Quiet Confidence Wins Golf. In Conversation with Mark Immelmann

We talk with Mark Immelman about why the best golfers separate themselves without needing a perfect swing. We dig into identity, self-belief, coaching communication, and how to use stats and tech without losing the plot on the scorecard. 
• player identity as the real separator when talent is close 
• self-belief that holds up without arrogance 
• why mental toughness shows up when winning stops 
• making a bad day decent as a scoring superpower 
• the myth that a better swing guarantees lower scores 
• the “golf lifestyle” of practice choices, rest, and pressure reps 
• why players and coaches quit one process too early 
• teaching as listening and speaking the student’s language 
• “your message is only as good as what is understood” 
• three swing grades: solid strike, leveraged speed, repeatable under pressure 
• keeping the game simple and trusting what you know 
• the limits of strokes gained for decision-making and winning 
• stats as context, not a substitute for golf IQ 
• launch monitors as tools, not the whole lesson 
• Mark’s “top 12” coaching influences and old-school principles 
• how swing fads follow whoever is playing well 
• the Jim Furyk lesson: results under pressure matter more than looks 
• how Lessons from the Best was built from podcast gold 
• a Masters-week putting reset that focused on start line 
Search and subscribe to that. 
You can find everythingon Mark’swebsite, which is markimmelman.com. 

Transcript

Welcome And Mark Immelman Intro

SPEAKER_03 0:04

Hello again and welcome to another edition of the Flaghunters Golf Podcast. I'm your host, Jesse Perryman, along with my co-host, my brother from Another Mother from the Hidden Gastle Golf Club in Singapore. His name is Justin Tang. If you're a first-time listener or watcher, uh, we welcome you. And uh we have a fellow podcaster, golf experts, uh Man Extraordinaire. His name is Mark Illman, host of On the Mark Podcast, a member of the CBS Golf crew gracing us, Mark. Thanks, my man.

SPEAKER_00 0:38

Hey, what's going on? Uh listen, just to uh for parity's sakes, right? For posterity's sakes, uh Justin is also my brother from another mother, so I don't know what's going on here around the world, but apparently our boy is getting around a little bit. So um, look, it's it's it's good to join you guys. Sorry for the runaround. Apparently, I'm not very good at managing time zones, but it's good to be with you. Right alright.

SPEAKER_02 1:04

Thanks so much for taking time to uh hang out with us. Mark doesn't need any introduction. Mark's a very unique guest of ours because he's won almost every hat in elite golf as a player, NCAA coach, PGA tour coach, broadcaster, and author of Lessons from the Best. So, Mark, my opening question to you is you spent thousands of hours interviewing golfers, the best golfers on earth. What separates them from the what separates the top from the guys ranked 100 and below?

Identity And Self Belief At The Top

SPEAKER_00 1:44

Okay, uh Justin, I guess we are not considering skill. So skill, skill is not we we're not going to talk about right, talent. Because look. Yeah, because because look, the talent of the the the those guys we tend to watch on TV, that is incomprehensible and it's hard to understand, but everybody's talented. What what I would say is to me, the separator is it's sort of two found. First off, they know exactly who they are as players, they know of their strengths and their weaknesses. Um, they don't deviate from that sort of a thing. So I would say it's the identity of who they are is that is a separator. They're never trying to be anybody else. And then I would also say that um there's this there's an underlying self-confidence and self-belief that a lot of talented golfers that I've seen, and I'm sure you guys have seen too, where you as an outsider can see they're talented, but they don't believe that. Where when you speak to and you when you spend time around these guys that are at the very top of the pile, it's like they believe, without being obnoxious, they believe that they are worthy of that spot. And so when it comes to taking a risk on the golf course, they back themselves. When it's time to um you know stand up and decline an interview, they back themselves. And so it's this belief where they're like, okay, yeah, I'm worthy of this spot. So I would say, skill aside, it's very much uh uh an acknowledgement of who I am as a player, and then an acknowledgement of who I am in the game is another. And that's a big deal because there's no manner practicing that I feel like can unlock that thing. That that is either in your DNA or it's kind of learned from winning once or twice, and then you start to eventually believe in yourself.

SPEAKER_02 3:43

So can you can you coach someone into believing in themselves?

SPEAKER_00 3:50

I want to believe, like somebody like you and me when I was teaching at one stage, you can, but the reality is that they have their hands on the rubber end of the golf club. And so in the end, it's on them. So there's no amount of motivation, and and this I think applies to any sport, so there's no amount of motivation that will say to them, hey, go in and you know make that hard tackle, or go in and take on the shot if you're playing golf, or go in and and and outlast the guy in the rally if you're playing tennis. So it's something within, but I believe it is teachable because if you continue to help a player to a place physically where they are that good, that they just happen to win, that something will happen at some stage when they're playing. That they will pull off, I don't want to say the miraculous, but pull off something that's beyond their skill set, and they operate in that zone, if you will, that they'll suddenly go, oh my gosh, this is who I am. Because that that that that's what happens. Like, like Tiger for argument's sake, knew exactly who he was at age 16. Um, then maybe let's take Ryan Fox here, recency bias. He always knew he was good, but now he's realized who he really is. So sometimes it's realization because of events, and sometimes it's realization because they just have the sense within that there's something special about them.

Mental Toughness When Winning Stops

SPEAKER_02 5:24

How much of this psychological dominance has to do with physical skills? So, for example, if I'm an elite ball striker, wouldn't it be easier for me to have an elite mindset?

