Tony Ruggiero is joined by Kevin Kirk, Dr. Greg Cartin, Jackson Koert, Rick Lamb and Emilio Gonzalez to discuss the importance of managing adversity and expectations for long-term athlete development. They share the reasons for not talking about winning until a certain age, how fast tracking is the worst idea, and how longevity is more than winning. This episode is full of insight for developing juniors for a long career that they’ll also enjoy.
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[Music] Hi, this is Tony Rogerro. Thanks for listening to the tour coach. These are the players, coaches, experts, stories, and insights from my work on the PGA tour at my retreats or my downtown teaching center in Mobile, Alabama. My goal is to shed light and share insights from the people who I’ve gotten to know and meet working on the PGA tour and teaching through my career. And I hope this helps all of us play, coach, and teach better golf. If you like what you hear, please give us a good review and take a look at our new Deceer on Instagram where I’ve taken some time to share videos and help from my teachings, travels, and journeys. [Music] All right, so here we are. We’re at Nazaros Nazaros, my favorite little old school Italian place in St. Simon’s Island. Now that I’ve been run out of here, I like to come back here and sneak into the corner here and and it’s RSM week and um we’ve got Ivan Ramirez with us from Texas Tech. Special guest tonight. We got Amelio Gonzalez making another appearance. We’ve got the good Dr. Greg Carton. Got Kevin Kirk, my good buddy BDR, Rick Lamb and student and Jackson Court joining us. He’s allowed to join us tonight. We got a permission slip signed by down the street. And uh anyways, we were talking before we went on on recording. I’m using Kevin’s phone cuz I don’t have enough battery. But basically, we’re talking about balls and how the people that succeed at a high level have to face a lot of adversity coming up. And we were talking about a player that had a bunch of success, a short spurt, and not doing so well today. But, you know, did he have adversity coming up? And we talked about how he didn’t. And so, Doc, I’m going to turn it over to you and Kevin to go a little bit and then I’ll chime in. But, let’s talk a little bit about adversity and then I want to also get some of the players perspectives on that cuz I think that’d be great as we talk about balls. So, Doc, you want you want to get started? Sure. I think when especially in golf when you talk about adversity I think uh you can peel back one more layer and talk about expectations and I talk to kids all the time and say if you like to win golf is not the right sport and I think the expectation of kids who have had some success growing up is that this is how it’s going to be all the time. You should talk to some of my parents. And then the second they don’t win. And and winning is there’s a lot of different definitions of winning I guess in golf. It’s not just winning tournaments, but succeeding. The expectation skew is so often. We were talking about this before that that can crush a lot of people who don’t really understand how hard the game is. And when they bump up against a result that they assumed or doesn’t fit with what they expected, they face some adversity and how are they going to respond? And so I I think that’s exactly right, Doc. I mean, I think looking at if you look at the developmental models, you know, that are presented by the Olympic committees around the world, East Von Bali kind of being the father of the long-term athlete development models, he speaks very specifically to that expectation. Right? So if we start trying to talk about winning when a kid’s 10 or 12 years old, we’re way down the wrong track. Okay? Because there’s, you know, if you start looking at at the modeling around that, you know, the Yeah. You start talking about act, you know, active start, you know, train to train, train, you know, learn learn to train, train to compete, train to win. And so the winning doesn’t even come in in the conversation till kids are 17, 18, 19, 20 years old, right? But the problem is if we we’ve got a generation of of kids in this country that that run around, they get an early start, they start kind of playing golf, they win a bunch of tournaments, and they think that winning is what it’s all about, right? And what it’s about, it’s about mastery. It’s not about winning. The whole idea is about trying to master your craft. And winning shouldn’t even be in a discussion till they’re 19 or 20 years old, till they got a full enough skill set to be able to even consider talking about that. Yeah. So what happens is, you know, you get these kids that have that win these tournaments, they focus on winning, but they don’t have the skill set to be able to kind of endure puberty, you know, and and the next set of things that they’re going to be that they have to kind of face. Yeah. And I think golf is different than any other sport in that when you watch sports on TV on the weekend, you watch a hockey game or a soccer game or a football game, you’re watching two teams compete and there’s a