Andrew Reynolds is a Cognitive Performance Coach based in England. He is sought out by leading golf professionals and club golfers alike for his research and experience based insights on how to perform under pressure.
Reynolds blends insights learned from his degrees in Psychology and Sports Psychology with elements from Neuroscience and Skill Acquisition to develop his philosophies, drills and exercises.
He joins #OntheMark to share some of those insights incl:
Why performance sometimes diminishes under pressure Rewiring neural pathways for consistent mental performance The mindset to breaking barriers The habit of embracing nerves Using routines to dial mental focus, and How to make your practice translate to the golf course. He also shares 5 ways to lower scores by using certain Strokes Gained metrics.
Andrew’s insights and lessons are guaranteed to help you cut out the noise, focus the mind and allow your best self to show up when the pressure is heightened.
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STREAMING: On the Mark is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcasts and wherever else you listen to podcasts.
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] all right on the mark listeners viewers here on on YouTube you know me I’m very holistic in my approach to game improvement and here recently I found Andrew Reynolds and Andrew I was glued to your Instagram feed for a while so I’m glad you would join us thank you for coming thank you very much for having me Mark yeah long time long time listen to the podcast well well I’m honored thank you you got some really good stuff here um for in the interests of um for folks who have not seen you on social or worked with you um please introduce yourself tell us about who you are and how you came to where you are currently are yeah thanks so um my name is Andrew Reynolds I’m a cognitive performance coach so my background is in Psychology and sports psychology and I use that background to help golfers to firstly make the most of their practice time yeah to transfer some of those benefits from their practice out into the golf course so you know rather than be somebody that can just hit the ball great on the driving range actually be able to produce uh that better Golf out on the course and then with some of the more traditional parts of the mental game so handling pressure handling nerves that kind of stuff it begs the question how obviously you’re a golfer athlete yes um coach in a way uh were you always into this line of instruction or was this because I’ll tell you honestly with me I was a player turned teacher um the more I taught Elite golfers golfers of all skill levels the more I began to realize that it’s more than just the golf swing um so how did you get to this Lane that you’re in yeah an interesting path to it actually um so uh like I’ve always I’ve always been a golfer um it started with a quest to improve my own golf game so just to simply try and get better it kind of starts with for me it started with reading Bob Rella books um you know pting out of your mind and and golf is not going of perfect that kind of thing and and that’s where it it kind of began and and early in my 20s I found myself actually in in your home country Mark I was out in South Africa for a few months shadowing a a coach out there you may or may you may or may not know Doug wood he gave me the opportunity to to Shadow him and whilst I was out there I I kind of essentially was in the the the same place as a lot of kind of sunshine tour players and and that kind of thing I wasn’t of that level myself but was in in their in their presence and I found that just from speaking to them that a lot of the stuff that I’d kind of come across by working on my own game it it was stuff that wasn’t really known as well even by such elite elite golfers um and it it meant that I ended up just kind of talking to these guys kind of about this you know I wasn’t coaching them by any means at all just conversations playing golf with these people you know talking to them about pre-shot routines and and kind of preparing for rounds and and visualization and stuff like that and that kind of sent me down a path of realizing actually it’s something that I’m quite interested in myself so um I came back to the UK after my my period of time out there and and just looked into you know how do I go about kind of making this thing what I do so I went back to University um studied psychology um did a master’s degree then then also did a master’s degree in in sports psychology did those two things and um and yeah just just essentially started to use that to to help golfers you know what I hear and I’m sure the viewers and listeners to this are kind of taking a breath right now going you know what it’s not much as me that struggles with this sort of stuff cuz look I work on the PGA tour and I can tell you golfers listening viewing even they struggle with things that you do um they’ve just kind of learned the skills to navigate their way around it and they be are they n they’re nervous as well I I want to ask you this because in your bu own the thing that kind of caught my attention you’re like I help golfers perform under pressure and I’m like yes and then I thought about this further because there’s this kind of undercurrent assumption really it’s like yeah you know Under Pressure my skills my game whatever it is is going to diminish some and I was like everyone sort of expects that and as a golf instructor