wanted to work a little bit on his start in line with his driver, and he knew he wanted to
get nine holes on. He had no clue what he was going to do.
First.
We would show up on the golf course. He looked at the putting green and say it's too busy, Let's go to some wedges. And he wouldn't care. But also he would never leave the golf course until everything was done. Melts a little bit that way, she knows what she wants to get done. She goes and does it.
She doesn't have an action plan, but she will stay there and get it all done exactly.
So what happens when we grow up, we go to school, and when we go to school and we're growing up, everybody tells us we have to have a routine, we have to do things in.
Order, and if we don't do an action without a plan is a wish, all the cliches, and if we don't.
Do those things right, we are lazy. I don't believe it to be true. I believe and you know G for example, and you know G. That's why I bring her up from sports box. Yeah, extremely unstructured person, went to Yale, went to Pan, played golf on tour, top golf, c right, fantastic. She's a boss, very unstructured. She will tell you. She calls herself a chaos muppet. Okay, very unstructured, but she knows what she wants to do and she gets it done. It just doesn't mean that she gets
it done in an order. Now, there are other players that I've worked with, susaying very unstructured, not a what she was going to do at each time. There are other players that like to put the close out a night right down tomorrow morning breakfast, eight am, putting a thirty.
I remember when Tiger came out, they made him have a mandatory press conference. Right when Tiger first turned pro, he was, you know, every single week he was having a press conference, and the press conference was at the same time every day, right, So we had a day and a time, and the time was normally in the afternoon. And when Tiger first came out on a tour, he would go out and play nine holes and my dad would be like, dude, you gotta got a press conference.
He's like, oh, they'll come get me, right, and he would make them come get him. And as he became the greatest player the game has ever seen, in my opinion, his life became so much more structured. And my dad said the years that he worked with Greg Norman because they had so many obligates off the golf course, and I think Tiger's life got like that as well. He had so many other things going on. Right, when you reach a global icon status, your time is very limited.
So I watched Tiger as he got better, become way more structured and incredibly diligent, and you could mark your watch by when he was going to walk onto the range when he was going to go to the tee. He was a robot in his structure at his best.
Yeah, and that's probably how his mind worked naturally.
How can people listening guys figure out which one they are?
Well, I think for me, I even in my personal life, I like plans. I enjoyed plans, but I don't necessarily like structure.
Drinking plans, oh deary may Yes, I do like a structure for drinking, but but like I enjoy, I don't enjoy structure.
So like, I know what my drill, I know what I need to get done, but it has to be the way I want to do it, if that makes sense. And I think that's that took me a lot, like quite a while in my career to kind of figure that out. I was always trying to be the kind of more of the structured to feel like I was getting the most out of my day. Whereas now I'm like, right,
I know I need to do this drill. I know I need to do this movement doesn't kind of I'm a bit more easy going in a sense of how that's going to be approached, but I definitely get it done and that's helped me. I think be a bit more about like the quality instead of the quantity.
As a player. If you guys are working on something, if Orge is asking you to do something or doing a drill and you don't like the drill, or you don't do it, and are you someone that's going to say, hey, I don't really like doing that. Can we find another way to do it? Or are you like the majority
of tour players. You'll do it, you won't want to do it, You'll be mad at us for telling you to do it, and then three four months later the water bottle won't be in the right place, and then you start yelling us and you say, and I hate that drill anyway? Are you one of those?
I don't think so.
Now we talked, We talked. We actually talked about this a couple of days ago. I think I'm very quick. Yeah, you know, I say, hey, I want to get this done. I want to move it this way for this reasons. Right, we can try. Let's try the first thing. We're gonna try this type of drill, which is an avoidance drill. So here's this avoid that like this one two shots. No, I don't like how your body's reacting to it. I don't like how the club is reacting to that. Drill
is not gonna work. Let's go in a different direction. So now we're going to try a visual Q type of drill. So try down. Oh you react really well to that. Let's stick with down. And usually she will tell me otherwise. But we're pretty quick on like throwing. Throwing a drill out of the equation. Yeah, if in
a couple of the first couple of swings. I mean, she's so athletic, right, you've seen her, like obviously, you know these elite athletes are so athletic that if you give them a drill and they don't look athletic, clearly there is something between the connection of the mind to the body that, in my opinion, is not You.
