WEBVTT - Why Golf? 0:00:00.080 --> 0:00:02.560 I miss a green, for example, I'm already upset. 0:00:02.680 --> 0:00:04.960 When I find my ball in the bunker, I'm really upset. 0:00:05.040 --> 0:00:07.240 And when I find my ball in a brid egg. 0:00:07.240 --> 0:00:10.639 Friday Egg, the dreaded Frida Egg, fridagg bride Egg Egg 0:00:10.680 --> 0:00:13.239 bridegg bride Egg Lie, I'm about ready to run off 0:00:13.240 --> 0:00:14.200 the golf course. 0:00:35.479 --> 0:00:38.280 Welcome to the Frida Egg Podcast. I'm Garrett Morrison, and 0:00:38.320 --> 0:00:41.120 today we're talking about the hidden reasons that golf is 0:00:41.159 --> 0:00:44.640 so appealing. My guest is Bob Cullen, who tackled this 0:00:44.840 --> 0:00:47.800 very question in a book called Why Golf. This is 0:00:47.840 --> 0:00:53.040 one of my favorite golf books. It touches on evolutionary psychology, philosophy, design, 0:00:53.560 --> 0:00:56.280 and many other subjects, and its basic purpose is to 0:00:56.360 --> 0:00:59.880 explain why certain people not only play golf but become 0:01:00.120 --> 0:01:03.440 absolutely obsessed with it. Bob's book Why Golf came out 0:01:03.440 --> 0:01:05.880 in two thousand, so there was no particular occasion for 0:01:05.959 --> 0:01:08.039 us to talk about it other than the fact that 0:01:08.080 --> 0:01:11.080 we wanted to. So hope you enjoyed the conversation. But 0:01:11.160 --> 0:01:13.520 before we get there, I want to tell you about 0:01:13.520 --> 0:01:16.960 the Friday Eggs new membership. It's called Club TFE and 0:01:17.000 --> 0:01:20.240 it offers exclusive content like weekly course reviews and members 0:01:20.280 --> 0:01:23.920 only videos and virtual hangouts with Frida Egg's staff. You 0:01:24.000 --> 0:01:26.679 also get early access to register for Frida Egg events 0:01:26.800 --> 0:01:30.080 and an annual gift. We're launching it on January tewond 0:01:30.480 --> 0:01:32.280 but you can sign up right now at the Friday 0:01:32.280 --> 0:01:39.280 egg dot com slash membership. All Right, onto the episode. 0:01:40.840 --> 0:01:44.480 All right, So, Bob, when we were talking about you 0:01:44.560 --> 0:01:49.880 coming on the podcast a while back, you responded, I'd 0:01:49.960 --> 0:01:52.360 love to come on. I'd love to talk about my 0:01:52.400 --> 0:01:56.400 book Why Golf, But I do have one request, and 0:01:56.480 --> 0:01:59.840 that is that we discuss the concept of the groundy. 0:02:00.680 --> 0:02:03.800 And so I've been curious for months now. I have 0:02:03.960 --> 0:02:07.320 resisted the temptation of asking you straight up, but what 0:02:07.520 --> 0:02:08.680 is a groundie? 0:02:09.320 --> 0:02:11.800 Well, the truth is that when you get to be 0:02:11.919 --> 0:02:16.040 my agent golf, you can't look forward to sort of 0:02:16.120 --> 0:02:20.280 Jack Nichol's style pars and birdies the way once in 0:02:20.320 --> 0:02:22.239 a while you might have been able to in the past. 0:02:23.000 --> 0:02:26.240 So and in my case, getting the ball in the 0:02:26.280 --> 0:02:31.000 air sometimes is a little problematic. So a groundie is 0:02:31.040 --> 0:02:34.359 a birdie that you make probably on a par three, 0:02:34.720 --> 0:02:37.799 without the ball ever leaving the ground. And I've had 0:02:37.840 --> 0:02:40.919 one of those. You scull the ball off the tee, 0:02:40.919 --> 0:02:43.000 but it rolls and rolls and rolls, hits the green 0:02:43.520 --> 0:02:46.840 and then you make the putton. It's second in my 0:02:48.520 --> 0:02:52.320 esteem only to the Aqua Sandy, which I managed in 0:02:52.800 --> 0:02:58.480 Florida last winter, which is when you scull the ball 0:02:58.960 --> 0:03:02.600 off the tee through a water hazard and it skips 0:03:02.639 --> 0:03:07.240 off the hazard and then lands in a bunker, and 0:03:07.320 --> 0:03:09.760 you put the bunker shot on the green and make 0:03:09.800 --> 0:03:14.160 the putt, and that is called the aqua Sandy. I can't, ever, 0:03:14.680 --> 0:03:16.960 I can't expect anymore to have a good round in 0:03:17.000 --> 0:03:20.320 the seventies, but I can occasionally pick up a groundie 0:03:20.400 --> 0:03:23.840 or an aqua Sandy or something like that and take 0:03:23.919 --> 0:03:24.959 some pleasure from those. 