SPEAKER_00 5:41

Really good question. I would say that that's intellectually lazy. Because by definition, if I'm just better than you, it's easy to believe in myself. But the reality is, and I'll go back to my the philosopher that is my mom, her name is June. She said to me and my brother both, she goes, always remember that with every new level, there's a new devil. So you might you might beat everyone you play against, but you're eventually going to get to a place where, because the world is big, right? You're going to get to a place where you don't beat everybody as easily as what you're used to. And that's when the separator that is your mind, that is your self-belief, that is your self-talk, that can override stuff. Because when you're not winning, it's easy to get, no matter how good you are, it's easy to start doubting and start um not believing completely in your game and your physical gifts. So yeah, I would say to your question, yeah, I think if you're beating people because you're good, then it's self-belief. That's easy. But when stuff gets hard, which it's gonna get hard, I don't care who you are, that's when the real mental toughness, I feel like it begins to be exhibited.

SPEAKER_02 7:02

Yeah, I guess being captain obviously, I spoke to a student last night. I said, hey, if you're hitting fairways and greens, like anybody can play underpower. Yeah, it's when you are missing greens, can you still shoot underpower? That's when we know what you're

Make A Bad Day Decent

SPEAKER_02 7:19

made of.

SPEAKER_00 7:19

Well, that's the you've hit the nail on the head there, Justin, because of all, I'm very, very lucky because throughout my career I've gotten to you know speak to some really good athletes and some great minds in golf and stuff. And one of the most savvy golfers I've ever been around is Nick Price, who happened to be one of the best ball strikers you might have ever seen. And even Nick Price, as good as what he was ball striking wise, would say that he came up short and he never won the major events because he could never make his bad day decent. And then when he realized that in four rounds of competitive golf, that there was going to be that bad day. And for him to outlast the competition, he had to survive that day. And so he figured that out eventually by improving the short game and improving his mindset and all that sort of all these sort of things that we all work on, right? And when he did that, he turned into the world's number one golfer and was unbeatable for a while. Because Nick Price's talented kid, everyone who you talked to who played against him was like, This child's unbelievable. But it then he never won what he should have. But then when he realized it's those bad days you've got to get by and somehow still stay in the game, that's where the magic is. And when he figured that out, he became a multiple major champion, Hall of Famer, and um the number one golfer in the world.

SPEAKER_02 8:46

So it's back to taking a holistic approach to the game of golf.

SPEAKER_00 8:51

Uh,

The Swing Alone Won’t Save You

SPEAKER_00 8:52

here we go. You know me, don't you?

SPEAKER_02 8:54

And then I'm gonna segue into this myth that a lot of amateur golfers believe, which is if my swing is good, my golf scores will be low.

SPEAKER_00 9:07

What are you wanting me to react personally or professional? Yeah. Personally, I sadly made that mistake. I thought that the better my swing became, the better player I was going to be. And looking back now, if I had to say to my younger self, if I was talking to 15-year-old me, I would say to myself, that is not the truth. Golf is a game played, it's a game of recovery, it's a game played on an uneven surface, it's a game played on an uneven in an uneven environment, it's a game played with uneven emotions, it's a game by definition that's volatile. And if you think that just improving your golf swing is gonna be the secret to it all, you're barking up the wrong tree. And I've seen countless golfers go about that mindset because they're advised maybe, or maybe they think this is the way that they make that mistake. Um golf is golf is golf needs everything of you spiritual, physical, emotional, mental. And if you're just working on your golf swing, I feel like you are only dealing with a quarter of the of the recipe instead of dealing with the whole thing.

SPEAKER_02 10:27

Was it you that said there are plenty of golf swings on the Conferi tour that look way better than those on the PGA tour? Did I say that? Possibly on one of your podcasts.

SPEAKER_00 10:41

Well, no, well, knowing you because you listen so closely. Yeah, okay, I I can believe that. And I'll I will go further and say I I've I'm working currently with a golfer, and uh he's just graduating university, who is he looks like a million dollars. And when he hits the ball, I'm like, holy cow, the uh the sky's the limit. Now, look, the sky is the limit, but it's more than just how you hit the golf ball. Like this young man is incredible. He's got power, like he's longer than the current longest hitter on the PGA tour. Oh, golly. Exactly. Okay, consider this. He hits crisply, he's got a lot of confidence. Um, he's putting and his short game is functional, it could be better. But when you watch him hit the ball, you're like, oh my golly, this is a guarantee. But then now he's just in the throes of turning professional. He's finding his way and not getting the most out of it because he's suddenly realizing that look, it's more than just the golf swing.

The Pro Lifestyle And Apprenticeship

SPEAKER_00 11:45

It it's it's the idea of this golf lifestyle, if you bought in, where it's um it's knowing when to when to take time off and recover, it's knowing when to practice, it's knowing what to practice, it's knowing you know how to deal with pressure in tournaments, it's knowing it's all these little things that are unquantifiable, which is hard for the folks who live in the era of data. And it's the thing where maybe being an apprentice for a while and experience brings it. Now, once in a while you get a person that circumvents that apprenticeship, like a Tiger Woods, maybe, or a Colin Marikawa, or a Ludwig Oberg, or something. But in the end, most golfers, talented golfers, they're going to go through this all. And then in the end, the experience and the learning and the learning by doing is kind of where you figure out exactly who you are and how you perform under pressure.

SPEAKER_02 12:44

I like to say this. Some things are taught. Some things are caught. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:51

You you've you've you're spot on there. Um, I've often believed, sadly, when I was teaching full-time, I didn't know this because there were many lessons I felt that I gave that were very good, and then the player left me for someone else. And then I realized eventually, and I don't know, maybe in my 40s, I'm in my 50s now, that there's a cliche that goes, and bearing in mind the cliches are rooted in fact. And the cliche goes, When a student is ready, the teacher will show up, or the teacher will manifest.

SPEAKER_02 13:27

You sound like Bruce Lee.

SPEAKER_00 13:29

Well, yeah, and if he said that, then I'm borrowing a Bruce Lee isn't. But I heard that somewhere in the more, and I've been in teaching for a long time now in golf instruction and game improvement. But it's so true. I mean, I can give the same lesson to the same guy two years apart, and the second time around, you'll be like, oh my gosh, yes. And the first time you'd be like, Okay. So it's it's it's it's really about the student and about the receiver of the information. But then again, it's also only teacher who pervades the information in a place where it resonates with the the learner, if it makes sense.