deep down I’d expect a player not to perform as well under pressure a club golfer sometimes the elite golfer and it made me wonder why like why don’t we perform well under pressure so I’d love you to kick us off there and just help us understand because I feel like that’s a good jumping off point definitely yeah definitely and I think I think the sooner as golf is that we kind of embrace that actually pressure has an effect on on our performance the the quicker we can a do something about it and the better we’re going to be prepared for that situation um like you say there I think you said something great there and it all golfers regardless of of the level I think what what some recreational golfers don’t actually realize is that some of the best golfers in the world or almost all the best golfers in the world are going to be nervous at some point it’s actually just a a human response a human emotion it’s it’s it’s just the ability to build the skills to to handle it but to your question there mark of what what causes pressure and why is it that that performance does dip when when Under Pressure it’s it’s one word and that’s that’s consequence by having consequence on a shot that we hit that is the the thing that that instigates pressure and I like to think of it in in an example of you know if you’re walking down a pavement a sidewalk you would never ever think about falling off either side of that sidewalk even though there’s cars driving past you on one side there might be some some bushes on the other side but if you had a bridge that was that same width across a canyon and there was no sides to that bridge you would not be able to walk along that in the same way because there’s that con quence there so your brain goes be super careful make sure you’re safe and all of a sudden you kind of go onto onto high alert and and this is what pressure does to us on on the golf course when there’s when there’s threats in our environment we go on to that high alert State and our brain is actively seeking safety and that’s that’s where we find us in a in a pressure situation that’s what causes those feelings of pressure yeah I got you and and you speak of threats you know the visceral threats are like bunkers and water hazards and stuff like that but but I’m guessing now maybe educated guess here please correct me or elaborate um the the threat is like all right I’m out here I’m unsure I’m going to perform poorly and then all of the stuff I got to deal with not having played well is that kind of the nucleus of all of the stuff 100% yeah 100% like the the threats can be and absolutely are you know out of bound Stakes hazards difficult shots that kind of don’t suit her eye but but some of the stuff that causes even more pressure is is kind of threats to our ego threats to kind of how we’re feeling so the people we’re playing with the the match situation you know feeling one up or one down on the on the final T is going to make you feel a different way based on on just the score even though that physical surrounding is is exactly the same but but yeah absolutely some I would actually say that those other things are are the things that we perceive as bigger threats than just the just the physical ones of of a water hazard orome out of bounds and now that you elaborate as you do it almost gets me to thinking that as far as the mental game goes and sort of dealing with said threats and then performing it’s almost harder in golf because there’s so much time off like if I’m running around on a soccer field or whatever and I’m playing tennis this continual Movement we engaged right but then between shs cuz golf you’re out there for 4 and a half hours or whatever and you’re only busy for what a few minutes getting shots and stuff so it’s actually you got to be more organized mentally I’m it’s it’s beginning to occur to me absolutely absolutely in some of those other sports you know soccer tennis whatever it may be they’re very reactionary Sports we we rely a lot on on our subconscious our unconscious mind to to essentially just provide the movements that are required to complete them you know we we have our eyes on a ball where other other players are on the pitch and a lot of those kind of calculations happen very automatically particularly for for highly skilled players but exactly as you say in golf we’ve got multiple minutes in between each shot which gives us an awful lot of time to to start thinking about plenty of other things I love it okay folks um on his Instagram feed there was a tip on how to play more subconscious golf it was actually a sweet drill but I want to start here um you talked about neural Pathways and because you can rewire your brain to so you know you can rewire neural Pathways and why are they’re so important so I feel like we need to start here if we’re going to start to take our practice game to the course and deal with pressure better and perform Under Pressure a little better I think we understand how our brain works and we’re on the way so why don’t you help us absolutely yeah so you you bring up neural Pathways there and the the understanding of what a neural pathway is is is really key when understanding a how to get better at golf and also how to how to get better at golf and also how to transfer it over to the golf course and into a into a pressure situation so a neural pathway is essentially the route within our brain that is activated whenever we complete a particular task so our golf related neural pathways are the