0:03:25.680 --> 0:03:28.520 I have a friend who once told me when we 0:03:28.520 --> 0:03:32.120 were playing, I'm not out here for a score, because 0:03:32.160 --> 0:03:35.040 if I were, I would just be frustrated. I'm out 0:03:35.080 --> 0:03:39.520 here to make birdies and interesting pars, and whatever happens 0:03:39.520 --> 0:03:43.120 in between is just sort of whatever. I am not 0:03:43.160 --> 0:03:45.960 going to bring myself to care about that. But I 0:03:45.960 --> 0:03:49.680 think a groundee, I mean, it's a birdie technically, right, 0:03:49.920 --> 0:03:53.280 but if you were to make a par in a 0:03:53.320 --> 0:03:57.560 groundy manner, that would certainly qualify as an interesting par 0:03:57.800 --> 0:04:03.839 as well. Yes, yes, all right, Well, many people might 0:04:04.000 --> 0:04:07.160 recognize your name not only from the book Why Golf, 0:04:07.240 --> 0:04:11.960 but also from the covers of some best sellers by 0:04:12.440 --> 0:04:17.240 doctor Bob Rotella, the famous sports psychologist. You helped him 0:04:17.279 --> 0:04:20.360 write books like Golf Is Not a Game of Perfect, 0:04:21.400 --> 0:04:24.640 How Champions Think, etc. I think people listening to this 0:04:24.680 --> 0:04:28.680 podcast will probably be familiar with this kind of series 0:04:28.720 --> 0:04:32.080 of books that doctor Rotella and you have done in 0:04:32.120 --> 0:04:36.479 the past twenty five thirty years or so. So maybe 0:04:36.480 --> 0:04:39.919 we could start with you telling a story that you 0:04:40.040 --> 0:04:44.120 actually tell in your book Why Golf, about how you 0:04:44.160 --> 0:04:47.040 got linked up with doctor Rotella. How did that happen? 0:04:47.600 --> 0:04:51.640 Well, it was one of the fortunate breaks of my life. 0:04:52.240 --> 0:04:54.240 There was a guy named Bob Carney. There is a 0:04:54.240 --> 0:04:57.800 guy named Bob Carney at Golf Digest, and he was 0:04:57.880 --> 0:05:00.599 set up to work with Bob Rotella on the book 0:05:00.600 --> 0:05:04.120 that became Golf Is Not a Game of Perfect, But 0:05:04.240 --> 0:05:08.799 because he got a promotion at Golf Digest, he backed 0:05:08.839 --> 0:05:12.919 away from the project and Rotella was left looking for 0:05:12.960 --> 0:05:18.240 a collaborator. And we share a literary agent, Raf Sagallen, 0:05:18.480 --> 0:05:22.000 and so Rotella said to Raith. I'm looking to write 0:05:22.000 --> 0:05:26.479 a book about psychology for the average golfer, and I 0:05:26.560 --> 0:05:28.839 need a collaborator. And Rafe said, well, I have a 0:05:28.880 --> 0:05:33.479 client who's a very average golfer. And so I happened 0:05:33.480 --> 0:05:36.000 to live in the Washington area and Bob Rotello lives 0:05:36.000 --> 0:05:39.600 in Charlottesville, Virginia, and so I drove down there and 0:05:40.040 --> 0:05:43.120 we chatted and decided it was worth trying to work together, 0:05:43.880 --> 0:05:48.880 and that collaboration produced eight or nine books and put 0:05:48.920 --> 0:05:53.800 my kids through college. It was one of the nicest 0:05:53.800 --> 0:05:54.880 things that's ever happened to me. 0:05:56.080 --> 0:05:58.760 What are some of the most important things that you 0:05:59.120 --> 0:06:03.640 learned from doctor Rotella about the mental approach to golf. 0:06:04.960 --> 0:06:11.279 I guess they could be encapsulated in one phrase, train 0:06:11.360 --> 0:06:14.760 it and trust it. I think before I started to 0:06:14.800 --> 0:06:20.640 work as a ghostwriter for Bob, I was one of 0:06:20.640 --> 0:06:25.440 those players who was constantly thinking about the last tip 0:06:25.480 --> 0:06:28.880 that I read about in a golf magazine and trying 0:06:28.880 --> 0:06:33.479 to use it on the golf course. And his understanding 0:06:33.520 --> 0:06:37.159 of the game includes the fact that your body really 