A Simple Stat-Tracking System That Actually Helps Your Golf Game

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And as always, I'm joined by Adam from Adam Young Golf. So today, I think we will tackle, well, I know we'll tackle two different topics. So the first will be just a simple stat tracking system that I kind of use for myself, and I think everyone can adjust on their own, so we'll kind of go through that. And then we actually got a great question from a listener of the show in response to the episode we had with Jared Tenler the other month. And Jared and I actually, Adam was unavailable, so we just recorded it separately. So we will air that on the second part of this episode to kind of go over that topic. So first, let's tackle my basic stat tracking system that I, again, I kind of use for myself. I mean, we've done stats here and there on the show quite a bit, and I think you and me are on the same page. Like, the whole point of doing it is like get to the root cause of your issues, whether it's, you know, ball striking patterns, strategic errors, mental stuff. Like, there's no point in tracking if you're not going to do anything with the information, right? Yeah, yeah, exactly. And as a coach, I often get a bunch of stats from people and it can help. Doesn't hurt, but at some point it's like, yeah, what am I getting out of this? And I end up asking them different questions that get to the root cause. Yeah, so there's obviously a lot of options at this point. You can use Stroke's gain, which would require you to track every shot with a system like Arcos or Shotscope or many of the apps and you know, Tangent as well. There's a lot of them now. And some of them are incredibly useful. I am not against using the apps. I think they're great. I think the other end of the spectrum, which would be like just doing fairways hit greens, brown up and down and pots like not enough information, specifically fairways hit and pots, brown like borderline useless on their own greens and regulation is nice because it correlates very closely with scoring. But let's face it, most people, if you look at the stats, like you could say 80 90% of golfers are hitting less than 40 or 30% of their greens. So there's not enough meat on that bone in terms of that stat to really know what's going on. So if you are inclined to track stats, the way I look at it is like two things. Can you identify your good shots? And a lot of people don't know how to do that so that you can kind of make sure you're recognizing them, internalizing them and making sure they're part of your identity and not glossing over them. More importantly, can we identify bad shots and then look for patterns in our big three ball striking strategic mistakes. Essentially look for things that are sticking out like a sore thumb over a three five 10 or more round period so that you can make adjustments and practice sessions in your on course process. I think those are the basic goals if you're going to keep track of these things like that's what you are looking to do if you want to get better at this game, right? There's just something. No other way. So I'll kind of rifle through this essentially what I'm doing is it's just a series of checks and x's to identify. Did you hit a good shot or not a good shot and I'll define what I believe those are for each category. So let's start with t shots. What's a good shot? Obviously everyone would say like, oh, you hit a fairway great. Well, if you drive it 250 and you hit a fairway with your driver and you only hit at 180 yards, is that still a good shot? Because now you've left yourself a hybrid into the green versus maybe a seven iron or nine iron. Those are wildly different shot outcomes and shot values, right? Like you're adding over half a stroke if you lost 70 yards off the tee and you were still in the fairway. Sky it down the middle of the fairway. Yeah, exactly. So again, fairways hit you tell me you hit seven out of 14 fairways. I have no idea how you hit it off the tee. And if you look at the stats between handicap levels, they're all the same. Like there is actually not a huge differentiator between like scratch 10 or 20 handicaps in terms of fairways hit. It's not that much different. So what is the difference? Yeah, we're like, it's one or two fairways. It's not that different. You got to have distance to reach the hole, right? Yeah, exactly. So what's a good shot? Distance, you have to take into distance and what you did when you missed the fairway. Those are the two big X factors that you need to track. So what I would consider a check mark first start with distance. Did you hit it with whatever club you chose off the tee, whether it was driver hybrid, four iron. Did you hit it about, you could use some judgment here, but I say like 10 to 15% of your distance. So if you hit your driver usually 230 and let's say you hit it less than 200, I'm going to say that's around the cutoff point where if you're underneath that, you're not getting the check mark. So you have to hit it close to your stock distance and I'm not do not use your best distance. So if you drive at 230, but your absolute best drive is 260, we're not judging against 260. We're judging against a typical drive for you. And if you hit it, let's say 10 to 15% less than that, that's going to get an X no matter what, because that would signify very poor impact location. You just didn't hit the ball well. And that costs you strokes. So a lot of people don't factor distance in. So that's the first pre-weck visit of getting the check mark off the tee. The second would be in play. Fairway for sure is in play, but even if you hit it in the rough, you have a clear path to the green. Essentially, do you have an opportunity to get the ball on the green with your approach shot? That gets the check mark. Anything other than that, fairway bunkers, trees, deep rough, penalty areas, water, X. So you're essentially asking yourself, did you hit a drive close to your typical distance, and did you keep it in play and have a chance to hit a green? If you did that, you get a check mark. If you didn't do that, if you hit it too short or you hit a foul ball, you get an X. That's it. I like that. Yeah, it just keeps it simple, right? Because I want people to go beyond. You know, I never like to keep a simple jump. Yeah, I know you don't want to keep it simple, I'm going to keep it simple. That's how I look back on my rounds and like I played an attorney me yesterday. I was thinking about all my t-shirts. I only had two bad drives yesterday. It was a good driving day. I didn't hit every fairway, but when I missed the fairway, I was just off the fairway and I, you know, I'm not playing most of the time people aren't playing US Open Rough. So you have a chance to hit the green. Like that is you want to become a good t-shot player. You have to factor in your distance