root within our brain information travels when we have a golf club in our hand and when we’re hitting golf shops and the more quickly that information can move then the better at that skill we’re going to be so what we’d call that is a stronger neural pathway there’s a great book that explains this whole process called the Talent Code and i’ recommend everybody everybody that’s interested in this kind of stuff read that and the understanding that strengthening your Pathways is the thing that helps you to improve a skill underpins everything related to to high quality practice so if we want to strengthen an new pathway what we need to do is we need to push ourselves outside of our comfort zone in practice so the more that we can push ourselves in practice we have to solve new and increasingly more difficult problems and it’s this problem solving process that helps to strengthen those neural Pathways and then what happens at a a neurological level is they get wrapped in a a protein called myelin and that strengthens it and and helps that information to move more more quickly you use the term fascinating by the way you use the term Comfort level and it’s amazing how I see golfers where you know mentally I want to not say panic but it’s kind of some Mayhem going on in the head and they’re so used to that that that’s almost like the that pathway has been created so if there’s no worry or concern or whatever and they are outside of that kind of free flowing they start to wonder okay when are things going to start going wrong again is is am I driving here or am I sort of crazy in this observation as in kind of like even if things are going well a gol is actually thinking potentially when’s When’s the disaster no I think that’s yeah yeah that’s definitely a a a a pattern that that as golfers you know I’m a golfer myself too that that definitely is can be the case especially in parts of the game that maybe a golfer isn’t quite as confident with you know something I see a lot in golfers is if someone say a very good driver of the golf ball but maybe struggles with the putter it may be that they can hit a bad shot with the driver and there’s still no thought that that’s going to have any permanence it’s going to last any time at all the the the Panic doesn’t really set in it’s kind of like okay that was a bad one but you know the next one will be fine whereas if they were to hit a bad four foot five foot six foot p and it’s the area that maybe they’re slightly less confident in I definitely see that as as a place where that that kind of thought pattern can start it’s amazing there’s a regression to the mean with golfers too you know I was a college golf coach for 20s something years and I would almost bet my bank account on the fact that if some kid comes out and shoots 67 in the first round and his stroke averages 74 he’s going to find a way to sort of get back to 74 eventually because 67 is not Uncharted Territory but it’s just like it’s like oh goodness um is this really me and I guess that’s where the mental battle is because that’s where you to start convincing yourself that that this is now why you put the work in yes 100% And that’s an example of you know that golfer finding themselves you know way out of their comfort zone when they’ve when they’ve shot a score that is is kind of way way above their above their expectations and I think you know I think something that that makes me think of there you saying that as a as a person regressing towards their kind of mean finding finding a way of kind of creating their their stroke averages I I like to view with all the golfers that I work with that actually what their current level of golf is is a is a is a representation of their skill level so if we think about these neural Pathways the the golf that they produce their scoring average their handicap whatever it is that’s a representation of where their skill level is right now and actually the way that we get that golfer to a lower scoring average a lower handicap win more competitions whatever it is that that goal that that golfer has is we just make sure we’re doing everything that we possibly can to increase that that skill level to strengthen those neural Pathways so that that inconsistent in that inconsistency and regression to the mean just starts to regress to a to a lower mean over time if you know what I mean yeah I’m going to hit you from Left Field here I know lots of golers heck we’ve all been there um because golf is riddled with barriers you know it’s break 100 and on your your your Instagram page you have easy ways to break a 100 etc etc and everyone’s got this barrier to break and I see countless golfers like they’re looking out to break 80 and they threw 16 holes and they are six over par and couple pars and they’re shooting 78 kind of thing and then they’ll find a way to stumble to the Finish is this fitting along the same sort of a description absolutely yeah and I think that as much comes into into some of the more like kind of traditional mental game sides of it as well you know what is it that that golfer is saying to themselves on that 16th 17th T because what what we’ll probably see is that for the first 15 holes that golfer probably hasn’t thought too much about what they’re doing there they’re just hitting the shot that’s in front of them they’re obviously playing nicely so it’s kind of flowing well they’re not sort of giving themselves a bit of a lecture before it shot and then all of a sudden when they realize