Episode Transcript
Speaker 0 00:00:00 Hi there, and welcome to the Proper Golfing podcast with myself, Joe Cameron
Speaker 1 00:00:03 And Julie Miller. Yeah,
Speaker 0 00:00:04 Hi, and welcome to today's podcast. The title of today's podcast is From Panic to Confidence and a Real Senior Golf Breakthrough. So, as we said before, all these podcasts are about real people with real data and a real transformation vault. But so yeah, this is our transformation vault series week number four. So today we're gonna hear about a real person called Simon Simon. Yeah. So the structure is the same as what it always is. We're gonna tell you a little bit, a bit, a bit about his background, his story, what happened in the lesson, and then what you can do to improve, which is
Speaker 1 00:00:38 Great. Yeah, absolutely, Joe.
Speaker 0 00:00:40 So from panic to confidence. So as I say, this is absolute data from the lesson itself. And yeah, it's about a senior golfer who hadn't really lost his swing, but had lost his trust, which I love that line.
Speaker 1 00:00:51 Yeah. I think when you lose trust, you start searching, don't you? You start looking for solutions. You go on the internet, you go on YouTube, you go on Instagram, TikTok, go see your, go, see another pro. Go see another pro. And you're becoming more and more and more confused. Confused, yeah. And, and what Simon didn't need is any more confusion.
Speaker 0 00:01:13 Well, exactly. Because what he, what it wasn't is a rebuild or a technical overhaul. Yeah, most definitely. Which is what I love about the way that that we coach. It's something much more sim, simpler and powerful. So anyway, tell us about Simon then. Tell us a little about his golf and his background and why he came.
Speaker 1 00:01:29 So Simon is what I would call an avid golfer. Loves playing practices intently, plays a lot of golf at a golf course, actually called the Oxfordshire. Yeah, good test of golf, especially in the wind. It's always windy up there. And boy, have we got some stories
Speaker 0 00:01:44 About the Oxford that is windy. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Really nice. Course. Flipping windy. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1 00:01:50 But dare say a tinkerer with his golf swing. Oh, yeah. Always looking for that next bit, that next bit. This is gonna make it better. I'm gonna try this. But never really matching some things up. And quite often I've had to reign him in, if that's the right word, just to stop. Okay. We don't need to go over there. Let's, the issue is you're trying too hard. Right. When you try too hard, you tense up. Yeah. When you tense up, you don't move freely. And when you don't move freely, you start trying to control the shots. And when you do that, your golf goes downhill rapidly. So it wasn't about adding more complexity to what he was doing is actually giving him permission to fail.
Speaker 0 00:02:33 Yeah. Which is what I love that giving people permission to fail, wish we can actually do that. So the actual thing he said he was standing over the shots feeling rushed. Yeah. It's actual words. Yeah. Thinking two shots ahead. Yeah. Thinking. And then one mistake turned into two or three that, you know, that's my thing. Like catastrophizing, it just goes from bad to worse down here. Yeah. And then his scores were drifting away even when the swing found. Okay.
Speaker 1 00:02:58 Yeah. Just actual things your swing can feel Okay. But the shots, once you start seeing that shot go offline, you'll start trying to control it. And when you control it, you'll tighten up. And when you do that, you're gonna lose your golf swing. And then you think, okay, my, my swing's gone to pot. I can't swing it the same as I used to anymore. And now we catastrophize as, as you quite already say. So my job is to create calm. Yeah. Okay. So he was really, really confused. Okay, so let's hit a few shots. Let's calm down, let's just make some nice golf swings, and we'll get some data from the sim and we'll see what's happening. So with that, there was like a, not a physical calmness on its own that became a mental calmness. Okay. Now I can start to, to swing freely.
Speaker 1 00:03:45 One of the best tips, if you are ever struggling, especially on the, on the first tee, that's where loads of people struggle. Take a deep breath in, hold it for a second, breathe out. And when you feel that out breath, that's how your body should feel. It's what we call in state, it's in its best physical state to move. Well. So we got him to, to do some breathing, to start to relax a lot more. And there was a total change in his golf swing. It suddenly went from locked up to freedom. And he didn't need more confusing, confusing swing thoughts in there, or more positions. We just needed to get some freedom back in his golf swing. He's a great golfer. You know, he is a single figure handicapper, but he was really struggling. So, Joe, what happened to his scores after the last session?
Speaker 0 00:04:34 Well, he said these, the actual numbers, so he, are they, these are the actual scores here.
