Landon Ashworth on Visualization, Shot Creation and a Positive, Artistic Mindset for Golf
Landon Ashworth a multi-talented individual – a TV / Movie Director, as well as an Actor, he is not only creative, he is also intelligent and smart having studied Aerodynamics and Astrophysics in University. Proof of his wide-ranging talent, Landon parlayed his schooling into a career as an Airline Pilot before he pivoted careers to get in the Film Industry.
Landon Ashworth is on the Autism Spectrum and calls his Autism his “Golf Superpower.” He joins #OntheMark to let you into his mind and how he approaches golf in a simple, creative, artistic and disciplined fashion to regularly shoot under-par scores.
He discusses:
Visualization and how he sees the target in lines and the swing in circles.
Learning in either Visual or Auditory terms.
Expectations and how he “fakes” being normal.
Creativity and using a golf-club as a tool to craft a shot.
Becoming friends with your golf-clubs.
Surrendering to, and becoming addicted to practice.
Cultivating self-belief.
Blending the technical aspect of golf with the artistic form of the game, and
Developing a strategy for success before each round of golf.
Landon also shares insights on his “Think Box” and his “Play Box” and how Golf can be played as a “Well Planned Battle.”
Prepare to be entertained and informed by a movie star whose dream it was to become an astronaut. An honest human being who is prepared to share his deepest secrets and his love for golf. Landon Ashworth is a gem and time with him will enrich your life and your golf.
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ABOUT ON THE MARK: Mark’s knowledge, insight and experience have made him a sought-after mind on the PGA and European tours. Through his career, he has taught and/or consulted to various Major Champions, PGA Tour winners and global Tour professionals such as: Larry Mize, Loren Roberts, Louis Oosthuizen, Patton Kizzire, Trevor Immelman, Charl Schwartzel, Scott Brown, Andrew Georgiou and Rourke can der Spuy. His golf teaching experience and anecdotal storytelling broadcasting style makes him a popular host for golf outings.
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[Music] Uh, on the mark fans, um, you guys come here to get golf insights. And speaking of insights, I’ve been watching this man from afar on social media for the longest time, and now we have him. It’s Landon Ashworth. Landon, welcome to the podcast. How are you? Uh, better than I deserve. Yeah, you and me both. Right. Before we get into the golf insight, I’m fascinated at you. I I watch your social channel. It’s a mixture between movie making and TV commercial making and then golf tips. And you uh or are autistic and you say golf is your autistic superpower. I do. I’m keen for you to elaborate on that a little bit, please. Sure. Um, growing up I was bullied uh bad bad badly uh for being weird and different. Uh, they didn’t really have a name for it. Uh, back then of what I was my parents were worried about me. So, they sent me to a childhood therapist because I didn’t have a single friend in the world. Mhm. And uh the childhood therapist said, “You’re your mind works different. Don’t really know how or why.” This was, you know, almost 30 years ago, 35 years ago, whatever it was. I’m old. And so they said, um, if you’re getting bullied, the best way to stop being bullied is to fit in. So, um, we think that you should get into acting classes to learn how to fake being normal. Now, as an adult, I realized that what they were asking me to do was learn how to mask my autism. Yeah. Right. And so, I learned how to act. And thank God my brain worked in that way and acting spoke to me. So I could just do I could I that I got into the mind of every time I went to school from then on out I wasn’t me anymore. I was a character learning how to fit in. Mhm. And so uh it was hard and so I still got bullied pretty bad but it got better. Every time I went to acting class it got a little bit better. And my only solace um in the world was this nine-hole private country club. Okay. One step above a MUN. Uh in my, you know, town of 4,000 people growing up was Carlinville Country Club. And it was the only place in the town that my bullies didn’t go. You know, they were at the parks, they were at the basketball courts, they were at the baseball diamonds. if I ever went there, I was going to get beat up and made fun of. So, my my place of solace was playing Legos in my room by myself or golfing with my dad. Mhm. And so, uh, golf to me became life. If I if I was on a golf course, it was like the one place that I could breathe outside and not be afraid that I was going to get made fun of or beat up. Yeah. And so, uh, fast forward and I learned work ethic growing up. And then by the time that I was in college, um, I never really took golf seriously. It was just where I would go to to be outside and not get made fun of. But then I realized, uh, well, I wonder what would happen if I took my autistic brain and actually put that towards getting better, not just trying to, you know, hit geese with golf balls, you know, when I was 12 or trying to skip a ball across the a pond or just trying to juggle. What if I actually use my brain to get better? So, um, so that’s what that’s what I did. I uh surrendered myself to the game and I g I hyp autistics hyper foc h h h h h h h h h h h h h h h h h h h h h h h h h h h h h h h h h h h h h h h hyper focus. And so I took my hyperfocus from aerospace and astrophysics and uh when I knew I wasn’t going to become an astronaut, this is a total different side story. Sorry. I studied to be there. Okay, got it. Uh but anyway, so that’s a little a little fairy dust. Just put a pin in that. Uh when that didn’t work out, I was like, “Okay, well, I need to put my full soul into