oh I can see the Finish Line maybe that internal conversation just just changes a little bit and it goes come just just keep it steady just keep it going and and that and when it’s that little change in how we we kind of speak to ourselves all of a sudden we can take ourselves out of that that lovely flow that we were we were in leading up to that point it’s amazing the value of staying present okay let’s get into it um that’s kind of the cerebral element of it and now you got some so I’m going to hit you with just a few observations that you’ve made and ask you to describe um there’s so many practical things that you have that people can improve their performance and the first one was a course management hack and you know if I had to sort of summarize your account I’d be like there’s a heck of a lot of course management stuff in you so you don’t go and do dumbass stuff on your way to breaking your barrier and the one was it was a tweet of sorts and you’re like consider this course management hack uh the penalty for hitting it in a fairway bunker is a half a stroke in a penalty area or Hazard is 1.5 Strokes uh penalty area is 1.5 Strokes and a hazard is two um so I want you to talk about that because I looked at this tweet and I was like okay yeah I see the Fairway and I see the Fairway bunker and then I see the water over there and now I feel hemmed in and so I make a defensive swing but if I look at this pure math of this says if I hit in the Fairway bunker I’m only going to lose a half a stroke if I hit the thing over there I’m going to lose one and a half so it’s sort of this will almost in a way allow me to swing more freely is this what you were intending with that tweet there so I like to the way I like to use kind of Strokes gained information you know this where that’s kind of gleaned from the way the way I like to use Strokes gained information when it comes to course management when it comes to oncore strategy is just to is just to understand what each spot on the golf course kind of represents as as a risk so and then rather than just thinking okay here’s here’s problem and you know like you say everything just feels hemmed in it’s more a case of right what’s the right strategy that takes as many of these things out of play without costing me too much with with regards to expected Strokes so you know it may be that there’s some holes where the water the out of bounds of the Bonker is in play it’s a 480 yard par for you know hitting a 4 IR off that te isn’t going to cut it so we’ve just got to try and hit driver into a into a tough spot and you know that is absolutely something that sometimes on the golf course we’ve just got to stand up and and commit to a shot that we we kind of don’t love the look of but at the same time as that if it were maybe a hole where there was the option to be like okay that bunker on the right hand side that’s 245 off the T I’m going to hit a shot up the right side that won’t get past 235 and if it’s a whole way that you know if it’s a you know a sub 400 yard Par Four that means that we can maybe give up .1 one shots in Distance by just just coming back a few yards hitting a three-wood hitting a fivewood whatever the the club is that gets to that point but actually not risk losing the half shot or the 1.5 or the two so I kind I like to see it as basically giving up distance and this maybe goes more to to recreational golfers because a lot of these hazards are more in play for them because their dispersion is going to be going to be wider but actually giving up 20 or 30 yards may only give up 0.1 or 0.2 whereas losing a golf ball gives up two two shots essentially so we’ve kind of got a we’ve got to hit it that 20 yards further 10 times to net off in the same place as as losing that ball you know what I love and I misspoke folks forgive me it was a fairway bunker will cost you a half a stroke a penalty area cost you one and a half strokes and a lost ball will cost you two strokes that was correct I uh transcribed it poly but what I love what you do here is that if you listen to the snoke The Strokes gained um police they’re going to tell you just blasted as far down the Fairway as what you possibly can and you had this funny image that I actually laughed out loud at and it was this guy going public service announcement and the announcement was yes if you can’t hit the ball squarely in the in the driver face don’t try and go on a speed regimen because you’re right it’s easier to play from the fairware it is and and you know that that that meme there yeah it’s it’s something that you know speed training’s very much had a lot of popularity in recent times and you know it works incredibly well for some people you know any person that’s seen Bryson Des Shambo hit a golf ball in person knows how you know impressive impressive that is and what effect it’s it’s kind of had you know some of the stuff on on speed training especially for anyone but the top 1% of golfers to be completely honest I just view it as it’s not the lowest hanging fruit and actually if if technique isn’t in a place that can handle the extra speed it’s kind of like putting an a bigger engine in a car that’s got no wheels or no brakes it’s just it’s just not really going to going to end well it’s going to end up with more shots offline worse strikes maybe not even more distance and even potentially injury if we take it even that far you’re preaching Reverend Reynolds um uh with love to all of the Power look I we we talk about it all