Teaching That Actually Lands

SPEAKER_02 14:11

Let's talk about teaching. What Jesse and I feel that one of the most underrated skills in teaching is communication. What are your thoughts on that? So it's easy to identify the problems in the goal soon. It's more challenging to present the information in a way that the student can accept.

SPEAKER_00 14:36

Jesse, I want you to chime in here, but before you do, I will say that Justin's missed over there. I would say it's not one of the challenges. I think communication is the only way. I'll show you countless golf teachers, and I use that term loosely, that are like rocket scientists who just can't present the information in a way that the receiver understands it. And then I'll show you golf teachers that you'd be there, you'd be like, Are you for real? And then all the players that they work with are maximizing their talent and getting the most out of it. So yeah, I wouldn't just say communication because that's loosely defined. I would say communication for the teacher is listening. I would say communication more than anything else is figure out what the currency of the receiver is. Like if the receiver of the information, the learner, is not a real scientific, technical sort of a guy, don't be using terms like Dorsiflection and stuff around him, or because it's not going to work. You're going to find out what resonates for them, because your message is only as good as what is understood. Because if your message is understood, then that learner will suddenly become the person who can take the principle of themselves and of this concept and figure it out when the chips are down, because that's when it means something. But if there's just some kid or some golfer that turns around and they're looking at the teacher the whole time when stuff's going wrong, uh, that's a short lifespan, man.

SPEAKER_02 16:15

Yeah, I agree with what you said, uh these days with some uh instructors, you almost feel that you need to have a medical degree to understand what they're saying.

SPEAKER_00 16:26

Yeah. So it's it's it's it's wrong, and I'm gonna make enemies of a lot of teachers when I say this. But you know what? I'm at a stage now in my career where I'm 55, and I've been teaching golf since I was 25. And I have this podcast on the mark where we have everybody on there, and and I I'm not afraid to stand for the truth. And the truth is and I'm speaking to the teachers now, this is not about you showcasing how good you are. This is about you helping an aspirant learner to achieve their goals. And you must never ever forget that. And never forget, too, that they are athletes and they are not dumb. And what you're doing is you're working with a set of circumstances with them where you've got to best help them to maximize what they're able to do as opposed to fit your mold. Because if you're trying to make them fit your mold, it's a short, short avenue, and that's not gonna work out. But if you help them to maximize what they're able to do, that's when the magic really starts to uh starts to happen, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 17:45

You know, you talked about this the skill of communication, Jesse and I uh often talk about this. What you feel in slow motion is not what you see in real motion. Yeah, the golf swing is full of illusions. And how much of this did you work on as a budding instructor in your early days? How much how much of this interpretation did you have to focus on?

SPEAKER_00 18:18

Well, sadly, I think in my early days, let's say when I was a younger instructor, I didn't. So God bless those people that took lessons from me back in the day. And not to say I know it all now because I don't, because every day I I'm learning something different. And it's not necessarily about golf technique, it's learning more about human beings now, and learning how to communicate with them so that the message resonates. So I feel like that's where I'm growing. Um but as far as your question goes, I've given many lessons. I'm incriminating myself, yeah. I've given many lessons where looking back on this, I'd be like, that was crappy. And they play well. And I've given many lessons where I'll be like, yeah, really? And then they they then they this is the best stuff I've ever done, and then they play badly. So it's I I think as a real teacher, maybe I'm showing my insides here, but you you should follow, you know, if you're looking at Jesus, right? There was an awfully humble delivery of real truth. Never once were the messages um hard or abrasive. Um messages always taught in stories, as opposed to hitting people with stuff they couldn't really understand. And so to the teachers, if I had to leave, if and I and I'll die on this Helena, and I want people to learn this, that remember it's not about you. The mess, the lesson is about the receiver. And you've got to be brave enough to say, I don't know, or even more importantly, be brave enough to work with what the student has, which means you might have to depart from what your beliefs are, because in the end, the golf ball is the ultimate truth. Um, so I'm not sure I answered your question very honestly, uh, very very well there, Justin. But but but I would say back in the day, no, I didn't. Nowadays, I just realized that it's more about the student than the teacher.

SPEAKER_02 20:35

Yeah. No, you did you did what what I was trying to get at was the interpretation of instruction. So, for example, you want to fix a student's uh slice, you may say, hey, you're gonna feel like you're hooking the ball, for example. You're gonna present it in a way that they get. And I like I like what you said about Jesus. There's there's the title of your next book right there, the parable of the golf swing.

SPEAKER_00 21:03

Okay, I'll take that, I'll take that as divine prophecy. Thank you.

SPEAKER_02 21:09

You know, I like I like how you you approach uh instruction, and we've had discussions on this, and it always comes across simple but so profound.

Filtering Advice Without Wrecking Talent

SPEAKER_02 21:20

And in your seat as the host of the on the mark radio, you've interviewed so many great players and great coaches alike. Your mind must be like, I don't know, Costco, Walmart, it must be like a carnival. How do you how do you filter out the information when you're giving the lessons to your college team and your daughter Lizzie, for example?

SPEAKER_00 21:49

When I'm interviewing folks on the On the Mark podcast, I listen like a fan. I listen like a golfer who wants to do better. And thankfully, I have enough knowledge and experience, I think more experience than knowledge, where I can kind of hear if stuff is sounds fancy, but it's not applicable. And then you'll hear me, I'll probe them with other questions to make them dive deeper into what the subject is that they're glossing over with some fancy words. Um so I so I would say, how do I disseminate all this information? When I talk to people, I listen like a fan. When I give lessons or advice, I go with what I know for sure. And always to me, Justin, I'm guided by a few principles. The first one is whatever you do, don't screw up talent. Okay. The second one is how I grade a golf swing. And I grade a golf swing with three criteria. The first one is does this does this individual strike the ball solidly? More often than not. Is the swing leveraged or does it get maximum club ed speed for minimum method? And the third is does it repeat under pressure? And if this if the swing answers those three questions truthfully, then I've got to mind my P's and Q's. Now, if it doesn't, then I may have to give advice. But then always I'm bearing in mind, okay, how do I not screw up talent? And yet somehow help this individual to bring out their best when the pressure is up. Because the truth is, man, we are only as good as what this player plays under pressure. Like if they're hidden the ball well in the range and they're going play like crap, that we haven't done our jobs. So so for me, really, it's a lot of it is always remembering that they're athletes, always staying true to how I grade a golf swing. And then you work very carefully around that, understanding the responsibility that we have to be able to, you know, hope these help these people to bring out their best when it means something.

