GSD Golf Podcast S3 E15: “Inside the Mind of a Pro” – GSD Golf Talks with Professional Golfer Chris Petefish
Get ready for an incredible conversation as we sit down with Professional Golfer Chris Petefish in this can’t-miss episode of the GSD Golf Podcast!
In this episode, Chris shares his journey from junior golfer to professional, giving our listeners the inside scoop on what it really takes to compete at the highest level. Whether you’re a junior golfer with big dreams or a parent supporting your child’s golf journey, this conversation is packed with insights you won’t want to miss.
What You’ll Discover:
• Chris’s path from junior golf to the professional ranks
• The mental game strategies that separate good players from great ones
• Training routines and practice habits that actually work
• How to handle pressure in tournament situations
• Advice for junior golfers looking to take their game to the next level
• What parents can do to best support their young golfers
Chris doesn’t hold back as he shares both the highs and challenges of professional golf, offering honest advice that only comes from years of experience competing at the highest level.
Perfect for: Junior golfers ages 13-18, parents of junior golfers, and anyone looking to understand what it takes to succeed in competitive golf.
Don’t forget to subscribe, leave a review, and share this episode with other golf families in your community. Let’s grow the game together!
#GSDGolf #JuniorGolf #ProfessionalGolf #GolfPodcast #ChrisPetefish
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Welcome, welcome, welcome to the next episode of the GSD Golf Podcast. I’m your host, AT. I’m also the parent of a junior golfer. Yes, we focus primarily on parents of junior golfers, junior golfers, and of course, we can’t forget our amateur golfers like myself that are out there just weekend golfers trying to learn a little bit more about the game. This episode of the GSD Golf Podcast, we have the perfect guest for not only our parents of junior golfers, but the junior golfer themselves. Um, this guest is going to dive deep into the world of junior golf and how to use analytics and how to use metrics to get a little bit better. But oh, by the way, they’re not just your average coach. They are a professional golfer. We’re not only going to talk about theory, but we’re going to talk about what it takes to become to reach the next level of your golf journey. Please welcome to the GSD golf podcast, Chris Pete Fish. Chris is currently ranked in the top 300 in the world. He’s competing on the competing on the Cornferry Tour. He’s competed in the US Open. He is currently playing in the PGA of Americas. Um, he has done just about everything in the world of golf and has made the climb from junior golfer to division one golfer to professional golfer. And he is here to talk all things um, golf, junior golf. Uh, he’s got a great program called the fish tank. We’re going to get into that a little bit. Chris, welcome to the GSD golf podcast. Hey, thanks for having me. Happy to be on, man. We’ve been watching your journey and and and we I know you and I have been going back and forth about getting you on the show and you’ve got your summer’s been packed with golf. Yeah, it has. I’ve been playing up at PJ Tour America this summer, which is, you know, the whole summer up in Canada because that’s the only time they get to play golf up there and a lot of traveling and yeah, it’s hard to get a little bit on the schedule, but I’m glad we could do it. Sounds like it sounds like a good problem to have on your end. Play playing a lot of golf. Playing a lot of good golf. Um, I know right now you’re currently I think, keep me honest here, I think you’re currently ranked something around top 300 in the world. Is that does that sound accurate? It would have been accurate if you asked me that in early 2024. No, you’re still playing on the pros, right? Yeah. Yeah. Still playing some good golf, but yeah, I was in the top 300 in the world. Uh, you know, 15 18 months ago. So tell me a little bit of tell us a little bit about your journey from give the audience a little bit of background your journey from junior golfer to professional golfer because we focus primarily on the junior golfers the parents of the junior golfers and we’ve never really had a guest on that has made that full journey from junior to the pros. Talk to us a little bit about what that journey’s been like for you. Yeah. So, I’ll try to do this in a short version, but you know, I grew up in Northern California, Danville, East Bay Area, San Francisco. A lot of great golf out there, a lot of incredible competition junior golf in my age range during that time. I’m talking like Bryson Dashambo, Austin Smotherman, U, I could list a bunch of tour guys that end up playing from just the junior ranks that I was in. And, you know, I had definitely some success as a junior player. I won quite a bit of uh events even when I was like you know 10 11 12 and showed some promise. I remember I played my first AJ invitation not invitation but an open event. I was uh basically in between sixth and seventh grade. So I was just a little tiny thing playing against high school seniors and I finished uh 10th in that event and that was kind of when I was like oh man like I think I can play college golf now because I’m beating you know 18 17 year olds that are playing D1 golf as a 12-y old. I feel like that was a lot of confidence from that. And uh you know I ended up kind of going through the AJ Invitational um ranks and having some success there. I was fifth in the country uh my sophomore year when I was getting heavily recruited. Um and it was a great class. Obviously I was in the same grad year as uh Scotty Sheffller and Ben Griffins, Doug Gim. There had to be a lot of competition, right? A lot of competition in that in that. Did you did you know at that point in time those were the names you were stacked