Speaker 1 00:04:39 They're, there is gross scores. Yeah. You those up? Yeah. Yeah. So he went and shot rounds of 78, 79, 77, 79, and then shot a 73. Oh yeah.
Speaker 0 00:04:51 His best score ever in per west of 73. Yeah. Wow.
Speaker 1 00:04:54 And and what, what did he say? So afterwards, he said something very simple. He couldn't have done it without us. In theory, he could have done, but without that knowledge and understanding of how to get you to free that swing back up again. Yeah. You can't do it. So you need somebody external to help you. We talk all the time about tension. There's very few golf coaches out there who will actually understand tension. Yeah. You know, we, we do
Speaker 0 00:05:23 Understand, I think the, we, we often talk about the breath out, which is, you know, if you've listened to us before, you'll know. But, but for me, really, it's understanding what's going on on the way to the golf course. And, and when you're there, you know, fear or creep in and panic or creep in a, if you think you're not good enough, B, you've gotta do your best c putting pressure on yourself, or you don't think you're good enough, you know, you've really gotta be aware of what's going on in your head to be able to change that. The breathing is a physiological thing, which in turn can calm the mind. But you've really gotta ask yourself what is creating the fear in the first place. Yep. And, you know, trying or fear of failure and making things actually bigger than what they are. And I know some of the tour pros going, it's just around the golf, you know, it's just, and I know we, we play it to enjoy it, but generally, if we make things bigger or the threat of failure or going wrong, that's where the fear creep in. So that's where really you've gotta work out. And it takes somebody like us two sometimes to actually Asher the question or to draw out what your thoughts are on the way to the golf.
Speaker 1 00:06:25 You've gotta dig deeper, isn't it? We, we call it coaching beneath the visible surface. Yeah. F so what, what's under there? I mean, you could have some issues at home, for instance. You could have some issues with your health. Yeah. You could just be trying too hard. You could, we have so much access now to information that we Yeah, a hundred percent. And it's so easy to hop on your phone and, okay. Oh, this is another new bit. No, I, I almost want to raise our breathing to a slightly different level again. Right. Have you ever heard of left nasal breathing?
Speaker 0 00:06:55 Well, as a yogi, yeah. We do practice less noble breathing, but tell us any, tell us about it. Anyway, go on, tell us.
Speaker 1 00:07:01 Well, I only discovered it last night. Fascinating. Left and right nasal breathing. Yeah. Yeah. How it really can, how it, the nervous system affects the nervous system, but also the other part of the brain. And one of the best ways to, to become calmer is to do left nasal breathing. To actually hold your right nasal and breathe in through your left knee. Fascinating stuff. I'm gonna dig into it a lot more. Yeah.
Speaker 0 00:07:24 Well maybe do that on the next, on the next podcast,
Speaker 1 00:07:26 But I think so. Yeah. A hundred percent. I didn't even know that you could do both. Yeah.
Speaker 0 00:07:30 Well that, yeah, I mean, it's, it is mind blowing really about the connection between your breath and your thoughts. You know, nervous, you get them in tune and, you know, really good frequency. You just sort of drift nice and calmly through life. You know, we, we are getting into deep stuff here, but, you know, at the end of the day, it matters. It matters. And you know that this is why we're pulling this actual lesson off, you know, because of what happens inside that would change your golf. So like you say, he didn't need to more positions or fixing what he needed. And this is exactly what we talked about in the lesson, is that he needed the threat to disappear
Speaker 1 00:08:03 The threat. Yeah.
Speaker 0 00:08:05 So whatever the threat is, you know, your threat. The threat threat. Yeah. I, no, that's what I'm saying. Your threat or the threat from somebody else. But you, I don't think anybody would ever heard that before.
Speaker 1 00:08:14 No. We, we can, we've created a, an environment here where we can free you of the threat of failure. Yeah. Hundred percent. Because when we're practicing, there's no consequence to a bad shot on the range. There's no consequence on the golf course there is. So we can create a golf course on here, we can put obstacles in the way, but we can release you from the threat of failure because we can actually hit another, when you start to see you swing free up mentally there's like, aha, so I can do this. I haven't lost my goal swing. No, you haven't. You've just locked it in.
Speaker 0 00:08:47 Yeah. Which is again, what it, what we were saying in the actual lesson is that confidence isn't something you add, it's something you recover.
