Flag Hunters Golf Podcast
Hello and welcome to Flaghunters ! It is a privilege to bring to you this powerful insight into playing better Golf. In all my years of being in the game of Golf from competing at a high amateur level, to caddying, teaching, and being a overall Golf geek, I have an insatiable, curiosity driven desire to get down to the bottom of what it takes to truly get better playing the game of Golf that we all unconditionally love. This has been one of the greatest journeys of my life and I am deeply grateful for all that Golf has given me. Thank you for joining me in this incredible journey. This is my ever evolving love letter to Golf. Jesse Perryman P.S. Please Rate, Review and Subscribe !
Flag Hunters Golf Podcast
Unlocking Your Unique Path to Success with Sean Foley
Feel free to text me at (831)275-8804
What happens when you blend the wisdom of a legendary golf coach with life coaching insights? Sean Foley, a luminary in the golf world, joins us to share his transformative journey from swing coach to personal mentor. We promise you an episode filled with insights that go beyond the fairway, encouraging a deeper understanding of personal growth and introspection. Sean's unique approach challenges us to question societal norms and embrace curiosity as a path to success, not just in golf, but in life.
Explore the fascinating balance between distance and accuracy in the modern golf swing, where today's players achieve remarkable clubhead speeds without compromising precision. We compare past and present training techniques, uncovering how advancements have shifted the focus from mere accuracy to a holistic approach to player development. Learn about the essential role of mental and physical wellness and the importance of hydration, meditation, and exercise in achieving professional success. Discover why the path to unlocking your full potential is unique to you and not a one-size-fits-all solution.
Join us as we navigate the complexities of personal growth and resilience, drawing parallels between elite athletes and military training. From understanding ground reaction forces to the significance of the trail arm in golf, we discuss the intricacies of mechanics and the impact of modern sedentary lifestyles on performance. Through personal anecdotes, we highlight the importance of perspective, acceptance, and love for the game. This episode is a treasure trove of wisdom, encouraging you to apply newfound insights to both your golf game and life's journey.
To find Sean easiest, go to Instagram @seanfoleyperformance
To find Justin, his email is justin@elitegolfswing.com
To get in touch with Jesse, please text @(831)275-8804
Hello, this is Jesse Perriman of the Flag Hunters Golf Podcast. Thanks for tuning in y'all. This week we got a special one. Happy election week here for us in the United States and hope that everybody gets out, or has gotten out, to vote and to realize that your voice matters. So, going into this week's special one y'all, I'll make this intro very brief.
Speaker 1:It's with Justin, of course, an instructor at the Tanah Merah Golf Club, my podcast partner Tanah Merah Golf Club in Singapore, and our guest on this week was Sean Foley, and the conversation is deep, so just be prepared, as you listen to it, to do a lot of contemplating. Sean has done a lot of I can tell a lot of personal work, a lot of deep introspective thoughts In a coach in golf. In my opinion, being a student, I think it's very important for me to have trust in the instructor that he or she has gone down their own personal journeys and their own personal evolutions, because there's something very vital to be shared from teacher to student in this process, and Sean exemplifies this very statement in spades and Sean exemplifies this very statement in spades. I'm very appreciative of his contribution to golf and I'm very more so impressed with his contribution as a human being, and the combination of both makes for, in my opinion, would be a Jedi master of teaching. So listen to this conversation with an open mind and enjoy it. It's probably going to take a few spins around the Apple podcast or Spotify podcast button to really get what Sean is trying to say and to contemplate it and to come back with some newfound wisdom and some life skills that you can apply not only on the golf course off as well.
Speaker 1:So thanks for tuning in. Please remember to rate, review and subscribe the reviews. I love, I absolutely love. You know, feel free to hit me up. My text number is on the podcasting directories and, uh, sean has, uh, his way to get a hold of him, which I will include in the show notes as well as Justin. So cheers everyone and have a great week. Hello and welcome to another edition of the Flag Hunters Golf Podcast. I am your host, jesse Perryman, along with the instructor extraordinaire from the Tanimura Golf Club. Instructor extraordinaire from the Tanimera Golf Club. His name is Justin Justin Tang, my good friend, my fellow co-host, partner and general commiserator, and today we've got a very special man who's been a deep influence in the golf instructional space. And when you hear the words that come out of his mouth, I'm sure that you're going to come away with some really good nuggets and contemplative things to think about and apply to your game. And his name is Sean Foley. Sean. Welcome, bud, justin. Thanks, pal.
Speaker 2:Thanks for having me, boys.
Speaker 3:Thanks Jesse, Thanks Sean. I just want to say this I spent the last weekend, about two weeks ago, with Sean Foley and it was a life-changing experience and for all of you serious about getting a better golf game and living a better life, I would say this Do whatever you can to spend some time with Mr Foley in person. I used to think that there was a Mount Rushmore of golf coaches. Sean was there, along with Butch Harmon and Pete Cowan. As I delved deeply and thought about his impact on me that weekend, I realized that there's also a Mount Rushmore of life coaches and Sean is right up there. You know, Sean, you evolved from swing coach to performance coach and now you prefer to be known as a mentor who used to be a swing expert. When did that change take place?
Speaker 2:I don't think change and evolution are necessarily synonyms, right? So you know we're constantly evolving. I mean you could argue too that there's probably de-evolution, but there's, I think, an evolution that every time you're wrong once you can kind of get over it in your ego you realize that that failure, those mistakes that you made are just ladders to the next floor. And so I think I've always been fairly deep. Ever since I was a little kid, I've asked a lot of questions, always very curious, even if in society we try to remedy that curiosity, right. Like I can remember clearly as a child hearing you're too curious and curiosity killed the cat, right. And so let's just create a bunch of robots who consume things, who never really manifest any kind of true purpose within themselves, but as long as they have a nice car, their kids go to a nice college and they look happy enough, then that's probably the way right. So I think what happens as you get older and I'm still doing it, I'll probably do it till the last time I take a breath I'm still unlearning. Everything I've been taught and everything that I taught myself was important. So I think that unlearning process is, you know, we've been, we've been deluged with so much information, whether it's about the golf swing or it's about life, where it's about politics or economics or you name it, and so you know if you see a 350 pound guy in the gym, he has a six pack. You just can't see it yet. So I don't always know if it's about adding. I think often it's about stripping it, stripping it away. And so I'd say, with the golf swing, now I can't really tell you what's right, but I have a very good idea of what's wrong, and most of the time when people are coming to us for help with their swing, either one, they physically can't do it and we need to realize that right. To physically make the golf swing that Adam Scott makes you have to be a very elegant mover, very strong, have great mobility and then, more than that, you know the cool thing about seeing Adam at the President's Cup. It reminds me of when I watched Justin Rose, now from down the range rather than behind him, the way these guys still go about their craft. It looks like they're having a hard time paying the rent. It doesn't look like they're sitting on $100 million, right. They literally look like they haven't accomplished anything yet.
Speaker 2:And I think that that's the. You know, that kind of determination and love for the game and desire to be the best you can be. I don't think you can teach that. I think you can only be an example of what that is. So you know, as we're on this road, we're going to take a lot of wrong turns, um, but hopefully we get enough down that to realize that it makes no sense to keep going that way and to have to go back.
Speaker 2:And so, you know, I think, when you get to a level, because of the vulnerability you've had in the introspection and reflection, when you share that with a lot of people, I'm not really telling anyone how to live, I'm just kind of sharing. You know, this is this is something I've always looked into, this is something I've always done and it's really helped me a lot. And so you know, as we noticed last week weekend in Vietnam, you know you got people from Singapore, canada, america, japan, india, china, what, what, what is different about any of us? That really, when you look at the, when you look at the structure of a human being, there's no difference. So the difference is only the style of the person, but the dynamics that connect us all are identical. And so I don't think you can argue that. So here we are in America today on the verge of the election, and both sides have been divisive, obviously one side much more than the other, but I don't think you could actually explain to me that we're potentially even separate at all, like not even separate. So yeah, I just I think that that's kind of you know.
Speaker 2:The thing about the swing is the more time you look at the swing, then I spent more time with physio, with physios and tyros and movement experts, to realize like this theoretical model I had in my head was probably not capable. And so what should you know? If you are coaching golf, right, you should understand elementary physics it's not much more than that Human movement, anatomy and physiology, obviously, ball flight and geometry, and then how to generate velocity, and so I think everyone can be doing that, but looking differently doing it, and then we think that it's the look, that's the thing, whereas it's really not. So if you put a Lamborghini engine in a Ford car, you have a Lamborghini, and if you put a Ford engine in a Lamborghini, then you have a Ford. Right, so you're only as good as what's with is is what's with. You know of what's inside of you, but we spend so much time being concerned about what the outside is doing concerned about what the outside is doing?