over here but there’s a reality to it and yeah swinging at 5 miles hour faster if you can’t Square the thing up and find the Fairway it’s useless to you 100% And also too with with regards to that kind of get it as close to the green as possible strategy I think what for you know if you’re Rory maroy you know for somebody that hits it as far as he does he’s incredibly incredibly accurate you know that dispersion cone when you think the point that it passes a mere mortal drive it’s it’s it’s at a way narrower Point than it would be for for almost all all golfers that that hit it you know 60 80 yard shorter so a lot of those those hazards and and out of bound Stakes they’re not as in play for somebody who’s as highly skilled as as Rory maroy or Victor hland or you know whoever it is that that that may use a strategy of getting it down into what would be perceived as tight spots but a lot of the time too I’m a lot of this advice is kind of thinking does the way I look at it it’s like does that advice actually go and and pass down as well to Golfers who aren’t that top not not not not not 1% and and actually if we break down the numbers we see that what we actually give up in a expected Strokes gained of you know 20 yards here 30 yards here whatever it is actually the tradeoff for that extra little bit of yardage often isn’t really worth it when we consider what the cost is of of the hazards you may may then find I love it just to put a bow on the conversation people we’ve had brass and Des Shambo on the show and he said categorically at the start of the whole thing when I asked him he goes look on the speed journey I went on my first Port of Call was always accuracy and I got to tell you he is surprisingly accurate to your Rory observation for as hard as what he hits it and then um what these guys are able to do is they will be able to go fast but sort of eliminate one side of the Target too so if there’s a bunch of kingdom come down the left hand side they’re going fast but the face is not looking there when they make contact so there’s that that’s brought to bear too um okay so that’s a course management thing but now I want to bring you back to the first te because I know lots and lots and lots of people that struggle with first tea nerves can almost be debilitating at times even before the first te you know the night before the big day you know where our minds are running rampant and stuff and we almost Scuttle the day before even hit the first t- shot so so help us a little bit there yeah definitely definitely it’s it’s a it’s a place where a lot of golfers of all of all levels are are going to feel a lot of nerves I think I think a lot of it comes back to embracing that that it’s okay to be nervous that that every golfer is is nervous at some point and actually one of the biggest things is we can make our nerves and and the Panic even even more and higher if we tell ourselves we shouldn’t be nervous at all whereas actually if we’re able to remind ourselves that that nerves are okay then it actually helps to to kind of normalize the situation a little bit um so i’ say that’s the first thing just being aware of kind of how we’re talking to ourselves on on that front um the warmup is then important I think if we mix first T nerves with a lack of a warmup um that’s a bit of a recipe for disaster too because we’re we’re kind of standing there feeling pretty nervous and we we haven’t hit any shots we haven’t used our routine for anything beforehand so I think during that during that warmup it’s it’s key to kind of pick a few targets and and make sure we’re actually warming up our routines as well as actually just warming up up physically and then and then the other thing would be just making sure that we’ve got a really really strong pre-shot routine so my my kind of short hand for a really strong pre-shot routine is you you you go and watch a a pro tournament you’re going to see every single play with a with a different pre-shot routine you know we could all pick out the the specifics of certain players and their idiosyncrasies in their routine but the three things they’re all going to do is they’re all going to pick a really specific Target they’re all going to visualize the shot that they want to hit and they’re all going to be really committed so when looking to build a pre-shot routine with a golfer or if there’s any golfers out there that are looking to build a pre-shot routine if they can focus on doing those three things then that’s going to form a a pretty strong pre- routine and you’ll probably find your own your own own thing that works for you kind of around that so so yeah I’d say the biggest Keys when it comes to first T nerves or even nerves over any particular particular shots that that golfers have out on the course is make sure that we remind ourselves that that nerves are okay nerves are normal they’re they’re a human human emotion and then also make sure that we warm up and prep well and then really really make sure that we use our use our routine pick the target visualize it and and fully commit so I’m going to wrap the final two observations into one before we get to The Strokes gain stuff um you made the quote that said improving the mental game is a lot like building muscle which I loved because first off I don’t think people work on the mental game enough and if they do it’s kind of haphazard and it’s certainly not as hard as what they’d work on their physical game if indeed they’re doing that and then there was