SPEAKER_02 24:01

Yeah, it goes back to the DNA goal of taking golf lessons.

SPEAKER_01 24:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 24:06

What is it for? It's to lower our scores. I mean, sure, some people like to have a pretty golf swing. That's fine. But in general, when 12 players take lessons from us, it's because they want to change the average from 70.47 to 69. Yeah. You've you've interviewed so many great players. What's surprised what has surprised you the most in your interactions with them?

SPEAKER_00 24:37

First off, forgive me, yeah, because I had to move spots because in my hotel room the uh the plug point wasn't working so well. So I've moved and I'm on my bed here, so I'm looking very casual. Um so now that I have some power, please ask me that question again.

SPEAKER_02 24:52

You've interviewed so many great players in your podcast. What has surprised you the most about them?

SPEAKER_00 25:01

Um a few things. One, how I would I'm always looking for more. Because the teacher within, when I'm interviewing a player, I'm expecting something that's groundbreaking and like super ethereal, where they give an answer and I'm like, okay, surely there's more. But you know what, there never is because they keep the game awfully simple. So that's the first thing, and then the second thing I would say is they have this quiet sort of a self-confidence, where it's not like they know that they know it all, but they're very confident in what they believe. And it reminds me of a stu uh an anecdote I got from Bernard Langer one time where he was like, Look, I would rather be convinced with a wrong club in my hand than unconvinced with the right club in my hand. And then, and so it gets to um with these players too, they have this self-belief where they're like, you know, what I do is right. And if they had to watch YouTube a bunch, like that, like remember there was that anecdote from Tiger Woods one time when when a person asked him, so what must I do to improve my golf? And Tiger was like, Don't watch YouTube. Okay. Because these players now, these players nowadays, well, even then, even back in the day, the oldies that I've I've I've interviewed, they knew what they knew was the best for them. And I'm not so sure that we as teachers or instructors can can kind of guarantee that. But something happened with them at some stage in the career where they knew exactly who they were and exactly what they had to do. They knew their strengths and their weaknesses, and then the guys with the longevity never ever dealt, never ever deviated from that.

SPEAKER_02 27:09

We had Mike Bender on earlier this morning, and he said something that was quite surprising to us, at least to me. He said Zach Johnson and him have been working together for 27 years. That is surprising. That that is an eternity in the modern era of professional golf.

SPEAKER_00 27:31

Well, I've been hired and fired by PGA two players in the same week, so that that's very impressive.

SPEAKER_02 27:38

And back to what you said about them keeping it simple. It's really compounding the process, isn't it? But if you're changing coaches every week, there is no real runway to compound that process or to even see if there's anything worth in the process to compound.

Why Quick Fixes Fail

SPEAKER_00 28:02

I'm reminded of a meme I once saw with your statement there, where you have these two miners, right? And they're underneath the ground, and they got their little hat on with a light in the front and their pickaxe, and the one one guy's chopping away. And what we have the ability as the viewer of the meme to see is where the treasure is, and there's one guy that's given up digging, and the treasure was like one more chop away from breaking through, and then there was the other guy who was doing the right thing that just kept on chopping. Because that's sadly with the abundance of information that we have, because information is helpful, don't get me wrong, but it's also a bit of a scourge because the more information there is, the more ways it seems like, or the more, if anyone's got an inquisitive mind, they're gonna start finding all sorts of answers to the problem. So then they give up on one thing to try and go and find something where maybe the grass seems a little greener on the other side of the fence. Where they don't know, or they don't have the luxury of looking at the entire picture and going, you know, if I just stuck there maybe a few days longer or a week longer or whatever, I might have achieved my goals. And there's the problem. And that to me, like you tell the Mike Bender and Zach Johnson story, Zach Johnson is a good player, don't get me wrong. But Zach Johnson, if you had to poll players on tour, his mindset is tough, he's gritty, he's competitive, he's strong mentally and emotionally. But I think in terms of physical gifts, you could have found a whole lot more people that would have won him, should have won a masters in an open than what Zach did. But because of Zach's manner and the manner with uh Mike Bender, that was why he found his green grass. Because he stuck to what he was doing and wasn't looking for the next quick fix right around the corner. Does that make sense?

SPEAKER_02 30:13

So there is no quick fix to this game.

SPEAKER_00 30:16

If there was a quick fix, think this I heard this from Butch Armin one time. It might have been on my show, where Butch was like, what people need to realize is when I was working with Figer, when he won the Masters in '96, it was obviously like an uh an event for the ages, and his performance was second to none. But shortly thereafter, he's like, Butch, and I paraphrase so don't get me, don't come at me if I get this wrong. But from what I recall from our conversation, he goes, Tiger wanted to straighten up. The club was across the line at the top of the swing. And so Tiger comes to Butch going, I want to clean up my backswing. And Butch is like, I don't know, I don't see why, but sure. Because he's now appeasing Tiger. And he said it took Tiger at least a couple of years before he won again, after putting on one of the more dominant performances in the Masters in history. And reading between the lines, what Butch said to people was like, Look, if it takes Tiger two years to get something, uh, you need to slow down with your expectations because you're not going to pull it off as fast as what you think you should if it took Tiger two years to get a swing chain figured out. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 31:32

You know, back to what you said about Butch and Tiger. It's quite common for such alpha athletes to not trust what brought them where they currently are. Yeah. You dominated the 97 Masters, no one even remembers that Tom Kite finished second. And suddenly you realize that my string's not good enough. Like, oh, hang on. You just you just blew the field away. So, how much balance does the elite athlete need to strike between I'm not good enough or this is good enough?

