Your Thoughts Can Show Up And You Can Still Play. In Conversation with Karl Morris

We sit down with Karl Morris to dig into The Mind Caddy and the Mind Factor certification, then we challenge the myth that great golf requires perfect thoughts or a perfect state. We break down how attention, acceptance, and adaptable tasks help us access the skills we already have when pressure shows up. 
• Karl’s motivation for writing an accessible mental game book built around 46 real coaching lessons 
• why “being in the zone” is not the goal and how top players perform with uncomfortable thoughts 
• attention as the currency of performance and the skill of becoming an “attention detective” 
• separating from thoughts by changing our relationship to them rather than trying to control them 
• managing the in-between time on the course using senses, awareness, and simple resets 
• stable confidence through accepting the reality of ones, twos, and threes in every round 
• using pre-round journaling and “if then” planning to avoid default reactions under stress 
• adaptability over consistency and letting the shot create the swing on the course 
• shrinking the task when the world feels too big and noticing the stories we tell ourselves 
The book, The Mind Caddy, it’s available across the world on Amazon. The Mind Factor course, if you go to the website, themindfactor.com or dot net. Just email info at themfactor.com. 

Transcript

Welcome Back Carl Morris

SPEAKER_00 0:07

Hello, once again. This is Jesse Perryman from the Flaghunters Golf Podcast, along with my co-host and fellow commiserator Justin Tang out of the hidden golf club in Singapore. And today we have a returning guest. His name is Carl Morris. And he is the author and designer around the Mind Factor and how to train your mind for better golf. Jets. Carl, welcome back, pal.

SPEAKER_01 0:35

Thanks, Jesse. Always uh always good to see you both, and always good to chat, all things golf.

SPEAKER_03 0:40

Indeed. Yeah, thanks uh for coming again, coming on again, Carl, to talk about uh your new product, the Mind Factor certification, and your new book, The Mind Caddy, Become Mentally Strong When It Counts. You've worked with six major champions, Rider Cup players, elite athletes, CEOs, and you spent the better part of your life studying why people choke under pressure and more importantly, why most coaching is actually teaching people the wrong things. I'd like you to start this podcast episode by sharing with us the motivation for writing The Mind Caddy.

Why The Mind Caddy Exists

SPEAKER_02 1:30

The big motivation, Justin, after all these years, because as you say, I've I feel I feel very old when you run through all of that. I've been around the block a few times now. Um and really the the the Mind Caddy book, we kind of said it's gonna be the book for people who don't read books, in the sense that I think a lot of people are perhaps curious about the mental game and were to were to dive in, but are not not quite sure what to do. And I think these days we're all very busy, there's a lot going on. And I don't know about you guys. I mean, I in the past would would sit down and read an awful lot of books, but my my capacity to do that these days seems to be challenged somewhat. I'll I'll very often read a passage in a book and then get to the end of it and think, well, what have I just written? What have I just read there? So the book's design basically it's it's 46 lessons or 46 experiences that I had over the years, all these years of coaching, and the kind of specific issues, specific things that people you know, people can dive in at chapter 32 and just read that if they like. They don't have to read it from cover to cover. You can obviously do that if you want, but it's it's basically a whole bunch of me looking back on what has been an incredibly fortunate life that I've had working with these players and experiencing golf. I was a failed player myself, but I've been fortunate to go to all the majors and work with some major winners. So it was it was kind of like I wanted to put something together. There wasn't an academic text by any means. There's academic underpinnings to a lot of the things that are in there, but I wanted to I wanted it to be very accessible for everybody to just pick up and and and be able to read.

SPEAKER_03 3:08

Excellent. So uh when you talk about the 46 insights, uh are these like 46 experiences that you realize repeated themselves in the course of your coaching career?

SPEAKER_02 3:21

They are, and hopefully people resonate with them. That I mean, one one of them that that is is in there it tells a story. I I worked with Graham McDowell for best part of 19, 20 years, something like that, when he was certainly from in the early days when he was over in in Port Rush in Northern Ireland. We spent some great days on that wonderful golf course, and a lot of time out on tour with him, European tour as it was then, PGA tour. And I always remember that there was a there was one experience that I think everybody listening will perhaps relate to this, in the sense that you know, we watch we watch good players on TV and we watch them playing really good golf, and we often hear commentators say, Oh, look at look at such and such a body, he's he's in the zone or she's in the zone, everything's under control, he's got his game under control. And very often that couldn't be further from the truth that even with these great players, when you lift up the bonnet and realise what's going on in their head, they have the same demons that that we all have. And there was a story way back, it was Graham's it was it was an opportunity that Graham had to win his biggest event up to that point, back in about 2008, 2009, and he's playing in the Scottish Open at Lot Lawmond, and he's played fantastically for three three and a half days, and he's got a two or a three-shot lead, something like that, playing really well. And he told me this story about how he got to the to the 15th T. And as he as he's walking up to the 15th T, he said a thought just popped into his head, you're gonna top it off the T. And he said he had this thought pop into his head, and he immediately started, his body started to shake, he's he felt really uncomfortable. But then we had the discussion, and he and he said, he said, fortunately, I was able with all this stuff that we'd done, I was able to recognise that that was just a thought, that I didn't have to take it seriously. And then he kind of made a motion where he was as though he was holding on to a rope, and he said, I was able then to just lock into the stuff that we'd talked about, about getting into the shot, the process of the shot, and you know, managed to step up there. And even though he felt uncomfortable, even though he'd had this negativity flashing across the screen in his mind, he was still able to get the get the job done. And and that's one of the big messages in the book that I think this idea that people have that the mental game is all about being totally relaxed and just thinking good things and all the rest of it, even for the best players in the world, couldn't be further from the truth. It's about understanding that we have this brain that really is only concerned with survival, and it's going to generate lots of thoughts and lots of feelings and lots of sensations. But Jesse, you and Justin, you you'll have had many experiences where you've felt uncomfortable, but you've hit good shots, and there's other occasions where you felt absolutely great, you've visualised the perfect shot, everything's been wonderful, and you've hit a dreadful shot. So the idea that we have to be in a perfect state to play good golf is a