0:06:37.200 --> 0:06:41.159 works better when you allow your self conscious your subconscious 0:06:41.200 --> 0:06:46.839 i'm sorry, your subconscious brain to control your movements, and 0:06:47.320 --> 0:06:50.159 it does so much better than your conscious brain can do. 0:06:51.720 --> 0:06:55.520 For example, if you think about if you're probably too 0:06:55.560 --> 0:06:58.040 young for this, but if you ever learned to drive 0:06:58.080 --> 0:07:02.159 a stick shift. When you first started to learn, you're 0:07:02.279 --> 0:07:04.919 using your conscious brain trying to think about when to 0:07:04.960 --> 0:07:07.320 put in the clutch, when to move the lever, et cetera, 0:07:07.360 --> 0:07:11.040 et cetera, and the car lurches and jerks and can 0:07:11.080 --> 0:07:14.600 barely move. And after a while, though, you start to 0:07:15.200 --> 0:07:19.120 learn it in your subconscious brain and you don't even 0:07:19.120 --> 0:07:21.600 think about shifting the car anymore, and you drive very 0:07:21.600 --> 0:07:24.360 smoothly from one point to the next. Well, the golf 0:07:24.400 --> 0:07:30.520 swing is like shifting your car. You ingrain the correct 0:07:30.560 --> 0:07:35.240 movements by training it, and then your best chance to 0:07:35.280 --> 0:07:39.440 play well is by not thinking about it and letting 0:07:39.520 --> 0:07:44.280 your subconscious brain control your swing. And the problem that 0:07:44.320 --> 0:07:47.720 a lot of golfers have and that Rotella helps them with, 0:07:48.480 --> 0:07:53.000 is that they get into a situation in a tournament 0:07:53.160 --> 0:07:57.000 if you're a pro golfer or with a three dollars 0:07:57.080 --> 0:08:00.040 Nassau on the line, if you're an amateur and you 0:08:00.120 --> 0:08:02.800 really want to win, you really want to play well, 0:08:02.880 --> 0:08:06.080 and so you turn on your conscious brain and you 0:08:07.160 --> 0:08:13.840 screw it up. The best advice that Rotella ever gave anybody, 0:08:13.920 --> 0:08:17.200 or me in particular, was, you know, just think about 0:08:17.200 --> 0:08:19.960 where you want the ball to go and swing and 0:08:20.080 --> 0:08:23.480 don't think about how to swing. And if you've done 0:08:23.480 --> 0:08:26.560 your practicing a little. Even if you haven't practiced, you're 0:08:26.560 --> 0:08:29.560 still going to produce a better swing relative to your 0:08:29.640 --> 0:08:34.439 skill level if you just let it go. And that's 0:08:34.720 --> 0:08:39.319 one of the skills that Rotella teaches, and it helped 0:08:39.320 --> 0:08:42.480 my game tremendously, although I have to say I'm like 0:08:42.480 --> 0:08:48.160 the preacher's kid. Rotelo also says, don't get upset about 0:08:48.200 --> 0:08:51.280 a bad shot, just let it go and accept it. 0:08:51.800 --> 0:08:53.640 And I'm not the kind of person that can do 0:08:53.679 --> 0:08:58.480 that very easily. My friends tell me that they call 0:08:58.600 --> 0:09:02.560 something the colin I have anguish and they count how 0:09:02.600 --> 0:09:06.160 many ccas they hear during the course of a Saturday 0:09:06.240 --> 0:09:09.600 round and then tease me about it at lunch. But 0:09:10.920 --> 0:09:14.520 it's some parts of the Rotella teachings come easier to 0:09:14.559 --> 0:09:15.240 me than others. 0:09:16.360 --> 0:09:20.920 Well, let me bring up part of Rotella's philosophy, which 0:09:20.960 --> 0:09:25.400 I don't question the validity of that has frustrated me 0:09:25.440 --> 0:09:28.680 in the past, and that is this idea of turning 0:09:28.760 --> 0:09:32.600 on and off the conscious mind, as you put it, 0:09:33.320 --> 0:09:36.480 I find that I don't have much control over what 0:09:36.520 --> 0:09:39.960 my mind does that as much as I would like 0:09:40.080 --> 0:09:42.880 to be in the moment, kind of in that flow 0:09:42.960 --> 0:09:46.679 state where you're not thinking about the specifics of what 0:09:46.720 --> 0:09:48.839 you're doing, You're just looking at the target and making 0:09:48.840 --> 0:09:53.400 it happen. You're trusting your training, you're not being self 0:09:53.400 --> 0:09:56.040 conscious about it. I'd love to get to that state. 