Statistics Versus How Winners Play

SPEAKER_02 32:12

Let's let it compound. It's a very thin line.

SPEAKER_00 32:16

It is a thin line. Um, but you know what? That thin line's getting a bit blurred right now. And forgive me for a while because I might get on my suckbox. Get on it. Yep. But in the era of strokes gain statistics, like I'm on countless shows where I'll speak with these analysts, these data analysts, and they'll be like, well, the best player right now is Joe Pro, because strokes gain total, he's better than this guy and this guy and this guy. I'm like, I'll take the other guys over your guy any day of the week, and twice on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Sundays, because I know that my guy has won and played at the highest level. So because now what I'm saying about blurring, and I'm not poo-pooing strokes gained, but if you're purely looking at statistics the entire day, it's not giving you the entire message. Because you could hit 280 shots during a golf tournament, right? And still come up one shot. And you could be leading strokes gained off the T and approach and stuff and still lose. Now, if you're cool to make a lot of money and lead some statistical categories, by all means go ahead. But if you're looking for trophies, you need to understand more about how the game's played and how the real winner at times finds a way to deviate from the norm and make a decision that flies in the face of what people think you should. Because at some stage during a tournament, you're going to be struggling and you've got to survive, you're going to be thriving and you need to thrive. And then there's going to be a moment when you need to do something and you need to take the ball, sort of like Ryan Fox did in the 18th hole, and say, This is my moment. I'm doing what I know I can do, not what the statistics say. So that's my my my sort of explanation of where I'm going. Because I think nowadays, with the advent of information, sometimes people are getting advice on what they need to work on, perhaps, but not necessarily advice on how they need to play. Does that make sense to you? Like you can look at certain managed course management um apps, they'll advise you where you need to hit it. And then you hit it over there, and it's an easier up and down. But what these things are doing is they're taking an average of all the shots that are hit. And the last time I checked, the tournament winner wasn't the average guy. He was performing, he was performing well above average. So if you're telling me, well, he's positive strokes gained one, I'm like, great, that sounds good. He's one better than average. So if you're being if you're cool with being slightly better than average, then you're operational. If you want to win tournaments, there is a little bit more to it. Are you sort of getting where I'm going here?

SPEAKER_02 35:20

Yes, you know, that's an old saying, there are lies, damned lies, and statistics.

SPEAKER_00 35:25

Yeah, well, well, I mean, that I can't tell you how many times I've I've used the version of that where I'm like, statistics are like a lamppost to a drunk man. Some use it for illumination and some use it for support. Now, now I'm again, I'm not saying stroke scan data can't advise you on what you need to work on. But that's where the experience of playing, the the golf IQ, for lack of a better term, and I cannot define that, but just knowing exactly who you are again and am I able to pull this off in the situation? And if I'm not, I don't do it because statistics say I should hit the driver. I do the right thing and I wait for the next opportunity. Are you seeing there? Because look, nowadays stats say send it off the T. I'm here to tell you, I work in the PGA tour. If some guy is can't breathe because he's so nervous, if you ask him to hit a driver down a fairway that's narrow with trouble everywhere, he's not gonna do it. He might do it later, but at the time when stats say you should, he's gonna know I shouldn't. That that's sort of where I'm getting to.

SPEAKER_02 36:36

Yeah. You know, since we're talking on technology, some stats here for you. I prepared this for the show.

SPEAKER_00 36:46

You knew I was coming, that's what you did.

SPEAKER_02 36:48

In 2004, Fred Funk had a proximity of 31 feet two inches on his approach shots. Fast forward 21 years later, Scotty Scheffler, 33 feet 4 inches. Something's not quite right with that picture given the amount of technology that came up between 2004 to 2025.

SPEAKER_00 37:16

That's a really good, that's a really good point. But just to shed a little light on this, you know, again, you'll see people that will love any sort of statistic at someone to make a point. And I agree with you there. But I will say the greens that Fred Funk played on were probably a whole lot more receptive than what Scotty Scheffler's playing on. So bowls bouncing and releasing a whole lot more. I'd also like to see what winning scores were. So there's again, there's more to it than just looking at that stat. But I will say this. Um with the quality of the greens nowadays at the highest level, and with the advent of better green reading, folks are making a whole lot more putts from range than what they did back in the day. Gary Player said to me one day, he goes, the biggest advancement in technology is agronomy. He goes, not the clubs and stuff. He goes, nowadays, players, if they had to play on the greens I played on, they'd their eyes would spout blood. So I want to say to you, because greens are good, Scotty Schaeffler can go, I'm gonna play out there safely 30 feet right of the flag. And if I make it great, if not, I know I'm gonna make three or four birdies on power fives. And if I do that four rounds in a row, I'm gonna shoot like 12 under. And Scotty is the Scotty's the master at kind of bogey avoidance, maybe, I guess. Um, or not shooting himself in the foot. That's why he lost. Where Fred Funk was more of like he was so accurate, he was gonna hit it close, but he didn't putt that well. So again, there's that statistics thing where it could work out, but you're right. You don't have to be as good as what you think to be able to shoot consistently low scores.

SPEAKER_02 38:57

And that's an object lesson in understanding statistics, Mark. There is a difference between correlation and causation.

SPEAKER_01 39:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 39:06

And you can't just look at one step in isolation.