Attention Beats Perfect Feelings

SPEAKER_02 6:29

myth. And you know, in the book that we go into the idea about attention, and the more I've studied all of this and spending time just in with guys that you introduced me to, Jim Waldron, who's become a really great friend of mine now. And we spent so much time talking about attention. And and I think, you know, in the modern world, the skill of attention, somebody somebody on my podcast said a while ago, he said attention is the currency of performance. And I thought, wow, what a great phrase that is the ability to put your attention in the right place, to hold the putt, to hit the fairway, to break a hundred, to win the club championship, to get on tour, whatever it may be. And I think that's a fascinating area to explore for everybody.

SPEAKER_03 7:12

You know, that's what you just said in the last three minutes warms my heart because that was the first question that I wanted to ask you. What's the greatest line sports? And I think it is that elite athletes are mentally stronger, quote unquote. It's just that, as you said in the course, these guys are better at putting their attention at the right place for this moment in time. And I think another mutual friend of ours, Steve Yellen, he said this quite succinctly. He said, it's it's not what you think, it's how you think those thoughts. So if I'm if I'm 10 under power on the 18th hole, and then I was like, oh, don't hit in the water, I'll be smirking just like I've hit every fairway in the last 17 holes. That's not gonna happen. That thought can be still in my head, but it's how I think that thought. No, it's quite different. If I need to hit the fairway to make the cut, then how I think that negative thought is going to be very different.

unknown 8:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 8:16

So I think I think what it is, Justin, is you know, I I probably looking back at the early part of my career, I I'd I'd have fallen into the trap of of giving out techniques to try and help people to control the thinking and you know, rigid routines and all this kind of stuff. And and it's it's evolved a lot over the years now. And I think, you know, if there was a sort of overall statement on it with this, it's it's not so much about changing your thoughts, it's about changing your relationship to the thoughts. And and you know, we all take our we all, me included, we all take our thoughts so terribly seriously. We we really we really think that that dialogue in our head is telling us the truth and it's the be all and end all, and we we end up going along with it. I think when you can get to the point where, and I'm a bit better at it now, when you can get to the point where you just you sort of look up and you go, Jesus Christ, Brain, what have you just come up with there? How funny is that? You're just reminding me that I shouldn't knock it out of bounds here or I shouldn't three-put or whatever. When when you can find humour in your thoughts, you become separate from your thoughts. And and when you become separate from your thoughts, you then you're you're at a choice point then, whether you go with them or you realize them, realize what they are and what it what it's all about. And and as I said earlier on, we've kind of we've got a brain that in many ways it's it's 30,000 years out of date, in the sense that primarily it's still concerned with the survival. Now, has that been a good thing? My goodness, yes, that when you think that at one point Homo sapiens were down to a few thousand, and to survive, to actually get through the next few hundreds of thousands of years, we had to be constantly on the lookout for danger, and our brain evolved to predict danger, to predict the worst that can happen. That was a wonderful, wonderful evolutionary survival mechanism. And the three responses of fight, flight, and freeze, brilliant survival mechanisms, but unfortunately dreadful for golf. And again, when you can recognize that your brain has your best intentions, I get a lot of young players, I'm sure you that you two guys do. I get a young lot of young players these days, and they come to me and they're kind of at war with the brain because they don't like the thoughts that they're having, they don't like the sensations that they've got in the body when they're on the golf course. And when you can get them to recognise your brain is actually has got the very best intention for you, it's trying to help you survive, it's it's scanning the environment for threat. When you start to recognize that, you can have a different relationship to it. And I think you know, ultimately, really great coaching in the future will be about developing skills. Because if if we ignore that, we're being a fool. You know, the idea that you can just think your way to a good golf game and sit under a tree and imagine that you're tiger woods is nonsense. You know, we need to obey impact physics. So developing skills and understanding how to do that is vitally important, as you two guys know. But then I think the next frontier will be more coaches willing to explore how do you access your skills? How do you how do you actually access what you've actually got? And what most people fall into the trap of, I certainly did, I developed some skills, I couldn't access them on the golf course, and then I thought the solution was develop more skills. When really I'd got, I'm not saying I've got enough skills to be a good player, I was never a great player, but I'd got enough skills to play a decent game of golf, but I didn't understand in the early days how to better access those skills. And I think for most people listening, you know, if you if you if you pause what we were talking about at this moment and said, if I could play the rest of this year and actually just access what I currently have, I think there'd be a lot of happier golfers at the end of this season, a lot closer to the true capabilities.

SPEAKER_03 12:28

Very well said, uh Carl. And it's it's quite interesting that that's principle one of the mind factor certification course. I think if you don't understand attention, it becomes very difficult to acquire skill or acquire technique.