0:09:56.520 --> 0:09:59.440 I'm not sure how to get there, because I don't 0:09:59.480 --> 0:10:02.440 know that I I'm really in control of what my 0:10:02.559 --> 0:10:05.360 brain does. And so I wonder, I mean, this would 0:10:05.360 --> 0:10:07.960 obviously be a good question for doctor Rotella himself, but 0:10:08.000 --> 0:10:11.319 I wonder if you, as somebody who kind of learned 0:10:11.440 --> 0:10:14.840 as this stuff as well as rote about it, had ever, 0:10:15.320 --> 0:10:19.480 you know, explored that notion that the brain is really 0:10:19.520 --> 0:10:21.640 hard to control, and some people are better at it 0:10:21.679 --> 0:10:24.760 than others. But I find myself, in particular, very poor 0:10:24.800 --> 0:10:25.080 at that. 0:10:25.920 --> 0:10:28.120 Well. I think one thing he would say is that 0:10:28.160 --> 0:10:32.359 you have to practice it, and so with his players, 0:10:33.080 --> 0:10:36.600 he doesn't want them working with a swing teacher the 0:10:36.679 --> 0:10:39.760 day of the tournament or just before a tournament. He 0:10:39.840 --> 0:10:43.720 wants their practice sessions just before a competition to be 0:10:43.920 --> 0:10:48.680 in the trusting mode, and therefore he tells them, don't 0:10:48.679 --> 0:10:52.280 think about your swing, just think about the target on yours, 0:10:52.400 --> 0:10:56.439 and think about that more and more as try to 0:10:56.480 --> 0:10:59.920 think that way more and more as the competition approaches. 0:11:01.000 --> 0:11:03.400 If you need to make a swing change, or if 0:11:03.440 --> 0:11:07.800 you need to work on your mechanics, then the time 0:11:07.840 --> 0:11:11.880 to do that is well before competition. Work on the 0:11:11.920 --> 0:11:17.840 mechanics in a kind of controlled way, and then as 0:11:18.080 --> 0:11:22.439 your competition date approaches or your round approaches, more and 0:11:22.559 --> 0:11:27.200 more you have to practice in the trusting mode. And 0:11:27.800 --> 0:11:31.920 that's one thing that kind of helps, But obviously it 0:11:32.040 --> 0:11:35.720 presupposes that you're doing a lot of practicing, which is 0:11:35.760 --> 0:11:37.880 not something everybody gets a chance to do. 0:11:39.280 --> 0:11:41.800 My wife tells me I need to meditate, and I 0:11:41.800 --> 0:11:44.960 think she's probably right that that is a kind of 0:11:45.440 --> 0:11:49.880 practice of exerting control over your own mind, of saying, 0:11:50.080 --> 0:11:53.120 you know, this is the mind is part of my body. 0:11:53.160 --> 0:11:55.400 It's not something that kind of exists. A pardon does 0:11:55.440 --> 0:11:58.280 what it wants. I am in control of it. But 0:11:58.360 --> 0:12:01.599 that's so hard to do, incredibly difficult discipline. 0:12:01.800 --> 0:12:06.360 It's not easy, and that's one reason why a lot 0:12:06.360 --> 0:12:09.160 of people have read the books, and they're still not 0:12:09.240 --> 0:12:13.600 winning the US Open. Although some of Rotel is Rotella. 0:12:14.040 --> 0:12:16.240 There's something else I have to tell you about Rotella 0:12:16.840 --> 0:12:20.240 that is not in any of the books, and that 0:12:20.440 --> 0:12:27.320 is his personality. Players respond to him, and he has 0:12:27.360 --> 0:12:31.360 a tremendous knack for figuring out what's going to work, 0:12:31.400 --> 0:12:34.480 what kind of words, what kind of approach is going 0:12:34.559 --> 0:12:37.320 to work with anybody that he trains or works with, 0:12:37.960 --> 0:12:42.480 And that's one of his gifts. And it's not something 0:12:42.520 --> 0:12:46.480 that's easy to reproduce in a book, because when you 0:12:46.520 --> 0:12:49.960 read the book, it's his words. But it's not the 0:12:50.040 --> 0:12:52.840 same as being next to him on the practice range. 