and your playability, fairways hit. You could track it if you want, but it's just not enough information. So that's how I would view t-shots. Do you account for the fact that say two shots that go 20 yards left and one can be in the rough with a clear shot to the green, and one can be right behind a tree and you have to chip out. Do you mark those down differently, even though they're the same quality of shot? Yeah, I mean, that would be the recovery situation. one more. Yeah, you have to use a little judgment as like, are you playing an incredibly tight golf course or a wider course? So use a little judgment here in the sense that you know when you hit like a bad shot off the tee that like just didn't give you a chance to get on the green at all. But if it's a tight, tree-lined course and you just missed it, again, we'll get to the review process. But like, that's the basics of this is you're looking for like when you did miss the fairway. Was it this big foul ball that cost you or did you just miss a bit and like, you're still mostly in play? You get stuck behind a random tree like, all right, we can use some discretion there and say like, you know what it wasn't that bad of a drive? It was more of a bad break. Yeah, like in my own stat, sometimes if you hit a great drive down the fairway and it runs through the rough, obviously my tangent stats will show missed fairway. But in my own stats, I keep that as well. That was a straight drive. Yeah, that's exactly what I wanted to get. That's what I, when I look back on my rounds, like, use your instincts and again, we're looking for the big sore thumbs. Like, yeah, if you just missed it and caught a bad break, that's more bad luck than a bad shot. So again, obviously there's caveats to everything I'm saying, but these are the basics of it. Okay, moving on to approach play. Greens and regulation obviously still a great stat. Mark Brody on our show, I remember said, well, why don't you just tell me what score you shot because it correlates so closely with scoring potential. So, yeah, the check in the expert approach shots, anything on a green and regulation, obviously a check. But more importantly, it's the miss. So not all misses are created equal around the greens. So if you leave yourself a manageable wedge shot, let's call it somewhere between 15 to 20 yards of a circle around the green. That is still getting the check mark because you've left yourself a straightforward wedge shot that you can get on the putting surface and two putt most of the time. So you can make a bogey and avoid doubles and triples because that's the name of the game for handicap reduction. It's not making getting more up and down for bars all the time. It's reducing those like sloppy doubles and triples. So some people call this the near green and regulation stat, but you want to keep track of greens and regulation, but also your good misses. So if you're 150 yards out in the fairway and you miss the green, but you left yourself a pretty straightforward chip shot or you're just off the green and the rough of playing green to work with, it's still a good shot. What gets the X mark is bunkers. If you left yourself in a bunker, that's pretty much of full shot penalty for most players if you look at the stats. So inside that 20 yard zone, I'd say the exception for the X marks would be bunker or badly short sided or you're just in a bad situation where you're just like getting this on the putting surface inside of 20 feet seems like a long shot here. So really you're keeping track of good misses with your approach shots. And anything a green and regulation check mark pad on the back great job, even if it was 30 feet away like the second you get it on the green, you're scoring potential drops considerably. It's it's almost a full stroke. I believe loose Wagner did another analysis recently. He was looking at fairways hit versus greens and regulation and missing the fairway was again like 0.2.3 shot penalty missing a green almost a full stroke or more for most playing levels. It's just a big deal to hit a green and regulation and people should be excited about it. So yeah, a good approach play. It's more about not just hitting greens. It's manageable close and I cannot stress close enough. If you're outside of that 20 yard zone with your wedge, the proximity numbers start to skyrocket by handicap level. So once you get outside of 20 yards from the green, you're putting way too much pressure on your wedge game. You're going to start missing greens in general and you're also going to get the ball a lot further from the hole, which will be more three pots for double bogies. That's pretty much it on approach. Yeah, what's the difference between a 10 yard chip shot versus a 20 versus 30 versus 40 for higher handicap levels? Is that a big is a big 10 massive? Yes, like proximity. I know like obviously the difference between a three foot pot and a five foot pot. That's a huge score in differential between five foot and any other difference. It increases like once you get to 50 yards, like everyone's taking more than three shots to get up and down, even scratch players. Like I saw that on shot scopes recent report. It starts to like penalize as you get further away. And then when you get so far away, like 30, 40, 50 yards, now everyone's not getting up and down and they're taking three shots or more really even for scratch player. Yeah, 50 yards. Yeah, it's almost identical. It was just over three shots to get up and down three shots, meaning like they're going to make bogey most of the time. I would have thought that. Well, think of the proximity numbers. Like from 50 yards, you're not going to I mean, no one's hitting it inside a 10 feet. I'll get into that wedge play. No one's hitting it inside a 10 feet outside of 20, 30 yards on average. It's almost impossible to average that. Tor players don't even do that. They're in like the seven to eight foot zone on like straightforward, like close chip and pit shots. So yeah, once you get outside of 20 yards with a wedge, your expected score goes higher and higher and higher. So yeah, if you want to track what's a good approach shot, getting it close to the green in a playable spot and on the green check mark and then everything else, that's an X and you move on with wedge play. I don't think up and down percentage is helpful just because it relies too much on your putting. And again, you're not really understanding what a good wedge shot is. And if you do look at the numbers, what are reasonable proximities for wedge play by handicap level. As I said, almost no one is getting it inside a 10 foot circle on average from just about any distance. You'd have to be very, very close to the whole meaning like just off the green. So for most people, a good wedge shot and I would define that as anything inside of 50 yards, it's pretty much like 10 to 20 