Talk about structure, and I think what everybody listening, And in my head, I was thinking, Okay, the structure is talking about practice, But it's something that I talk a lot about, and I think that a lot of players that are trying to get to that next level are convinced that the only way they can get there is to have incredibly structured, incredibly lengthy, incredibly technically overloaded practice. Sessions.
What are some things that you both think that people listening can do from a structure on the golf course when they're playing golf, not practicing golf, because I think I just see that. I think everybody in golf just practices too much. I think we are as golfers, we are overloaded with practice and we're underloaded with real real
time data playing what's happening in the game. I mean, would you guys agree that at times practice can almost in your head, become more important than playing what you're doing on the range. It's like, okay, well let me just get back to the range. And it's like sometimes you can forget what you're doing on the course. Yeah, okay, I just want to get to the range and work on this. I'm like, yep, But it's not a game
of practice, right, you know this. If golf was a game of practice, it would have judges and Nelly Korter would win every week and Adam Scott would win every week because the judges would look at their golf swings and go ten nine to nine nine eight. If you didn't have a beautiful, technically sound golf swing from a judgment standpoint, you wouldn't be able to do. What are some things that you can structure on the golf course when you're playing.
I mean, I think for us, like he discussed me more on my target lines, he's pretty structured with that. And he's pretty because I again shock, I can be a little bit understand it verbally.
Ask you it's like where.
You start and Ry, I'm going to start of that tree and the one's going to move it. Ryan, He's like perfect, and then he's like, hit it hard.
Because I think a lot of golfers I'll ask them that, especially high handicapped golfers, where's your target and they'll say, well, the flag. I'm like, you know that's not going to work because you don't hit You're not going to hit your target given your talent level and stuff like that. And I think what you said their mel is really important that you're being structured with your target line, being structured, with where you're starting the golf ball. I think would
you agree. I think most golfers are obsessed where the golf ball is going, and they're not obsessed where the golf ball is starting.
Yeah, and if you're.
Trying to hit a draw the ball, damn well, better start to the right, and if you're trying to hit a fade, it needs meaning, it needs I think a lot of players think, if I'm going to hit a draw, I aim at right at the flag, and then I hit the draw right and then it's curving offline. And I think that would you say that's structuring in having very diligent, specific regular what's your target? What's your target line?
Where are you trying to start this golf ball? I think that has a tremendous amount of power in it.
Yeah, even even working with the Elgue golfers, right, obviously Elague golfers are different because of you know everything they're going through, right, But I remember, uh, you know, looking through like even with her, We're on the golf course and it's a little windy, and there's a slope right to left, and where's your target two years right at the flag? Okay, what's your starting line? Two years right at the flat? But you have a right to left slope, lie,
and it's into the wind. Where do you want to land it? There's one forty five okay, and the wind is making it play one fifteen? No, no, no, where do you want to land it? Right? So like the even the ability to always follow the same process of how you communicate with yourself or with your caddy, with your cellphor with your caddy sirt right. So if you're an elite level, what's the flag, where do you want to land? Now, what's the wind plane? Then what's the
slope doing? Then what's the total shot plane? Then what club do I select for that specific distance with that specific light, then go in and execute. But I think a lot of times most players will jump all of those. It'll be one forty five is playing one fifty, Grab my one fifty club or grab my one sixty club and try to hit a knock down right, And that's it.
So it's it's it's interesting. That's what I think. That's what a lot of people can really learn is the fact that they jump steps to get to the to the flag right, or they jump steps to as you said, figure out where they want to finish the ball. But you know, these elite athletes, they they control the starting line much more than they control their finish line correct much more.
And that's the that's the opposite of the average golf of the average golfer, I think, you know that's playing golf non professionally, non ultra ultra competitively is never even thinking about their start line. They're never even thinking about where they're intending to start the golf ball. They're just hyper focused on where the golf ball is going to finish. Now, what type of player are you are? Are you from driving range to the golf course? How many swing thoughts
are you taking with you to the golf course? Are you trying to go to the golf course with no swing thoughts? If you do take them, how many are you taking them? Or you just go and say, listen, I have what I have today. I was on the range. This is what I've got, this is the shape I've got, and I'm just going to go play golf.