winner. When you watch golf, you’re only watching the guys that are winning and that’s it. You don’t see anything else. And so we have this is sort of built into us kids. They watch golf on the weekend. They see Tiger Woods winning a tournament. That’s what golf is. So let’s talk about Tiger. We talk about adversity, right? How much adversity do you think Tiger face growing up? Huh? Had to be a bunch from his dad. Right. I mean, well, everything every every time he turned the corner, the kid was facing something very tough. Right. That’s right. And everyone assumes that he won everything. And that’s that’s never But but you know what? You know what his dad did a great job of? His dad didn’t up he didn’t he didn’t try to to fast track it. He let him beat up on the 12 year olds and then when he you know then and then he kind of let him beat up on the 13-year-olds. He he allowed him to be dominant over that group of kids he was competing. I’ve heard this and I don’t know that it’s remotely true but like most things on this podcast but he but I know that he was we do need a fact checker. I think I think the Fox fact checker is here. But uh I think but like he was big on that he won everything in his age group in his area before he moved on. Correct. And so and I tell parents that all the time. They’re always like my kids got to start playing AJ. And I was like your kid this kid hadn’t finished work better than 12. The worst idea in in in youth sport is fasttracking. That’s the worst idea. Okay. Let’s let’s talk about Michelle Wii for a second. Fast track this. Okay. Now, Michelle Wi was the best female golfer that come out of our country in 50 years right now. So, instead of letting her just go up and beat up on all the 12-year-olds and 14 year olds and become great and learn how to win at every level, which would have been fun for her, we fasttracked her and they and we put her up against not only the women, we made her compete against the men. Yeah, that’s right. You know, and so how bad was that for development? And so, at 16 years old, they asked her a question. Said, “What are your goals?” She goes, “I’m going to win the men’s masters.” I said, “You’re going to do what?” I said, “That is just that is so skewed.” But what what happens to that girl if we if you let her beat up on the 12-year-olds and the 14y olds and the 15y olds and and be dominant at every level and know how to win at every level. By the time she gets the tour, guess what? Who’s going to beat her? Nobody, right? And Tiger’s dad did a good job with that. The Williams sisters from tennis did a great job with that. And I think if if anybody listening to this podcast from a developmental perspective, do not fast track your kids. That’s the worst thing you can do. Right. Would you agree, Doc? Yeah, I I could I could not agree more. And and I think golf is so much different than any other sport for that reason that you could have a really good career and not be or not be the best. Correct. Right. And and there’s nothing there’s no other sport like that. And I think that’s that’s where especially parents who don’t maybe don’t understand the game as much miss out of this understanding that there’s a lot more to it than just winning. Yeah. So, you know, longevity, being able to kind of play for a long period of time, enjoy enjoyment. Enjoyment of the game, right? Those are all things that those are all things that we that we want to, you know, that that we that get lost, right? In in the in the in the pursuit of excellence, the pursuit of winning, the pursuit of perfection, whatever it is that we pursue, right? Yeah. And I run into this a lot and this is something that’s hard to beat into the heads of high performers is that most people assume that you have to win something to be happy. Right? Once I succeed, then I’ll be happy. Or once I win, then I’ll feel fulfilled. Tony and I have talked about this before. I believe that if you find fulfillment prior to achieving something, well then the results don’t matter as much anymore and then usually good things happen. I found that in teaching also like when you become when you you’re happier with yourself and everything going on y and where you are and not to get personal whatever but like in teaching and where you are what you’re teaching if you’re happier with that then you don’t hang and die on how everybody plays every week the problem we fight is the culture doesn’t support that. No, it doesn’t. The the culture says win win, right? Or business. Can you imagine Can you imagine the idea of having an eight or nineyear-old national champion and the damage that does to those kids? No way. No way. So most a lot of the countries around the world, the really good golf development countries, they won’t let even kids even even compete at that level until they get past puberty. Right. Because because until you get past puberty, it doesn’t really matter. I agree. They don’t have and again that that’s sort of a next level concept but this idea that we just kick our happiness and fulfillment down the road until we achieve something and then the worst part is then actually when we do achieve