Thanks dude! Glad you liked it. Totally agreed on the application of the mental game skills to other parts of life - I have been a massive beneficiary of that (although who knows what was cause and what was effect!). Also totally agree re: long/short-term physical components. I haven't tried TPI yet, but I do a bunch of other things to get my body into good shape and make sure all the right muscles are firing (vs. the ones that compensate thanks to my desk job 😅). Specifically, I go to a chiropractor and kinesiologist every month or so, and I do exercises from the Egoscue method and DNS (Dynamic Neuromuscular Stabilization). I'm diving deeper into Egoscue right now to fix the one-sided rotation issues I have from playing a lot of golf and tennis. I highly recommend both - I've seen instant results. Got anything that has worked for you?!

This is an Outstanding Golf video. Thank you for creating this. I am a 78 year old golfer who started playing the truly amazing game of golf when I was 39. For the first 30 years of golf I thought that TRIANGLE of golf was “mechanical” Equipment - Lessons - Practice. You are a lot younger and smarter than me. It took me until my “golden years” of retirement golf to understand that YOU ARE 100% CORRECT. Both Golf and Life in general are shaped by the “Human” Triangle of Mental-Emotional - Physical that you kept showing during this outstanding video. I think every golfer at every age and handicap level would benefit from watching this video periodically throughout their years playing golf. I have Saved your video to watch again when the “C”days come back like the common cold or Covid or car problems or climate change. A lot of bad things seem to start with the letter “C” ?

100%

Thanks dude - glad you like it and really appreciate your telling me! Yeah I've actually been working on the coaching piece. Let's talk! Do you mind dropping me a line at upbeatgolfer@gmail - and we can coordinate the round at Moffett there too!

Thank you! Glad you liked it and really appreciate you letting me know! 😃

100%! The A days are absolutely a gift + I think another key skill is being able to use them as fuel for a long time afterwards 🙂 And personally I think the mental game actually helps get you to solid golf faster. I found it's amazing how much the game completely changed and became easier when I chose to be/exist in a better mental state.

Glad you liked it! 😃

Thanks Matt! Hope you're getting some winter golf swings in! 😃

@@upbeatgolfer Yeah, indoor league. Wisconsin sucks for winter golf lol. Hope all is well bud!

Winter league > couch league. That's awesome dude!

Can't quit before the miracle dude! I hear you drop 3 shots for every hot dog past #5...

So 4 puts me on tour. Got it!

😂

@@upbeatgolfer had to edit that comment. Proofreading apparently is a skill!

Don't forget us little people when you're rich and famous from all the hot dog sponsorships.

I'll take it! Progress!!! 😃

Sure - I'll add it to the list!

Sure! I actually just chip off my living room carpet (not always from the same spot of course). It allows me to mix up the distances and shots a bit and is pretty similar to turf. If you have non-carpet floors, I don't have a mat recommendation per se, but most of the ones I see on Amazon seem reasonable. If I was getting one, I'd try to find a mat that was stable and had my feet and the ball at the same level.

@@upbeatgolfer - thanks man - I will try the carpet...in the basement and try to avoid the thin shot into something breakable. Congrats on your journey - its inspiring

Mate this comment made my month! Thank you! A) Yes making videos is 100% like sending thoughtfully crafted letters to Santa while having no idea if you got the right address or if he even exists 😅 B) I'm glad you liked the videos and you picked up on the emotional intelligence stuff - IMHO that is the real game changing stuff but 90% of us think the answer is more time at the range! C) Also glad that the distance from the ball tip worked! I got that back when I first started playing and haven't heard it since. Really happy to hear it resonated with you! D) Yes, absolutely re "strong legs" at address. I was actually just thinking of that when I was playing earlier today, because on days when I don't have great recovery (for various reasons), I find it harder to feel my feet on the ground and be grounded. I'm working on some techniques to add to my warm up to make it happen every time regardless of recovery. Until I make the video, maybe these will help? -- I think of strong legs as literally just feeling strong in my legs. I tighten them up a bit but the goal is to feel strong overall. I think we spend a lot of time trying to feel loose to 'whip' the club through but what we don't realize is we need a strong base to stabilize the motion so it can be precise (I.e. clubface control) -- Another way to do this is to press the feet into the ground. If you're having trouble doing that (as I was today), try jumping once or twice - that will help activate the muscles and feel the legs get stronger / activate the muscles. You can also wiggle your butt as you set up to 'twist' your feet into the ground. -- Finally, personally I find that I don't feel my feet on the ground well when I'm tight or tense, because all my other muscles are tense so there's no contrast between the tight and the loose. When that happens I try basically meditating -- breathing slowly and letting everything relax, or you can also hold a club from the end of the grip and see how heavy you can make it feel by really relaxing a lot. Side note: I find this helps a ton with my putting. On days I don't have putter control, often the answer is to relax and make the putter as heavy as possible in my hands to really get some feel. Does this help? Lmk if you have more ideas/asks for videos! I'm always looking for what people would find useful. And thank you again! 😃