something else. What should it be other than golf?” So that’s when I adapted the mind frame of completely surrendering myself to practice. And uh for every one round of golf that I would play, I would probably have putted for a hundred hours. hit hit three or 400 hours worth of chips, uh, you know, 100 hours worth of drives. Um, I became addicted to practicing. Okay. So, when I got on the golf course, if I didn’t shoot 65, I was deflated. I expected to make every single birdie because my practice was a trillion times harder than any golf course that I was ever going to play. Like I’d go to Whistling Straits in the Wind and be like, “This is this is what hard is. This is like this is an easy day compared to how hard I practice. Like this is simple. This isn’t hard at all. This is a joke.” You know, like Grounds Keepers Revenge. Yeah. That would be my easy day practicing. I would make practice so much harder than golf would ever be because that’s the only thing that challenged me. like I need to be challenged. You know, if I see a wide open fairway, I’m like, “This isn’t even like it’s not even fun.” And it got to that point where golf to me wasn’t fun anymore because I knew I was going to shoot under par. There was no there’s no question in the world that I wasn’t going to shoot under par is whether or not I was going to beat the course record or not. And that’s where my brain lived. And then golf as as a player kind of became a bit of bit of a little bit of poison because I stopped enjoying playing golf and the only thing that I would enjoy was practice because that’s the only place that I was challenged. All right. That’s fascinating. I I you talk about a p dropping a pin. I want to go back to something you said because I look golf is hard. We all know this. No, it’s not. Okay. Well, yeah. and that’s where you’re going to help us. But for a lot of folks when they adopt their own golfing veneer, it’s it’s one of being defeated more times than what they’re successful. If you talk to most folks watching this or listening to this, they’re like, “Golf is hard. I’m failing more than I’m winning.” But you almost in a way took yourself and you used golf as your solace, right? and place where you went and became somebody else through your your acting um lessons and classes and career and such. I’m almost inclined to and I’m going to make a statement that you respond that I feel like more people would be better served if in their head they went to a place where I’m where they’re like I’m better than the golfer I think I am. I’ve practiced and now I’m not going there expecting the worst. I’m going there expecting the best. and I know I can do this. Are are you getting where I’m going with this? Because I feel like too many folks go in there with this defeatist attitude. Yeah. So, when I when I get onto a golf course and I step on to number one Mhm. here’s where my brain is. I think I’m about to go into a very wellplanned battle. So, imagine it’s a course that I’ve never played before. Imagine it’s going to be uh uh Pine Valley, right? Beautiful, amazing golf course. And sadly, I had to turn down my one invite to Pine Valley, which was gut-wrenching, but um probably never get invited again, but anyway, but say it’s Pine Valley, right? Right. I’m not a person that shows up and is like, “Oh man, I’m going to buy a booklet and see what the course is and ask the ask the caddy, what does this one do?” I’ve got the course memorized. There’s I’m studying satellite images of the course. I’m I know every single shot that I’m going to hit before I even show up. And it’s the same way that I, you know, handle directing big national golf commercials. Like if I’m directing Tiger or Anukica or Rory, there is no part of that day that I don’t have meticulously scripted. And and there’s no derivation that I haven’t thought about. And that’s the exact same way with the golf course. I’m going to do this. What happens if there’s a gust? I’m going to do this. And so every single shot I’ve already played in my head a hundred times. I’ve memorized the course. I know it better than the caddies when I show up. So then when I show up on the first tea, I just look at my golf clubs and I say, “You and I are in battle together and you are my best friends and you are the only things that I have.” Lovely. So I look at my driver and before I hit the first shot, I say, “You’re my best friend. Let’s do it.” And I just treat my clubs, you know, you don’t yell at your golf clubs. You don’t yell at your ball. You don’t yell at the course and the slope. Everything there is a beautiful tapestry that all you’re doing is painting. Right? So, I paint putts. I don’t hit a putt. I don’t stroke a putt. I make art. Right? I’m drawing a picture with my ball. I’m I’ve already seen this neon line in my head and I’m just painting that picture. Right? So golf to me because my brain is artistic in this way because I’ve been trained since I was a little kid to think of life as art truly and it became my defect defense mechanism. Golf to me is art. I’m just out there painting pictures, right? I’m making semicircles in my head. the the club head is a neon light that projects a beam, right? So, all I have to do is just draw the two semicircles in my swing and the ball will go anywhere I want it to because I have memorized after meticulous practice the exact semicircle I need to paint on the way back and through to hit any shot I want. If I need to hit a dead straight rope, well, I know what that semicircle looks like in my brain. I’ve traced it a trillion times. If I need to hit a left to right breaker that breaks 4 in, I know what that I know what that that line is in my head. I know how hard to hit it. And that’s just because I practice and make practice way harder than playing. So, you know, I directed Tiger and and and talking