Speaker 3:Why do you think there's this fixation on the look of the Sun in all your years of interacting with players and coaches of differing levels.
Speaker 2:Well, why is there so much an issue of different sects of Christianity thinking that the other one is wrong, and why is there an effect in Islam and in Buddhism, and why is there a Republican Party and then a far right wing? That, like you see, what I'm saying To me, I think, as it relates to the swing and where I've been responsible and guilty of that is that, at the end of the day, it's what the ball is doing, right, and so we've all seen a beautiful shot. But it's not to say that that beautiful shot has been created by, you know, by the, by a perfect looking move. And so I think that, of course, as human beings, you know from day one, it's apparent that how we look and the way we look is going to benefit us in life, and so it has to be more a function of vanity and ego than of it being anything more than that right, being concerned about how something looks when it works really well. You know, well, um, you know everyone.
Speaker 2:You know you take your car, say, you have a nice car and it's dirty, and you take it to get a car wash and all of a sudden it seems like it looks better. Right, so it's still the same car but it looks cleaner to the outside world, right? I mean, because the fact is you're, you're driving it because of what's under the hood, and then you're living in it. But so I don't think we can be tribally. As human being, the way we look and how we look has a lot to do with our success in the tribe from an evolutionary standpoint, right. So of course we could fall down that road of looks good goes bad.
Speaker 3:Would you also say that it's due to a lack of explanatory power of someone's system or process. So if you're teaching golf at a very rudimentary level, then I don't think your system would have the ability to explain why Jim Furyk's swing works, for example.
Speaker 2:Yes, and I would say that if you looked at Jim's swing man when that club starts coming down and gets kind of from ribcage to ribcage, downswing and follow through, you could see why he hit it straighter than anybody in his generation, right? But I think if you look at it too, you could also see why, as a fairly tall man, he didn't hit it that far. So it you see what I'm saying. You you could see exactly if you know where you're looking. You look at it and you're just like wow, no wonder he found the middle of the face, like every single time. But you could also look at it and you're just like wow, no wonder he stay on the middle of the face, like every single time. But you could also look at it and go, well, that's why he also didn't hit it as far right.
Speaker 2:So I think today's game is about really doing both right. It's uh, it's incredible to see these kids coming out of college and how far all of them hit it right and how high they can all hit it. So the model swing in 1975, when you had to hit it dead in the middle of the fairway and where accuracy super mattered. Obviously distances always mattered, but accuracy was more pivotal when the fairways were tighter and the rough was longer. And now you look at today's day and age of bomb and gouge, you know the swing isn't overly different, but it is being taught differently, right, because it's being taught to max out clubhead speed as well. And so can I do that if I get to the top and my right elbow is connected to my body. I mean, I would argue that that would be more difficult. So it's kind of trying to marry both worlds. And now, with today's day and age, you know we've been able to measure what's actually happening, right, so I'm able to really leave the thinking down to other people like Sasha McKenzie and Mark Bull, whereas I know the person in front of me. If I can get them to improve their ball striking but also improve their understanding of themselves, I think that that's just going to be way more pivotal to mentor a 21-year-old who's already playing at a top D1 school and trying to inspire them or give them a roadmap or some structure on how they become a professional.
Speaker 2:You know how many players use red light, how many players cold plunge, how many players meditate, how many players exercise. How many players watch what they eat, how many players focus on hydration. So, look, you can swing it, awesome. But as soon as you get dehydrated and your cortisol levels are too high, you're not going to perform at all. So I feel that I've learned enough now about all those to be able to help a player understand it, but also know the people that they can speak to, who are true experts in those fields. Right, so I've studied enough to where I understand the importance of it, but I'm always careful on the difference between being able to speak to someone and sound really smart and then being able to give someone something that's applicable and foundational. And this is what you do, moving forward, right.
Speaker 3:So a lot of things to unpack in the last three minutes. What you're saying is with more information these days. Now you need not trade off between distance and accuracy as they used to do in the past.
Speaker 2:Well, a good example was still going to be a trade-off, right, I mean based on the cone is when the ball's moving faster, it's just going to go. Uh, you know it's going to go more offline, right, and maybe the equipment has had a lot to do with that. Maybe if we were still hitting a persimmon driver with a tour balada, we wouldn't have really went down that road as much, right, because it would have went maybe too far offline, not sure and you said something that really really strikes a chord with jesse and myself.
Speaker 3:you're basically saying that the swing is just one part of the tournament winning equation, and that's not something that coaches at your levels necessarily talk about openly, either because maybe they don't look at things like that, or they just don't want to divulge their secrets see if I had, if I had an actual secret, um, I might be on above musk and bezos on forbes richest man list.
Speaker 2:Um, I, I look, I mean I look for it. Trust me, I'm fucking. I probably still, once in a while, you know, in from a place of insecurity, still look for it. But uh, that I guess the biggest secret is that there is no secret. Right, it's everybody, everybody has a lock and you just got to help them find the key, you know.
Speaker 1:I think, sean, I got a comment on something you said about. You know, we're looking at this thing holistically and the golf swing is a part of it at this thing holistically, and the golf swing is a part of it, it's a big part of it. But she mentioned other things as well, other intangibles that are not necessarily talked about, particularly in the main golfing periodicals. I'm not going to mention any of them by name, but one starts with a G and it ends with a D. We'll leave it at that, and there's a lot of misinformation out there.
Speaker 1:But what's interesting is now you're coming out and saying players, yes, the golf swing's a big part of it, but how you manage yourself, hey, manage yourself off the golf course. You mentioned something that I've never heard any instructor say, sean, and that is you're not going to perform well if you're dehydrated or your cortisol levels are high, and I feel like that's a foundational statement right there, my brother, how do you manage your cortisol levels when you're under the gun? And that's something that needs to be discussed even more deeply and as intricately as we have gone down the golf swing effervescent rabbit hole. That's such a huge part. The greats did it. The greats knew how to manage their cortisol levels, whether it was via breathing or whatever it was.
Speaker 2:Acceptance- I think the thing that we're the most in our society, the thing that we're the most divulged from, is proper sleep. You know, and just just just go and have, you know, have four or five good sleeps in a row, right, and then the next three nights only give yourself three hours, and so even the time you fall asleep that's going to affect it. But just you know, do that for a week, sleep three hours a night, and then the next week sleep well and tell me how different your life is. Because I think that obviously we're projecting reality from inside of ourselves. So if I'm in a shit mood, if I'm, you know, for all these physiological reasons as well, right, I think sometimes when we look at psychology, we don't give physiology enough credit. So, are you getting enough sunlight? Are you getting enough exercise? Are you breathing properly? You know these things like, are you resting well? And so the problem with the idea of hard work is, like, as a theory, it's really flawed, right, there's so many people who work their ass off and don't move forward, so it's. And then there's the next segue into, like, what smart work is, but who can really define what that is for any individual? It can't be that unique? Because I don't really think we're that unique, right? So when people like, hey, everyone's different we are, but we're not way different, right? Especially from a physiological standpoint, there's not too many people who have smoked cigarettes their whole life and breathe well, that's just the math of smoking cigarettes. I'm not saying you should or you shouldn't. I know some people love smoking and for them a life without smoking wouldn't have been a life. That's their choice, right? Who's to say what a good life is? Right?
Speaker 2:So it's funny how I was sitting there yesterday. It's amazing how automatic we are in how we defend ourselves in certain situations. So this lady was saying that her mother had died, and so I was like oh man, that's. You know, my parents are still here. So I don't really know what that is, yet I can. I can tell you oh, you know, I'll be grateful. They had such a great life, they were unbelievable people. But I have no idea how it's going to hit me yet, right, the reality of that moment. So I don't speak from, I don't speak from a place that I don't understand or try not to, right, I'm definitely getting better at it, and so the instant comment from the person next to me was how old was she, right? So here comes the validation of discomfort oh, she was 92. Oh well, she lived a good long life, right. And then the lady said, well, she really struggled with depression for the last three decades and I fucking, I almost fell over. I was like holy shit, like that just happened, right.
Speaker 2:So there's so many ways that we are that we're just defending ourselves from feeling this pain, but most often it's the pain that's imperative in the growth that we need to have Now. Pain is not a choice. Suffering is potentially optional right. And I don't mean if you're growing up in a war-torn. I'm not talking about that, I'm, you know. I'm not talking about cancer, I'm talking about within ourselves, not these uncontrollables that are complete variables. We have no control of right.
Speaker 2:So you know and you'll hear people say that on tour you know, control what you can control. Well, think about that. What does that even mean? And, and it's like it's one thing to learn it, it's another thing to realize that so much of what we do is just this automated computer program. So we have to introspectively be very, very, very deep, deep, deep about that and and what that is. So what if you're playing golf for other people? What if you're playing golf for other people? What if you're playing golf for money? What if you're playing golf?