@@upbeatgolfer Thank you so much for the thoughtful, extensive reply! I'll be sure to try out the leg feels next time I'm at the sim. :) Your on course video was great - as a viewer, I'd love more of that sort of thing! As someone who only really started golfing in an organized way over the past couple of years, I love hearing a good player's internal monologue (or, I suppose external monologue) while they work through their process. I don't recall which video it was in but you flashed a scorecard that resembled that infamous Matt Fitzpatrick tracker that went viral after his US Open win a few years back. Would love a breakdown of which on course stats you keep and the short hand you deploy to note things. I think you may have also mentioned a potential video along the lines of "how to practice" - I'd be interested to see what that might look like. How do you go about organizing your efforts and practice? What points of focus provide the most value to your on course game? I think a lot of people (umm me!) suffer from "majoring in the minor" and get hung up on internal focus cues and minutiae that don't provide as much real world value as we'd like to think or hope.

Glad you fixed it! Yeah it's amazing how much of a difference these tiny things make, vs the stuff we spend all our time thinking about like launching off the back foot or moving the hands perfectly through impact! What changes did you make with your grip? I'd love to know!

@@upbeatgolfer I moved it down into the first three my fingers with the left hand and very neutral to the clubface. I also moved it more into the fingers of the right hand so the knuckles are on top of the club. Now it feels like the club face is parallel to both my palms, even though it isn't. It felt super weird at first, especially the left hand since it is not my strong hand, but it made controlling the club face a lot easier.

Nice! Does your grip look neutral overall or is it a tiny bit weak (I'm guessing since you said your right hand knuckles are on top)?

Great notes! Thanks for sharing and glad you liked the video! 😃

Glad it helped! Thanks for letting me know! 😃

Awesome! Thanks for letting me know!

That's amazing!!! CONGRATS! So glad you found these helpful and thanks for letting me know. I hope you bask in the awesomeness of this accomplishment for a long while! 😃

Thank you!!! This comment made my week! I'm really glad you find it helpful. Let me know if there are any specific topics you'd like addressed, and if I know anything I can share, I will! 😃

Thank you! Let me know how it goes! I'd love to hear 😃

@@upbeatgolfer Can confirm, it works. I thought about just keeping the clubface square to path on every swing, shot 5 strokes lower on the same course in similar conditions.

Yup - it's really helpful. Two big things: 1. I've found the Stress Monitor is really useful - whenever my stress is above 2 on the golf course, I tend to play worse, and vice versa. So I use "keep Whoop stress low" as a mental cue in my pre-round prep, and something I keep reminding myself of while I'm playing. It really works! 2. With the recovery score, I can usually predict how my energy levels are going to be over the course of the day. On low recovery days when I'm playing golf, I know I'm likely to get tired earlier in the round so I plan for that beforehand and make sure I'm drinking more water and being more chill (it also works - I think I had a ~50% recovery that day I shot 64). On higher recovery days, I know that it's going to be easier to walk but my mind might be a bit busy so I plan for that. Overall, for me the Whoop + awareness have made a massive difference in helping me anticipate the day, which helps me play better golf more often. Thanks for the question! As I write this, I'm wondering if I should make a video about this - what do you think?

Well this made my day - thank you! Glad you like it, and thanks for sharing with your friends. Scratch is very much doable - what do you think the next big step is for you?

@@upbeatgolfer I think my biggest hurdle right now is my mental. Maintaining a level head throughout the round, not putting so much pressure on myself. I feel ton of my mistakes are mental ones. I've been doing a lot of reading to try and get my mindset in a good place and I am improving but not perfect yet

Thanks Matt! 🙂

Thank you! I hope this is helpful! 😃

This made my day - thank you! And glad you like them 😃

💯

Noted, thanks for letting me know - really appreciate the feedback! I'll keep that in mind for future videos.

Haha yikes. Yeah I usually spend the first 3 or so holes comparing my practice green reads to the course to see if they're the same. They're often not, but closer than my old method of guessing!

Great! Looking forward to hearing about your new career lows 😃

Glad you liked it!

Glad you found it helpful! Hope it works for you on the course! 😃

I hadn't heard of the tape additions for changing the swing weight, that's interesting. There definitely is a difference between the weights of the different-sized grips (I'm guessing because thicker grips = more rubber) which affects the overall swing weight feel, but IMO there is also a difference in how far from the shaft axis you're holding the club, but I could be wrong. I'll look into this in more detail. Thanks!

That's really interesting, and great that you figured it out! I'd love to learn how you adjust your hips to hit different types of shots?

Haha the priority list is different when it's a party 😃 Have a great time!!!