So I'm a type, but I do like a swing thought. I've got like one with my driver, and then I wanted maybe maybe two with my full swings. But that's pretty much it. I can't know my feeling that I feel most comfortable with. I have like a few that we can always revert back to, so like ones not working that day, I can go to another one that I like and another one. So I have like a little blueprint of swing balls that you usually are pretty solid.
What's the main feeling that you like to take to the golf course or does that.
Hit it hard? If I'm completely honest, like I get in trouble when I don't. I guess another way you could say is commit. But I don't feel like I'm not committing. I'm just don't swing as hard, and so that is what manipulates the club and gets my body not moving as athletic as it should.
But org wouldn't you say that when Mel doesn't hit the golf ball hard. Those would be the swings where she says she doesn't like to wear her legs.
Look right, Yeah, she gets less aggressive, a little slow, little scary.
Yeah, my legs go before my hands in my body.
Yeah.
And I always think it's you can let yourself off the hook. If you're trying to hit a good shot and you hit a bad one, then it's harder to let yourself off the hook when you're not trying to hit it obi, when you're not trying to hit out of bounds, you're not trying to hit it in the water. So you take a club and you don't make an aggressive swing, and you're like, I should have just hit driver I'm up here trying to steer a three wood, and I didn't really commit to it, and I really
didn't trust the swing. And if I think a lot of play people on the the average golfer thinks that the majority of their golf swings are bad, and people say, oh, you swung too hard, I don't really see that. I see what most people do on the golf courses. Their body stops and their arms swing hard. They're not swinging hard, They're just swinging their arms hard because the body stops.
Yeah. Yeah, it's you know with mel as she was saying, I mean, and we used that a lot last year. I call it closing the loop. Right, So I talk about the what the brain does right, and you, interestingly, you brought up archery. This is something I learned from a guy called Joe Turner, and he talks about the mental loop. So if the if the if the brain is on an open loop, any thought can come in at any given point where if the if the brain is in a closed loop, it's hard for anything to
come up. So I do exercises with and we did it a lot last year where she was talking about saying the same word over and over again throughout the entire golf swing. So whether it was turn turn, turn, turn, turn, and her brain just kept saying turn, turn, turn, turn turn, or if it was two swing thoughts, it was right left.
Let's say with the driver last year, for example, we were trying to move a little bit off to the right, a little bit through the ball, so right, right, right, and as soon as you got to the top of the swing, she would say left, left, left, left, and the brain was always closing the loop of those two thoughts. If you're walking and you say right left, right, left, right, let, you can't think of anything else coming around right.
Tiger said that to me. I mean when Tiger went on that run in two thousand, he had that putted at Valhalla in the playoff to get into a playoff with Bob May he was kind of downhill and stuff like that, and I asked him after the season was over, I said, what what you're saying to yourself? And he said, I'm He said, if you could hear what I was saying to myself in my head, he was like, I said, he said, I got over the pot, and I was like,
this put's so easy. My mom could make this. Pott and he said basically, once I saw that, he said, I just am saying over and over in my head, make it, make it, make it. Make that sounds yeah, oh yeah, yeah, that sounds simplistic. But if that is the mantra and that is the only thing that you're saying to yourself, that that can't be a negative, right, right, and then that's got something positive has to come out of trying to have your focus be on something that is task orient and task positive.
Correct, and is what you're trying to achieve. Right, You're telling yourself what this swing thought or the feel or the sensation, whatever we want to call it. If if it's be aggressive, and you tell yourself aggressive, aggressive, aggressive, and the only word going through your mind is aggressed.
In that loop is aggressive.
Nothing else is going to come in. It's it's hard for the thought of oh, lake right, bunker left, any of those thoughts. So, you know, we talk a lot about I'd rather you pick a more conservative line and make a more aggressive swing.
Conservative target, very aggressive aggressive.
Target, and then make a conservative swing right.
Or a non committed swing exactly. Now, do you find that sometimes when you're taking really really aggressive lines to where it's a really really dicey pin, you know, forced carry over water. You're trying to push it and you're trying to be super super aggressive. It's sometimes it's situations can get away from you or does that help you?