with him and hearing his stories, he showed up just expecting to. If he didn’t win, something was wrong, right? And and I don’t care about winning, which is why I have absolutely no aspirations to play competitive tournaments uh anymore. I just could not care less. If the tour if the PGA Tour offered me $1 billion dollars to play on one Thursday round, regardless of my score, I would turn it down without even thinking. Without even thinking, because that’s not what golf is to me. Golf is about being there alone and executing a game plan. And I don’t need to do it in front of fans. And I don’t need to do it for money and ruin my love for the game. I get to do it for free. Yeah, you’ve said so much there that I it’s fascinating. Um I’m going to push introducing you back just a few more seconds and let you respond to this. Um you did a very cool your entire Instagram page is skits and and reals and stuff of little movies you make and their interactions with you know where you act as your son and you’re the father which I find hilarious. Thanks. And there was one where you were sleeping again. And this is a skit and you’re you wake up with a start and your golf clubs are talking to you and and you said earlier where you’re like and it’s me and my driver or me and my putter and we going to battle together and and and as much as what the little skit was entertaining and funny, there was a truism to it because most folks are not their own best friends and most folks are like I give so many lessons where someone’s like, “Oh no, I hate my sixiron. I’m not going to hit this.” Yeah. Ex. I I see you shaking your head. Off you go. What? Yeah. Huh? Oh, that makes me so sad for their sixiron. Their sixiron should be their best friend. They should love their sixiron. They should sleep with their sixiron and tell it’s their lover. There’s not a club in my what’s what’s your if if somebody ever asked me what’s what’s your favorite club in your bag? Yes. All right. No. No. Like what specific club? Yes. Yes. All of them. Yeah. Like I’m in love with all of them. I’m in love with all of them. Now, the only caveat to that is every single time I go and play and practice, I have a putting Well, right now I don’t cuz I’m renovating, but uh I usually have a putting green at my house somewhere. Um and I have a rack quite a you know, I I direct golf commercials, so you know, I take a putter from every single set that I’m on. and uh and and um I just have this expansive uh thing of putters and I’ll just start pulling out putters and hitting five uh putts a piece and whatever one I feel confident with that day is the putter I use. Interesting. So I can use in 10 rounds I could go through 10 putters and shoot you know under par every single one and feel just as confident because it’s about what I feel confident with on the day. The clubs. Clubs are my best friend. The putter, that’s a special position of who I go into battle with that day because what club do you hit the most of every single round other than a putter? So the cho the putter has to be chosen. The putter I don’t want to be stuck with a putter that that’s the putter in my bag because you can you can go to war with that putter. But if I choose the putter, that putter and me are best friends for the day. Love you. No matter what it does, it’s me and that putter against the world. That is so cool. Okay, I want to introduce you to folks who don’t know who you are. We do have a global audience. Um, okay. I’m going to read you back some of your stuff. Um, uh, oh, 149 IQ. You’re a Mensa candidate, right? So awfully intelligent. Um you went to Embry Riddle University, studied aerodynamics, and then you got into astrophysics and then um you decided to pivot and get into TV and film and directing and acting and producing. Um you’ve been an airline pilot. Gosh, man. You’re like the most interesting man in the world, certainly in golf. talk talk to me just a little bit about this life story because I had no idea you were just the guy with the videos and get to know you. You are a fascinating human being. Yeah. So, um, everything that I’ve ever done in my life was to become an astronaut. My greatuncle Truman flew the B7s as into Pearl Harbor as it was being bombed. He was a four-star general in the air uh, US Airore. And I grew up hearing stories of my grandmother of you know your great uncle Truman was uh you know best friends with with Eisenhower. He golfed with Arnold Palmer. Just these amazing stories. John Glenn was a pbearer in his funeral. Um Alan Shepard came to our hometown to hang out. I think it was Alen Shepard. It’s either Alan Shepard or John Glenn came and that’s cool. Yeah. Yeah. But um my grandmother, he was do he died when I was like young, but she always said he always wanted to be an astronaut and I’d give anything to have a pilot in the family. So growing up as this bullied autistic kid, I thought, well, what is the one thing that everybody would think is cool? If I was if I was this, I would fit in. So I just associated being an astronaut of I would have friends if I was an astronaut because I had no friends growing up. none. And so I went to flight school and uh I got all of my jet uh pilot hours with United. Then I became a test pilot for Noah doing whale protection missions. And then after that I had enough hours to apply for NASA and then they changed their hiring requirements and decided they were only going to hire uh military test pilots, no civilian test pilots because they were spending too much money on training or something like that. So I had to pivot. And so I asked my academic adviser,”Well, what do I do now?” And he said, ‘Well, they’re sending there’s they slated a mission to Mars. It’s going to happen in six years and they’re sending somebody from the arts community. Okay. Is there any way that you