something we realize well the happiness we expected isn’t as good as we thought it was going to be. So, so Doc, how I ask you, I’m just going to pose this question to you, right? How do we how do we disrupt that culture? I mean, what I mean, because it’s it’s a big lift. Every time I turn around, I’m I’m facing that conversation with a parent, right? Yeah. And the hardest thing I guess the only thing we can do is well, one is I’m not a big believer in setting goals because that’s what sets up people for failure. Well, let’s look short term. Let’s how what are you going to do tomorrow that’s going to make you feel good? What if you can set high goals? But manage failures like when you don’t meet those expectations like the goal setting thing could be a whole different in my opinion is that like everyone’s got the same goals. We don’t need to set them in stone like we want to win. We want to be successful. Like I mean what kid goes out there and says I want to be a loser, right? Yeah. Or I want or I want to feel fulfilled or like what kid goes I don’t care about. You can set a goal and just throw it away and then what do I got to do every day to get to Yeah. It’s what what’s it going to what are you going to do to get to this goal? and who do I need to become now? Yeah. And but then you have a new issue and then most people think it’s I have to work hard. You we talked about this before. I got to go hit 700 balls a day. Well, that’s not necessarily the case. I shook Rick’s hand today. He’s got calluses on his hand. He hits a lot of golf balls. All right. Here’s played three rounds of golf. I understand that. But but prior but prior to that, you’ve obviously hit a bunch of golf balls, right? Yeah. But so those are So Alio’s one I’ve worked with Alio a while. Let’s shift it over here to Alio for a second. But like Alio’s one where when we he first moved here to St. Simons and from his culture from Mexico, hard ass worker, comes from a small school. Everything is about like he’s got to be out there working hard every day, grinding all day or he’s right. Yeah. And we’ve had a bunch of talks, as you know, especially the last few weeks about how important it is to one have his practice a little more structured to where he’s just not beating himself up, but also like we were texting back and forth about his schedule. And it’s like, well, I’m tired. Is it okay that I want to go play I want to not play a tournament, but I want to go have fun, right? Like, and that’s and we’re talking about the jingle bell, which is a major, but still like mean And but but like but but it’s a serious question though like like just cuz the goal is oh I got to get on tour and I’ve got Latin status. I’ve got to be doing this. Whereas he he he actually is asking me and I’m not putting him on the spot but he’s almost like is it okay that I don’t want to go play this golf tournament? And we see that out of kids too all the time. Like is it okay that I don’t want to go play a golf tournament? Yeah. Yeah. If you don’t want to play you shouldn’t go. Correct. No way. But is that a fair assessment? Yeah. I mean, I just played so much towards the end of the summer till like towards Q school and then I didn’t get through second stage and then just to have something to play on, I had to play. Why did you play a lot? Purple. Did you think you had to? No, I wanted to. And it’s a it’s a tour that I’m familiar with and I just like how it’s ran and the golf courses. I know some of them. and just to to have something towards the the fall, I mean the spring and the summer. But yeah, uh I did it because Why did you play so much at the end of the summer coming into Q school? Cuz I was playing it and wanted to make some money. Nothing wrong with Dairo. That That’s my Spanish for the night. Did I do that right? Yeah. That’s well done. But but I think going back to Hold on. I’m going back over to you, Kevin. I think kind of going back to it though ultimately, you know, I think you start kind of looking at, you know, the discussion around goals. I do I do think that kind of looking at the people that I’ve watched that have succeeded at a high level may not have goals, but they’re very intentional. Okay, they understand, okay, here’s a spectre of possibility, right? They have the capacity to focus on this is the specific outcome that I want. They focus on it and relentlessly wake up every day and work towards that. Okay? It’s a mastery of that one intention. And so in the coaching that I do, I do think that that we and I and I think, you know, as we start kind of looking at whether you’re a player or a coach or whatever, I I think the idea of of being intentional with your work is really really important because otherwise it can go anywhere, right? Anything can happen. Well, here’s a question. So everybody starts out with goals. Sometimes I think you work hard and you don’t reach the goals. I’m going to use Rick here. Rick didn’t the year didn’t finish up the way you wanted, right? didn’t play as good as you wanted, but like I felt like we did a bunch of good work. That’s the hard part as a coach sometimes is like you feel like you did some