feet from the hole. That is a good outcome for most skill levels where they're not going to three putt because again, our goal with these shots is most people like, oh, my wedges, I got to get up and down for par. Obviously, yes, we want to do that more often. But it's really about the double bogey rates is the separating factor. And why do people make a lot of double bogeys because they don't wedge it close enough and they three pot or they chunk it and skull it and don't get it on the green in the first place. So if you want to like look at your wedge game, like what's a functional wedge game and what gets a check mark, did you get it on the putting surface from about 10 to 20 feet. So you're comfortable. You're going to two putt it worst. And if you did get out of the putting surface or you left yourself a very long pot where lagging it becomes an issue, that's a bad wedge shot. And that's where I would draw the line in the sand being like, what does a not elite, but a functional wedge game look like is, can you get the ball in that 10 to 20 foot circle? And if you do that more often, your scores are going to plummet because you will make more what I would call good bogeys and people hate hearing that, but it's the truth. Is this something you keep track of? They were the scorecard or something or is that more just in your post round review? You're looking at those things. So caveat here, you could keep this on a spreadsheet. You could write down your scorecard or you could simply just ask yourself after the round. Like I just kind of sit down whether I'm driving or afterwards. And I go through everything in my head because that's just the way I think maybe I'm a weirdo, but that's what I think about. I'm like, what was good? I think out my drives approach outs. I do think about greenson regulation a lot. And I think about, you know, when I missed it, what the misses look like, why? Again, to the review process afterwards. But, yeah, I'm with wedges. I'm like, so I would say you can adjust the numbers on the wedges based on how good you are. So I know we have maybe some scratch plus handicaps listening. All right, maybe you could adjust that from five to 15 feet. We have some beginner to intermediate players. Maybe you can adjust that from 50 to 30 feet. But essentially what you're looking for is, did you get rid of the double chips where you don't get it on the green? And you're just saying like, I got it on the putting surface where two putting was kind of like an easy job for me. And then as you get better, you can say, okay, am I getting it close enough where like one putting becomes, you know, a reasonable expectation. But again, when you do look at proximity numbers by wedge playing up and down rates, like no one's getting it up and down so much where it's automatic where you have to track that and expect it to be happening all the time. Because then you're just kind of setting yourself up for a standard that's too high. And then just don't track at all because then you'll just be frustrated. When I'm going through my round in my head, I know because we don't get everyone up and down. Yeah. But say I have two easy chips. And I don't get any of them up and down. I usually class that in my head as, oh, that was one at least one shot that I could. Yeah, that's fair because you're very good with your wedges around the green. Like you have great hands. I've seen you, when we virtually played sometimes on FaceTime, you have good hands. Like you're a good wedge player. Someone like me who struggles with the wedges. Like, yeah, my standard of success right now is like, yeah, if I hit a moderately difficult 20 yard wedge shot to 13 feet or something like that, I'd be like, okay, that's not an X. That's a check for me. Like, didn't get it to six feet, but still didn't mangle it either. And most people, like when you think of like functional wedge game, making good bogies and sprinkling in some up and down. So mostly avoid doubles and triples. And then as you get to the super elite level, then yes, adjust. Yeah, I've kind of always done this even before I knew about fractional shots. Yeah. Or that theory was around. So yeah, I wouldn't class if I had two chip shots that you'd normally get a 50% up and down rate. I wouldn't say, oh, I lost half a shot there, half a shot there, but I would inadvertently say, oh, I should have got one of those up and down. So I'm kind of doing fractional shots in a way. Or if there's maybe four longer pitches, four pitches of about 40 yards, 30 yards. And I'm like, well, if I had four attempts, usually I'll get one of them up and down. Yeah. So well, also the reason I would look back at the wedge shots, I want to isolate the wedge play and not connect the putting to it. Because yeah, if you wedged it to 11 feet and you made a tough par pot, the putting is too big of a variable to tie it together in my opinion. Again, if you looked at someone's up and down rate and isolation, it would kind of be similar to greens and regulation. Like the number is going to be so low that it's like demoralizing and not worth tracking because you're not getting any actionable information. And that's the whole point of this. So with putting, I don't do check marks and x marks. It's quite simple. You can track three pots. You know, pots per round is misleading because you don't know the starting distance of any pot. So if someone came to me and said they had 36 pots, I would say, okay, did you hit a ton of greens and regulation? Had a lot of 30 footers for birdie or, you know, was your wedge game horrible? I don't know enough about the starting distance of each pot. So that number alone is not enough information. So with putting, I think, yeah, you can keep it super simple. Like what loses strokes on the green? Like obviously three potting. So tracking your three pots is a given. If you want to go the extra mile, I would separate pots inside of 10 feet where you actually have a chance to make them into two buckets. I go about three to six feet and six to 10 feet. Three to six feet is where you have the most influence of changing your scores. If you look at the make rates by handicaps, that is a big separating area, meaning if you make more of those, you can lower your handicap a lot more. But as you get further away from the whole pudding, similar to wedge play, the separating factor begins to diminish because it gets so hard for everyone that they don't outperform each other. So six to 10 feet is fine, but just know that your make rates there are going to drop to like 20, 30, 40% of best. So yeah, I would think about how did I perform on the makeable distances and yeah, how is the three pudding and the speed control and use that as the barometer of my pudding performance versus being like, oh yeah, I had 32 pots today. Great. Like that's more tied to your ball striking than it is to your pudding. We are going to take a quick break and we will be right back. I've been wearing glasses for 30 years now and it's always been a pain to buy new ones. 