also a situ then there’s also that situ ation where you know here’s me and I’m seeing Andrew Reynolds and I’m working on my game and I’m working on my mental game and I’ve got my routine and I’m just doing all the right things but I’m just not making any Headway so I want you to advise me and people like that but then talk about this quip where you said it’s like building muscle because I think that is a wonderful way of describing it absolutely yeah and that it comes back to what we were talking about earlier about the whole whole kind of needing to push ourselves out of our comfort zone to increase skill and also to be able to to transfer our good golf from from practice to to a comp a competitive situation and the way I like to look at it is in the gym to build muscle we need to push oursel past what is comfortable so if a 12 kilogram dumbbell is comfortable we need to try and lift the 14 kilogram one until that one becomes comfortable and then we do the 16 kilogram one and we’re just constantly pushing ourselves just that little bit past our comfort zone and then as a result of that muscle muscle is built and it’s exactly the same when it comes to skill it’s just that we don’t do it with weight we do it with difficulty and variation and challenge so what we need to do is push ourselves past what is comfortable in the sense of hitting lots and lots of varied shots so different clubs at different targets I.E not repeating the same shot over and over again we need to push ourselves by creating competitive situations adding a bit of consequence to the to the shots that we’re hitting you know the the biggest thing I say to people a lot is actually we need to practice a little bit more like we did when we were kids you know when if you put a load of of Juniors around a chipping or a ping green none of them are getting a training aid or or a plane stick out they’re all saying who wants a chipping comp who wants a paring comp and they’re all competing with each other and actually they’re getting more high quality practice done than the guy that’s got his mirror out and got the stick down and and and working on that type of thing because they’re pushing themselves out of their comfort zone they’re grinding over over three foot putts they’re putting the ball behind a bush and trying to hit a flop shot over it all these different things that that push us out of our our comfort zone so yeah that’s that’s where the the quote with regards to it its light building muscle it’s just finding ways to make our practice challenging make it novel make it varied and and that really helps us to to build skill and strength strengthen those neural Pathways MH and now I’m doing all the right stuff but I’m not seeing the scores just yet help me yeah it’s an interesting one I think when when that happens with guys it it comes down to looking at right okay what where like let’s look at every single little part and and look to identify exactly kind of what’s going on so we we might look at their stats and say okay is there a particular part where somebody is is losing Strokes whether that’s off the tea whether that’s a approach um short game passing whatever it it might be is it just in competitions where it’s happening or is it you know not so good in practice and in competition um How is how’s practice structure looking or is are we getting a bit stuck in technical practice and not moving on to our our random practice and our competitive practice drills how routines are out on the golf course I’d be sort of going through all of these these things and just kind of looking to see right what might be the cause for for that not that Improvement not to be to be happening and it could be something to do with what I do do with the golfer it could be putting together some some kind of like a bit of a plan of action where we kind of look to solve the problem via another coach or another route whether it’s say a parting coach or a swing coach or or whatever it might be or it could just be as simple as there’s often a a lag when it comes to to developing skill just as as when we’re in the gym sometimes we you know somebody could lift weights for a month you know nothing’s happening nothing’s happening and then you fast forward three or six months later and they’re they’re much much stronger and and much much fitter so so yeah that that would be my thought pattern in in that situation I’m cognizant of time but I have to ask this followup I would almost say too that the golfer who we’re helping now has also perhaps got to look at the results with a different perspective you know because we are graded by the number on the bottom of our scorecard but you could go out there and kind of do everything right and then have like one or two aberration and all of a sudden the score is not manifesting really what’s been going on so perhaps it’s a change of attitude as you as you look at what’s going on too 100% 100% score is as much as we would love it to be it’s just something that’s not fully fully in our control you know we can we can thin a 7 ir and it goes to to three feet we can we can flush a 7 IR get a wind gust in it it plugs in a bunker and and that’s a a bad shot to a good shot being a a big swing in in in the overall score and and actually a golfer’s ability to to actually reflect on their game in more than just score so what did I go out there to do today and did I did I stick to that plan regardless of what the score was that’s something that’s so so important when it