SPEAKER_02 12:50

And I think that's where there's a massive opportunity now, Justin, with technology to help players become. The idea of becoming an attention detective, yeah, of being of being really curious of where your attention needs to be to get the best out of your unique game. Because one thing I'm sure of now, after all these years, is that golf's a study of one, in the sense that it's okay looking at what Scotty does and what Tiger did and what Jack did and all the rest of it, but ultimately there's one person that you need to understand to get the best out of your game, and that's yourself. And and you know, for coaches going forward in the future, I think getting really, and this is a big part of the course, being intensely curious about the 1.4 seconds that you swing a golf club. Where do you where's the best place for your attention to be to perform? Not talking about training, that's a different thing. We're not talking about developing skill. It's where do you need to rest your attention for that 1.4 seconds to elicit the mind-body connection and actually start it shots you're capable of? It was, you know, we we all know him, and he usually gets the mention whenever I'm on a podcast, put a big influence on me, Fred Shoemaker. It's nearly 30 years ago now that I was in California and he posed a question to me that that just hit me like a ton of ton of bricks. It was like being punched by Mike Tyson, and he said, He said, Do you think you can keep your attention on the club head for the duration of a swing? And I looked at him and I thought, Of course I can, that's got to be the easiest thing in the world. But I'm sure if you guys have tried it, just to understand by putting your attention on the club, how many places in 1.4 seconds your mind can jump around. And as a starting point, understanding this idea of another big influence of mine was Peter Ralston from a from a book called The Principles of Effortless Power, and he talked about the one point. And I think everybody this summer should explore their own one point, and that's the idea. Can you keep your attention in one place for the duration of the swing when you're out on the golf course and finding out what works best for you? And there's a number of options, as I think there's five different options that you can look at with that, but again, technology can give you an indication. You know, when you put your attention in a certain place, does the dispersion pattern get better? Do you notice better strikes? And I think this is where it lends itself, and we talk about this in the book about journaling as well. You know, um Bruce Lee, his famous phrase was research your own experience. You know, we don't research our own experience. We just come off a golf course and it was, oh, it was good, oh, it was bad. No, where was your attention when you hit your best shots? What's the patterns you're starting to reveal to yourself to understand? And putting a journal together is a really great way, I think, of starting to research your own experience.

SPEAKER_03 16:05

So I've gone through the Mind Factor certification course. I'm in the process of finishing my coursework. And I think from the perspective of a coach, it is absolutely imperative that you work through this course if you want to A, be a better coach, and B get the best out of your players. Just to go back to what you said earlier, Carl, you've got all these skills locked inside your mind, but how do you unlock it? It's not it's not more skills. Look, we've we've got x-rays, we've got 3D plates, we got uh 6D motions, this and that. The fact of the matter is that the average uh handicap has not gone down, and the PGA average has not gone down as much as the advancement in technology would suggest. So my my humble opinion is that we we need to first work with what we already have rather than try to chase for the silver bullet. And this course, although I think it's geared towards coaches, is it's ideal even for the player who says, Hey, I I don't want to consult with the coach, I want to understand this for myself. It works equally well. And not just for golfers, right? I also think if you are of the holistic bend, you can actually uh take this course and apply it to other sports as well. And even to uh to the business realm. I mean, when you talk about the attention of skills, that works in any endeavor. When you talk about stable confidence, it works in any endeavor. So these are broad principles. But of course, where where things are a bit more specific is where you talk about practice and you talk about how to build skills. But even then, I kind of feel that if like, for example, if you're a hedge fund manager, you also want to know how to practice uh trading the markets, for example, how to acquire the skill of uh analyzing companies, as the case may be.

SPEAKER_02 18:20

It's it's an interesting one that just in that over the years I've I've worked with a number of guys who are traders and um you know, people in banking industry and things like that, where again it really comes down to your ability to put your attention in the right place. Poker players, things you know, guys like that where the stakes are pr the stakes are pretty high and not being not being ruled by your emotions. And I and I think you know, we in in the course we talk about how you practically apply this.