Speaker 1 00:08:55 Recover. Yeah,
Speaker 0 00:08:56 Absolutely. So a lot, you know, a lot, I dunno what the percentage is, but you know, very high, 80% of golfers come to us, you know, wanting to improve their confidence level. That's, I love that line. Confidence isn't something you add, it's something you recover. Yeah. Cool. Most, however, as we mature, things do change. Yeah. So your body changes, your physiology changes, so that's why you need to rediscover. Yeah. Different golf swing. I will say, we've been out on social media quite a lot and a lot of you guys out there asking for hints and tips about your golf swing, what I'd recommend is you go onto proper golfing.com and you can down, we can we, sorry, you don't download it. We actually write for you your per, he actually writes it a per he, he will actually write you a 30 day personalized improvement plan.
Speaker 0 00:09:42 So if you go into proper golfing.com, there's a link on the, there's a button on very first homepage, the link on the button that'll take you to five questions. The more information you give us, the more comprehensive res response you can give to you. So it's proper golfing.com and click the button which says Access your 30 day free improvement plan. Yeah. And, and they're mind blowing because basically what we do is draw the data from hundreds of hours of real lessons, real people, real data. And I'll say that every time. But we are the only people that's got this level of information, depth, actual evidence. In fact, if you look at the tab, evidence tab on the proper golfing.com, you can see it all there anyway, so that's all well and good. So what can we do for you is the bottom line. What can we do for you? So what are you gonna do? What
Speaker 1 00:10:28 You what, how can you,
Speaker 0 00:10:29 Or let me, right? This is really important. Okay. Really important. Because often we ask ourselves what are we gonna do? Yes. It's not about what you're gonna do, it's how you're gonna change your thinking. Okay. And I know that sounds a bit left field and a bit difficult to grasp. How are we gonna change the thinking, which then changes what you do. Yeah. So what are you gonna say?
Speaker 1 00:10:50 So next time you play, I want you to do three things for me. Okay. Before you go and play, I want you to choose three holes on your golf course. Okay. Right. Be it your favorite holes or holes that you struggle on, or maybe one in between on each of those holes, I want you to commit to three things for me. First off, I want you to commit to the shot that you're about to play. That's every shot on that hole. Okay? The second thing I want you to do is to swing freely. Okay? Don't try to control the golf ball. Don't try to hit the ball harder. Don't try and put it in a certain place. Swing freely. Commit to that shot. The third thing I want you to do on, on every single shot on that hole, I want you to hold your finish for six seconds. Where six seconds come from. It's about the time it takes for the golf ball to land. But I want you to commit to those three things. You will be astonished what's gonna happen to your golf. Yeah. We're not thinking of positions, we're just freeing things up and we're nailing that finish. Okay. Yeah. Free. So
Speaker 0 00:12:00 I'm gonna, I think that's great. So firstly, were talking about commit to the shot swing freely. Hold your a second, hold your finish for six seconds. I'm gonna take that a step further as well. Yeah. Is that before the round, you've gotta imagine what committing to a shot feels like. Yep. If you've never committed to a shot before, you can't just magic it on the course. So I'm gonna ask you to do three things ahead of those three holes. Perfect. So imagine what committing to a shot feels like. You've gotta play it in your head. Imagine what it feels like. And the same with the swing freely. What does that feel like before you do it? Okay. And you're six second finish, that's something that you need to practice day in, day out, isn't it?
Speaker 1 00:12:42 Yeah. It's amazing how many people we teach first time pay. So little attention to the finish. It's normally a one or a two out of 10. Yeah. In terms of importance. Yeah. Yeah. It's a 10 out of 10. It's that important. And when you really understand why it's important, you'll never look back, I promise
Speaker 0 00:12:59 You. Yeah. A hundred. Well, a hundred percent it. You know, it helps balance. And what you always say, which I love, is that if you holding your finish for six seconds, there's a heck of a lot that's gone on really well in the golf swing before that. Absolutely. So, so that's good. So we're going close our podcast today, next week on week five of our Transformation Vault podcast is what one golfer taught us about rhythm. Rhythm is so important. The golf swing, isn't it? Everything. But as I said, this series is about the real lessons, the real information, the real data of maturing golfers. And that you could be at any age maturing with your golf. You could be over 50, you could be a senior golfer, or you could just be somebody that wants to mature with your golf fucking nice bottle of wine. But anyway, hope you've enjoyed our podcast. I'm Joe Cameron.
Speaker 1 00:13:45 I'm Julie Miller.
Speaker 0 00:13:46 And remember to download your 30 day improvement plan written personally by julian@propergolfing.com, and we'll see or hear you next time.
Speaker 1 00:13:55 Yeah. Take care. Everyone
Speaker 0 00:13:56 Care. Bye. Bye.