SPEAKER_00 39:11

Yeah. Oh well, well, I would say this too. Like, people ask me, like, what's the most important statistic? And I'll my my the old gr the grumpy old golf instructor guy in me will be like, well, the number at the bottom of your scorecard on the bottom right corner. That's the biggest one. Okay. But then if you push me more, I'm gonna say, well, here's a few. Three-putt avoidance, bounce back after a mistake. And then I'm, you know, as much as what strokes gained approach is better than greens in regulation, I'm gonna say it to you, greens in regulation. Because I know for a fact it's easier to two-putt than it is to chip and putt. Even at the highest level, if you give a guy a chip and a putt, they're gonna probably get it up and down 70% of the time, if they're doing well. If you give a guy a long-range putt, they're gonna get it up and down more than that. So if I'm playing numbers, I'm going with greens and regulation, bounce back after a mistake, and three-putt avoidance. Because if you look at both Scotty and Tiger, they're they're both masters at avoiding the soft, stupid mistake. They only attack when it's necessary. The rest of the time, they're putting themselves in a place where they don't beat themselves. Like I once heard one player say, and this is an elite player, like elite elite, future Hall of Famer. And he was talking about a couple players. And the one he said, when I see his name on the leaderboard, I know he's not going away. Because in, and that's all he said, that's all the player said. What I gleaned from that was he's not going away because he's not going to make the dumbass play. If he makes a bogey, it's because of some extenuating circumstance, it's not because of a stupid or a rash decision.

Launch Monitors Used The Right Way

SPEAKER_02 41:05

Again, on technology, are launch monitors making golfers better or just more confused?

SPEAKER_00 41:15

I don't know for sure because I don't know all golfers. I would say that if there's a mistake that's being made, and I'm saying this because I was I was a victim of it until a very smart guy named Alex Traheer called me out. Um and he said to me, He goes, You can't look at launch monitor numbers um uh individually. You have to look at the entire picture. And most folks, when I see them with a launch monitor, they might decide, well, I've got to work on my swing path. And they only work on the path, but they don't understand the context of it all. So I'm yeah, I'm saying that yes, golf launch monitors are making people better because, like, if you're working on uh on ball speed for argument six, like with my daughter Izzy, she can launch the ball with a driver at the same speed as a Nelly Corda, but she doesn't hit as many fairwares. So if I keep on telling her you can drive it like Nelly because of your speed, that's gonna help her, but she's got to learn to hone that craft a bit because of understanding that she's got to hit it more accurately. And then if some guy's saying, Well, I want to hit a draw and he's focused solely on path, then it'll be like, Well, you can swing inside out with a path that's open and you'll hit the ball to the right all day long, I promise you. So launch monitors helpful, gotta understand how to use them appropriately, got to keep the context in all of the information.

SPEAKER_02 42:41

Just like what David Ladbeta said. He said, The track man only tells you the number, but it doesn't tell you how the player got that number.

SPEAKER_00 42:53

Randy Smith was on my podcast, and he calls the track, he called, he said, I got a track man, I call it the drama box.

SPEAKER_02 43:01

Drama box.

SPEAKER_00 43:02

And I'm I think yeah, because because he goes, whenever that box shows up, there's drama happening.

SPEAKER_02 43:08

And wasn't it uh Butch Harman on also on your podcast? He said pointing to his two eyes, these are my track man.

SPEAKER_00 43:17

Well, that's the old school guys in us, you know. Um Butch and Randy are older than me, but I'm older than you guys, so I'm kind of the bridge between the older than you. And like John Jacobs was a mentor of mine, and he was a human launch monitor. I I saw him give a lesson where he turned his back on the learner and he just watched the ball go. And all he would ask the guy hitting the ball was, How was that struck? And he helped the guy fix a slice like big just by watching the ball. So not worried about the swing, just understanding how you make a ball go. Um, and so there are people like that still, but I do feel like a lot of teachers, you go. For lesson, the first thing they do is put you on the launch monitor. If if I if if I get you, if you're with me and I put you on a launch monitor, that means you're not understanding exactly what I'm saying, or you're not doing it enough. Because then I'll say to you, hey, look, you feel like you're doing this, but the numbers are not correlating. So that's when the launch monitor comes out. If you're to the launch monitor right away, unless you're measuring speed and spin, um, I I I think you you you're barking up the incorrect trees.

SPEAKER_02 44:32

So you've interviewed so many great coaches, and you mentioned two of them, Randy Smith and Butch Harmon. Yeah.

The Coaches Mark Would Pick

SPEAKER_02 44:39

Who who would be in your your executive committee or your your the top 12? Just to borrow an analogy from Jesus and his 12 disciples.

SPEAKER_00 44:51

First would be John Jacobs. Second would be Ernest Jones. Third would be swing the club. Third would be Percy Boomer. Fourth would be Bob Jones. Fifth would be Jack Nicholas. Six would be Jack Grapp because of Jack Nicholas. Seven would be David Ledbetter. Eight would be Harvey Penick. Nine would be Butch Harmon. Ten would be Billy Harmon because of the way he teaches how to play. And eleven Jim McLean. And twelve Randy Smith. In no order, so don't publish that again.

SPEAKER_02 45:42

Because I'm going to pick somebody off. No, but that's amazing because in this list, these are the so-called old gods of golf instruction who didn't have access to the X-ray machines that we have today. And yet they still produce incredible results. I mean, ask any instruct budding instructor if he would want the career of But Sharman. Undoubtedly he'd say yes.

SPEAKER_00 46:12

Yeah, I agree. Well, the way it is, is look, despite all the technology, the interaction between ball and club face is exactly the same. The ball's just faster now. But it still operates with the same aerodynamic principles and the same spin principles as what it did when shepherds back in Scotland were hitting pebbles and featheries around with sticks. So to a large extent, the principles still apply. Now, again, there's going to be a bunch of people that take odds with me because, yes, with biomechanics and this stuff, we've learned more about how the body moves. And I use this stuff. I use pressure mapping. I use a launch monitor. I use the hack motion wrist device a lot because I feel like the wrist and hand action is massively important in the swing. Because that just helps people put a value to a feel. But if you're trying to hit a draw, I don't care if you got a brand new Calaway driver or a 1950s persimmon head, you still got to deliver that thing the same way to get the ball to draw.