Win The In Between Shots

SPEAKER_02 18:52

You know, we talk about the four quadrants in terms of before golf, during golf, the in-between and after. And I I think in in certainly in golf, a huge area for coaches to explore and maybe spend more time on the golf course with players is that in-between time. You know, we play a weird game in a way, in the sense that we're out there for well, hopefully we're out there for four hours, but it's a bit longer these days, unfortunately. I I actually walked around a challenge tour event a couple of weeks ago and it took five hours and 47 minutes, which I think, you know, what on earth are we doing to the game? But essentially that time in between shots, you know, for people to sort of stop and think, what's my relationship to that time? What what do I actually do in that in that time? That most of golf isn't golf. And if certainly you're like myself, when I was playing and trying to compete, most of that in-between time was me being in my head, regretting the past, and tentatively anticipating the future. And and it's not a it's not a pleasant experience to do that, but yet it affords that time on the golf course. And I think more so than ever in this crazy world that we're in now, where our attention is being buffeted around by technology. Golf should sell itself as a sanctuary in the sense that you're out there for five hours, four and a half, five hours, and you've got a lot of time where you could choose to put your attention in some places that really not only help you golf, but help you reset for life in general. You know, I I can think of a bunch of players that there's a great phrase that I heard years ago. I think we mentioned it in the MindCaddy book. There's a great phrase that I heard years ago from a therapist, a gestalt therapist called Fritz Pearls. And one of his famous lines was he said that we need to stop thinking and come to our senses. And, you know, this might sound a little bit touchy-feely, but it's an interesting one for everybody to experiment with. Go out and play golf. And obviously, if you're chatting with your pals in between shots, that's great. But play play golf where you're divided up between see, hear, and feel. So six holes you would tune into what you can see as you're walking in between shots. Six holes, you would tune into what you can hear, the sounds of the golf course, and six holes you would tune into what you can feel, like the feeling of your feet on the floor, perhaps. Now, I'll guarantee everybody, and this has been X literally everybody that's done this. If you do this, you'll find that one of those three senses really kind of holds your attention. I can think of a young player in Germany that I worked with, a very, very good player, really high quality player, who was he was really tough on himself, was having a real issue dealing with poor shots. And we got him playing this game, and it's important to see it as a game. The feel stuff didn't work for him, the visual stuff didn't work for him. But my goodness, his experience of golf was transformed when he tuned into the Sounds of the golf course in between shots. And he said his ability to just let stuff go, his ability to reset for the next shot, then was literally transformed because he hadn't spent the previous 10 or 15 minutes in his head thinking about the past, anticipating the future. And you know, a phrase that resonates with me so much, I can't even remember who said it, that a guy said said to me, he said, you're either thinking about life or you're or you're actually in life. And it's a bit same with golf. We're either thinking about golf or we're in golf, in the sense that we go and play on some of the most magnificent territory on earth, these fantastic golf courses that we play, and most people don't see that. I don't mean they don't see it, they don't experience the golf course because there's so much in the head. They're not listening to what the golf course is telling you. Every time you play a golf, if you go out there and you and you think about, and this is a great a really great frame, think about golfers. It will present you with between, depending on your ability, between 60 and 100 separate and individual puzzles to solve. The golf course is giving you puzzles to solve. Now, in every other endeavor, we pay money to be given puzzles. We watch quiz shows, we do crosswords, we do Saduko, we do all these kind of things, and we pay for that. And yet nobody would ever, if they couldn't get a seven across in a crossword, they wouldn't storm off and throw the paper down and say, I'm never playing, I'm never playing another crossword. They would just move on to the next puzzle. And I think, you know, when we start to see the golf course like that, and we see that the course is offering us these puzzles to solve, you tune so much more into the environment and you listen to the course. The course is telling you what to do. The ball's above your feet, it's below your feet, the wind's off the left, the pin's back, whatever it may be, the texture of the sand. I know it can sound cliche and I'm going on about this, but it's so I see it so much these days, especially with players these days, we're just not in tune with the golf course. We've got that much in our head, and we're being fed that much technology that our ability to pay attention to the golf course is getting less and less.

SPEAKER_03 24:31

I I think this is a good time to segue into another segment of the course that I spent more time on.

Stable Confidence And Acceptance

SPEAKER_03 24:39

Stable confidence. So, what you're alluding to in the previous uh three minutes is positive indifference. Can you discuss what stable confidence is?

SPEAKER_02 24:53

I think it was Mo Norman, wasn't it, who talked about positive in indifference. And, you know, I spent a lot of time together with Raymond Pryor, who's I think one of the very best out there in terms of psychology. Wrote a great book called Gulf Beneath the Surface. And I think it was Raymond that coined the phrase stable confidence. And essentially, I think the mistake that most people make, certainly I made, is we we think confidence is gonna come from better technique, we think confidence is gonna come from scores, we think confidence is gonna come from hitting it good on the range before we play. Now, all those things are nice and better techniques important, as we've already said, you've got to work on your skills. But for most people, how's that gone down? How long has that confidence with the latest move in your swing lasted? Or how long has the confidence lasted after you've shot a good score the previous day, or you've hit it good on the range before you go out and play? It's such a fragile form of confidence when we base it on those things. However, stable confidence comes from a willingness to deal with the reality of the game. And the reality of the game is that every single time that you play for the rest of your life, even if you just didn't ingest, even if you go out and you shoot 65 the next time that you play, that round of golf will be a mixture of what I call ones, twos, and threes. And I I would I'd strongly recommend for perhaps write these down. So ones, twos, and threes would be ones would be good shots, twos would be good enough, and threes would be poor shots. Now I I don't care how well you play, if you shoot 59 and I've had guys who've done this, there'll still be some threes in there, there'll still be some poor shots in there. And it sounds hugely negative, this to actually the more you can get to a point where you can willingly accept the chaos that the game is going to always throw at you, paradoxically, that's when things settle down, and that's where you gain stable confidence from. Stable confidence to me, and it goes back to what we said at the beginning, stable confidence reduces the perceived threat of the golf course. Because you're basically saying to yourself, whatever happens today, I'll deal with it. I I, as a human being, I Justin, I Jesse, I Carla, whatever, no matter what the what the golf ball does, I'm gonna be pissed off if I knock it out of bounds or miss a put or whatever, but I'm not gonna be so down that that golf shot is reflecting my value as a human being. And that's the trap I fell into. My my value as a person, if I shot 68, I was of value in my eyes. If I shot 82, I was worthless. And for a lot of people, that's the tight rope that they're walking, and the tight rope's too thin, unfortunately, you'll fall off all the time. Because the variability of outcomes is so great in golf. And as I say, it sounds really negative. But for instance, a lot of players I work with, they'll before a round, they'll give themselves a number of threes before they play. I'll actually get them to write it down. I'll say how many three how many how many threes do you think realistically you're gonna have today? So I don't know, 10. Now, if you if you actually write down before you play that you're gonna have 10 threes, 10 poor shots in a round, guess what? When they come along, instead of being surprised or pissed off or annoyed about the threes, you've already you've already pre-prepared, you've already wired in the fact that that's gonna happen. So your ability to deal with it then just goes to another level because you're dealing with the reality of the game.