could go get like an MFA or some advanced film degree? I’m like, I’m going to get an advanced film degree because I spent my life in the theater as this bullied autistic kid learning how to mask my autism. So, uh, I studied cinematography and film making and all that stuff. Then they scrapped the Mars mission, which made all that training useless. So, I was like, well, what do I do now? And he said, well, now you got to go get good. You got to go back and get your PhD or your MD. There’s no other. And then you’re the just the shoein of shoeins. So, I went and studied uh uh for an astrophysics PhD. And on uh my dissertation defense day, Obama put a 10-year hiring freeze on astronauts and privatized the space industry. So So all three degrees became useless. So I knew I didn’t want to be a test pilot or an airline pilot anymore. Uh I’ve had too many test pilot friends die. And I’ve and I hated flying for the airlines, just miserable. Um I knew I didn’t want to teach physics at university. I don’t like teaching and I have crippling social anxiety. So standing up in front of other people show was of no interest to me. So I was like well I I know a lot about film making and acting why don’t I try to use this? So, I moved to Los Angeles the day after my dissertation uh defense went up in smoke and uh I moved on a sailboat next to a casting director. And the casting director said, “I’m taking you under my wing and I want to let you know right now that there is not one single A-list actor that doesn’t have their own production company. Start making your own stuff.” So, I did. Uh, now what I wish she would have said was, “Start making your other stuff and collaborating with other people because I’ve built everything that I’ve had completely by myself cuz being autistic, I’m very zeros and ones. I’m very black and white. Something is true or it is false. There is no gray.” Mhm. Which is why golf kind of makes sense to me. Um, but anywh who, um, it’s, you know, game predicated on rules. So, I just followed their advice to the nth degree. I made stuff by myself and I put out my own stuff. And then I had a producer take me under their wing and they said, “Dude, you’re you’re making all of this viral sketch comedy. Why don’t you start directing commercials?” I was like, “Cuz I don’t know anybody.” He’s like, “I me.” I was like, “Oh, okay.” And and so he said, “Uh, what is something that you know better than anybody else? I said, “There’s nothing that I know better. I’m not going to direct any astrophysics and bring it back to me.” So, I did that. I I shot a spec commercial in the golf v in in for a golf brand and I showed it to him 3 days later cuz I’m a relentless workaholic and I shot it in a day and a half and he’s like, “Okay, you know how to tell a 30 second story and this is pretty good. Focus all of your efforts on trying to build clients in golf in whatever way that you can.” So, the only reason that I started Instagram, the only reason was so that anytime I got an ad pushed to me on Instagram, I clicked it’s irrelevant unless it was a golf ad. And then I and then I’d click on the link and make sure that that algorithm knew if it was their golf ad, it’s going to land in Ashworth. So then if there was any golf ad that I knew that I could shoot and write better content than what they had, I reached out to the brand and said, “Hey, I direct golf commercials for a living. This lowers your brand value. I can help raise it.” And then if it was at the level that I could shoot at, cuz nothing’s better, right? You got to believe in yourself. If it was at the level that I could shoot at, I just ignored it because they probably already have their team that they’re happy with. So word kind of spread throughout the industry of like, “Hey man, like there’s this weird kid doing some interesting stuff. If you want to shoot a call commercial, like maybe like look into this kid, but he’s weird. He’s a little different.” And that’s the tricky thing with autism is networking to get in the door. And then once you’re in the door, you either really act like yourself and people get inundated with something new that they’ve never worked with before, a different way of thinking. Kind of like that Tiger Tiger Woods mentality of like this guy thinks different than anybody else. And that’s the exact same way that I approach film making. And in a and in an industry of status quo, which is the golf industry, the you know the old crusty dudes that are, you know, don’t they don’t they’re all gust, you know, the owners of all of the big golf brands are all Augusta members and they don’t want to show up at Augusta be like, “Hey, John, I saw your new title list commercial. Really went weird with that one.” You know, like they don’t want to hear that. And that’s what they don’t care about selling golf clubs in an interesting way. They care about like looking good to their friends, which is so stupid. Unless that’s all they care about because they have so much money that they can light money on fire, which some of them do. Um, but at the end of the day, I’d have no idea if I’m answering your question. I’m sorry for the rambling, but uh, all of that is sufficive to say every single thing that I’ve ever done in my entire life was to try to become an astronaut. Well, it’s an incredible story and it’s very cool. Okay, back to the golf and I’m going to pitch you back a statement and I paraphrase that you made um and obviously you played golf with your um dad and you said in one of other posts you were like I got down to a three handicap but every golf lesson I took didn’t help me and you’ve just told us that as an autistic person it’s black or white you dollars and cents you numbers right and and there’s no gray area. I fear, and this is part of the reason why this podcast exists, and I’m on a bit of a