Swing Fads And Copycat Golf

SPEAKER_00 47:33

Things work in cycles, don't they? It's like fads on the yeah, fad fads on the PGA touring in the World's Game. Yeah, it's in and out. Fads to me are driven by players. Like I would say the first real fad was Harry Varden, the Varden grip. Everyone held it like Harry Varden. Well that went away. Then I'd say the next fad may have been Henry Cotton, who talked about hitting a tire. It was all about impact. And on the European tour, you win the Henry Cotton Award for the best rookie. And then after Cotton, I would say um maybe Sam Sneed influenced technique a lot. And then Ben Hogan certainly did. You would have thought Byron Nelson would, because he was so reliable, but Byron Nelson didn't take. Then after Hogan, and then along comes maybe, yeah, I would say Arnold Palmer, and then Jack Nicholas. And then after Jack, then you've got oh gosh, a lot of people wanted to swing like Greg Norman. And then there was Nick Felder. Everyone copied Nick Felder. And then there was Ernie Else. And then there was one dude named Tiger Woods.

SPEAKER_02 49:01

Who changed the face of golf construction?

SPEAKER_00 49:04

So I don't know who it is nowadays. I think maybe it's probably Mackel, right? Because of how he moves his core and how he moves his body and how he leverages everything. Oh, don't forget there was Robert Rock in between. I'd like to think so, but yeah, not really. I mean, he looks pretty. Um, he was on my show recently. He's so good. Um, but but uh technique is driven by who's playing well. That that's kind of how it goes, you know.

SPEAKER_02 49:33

Yeah. I I'm surprised that no golf instructor ever wanted to teach the Montgomery golf swing pattern, or the Jim Furick one for that matter. We've talked about this before on your show. Jim Furick shot 58-59 on two separate occasions. Colin Montgomery won eight-order merit titles on the European tour, seven of them consecutively. That's as tiger-esque as you could get.

SPEAKER_00 50:01

Monty was Monty was like a machine. He had that like little low, kind of drippy fade every single

Jim Furyk And The Truth Under Pressure

SPEAKER_00 50:07

time. You speak of Furic, I was just doing this corporate dinner, and we talked about Furick. And I shared a story with a guest that I'll share with you guys, where he was at the tour championship, and my brother was still playing, and I was teaching him at that stage. And so it's the top 30 golfers in the tour. So it's these are the best of the best, right? And Trevor's playing a practice round, and Jim Furick joins him. And it was on the sixth hole, I remember because it's the power five that goes up the hill to the right. And Trev hits a drive, Jim hits a drive, and I'm standing on the T looking in Jim's bag. And of all the irons, only my memory, if my memory serves me, it was only the eight iron. It might have been the sixth, but only one of his irons had lead tape on the back of the club face. So I looked at this, I'm like, this doesn't make sense. So I asked him about it, and I'm like, why only the eight iron? And he goes, because it feels different to the other irons. And in my head, I'm going, you can feel that. Okay. But I leave that. And so we're walking up the fairway, and I'm with Trev teaching him, and Mike Ferrick, Jim's dad's teaching him. And Mike walks up to me, he walks a little slower, I slow down. He gets to me, and I'm like, Mike, I just want to tell you that I've got the utmost admiration for you, and I want to congratulate you. And he sort of looks at me quizzically and goes, Why? And I'm like, Because for all this time you never felt fell for the noise. People critiquing Jim's technique, um, people having to speak about Jim's golf swing and stuff. How do you do it? And he goes, Easy. And I was thinking in my head, that's not easy at all. And he goes, Because the only thing we work on with Jim is we want to know that on the 16th hole on Sunday at the US Open, if he sets up to hit a draw, he's gonna draw it. And if he sets up to head a fade, he's gonna fade it. Because I don't care what it looks like. If under pressure he can deliver what he wants, we are on track. And lo and behold, he's made the most money of any professional golfer ever on course. I think they did a good job.

SPEAKER_02 52:19

I remember a story where they sent Jim Furick for trials in college, and one of the college coaches was like, Yeah, he's in. I can't wait to get my hands on that swing. They ran for the hills. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 52:36

Well, he wouldn't have been Jim Furick in the end, then, or he would have, but no one would have known. Yeah. And isn't it funny nowadays? Because now you'll you have every all the stuff that people used to critique Jim for. Nowadays the modern day instructor is showing about how glorious this stuff is. I'm like you guys.

SPEAKER_02 52:55

It's laughable. Rate of closure is the lowest on tour. Well, yeah. Yeah, those thoughts.

SPEAKER_00 53:02

Don't get me started about rate of don't don't get me started about rate of closure, okay? Because that's ruining more golfers than car accidents, but I'll leave that there.

Lessons From The Best Book Origin

SPEAKER_02 53:11

You know, Mark, for the benefit of our listeners who may not have heard about your your wonderful book, could you give them a glimpse of what it's about? Um the book. Um yeah.

SPEAKER_00 53:28

Well, I've just been so lucky with my On the Mark podcast, which was sort of started on a whim, and then it grew a life of its own because it started strangely. If you listen to the first few episodes, which were terrible, it was basically a PGA tour recap show. And then I realized I couldn't do that. And maybe a serendipity or maybe a spiritual moment of inspiration where I was like, I'm a golf teacher, let's just talk about game improvement. And I did, and it started growing and growing and growing, and now 11 seasons later, we're still doing it. The one day I was at my desk, and I was, I don't know what made me do it, because normally I listen to music. I turned on an old show and I was listening back to this guest, going, My God, that's great. So I started taking notes, and then it was right at the advent of AI, and so I pitched the idea of writing a book to a publisher, he loved it, and so we um I put out on social media, I'm like, what's your favorite podcasts? And we got an idea, and then I picked some of my favorite podcasts, and we essentially made 18 chapters uh of basically each chapter was some of my favorite and most helpful podcasts that we've done on The On the Mark Show. And it was supposed to be like one was going to be on driving and one on iron playing, one on short game stuff. But when I was listening to shows, every show was just loaded with information about everything. So we curated the information a bit to kind of go, right? Well, some of it's more mental and some of it's more physical, and some of it's more swing. So in the end, it's just like 18 really good lessons from the podcast, in which I use some of the quotes from the interview, and then I build around that stuff. So it's chapters from different golfers. Well, that'd be a part two. Yes, they will. Amazing. But I gotta organize myself because man, I can't show up in time for your guys' interview. So me filling in time to write a book is never gonna work right now. So we get my life in order a bit more.