SPEAKER_03 28:52

I I think uh Dr. Lisa Feldman Barrett explained it quite uh well. She's a neuroscientist, she said that when we feel all these uh unpleasant feelings, it's just our brain's way of saying, hey, watch out. And if we reject these feelings, your brain just amplifies it or your mind amplifies it because it's almost as if, hey, dummy, there's trouble out there. We need you to see the amplifier. But what Dr. Raymond Prayer and your your excellent video teaches or the course teaches is this the moment you have radical acceptance, your brain says, Okay, he got it. Like, like let's just tone everything down. I thought that was amazing, an amazing insight, not just for golf, but for almost every other endeavor. But like what you said, uh, Carl, it's gotta be genuine. You can't be like, oh, uh, let's let's just try. Oh, it's not working. And it's gotta be genuine, right? Like, yeah, so so if I really slice this into the second hole into the water, so be it. Yeah, and one group of people actually do the threes really well, and when they leave their activity, they leave with a smile. These are gamblers. They go into a casino, they know it's just threes. And then if they hit a one or a two, it's like extra, it's a bonus, it's gravy. So I often like to think in terms of the gambler, like how much can I lose versus how much can I gain when when I approach uh my round of golf.

SPEAKER_02 30:37

Yeah. But I think the ones, twos, and threes, just in that they're a metaphor for life, yeah. Really, because you know, on any given day, stuff goes our way, there's stuff that's somewhere in the middle, and then there's you know, we have a we fall out with our spouse, or we fall out with our kids or or whatever, or somebody says something stupid, or we read something that every day is a mixture of ones, twos, and threes. And it was a philosopher, Sidney Banks, who said that if only people would stop resisting their experience, that alone would change the world. And I didn't understand fully. I mean, Sid Sid Banks, if you look into his work, he's a bit of a mystery at first when you when you listen to him. But the more you keep going back and looking at what he had to say, if only people would stop resisting their experience. Well, I when I played golf, every single round that I played, when I think back, every single round, the next round that I played was this was gonna be the round where I did where I didn't have to face the feelings that bad shots gave me. It was gonna be the round where I I swung it a certain way, I'd found a certain slot, I'd done whatever I needed to do, I'd I'd I'd eaten the right things, I'd done the right exercises, I'd prayed to the moon and all the all the rest of it. Today was gonna be the day, and it and it never arrived. And and the relationship that I had going back all those years ago was such a terrible relationship in the end that it was it was a complete divorce. I I left the game for three years and went away and studied various things. And it was only when I came back and I could start to piece a few of these things together. And resisting not resisting your experience doesn't mean to say that you're going to be happy if it goes out of bounds. It doesn't mean to say that you put in on false positivity or that you enjoy it if you top it. What it means is that at a very deep level, you're actually realizing that that is the reality of the game. You will always have ones, twos, and threes. But then it comes back to Fred Shoemaker. That are you brave enough on the next shot that you hit to stay open to possible? Again, he said that to me 30 years ago. Can you stand on a T? You've not hit it well all day, but is it possible this shot could be a good one? You've you've struggled on the greens all day, you've holed nothing, it's been a it's been a disaster, really, on the greens, but you've got an eight-footer on 16. Is it possible that you could hold this put? Well, the answer is yes, unless you shut that possible down with a story. And what we all end up doing is creating stories. Oh, it's not my day, or I'm useless on the greens, or I just can't, or whatever it is, there's a multitude of stories that we come up with. But I think what we're talking about here is you know, all these threads come together from different different people, but it's getting to a point where we can go out on a golf course and we're not resisting the experience. And when you're not resisting the experience, you can actually create freedom. And and as you two guys know, from a from a technical perspective, it's amazing how the club can slot into some pretty nice places when there's some freedom attached to the movement.

SPEAKER_00 33:59

That's well said. James, I gotta add to get in your own way. I gotta add on something that I just remembered, uh, Carl, with what you were just saying about uh um not resisting the experience. Well, Walter Hagen had a credo that I don't know if you've heard this, Carl or Justin, but I just remembered where he gave himself an allotment per round of seven poor shots.

SPEAKER_01 34:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:26

Seven.

SPEAKER_01 34:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:28

You know, one of the greatest players of all time. One of the greatest players.

SPEAKER_03 34:34

What's that? Ben Hogan as well. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 34:39

Well well, Hogan, Hogan famously said, didn't he, that you know, everybody everybody was looking for the secret in terms of you know his golf swing, and we've studied that endlessly. And it's great that we do that because it's it's a thing of beauty. But Hogan actually said that the big breakthrough for him in his career was, and I'll and I'll butcher this but I'll and paraphrase it, but he basically said when he when he gave up his perfectionistic tendencies, and he actually realized that even he couldn't be perfect, that it actually allowed, and that's and that's the most competent ball striker, probably of all time. Realised the thing that was holding him back was his perfectionism. Now, you know, perfectionism is good if you're an accountant, perfectionism is good if you're building bridges, but perfectionism is absolutely deadly if you're a golfer.

SPEAKER_03 35:34

Well is that well said then there's the paradox there. The moment you wait, the moment you admit that this is not a game of perfect, ironically, you get started on the road of perfection. It's like what our friend Dr. Easy Justice said. All the extra thoughts in the brain corrupts the signal from the the brain to all the muscles.