Speaker 2:I've seen so many players get to the precipice of greatness and then fall off and then, when you go back to the example of Adam Scott and Justin Rose, they had done the same things outside of themselves and maybe lost themselves from time to time, but they still came back to the game you know, and that love for the game and the endless challenge that it is. So when we know this is an endless challenge, but we speak from a place of certainty, we're in trouble. Right, because I can say now I understand so much more than I did 10 years ago. But 20 years ago I was never really bad at getting people to hit the ball better. It's just something I've always been able to do.
Speaker 2:The reason the reasons may have changed, but the ultimate like the sell of the whole thing was that I enjoy watching people grow, I enjoy being right and I enjoy seeing people feel like they accomplished something and feeling like a small part of that. That's always been uniform, the whole time, right? So sometimes the information was helping people, sometimes the information was me protecting myself in front of the media and no one knows what that's like to be the camera on you all the time, and so you know when they make comments or they DM you or they speak from a place of like you should have done this. It's like man. You have no idea what that was like, and so I think that's how you deal with the criticism is, unless it was someone going directly through it. Even in Tiger's case, even Butch Harmon couldn't say he knew what it was like, because you know, butch, he worked with a 17 year old Tiger Woods and brought him and helped and helped him to become the greatest player ever.
Speaker 2:It's a different day when you start with someone a year after they've been divorced and you realize that their image was completely different in many ways than the truth. That's just so. How do you unpack that? But you do what you can right. You do. You do the best that. You do the best you can at that time and as long as as you can say to yourself you did best, even if it didn't work out, then you don't have any regrets, right, and so regret is something that I just I feel like you want to live without that right, because it's just always floating around in that universe of your mind and it's making decisions on your behalf. So you got to be free. You got to be able to say fuck it, you know, I'm doing my best here, and then realize that if you're not the right person, then just fall on the sword as quick as possible. And that's something I obviously wish that I had done before. But look, we'd never be. We're all where we're at today because of all the days that preceded it.
Speaker 2:So we have to be grateful for the good and the shit. You know, when we talk about gratitude, it's always about our family, our life. And what about? What? About the the time of existential fuck ups that I had from 20 to 24 years old? I mean, I look back now. That's what I should be the most grateful for, because you know, that took kind of a gifted kid who had a nice energy, who was a complete disaster, and it made me really look in the mirror. And then also, at the same point, I learned this incredible work ethic during that time, because I was so broken and so much debt that I had to work three jobs a day, had to Right Absolutely. So what.
Speaker 2:I look at that now and now I go on this trip to Vietnam. So I mean, before I come to see Justin in Vietnam, I'm In Miami, then North Carolina, then North Carolina, then to JFK. 31 hours later I get to Vietnam. Get to Vietnam Not overly affected by jet lag, feel like I'm just observing and enjoying the experience. Meet all these fantastic guys who are very challenging from a intellectual manner. I couldn't do all that Like you have to be.
Speaker 2:At what people talk about perseverance and grit. You know these are the fancy words, right? You got to have grit, you got to if I love something, right? So love is the foundation, or acceptance is the foundation of love. So, if I accept, this trip is going to pose a lot of existential challenges that I have no control of. Okay, I fully know that now. So if you put a drone on me that whole trip, the drones on me the whole time, you're never going to see me lose my head one time, not one time, okay. Now the only time that you might see me lose my head is when I've over explained something and I'm like sean, get to the fucking point here, bud, you see, but flight delays, am I gonna miss the flight? Then we we're, we're in Vietnam, literally in the typhoon Right Like literally in the typhoon.
Speaker 2:And the thing is, this resort was so sick. So when I got there I was like, oh man, those waves were like 10 to 15 feet. I was like I'm going swimming, I'm doing this. Then I look and I see a red flag and it's like, oh so if I go swimming here, I'm going to end up in Miami. So I'm not going to go swimming. But you just go with what is in front of you. It doesn't matter what I thought it would be. I don't even spend that much time even going there. Because what if I project this idea of what it's going to be and I get there and then it's not? Then I'm going to be frustrated. But the fact of the matter is that my frustration came from the image of something I'd never experienced happening. So I'm the reason I'm frustrated. It's not outside of me and I think when you deeply understand that, you know life, it doesn't make life that much easier, but it's certainly not harder. And and and that's I'm, I'm, I'm not in for you know I'm, I'm in for a. I think that's imperative.
Speaker 2:So getting a player to understand that when he is upset or she is upset at slow play, that they're. They're the one defining time, they're the one who is slowing it down. It's like I say to them all the time have you ever noticed that's a big thing I had to work on with Ben on? Ben on is the fastest player in the world and guys love playing with him because he's so fast. Now, I think he's so fast sometimes that he makes some decision mistake, right? So sometimes telling someone to slow down isn't necessarily a terrible thing, right, contemplate what you have to do. But Bennett just said man, like so slow, did you see how slow that guy was? I was like, have you ever noticed that once you recognize that they're slow, that they get even slower? And so I think that, like, we can get to where we have 182 ball speed and hit nice iron shots, but if, if he's going on the course on the PGA tour every day and he has an issue with slow play, we're not succeeding, right? I mean, that would be like being Navy seal and you just don't like when they start throwing grenades, that's war man, they throw grenades. So you, that's understanding what you're doing. It is like that's understanding what you're doing. It is like I'm playing pro golf. It is slow On Friday, people are drunk and obnoxious and yell in my backswing.
Speaker 2:I think booby traps and war are bullshit, but they happen and no one calls the lieutenant and goes. You wouldn't believe they put a booby trap on the children's toy. Yeah, you should have probably checked there. Does that make sense? Like, how can you be in the market, how can you be a trader and be upset that the market's down? It's just fucking what it does. It's what it does. So have your principles right.
Speaker 2:We all need to create in our life a perspective that ends up being an anchor, because when the seas start to get really crazy, it's going to feel like we're going to capsize. But because we know we have an anchor, we just have to deal with the uncomfort of that feeling. But that's okay because at some point that storm's going to be over and it's going to be blew out and the seas will be perfect. So when we're going through a lot of really difficult things in our life, we just have to understand that most of the time it just feels worse than it is at the moment. And think about the two of you. How many times you can look back to a time in life where you know you were so struggling and you look back now and you giggle that you got so upset about that.
Speaker 2:So I think you know these are the things that are important, because all of my players in one year are going to have golf be incredibly easy and then, for most of the time, incredibly difficult, and you can work with a guy to where the videos look the same, the numbers on the track man are the same and their results just are not near as good. I don't have an answer for that. I don't. I really don't have an answer for that. My goal at that time is not to fucking keep digging deeper into the wrong direction, you know. So it's having your principles, having your drills, having your your stuff. That that's your anchor. So what, what, what? What does your anchor look like?
Speaker 2:So I think sometimes sports performance is too much about, you know, being the best version of yourself and manifesting greatness and all that. Ok, great, but how good are you going to be when it's shit? That's really the key, right? Yep, because it's going to be. It's just the game is too hard and life is too difficult and in order for me to have a very easy going day as I'm traveling across the world. You know how many things I have to go my way, that I have no influence on, about a billion. I mean, I'm sitting in the airport and this guy's like can't believe my luggage is not here yet and I'm like how can you not believe that? It's just like normal? It's like all the time, how can can you? How can the guys like man, I can't believe how rude people are. Where have you been, bro? You've been in the jungle. Like what are you Tarzan? So I think that's a big thing is, when you get stressed and you get upset, ask yourself how much you are authoring that essay.
Speaker 3:So that's inside out thinking. Sean, can you let us share with our listeners how long it took you to get to that state? Because, man, thanks to that typhoon, I spent the weekend with you and you're right. The the day it was announced that the airport was closed, you had a smile in your face. I I was actually very surprised.
Speaker 2:And we had a grand old time drinking beer. Man, Jesse, the thing is I had to go from Vietnam to Japan to do something in Japan. And look, if you told 24-year-old Sean Foley that he was going to be doing speaking engagements in Vietnam and Japan, I'd have been like why would I be doing that? What does that mean? Right, so it's nothing I really went after. It just kind of came as I evolved, and so as you start to evolve, what you attract is probably going to change as well.
Speaker 2:And so when I heard that the airport was canceled, I just started laughing because I mean, what's my other option? It's like I feel so bad for these people in Japan who've invested all this money and time in bringing me and trust me. If I get there they won't be let down at all. I'm going to under-promise and over-deliver every single time. That is the math of being a Foley. My dad's taught me that since I was a little boy. But the two days I'm in Vietnam, they closed the airport. How many times do airports close anywhere in the world? For 31 hours, it just doesn't happen.