If you're honest, I think it helps me, right, Like if I've got a tight drive and I in my own head, I'm it forces you to have to commit to this, like I have to if I've got any chance of hitting the drive where I want it, I have to commit to this. Like I've got any chance of this five iron getting over that water on this part five, I have to commit to this. So it
almost forces me into that space. So yeah, I mean I would say I'm usually better, and it's when I've got like a wedge in the middle of a green that I usually yeahs.
Actually I spent. I am the only person that has ever worked with Bubba Watson. It was two weeks I worked with him at Memorial in twenty and for about five days at the PGA right, and so we were at Memorial and I was asking him about his game, and I started to notice something that he would say to his caddy, who now Keddy's for Scotti Scheffler, Teddy Scott, we'd get be a practice round, we'd get over the ball, we'd get to the and Bubba would start going, all right, Petty,
what do you want to see here? Kind of shot you want to see here? So Teddy would give him the number, and then Bubba's immediate reaction was what kind of shot you want to see here? Because he's got every shot he can play right the way Bubba plays golf is and Bubba said, listen, when I get in difficult situations, I feel like that's when I'm at my best.
Right case, in point winning, the first Masters hits it way right at eighteen, the iconic you know, I mean the hook to get to get it around, to get the ball, to get anywhere close to the green let alone where he got it. But he I finally got him to admit that the difficulty is seven iron from the middle of the fairway to an easy pin, to a not a tucked pin, to a green light pin, a wedge in his hand from his wedgeyard to a
green light pin. He's like, that's where I get paralyzed because I've got so many options that I can't see any and that is such a weird place to be in, right, But I think it goes to what you said was when the situation demands the most focus, it's easier for you to focus in on that, right.
Like you know, if I do tend to hit you know, when I hit a batchet on the trees or something, and i'm you know, me and Greg would be like, right, we need you know, it's one thing, we needed it under this tree. It's just hit a low seven like run it up, you know, because this.
Is a pod, because this is a podcast and people aren't watching you. When you started describing that story, your eyes your head went down low, your eyes went low.
But I'm almost described like I'm almost talking to myself about the process of the shot.
Sometimes I take people into the trees and say, all right, get out, what do you see? Hit me a hook out of this. Sometimes these players couldn't hit a snaphook or draw the golf ball to save their life from a flat lie with a seven iron. But you get them into the trees and you say, okay, you got to get it around this corner. You've got a little bit of a window. We're trying to keep your ball
flight down. All right, let's go over see those trees over there, see that branch, You've got to hit me five ten shots underneath that.
Yeah, I think that's honestly, Like when it just it's just clearer for me because I know exactly what I'm having to do, and so there's just no for me.
I feel like the doubt just goes away, like I know exactly the shot I'm going to play, Like I said, when I'm in trouble and stuff, or if I've got a moment where, you know, if I have to bury the last even you know, not even to win a twenty to make make the cut, you know, I somehow, you know, not all the time obviously, but a lot of the time I give myself a pretty good chance because I know, right, I've just got to commit to the seven I'm going to cut off there, and it's
just very clear. But we've got to try and do that on the first till on the Thursday, do you know. I mean, you've got to do it straightway, but it's difficult sometimes.
Pregan, I give golf lessons to regular golfers. You are not a regular golfer. You are a professional golfer and an elite golfer. You play pro ams with the people that when we're not on tour that we tea on a regular basis, the average everyday handicapped golfer not scratched. They're just they're just sometimes they're weekend golfers. Sometimes they're recreational golfers. You play pro ams every time you're on tour.
Give me the top three things that you see on a regular basis from your pro am partners, And what do you think, for the majority of them is the lowest hanging fruit for them to improve.
They certainly don't hit it as far as they think. They've hit like one seven nine two jards once and so they think that they should hit their seven nine two hundred yards every time. That's number one. I feel like they just straight away just grab a log wedge every time they need to chip. You can chip with a nine nine, you know that's pretty uh. I think that would help their short game tremendously and honestly pace
on the greens. I think that they just try and smash it in the hole all the time, or you know, they leave it eight foot short. So that would be my three things. I think that they actually need understand that average distance not the highest distance with each club chip with not a lob wedge, you know, we it's hardship with a lot budge, especially on grainy grass, especially here in Florida. You've got to practice that a lot
and just honestly paced on the greens. I think that if they improve them three and I think it'd make a huge difference to the average, the average golfer.