up against? Yeah, I mean obviously you don’t know how they’re going to project as a professional like 8 10 years later, but you know as a junior player it was great to have that many great players surround you to push you. Yeah. Um you know not only locally but nationally and you know so I was able to be highly ranked enough and fortunate to like have a lot of opportunities in colleges that wanted me to play for them. end up choosing Georgia Tech, which is an incredible golf program, and uh ran by Bruce Heer, who’s produced, you know, countless PJ tour players, cornfair tour players, and yep, major champions. And it was just kind of I felt like it’s the best decision for me because my, you know, my goals were to play professional golf. So, I wanted to be in the place that was going to kind of foster the best environment for me to do that once I turned pro as someone that was on the West Coast and never really experienced Bermuda grass and travel. I was just going to ask what was that transition like to the Bermuda grass cuz I know that gets I know at least we’re we’re up in the Northeast and a lot of the kids will go down to Florida, go down to Georgia in the offseason to play and they’ll they’ll show up at a tournament. They haven’t had a chance to play outside and that Berm Bermuda grass gets them a lot. It does. I mean, I grew up in Poa. I grew up in a lot like ry grass that was easy to chip out, easier to get out of the rough because it’s not as thick of a blade. And uh Bermuda, you know, sits down to the ground. it comes a lot of flyers. So, there’s a lot of learning like what is this ball going to do from this lie and um definitely was an adjustment, but once you get used to it, you get pretty comfortable, but you have to experience it. Sure. Sure. And you so you made the jump to division one um obviously had a a good collegiate career. Um make the transition to the pros. What was that? What was that like for you? Yeah, for me like I had a solid college career. I wouldn’t say it was unbelievable, but I, you know, I was top 50 in the world amateur rankings, uh, kind of during my senior year. I had a really, really good junior summer of playing amateur events. And, um, yeah, for me it was definitely a bit of a transition like, hey, you know, how does this all work at turning pro? Like, you know, where do I play? How do I manage myself? How do I manage my time? because you go from such a structure in college like you do whatever you need to do to play good golf on your on your time. Yeah. And um so a bit of a transition there but yeah I started uh PJ Tour Canada which is now merged with Latin America. I started PJ tour for a couple years. COVID happened which kind of stopped everything. Yeah. Went through all the stages of Q school to get onto the corn ferry. I played out there for three years. U had a couple really good years. one great year. I was about a shot away from getting my tour card in uh 2023 and yeah, it was just kind of a slow maturation of like my game getting better. Um seeing good results and you know, it’s been a crazy process. It’s definitely not for the faint of heart, but it’s uh you know when the the highs are are so worth even going through taking a lot of punches in and we we you and I had a back and forth on on Instagram direct message and Chris is talking about the highs and the lows from his perspective as a pro, but but even in the junior ranks, you’re not as good as your best day. You’re probably not as bad as your as your worst day. Would you is that something you would agree with? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it’s such a fickle sport and you just can’t live and die over certain results and think, hey, um, I am a bad golfer now because I just had a really poor tournament here. And, you know, you just have to have a confidence and self-belief and not only your game, but your processes and how you go about, you know, preparing for golf tournaments and how you practice because that’s where you need to gain your confidence from, not of did I hit this seven iron well in this golf tournament. Like, you need to be confident in what you’re doing. And Chris, you so you’ve you have all this experience. You’ve made uh you you’ve had success at every level. You probably had some challenges at every level. You’ve gained this this resume of experience. And talk to us about how you’re leveraging that experience with um uh the course of action golf um and your special the fish tank, your your specialty, the fish tank. um and how that’s helping other junior golfers, other college golfers use data, use metrics to to better themselves. Yeah, absolutely. So, my mom started Course of Action Golf probably around 10 years ago and it was just navigating scheduling and where to play and how to get noticed for recruiting going through that process with me. So, uh she became really good at that and she’s been doing it for quite a while. And I’m someone that is really into strokes game data and the performance coach sides core strategy like how do you manage yourself as an overall player? And you know really the inspiration was like this is all this information that I’ve learned over 15 20 years of junior high level amateur high level professional golf and it’s like if I got to go back 15 16 years and teach myself all over again like I wish I had known everything that I know now. to kind of be able to impart that knowledge on other players because I know it’ll work because I’ve done it myself. Uh so that was really the inspiration. And yeah, like the fish tank is, you know, it’s like a minimum three-month program where I’m going through all these players, you know, strokes gain data, like their individual numbers and going through like, hey, here’s the blueprint of your game. Here’s how you’re going to play your best golf. Here’s where I see areas of improvement, how to think of scoring and and you know, your preparation of the golf