Speaker 2:So by the time I got to Japan, the people that picked me up at the airport so I'm like literally the only flight that gets out. So I mean, that's a miracle on its own is I get to Japan and uh, the, the lady who was picking me up at the airport and and uh, her friend. They were so relieved you should have seen how stressed they look, right, and I. I smiled and I said can I, can I teach you something? And she said, yeah. I said about 98% of the time when we worry deeply about something, it never changes the outcome of that thing. It just ruins our day until we realize what actually happened. And so I had to. I had to look, this isn't something I was born with. All this shit, I had to learn to deal with my own terrible impersonation of what was going on out there, right, and so being cynical and being this way, even though cynicism felt moral and justified and intelligent, I'm skeptical of everything I hear, but I'm not cynical of the human. I don't think it's ever been better. I don't think there's ever been a better time to be alive. But if all you did, you know what I've been doing, like the last couple of days, when I went over there to Asia, I decided to basically as much as I could stay off my phone, okay. And then I came home and felt the need to get up on what's going on with this election. And then I'm sitting there last night and I just put it on mute. I'm like man, this is just so much noise, right. Like, guess what's going to happen. Whatever's going to happen is going to happen. You can imagine oh, it's going to be like this, it's going to be like this. If we do this, we're going to go this way. If we do this, we're going to go this way. Look, america works because Americans work, right, and this is just the entertainment section of the whole thing and it just is right.
Speaker 2:So, blaming other people and blaming the economy on where you're at in your life, I appreciate that, but that's not really the math of the situation right now. Right, you need to blame yourself. It's the economy's not terrible, it's not in that place. This is not the recession. This is not the housing market thing. This is not that. So how much is propaganda and how much is true market thing? This is not that. So how much is propaganda and how much is true?
Speaker 2:And I think that, whether you're a trader, whether you're a golf pro, whether you're a politician, whether you're a doctor, I mean there was doctors completely against the vaccine and there was doctors completely for the vaccine, and so you I mean I don't know about you, jesse or Justin, but my understanding of germ theory is not that great. So I'm sitting there reading both articles and I'm like, fuck, they both feel right. Yeah, they both feel right. And so, because they both probably are right to some extent, right. But when we, when we look at what makes the noise, is, this vaccine is here to save your life and at the CDC, we're perfect and we never make a mistake and we have no corporate corruption whatsoever. Ok, so there's that one that's like way out here, and that's the other one is they're putting microchips in our bodies so they can track us. It's like, ok, well, both of those don't feel very good. So you know somebody saying, if you want to hit the ball way better and you have a neutral grip, you need to cup your left wrist as much as you can. That's probably not going to be a very good idea, unless you're short sighted in the bunker. So it has its place. But then someone saying, well, if you want to be great, you've got to bow it and side bend. Ok, well, that's not true either. So I think it's.
Speaker 2:I think the best part about staying at the fringes is really working from what you know is not right and then moving more back into the center of well, this does make sense. So if you were, if you had children, then arguably then the vaccine is unimportant. If you have parents very important. If you have comorbidities very important. If you're healthy, you're good. So I got to the point where it made sense to me in the decisions that I made. So I feel like the golf swing is very much along those lines as well. You can see Scotty Scheffler and Victor Hovland, arguably two of the best ball strikers in the world. I don't think they could be further apart on the spectrum of movement, but impact they're pretty much the same. So how do we get everyone to their version of what impact is? It's? So? It's still to this day, man. It's still so tricky.
Speaker 2:I was doing some skillless lessons yesterday with a 13 handicap, just feeling so depressed that I cannot help this guy through the Internet. But but I don't, I mean I lose. I had like a shitty hour. I'm getting it so in my head about this guy who does really nothing, to my final line as it relates to revenue, who I'm never going to meet in person, probably, but it's driving me crazy that I can't get him to understand this backswing. But I don't know that if he's sitting on Instagram and going to the range and trying to do 60 different things each day, looking for a secret. So I just have to stay with what I know I think will benefit him and then be stern about it.
Speaker 2:And then it comes back. As you know, I haven't really practiced for three weeks and I'm like, oh so, but I'm still beating myself up about that all these years in when I lose that. That's the last time I'll ever give a lesson because it shouldn't matter that much. But I shouldn't say that I don't think it matters, but it means a great deal and I think that you know there's a difference between something meaning everything and mattering. So the way my pros play golf golf it means a lot to me. But if they won the first two majors next year and in between the third major my wife was diagnosed with cancer I'd realize that it doesn't fucking matter. You know, so it, you know. Does that make sense?
Speaker 3:you know, you? You said something that that resonated deeply. We might not be where we want to be, but we are precisely where we are supposed to be. Can you share that wisdom with our listeners? I think it's got so much application to not just golf but life.
Speaker 2:Oh, I mean, yeah, I don't know where I heard that or read it. Most of the things that I say I didn't come up with, obviously, but where we're supposed to be. And so I think, like Ben on and I, when we started, ben was the new father, was putting an addition on his house. It kind of got lazy. He was kind of cruising, super gifted player, so can cruise a bit. We start making some dramatic changes. I don't understand his work ethic yet that we're not communicating well, boom, next thing, you know, we lose our card. Right, we're not communicating well, boom, next thing, you know, we lose our card, right. I'll never forget walking to that car rental in Indiana when he lost his card was literally the low point of my career. Um, within myself, because it it hadn't really, you know it, it hadn't really occurred to me that that could happen. Um, so that's arrogance, that could happen. So that's arrogance, it could easily happen. Right, I realize now. And so that's just when we had a. You know, that's when we had a tête-à-tête and Ben said, you know, I'm gonna take a couple weeks off. And I said, no, I'll see you tomorrow morning at 8am. And we need to figure this out Because we're shit, can't stand it and I it's. It's the worst. So that's when we started bankers hours and created structure in his program and kept working towards the same thing and working towards the same thing, and working towards the same thing, working towards the same thing. Then I'm sitting in a room with Justin after I gave my speech and then I forgot they were even playing in the tournament. Old Sean's literally not going to be able to give a speech because he's going to want to look at his phone, so bad, to see if we birdied or parred the last par 5.
Speaker 2:Like I used to be on Shot Tracker, jesse, like a crack addict I mean like a crack addict. I mean my shit would be shaking, I would be hitting refresh, I'd be yelling at the app and guess what? All that never changed the score right, ever, never. And my wife one time pointed out to me she's like yeah, I don't think you should be on the shot tracker anymore. I'm like, okay, good, good, good talk, right, um, but this attachment is very important, um, for human beings. So when we lost our card, we were where we're supposed to be. And when he wins in Korea that day, he's where he's supposed to be, and when he gets to the top 10 in the world, he's where he's supposed to be. And so those are two completely different Ben-ons from losing the card to the guy now.
Speaker 2:Those are two completely different Ben-ons from losing the card to the guy now. One is a mature, efficient and really, really focused on health and training, and I think he's probably lost 30 pounds since then. We hit the ball much further than we used to, he putts better than he used to, and so we've been consistent with the message and then just supportive and consistently bringing back the reminder that in the last week of our life, none of this shit that we're doing right now are we going to even think about or address right now are we going to even think about or address. So just know that's true. Know that the reasons that you will remember your life, um in a good way or a bad way will probably come from family relationships and things of that matter and and what you did to your health, um, I just don't think that anybody's going to think about that trophy that they held um that often. And I think what happens is when we see guys win more and more and more. The more and more they win the less feeling they have with it. And so you know, we need to enjoy our life, but in order to enjoy it, we probably have to do a lot of things that we don't necessarily enjoy doing, and that's where discipline takes the place of passion. And so we're at where we're supposed to be. America is where they're supposed to be. Today, right On this day, america is where it's supposed to be. There's been a ridiculous amount of misinformation, information. There's been a ridiculous amount of propaganda. There's been a ridiculous amount of partisan mathematics used to employ mistrust on people that we got. We got Israel happening. We got Ukraine happening. We created Israel. It's like we are exactly where we're supposed to be today in this complete show of a moment. That's it, right.
Speaker 2:The discussions, absence of love, absence of support, one side, gaslight issues that are super important. It's just really tricky, right, like the whole thing. I'm not saying that it's a simple solution, but we are where we're supposed to be. So the guy who's in great shape is where he's supposed to be. The guy who's not in great shape is where he's supposed to be. It's when we think we me realign with. If we're not, then I'm doing something wrong or they're doing something wrong. So am I not congruent with my message? Am I spending enough time with them? Am I too busy chasing other things? Are they working as hard as they were when they were succeeding things? Are they working as hard as they were when they were succeeding where it's all that right? So I just think it's a good way to kind of the idea of I'm at where I'm supposed to be.