SPEAKER_00 36:02

So, Jens, for me, coming from a student perspective, uh how how can we develop the skill of of um of focusing our attention? I love the the the the three six-hole blocks, Carl, of what you said. Uh when how can a player develop the skill to remember the skill, especially under the gun? You know, when when you're when your body is freaking out and you start to get into the the sympathetic, you're in fight or flight, you're starting to get there. And then the tapes in your head start running, oh boy, here we go again. You know, uh, like a thing that I had, every time I would get into contention and hit a poor shot, I would have this tape in my head that would say, Oh, you're doing all this work, and now, oh boy, I mean, you know, immediately my body would be flooded with fear. So, how in the moment can we divorce ourselves from that or at least create a better relationship to accept these possibilities that, hey, I'm human, I am wired up with this still primitive mammalian brain. Uh, you know, how how can we reverse engineer that?

SPEAKER_03 37:23

I'm glad you asked this. I'm

If Then Plans Under Pressure

SPEAKER_03 37:25

glad you asked this, Jesse, because that's principle two of the mind factor certification, skills, not strings. And I'll let Carl elaborate on this principle.

SPEAKER_02 37:38

Yeah, I think one of the most practical things I think folks could perhaps experiment with, Jesse, this, you know, the rest of the season. I'm a I'm a big fan of, you know, I'm a big fan of journaling. I think you know, if you if you commit to putting doing a journal for a few a few months, I think it would be one of the best experiments that you can do with yourself. And to me, in answer to your question, the ability to do that starts well before the round, in the sense that if you take out your journal and you answer the question or you pose yourself the question, what am I committed to today? And and you you know, you write out some of the things that you're committed to, but then there's a great exercise called if then. Now, if then means if if I I start to lose it, if I start to drop shots, if I start to get really busy in my head and write it down, then, and then you fill in the blanks, then I am gonna make sure that I focus on process A, B, and C, whatever you and your coach have decided to do, if then is a really powerful thing. And I and I think we've got to pro we've got to pre-program these things in before we play, because once you're out there and the chaos takes over, we're just gonna go into default. That's why, you know, in the military, they spend so much time, you know, with with air forces, they simulate situations, they simulate really tough landings, they simulate all kinds of different things. They don't just simulate perfect landings all the time, they simulate the most extreme potential outcomes. And I think we've got to simulate, you know, it's it's all lovely the books that say, you know, sit there before your round and visualize all your good shots and imagine shooting 62 and holding the trophy. And it's a lovely thing, all that, and it sounds great. The practical application of that and the benefits of that are not brilliant, I don't think. What is far more practical and far more beneficial is to sit there and go through a few if then. If I three put, then I'm gonna do this. If I hit a good shot with a bad outcome, then I'm gonna do this. So you're programming in your responses to the challenges, you know, dealing with three birdies on the trot isn't that difficult. You know, you it's not it's not the hardest thing in the world to deal with that, but but dealing with a pure five iron that's come right out of the nuts of the golf club that sails over the back of the green because the wind's just dropped, that's more difficult. And that's often it's those points in a round where it it actually goes one way or the other. That if you then hit that five iron over the green and you end up in a bad spot and you make double bogey, if then the whole day unravels as a result of that, you've not planned about how you're gonna respond to the inevitability of the game because that's always gonna be happening, like we've already talked about.

SPEAKER_03 40:36

Yeah, uh, there is this uh great philosopher that I read after. He said everyone has a plan until they're punched in the face. Mike Tyson. Mike Tyson. Yeah, I really like what you said, uh Carl. It's it's easy to be in the zone when you're three buddies in a row. But what if you're three doubles in a row?

SPEAKER_02 41:00

And and you know, and do you know what? Do you know what, Justin? I'm sure you guys have experienced this with players that you work with who've done well. I'm still waiting for the conversation. You know, I've been fortunate to work with a few decent players. I'm still waiting to have this conversation where somebody wins a tournament and afterwards they ring up and they say, Do you know what, Carl? I hit it great for four days. I hardly missed a shot, my thinking was good all the way around. It was a breeze. I mean, it's it's never, it's never happened. I mean, it's always, even for guys, you know, we've got we've got tournaments coming up these next few weeks, as we do all the time on the PGA tour, uh DP World Tour. I guarantee everybody that wins a tournament, there'll be six holes somewhere where it's a real struggle. There'll be a there'll be a whole round where it's a real struggle. Yeah, I think that's where Sheffless genius is is constantly coming through. That even when it's a struggle and you see those, you see those quirky finishes where he knows that that face is perhaps shutting down a little bit, coming into impact, and he's trying to hit that slider, and he's got to do something funky at impact to actually get the club hold it off a little bit. I think that's where his genius has been in these last few years, and we don't study that enough. We don't study enough. We're all trying to study consistency. Why the hell do we keep studying consistency when nobody has ever had the experience of consistency, even the great players? What we should be studying is the principles of adaptability, about how do you get the how do you get the best out of what you've got when it's not when you've got your B or your C game.

SPEAKER_03 42:42

I like what you said about Scotty Scheffler, Carl, and you wrote about this in The Lost Ados Golf. Does the shot make the swing, or does the swing make the shot?