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So yeah, I think again, this is a bit, I'm not saying this is the only system people should use, but this is kind of how I think about my game after my rounds. Now here's the most important part. The review process and we talk about this all the time with feedback. So when you sit down and categorize each of these shots and T-shots, approach shots, wedge play and putting, I don't necessarily want people to like, hem and haul over every single shot. It's really, you're doing two things. One, I want you to identify the good shots. I don't want you to gloss over them. There are so many rounds that I play when I think back where I'm like, "Man, I putted like crap today or I didn't hit it well off the tee." And I go back through this review process and I'm like, "Actually, wasn't that bad." Sometimes it is worse than I thought. Sometimes it is that bad, but I think if most people do this, what will happen is they will start to identify better shots than they think. And I think psychologically, that's really important for like your identity, your confidence, your enjoyment of the game. Like you want to relive these shots. And so like, yeah, you know, if I hit at 125 yards in the fairway with my nine iron or pitching wedge, whatever that club is for you, and I hit it to 25 feet on the green, I want you to be like, yeah, hell yeah, I don't gloss over that. Too many golfers do not view their rounds in the right way. They usually have too negative of a memory of everything. So I think internalizing the check marks is really important. Secondly, with the X's, I don't want you to get down on yourself. This is more of like the discovery process. And I don't want you to come up with 10 ideas. I think there's three basic buckets you're looking at. You're ball striking. Obviously, or big three, are you seeing any big patterns in driving approach play, wedge play that relate to impact location, club face control, which would be missing it way left, missing it way to the right or ground contact. So if I'm looking back on certain rounds and I say, man, you know, I didn't drive it well today because I was just healing it too much. Too many heal shots didn't hit it the distance I wanted to. I had a really poor impact location day. Or maybe today, a lot of my drives were to the left or with my iron shots, they were a bit thin or chunky, or with wedges. I want you to find those one, two or three ideas that stick out like a sore thumb. I don't want you coming up with 10 ideas. So ball striking is going to be the most important one. That's how you go to your next practice session with the right feedback. You're looking for these big trends, these big ideas and isolating them down to one of our big three faults. And then there's the other stuff, which would be strategic or decision making and then like mental process stuff. Now, sometimes it's hard to isolate them into either of these three buckets. And you don't need to do that with every single shot. You were looking for big patterns. So like if you come away from one round and being like, you know, I had a lot of x's today because I just wasn't taking enough club with my irons or I got way too cute and chased some front pins or I just didn't think about elevation change or wind like I just didn't do a good job at making good decisions today or I was in the trees and I tried to bite off more than I can chew. Technically that doesn't fall into one of the categories I discuss. But if you are going through your shots, I promise you'll start seeing these patterns. So with the x's, you're trying to classify them into these buckets, ball striking decision making or mental process. Maybe you're just being a jerk to yourself. Maybe you didn't have any process at all. Maybe you got too excited to down on yourself. Again, you think back and you kind of relive it and you're like, Oh, that's why I think this happened. That's the most important part of this. If you're not going to track your stats, don't bother. It's fine. You don't have to do this. But if you do the whole point of doing this is that I want people to sit down at the end of a round and just take five, 10 or 15 minutes, you can write them down. You can do the check marks in the x. You can just go through it in your head. I guarantee you you're gonna find a couple of big ideas that either you can work on in practice or more importantly, if you don't have time to practice, you might find easy decisions in the next rounds where you're like, yeah, I can save strokes there just by like being more disciplined to strategy or process. And yeah, look at 'em and the last point I make is don't obsess over one round. If you do this more often, hopefully if you're playing enough golf, you will see trends emerging in all these categories with the checks and x's. And then you're not overreacting to one day or another because let's face it, some days you're gonna get x marks with your driver because one pattern shows up or your irons and one part of your game is a struggle. But you take that big zoom out, like that 30,000 foot view of your game and then you look for those one, two, three big ideas that you can save strokes quickly with and tackle this stuff that actually is holding you back in your golf game versus the other option is if you don't do any analysis, then you're kind of spinning your wheels and you're not working on the right things. You end up working on what feels comfortable and what's not moving the needle. And like that's why a lot of golfers just don't get better. They just don't know what to work on. - Yeah, most people is not connected to the outcome, it's not connected to impact. - Yeah. - Just like, I just need to go and practice my games. Last round I had, I came off feeling pretty dejected because the score wasn't that good. But then doing the post round review, I realized that actually the ball striking was fine. It was literally just playing errors, club selection, target selection, starting to get greedy with the targets to try and make up for scores and maybe if you short game things here and they all misjudging wind was a big one. I play on a course called Paiute here. And if it's blowing five mile an hour in Vegas, it's always 25 mile an hour up there. It's just off the strip. - Yep. - Yeah, there's a lot of wind, errors, wind judgment errors that I'm making. So yeah, it's just a lack of playing really. - Yeah, and I think whether you do these stats or other ones, like the reason I'm bringing this up is like I really want to encourage people to do some type of post round review. Even if it's just thinking through your shots. I like the checks and the x's because I want to really differentiate between what