comes to having a strong mental game and and being able to to stay calm in those in those pressure situations yeah our most recent podcast with the PGA Tour winner Ryan brem one of the things he said he’s got you you got to love the process over the results which is so hard um okay uh the I want to do this it’s a tweet that I’m looking for right now five ways you can use Strokes gain to lower your scores um I thought this was very clever and I reached out to you because I I live in an industry when as an announcer where people can find a statistic to miss charge any point they’re trying to make um and often times the real wisdom is really diving into the numbers and you did that and so you’ve got five ways to lower scores using Strokes gained and the first one is avoid lost golf palls now this seems like logical but you say hitting a drive 20 yards farther will gain you approximately .1 of a shot a lost ball cost you one and a half to two strokes distance is helpful but not at the expense of lost balls so is this also going with different clubs of te’s or something to that effect or is it just the culmination of let’s put the ball in play and let’s go from there absolutely so it it can come in in in a variety of different ways it could be a lesser Club so giving up that small amount of yardage as we were talking about about earlier it could be choosing a different a different Target so it may be that actually we we want to play more towards the safer side of the whole you referenced earlier about taking one side out if there’s ob one side and Ru the other maybe the center point of our our kind of Zone we want to go into is actually the the left edge of the Fairway versus just just the kind of Center Point that brings more in um into play and also it comes into the the the skill portion of it too because actually the more skillful we are the less likely we are to to kind of spray it and and lose golf ball so we can actually be that that bit more aggressive but yeah in this in this example here it’s it’s looking at and going okay do I actually need to really try and get that extra whether it’s an extra 20 yards out of this drive or hit driver instead of three-wood or or the more aggressive play and actually embracing that that that that 20 yards is is only gaining us a very small amount on the scorecard and if there’s a a strong chance of of that ball going out of bounds or or into water haszard actually the the safe play in that situation makes a lot of statistical sense also just got to hit the shot you’re comfortable with I work I’m around golfers at the highest level and they Rec they recognize Strokes can but you know you get on a team like I’m just not feeling driver right now I don’t care who I am you know then you got to go with what you know work pretty well for H senson right yeah no kidding um the second one is prioritize Greens in regulation you right from 20 yards on the green a PGA Tour averages 2.2 one shots from 20 yards in the rough a PGA to a player averages 2.59 shots so that’s you missing the Target by 20 yards okay 60 ft then you’re in the Fairway versus or on the green somewhere from long range or in the rof that’s a significant distance and you basically say just be be careful with short sides in those tucked pins 100% 100% And it’s the way I look at this almost is a shot that’s 20 yards away on the Green 20 yards away in the rough is essentially the same quality of shot the only thing that matters is where our our Target is so if there’s a TP pin and by going to that pin we bring in a side of the green that that may leave a a rough lie then actually it makes so much sense to just shift our Target so that our dispersion is over as much of the green as as we possibly can because and this this goes through all skill levels that the numbers here are PGA Tour players but it it’s the same ratio when it comes to to to recreational golfers as well having the ball on the putting surface is just so so important when it comes to scoring you know greens and and two pars really really are our friend as as golfers so then you do make the smart plan you hit it on the green then it says you’re putting from 3 to 12 feet outside of 12 feet no matter how well you roll the ball it’s difficult to hold a high percentage of putts but you hold two or more 8ft putts per round and you’ve gained an entire stroke H are you talking to us about what you practice as well or what’s your take here yeah that’s that’s what this one is aimed at is it you know if if we’ve got time to to spend on our putting practice getting better in this range 3 to 12 feet is going to be way more fruitful than rolling our 18 20 25 Footers that that tiny bit better I mean don’t get me wrong if our Pace control from that distance is is not good then we absolutely need to to work on that point but as an opportunity to to to gain Strokes whether we’re 16 ft away 25 ft away the the expected number of shots doesn’t really change too much in that range but as we get inside that that 3 to 12 foot range we’ve actually got an opportunity to to gain some Strokes by by getting very good in that area so I I’m I’m a Believer that’s spending a lot of our time working on 3 to 12T puts and then some time spent lag putting is is a really really good way to focus on our our putting practice Yeah action points I love it um then number four or five chipping proximity 50% of up and down at 50% up and down success is Elite level performance you say a 50% success rate on the green is an 