good stuff. Made the US Open, played played pretty nice there, did a lot of good things, but like you know, if you’re only based on like expectations and goals, like if you don’t do some things, you feel like the whole year was a total wash. Here’s here’s one of the things that Doc and I were talking about earlier today, right? So this is, you know, personal for me because my understanding or my thought of what good was was skewed. Right. Right. So if you’re going to have goals, they have to be based on something, right? So that’s where statist, you know, stats and analytics come into play. We can actually now define what good really is, right? So for example, with me, I thought that, you know, you should, you know, you should be able to hit the golf ball in the fairway 90% of the time and 90% of the greens and 90% up and down. Truth of the matter is world class is 70%. That’s the best of the best. Right. And so if your expectations are not matched up with the reality of the of what you’re dealing with, you’re setting yourself up for failure to begin with. Right. Well, and this is why golf is tricky too. It’s like so say you set out to hit 70% of the fairways or 70% of the greens and you fail 90% of the time, but the two times you do, you win major events. Is that success or what what’s your marker for success? So I think it has to do with you know the idea of understanding that okay when I do that I succeed right and the the attempt of mastery towards that seems to be kind of in constructing your your your training programs around that and and the other thing we were talking about that you were talking about earlier was the idea of the neural accumulation of work over time at some point in time you’re going to wake up and you’re going to feel like I don’t want to do this anymore. Yeah. So how do you how do you balance the the work and rest? Right. That that’s the other that’s the other big thing. Right. So, I think we’re learning more about recovery now. And I think the next big steps in in coaching, in my mind, are going to be about managing the neural component, the recovery, the workloads, the recovery, and and helping athletes understand that, you know, in our culture, we believe that the harder we work, the more we get, right? That’s what they tell you in business. Time is money. But the truth of the matter is athletes can only get about five hours at five really good hours out of themselves each day before they before the next day when they show up they’re neurally compromised that’s science. You cannot like that. But now when I was when I was playing I would practice 8 hours a day and I wonder why I wake up at some point in time and all of a sudden I just no matter how hard I try I couldn’t get out of my body. That’s right. Yeah. It’s neurally fatigued cannot operate. Nervous system is not going to do it. We’ve joked about this before and talk about guys pay me to tell them to do nothing. They need to be but it is the hardest thing for golfers to do. Move a golf ball or something. But the cool the cool thing is we’re pointing out we have science to support it. Right. So our job as coaches I think is to is to is to inform these young players that hey you got 5 hours a day. Yeah. Get it done then go rest. Go do something else. Right. And so you’re fully recovered. So the next day when you come out there, you can give it all you can do with that another good 5 hours. I’m big I’m big, you know this, like I like ball counts. I like guys to go out and say I’m going to go do 20 balls of this little super structured. I’m going to go do 20 balls doing this. I’m going to go do 18 pitch shots, you know, from different lies, get them up and down or whatever the deal is and be done. And I think too also that athletes are structured. Everybody’s, but we’re all we’re goal oriented. And if you go in with a goal and a task and you accomplish that task, you feel something. When you just go and you dump a bunch of golf balls, and I don’t know that you ever feel like you accomplish them. No. Yeah. This gets back to that same idea. And this look, two teachers here, would you agree that you can’t outwork someone in golf anymore? Like it doesn’t that doesn’t exist anymore? I agree with that. I I think you know if you go back and looked at like the modeling that was put forth Ben Hogan was a outworked everybody BJ Tiger all these Tom out hit everybody Mick Faldo there’s a there’s a group there’s a there’s an era where that was what what Davis was in talented or you could work hard so but I but I think we’re I think we’re in a new era I think I think I think we’re I think we know more right and that those guys were doing what they thought were the best and those were the best of the best at that time right and so group. Everybody followed that model. But I do think we’re at a time now where we where we know more. Yeah. We understand that. Okay. Gosh, maybe there’s a limit and each player’s probably got an individual limit. Yeah. And what if you told kids, hey, if you enjoy going to hit balls, if you think it’s a guarantee to beat to win tournaments, you’re doing the wrong thing. And it’s hard. Yeah. No, I