SPEAKER_02 42:53

Yeah, yeah. I

Adaptability And Shrinking The Task

SPEAKER_02 42:55

think you know, when you obviously to begin the game, you know, you need to understand how to move the golf club, and you need to understand, you need to have really good impact um concepts. What what what makes the golf ball move in the air, what gets it up in the air, you need to understand about compression and all those things and what the club's designed to do. But ultimately, I think the real crossover that a player can look at is when you get out on the golf course. If you if I I I certainly this, I I used to think if I could just stand there and repeat the same movement, I would print out good shots all the time. And then you get on the golf course and you've got this dynamic, ever-changing environment where you require certain shots. If you can make that shift, and you imagine how this could be for an individual listening to this. Imagine that you could be so much into the shot that you're about to play, you're trying to hit it a little bit lower. Now, just by actually having that clear intention, that's going to inform you of the movement that you're going to make to produce. That little lower shot or that draw or fade or whatever it is that you're trying to do. So I think the big shift, I think one of the key things to access your skills is when you're playing golf. And I'm talking about playing golf, I'm not talking about training. When you get on the golf course, it's starting to let the shot create the swing where you so much into this is what I'm trying to do with the golf ball, and these are the feelings in the swing that produce that. Because as far as I'm aware, at the end of a round, they don't ask you how many swings you've made. They ask you how many shots you've hit. And you know, I think again, a new frontier and a way of cut, and we talk about this in the course, for coaches to think of themselves not just swing coaches, but shot coaches. You know, you could you could be a really, really effective golfer with just a few shots, you know, a shot to get it off the T, a basic chip shot, basic understanding of solid iron shots. You don't have to have a million shots to be a really, really effective golfer. Now, if you're going to play at the highest level, that's a different story.

SPEAKER_03 45:08

Actually, Bruce Litsky and one shot. One yeah. Montgomery. Colin Montgomery, I can't remember if he ever drew the ball.

SPEAKER_02 45:18

Well, Bruce Litsky, Bruce Litsky used to play, I think he played 18 tournaments a year, something like that, year after year after year, and had an amazing career on the on the PGA tour, won numerous times, won a whole bunch of money as a senior, you know, probably not a golf show.

SPEAKER_03 45:37

Yes, sorry. No, I say I'm not sure if you ever taught uh Colin Montgomery.

SPEAKER_02 45:45

I I I met Colin a number of occasions, but I never never never taught him. But I mean you know, he's certainly of my generation, and um what a what a pity Colin never actually won a major because he was certainly one of the great players. I think he won eight eight order of merits in in Europe. And and the one US Open, I can't remember where it was now, where he on the final hole, he had a he had a think he had a six or a seven iron into the final green with the pin on the back on the back right, which was you know a little drift into the from the middle of the green to the back right was was Monty's bread and butter, and it you know, the golfing god said no on that day. But yeah, what a great play. And to your point, Justin, he he he he basically had one golf shot. He had, you know, he just hit that hit that lovely little cut all the time.

SPEAKER_03 46:31

Yeah, and I think a lot of uh budding young professionals who know way more, who have more skills than Colin, don't have his lane career. He won seven, seven European order of merits consecutively, eight in total. Even Tiger Woods can't boast of that. Tiger never won seven many titles in a row.

SPEAKER_02 46:56

He would be to me, he would be to me just an example, a perfect example of what we've been talking about. Colin had skill, yes. You could argue that it perhaps was limited in the number of shots that he had. He had skill, but most importantly, he could access that skill on a consistent basis. He knew he knew what he needed to do to access his skills. And the golf the golf course for Colin, for Monty, the golf course was a place of opportunity, not threat. You know, he he knew that thing was going to start left side of the fairway and fall away, and he knew that was gonna happen as he was approaching shots into the green. Not saying that's the formula for everybody, not saying that for one minute, but he was a perfect example of somebody who developed enough skill, but he was a master at accessing his skills.

SPEAKER_00 47:50

Gents, I've I've got a uh comment slash inquiry too. Uh, do you think this very phenomenon happened with Rory? Because something has shifted with Rory, and it started on the back nine year before last on Sunday at the Masters, which he won. Uh I felt the the one last year or this year? Yeah, the the one last year, 2025. No, no, and then he wins this year, and I was there, and he did not have his best physical game, but something internally shifted, and it's evident, and you could feel it around him. He he did not hit it that great, and he still won convincingly. Could this be a possibility that something shifted, that his acceptance level has changed, or his expectations have changed, where he looks at a golf course as more of an opportunity now, no matter what.

SPEAKER_02 48:47

I I think I think there'd be a strong argument, Jesse, that he's be you know, you could argue, is it because he's now part of the Grand Slam Club that he's there's nothing left to prove for him, so there's there's maybe more acceptance of outcomes. But I I agree with you that there's there's there's definitely been a definitely been a shift. But you know, as you say, Augusta was a perfect example of adaptability. He didn't have his he didn't have his A game in the final round, did he, by in, by any stretch. Um but just just found a way. You know, there's a lovely phrase, it was Garrett Kramer, I think, came out with it, and he said, and it's just it's it's very simple, but it's it's so profound. And he talks about just staying in the game. Just stay in the game. You know, the number of times I've seen it with players where you know it's a bit of a struggle, and you've dropped a shot and you've you've you've had to chip and put two greens and you're not fitting it good, and but then all of a sudden you there's there's a feeling emerges, and you just hit one or two, you get one or two decent shots, and then the momentum can shift so so quickly. And I'm I'm perhaps stating the obvious in a way, but I think it's very easy to not stay in the game, it's very easy to make up a story that oh my swing's not my swing's not there yet. I need to work on it more, or it's not my day, or it's not my week, or I don't like this course, or whatever. That would be a massive message for me, and we talk about a lot in the book, is just is just be aware of the stories that you create. Because ultimately, we're making all this stuff up. You know, we go out on a golf course, and objectively, we're on a big field with pieces of rubber, and we're hitting those pieces of rubber with with implements around a big field. That's the reality of it. What we make it all up to mean, and what we call it, and what we interpret it, we're making it all up. Now, if what you're making up isn't helping you, make up something else. You know, I'm a I'm a big believer in if if the task makes you feel uncomfortable, change the task. I was with a guy that was at the Scottish Open and Ralph Bower. I don't know if Ralph's been on your been on the been on your show. He's a great guy, yes.