SPEAKER_02 55:43

You know, we're we're so thankful for for you joining us. We've got a last question, right? Could you take us behind the scenes of when you were coaching your brother, Trevor, to his greatest triumph?

A Masters Week Putting Reset

SPEAKER_00 55:58

To the masters. I I don't know how much behind the scenes are, but I will say this. Um, he well, look, David Ledbetter, I've been his coach, but Led was always like our godfather. And Led was there helping him with his swing, but Trevor was putting very badly. And the week prior in Houston, uh, he had missed the cut. And um I'd seen some of the footage and I didn't think his stroke looked like that bad. And I called him and he's like, Well, I've been on Sam Putt Lab and this and that, and I'm doing this and I'm doing that. And I was convinced that that was not the problem. So driving up to Augusta on a Sunday prior to the tournament, my wife and I were in the car, and I said to my wife, I'm gonna say something. And she rem, I remember her saying to me, she goes, Are you sure about this? So I'm like, Yeah. So we pulled into Augusta, pulled up to his house. I get out the car in the garage, and there's his golf bag with three putters in the bag, which is kind of a giveaway, right? Because clearly he's not happy on the Monday morning of the Masters. So he it's her like, hello, how you doing? All the rest of it. Question, question, how you doing? And so I asked her, I'm like, so what number are you? Because you know, you get a number for how you register in the tournament. And he goes, I'm 39, which is a pretty good nine-hole score for me right now. And then I looked at him, I'm like, why? And he said, I can't, I'm not putting well. So I said to him, I'll help you tomorrow morning. That's all I said. And he goes, Okay, I'll see you at 9 a.m. And um I knew it was about start lines, and I knew that he was worried about the results. So I had a ball marker that we went on the putting green on Monday morning early. And um so I said to him, pick the hardest putt you can find. So he walks all the way down the old putting green to almost right next to 10T there. And it's this fast downhill left to right at like 15 feet. Things are impossible. I'm like, okay, I see where you're going here. So I said to him, What's your line? And so he picks it. I'm like, no, visualize it and take this ball mark and put it a few feet in front of the ball on the line. So he does it, kind of begrudgingly, because there's people around and he was looking like a bit of a fool right now, having to put a ball mark in front of his ball. And I'm like, okay, just roll the ball over that mark, which he did, and the ball missed. So he looks at me, he goes, Okay, now what? So I'm like, do it again. So I'm like, rolled it over the ball and the ball over the mark and the ball missed. So I'm like, okay, are you hitting good putts or bad putts? And he sort of goes, Well, well, they're missing. I'm like, are you hitting good putts or bad putts? And he goes, Well, I'm starting on the line, so I guess they're good. I'm like, exactly. And so we moved the mark, and then he realized quickly enough he could miss the mark a few times and the ball could go in, and he could hit the mark and the ball miss. So it became a thing where the sole goal for the week was to strike it solid, start on the mark. If he did that, it was a yes putt. And he had to say yes. So there was some positive reinforcement. And he started, you know, hitting a bunch of yes putts, and the confidence grew, and um, he made a few putts in the first air. The first one on the third hole was the slider from right to left downhill, about 15 feet or so, big curve, like four or five feet, and just dripping in. And when he knocked that in, I'm like, yeah, we go. But in the practice round, I gave the ball mark to my dad on a Tuesday, and I said to him, This is the reason why your son's gonna win the masters. So on the mark. Yeah, yeah. Well, there you go. Well, yes, that's very poetic. Well done. Right over the mark, it should be over the mark. Yeah.

Socials And Final Thanks

SPEAKER_02 59:54

Mark, would you share your socials with our listeners?

SPEAKER_00 1:00:00

Oh, absolutely. Um, I'm at on Instagram and on Twitter. It's at Mark underscore Immelman, which is I-M-M-E-L-M-A-N. Um, YouTube channel is Mark Immelman. There's another channel coming up called Marcology. Search and subscribe to that. It's all golf instruction. Um, but you can find everything basically on my website, which is markimmelman.com.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:24

And people can take lessons from you on skillless as well.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:29

Um, not anymore. Um truth be told, I was giving lots of lessons on skillless, but I was getting too far behind. And so I was getting some irate recur comments from folks that I was a few days late on. So I'm not doing the online stuff. Um, I probably might do it in the future again. But again, I'm just trying to get my live stream lined because I've got all these irons in my fire. Good to hear. Thank you so much again for your time. Yeah, thank you, Mark. It's my pleasure. Well, God bless you guys for what you're doing because I know how hard it is to do a podcast. And I know the labor of love that it is, and people download it and then they complain about stuff, but they don't realize what it takes behind the scenes. And for the folks watching this show, these guys are waking up in the middle of no middle of somewhere in Singapore, and I'm in middle of uh Minneapolis right now. It's a lot of work, and so I appreciate everything you guys are doing. Well done.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:27

Thank you, Mark. Thank you for your contribution to the game of golf, Mark.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:30

Yep. Oh, likewise, um you you're two the best. I mean, I'm glad to be on here with you guys, and and I just want to say to you keep shining, keep preaching. I mean, the truth, the truth is undefeated, you know, and in the end, uh I feel like it's gonna come to light.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:45

Yep. Thank you so much. Well sad.