course differently to help you out. And it’s uh it’s a really rewarding process to see other players like I’m just you know really invested in them and I definitely can um appreciate the perspective of both the parent at my age. I just turned 30 so I can appreciate the parent and like all the all how hard it is and like all the time and money invested in in playing junior golf, but also I can relate to the player because I’ve been in their shoes trying to just play as well as I can. And and I think that’s what really makes this um your platform courseofactiongolf.com. I think what makes this really unique to to our audience is two parts. One, your mom took the experience that she had probably in your recruiting process and saw the successes there. But then you’re putting your success. Like there’s a twofold approach to this because I think as parents, a lot of us as parents of junior golfers that never played golf growing up, didn’t go through the recruiting process, have no idea what college golf is like, don’t know where to start. We’re like looking around, our heads are spinning. We’re like, are we supposed to be playing in this tournament? Are we supposed to be playing in that tournament? Where are we? It’s not like I don’t think it’s like any other sport because you have football, you have basketball, you have all these other sports where a coach can look across the field and say that kid’s like 63 240 and runs like a 4240. I think I can use him on a football team or a basketball team or something of that nature, right? But golf, it’s about the numbers and to your point, you got to put up the you got to put up the scores. Um, what are some successes you have seen in working with some of the junior golfers uh along the way where they where your learn your teachings have helped them like flip the switch and they’re like, “Oh, now I can see how that works.” Yeah. No, it’s been really cool to see like I just think from a like understanding where scoring comes from perspective, it’s helped a lot. like you know I’ll use this example like I had a kid that the AI said hey your chipping needs help or your uh you know seven hour needs like it was more of like your short game isn’t good enough you need to practice that and it was like from my knowledge experience of like well hold on like this may not be the whole picture like strokes gives us a very good picture may not be the whole thing and that’s kind of where I come in is like well telling him you may not be a bad chipper you may be leaving yourself in just terrible spots around the game where you cannot get up and And so, you know, working with him to get better targets uh in into the greens and leaving himself easier places to miss when he does miss greens, he’s actually found out that his short game’s actually been the best part of his game. Chris, you talk. So, that’s an interesting concept because we’ve run into um some juniors where, you know, they’re definitely uh pin hunters uh and they’re always going for the flag. is that um my what I have learned is that maybe you go for the fatter part of the green and give yourself that opportunity for a for a birdie putt as opposed to going for the pin and and and it rolling off. What are your thoughts on those those approaches? Yeah, pin hunting only works if it’s really soft and the and the pins right in the middle of the green. You know, when you start playing higher level golf, you know, you might be able to get away with that your local junior tournament. When you start playing highle AJ invitationals, especially when you get to college, you’re going to get exposed so quickly because you’re not going to be able to get away with those mistakes in college events, the courses are much tougher. And that’s when you see, hey, I’m shooting, you know, 72 at home and I just shot 78 in this qualifier in college. It’s like, you can’t get away with that stuff. Um, you know, the game is much harder than people want to give credit for and we just don’t hit it exactly where we’re looking or, you know, relatively close a lot of the time. It’s like we need to think of golf as like we’re going from point A to like zone B of like I need to account for if I hit this shot 50 times where are shots like you know 15 to 50 that aren’t my best 10 because I need to account for all these shots. So juniors um uh their you know at a certain age their heads are spinning. There’s a lot going on. Um they’re learning a game. They’re growing. You know they got a lot of thoughts going through their heads. uh you said earlier that if you had to go back and do it over again, you probably would have gotten into the data earlier. I would ask you two two questions on that. One, 5, 10, 15 years ago, 20 years ago, were golfers using the data the same way they are now. My guess is probably not. And then two, what what is this what is an age where a parent or a platform like yours uh junior should start to look to use? I’m assuming some some there isn’t a point when it’s too early if if that’s correct. Yeah, I would agree with that. I think the first point like the technology has definitely changed in the last I would say 10 15 years like now most of this stuff wasn’t uh around 12 15 years ago. It wasn’t um it wasn’t a thing. And you know, Mark Brody obviously came along and changed the way that we think about data and uh statistics and golf much like uh how baseball and money ball changed the way about baseball and where runs come from. And golf is similar but even more complex of like there’s just more areas of the game than baseball where you know scoring is attributed to for golf. So it’s definitely changed a ton of how we think of the sport. Uh where does scoring come from? Again, like it’s just the same in other sports. Think of basketball as well. Like the three-point shot is so so much more prevalent today. The game looks so much different than it did 20 years ago. And the same thing is kind of happening