Speaker 2:Last year at this time I was going in for a knee surgery, ended up finding out that I had rheumatoid arthritis and and gout, and so I didn because we weren't treating it properly. It never got better because we didn't know what to treat. And then I started to understand what to treat, went deep down the dark web into potential treatments that I've never heard about in the West, knowing that we live in a pharmaceutical industrial complex where I think one of the things that people learn in med school is how to write prescriptions is. We're not, you know, we're not deeply thinking about problems. What, how come? How does the autoimmune, how does something autoimmune occur? So look everywhere you can at what could potentially cause autoimmune issues, what is a potential way to treat it? So now I'm sitting here in better health than I was at 35, because I'm where I'm supposed to be. So when I was there last year, I said to myself okay, I'm where I'm supposed to be, but is this something that I have to accept and be here, or is this something that I can address and improve upon? So that's kind of nonstop Jesse running in my head all the time, like it doesn't.
Speaker 2:I probably spend more time thinking about my players than I do about my own kids. You know, I don't think that's a. I don't think that's a bad thing, but I think that the thing about being a good dad or a good coach is having love for who you're dealing with, and that doesn't mean it's going to make you perfect. I've made a bunch of mistakes. I mean my son, who's 16, drops F-bombs all the time. He didn't learn it anywhere else, right, so, but, but, but, but, but the. You know, the funny thing too is that you know we go to these things and we listen to comedians and all they do is swear and we laugh our ass off. And then when a teacher in school swears, we say oh, you're gone. It's like there's too many misalignments in our message.
Speaker 3:Double standards.
Speaker 2:So that's, that's kind of the idea behind the supposed to be. That's kind of the idea behind the supposed to be, and I think that probably emanated over time through Eastern philosophy and through Buddhism or Taoism.
Speaker 3:You know coaching is in your lifeblood and when you were playing college golf in Tennessee, you coached your opponents, boyd Mitchell and Steve Diamond, to a 64 and 65, to your own detriment. Have you always been wired to coach people?
Speaker 2:Yeah, but trust me, my kids hate it because they're like dude, I want a dad, not a coach, Right, and I'm like, well, isn't a dad a coach? Kind of. Isn't that actually what he is? Yeah, but they're over it, right it's. And I think the thing that's great about them is my oldest son, quinn, is pretty much my only professor for the rest of my life, because whenever I do something out of what I didactically speak about, he fucking points it out instantly. He's like, ah, so much for the whole inside out thing there, eh, dad. So the good part is that one, yes, when I'm not perfect, and two, at least some of it's getting in there, you know.
Speaker 1:You got to love your kids. They're the instant truth serum.
Speaker 2:Oh the instant truth serum. Oh, the instant truth serum. Yeah, the thing is because I think they show you deeply where you're at, because the love is so unconditional and that there's so much safety within the relationship is that you can literally be the worst version of yourself in front of them and think somehow deeply within you that they need to accept that because they're your family. So I think the outside world, like when I go out on my day, it doesn't even have an ability to change my heart rate by by one point, but my kids, man, they still show me that I'm probably miles away where I need to be.
Speaker 1:I think there's a lot of us that would agree with that. Yeah, oh yeah.
Speaker 2:But that's the thing is, when I do things like this, people are sometimes surprised by the vulnerability or the admission of of of the fact that you recognize all these things within yourself. That's imperative, like that's. You know that. That that's imperative, like that's. You know that. That that's imperative, you know. Um, it it takes, you know it. It takes. It takes courage, like I remember in my early 20s when I started kind of unlearning history and economics and stuff like that, I was so pissed off all the time that I'd been so so lied to um in so many ways. But now I just look back at it and realize that most people were doing their best from their own level of understanding and I think when you understand that that that that creates, you know that decreases conflict and that's really what it's about, right? I don't want to have conflict. There's a reason. There is a conflict, all right. So how unavoidable, mathematically, is a conflict? So I would say every major world conflict we're having right now is completely avoidable. But you have to remove history, you have to remove religion and you have to remove, you have to remove greed and power. So people just believe what they want to believe, right? So buddies in my neighborhood, they're like you know, this needs to be a Christian nation again. And it's like, guys, the founding fathers were so against that and you quote them as they were for that. They were deists at best. So let's like I'm not saying that's a terrible thing, I'm not saying anything. I'm not saying it needs to be anything, but to me, that you can practice any belief you have in America is one of those things that separates it from everywhere else. That's what makes it so special is that we are accepting of the fact that, of that being the case. So when you're saying that that's not America, that's not America at all. That's not at all what America's foundation was. It has nothing to do with the Constitution, has nothing to do with the founding fathers. So this is the America you've created in your own mind. Because do you really care about America or do you just care about your place in America? That's my question. That's my question, right? Because if we cared about America as a whole, we wouldn't be feeding our kids all the shit we are. We'd ban all these foods that are banned in other countries. We'd have way better welfare programs for children. There would be so much that we would be doing if we ultimately cared about America. But look, we're survivors, right, we're basically well-groomed primates. We're concerned about our place in the tribe, not really the tribe, right? So what does that mean? To care about America? That means probably to be a social worker. It probably doesn't mean to be an investment banker, because that position is going to affect America wholeheartedly, like. That's just what I'm saying. It's it's in golf.
Speaker 2:We'll have the same type of misinformation leading to this how many people try to get shallow and how many people try to get open? Ok, it's not wrong. George Gankis is brilliant, it's not wrong. Right, it's like it is not wrong. But you know, we have these different schools of thought. And so, because Mac O'Grady never spoke about that, it can't be right. Well, that's just religion again. Right, that's just religion again.
Speaker 2:I mean how many people? I mean Mac has probably influenced instruction more than anyone of all time, but I don't even think it's close. But I mean how many players that he worked with truly had the best years of their career? None of them, right. Maybe you could say Grant Wade Right, right, but Grant is Grant. Grant's brilliant, like that. Like that really, really works for Grant. But imagine trying to teach Boo Weakley that, or even trying to teach Sebi that he's not wrong. Ok, so if I, if I said to you, jesse, if you bench, press 225 for 10 reps, you will get stronger, I'm not wrong. But if you can only bench 110 pounds, then I'm potentially putting you in a place where you could kill yourself. So it has to be what's correct in that moment and that you know. I think that's the tricky thing. I probably still make mistakes, that I would say, like the cardinal sins are kind of over, but I'm still readily making mistakes by the hour so let's talk about two hot topics in golf right now.
Speaker 3:You mentioned being open and shallow. I want to talk about steepness, angle of attack, as it relates to the short game. That was a hot topic. Open forum 10 let's go, man. Why is that a hot topic, right?
Speaker 2:how can that be a hot topic? Right? How can that be a hot topic? I think it, as a topic member. What you're coaching is there to do one thing is provide you revenue Revenue right, we're all trying to make a living, all right, and of course we're.
Speaker 2:Most people coaching golf got into it because they enjoy it and they enjoy watching people improve. Ok, I think social media has made that maybe a little more tricky, because you can really build a massive brand very quickly by sounding smart. Right, so you can learn a lot more now than we could in our generation and way quicker, right. But most of the great stuff I learned about warfare was sitting in a trench for a year avoiding mortar shells and sniper fire, so I can't learn that on paper, right. So like when to attack? Right, so like when to attack? Right, like these kinds of ideas. So nothing will ever replace trial and error and being one-on-one with a human being and watching and and with a sensitive mind. What's helping people? So short game. When you finish playing golf, people ask you one thing what'd you shoot? All, right, so for most golfers, if all they did was go to the golf course and brought enough clubs to play around from 30 yards in, they'd be able to tell people they shot better scores. Okay, yeah, as short game relates to the pga tour, it is the spat that one is measured the most improperly because strokes gained around the green. None of that was about strokes gained around the green, right. All that was just about being smart, like.
Speaker 2:So for me, when you say, look, we, we did some chipping on force plates, this is what we found, I mean I get it Like. Like I like the fact that you, factually, are pointing out that on force plates, you saw this, but what did you think you were going to see? You know what I mean. Like I hope it wasn't massive peaks in anything. So it's. It's like if force precedes motion, then what did we think we were going to see?
Speaker 2:So this is a two-hour discussion, an argument between being shallow versus being steep. Okay, I think I could teach a lot more people to chip like steve stricker than I could the other way. Okay, so that's my preference is going to be I'm going to teach more of a Stricker thing, okay, but basically, you have to look at the person in front of you and what are they doing well, and what are they doing not. Oh. So what we do is, when we become steep chipping coaches or shallow chipping coaches, we don't see what's in front of us. We just see this person needs to be steeper, this person needs to be shallower. This person doesn't hit behind the ball enough. Is it landing kind of in a region that they need it to land in order to roll to the hole, to where they have a makeable putt, or at least they don't make a double, they make a bogey instead of a double, or they make a par instead of a bogey. Right, like we have to start. We have to start with that.