SPEAKER_00 50:58

Oh, yeah, Ralph.

SPEAKER_02 50:59

Yeah, Ralph's a great guy, great putting coach, and he played a lot with Mo Norman. And I remember Ralph telling me a story that he played with Mo and they were playing wherever it was, and he got on a certain hole, and and Ralph said to him, He said, When I when I get on this hole, he said, I look up and I see out of Burns left and Trees to the right, he said, I feel really uncomfortable. And Mo looked at him and in only the way that Mo could, he said, Well, don't look up. And and Ralph, Ralph thought he was being flippant, but there was genius in what Mo was saying, in the sense was if the task is out there at 250 yards and there's water left and out of bounds right, that's a difficult task. But if you change the task to, right, I've got I've got an alignment stick, an imaginary alignment stick 10 feet in front of me. Can I hit the ball at that alignment stick? That is a different task. You know, Hal Sutton, I remember him talking about when he when he beat Tiger in the players, he said that he said the task of beating Tiger then in 2000 was just too big. I mean, this guy was dominating golf like nobody had ever done before. He was way in front of everybody else, and and Hal's going head to head with him in the last couple of rounds in the players. He said the task of beating Tiger Woods was just impossible. And he had a great phrase, he said, I used to shrink the world. And and and Hal said what all he focused on, he he'd pick it, he'd pick a spot just in front of his ball. That would be his start line, and that would be his world. Hal, you've just got to start it over that spot. It it wasn't Tiger Woods beating beating Tiger was too big. Can I hit it over that spot? Well, yeah, I think I can probably manage that. He shrunk the world. So I think it's a big takeaway for folks. If the task makes you feel uncomfortable, change the task.

SPEAKER_03 52:57

Doesn't it, Carl? Attention. You can have a redefined task, but it really takes the skill of attention to put your attention in the right spot.

SPEAKER_00 53:12

Right. This is uh great chance. Go ahead, Justin.

SPEAKER_03 53:17

No, I said all all these principles can be found in the wonderful course. And I I strongly feel that all golf coaches and elite players alike should do themselves a favor and go explore the Mind Factor certification course. It is unlike anything you have ever seen. And contrary to popular belief, a lot of people likely regard Carl as just a mental coach. But in this series, Carl also goes into the process of acquiring skills, creating uh effective practice environments, and how a golf shot is created. These are all, in my mind, having taught the game for the better part of 20 years, critical in understanding and developing your not just your coaching ability, but your own playing ability. And you get this all this in one neat little package with a PDF manual, you get a call on video, and the best part is at the end of the entire course, you have three projects to undertake. So this is not just some course where you just go through the motions and get certified. You have to do the work to get certified.

SPEAKER_00 54:51

Sign me up. I'm in. And uh Carl, it seems like you've developed a very uh nice manual to interface, to actually interface with our nervous systems, to actually get in there and start rewiring stuff.

SPEAKER_03 55:14

And Carl, you also developed an AI. I think you were telling me about this. Can you share this with our listeners?

MindCaddy App And Where To Start

SPEAKER_02 55:21

Yeah, with um, as well as the MindCaddy book, as well as the MindCaddy book, and we've got the MindCaddy app. And this blows me away because I'm not a techno guy at all, really. But pretty much pretty much everything that I've ever done has been fed into this AI, all the books and seminars and courses and all the rest of it, and on the app, you can actually now have a a real-time conversation with with me about about your game, and it and it answers you in real time and it will ask you questions in real time as well. So it's a pretty it's a pretty amazing piece of kit that on the uh on the on the Mindcaddy app. Um my wife actually thinks it's better than the original, but that's another story. That's funny. She said, she said the best thing about the AI, she said at least it asks me questions rather than doesn't argue.

SPEAKER_00 56:18

Oh, that's fantastic.

SPEAKER_03 56:19

Thanks. Thanks so much for your time, Carl. Can you tell our listeners where to get hold of your new book and your new course?

SPEAKER_02 56:28

Yeah, that's great, Justin. Yeah, I really appreciate you having me on. I always enjoy chatting with you guys. Well, the book, The Mind Caddy, it's available, you know, it's it's available across the world on Amazon. I said at the beginning, it's uh it's 46 lessons from my career, really. Um, and then the Mind Factor course. Uh, if you go to the website, themindfactor.com or dot net, uh, there's a live chat on there actually. If you just you know ask some questions about the course, you you can do it. Just you know, if anybody's got any uh any questions, just uh they they can email email me. Just email info um info at themfactor.com and uh we'll happily um answer any questions that you've got about that or anything else, really. So uh but but thanks again. I really really appreciate you having me on. Whenever we have a conversation, an hour always disappears very quickly, which is always a always a good sign.

SPEAKER_03 57:19

Yeah, a good sign, yeah, indeed.