with golf and understanding, oh, like here’s how to score the best and like here are the cheat codes of golf and how to get ahead. Um, I would say how early, um, I feel like really getting into it as like a freshman college or sorry, freshman in high school is is important when you can really start to grasp and understand it well enough to like apply it. uh you almost need to think of it like a class or a course that you would take of like here’s understanding the game itself and it’s not so trivial but like you know imagine going to like a casino where you’re going to go play blackjack or poker and like you’re not going to read the rules of how the game is played and understand all the intricacies of it and it’s like if you saw someone doing that you’d be like well good luck at the tables man like you might get lucky but you’re probably going to get burned and it’s like kind of a similar thing with golf it’s like Hey, just go put the ball in the hole. But the more you dive into like how the game ought to be scored and viewed, you’re just like, “Oh, wow. Okay, why didn’t I not play like this before?” I’m starting to think there’s there’s um there’s a correlation between golf and poker. You’re about the third guest that’s come on and we’ve somehow ended up on on poker, blackjack, gambling, uh when we’re talking about the game of golf. But, uh before we before we go into a little bit more about your your program, your mentorship, and how you can help junior golfers, what do you got coming up? Any any tournaments? You got anything big coming up? Yeah, I’m just finishing out the season. PJ Tour Americas. There’s three events left. We have Edmonton, Victoria Island, and Vancouver, the West Coast Swing to end the year. And uh I’ve only So, the season is like two parts. It’s Latin America and Canada. I didn’t do the Latin America part. So, I’ve really only played half the season and done, you know, pretty well. I’ve made four or five cuts at a 10th, 11th, a 25th, and like a 45th. So, I’ve, you know, put up some solid numbers, solid events. Um, so, yeah, and just being able to kind of try to practice what I preach is has been fun as well. Yeah. Uh, you know, avoiding bogeies. I think I have like 10th or 12th or 13th best scoring average. Um, while being like 60 or 70th in birdies. So, it’s just like a lot of, hey, you don’t need to go out there and make a ton of birdies. Like, go out. I mean, you do need to make birdies. I’m not saying don’t make bies, but I’m also saying avoiding bogeies is a lot more important to scoring than making a million burries. And you’ve had bogey free round, correct? At least one. Well, a bogey free tournament. Free tournament. Yeah. In uh what’s it 2023 in Utah, the Utah Championship. Uh went 72 holes without a bogey, which is I think one of like 10 or 12 people in the history of the tour to do that. That’s so cool. At what point did you realize like when you were coming up on the final day, were you like, “Oh, I haven’t had a bow yet.” Or did anybody say anything to you or did they kind of stay away from you kind of like you do with a pitcher going through a a no hitter? You know what? No one said anything. And honestly, I didn’t really think about it until maybe once or twice the last day. I was just so locked into like the process. I mean, I truly just found the zone for a week where I was just I found like, you know, one of the best ball striking rounds I’ve had, but I was all but I also matched it with some of the best discipline and strategy and like mental side I’ve ever had. And be able to combine all three of those kind of unlocked really the zone. And obviously takes a little bit of luck to not have a bogey. You know, you have a shot headed towards a rough and it knocks on the fringe and you get the two 30 feet. Um but I mean it was just like yeah basically pitched the perfect game and um you know basically found the zone as they say which was awesome fun place to be. So let’s get into let’s get into your program. You talk about minimum three three-month commitment with with with the fish tank. You talk about um helping junior golfers. What’s a lot of these programs at least some from what I see there’s there’s a number of programs that are out there. A lot of them turn juniors and their parents loose with just the platform. What’s your involvement? Is there is there a connection the junior gets with with you, Chris Pete Fish, the professional golfer to help that from a mentoring perspective where they actually have access to your to your actual words and feedback? Oh yeah, absolutely. I mean, when they put in their rounds and which I mean, I’m following them at their events, which is really fun. But yeah, know I’m able to look at all their information as they play it almost like a shot tracker as well as their strokes gang data and I’m going through, you know, their rounds and looking like, hey, what were some of the moments that like, hey, were uh what were you thinking about on this shot that you doubled or you bogeied? Like, you know, where are some of the learning moments? But also just kind of tracking like, hey, look, we have great progress on our three putt rate. Like, look at your speed and where it was and where it is now. like look at the amount of greens that you’re hitting on par threes uh now versus you know a couple months ago when we’ve started going through these targets. So it’s it’s kind of being able to walk step in step uh with someone as I would myself looking like hey how do I get better and how do I get just you know being able to save shots here or there I mean they add up tremendously over the course of a tournament over the course of a season and kind of being able to be be the best version of yourself. So, it’s good. And some of some of our juniors or the parents see that are listening and and they want to register for your program. Is that simply on the website? It is. Yeah. Course of action.com. Uh you