Speaker 2:So, also, like the turf that people grow up on from so many of the guys who like crazy, crazy short games we're all from that sand belt in Australia. You know, green was firm, graham was firm, everything was like a. Everything was the green complexes were like a bowl. Okay, so they either smash it into the mound and learn how to stop it with with all that, right, or they go upstairs with it. But I mean to a fault. They all could do it.
Speaker 2:All great bunker players, little skittish with the driver. There was a lot of. You know, there was a lot of movement in here, so we're not going to see for lack of a better word stiff-wristed. We don't see many good stiff-wristed bunker players and we don't see many loose-wristed great iron players, right? So I would say like, did great iron players? Right? So I would say like, as I've seen in golf instruction, this time way on, great players are using a lot less radial in the backswing than they used to. Maybe that is a function of the equipment, maybe it is a function of them, you know, not really getting overcoached, don't know. Okay, but I guarantee you their arm is still doing the things that it did when we threw spears in evolution.
Speaker 2:So when somebody is building a business on, look at this 16 down, look at the spin. We already know you've already sold us this a hundred times. Okay, I'm not really a short game coach, but I can go and hit down and hit almost up and create the same amount of spins. If I change my interaction in how open or close the faces to the pad, one is going to be a higher shot that stops quicker and one's going to be a lower shot that stops on demand. What shot do you need? So imagine on any given day if we were able to get attack angle information. If a world-class player missed nine greens and got up and down nine times, how different all of those would be.
Speaker 2:So how come we didn't have a discussion on how to build better chipping environments for people to learn what they're skilled at and what they're not skilled at? Because you probably shouldn't do something you're not good at first. Let's start with that, okay, and then, in order for you to, you know what, though? I really can't hit a flop shot. Well, if you want to play better golf, you probably need to know how to hit a flop shot, right.
Speaker 2:If it's five down or 16 down, does it matter? It doesn't matter. For somebody, being way more down is going to help them, because I haven't had that much short game coaching. I'm not sure to what degree that is. If we looked at a PGA Tour player to a middle pin from 20 yards away in the middle of the fairway, what would we see? We'd probably see some differences, but I'm gonna imagine we're gonna be probably between five and eight down. But then what gives me the down? Like? What are the downs? What are the ups? Sometimes you can see someone at impact at four degrees up on a driver and it's a shit show because of that, and sometimes someone's four degrees up and that's why it's so efficient. It's not that it's four, it's how you get to four.
Speaker 3:Right, that's what Trent men doesn't tell you.
Speaker 2:Well, I made, trust me, I made that mistake a billion times right. I remember watching Hunter Mahan man, oh and Hunter hitting six down on a three wood and me and the ping guys going that's not right. Right should be about one right. But then I look up in the air and I look at this 257 yard great launch, plenty of spin over and over same golf shot where he's literally hitting a push draw with only his attacking. So is that wrong? Yeah, could we make it more efficient? Sure we could, but how much could we lose by trying to do that? So if trying to gain 1% or 2% could diminish us by 20%, we're just not even going to go there.
Speaker 3:I think a lot of coaches don't understand what you just said. They're willing to give up 20% in order to get that one to 2%. For perfection's sake.
Speaker 2:Yeah it. You know what for a human being hit a three wood off the deck. It looked pretty perfect to me, like if I'd never seen a single number in my life, I'd been like, do that, do that? So that's the. That's why you got to understand the, the numbers.
Speaker 2:So yeah, if a guy hits golf balls, boat wristed and his hand pass really out coming down, he probably doesn't want to try to hit shallow draws when he's chipping because that's just not even in his dna. So then it makes sense. I get it. But how many people are actually that way? So you, you know, last time I checked we have a lot of people who are forced to early extend in a way to decelerate enough that they can have some attempt at squaring the club face. So what's the difference between a pro golfer and an amateur? Amateurs love when they hook it and pros don't mind when they slice it. They definitely don't want to hook it. So what's the difference? One closes the face at much greater rates than the other. So how do we get to where pros maybe don't close it as much, and how do we get amateurs to close it? But you listen to all these young instructors who watch Mike Bender on the internet and go man, look at what he's coaching. No, I coach that stuff to everyone who slices it. Okay, he has a wait list, probably between now and two years from now, because a lot of people take lessons, they hit it better and they tell their friends and then their friends come, and then their friends see them play and they come. And so you can't be, you can't run a business like that for all those years where if you're in the business of teaching people how to hit an overdraw, then amateur golf is going to love you, right, but within what you do, do you need to use images of guys who won the last tournament saying, look, they're doing it here? No, you don't, just keep it at where it's at. Just keep it where it's at, right, I don't care who knows if I'm helping people Right, and that's the.
Speaker 2:That's the tricky thing for me now is like social media is such a double-edged sword for me. I mean, you know, justin, you've known about me and people who knew me for a long time. I mean I was the last to get on that and I still don't know where I sit with it. It's just a tricky thing, but also it's where today's day and age is so I mean, you know, when I told my kids that I was going to give a lesson to Grant Horvat, who's a YouTube golf sense since all of my son's friends were like in off for the first time that I was giving a lesson to Grant Horvat Not, not a major winner, not a none of that, none of that.
Speaker 2:A guy who's on YouTube golf, who makes golf look fun, who's a lovely kid, like great kid, works hard, loves the game. You know, hats off to him. But this guy's making bigger deals from TaylorMade than PGA Tour players are because he's got more eyeballs on it. Whether I think that that's correct or not, it doesn't really matter, because the market supports that. That's where we're at. So I would argue that Micah Morris and Grant Horvat and Rick Shields and all those guys they're probably growing golf more than the PGA of America is. So I'm in support, right, I'm in support. I want to see everyone do well. Man, you know what I mean. I want to see everyone do well, um, because if, if golf is growing, then all of us are in a better place because of it, right? But it was amazing, like to mention that.
Speaker 2:And then I looked at the kids. There's 10 of them in the room. For some reason, my house is like the spot where they all want to hang out. Um, I'm trying to change it, um, by yelling more, but it's not working. Um, we've, actually we've lost a couple. They're, they're, they're about six, four, justin, and they're incredibly intimidated by by by me at five foot six. Um, they left some garbage outside and I lost my mind on these kids. But but that, like that's it, like, why not? Why do we not want to see?
Speaker 2:I had to ask myself that at one point years ago, like I could find myself getting pissed off when other people were having success at what I did, and I just said, man, you need to get to the bottom of this, cause this is, this is not good, this is a problem, this is like cancer. You know what I mean. You can't see it, but it's just metastasizing slowly until it's too late. And so how can I not be happy to see people, especially when I? So it doesn't mean I like you, okay, but I respect what you're doing for a living, because I know what it takes. I know the amount of work, I know the amount of doubt, I know the amount of pain. I know the amount of sacrifice from the family, so I can at least support you knowing of what it takes.
Speaker 2:And ever since that day, regardless of where it is around the world, I'm the first person to text that coach, I'm the first person to text that caddy, and if I can't find their number, I'm going to stop whatever I'm doing to do that. Well, it doesn't mean I might not go to dinner with them, but yo I can at least respect the fact that they put all of themselves into this and they succeeded. Whether I agree or disagree with them, it doesn't really matter. You know that's mature. You know, when people say you know you just got to mature, that's a big word. What does that mean? Like to be mature? What does that mean? Right, it's a lot more than just saying yeah, he's matured, no, he's understanding at a different level. It's not really. I know plenty of 60 year olds who have not matured at all. It's not like a thing that maturity comes with age. I don't know, man, I can't necessarily say that's a one-to-one ratios. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Agreed. Another hot topic for splits.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, look, it's just another, it's another cog in the wheel, right, it's, it's, it's another cog in the wheel. But I mean, but it's also right, it's a ground reaction force. So how many people who have come to me who are 15 handicaps which is probably 95 percent of the people I've coached in my life Right, how many people aren't using the ground right versus not using the grip right? Do you know what I mean? Like, yeah, like we, we, we, we did enough stuff. When, when david woods and I created pro sender, we, I had no interest. Like, that's the first time I've ever been part of a training aid. And of course, that training aid leads into the accumulators in the golf machine, right, but like, I'm never gonna do something like that to build a brand or to make money off of it, if it's shit. I mean, if you knew all the things I've turned down, which is almost everything, I could have made way more money. But I couldn't see myself on a TV commercial next to that product. To do what To like, get a nicer BMW who cares Right. To do what To like, get a nicer BMW who cares right. So when I did that, there's a whole sect of people that came out and we put it on 3D. We worked with Will Wu to understand if this thing is good in motor skill learning or not. We did all these things that preceded investing a shitload of money into with the hope that it would do well.
Speaker 2:Right, we see when people use it properly, who are a 15 handicap. We don't really need to measure it. We can see that it's better. I can see it on their face, I can hear it at impact. We can see that it's better. I can see it on their face, I can hear it at impact. But how many players' right arm on tour is this bent and their right wrist in that position Just not happening. It's not happening, okay.