are good shots and not good shots because a lot of people don't understand what that is. And I tried to teach people that in the four foundations of golf. And we've always kind of tried to share stats to give people perspective on outcomes on the course because most people, they hit tons of good shots for their skill level and they're totally unaware of them. And they're angry at themselves and they should be in certain instances actually like relieved and happy. And it's not good enough to be angry. - Exactly, yeah. I mean, some people just step on the course either knowingly or unknowingly, expecting a standard that they cannot play to. And that is the destroyer of golf games. So yeah, you can use this system. You can use one of the apps. We love the apps. I love it all. I'm for all of it. But for I'm mostly for is a post round review. And again, looking for patterns, putting them into buckets and saying, are these playing skill mistakes? Those are easier to clean up. Or are they ball striking mistakes? Am I seeing some big patterns? Use our big three. If you've been listening to the show, you'll know how to do that at this point. And now you have your outline of what you need to work on and adjust in the future. And keep track of this over time and not overreact to one or two round deviations because as we know, golf is chaotic. And one day, one thing will show up and the next day another. I'm looking at 5, 10, 15 round trends. So for me lately in other episodes, I discussed, yeah, I'm struggling with heel strikes now. I'm seeing it, I'm feeling it. I'm working on it. That is a main point of contention. At other times, it might be my attitude just stinks. Maybe I'm trying too hard. Maybe that's the sore thumb that's sticking out in these post round reviews. So keep it simple. Look for the big trends and review. That's it. I made a video about this. It's on my YouTube channel. So if you watched it, you literally just heard the same exact thing I discussed. So hopefully it reinforced it. But this is one of my videos on my YouTube channel recently. So I figured I would throw it out on the podcast as well. - My video is a very good. I like lots of production value to your videos, not like mine. I just turned the camera on and just start talking. But yeah, like you know. - I've got a good editor. I'm happy to share it. I've got a good editor. I don't do the editing. I'm happy to share his contact info with you. We got to get you to more YouTube videos. - Yeah, did one other day on Draw Versus Fade. - Nice. - Kind of enjoyed it. Yeah, I like doing the video of the YouTube stuff. So I'm gonna be like, "Brace him." - No. - No entertainment YouTube for us. - The TikTok dances. - Yeah. So, all right. That's the first part of this episode on my version of stats. Now we will transition to the conversation that I had with Jared Tenler based on a question we got from the show. As always, I think I mentioned in the conversation, but we love listening to questions. We try and get to as many as we can. So you can always go to AdamYoungGolf.com forward slash survey to leave us questions that we use for ideas for shows in the future. So you can always leave your questions there and hopefully we can tackle them for you. So with that, I will transfer over to the conversation with Jared now. So I'm here with Jared Tenler, who if you remember was on the show about a month ago, we were talking about a lot of topics from his new book Everyday Golf Psychology. So we covered a lot in that first episode, right Jared? - Yeah. - It was pretty intense. And naturally people hear certain things and they're like, "Well, this applies to me, but," and then they have a follow up question. So I'll tell you this up. I'll paraphrase the email that I got from Bill, who's a pretty experienced golfer. He's been playing competitive golf for a long time. I think he said his handicap was around a three or four. And essentially what he asked us was that, he heard us on the podcast talking about anxiety and fear and pressure and all these negative thoughts. And one of the interesting takeaways from Jared's book was that treat them like a distraction, which I thought is an interesting way to look at it and he had a lot more to say about that. But Bill said that the genesis of his problem is that he experiences the negative thoughts that he's trying to do what he can to not mess up. But eventually that leads to technical thoughts about the swing and it prohibits free and confidence swings. And his point was that it's not the negative thought in his opinion that was a problem. He can disregard that. It's the self-doubt and self-belief thought that the negativity creates, which is the problem. So he thinks that this self-doubt is really the limiting factor of when these negative thoughts arise. So there's a lot's unpack here. So I texted Jared and he was nice enough to come back on. So what's your initial reaction to Bill's question? Yeah, I think it's a common experience first off. Having self-doubt, having the uncertainty. And in this case, I think the other part of Bill's question is you want to become a scratch, right? And so going from 3.5 down to a scratch kind of carries with it a lot of importance, especially for somebody who's been playing for quite a while. And I would argue that the self-doubt kind of precedes the negativity. It's sort of there as a constant in the back of his mind. And so then when the negativity comes up, it's probably a more specific example. It's like, oh, OK, I'm feeling negative about this chip shot, a T-shot, whatever. And then you can kind of manage that. But then in the back of Bill's mind, is this, well, if I had a bad shot, will I become scratch? If I have a poor round, will I become scratch? And then all of a sudden, those thoughts now of the doubt become a much bigger part of the issue. And whether or not that round in particular was good or bad, the doubt has kind of come screaming out. So I would argue that the doubt is just there at all times. So that's kind of the first piece. But the reality is there's nothing inherently wrong with doubt. We just convert doubt into a question, because that's all really is. You're unsure of something. You're sure that you can become a scratch. OK, well, you don't have to know-- and I think this is a really, really important point-- you do not have to believe that you can become a scratch golfer in order to become a scratch golfer. I know that there is a lot of content out there, a lot of people in my fields believe that you have to have the self-belief. But I've seen way too many interviews from PGA tour players, from Olympic athletes, who have won tournaments or won gold medals, who said very clearly, I never believed that I could do this. I never even envisioned myself in this position. I just always wanted it, right? Key difference. You have to want it, otherwise not