Thank you! Glad you liked it! Course management has definitely been the key for me as well, and is the main reason I can keep my scores down even when I don't get much time to practice. I wish I'd understood this earlier 😅

You got it! I have a few that need to be edited. Will get on that 😅

Glad you liked it! 😃

Fair enough, and I know some folks who don't feel slopes well with their feet. (Personally I see a lot of optical illusions so my feet are more reliable) You could still use this for the 2%+ breaks, all you have to do is calibrate beforehand to know how much to bend your elbow. And for the more nuanced breaks you could use regular green reading by sight? I actually do both: I look from behind the ball first to see where the big breaks are and then I feel it out with my feet, so it's kind of validating. Is there something you do now that works well for green reading?

@@upbeatgolfer I only use my eyes and I would say green reading is the worst part of my putting. Sometimes I actually do the foot thing and actually look down at my feet and try to gauge which is higher 😂 I really wish I could feel it with my feet, definitely seems more solid than letting your eyes trick you

For sure, the eye trickery SUCKS. I ended up buying green maps for the courses that I couldn't figure out (before I learned aimpoint). Have you tried that or learning something like plumb bobbing?

Yup that is 100% right, though I don't adjust elbow bend for uphill/downhill (I'm not that exact). But totally agree with you in that the number of fingers is for the slow you feel with your feet and the elbow bend is for the speed of the greens that you calibrate on the day.

For me Aimpoint has been huge in making more putts from inside 10-15ft and lagging my longer putts closer. I do my best to play faster though (which is why I use Claimpoint) and a few other things: - I don't use the line on the ball, - I don't take practice swings with the putter (I found they weren't actually helping me so I stopped and my speed control has stayed just as good), and - I do a lot of my measuring etc while other people are futzing around/getting ready etc. Overall it takes me less time to do an Aimpoint reading than walking all the way around the hole and trying to figure out contours etc. that other people are doing. AND I make more putts which saves the time for a follow-up putt. Agreed on your point about start line vs. apex (Phil describes it well in his Secrets of the Short Game video) but I also think it's open to interpretation depending on how people define the "apex". To each their own. I also agree on being an athlete vs getting very caught up in trying to figure out the perfect line 😅 Thanks for the comment and sharing your POV!

Thank you! Hope you found it helpful!

Tour players use it though

Yeah I'm curious what makes you say that? Personally I've found it to be really helpful in figuring out breaks and it's got me making a lot more putts!

@@cavanlyons9537 That's very true. Back in the day tour players use to believe that you had to be bent double, your nose neatly touching the ball, to putt well. Take a look at Nicklaus' putting stance, his contemporaries too. Not any more. (Also, see below)

@@upbeatgolfer Long story short(ish). Background: I've recently got over a bad case of the putting yips and am almost there fixing my chipping & pitching yips. I've got a ton of notes detailing how I won the war and need to get around to writing a couple of articles or making some videos. Todo! It turns out, obvious really, that putting comes down to self-trust and, based on that trust, commitment. A yip is a subconscious attempt to change a motor program mid swing. If you're in Csikszentmihalyi's flow then you don't need to straddle the putting line, stick up fingers, compensate, ... you just give your subconscious enough information and knock the ball in the hole. No self doubt, no second guessing, if you miss one or two, no matter. Aimpoint is, as I said, scaffolding. It's self fulfilling. If you believe 100% that it helps, then that will give you confidence and you will putt better. I'm not denying that. But it's like swapping out your normal putting grip for a claw grip to cure yips - it does work, ..until down the road, when it doesn't any more and then you're left high and dry. Putting yips is not, as many will tell you, fundamentally a technique problem. Putting well means making a lot of 5 meter plus birdie putts. If your compute engine is flawed (Aimpoint is) then by definition you will miss every single putt using it. Aimpoint is flawed because it doesn't take the lie of the green fully into account. For example the line the ball actually takes, the break if you will, is highly dependent on whether you're putting uphill or downhill (it's very, very, rarely flat). So what you have to do is use Aimpoint to give you it's best guess and then correct it using your gut if you want to stand a chance of holing the ball. Therefore your feel must be, in the end, better than Aimpoint - so why bother with it? Does that make sense? So how do you get into the flow every time? Having the yips is a soul destroying experience. If you've never had them then you have no idea how bad it can be. But, since I've cured my yips, my putting has never been close to what it is now. And I know I will get even better although it's seems difficult for me to conceive it could get better!

I can't feel slope with my feet. I just see lines. I'd rather 3 putt then put my playing partners through all that.

You're the best! Thanks Mike!

😂 touchè my friend

lol I should have watched the whole video

Cant believe I didnt pick up the accent. Cant stand listing to kiwi accents, or sepo's either, but put them together and it works. US ladies def love the kiwi twang aye :)

Haha I don't actually have the full twang but some words sneak in sometimes! My wife definitely notices the changes when we go back 😃 And yeah I'm amazed no one makes a good NZ flag head cover! Did you end up checking out the MoR golf page?

Right?! So much time spent on trying to perfect this position or that angle, but we rarely think about the thoughts that knock it all off kilter!