can be able to navigate the site there and you know look up the fish tank what it involves entirely and you know being able to either write me and inquire or sign up in itself. So from your experiences um you know everything we’ve heard is the junior golfer needs to take ownership of their path right but but a lot of that can’t happen without parents. What are some of the biggest um mistakes you’ve seen parents making when they get involved in supporting because I think genu genuinely they want to help their junior golfer but but it is an individual sport and it is one of those things where you kind of have to let them rise and fall on their own so to speak. Yeah, I agree with that. It’s definitely a delicate balance of how involved or how, you know, or am I not giving enough support. Um, I would say you’d have to kind of foster that true love of the game itself and not force that. You know, if there’s a lot of force, you need to practice, you need to do this, there’s going to be a lot of burnout. I think there needs, you know, have the junior love the sport enough to go out there and put the work in and they they want to do that instead of feeling like, hey, like I’m feeling forced to do this. I’m feeling forced to do that. It’s like that’s not going to lead to anything good uh long term, you know, not let alone from a golf perspective, but it’s just a relationship with your general. Yeah, it’s it honestly it’s one of those sports where like it it is, you know, I I can only imagine what it’s like at the division one level, at the at the professional level, but watching junior golfers, um I do feel like when I watch kids walk with other junior golfers, there’s like this bonding that happens because nobody else, no other athletes go through that 4hour grind of it just being you. And if it’s it’s one thing if it’s going well, it’s another thing if you’re having a challenging day. And I think what I have seen the kids is when the kids see another kid have a challenging day. There’s kind of that they feel for them and they want to pick them up because they’ve been there. Most of them have been through that when you’re looking at at at uh competitive tournaments. What is a what does it look like for you recommendations wise for proper um tournament preparations? There’s a whole bunch of things that the kids can do, but what would be some of the recommendations you would have to get ready for a tournament? Yeah, I think some of the easy ones is when you’re scouting a course in a practice round, like a it’s very important to play a practice round and see like how are the greens rolling? Like what are my lines off the tea? So, I got a question for you. Practice round. Keep score. Don’t keep score. Absolutely do not keep score. There’s just no there’s no point. There’s no point. Good to know. The only thing you’re going to do is if you play really well, you’re going to set these unrealistic expectations on yourself of like, hey, I just shot four under in this practice round. And then when you’re, you know, even or one over at the turn, you’re down. You’re like, “Oh man, I feel like I’m five back where I was yesterday.” Which is like, again, think of like a poker game. It’s a game of variance. You’re going to have good days, you’re going to have bad days. You have good luck, bad luck. It’s just like, you know, if you if you had a day where you’re like at the top of your peak, like the odds are you probably going to come back to the mean. So it’s like, yeah, you know, in the same way for if you go out there and score and you have a terrible round, it’s like, do you really want to feel terrible off the golf course in preparation for this tournament, it’s like the point of the practice round is to get to know the golf course, get to know where you’re hitting, where are your dispersions, and especially off the tea, like, hey, where do I have the 60 65 yards between hazards so I can really aim, have a good target and feel confident over so I’m not looking at water, I’m not looking at OB’s, you know, that’s Are there guys that keep keep score during a practice round or is that pretty standard? It’s pretty rare. You You’ll see guys out on tour like have a match with guys, which I think is fine if you’ve been out there for many years and it’s like, “Hey, you know, I played my Monday Tuesday work and I’m going to go play a Wednesday match or Tuesday match with some buddies and just kind of simulate pressure.” Like, I think that’s totally fine. Yeah. You know, those signs like a birdie game. You know, you go out there like, “Hey, you know, if I don’t make a birdie, cool. I’ll scoop up and then I’ll go hit my chips and stuff.” Yeah. Gotcha. All right. So preparations, what what what high level recommendations would you have for junior golfers getting ready for um getting for a competitive tournament and or parents helping their their juniors get ready? Yeah, I mean other than like you know how to navigate a practice round, which again is about like really nailing down your T- shots, the speed of the greens is incredibly important. You know, three that’s all about three putt avoidance, making the hole as big as possible. where around the green are the bad places, where where is short-sighted and be able to kind of hit a couple chips of reinforcing like, oh man, this is a really bad spot to hit it if I were here. You give that visual. Uh, but I also say like again that’s part of my program and the stroke game analysis itself is like, hey, where in my game do I need to practice in order to be prepared for this tournament? Like where is my where are my strengths? What is the backbone of my game? It’s like, hey, I should practice this more than others to make sure that my strength maintains and so that my fluctuation in my scores doesn’t dip as much. But also like areas of like, hey, you know, if I am three putting, then I need to go do some speed some specific speed drills in order to