I know you'd agree where I think the biggest value that I have to a student isn't standing on a driving range with them. It's actually going out of the golf course and just going, hey, don't hit that shot, hit this one, No, don't hit this club, hit that one. No, don't take that target line, take that one. No, don't try and carry that lay up. Play smart. And I always say to players, play for the pores, and the
birdies kind of get in the way. But I think what everybody tries to do is everybody just tries to play for the birdies, right.
Yeah, Well, it's just and it's I had this situation happened two years ago with with one of our members at Liberty These lady doesn't play a lot of golf, beautiful golf swing and she said I'm not very confident, but I have to play this Nexus Cup that we have coming up with my husband and two other people. I said, well, you have a great golf No I don't. Okay, very athletic, very good. Let's go on the golf course. A couple of times before she was a twenty five handicup.
We go on the golf course. We get to the first hole. You've been at Liberty, so you know what the first hole is. She's like, oh, here, I hit three wood down there. I'm like, well, there's a creek on the right, there's a bunker on the left. No, hit your seven R. But that's not going to get me to the furway right seven are seven iron to the rough, doesn't even get to the faaway Like, Okay, now hit a pitcher wach to that layup area where you three would be. Okay, go there. Okay, now hit
another pitching wach to the right side of the green. Okay, two put She makes a bogie. Then we go next all this part three. So I said, we're gonna skip down and we're gonna go down there. So we go down. We get the whole number five lake on the left outbound's right narrow. I said, okay, here you can hit three with if you want to a driver. So she hits it and then it gets really narrow. Then it's thirteen yards from the water hause are on the left, to the bunker on the right and the entrance of
the green. She's like, well, here, I would hit eight iron on the green. Like, no, we're gonna hit pitch edge short of the green. That's a forty yard landing area. Hits pitching ed. I'm like, now hit a wedge. Hits a wedge to the middle of the green. Two puts bogie. I'm like, okay, you boggy bogie right. Take that, you're one under. We're playing holes that you have two strokes on some of them. You're one under. Part Let's go to the part five. Go part five driver. I go
seven iron lake right again, rescue left, very dangerous. She's like, normally here would hit my three with to get as close as I can. I'm like, yeah, you'd hit it on the water. You hit it in the fescue. Seven iron, I said, pitching wedge, another wedge into green. Two putts right. So she's like, I never thought about playing this way. I said, well, what I want you to do for the next cup is I want you to add the strokes and put my par right, my par and put seven, five, six,
whatever it is. She should's eighty two and they win the Nexus Cup and she's like, I.
Never thought I could play that good.
I go just play to your skill. You play to your level, right.
I mean, I think everyone thinks their level is much higher than it is, right. And I think that's because we watch people like you, Mal and we watch golf on TV, and we watch all you great players do things, and we're so prediposed to the numbers that you all are hitting and the shots that you all are hitting.
I mean, you know, certainly on the men's side, it's rare that there's a par five that everybody in the group isn't going for, right, Nobody I mean on the PGA to or the majority of the guys, as sure as I learn't laying up, they're gonna try and smash it down there and get it. And I think the viewers watch the way the best players in the world play, and it'd be like watching Max Versaff and drive his red bell left one car and then going and getting in your Toyota Corolla and go try and do the
same thing and it's just not gonna work, right. And on top of that, you don't know how to drive anyway, so the car is not going to do what you're trying to get it do, and you don't know how to drive it at those speeds. I think that's why I find that fascinating. I don't think there's any other sport that people play recreationally where I think golfers are at the top of the list of over expectations, right.
They just their expectations are their golf swing is going to improve as the day goes on, that their golf swing is going to get better on the golf course. So they're just gonna keep trying stuff on the golf course because they're going to improve as the realm. And it's just that shit just doesn't happen, right, Yeah.