mean I I think the one thing for certain, Duck, is golf is hard. You see, you’ve got that my favorite quote. Golf is hard and most people and that’s it’s true in that most people don’t understand what that actually means. So the one really famous book from the So what does it mean? Well, one is that you most people’s expectations of where they should be are off and when you fail to meet your expectations, you suffer and then you’re going to end up quitting the game. But but the problem is or burn out. But I think that is I think part of our job is also to help these young players understand the spirit of competition is to understand that I need to go out and push against other people. Like if I’m going to be great, I have to go have somebody to push against. Right. Right. Cuz I won’t push I will push myself hard enough by myself. Right. Right. So once a what you know once a week on the tour the guys agree to get together and they all push against each other. Right. Yeah. At the end there’s one guy that that outperforms everybody and we should all celebrate that every time. Totally right. Yeah. Everybody else has played that tournament has has the they’ve learned they they’ve got an opportunity to kind of go home and think about okay I there’s something that I need to do to get better. Right. So everybody wins. There’s no losing here. Right. Like Rick and we’re we’re also we’re also afraid of so afraid of failure. It’s not failing. It’s learning. But like Rick Rick we were talking about his getting a place or spending time in South Florida saying that about the opportunity to spend more time around a bunch of good players. Yeah. Well, I think that’s and and how like had a great time in Nashville. It’s an awesome place. Cool city, but like probably wasn’t as conducive for development. What do you think about that? Well, the difference between my first four years as a pro and the last three living in Nashville, it’s like living in St. Simons down here every day there’s a money game. You’re playing against somebody else. You lose your money game. You get pissed off. You say, “I got to work harder. I got to do this.” Whatever. But you’re every day you’re being you’re everybody’s throwing a score out. You’re getting measured against other great players every day. When I was in Nashville, I was just basically with myself. There’s a couple other guys I can play with here and there, but they’re not always in town. I just don’t think I’ve gotten any better in that aspect. It’s it’s been a a tough thing for me. So, how would that translate when you showed up to events? Did you feel unprepared? Did you feel like the edge was off or you didn’t have the edge? I just don’t I just don’t think that you weren’t pushing yourself. I mean, when I’m playing against amateurs at my club, I mean, we’re still playing for money, but it’s just not at the same level. You can shoot even if they’re getting shots, it’s just still not the same, right? You you show up to a tournament, it’s it’s not nec like you in your mind, you may feel prepared, but you’re really not because you’re not pushing yourself to play against the best competition you can play against. I don’t think there’s there’s no better way in the world to get better at golf than gambling, right? to playing for something that matters to you every day and if you lose it stings a little bit and if you win you you feel that success and you feel I think the more you gamble for too this will shock you an Italian talking about gambling but I think where it’s if I think if you can gamble for an amount that makes you uncomfortable like it has to hurt when you lose so like if you and I went and played and we both played for 10 bucks I mean we’re both competitive I mean I wouldn’t want to lose but in the end like on 15 I okay so it’s 10 bucks right but if we were going to play and you were like t I want to play for a thousand like yeah in your head you can’t ration like you can say all right it sucks that I lost but whatever it’s 10 bucks but when you lose a thousand you’re going to be pissed about that we win be pissed about it for if we win and I had my Zexio driver and you said hey we’re going to play for a th000 I’m going to give you four five aside you’re going to get to play up two sets of T’s And it’s going to be fair. I mean, I’d be into it. Yeah. It’s got to get your attention. See how I’m getting that jingle bell practice round bet? You’re already You’re already set. I see that. But it’s true, though. I think I mean, if it if it doesn’t lose when you sting, you’re not playing for it. Thank you. I think that, you know, the, you know, having an environment set up where when you don’t get to where you want to go, there’s some pain involved. Yeah. Like we have I had I’ll never forget I had kids on my team in college like I was generally pretty most of the time exempt for tournaments. So I never had to qualify. But was that good for you? It was terrible. My coach qualifying for college events is the hardest. It’s harder than the events. My coach would say, “Oh, go go go practice.” And I’d say, “I want to play.” Like, “I want to play.” The hardest event in the