think about 20 30footers differently and change my mindset and not try to, hey, I’m going to try to make all these 20 footers and then you end up three putting significantly more often. So, it’s little stuff like that of like really understanding your game and like operating more like a professional. I love it. And at GSC golf community, we were on with professional golfer Chris Pete Fish. I saw I called you Chris there. Chris Petefish. I don’t know where that came from. Um Chris has played at the highest of levels collegiately. He’s played at the highest of levels professionally. Um he has a great uh program. Check him out. Courseactiongolf.com. Uh check out the fish tank. You can get mentoring. You can get um course management, data analysis, strokes gained uh uh resources. Chris as a mentor with who was hands-on. He’s he’s watching your juniors play golf. It’s a great platform to check out. Chris, you’ve played in the US Open. What was that like? Bucket list. It was Yeah. You know, like I just went in there to try to soak it all in and just really appreciate that moment. I mean, getting to play at Pinerest number two, uh, was just such an honor in itself, but obviously it was incredibly tough and yeah, so cool to be in that arena and, you know, got off to a shaky start the first day, but I played really well uh, the second round. I shot two over in the afternoon. I missed the cut by four shots, but honestly, if I putted a little better, I definitely would have given myself a decent shot to make the cut, five over. Uh but yeah, no honestly like I was able to to beat Scotty the second day and I think I beat Rory and Yeah. So I can say that. Yeah, let’s go. Scotty’s worst round in the last three years. I clipped him. So there we go. But let’s go. Talk about um so you’ve competed again saying that you played in you competed in the US Open. You’ve you’ve competed in some of the toughest uh tournaments in in in the world. talk to us about preparing to handle that kind of pressure. Like now junior golf the pressure is nowhere near as m as intense as the US Open, but what are some things you know kids can do to handle that pressure? Because it’s one thing to your point earlier of a practice round feeling light and fluffy. It’s another thing when you’re in the heat of competition. Well, I would say to that like pressure is relative. So I mean I remember playing my first AJ one of my first AJ invitationals. It was like the HP back in Carlton Woods, which is most likely called something different now. And I was I think I was a freshman. I was so nervous. I was like, you know, I was tied with like Jordan Spie and I was beating Windham Clark and some crazy names and like I couldn’t handle the pressure. I was in the final group and looking back it’s like this is just a little junior tournament, but that felt like these open to me. Like I couldn’t handle I had no resources. I was not equipped. I shot like 85. I mean I completely blew up skyhigh. I couldn’t breathe. And so I would say, yeah, like there’s definitely moments for all junior golfers, it’s like this feels like my US Open and how do I handle it? And to me, that’s when a lot of the mental discipline comes in of like I I love to hammer own your routine. Like your pre-shot routine. Yes. It shows me everything where your head is at. Y and and the more you can practice and own that routine, the more you’re going to realize, do I have bad thoughts in my head that are not productive? Because you’re going to be thinking about something. There’s no way to stop thoughts. They’re either going to be productive, unproductive, or neutral. And the more you can practice your routine and be really diligent about what do you say in your head repeatedly, is it about the process, or are you thinking about, wow, if I hit this birdie here, I’m going to get recruited like is the, you know, the Georgia a Georgia Tech coach like he’s about to watch me if I win this tournament. Like none of that is going to help you hit this eight iron. So that’s the kind of stuff that is um I love to preach is like this eight-footer is just an eight-footer. It could be for winning the tournament. It could be to make the cut. It could be 150th place and you’re missing the cut by seven. And so if you have that same routine, like you’re going to feel a lot more similarly over golf shots, whether they’re you think they’re very important or not. And the routine is something that, you know, to your point, it’s just a golf shot, it’s just a putt. I would say stick to the routine. If you’re having a great day or if you’re have a challenging day, if you have a routine, stick to the routine. My gut says that routine is going to help you find some level of comfort as you go along. Yeah, absolutely. And it’s just being aware of your thoughts out there and, you know, getting to the point where now like I I’m aware of like if I I’m aware that a certain shot I’m not thinking about how I should be thinking on the golf course. I’m not thinking about my process and the correct target. I’m thinking about, hey, I just missed a couple sixoot birdie putts in the last two holes. I’m frustrated. I feel like I should be lower than I should or I have the cut line looming. I’m just thinking about shots I had this last week and you know I’m able to like kind of back off and selforrect. I’m like that’s not productive thinking. Like I need to go back to like here’s my target. I’m aiming four yards left of this pin and four yards short. I want a 210 shot with this five iron. I’m aiming at that tree you know with the green leaves back there and uh you know I’m visualizing the shot. Like I’m putting thoughts in my head that are very concrete and productive instead of here’s what’s going to happen if I don’t or do pull off this golf shot. How often do you think about your score as you’re playing? Not often to be honest. I mean, that’s something you also have to learn when you go you start to