mission myself, where there’s so much BS floating around in the internet and everywhere else when it comes to golf instruction because everyone’s hopping on the bandwagon. The poor golfers who are aspirant to get better are the victims and they’re suffering because they’re trying to do things that aren’t necessarily going to work for them. So then you went on this voyage of self-discovery and you and you’ve talked about it already, how you see golf swings, how you visualize shots. And this kind of took the three handicap golfer over the top. Now, I feel like where you are, unbeknownst to you, Landon, because I’ve talked to everyone from teachers to physical trainers to hypnotherapists to therapists to sport psychologists, the the the new frontier in golf development is not necessarily technology, but it’s really channeling the mind, which you have found a way to do. Now, I want you to describe because you’ve sort of brushed past it and I want to go back there. How you see your golf swing in colors, you see things in lines. You did this cool video where you had your launch monitor pointing at your simulator screen. Then you took this bendy rod and you bent it like was the bottom of a swing arc and you pointed it to the right of the target line and to the left and you’re like, “No, my club’s going to go up and down this arc.” And then you step up there and you had a dead straight shot. And I’m like, surely this is not take one, but it was. Um, so I want you just to ju just go with with that concept, please. Yeah. So, uh, you know, I I I I I I’m careful about this because I don’t want to become I’m never going to, but you know, I I fear of being Rick Shields or Andy Proudman and Pierce Ward and and Mark Crossfield and all those dudes that are, you know, those street corner preachers that have probably helped a lot of people, you know, Sean Foley and and all the dudes that have great insight The problem is is none of that stuff work for works for me cuz I’m a visual learner. So coaches would try to put me in first parallel and you know talk about you know the mechanics of where your elbow should be where. And I realized that I’ve been I’ve had an active imagination my entire life. Now, my imagination was a defense mechanism because, you know, if I’m stuck getting beat up and bullied, I need to be somewhere other than that. So, I’d escape in my mind somewhere, right? So, the only way to escape in your mind when you’re grinding on the range to not get bored is to make a movie, right? That’s what I did. Mhm. So instead of making a regular movie like Tin Cup, Alleged a Bag of Vance, I made it into a cartoon. And I thought, well, how would you draw a golf swing if you had to draw it as art, right? And so there was this one dude, I forget who it was, but it’s the only time in my entire life where somebody spoke my language, and it was kind of an aha moment. and he said, “Grab this bucket.” Now, imagine you’re slinging paint, right? Where does the paint from the bucket go? And just instantly, I’m like, “Golf is art. All I got to do is draw pictures. I can draw. I can make a movie.” So, I started visualizing what is if my if my club head was a neon light, right? Just imagine that anywhere I drew it back, that neon light was going to live forever. Almost like a a Jedi sword. Except lightsaber. Yeah. Yeah. A lightsaber. Except imagine anywhere that lightsaber went, it indelibly forever left a neon light. Right. So I just imagined my club head as that neon light. And as I swung it back and then swung it through, what sort of semicircle would that make? Would it make it would it would would the back swing go out this way? Would it go straight behind me? Would it go inside me? Uh inside the line, across the line, whatever, how you ever want to visualize it. Straight down the line if you want to use golf technical terms. And then swinging down is the lightsaber golf club neon beam. Is that coming across the line? Is that laid off? Is it coming straight down the line? If that’s how you want to, that’s not how I think about it. All I think about is two semicircles and how am I drawing them? Mhm. And so from that moment, that little aha 10 years ago or whatever, that’s what completely transformed uh my practice where practice just became about tracing lines and drawing pictures and then memorizing how far back do I need to take the club. So I can hit my driver 160, I can hit it 320 and anywhere in between there on command. All right. probably within a 5 yard distance, maybe 10. But the reason I know how to do that is because I know exactly where to draw that line and to stop it and where to put that line on the way down to give me any shot that I want. It’s, you know, I kind of, it’s I guess it’s mostly akin to uh my hero Mo Norman who is an autistic golfer and his you you hear him explain how he golfs and he just says and you do and you stand up and boop, there it goes dead straight and then boop, there go. And that’s that’s what it’s like when people, you know, recognize me on the driving range or whatever. They’re like, “Landon, just hit one dead straight.” And I’m like, “Okay, boop.” And it goes dead straight. And they’re like, “Well, how do you do that?” I’m like, “Well, you just just you stand here, right? And here you and then boop, dead straight. It’s like I don’t know how to explain it, but that’s what goes on in my brain. I’m tracing lines. Okay. There’s so much gold there that you’ve shared. First off, I love the tracing of the arc because it’s amazing. If people honestly pay attention in golf broadcast like I’m in, the shot tracer has changed broadcast. We can all agree on that, right? Yeah. And then if you watch social media, everyone now has an app where the club head can be traced as well and it leaves almost a little sickle look. In fact, a recent guest on here, the