I mean it's each person has a certain level of skill, right, and that skill gives them variants. If you want the variants to be smaller, you must improve your skill, and if you want your score to be better, you must manage your variance. But you can't do both at the same time. So if you want your skill to improve, go improve your skill. That's fine. It might take a month, it might take six it might take five years. I don't know how long it's gonna take. But go improve
your skill. If you want to score better, take that same variance you currently have which your skill gives you, and manage it the best you can on the golf course, and then you will get your best score for you, your best scoring average over the course.
The best score for power, not the best the best score for you.
For your current skill level. Right. I mean it's you see these working with your players. They don't hite it where they're looking all the time, and they don't know if the push cuts coming, or if the pull cuts coming, or the one that goes straight at the pins coming. Before they swing the club. They don't know which one is coming. But their skill is so high that the larger percentage of times they hit it somewhat where they're looking.
And then a worse golfer, even a professional golfer at a lower level, a lot of times the variants may be a little bit larger because the skill is maybe slightly worse. But what they do, unbelievably well is they manage that variants the best of their ability and they manage their game, right. I mean, I remember watching Brooks at Bethpage. If I remember correctly, I think he hit forty seven or forty eight percent of fairways that week and he won with what appeared to be absolutely no problem.
That was probably at the end, but you know what I mean, like the cruise to the first three rounds and you would have thought that he basically hit every fairway.
Yeah, but he managed as soon as I was saying, and I've being a beth Page and you've being a beth Page obviously, I don't know if you've ever been there. It's a beast, a beast. And you could see like tuck left pin right, talk shore left pin from the left rough somewhat right side of the pen, somewhere on the green, put it backwards, waited until the next It just looked so manageable, even though I'm sure internally for
him it wasn't right, but it looked manageable. And his skill level is what it is.
But I think what I hear you saying is, whatever your skill level is, try and play to your skill level, as opposed to trying to do something that you can't do or isn't your skill level.
Right, or even try to improve your skill while you're playing. Yeah, tried to hit it better than you actually have the current ability. Right. We talked, I mean with mel. Yes, they were doing the practice round. She wasn't feeling great practice round and I said, well, you haven't competed in three months. And I said, but at the back nine, it said, but I'm hitting it thin so well in the back nine, how many birdie PUDs do you have,
like inside twenty feet? We started counting. She had five out of nine inside twenty right, and I'm like, well inside twenty feet you're better than you know, you're better than number one in the world in those nine holes. But yes, she's on the practice round trying to improve this skill, meaning she's trying to hit it more solid, more of the central face that feels a little better
than the swing. And I was like, what you have right now is these manage that you did great at managing it, and you hit a lot of balls inside where if you if it was a competition and you stayed patient, you would you would shoot a pretty good round at nice. And then we went on. We went on the driving range, and it felt it felt better, and I said, okay, well, and then today it was much more solid, right, but I'm not sure that she hit as many inside twenty feet but it felt great,
but it felt better. So the skill versus the managing right, managing that that ability and that variance and that skill and playing that's what these players are so unbelievable.
At last, question for you both, No, you can answer first life changing year for you off the golf course, welcoming your first child, you recently got married. But grade wise for this year you're on the LPGA tour. What grade do you give yourself and what do you feel like you need to do better next year?
I'm gonna give myself a little bit of grace and that you know, I was injured towards the end of twenty twenty two. Wasn't sure. I didn't have great status at the start of the year, and we had only a certain amount of events to get that back, which we did. I couldn't play the Asian events at the end of the year just because obviously Carlie was we were expecting and you know still finished eight second on seeing me. So I'd say overall, with all the circumstances,
we had a pretty pretty decent year. Considering be minus plas minus minus B minus, I would say I think we got a lot of great work done. My poeing improved, my driving distance was good. So yeah, I mean next year's going to look different. I think. Obviously having a baby, now we're going to have to manage our structure, manage our time better. Is he going to travel, Yeah, he's going to travel with us. Yeah, for sure, I couldn't
do otherwise. So you know, for me, I think I'm just gonna have to be very very present during my practice sessions and when im at the golf course so that I don't take it home with me. I think that that's something that I'm going to try and develop as quickly as I can. But yeah, I mean I feel like, yeah, I haven't played in three months, but you know, I came down last week and I felt
like the base of the swing was pretty good. Obviously I'm a bit rusty, which so I'm proud of the work that we've done together and obviously he's helped me tremendously, And yeah, I'm looking forward to next year.