8ot cut this from the PGA Tour stats so in other words if you can chip it inside 8 ft you’re raising your chances correct 100% or even chip it 28 feet you know I like to think of it as around the greens we’re almost if we can hit a chip shot to eight feet that’s just a Strokes gain zero shot and a Strokes gain zero shot is never ever ever a a bad thing so rather than feeling like we we know we have to chip every single every single green side shot to 3 feet otherwise we’re we’re not chipping it well actually The Strokes we’ve lost probably in hitting it to that point where it’s not on the green so actually then hitting that Chip Shot to 8 feet is is not a bad shot at all and actually what I really like on that front is if we’re chipping to a difficult pin maybe one that’s on a here or on a point where we have to be really dicey with with trying to you know hit a high flop or something like that to get it to that really tuck point actually if we Embrace right there’s this big 8ot circle around this pin all I’m trying to do is get it somewhere in there normally what we see is that there’s probably an easier option available that’s going to mean that we take the disaster out it’s going to take out the the one where we try to hit the Flop and we go straight under it it goes a couple of a couple of yards or we get it slightly the wrong side of the tier and it it runs down far away actually just by the the spot in that eight foot Zone that we can go for actually ends up as the the better option that’s the key big number of voidance I love that okay the final one and I’ll let you go the winner is the best putter of all the best ball Strikers this is true at every level yes yes where it’s misunderstood people hear this and like yeah so I’m got to go and hit the ball better heck my daughter said this to me the other day she goes I’m not hitting my irons close enough I’m like well you hardly still are on the greens right now so the point you make is like look the winner is the person who putts the best out of all the best strikers so don’t go and go to sleep on your putting in your short game practice it’s yeah it’s a fascinating this one I think like if we you know the old saying DY for show P foro you know we’ve all we’ve all heard it and you know it’s now been demonstrated very very well that it’s just wrong you know you look at the the top 10 in the world top 10 on the PJ tour top 10 anywhere it’s it’s the best bll strikers that feel that point they the best with the best Strokes gained off the te the best Strokes gained approach numbers they those guys are consistently near the top but the interesting Twist on it the interesting thing that we see is actually then winning so actually being the one that actually comes first because it’s almost as if the the ball striking gets that golfer to that Elite level and then it’s the one that’s able to gain the most Strokes of the guys that are hitting it at that level that then wins the tournament which then leads to something that we see in progolf is that almost the people that H well almost win more than they should like they they kind of have that ability when when they’re really hot yeah to win tournaments and sometimes we see that some of the guys who’s maybe putting isn’t up there with the kind of best of the best their careers are unbelievable from a consistency level loads of top 10 loads of top fives and maybe and it’s it’s impossible to say this as if it’s a a bad thing but they don’t have that kind of like over and above kind of winning record that maybe somebody who who can get super hot with a putter does have well look no further than two of the top three players in the world right now in Scotty Sheffer and Rory mroy and this was recorded in 24 if you’re listening to this down the track you know both Dynamite ball Strikers Sheffer was substandard on the greens when he turned that around then he became unbeatable I mean he went on a terror that was biblical so yeah but your point is so well founded so I guess the marching orders you would give folks is like go and make practice count is that what you’re telling us 100% if you know if we wanted to to run a marathon time quicker we’d go out there and we’d train multiple times a week and make sure that our training was was spot on so as golfers my message is to Let’s treat our let’s treat our golf game the same way that that anyone training towards something would and let’s just get high quality practice in as much and as often as possible now listen you’ve got some very cool you you offer like courses and stuff eight week five we courses and that please tell the golfers where they can find you where they can find more stuff on that yes so yeah I’m on I’m on Instagram um pretty active on there kind of posting stuff uh at atth Cog coach um and then if you head to the Cog coach.com there’s all sorts of bits and pieces on there too and Cog is cog Andrew um tremendous stuff man keep up the great work I’m so glad you would join us because you know we’ve all kind of known it but people discount the fact that you have to work on your game mentally and you have to make your practice count even if it’s limited we we don’t have to go and wear out the practice area we just got to make our time count yes absolutely 2 to three hours a week if we can fit it in somewhere we can make some serious serious improvements to our games commit to that people he’s speaking Hey listen uh appreciate your time thank you very much thanks very much for having me e