world is stage tour school, the finals. Yeah. That’s the hardest golf event in the world. Yeah. We’d have kids in our team that would say, “Oh, I’m working on something.” It’s like, “What if you mean you’re working on something?” Pardon, pardon my French, but like we’re all we’re all working on something like Yeah, right. You need to shut up and compete. Does that make you special because you’re working on something? So, yeah. No question about it. And I’ve known and look Georgia, I’ve never taught him. Well, I taught one kid at University Georgia, but look how many tour players they turn out. Oh, yeah. I don’t know firsthand, but I know coach hat all he does is make their ass qualify. Mhm. Coach kids at Alabama and all meaning you got a bunch of high ranked guys like they make them exempt during qualifying because they want their best five. So that may be better for the team at that point. But is it better for the long term? So Dave Dave Williams, University of Houston won a zillion a 17 national championships or something. And what he would do is he’s he recruit every kid that he could get to kind of come in there and every day those kids went out and qualified every day, right? So gymnastics. Exactly. Right. Well, I mean, you know, and so and so all those kids did was pushed against each other, right? And there was there was a group that were better, right? There’s Freddy couples and all these superstars, right? But everybody in that system got better because they were pushing. They had to they had to go out there every day and push against each other. There was not a day off. Right. Right. So, you know, that that’s what the tour is about. That’s what the developmental tour is about, you know, and I do think, you know, it’s, you know, us building finding a way to build that into kind of our our training at some point in time. I mean, there needs to be, you know, some developmental time and some offseason time. I mean, it’s it’s not appropriate for probably an 8-year-old, but as they start kind of getting to where they want to try to compete at a super high level, I think that that’s a factor that has to be there. Yeah. And like when I first moved down here, we’d work out with Randy Myers. We’d have five of us in the gym and be like, I want to do that. I want to lift more than that guy’s lifted. You’re looking over there. You’re over there. I want to do this workout better than that. Right. You know, so there’s something to that. So, we’re sitting here at a table. We got three coaches. We got sports college and we got a couple of players, right? And so we’re getting ready to kind of move into the holiday season, right? So it’d be interesting to hear maybe one each each person at the table maybe kind of have one thing that they want to kind of offer up kind of as as they kind of get to the end of the year, the one thing they’ve learned this year. Wow. They want to kind of share. Kevin’s going to have his own podcast by the end of this session. So Tony, you go. No, you start. You start the host cuz I’m still I’m going to be deep. All right. So I think I think for me the one thing that I’ve that I’m thing that I’m learning I I continue to kind of learn and I’m learning a lot about is this idea of how to balance the work and the rest. It’s it’s high super high on my radar. Okay. So, how do I how do we focus on making sure we get the right amount of work, get the high quality work, but also get enough rest to off balance that and I the thing that I’m trying to learn more about and then share with people that I’m working with is that work the rest is is is just as important as the work, the ability to recover from your work. Right. So, to your point earlier today talking about got to the end of the summer, I’m like, is it okay for me to take time off? Yes, it’s okay. Okay. and if you and you have to kind of build those build those breaks and so that’s that’s my big learning for this year. So, um I think for me that’s a point that Doc has talked about and of one of the other podcasts you guys did recently where you talk about if you’re not happy you’re probably not going to play well and that it reminded me of something when I was a rookie on the PJ tour. I mean I’m out there living my dream doing what I want to do. I was miserable for the whole year and it just wasn’t any fun. I had a couple good weeks here and there where like things kind of matched up and I just played good golf. But I’d be sitting in my hotel room on a Tuesday night thinking about all right, how do what do I got to do to play good this week? And it’s like it’s 48 hours away and tournament hasn’t even started. I’m already worried about it. Like it’s just if you’re not happy, you’re just not going to perform. You’re in the majority. Yeah. That’s why you’re going to get better, though. Jackson, what have you learned now that you have permission to sit? Talk is cheap and loyalty is rare. Whoa. That’s another old podcast. Yeah. But I but I but why you don’t get slip sign. But it hit both of those hit home for me this year. Awesome. And I think I am not exempt from either of those. I think I have talked and I have not shown