What do you think or what does mel need to What are the strengths that she can carry to next year. And what are some things that you guys are looking to improve as a team.
So I'll give you real quick, I'll give you migrade on this year. So and this is because, believe it or not, I never judge ever, And if you ask me or ask I never judge a year based on results, ever they will. I don't. I judge. Like if I ever say I'm proud of somebody, it's And if I had a kid, this probably would be the way I would raise my kid, not saying it's the right way or the wrong way. Probably the wrong way because I
don't have one. But I would be proud of your effort, your intention, and the attention that you paid to that intention. Those are the three things I judge somebody on mel this year, probably I would give her as this year. And I'll give you one example. She started the year with medical because of last year, she knew how she
had to play. For the first six events. We felt we were in a good place from the off season, and then the results weren't coming right, missed, a few cuts, made, a couple, was not going to reshuffle in a good place, was not going to maintain her full status. Mel of any other year Liberty National event comes up, it's my home course. She asked for an invite, she didn't get it, and she was gonna get into shop right the next week.
But that was the first event after the reshof Mel of any other year would have stayed home, practice at home, be with her wife, right. And I talked to her and I said, you made the choice. I'm just gonna give you something else to think about. Worst case scenario, you come up here, you work with me Saturday and Sunday, away from a tournament. I'm my home course. I have
all my stuff here with the practice rounds. You play the Monday qualifier, you miss the Monday qualifier, and you go back home and you're at home with Carly Tuesday through the next Tuesday. Because Shop price a Friday start, you still get seven days. Worst case scenario, you saw me for three full days. That's the worst case. Worst thing that can happen. Best thing that can happen. You come work Saturday, you work Sunday, you make it through
the Monday qualifier. You're in the torn. Second best thing that can happen. You come, you work with me Saturday, work with me Sunday, you miss the Monday qualifer on Monday, but one of the girls who already has an invite makes it on the Monday, and then you get the next thing, and then third one is by Monday, your second AlterNet. Right now, by Monday, somebody pulls out and you're in the tournament. And she can tell you this.
She thought about it. She made the decision to come up, which she probably would have never done.
Before I have never done.
She came up. She came up on Saturday morning. We worked on Saturday, worked on Sunday. She played the Monday. No, she didn't play the Monday someone pulled out, and Monday morning before she had to play, she got the last spot because somebody got injured. And I said, that's karma. Whether you're believe in karma or not, we can call it whatever, right, but but you got the spot. Then she starts making makes a cut, makes another cut, goes to KPMG, is near the lead after two days, and
all of a sudden, all of that roles right. Her year completely changed after that, completely change. And that's why I am proud of this year for her, because she did things that she would have never done. In the past, being with her back on against the wall. She didn't take the easier route and it paid off to regain her full status even playing a small amount of events, full status for next year, restart with a good card, and being a good friend of mine. So that's why I give an it.
George, I like Itice was spending last six out of eight days with me, isn't it.
He had to say that. That's how I judge. That's that's how I judge everybody.
Well, thank you both for talking to me. Mel Like I said, you were the first podcast guests. Cool to get you back on. I hope I get video when the little guy starts swinging, Has he had a golf club at his hand yet?
No?
Yeah, I'm trying to get him into real football. So he's got he's got some big feet on him, so I'm I'm already getting him into his little movements.
But real, thanks for talking to us guys.
Thank you.
So that was a really cool insight into the player coach relationship. And listen, I'm always fascinated by it. I'm right in the middle of it with working with players and stuff, but I'm always interested to listen to how that relationship between a player and a coach works, and and and what makes those partnerships gel and and be successful.
And I thought Mel and were I did a great great job on that, and that's something that I'm going to try and do more, is get a coach and a player on, or maybe even a caddy and a player on at the same time. I think that would be a really, really cool discussion. But I want to thank everyone for listening to the pod. It's twenty twenty four. We're going to continue to get as many good guests as we can and hopefully give you all some information that helps you with your golf swing. Son of a
Butcher comes to you every Wednesday. We will see you all next week.