go low for the first time. Yeah. I I remember a lot of junior days where I’m like, “Oh, I’m four under right now. I’m five under. That means like even if I bogey in the last four holes, I still shoot under par.” Like that’d be a great score. Like Yeah. You know, like like that’s a that’s a terrible way to think about it. And I think you just put yourself enough in that position and you get burned enough where you’re like, I’m not gonna think like that anymore. Like truly, you know, this next shot is all that matters and all I can control. Like I can only control what I can. And I think that’s what golf teaches you. Like and it’s what’s, you know, basically been ingrained in me for 20 years is like it does not matter what happened on the shot before, even if I get upset about it, like I will not let it affect this next shot. Like there is no point. So, GSD golf community, we are on with Chris. Chris, I did it again. Chris Pete Fish. I don’t know why I keep doing that. Um, Chris, let’s talk about, we talked about technology, we talked about using the metrics and and data uh let’s talk about strokes gained and how data and and how technology has changed um junior golfers development over the years. Gosh, it’s changed a lot. I mean, I guess I’m at the age where, you know, none of this really existed as a junior player and and now it does. And so, you know, understanding strokes gain of like, you know, the more correct detailed version of stats of your golf game and being able to kind of apply all these different numbers that you’re looking at correctly is really huge in terms of scoring and really how to practice and how to go about navigating how you’re going to a view the golf course, but like more importantly practice. Uh, how should you spend your time? Because um I often see even like college or a lot of junior players like they go spend six, eight hours on the range practicing practicing and it’s just like at the end of day a lot of times I’m like what did you really accomplish? Like you’d be much more effective than like literally going inside looking at all this data being able to interpret it and saying, “Oh, here’s my plan. Like here’s where I’m succeeding. Here’s where I need to work on. Here’s how I’m going to practice that.” and going out there for literally half the amount of time and having more effective practice. I would assume, and I I’ve heard this, that if to your point, you’re spending an hour and a half, three hours out there on the range, two hours out there on the range. Sometimes, to your point, you could do more damage, especially if you’re you start to you’re trying to accomplish something and you pick up a, you know, a slight, you know, you start closing the club face at impact or you start doing something that’s slightly off your normal swing and then you’re progressing to do that. um that could do more damage than to your point going in and looking that at that data. Oh, absolutely. You can do you can uh imprint a lot of bad habits over over time. And I I just remember like I was doing this waste management pre-qualifier earlier this year and uh there were some like high school kids on the range. Maybe they’re college. I think they were like just got into college and they were in this qualifier as well and they’re like, “Hey, I’m just going to hit all these shots on the range. like tell me hit this 20 yard cut and this you know 30 yard hook and hit these like you know going to go attack these pins on the range. I’m like this is the most unproductive thing I’ve ever seen. Like you know the worst thing you could do is try to incorporate multiple shot shapes but then it’s just like you know this is a waste of time. Come on guys. Um Chris, what’s the difference between um what’s I mean again you’ve played at the amateur level, you’ve played at the professional level. What’s the difference? What’s the biggest difference? Obviously, you get paid at the professional level. What’s the biggest difference? Um, club in hand looking down at the ball playing playing in tournaments. I would say from a physical difference, definitely T Green like the professional level, you have to hit the ball well. You have to hit, you don’t necessarily have to hit a ton of fairways. You need to hit quite a few of them, but um you need to get the ball in play. You can’t have a weward driver that’s in hazards. Um it’s just tea green. You’re going to get worn out. like there’s just there’s an ocean divide between like your amateur player and the PJ tour player. Um, you know, and also distance is a big factor as well. Like if you get a good amateur player from 100 yards and a tour player, you’re not you might not see like a huge difference, but you get them from 200 yards, you’re not they’re not even playing the same sport. Um, and there’s there’s something to be said about that. When we talk about practice, right, I think one of the things we’ve heard uh some of the best golfers in the world do, they go out and just practice 100 150 yards and in just to make sure they’re dialed there. Is that that accurate? Yeah, that’s definitely accurate because that those are the scoring clubs. Like if you know on tour like if you’re outside of 160 yards, like those guys are averaging par and then you know getting worse from there. So it’s like you need to think of shots that aren’t pitching wedge as like I need to make par. If I happen to bird, great. But like I will I just I can’t bogey here. How do I avoid bogeies, you know, in general? But I think we get like six iron, seven irons in our hands sometimes. Uh maybe as a junior player. Oh, this is a birdie opportunity. Let’s get it. And it’s just like, no, dude. You need to like we need to secure par first. Just get the par. Yeah. Chris, you got a lot going on. You’re a professional. You’re playing professionally. Um it sounds like you’re traveling the world, literally. Um but you’re also coaching a mentor. How do you how do you manage