loyalty. So I think seeing it reflect in my own life has definitely taught me that lesson. Newcomer to the crowd from Texas Tech, Red Raider. for me. Were you there when Bobby Knight was there at all? No, it was past. Uh he he was there like playing golf like 20 years ago. Did he throw a cherry or Yeah, he was he he actually hit balls at the the hitting bay of our team and like one one time we just heard this like ball against the wall in the hitting bay. So he was he was throwing some stuff over there. That’s awesome. Either either club was a shank. One of the two. One of the two probably the latter. Go ahead. What What did you uh for me this year has been uh a lot of improvement. Like you guys were saying, like Rick was saying, I went back to Columbia and I lived there after I got done with college and I got to a point where, you know, I didn’t have anybody to play with and I was like, well, if I’m going to do this, I’m going to do it right. So, I decided to move here to Jacksonville and like he said, you know, there’s money games, there’s a lot of stuff and that has really helped my game this year. And then I’ve learned a lot of things, you know, I’ve I’ve tried to learn how my body feels and how my body performs under pressure and what my tendencies are. So, I’ve I’ve been working on that, too. and and managing the the rest and the and playing is also a big thing cuz I mean I got done with final stage last week and and you know I had this Monday today and I on Monday I didn’t do any or Tuesday I didn’t do anything but Wednesday I was out there and I felt like I needed another day but I was out there just because I felt that that was the right thing to do and like at the end of the week on Friday Saturday I felt so bad you know like my body wasn’t wasn’t feeling right. So, I didn’t do anything on Saturday. I took a day off. It felt a little better. So, yeah. I think I think that’s also one of one of the other things I’ve learned. Uh for me, it’s been way too many things. My first year of professional golf was uh was really uh humbling cuz I learned a lot more than I thought I had to learn. It was really good. And that’s what Yeah, exactly. And that’s really exciting to see too. But yeah, it it really opened my eyes and it was great in that aspect. But couple things that I really picked up on was uh something that we spoke about. Uh it was more than anything that I’m allowed to have fun once in a while just cuz uh I mean our careers takes a lot out of us, you know, a lot of our time and that little other time that we have left in off weeks or whatever. uh we shouldn’t engage all of our time into work, you know, and that’s something huge for me. Correct. Yeah. Like as soon as I turned pro, like I was practicing insane amount of hours. And the funny thing is is I wasn’t performing nearly as my best. And as soon as I like kind of let it go a little bit and like actually started learning and listening to my body a little more, it kind of switched off and things started going a little bit better obviously. And I mean I’m really looking forward to like the rest of my journey, but just excited to keep learning a bunch. That’s awesome. Yeah, Greg, I’m with Kevin and and some of the other stuff that people said is this idea of less is more. And and that’s a battle we’re going to fight now because the old culture was that the more time we put into something, the better we’re going to get. And I think for to ask yourself the question for yourself, what does it mean to be happier? And what does it mean to get better? And find your answers there. And I think most people would say, well, it’s it’s a little bit more balance, right? And that that sort of coincides with what we think we need to do to get better. We need to work all the time. So that’s awesome. So I think this year for me was a big year of change. I learned one to not spend it with douchebags. It’s number one. And only spend your time with people that appreciate and understand what you’re doing and what you’re trying to give. And I think as long as you’re around those people, I think you’re okay. And if you know if it’s if people don’t get what I’m trying to do or they don’t get my vision and they don’t they don’t understand the value in that well then they’re not worth spending any time on them anyways and we’re also not guaranteed any indefinite amount of time being here. So you know that more than anybody so you don’t want to be around douchebags. So that’s it. Anyways, I thought that was good tonight guys. Yeah. We’re about ready to get some pasta and some chicken and some parm and stuff. So, we’ll catch you next time. Thanks for listening to this edition of the tour coach. I want to take a minute and thank Cordy Walker and Golf Science Lab, as well as my sponsors, Shrix, Buick, Bushnell, and Vineyard Vines for helping make all of this possible and helping me share my insights with you. If you like what you’ve heard, why don’t you check out more on the Deuceers channel on YouTube as well as the Deuceer on Instagram or go to dweepersgolf.com to find out more about my teaching, my travels, and where you can find out more about me. [Music]