Speaker 2:So why do Cameron Champ and Waco Neiman create different GRF pattern than Scottie Scheffler? I think a lot of it has to do where the weight of the club is coming down Period. Okay, if you're Scottie and that thing's coming down in front of you, you're probably going to have to slide forward a long time as you're going into extension phase to not cut across it too much. That's why, whenever he goes to hit the guaranteed start left but he literally spins out like a tornado, ok, but when you watch him hit balls on the range. If he's kind of hitting a high draw his feet don't move that. So it's a it's a, it's a reaction.
Speaker 2:So if I go and I get on force plates and I start to move my forces more and do what I need to do, I'm not saying that those things are not occurring. I'm not saying that couple forces don't create rotation. I'm not saying any of that. I'm just saying none of that's going to make my arms. And how many times have I been at an event where I'm doing a charity event and there's a guy who's been paralyzed, who's in an adaptive golf cart, who's smashing drivers on the ring and he's just in a seatbelt and he's just going from here to here.
Speaker 2:So is it? Would it be a better metric of force plate if we were looking at power lifting? Maybe, olympic lifting probably, but the golf club's not that heavy. So I definitely need to be able to create friction. You know, there there is going to be a relative force. I need to be able to create friction so I don't fall over.
Speaker 2:But telling somebody who's coming over the top with an open face that they're not getting their pressure forward, why would they? They're trying to get the hand path to go left as fast as they can to slam the face shut. So getting them to do that now brings them in with an open face and they're blocked out. So now it's even more of a block flight. So it's like this is all things that I that I that I worked on. The products themselves are amazing. The measurement that they have is of great value, but it's just when I take people to the top on fourth place and I had, I had them as early as anybody and I would change certain things up here, I would see remarkably different reactions.
Speaker 2:So could I, could I know more to benefit my tour players? Like if I had Scott Lynn's brain and knew what Scott Lynn knew about ground reaction forces? I had Scott Lynn's brain and knew what Scott Lynn knew about ground reaction forces, would that help me benefit my players? I think it could, for sure it would. But I look at the fact that they're stressed out about life which is fine, potentially on their phone till 11 at night. I've lost their purpose in why they're doing what they're doing. I will just like as it relates to it there's enough people in the industry. There's enough jobs. Okay, we have enough elders in any tribe to help anyone grow.
Speaker 2:If I feel like that is something that needs to be a solution, then I will go ahead and consult and pay those people to help me with that. I will go ahead and consult and pay those people to help me with that, but when I just look at it, I don't think that either one. For me 3D my guy's always been Mark Bull. Mark Bull has forgot more about 3D than I will ever know. So why would I bother spending all this time away from my family and away from doing what I know I can do and what I'm good at to learn something that's potentially three or four percent more of what I need to understand? So it's utilizing other people in those spaces to help me if needed.
Speaker 2:And Mark Ball and I have never got together where he has said something that I didn't even just realize by watching someone hit golf balls, and so when Mark says that's good, I like it. We're looking to see. Mark can see injuries like nine months in advance, right, and the guy's amazing. I mean for anybody watching this who love it, I mean the best money you can spend as it relates to golf instruction would be being on Mark's um, on mark's website, on bull 3d um. He's not even speaking from a place of certainty. He's so open, he's evolving constantly, he's doing this, this and that, but after all of his studies he said the most important part about the golf swing is the trail arm. You don't think the most important part about throwing a spear was the trail arm? You don't think the most important part about throwing a spear was the trail arm? You don't think the most important part about evolutionary movement for a right-handed person was probably the right arm? We punched with it, we grabbed with it, we cooked with it. So it makes complete sense. So it's not like it's.
Speaker 2:I think people get the wrong idea. Like I'm shitting on ground reaction forces. By no, by no means am I. I'm just saying is that, as it relates to me making a living at golf, you know what I learned about using the hands and arms properly and how to support that with the pivot is more important than what I'm doing. And the thing too is like my best friends on tour are Kairos and Osteos, so they don't even have one player whose foot works properly. Okay, like Justin, you have a seven and five-year-old daughter. Their feet probably still work pretty well, right, you know, you sit there in these airports all over the world and you watch. Little kids watch a one hour movie and a deep Sherpa squat. I don't know a 60 year old who can do that. I bet you, if you could do that, your golf swing is going to be way, way better. Right, so it's.
Speaker 2:We are in the proper movement and we're taken out of the movement by a sedentary society. Right, when do human beings first start to get back pain? When we put them in chairs at school for seven hours a day? Right, that's the advent of the back pain. So, to me, when I speak to them and they're like well, you know, somebody's, like this guy has to go more vertical. And they're like this guy can't even use his big toe. So if you can't use your big toe, then you can't use your glute. So what is this vertical thing? What am I measuring now? Like, so it's so tricky because they've screwed my head up so much with. This person's tibia doesn't move properly. So you're going to see that up the chain and dah, dah, dah, dah, dah. The go-to is that.
Speaker 2:I always know that if I can change the position of the club face and the movement of the golf club, we can hit better shots, right. So for me, to this day, if I was only able to use one piece of technology, it would you know it would have to be something that was discerning, ballplay and then, if you can use them together, right. The thing I love about being an investor in Sportsbox is that we are making 3D less expensive. Less expensive. It has been tested against everything. It is still giving you high-level information and I think, through the app, the visuals that people get of 3D is so much more, because when I used to sit with Chris Welsh and all these guys as I was trying to learn this stuff, when I saw human movement as a graph, I was so, like, couldn't see it, like at all, could not see it. So I think there's a lot of people who need to be teaching instructors and then there's people who need to be teaching players, and sometimes that's high level, sometimes that's mid amateur, sometimes that's beginners.
Speaker 2:I've lately I've had to give a couple lessons to a beginner. I don't even know where to start. I'm like what do you do? What, what, what, what, what like, what do you actually do? Like, I'm sure if all I was going to do was coach beginner golfers for the next 10 years, how I would feel about how you learn is completely different.
Speaker 2:There wouldn't be much of a focus on result. I don't even know if I would even put a golf ball there right. Maybe I'd have them on a tennis court learning a forehand. Maybe I'd be teaching them how to throw Frisbees this way. Maybe I'd be teaching them how to stretch so they could actually maybe maintain some level of side bend. I don't. I'm not sure because I think for the most part you know what. What does the beginner golfer do? Probably the worst is they probably stand and grip the club the worst. So when I'm with a tour player, I probably need to pay attention to how he's gripping the club and how he's standing. It's not going to be as obvious, but it's. It's still going to be important, right?
Speaker 3:Yep, yeah, because the hands are the only appendages that you have in contact with the tool yeah, yeah, no.
Speaker 2:So so you know I, I guess I have a decent understanding of how it all kind of figures into each other, but it's really difficult, you know, when you see somebody you know sit there. And two things that really blew me away was watching this guy carry a driver 290 yards paralyzed and sitting in a golf cart. Now, of course the golf cart is creating friction with the ground. Of course he's harnessed into his seatbelt. I'm not saying that's not helping, he's not just sitting, he's not just floating in space swinging his arms. I understand that. Who doesn't know that? Right?
Speaker 2:But then I remember in 2003, I was the director of instruction at Glen Abbey and RBC Bank had hired Jason Zubak, canadian long drive goat and one of the great long drivers of all time. Right, and a brilliant, fantastic guy. Like can't say enough about him. And you know he's making this swing and you can see all this stuff happening. And you know he looks like he's in the Olympics as a power lifter and he looks amazing, right. And then he gets. He tees up a ball like probably a foot and a half off the ground. Ball like probably a foot and a half off the ground. Yeah, about foot and a half off the ground, gets on his knee on a physio ball you know, like a swedish ball, yeah and gets on a physio ball, so his knees are on it, he's clamping it, so there's still enough friction there with the ground and basically goes from here to here and carries it 350 yards. You, you can't unsee that right.
Speaker 2:So when somebody else is saying, if you don't do this, you can't play, it's like no, I've already seen that's not true, like you see what I'm saying. So like no one. Like if you take cyanide, most likely you will die okay, that's a one-to-one ratio. If you take cyanide, most likely you will die Okay, that's a one-to-one ratio. If you don't drink water, you will be dehydrated. Your cells won't communicate as well. We can say that those are based in certainty, but I think, because golf is such an amalgamation of so many different sciences, to say that anything is certain is just really yes. Do we need to create pressure to the ground to create friction? Yes, can we fire a cannon from a canoe? No, but when I watch amateurs play golf, the top of their backswing looks a hell of a lot different than your normal pga tour player period right and from the top of the backswing to impact. How much time do I have to really input anything else into it? Not a lot, right? Not a lot.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I always tell my clients the setup and your grip is one of the few instances in the golf swing where you can actually look like a professional, so make the most of it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, you know, start good, end good, right it's. You know, if you take Lewis Hamilton and he's in the top car and he's the top driver and he's using the wrong tires in the rain, he's going to finish 20th, if he finishes at all. So you know, you can't. You can't build skyscrapers if you don't have an incredibly strong foundation. You just can't build skyscrapers if you don't have an incredibly strong foundation. You just can't see the foundation. All you're going to see is 150 stories, but you won't see what it's built on Right. And the funny thing is I have a French bulldog that thinks that she's like a German shepherd attack dog, and the thing is she couldn't even potentially scare anybody. Luna, luna Da Da.