all that? you know, you just you just have to, you know, I I kind of I’m also married married for 14 15 months now, which has been a blessing. And so, yeah, definitely been a lot of transition and changes. All good. And I kind of have to know like, hey, I’m not going to be able to practice as much as I used to, especially like with working helping students. I got to have them be kind of a priority. And I just know like I’m going to have to practice really smart and practice with a breach. Like I’m going to have to be very efficient with my time. I may not be able to play as much as my competitors out there on the America’s Tour, but I’m going to have to like outsmart them with how I think on the golf course. I think that mental approach to it, and that resonates with with the junior golfers as well. I think the more you prepare, the more you know the course, the more you’ve dialed in the pre-ournament mental approach to it, makes you more confident and successful out there against your competitors. Chris, talk to us about um techn the technology. What’s one what’s one piece of technology that every junior golfer should be using? I think the easy answer is some kind of stroke game platform. There’s there’s a bunch of them out there. Um, you know, obviously being able to use them to the best is something that I do and able to teach, but just being aware of what strokes gained is being uh just seeing like, hey, here is kind of the blueprint of my game. Oh, here’s some things that I need to work on. here are some numbers that are important whether it’s uh you know fairways hit or you know your strokes game putting like from certain areas. Uh I just think that kind of awareness will bring a lot of light to like oh here’s how I should go about my practice or my game. Like it just sheds a lot of light and it’s something that um they aren’t super cost prohibitive and it’s just it’s readily available. So, it’s like the earlier you can kind of get your toes wet into that, the more it’s like, “Oh man, I’m going to think about the game properly instead of kind of guessing of what went well or what didn’t on the course.” Love it. Chris, before we let you go, we got a couple more questions. I know you got a lot going on. um biggest course management mistakes that we’ve seen juniors make or you have seen juniors make um that probably is easier an easier fix than they may feel like when you’re in trees in the trouble like punch out basically have you know be 90% sure you can advance the ball out into the fairway or near the green don’t be a hero don’t be a hero I mean guys if you’re blocked by a tree on the PGA Tour those guys are making bogey 80% of the time which is sounds like a crazy number, but it is like if you’re toast in the trees, you need to just, hey, admit I’m in trouble here. I’m okay with bogey if I par great. But that’s when the doubles start happening, the triples of like I’m going to hit this hero shot out of here. That’s the thing though, like up and down rates are not that high. Even like 60 62% on tour is decent. And so those are tour players. Like think about your average junior player. So, it’s like even if you hit this miracle shot from 120 near the green, you don’t just get to click a button says auto up and down. I got rewarded for this miracle shot. You still have to make par. Yeah, you still have to make par. That’s right, Chris. Uh, what’s next? What’s next for a course of action? What’s next for the fish tank program? And what do you have in the future? Yeah, obviously, uh, I don’t want to get too big in the fish tank where I can’t handle a certain amount of clients, but still filling that up. And uh yeah, I guess more educational whether that’s kind of webinar uh opportunities to help people maybe even a book or something with, you know, strokes gain information and player performance and uh really just helping as many people as I can because it’s uh yeah, it’s definitely rewarding, fun process. Love it. Chris Pete Fish, professional golfer, coach, mentor. Chris, thank you for joining the GSD Golf Podcast. We’ve loved our time with you in this conversation. Yeah, listen, happy to be on. Thanks for having me. Man, we wish you all the best and uh we’ll have you we’ll have you on again for for sure. Yeah, that’d be great. Thanks. GSD golf community, what a conversation with Chris Petefish, uh professional golfer, mentor, coach. Uh check him out. You can obviously you can follow his golf career. He’s got a YouTube channel, all that kind of stuff. But if you’re a junior golfer, a parent of a junior golfer, and you’re looking to learn a little bit more about the services that Chris and his team offer, check them out. course of actiongolf.com. Check out the fish tank program. It’s a mentoring program, coaching, um, strokes analysis. The data is is off the charts. It’s a great way to start lowering your junior golfer scores. Check them out. Um, I’d be remiss if I didn’t stop and say thank you to our partners at Where’sWoody. Um, where’s Woody.com. It’s an apparel company founded in Cape Cod with a California vibe. We got the best golf hats in the in the game. They’re Flex Fit 110. This hat looks brand new. I’ve been wearing it pretty much all summer. I got a ton of of of of uh use out of the hat. I would say if you’re looking for more, check them out. Where’s Woody.com, proud partners of the GSD Golf Podcast. And a big shout out to our partners at the Hurricane Junior Golf Tour. Um, if you want to play play in an upcoming event, GSD25, get $25 off your next round, your next tournament, um, it’s a great way to find local tournaments, national tournaments, invitationals, majors, uh, to compete against some of the best talent in the country. Check them out. The Hurricane Junior Golf Tour is our recommended junior golf tour to participate in. With that, let’s continue to make 2025 the best season ever. Let’s continue to get done on the golf course. Let’s go.