going to happen. But you don't have to believe that you're going to be able to get there. And so then I think if we just look at this doubt in a just more practical way, I would argue that Bill has probably spent a lot of time thinking about how to go from a three or four to a scratch. But have you really examined things clearly enough to truly create a game point? Like this is clearly something that you want badly enough to have these. But I think there's something in the back of your mind that maybe in a limiting belief kind of way is saying, oh, maybe I'll never get there. You start to have this closed door mentality. But the reality is you don't know. That's the beauty of it. That's what we talked about in our last interview, our last conversation. I talk about it in the book. Like you don't have predictive powers. You are not a psychic. So you don't know if you're ever going to get there. And that's OK. You don't have to. Don't create the false certainty just because the uncertainty exists. So I would. just be more practical. Okay, examine each aspect of your game down to mentality as well, decision making, all the stuff that you guys talk all about on this podcast all the time. But actually create a game plan. And if you need an instructor to help you with swing stuff or just course management like actually working with somebody like you really care about this, make it more of a like a practical task rather than something that's just sort of hanging out there and maybe isn't quite as defined as it needs to be to actually be achieved. Yeah, it brings up an interesting point just because I know you still play a lot of competitive golf and I do and it is quite normal to step up to the first year or make the turn at the nine's been like, you know, I don't know if I could do this, right? Like no one walks around the golf course with self belief and confidence that is just radiating from them all the time. No matter how good you get at this game and sometimes it creates like this false belief that you need that in order to make it happen. So I do like the fact that you bring up that some of the greatest of all time and people who've achieved incredible things have admitted to afterwards been like, yeah, no idea what I was doing. You guys know that we're obsessed with strike quality and you know we love training aids that don't force positions but focus more on the task itself. The strike wedge is a simple multi-use training tool that helps with low point, face strike and even path. So if you suffer with fat shots, toes, heel strikes or even a path that's producing hook or slice patterns, this is a great device to have in your bed. I use it in my coaching and I found it to be super effective for getting people to make a change. It works by basically blocking off your poor patterns and only allowing the good patterns. So over time you ingrain better impacts. Get 15% off with our code go to strike wedge.com/sweetspot and use code sweet spot. That's strike wedge.com/sweetspot using code sweet spot. It's wild. I mean I had one of my best rounds. What do we, best round I've had in 20 years, I shot 66 a few weeks ago at my home course from the back tees, relatively tough conditions, had it to four under and then you know like the toughest stretch of the golf course comes up. It's like it's just freaking hard right and made two bogies but then made another birdy, made an eagle coming in like just like kind of held it together and it's like I think those moments whether it's really at any level that is part of what we love about this game. If it was easy, no one would do it. It's like figuring out how to kind of make a slightly better decision at a time where you're having to pitch out and you're kind of pissed off because you don't want to make another bogie but look you pitch out, give yourself a 10 footer, give yourself a shot. Like having the metal like the conviction, I think sometimes with these goals right they become and again I just think from my sense and bills questions like this matters a lot. Yeah, yeah. And sometimes when you have these goals there becomes a bit more desperation behind it, a bit more of like you're kind of living and dying at every shot, every round and that just becomes a very, very difficult way to play golf. Yeah, I've always thought about it as whether you call it like a mental energy budget or or effort level. There's always this, you know, it doesn't work when every shot counts too much to you. So you're living and dying at the result of every shot. And then the other end of the spectrum where you're just like, ah, effort, I don't care at all. Like everyone's middle, I think looks a little different. But being able to control that like caring level I think is one of the hardest slash most important things to do to become a better golfer. And we're all at like a different starting point when we tee off. So yeah, every round is in the context of this handicap goal. And are you going to do it today? Like are you going to shoot that score that gives you that lower index posting and you need it? And I felt that way at times too in my game. That's when I knew I was going way overboard. And you don't have a chance because again, every shot takes on too much meaning, right? Yeah, yeah. And the antidote I think is not to not care. Exactly. Yeah. It's to fuel the caring into the things that you have more control of, right? Like, yeah, don't have as much control as you want over score. I mean, and this goes back to the conversation we had about, you know, just kind of the amount of what that's involved in the game. It is way more than people think. So are you in more control of your process? Are you in more control of adapting to the golf swing that you have that day or even as it changes throughout the round? I mean, you know, as we get older, it's like, you know, sometimes like the 15th hole back is a little bit tighter or a little bit more fatigue. It's like if you're still swinging at 100% with your driver, like, dispersion's going to be wider, right? So how well do you adapt? Like, there's just so much in the game that you can control beyond score. You funnel the caring into that. And you start to zoom out the duration with which you're trying to achieve the handicap goal. Because I don't think it's just for Bill and for most players, just about like seeing on your gym, you know, seeing that zero or seeing a plus next to your handicap like once. Like, I think if he went from, you know, achieved it once and then I was immediately back to like a four. Like, it's cool. But like, it's really cool. It was like, stay in there for the whole season. And that's something different, right? That's like kind of what I would argue is like kind of running through the finish line, not just like tapping it. And to run through the finish line, you have to focus on skill development, whether it be