guys from AMG talked about making the sickle shape at the top of the swing. And now you are describing that with your bucket of paint or with your neon light or whatever. And here’s what I know for certain, Landon. If you have a clear picture in your mind, your body is going to come to the party. If you have a clear picture like that, then it’s like just reaction to whatever. Yeah. You’re like, “Where is my elbow in 3D space? I don’t freaking know where my elbow is.” Like, somebody came up to me on the driving range uh uh when I was playing Wikopa uh a couple days ago. It was the latest uh video that I just uh shot and released. But anyways, they came up to me and they’re like, “Dude, what are you doing with your wrist?” And I was like, I’ve never thought about my wrist a day in my life. And they’re like, what about your hips and like your ground floor? It’s like, what are you doing with your right heel? And I’m like, what are you talking I have no idea what you’re talking about. I don’t I don’t think about any of that stuff. I think about drawing a line. And then all I got to do is just trace a line. How hard is it to trace a line? Watch this. I’m going to trace a line from my nose to my head. Doop. Now I’m going to close my eyes. Doop doop. Exact same line. All I did was just trace a line that I just drew. That’s your practice swing. That’s the line you’re going to draw. Then you go up there and you trace the line. You just shot under par. It’s not hard. Golf is so easy. You know what you just did? And this is something that I preach to many people and then they hit a few shots and they go better. And the question or the response I get is like it can’t be that easy. Now this is the thing, right? Yeah. So this is the thing because the internet is a wash with you talked about it. Ground reaction force, body pivots, body angles, early extension. Yeah. You’ve heard you’ve heard it all. And for the focusing on audio, I’m getting a big thumbs down from Landon. No, here’s what it is. The golf ball listens to the club face and the club face alone. So, if that face is pointing in the direction and swinging in the direction of the target, you are heightening your chances of getting the ball to go there. Simple as that. And this is what you do. And you’re taking it to a different level by imagining how that club face is traveling throughout space and the distance it’s traveling. Yep. Yeah. Yeah. Distance. And you know, distance ho how far h how long does that line go on your y ais is uh the distance of your club and then how far uh left or right is the direction that your ball is going to go. And then all you’re doing is just how far do I want to hit my driver? I want to hit my driver 175. 175 is this far back. Okay. And I want to hit a cut. So I want it to point a little left. right about there. Okay. And I close my eyes and I do that in my head. I was like, “Okay, now I got to just now all I got to do is just stand up there and trace the line and the worst I’m going to be off is like I’m not going to be in the center of the fairway. I’m going to be on the right side of the fairway.” Like that’s a miss. For the folks on audio, I’m smiling like a cheshure cat. And because what and because I’m know you folks listening are like, “Come on, this can’t be real.” But the reality is when I see the best of the very best on the weekends on the PGA tour announcing them, they’re not thinking about where their swing should club and their body and stuff is. They are making art. They are propelling a ball in a certain fashion to get well just Justin Rose may be thinking about a swing. That guy’s so deep in his head. We got to give him a hug. Yeah, but when he’s over the ball then it’s not. It’s the stuff before the shot. when when he mentioned spring it’s free. Yeah. So I was shooting I was shooting a Mastercard commercial with Anukica Sorenstein. Stop you dropped this is my name. Uh but anyh who Anukica has that thing and I’m sure you know Anukica so you know all about her think box and play box. Yes. Right. Yeah. So it’s kind of just that Anukica thought of uh you know you think in your think box and you play in your play box. As soon as you’re in your play box your brain better be off or you are toast. Mhm. The think box and the play box folks are is from Linen Pier from 57. Yeah. But it’s it’s brilliant because so many I thought that was Anukica original. Well, Anukica was she adopted it. She sort of made them famous in a way because she was hall of fame. Oh, I learned something. Okay. Um, you said something I want to go back to where you mentioned all of us instructors and such and then when you get to a golf course like Augusta National where there’s hills and valleys and nooks and crannies and stuff everywhere then it’s like well technique technique technique but no now you got to be creative and you got to picture your landing spot and hit the ball there and imagine how the ball rolls down the slopes and stuff. So they’re essentially asking you after being all auditory and telling you how the swing should be to now be creative and visual and stuff. I to it because you got the golfer has to decide how how do I learn best? Is it by seeing or hearing or or like like where’s my sweet spot? This is what I’m getting from you and I want you to to confirm, deny, elaborate, whatever you want. I think that Mark, you made a very, very good point. All right. That there are a million different golfers that learn in a million different ways. I could explain how my brain sees a shot and somebody with no artistic ability, I could be speaking, you know, Mandarin to them. So, nothing’s going to work for everybody. There are some people that need to know where their elbow is in 3D space because they’re very mechanical. Yeah. Some people are very technical. And the greatest golfers of all