Speaker 3:Hey Sean. We're mindful of your time, jesse. Do you have any closing questions for Sean?
Speaker 1:No, I think that everything that I was going to ask sean already answered, um, but I I will say that one of the things that I've taken away from this conversation uh, from sean is is an underlying spirit of acceptance, and I tell people a lot of the golf course that if you can accept where you are, that's your foundation, um, and and sometimes that you, you've got to get, you got to get beat down a little bit. The ego has to take a rep. You, the ego, has to take a hit so that you're humbled enough to see what is what?
Speaker 2:why do you think they call it like for for guys to become some of the most special soldiers in the world? Why they call it hell we?
Speaker 2:yeah like so, all of us want to be special, but we're not willing to go through hell. It's like that. That that's, that's the, the biggest, that's the biggest point. And I mean the interesting thing about that is, I don't know if I was told this or I read it, but they did this test and I have said before, like I speak to say the AJJ or things like that, and one of the things I always talk to the kids about is, like you all know where you want to be right, like this is what you dream of and that's great. Never lose that.
Speaker 2:But but from when I said I wanted to do what I'm doing right now to this day for a living, if we had a big white wall right In an auditorium and you had put on that wall every single day I'd had between when I said that and now, if I'd read that before I'd started, I would never start it because I'd have been like who's going to deal with all that shit like that? How are you going to handle that? Why would you put yourself through that? So it's a good thing that we don't know what it takes when we're getting to that point. And so what they did, jesse, is they. They put the syllabus of Hell Week on everyone's bed and whoever read it didn't even start, didn't even begin. Everyone's bed, and whoever read it didn't even start, didn't even begin. And so I mean that's heavy, right, like that's that. That, that is super heavy. So I will say to people be careful what you wish for. But I mean, in order to become elite like whether it's Singapore, whether it's Vietnam, whether it's Israel, whether it's the Navy SEALs, whether it's SAS to be elite, you basically have to go through something that no one else can handle. That's it. I mean, that is it. There's plenty of guys who can shoot unbelievable bench press tons of weight, fight jujitsu, do all that, probably at a higher level.
Speaker 2:I bet you, if we were to be able to vote in Vegas just based off of looking at individuals, we would often be wrong about who's going to make it through. Navy SEALs, yeah, right, but the ones that I've met and you wouldn't even know they're in the room, I guess the picture in my head, because the Hollywood is, you know whatever, but of course they're impressive like movers. If you know where to look, you're like oh, I get it now, right, but I sat at a dinner table one night with these two incredibly like, very, very intellectually smart guys. They had a different look in their eyes, though I couldn't put my finger on it, but it hit me, I could feel it, and we talked, and we talked and we had like a two hour dinner and then I'd made a comment about how, in golf, we train in a way that makes us feel more competent than we are. So when we go the course we think it's mental, but it's, it's just the. The way we practice is creating a false sense of competency, that when we go to battle we see that we're not skilled enough and don't have the right weapons. And he was like that's a great point. You, you know that's interesting.
Speaker 2:And I said you know, if you look at the Navy SEALs, like when they went to Islamabad, you know that helicopter went down and they still were able to do what they did. And he said, sean, they would have practiced both of them going down like 500 times and what they would do until it became automated in reaction. So yeah, were they happy about it? Probably not. It made something more difficult, but they knew how to react from that moment and it probably could have been like a brief panic like who wants to die when a helicopter goes down Nobody. You can't really undo that as a central theme in the brain.
Speaker 2:And then I realized then I was told by the guy who invited me to dinner that they were both on SEAL team three, not six that were there and they've been. You know, they've been SEALs for 10 years. And this is like literally a guy like if he bumped into your wife you might be like hey buddy, like show some respect, and then it's over for you. You, just you. It was tricky right, like you couldn't really tell. But when you watch I watched on the way home on the plane probably for the 50th time lone survivor. I mean you've just fallen what 800 feet down rock walls. You've got broken legs, concussions, you've been shot five times and your guy's at the top of the hill and you're still saying to your other team partners we need to get back up that hill and save him. I mean it's just a different, it's a whole different. It's just a whole different thing. So I don't.
Speaker 2:I'm sure that most of the guys who become SEALs they're already pre, there's been a prerequisite to doing that and I think a lot of it would be their ability to endure more pain than most people. So if I am the Admiral's son who is the wide receiver at Navy runs, a 40 and 42, can do 60 pull-ups. Mad, brilliant, great, great academics I'm most likely able to do it. But when I'm sitting there for the fifth hour sitting in the water and I'm freezing cold and I'm literally going into hypothermia, how am I not going to just go and ring the bell? It'd be easy to do, right? No one who rings the bell is soft, right? I mean, just to even make it through three days of that, you have to be pretty amazing, right? Pretty elite. So I don't know if I can define what that difference is, but I'm sure that those guys growing up would have had the right amount of trauma in order to be able to understand that. You know what.
Speaker 2:At some point this is going to be over and all these thoughts in my head are just mental constructs of previous experiences and doubts. Ok, but I'm just going to hang in there because my purpose is that I want to be a Navy SEAL. Right? How did? How did? How did? How did people survive the Holocaust? Man, how? Just that overall image of one seeing your wife and your kids again. It was amazing what people could put themselves through with that vision in their mind 24-7. I will see them again, I will see. So what I'm going through right now is just what it is. But as soon as they lost that or found that the family had been exterminated, they died within like two minutes. So that when you see what people can, you know, survive through because of like true purpose and meaning, then we should be constantly trying to define what that purpose and meaning is. Because it's like love, right? You don't need love for your family when things are good. You need love for your family when things are challenging and when they're difficult. Because with families it's so tricky sometimes that if you didn't love them, what would make you not just go all right, I'm done, I can't take it.
Speaker 2:So I think that when people are having a great attitude and a great mindset, what does that mean? Like when I've had a shitty mindset, I don't know how to switch my mindset into a good mindset. Like when I'm being patient, I haven't told myself to be patient, I'm just patient. So when I'm impatient, telling me to patient, be patient, it's like I'm not trying to be impatient. Obviously I'm impatient because I don't understand something deeper.
Speaker 2:So if I do go to be patient, it's like I'm not trying to be impatient. Obviously I'm impatient because I don't understand something deeper. So if I do go to an airport, people would look at me and think man, he's really patient. No, I just understand that it's normally a shit show and is going to be probably a shit show. So it's not anything I'm trying to be. I just have a deeper understanding of what I'm actually in, which is why it looks that way. So, telling someone to have a good attitude when they go play golf, can we literally say that a great attitude is a one-to-one ratio with shooting under par? I've just seen it not be the case too many times, but I've seen course management, someone's understanding of their skill and their ability to replicate a shot over and overshoot under par a lot, you know.
Speaker 3:All set, Sean. It's been an experience doing this interview with you. Can you let our listeners know where to find out more about you and the ProSender? Can you let our listeners know where to?
Speaker 2:find out more about you and the ProSender. Well, I'm at Sean Foley Performance on Instagram. I'm not allowed to be on Twitter. My wife banned me from even. I never even started on Twitter. The craziest thing, justin, is I might be one of the only people alive at my age group of 50 who's never even went on Twitter. I don't know why I didn't do that. I love information. There's probably so much great stuff on there. I guess I'm just an old school book reader. So Sean Foley Performance is on Instagram and Pro Sender is ProSenderGolfcom Amazing.
Speaker 3:Thanks again, sean, for raising us with your presence your presence.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I don't go that. Justin has that way of it with his voice and how he speaks it is, it's not. It's not my, it's not my. Uh, I guess our presence is supposed to be our present to everybody. You know what I mean uh, it's, it's.
Speaker 3:You've really touched me deeply. I know I've said this many, many times to you, but it really is so, and I can't thank you enough that's the whole thing, man.
Speaker 2:I I don't think you do it on purpose. I think you learn what you learn to make sure that you know your time. People say short time on this planet, but I don't know. Life feels long, sometimes too. Right um, life it only feels short when you're on vacation. You're here, you're here, thank you, gentlemen. All right, thanks, thank you.