mental technical, physical shot selection, expectation man, but you like cross the board, right? Better equipment, better tailored equipment. I mean, there's just all these nuances that make the game so much fun. Have more fun with the challenge in dissecting the goal. And like a lot of golfers are successful elsewhere in life. I'm sure Bill, there are things that you can be leveraging in other aspects of your life that from a decision-making standpoint, planning would help you outside, you know, get this goal a bit more practical and practical and practical. And one thing that you and I were talking about before we hit the record button is just in general is like, do you have a sense of what the problem actually is? So sometimes we say things out loud that we think are the problem and with your work directly with, you know, whether it's golfers, traders, poker players, you say something that you think is your issue or even like swing instructors too, like someone goes for a lesson. They're like, yeah, I know this is definitely the problem. And then they take 10 or 15 swings. The instructor is like, that's not the problem. So in your experience, do golfers sometimes or anyone in general, they have a sense of what the issue is, but it's like it could be something else actually. Yes. And it happens with a majority of my clients. They know kind of the problems that are occurring, but then as they kind of focus more on it, it's like, oh, it's probably this, right? And they kind of bounce around sometimes. And yeah, I think the key kind of metric for yourselves is, can you clearly describe what you're struggling with within two sentences and either frame that as a problem statement or frame it as a question. And if you can't, then I would argue that you don't yet know enough about what's going on, which just means pay attention to it. Like take some notes down, study a little bit. And it doesn't have to be aggressive. Like we're not making this like a homework assignment, but if you care enough to solve a problem, right? You get a care enough to define the problem clearly. And the good thing about doing that is if you're wrong, you're going to find out pretty quickly and you're going to learn more because of it when things kind of remain a little bit too kind of undefined, right? And we're not being critical of Bill here, because I see it so often. But you know, there's a little bit of, okay, well, it's this uncertainty, maybe some limiting self belief related to the goal. And frankly, I think we're just kind of brainstorming. I mean, if I was working with them one-on-one, yeah, we don't know all we know about Bill is the statement he gave. So we're just kind of writing out, you know, how they supplies to all golfers. So it's challenging and we might be wrong, which honestly for me sucks, like I care very deeply about giving good advice, but my advice is only as good as my understanding of the problem. So being able to throw out a brainstorm of like kind of what's going on and then just sort of sit with it for a little bit, come back a couple days, play a couple rounds, you're going to learn more and can kind of iterate on it. And that's what I see with clients all the time. And I've purposely kind of designed my coaching with a questionnaire that people fill out before we even talk. And they answer these questions on their own and relax environment. And then sometimes they'll come before our first session with new thoughts about it. So yeah, and then we have the conversation and their thoughts change again. And again, it's not a criticism. It's just kind of an understanding of the process, right? And a lot of these things kind of run in the backgrounds or our minds because it's emotional stuff and mental stuff. And most people don't want to talk about it or think about it. It's like, yeah. Yeah. Well, that's the hard part. Like if you could, could you give me an example of something where someone came to you with, I think my problem is this or they didn't define it clearly enough. And then through some kind of poking around you're like, Oh, it was actually this. And here's how we dealt with it. Yeah, most common one is they've got anger issues. And whether it's chucking clubs or just getting pissed off or whether it's kind of the internal steaming. And it turns out that they have a lot of overconfidence. And it happens just within rounds, right? I mean, you talk about expectations all the time. Like expectations are kind of a primary contributor to overconfidence. But they just think their game is better than it is. They're expecting things, expecting rounds, shots, etc. to be better than they are. Then more specifically, they'll have a bad round just sort of kind of shluff it off. And then go play again, believing that they should be better just because they kind of got the bad round out of their system. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then maybe have a couple good holes and all of a sudden then things start to go off the rails again. So yeah, overconfidence is a massive one. Another big one is instances where there is a lot of fear, anxiety, uncertainty, doubt, hesitation, second guessing. And actually, it's much more about confidence. So it's really not as much about fear. It's more about You don't have as much certainty around aspects of your game that you should. Whether it was because you've got some illusions of control, whether because there's some high expectations that have damaged confidence, it's the weakened confidence that produced that. I would say those are the two by far clear examples where the problems are not exactly what they seem. Yeah, I've always found that interesting. When I look back on something like you, when you said anger and overconfidence, I thought back to when I used to have anger problems on the golf course, and it was obvious in retrospect, I believed I was entitled to a game that I hadn't prepared enough for or played enough for. When I didn't see that game, I got really angry at myself. That was very unpleasant and led me to be like, "Well, you're just not good enough to get angry at yourself." Which was the eventual realization, like, "You're just not that good." Which, yeah, that is what it is sometimes. That humility is the only way to get started. There actually has been research that was done with chess players just because it's a little bit easier. That overconfidence slows learning. It should make intuitive sense. Obviously, if you think you're better than you are, you're not really learning about the right things, or you're not actually fixing the right problems. It's silly to think that a golfer could be overconfident because you're like, "Oh, this game's so difficult that it makes you doubt yourself so much," as we said before. I think a lot of people just, they're probably not knowing that they're overconfident. They just, whether it's