time, Tiger, Ben Hogan, uh I mean, I would argue to say that if he didn’t have [ __ ] crippling social anxiety like me, uh Mo Nororman would have been one of the best golfers of all time. um they are able to blend seamlessly the technical and the artistic. And now that’s what’s going to make you great if you can’t do both. And hey man, you know, a a a 4 foot n dude is not going to play in the NBA. Sorry. Like you got to be realistic sometimes. If you are only technical or you are only artistic, you better get real good at mastering that thing. And don’t waste a second of your time on the technical. Become Picasso or become a robot. Pick your lane. Because if you’re trying to become a Picasso robot like Ben Hogan and you don’t have both skill sets, you are wasting time. You’re being ruthlessly inefficient. And my brain has no time for inefficiency. None. Yeah. Well, look, I’ll say this to you and let you respond. Back in a previous life, I was a college golf coach for 20some years. Cool. And you know, managing young testosterone laden men would be hard, you know, and so the the one day I would see them because they’d get into golf and golf, they’d be panicking next thing and then they’d never play up to their potential. And I could see the mistakes as plain as day. The one day I’m like, you guys need to have intent and you need to be able to plan where you’re going. So, I laid out on the driving range land and now humor me while I describe this. Please prepare me over your tail. All right, cool. So, I threw a golf club over there and then I put a head cover over there and I had like a a little like a little path if you would with different goodies on the ground. And I’m like, “Okay, you’re going to walk around that club and then you go to your left and you you step over the head cover.” And I can see you closing your eyes and you’re imagining this. Then I’m like, I want you to walk past the golf bag. And they’re all looking at this. And then you take five more steps and then you finish right over there. Okay. So I see them all looking and just like you, they got their eyes closed. And before they go, I can see them all with their eyes looking at the things and sort of calculating how many steps is it likely to be. So I send them all on their way. And all of them sort of finished in the same place. All right. Now, they might have missed walking around the golf club by a step or two because it was calculation. But because they saw this before they did it, they ended up where they were supposed to be. But if I described them and I said, “Hey, over there on the ground there’s a golf club and you got to walk around that.” And then over there to the left of that there’s a head cover and you got to walk around that. There’s no distance measurement there, unless I’m describing it’s 10 steps, then 15 steps, then a right turn as such. So, here’s where I’m going really. I think the easier way to really get it is to see it, but to see it like you do in a way where you’re like, I really see it. It’s not like I just see it. It’s like I see where I’ve got to get to and I know I’m going to get there and then I see it. And this is what you’re doing with your neon lights, man. When you describe that, I can see how it’s going and I’m like, I can go and swing my golf club like that. Well, that’s because you’re an artist for goodness sakes. No. Well, okay. Well, I I’m guessing even the even the robots can see the thing a little bit cuz the windows to the soul, right? That’s right. Yeah. There’s not very many uh uh uh launch monitors that don’t have cameras on them. This is true. Even a even the Trackman’s got a a camera on it. This is absolutely true because and like when you talk about the neon light or like on my phone, right, I’ve got a fitness app and when I’ve done all the calories I should, there’s this circle that it spins in a circle and it shoots off these like red or almost like little meteor things and it’s all shiny and cool and I love seeing this thing and I can see it in my mind’s eye right now. Yeah. And when you see that, then I’m like, “Okay, I can recreate that thing.” Whether I’m drawing it, swinging it, stepping it. And here’s where you do it so well, cuz people think golf is linear. They think in like straight lines. Mhm. You talked about you like the golf swing is a circle. It got behind me and up and back down in front of me and behind me and up. Yeah. Nobody ever thinks about after the ball, like exiting low and left, you know? If that’s the one thing that I was ever going to tell anybody, it’s like, “What am I doing with my wrist? What am I doing with my elbows? What am I doing with my feet?” And I’m like, “Have your club exit low and left and you will become a single-digit handicap in a week.” Low and left. That’s it. Like, if I have to try to speak robot to you, low and left, you’re exiting high and to the right or blah blah blah blah blah. Low and left. Low and left. Low and left. Low and left. You know what? you just remind me of now too and I’ll let you elaborate. Um, as a golf instructor, there are many times where I’ll explain the concept to them and then if the swing’s crooked, I’ll put out two beacons. If they spin across it too much, I’ll have one outside the bowl. And these are like traffic cones, but small ones and then one here and I’m like, swing through the gate. So, they’re not trying to hit the ball. So, they’re trying to swing through the gate or not hit the beacons. And all of a sudden, they hit the ball. They’re like, how can that be? You know, you trick their you trick their brain into being an artist. I guess. Yeah. You gota Sometimes you got to slap a robot in the face and be like, “Here’s a paintbrush. Stop calculating.” Yeah. But thinking in 3D and and often times I I feel like the target lies to us a bit because we stand to the side of the ball. So if you know, like you said to yourself on the video, the target line looks like this and my swing does that on and off the target line. That’s gold, man. That that that is where the magic happens. What you were describing there. I don’t know. Somebody could go out to the range uh after listening to this be like, “That land at Ashworth was full of shit.” I don’t You know what? I believe that if you can see it, your brain will send the signals to your body. Well, I hope so. Would you rather give up your sight or your hearing if you had to choose? hearing because I could have I could have somebody in the passenger seat handle the radios if I’m flying, but if I could never fly a jet or an airplane again, I think I’d die inside. I like flying much more than I like golf. You know, I’m kind of like Mark Huard. If you you know the PGA tour pro Mark Hubard, I did a I did a rapid fire interview with him and I love him so much. He’s one of my favorite human beings ever. And uh I was like, “So, you’re pretty good at golf.” And he’s like, “Golf is like my third favorite sport.” And I’m like, “I love you. That’s exactly kind of how I feel.” Cuz like there’s things that I love more than than golf certainly, but like golf, you know, as soon as as soon as you’re really good at somebody something, people want to pressure you into make money doing it, right? I can’t tell you how many people that that I’ve been paired with that are like, “Join the freaking tour.” And it’s like, I can’t think of anything that is less appealing to me in the world. Like, I get to make films. I get to play Makeelie for a living. I get to hang out with Tiger and Rory and make them laugh on camera and it’ll be there forever. Like I go out and play a tournament and if I don’t get first, I am mad at myself. Like I’m not going to ruin golf. I don’t have anything to prove there. Like I want to make some art. That that to me sounds much more appealing than playing golf for a living. And having to need to win to pay for your Airbnb and your caddy. Like god, what a terrible existence. Love you. Honesty putting it all into perspective for us. Okay. I’ve kept you for a very long time and I’m Have you? I really have. Oh, okay. Been so much fun. Um, I’m gonna now just I’m I’m going to tickle your artistic sensibilities a little bit. Are you ready? Please. I’m going to ask you a question I sometimes ask guests. And there’s no holds bar here. And we’re going to wind up the the conversation like this. It could be golf related, it could be not. This could be laugh related. Golf and laugh to me interming intermingle. Well, for you, I certainly would assume you’re quite a famous golf personality, so it’s probably every aspect of your life. And for God’s sakes, you’re doing a podcast. Yeah, exactly. So, here. Have you played Augusta National? I have. Ah, you sucker. Okay, keep going. I hate you. We’re going to get you on Pine Valley somehow. Okay. If you promise to be on your best behavior, you for with me, you get what you get, man. You sign up for the Landon show. I I’m I’m I’ve faked who I am my entire childhood. I’m not doing that anymore. Okay. All right. Here we go. So, I want I I I’m full lander. Now, if you knew something for sure, and you’re going to write this on your headstone or this is a memoir for your kids, what do you know for sure? Landon Ashworth audio listeners. He’s thinking he’s he’s lent back against what looks like a closet with his eyes closed and I can see him imagining now I’ve elicited a smile out of him. Um, everybody is facing a battle. Yeah. And everybody deserves forgiveness. Amen, brother. I love that. Yes, it, you know, I think about the people that bullied me when I was a kid and I wonder what did they go home to? Did they go home to their dad and mom berating them and being mean to them? Did they go home to somebody abusing them? Like hurt people hurt people. And sometimes hurt people didn’t get any love. I got love from my mom and dad when I got bullied as a little kid. I got to go home to a hug. Some people didn’t get to some people didn’t get to go home to a hug and uh I did. So that’s nice. And I found a place that made me whole and that was a golf course. Mhm. And um the best message that I ever get on social media is from parents that have autistic kids and they say, “You make me think that my kid has a chance.” And that’s because you were honest and open with who you are. And I hid it for so long. And I got sick of hiding it. And I wish I wish that everybody could be com comfortable and confident in theirelves and forgiven love. God, that is just so hippie dippy crunchy BS, but it’s it’s true. God bless you, man. That’s fantastic. All right, nuts and bolts of this. For the folks who don’t follow you, Landon, uh please share where they can go and find you, find some of your stuff, etc. Well, uh I just directed a movie. Um it’s premiering at the Albuquerque Film Festival, uh September 24th, uh at 6:00 p.m. at the Lobo Theater. On uh September 27th, it will be premiering at the Catalina Film Festival at 1:30 at the ACC Theater. October 26th at the Twin Cities Film Festival and I just found out the Soho Film Festival in Manhattan probably October 24th. I don’t know dates or times or anything like that. Uh and then if you want to see me on social media, Landon Ashworth Directs, you’ll be thoroughly entertained and informed. And for the folks listening with the movie, uh this podcast was recorded in 2025. So, let’s get out there and see it if you’re in 2025. Otherwise, look for it. What’s the movie’s name? Go on. Go on. Landon, you’re a superstar. Well, that’s a lie. God bless you. Keeps Keep shining. Okay. I’m going to try my best. And if people can’t handle it, I’ll just tell them to put on some sunglasses and shine just a little bit brighter. [Music] [Music]