watching golf on TV, or just there's so many reasons for mismanaged expectations, but they're doing it without noticing it. Frankly, there's another good example of overconfidence, which is super subtle. To be clear, like, "I know you won't have to know that you're not an arrogant, boastful person." Most golfers who are overconfident are not that way. Another example that came from my community was this phrase of letting myself lose control, or not handle situations as well as they want to. That word "letting" is a very, like, I'm not being critical of language, but it illustrates a version of overconfidence with regards to emotional control. When your emotions rise too high, you are going to do dumb things, right? Emotions make us dumb. It's going to block our ability to access new knowledge, to be as clear and present, so what's right in front of us. The idea of letting myself lose control is not how it works. In order for you to gain control, you got to catch it early. It's overconfident with regards to emotional control to think that that's what's happening. You're not in control at that point. The emotions are the boss. They are not letting anything happen. They're steamrolling you. You can try to gain control earlier, and that's how you can prevent from getting to that point. The letting is a clear example of overconfidence. I always am fascinated by this stuff because I try and look at it through my own game and just paying attention. I've been starting to play more tournaments now at the season started, and whether it's myself or my friends, and we're just talking about what's going through our heads after the rounds. It's so funny. One of my close friends who is a great, great tournament player, and he's won a couple of times last few years. He's just been like, I think he had a great round of qualifying. He's like, "Man, I woke up this morning with the demons." He's like, "I had no idea what was going to happen." I think he shall one or two under. He's like, "And then the next day, during match plays, feeling good, and then it didn't work out." Same with me. I wasn't feeling good on a qualifier or qualified during match play. I'm excited to get to the course and yeah, it just didn't work out how I thought it would. You don't know what's going to happen. The predictive powers are very poor. Yeah, I think that to me is the ultimate challenge. Really understanding where the causality exists. Obviously, you look at it from ball flight laws and impact positions, but we can do the same mentally. If you can really understand what's different on those days where those demons pop up, no different than just having a bad range session. You feel great. I don't know where the golf ball is going. The year that I qualified for the mid-Aim, I could not stop thinning my irons. First two holes, just spraying it, found a way to get up and down, made a 40 footer on three for Bernie, and it was like, "Okay." My point is to really find causality. In my opinion, for me, in that qualifier, it was just accepting what I had. I think when you shoved it to the golf course without your best stuff, it really becomes much more about managing and finding a way to get it around. Just hoping that things will kind of click. But if they don't, you're fine. You know how to play that way. Yeah, I think, and you do a good job of this in everyday golf psychology, talking about upgrading your C-game, is that the better players are not shocked when they don't have their best stuff. You could argue there's obviously a more physical skill and more experience. That's what they got to that level. But you're like, "Okay, that's happening. I know I can get through this because I've done it before." There's some like bedrock there. Because the more inexperienced player is just so like taken aback by this and to your point probably when the emotion starts taking over, it's like, "I cannot believe that I was hitting it great on the range or I played well yesterday and I'm three holes in and the ball is going everywhere. I just don't get it." And that disbelief, you're torched at that point. Right? You're getting your loss. And I would argue that that's more of a technical mistake than a mental one. I have a very clear understanding of my golf swing to know how to manage whatever is there as do the better players as do you. It's like, you're never truly lost anymore. Right? Now I'm not saying that you're playing well, but like never lost. Like, the freak out disbelief is like, I don't know how to get the ball even close to where I'm wanting it to go. And I would argue that is like a perfect example of where you should just go to an instructor and say, "Here's what happens when I suck." Yeah. What adjustments should I be making to my ball position to my alignment? Now, I see it's so often. It's like, just shoulders and hips are just out of alignment. And so now you've all the sudden you start aiming farther left, coming over the top, and then you start compensating for that. Like, it's like, compensations, big-backed compensations, but it really was just some basic alignment issues. And were you properly aligned that day? It doesn't mean you're going to be striping it, but you're like, it's controllable. If you don't know that that is your tendency, then your mind goes into a tailspin, but it is the certainty going back to the uncertainty discussion earlier. It's like the certainty of, "Here are the five ways in which I can suck, and here are the five fixes those things." I mean, yeah, you can kind of play with whatever you have. That is gone. Going back to your point about, I think generally speaking, most great players are more surprised when they are striping it and hitting it perfectly. Everything is going well. Yeah. Or playing poorly. Yeah. This is wild in that way. Well, yeah, we just want to do like this mini segment, edit on to the episode that you're currently listening between Adam and myself. But yeah, everyone can find everyday golf psychology on Amazon, congrats again for getting the book out. And of course, if you haven't heard that episode, we did with Jared, came out in early May. And of course, if you did listen to that, you know that the sweet spot audience played a major, major role in the books development with over 800 people filling out Jared's survey and participating in his community. And I'll put a link in the show notes, the communities kind of live again. How's that going so far? Yeah, it's been great. Yeah, I'm kind of doing this like kind of faults and fixes very similar to our discussion now where members are posting problems. And I'm replying with some sort of short videos and building a bit of a kind of a database of content that should be easily accessible. Nice. Well, I will link to that community. It's free to join. And thanks again for giving us some of your time, Jared. Absolutely, John. I was good to see you.