0:12:53.280 --> 0:12:56.920 Absolutely, and I've heard people say the same thing about 0:12:56.960 --> 0:13:01.040 the swing coach, butch Harmon, it's not so much about 0:13:01.640 --> 0:13:05.440 the technique, though he has mastery of that. It's about 0:13:05.480 --> 0:13:08.360 the way he communicates and the confidence that he instills 0:13:08.400 --> 0:13:12.640 in the attitude that he encourages. And you know, that 0:13:12.679 --> 0:13:16.760 can't really be written down. It's embodied in the personality 0:13:16.800 --> 0:13:19.079 of the coach, and that is kind of the value 0:13:19.160 --> 0:13:23.440 of the teaching there. But certainly, I mean the books 0:13:23.520 --> 0:13:26.600 have have helped many golfers kind of conceptualize how they 0:13:26.679 --> 0:13:29.400 might be able to improve their mental games. I mean, 0:13:29.440 --> 0:13:31.120 at least it gives a path. 0:13:31.559 --> 0:13:33.240 Well, and some of it is some of it is 0:13:33.280 --> 0:13:35.560 just common sense. There's a chapter in Golf Is Not 0:13:35.600 --> 0:13:38.840 a Game of Perfect that says, if you're not spending 0:13:38.880 --> 0:13:41.360 seventy percent of your practice time on your short game, 0:13:41.880 --> 0:13:47.439 you're not practicing to score better. And when I started 0:13:47.480 --> 0:13:51.679 working with Doc, I didn't ever practice my short game, 0:13:52.240 --> 0:13:54.280 and if I practiced at all, I would take a 0:13:54.360 --> 0:13:56.160 driver out and whale the ball and try to hit 0:13:56.200 --> 0:14:01.200 it further. And under his guidance, I started to practice 0:14:01.240 --> 0:14:04.120 my short game, and sure enough, I dropped eight strokes 0:14:04.160 --> 0:14:06.520 off my handicapped during the year we worked in the book, 0:14:07.320 --> 0:14:11.440 and you know that trend didn't continue, but I got 0:14:11.480 --> 0:14:17.800 better every year we worked together because he was constantly 0:14:18.120 --> 0:14:21.080 reminding me to practice my chipping and putting. 0:14:21.840 --> 0:14:24.800 All right, well, let's talk a little bit about your 0:14:24.840 --> 0:14:27.600 own book, Why Golf, which came out in the year 0:14:27.600 --> 0:14:30.800 two thousand and I love this book, you know, It's 0:14:30.880 --> 0:14:33.760 one that I've been a fan of for years and 0:14:34.040 --> 0:14:36.960 read multiple times and often think about, you know, in 0:14:37.000 --> 0:14:40.920 the course of doing my job. And the central question 0:14:41.000 --> 0:14:43.720 of it is embodied in the title, Why is it 0:14:43.800 --> 0:14:48.400 that golf is so appealing? Why golf specifically, why is 0:14:48.440 --> 0:14:50.760 it that this is the game that we become we 0:14:50.920 --> 0:14:54.320 golfers become obsessed with. Some of the explanations that you 0:14:54.400 --> 0:14:56.200 give toward the beginning of the book have a lot 0:14:56.240 --> 0:14:59.960 to do with what I think of as evolutionary psychology, 0:15:00.800 --> 0:15:04.400 right where part of the explanation for why we like 0:15:04.600 --> 0:15:06.560 what we like and why we do what we do 0:15:07.760 --> 0:15:12.040 is deep in our genetic coding, right these things that 0:15:12.080 --> 0:15:14.880 are still there inside us, because humans existed for a 0:15:14.960 --> 0:15:18.840 long long time before we all moved into cities and got, 0:15:18.880 --> 0:15:21.680 you know, bureaucratic jobs and did all the modern things 0:15:21.680 --> 0:15:25.280 that we do now. Humans existed for many many more 0:15:25.360 --> 0:15:30.120 centuries before that and developed kind of modes of being 0:15:30.400 --> 0:15:33.560 and desires that had a lot to do with hunter 0:15:33.720 --> 0:15:37.840 gatherer society and what life was like in that kind 0:15:37.960 --> 0:15:42.960 of environment and that kind of social structure. And evolutionary 0:15:42.960 --> 0:15:46.480 psychology gets at some of those tendencies and humans that 0:15:46.520 --> 0:15:50.640 were developed way way back and tries to explain some 0:15:50.760 --> 0:15:55.560 of our behavior in the present day by referring back 0:15:55.640 --> 0:16:01.400 to those early instances of genetic coding and motivation and humans. 0:16:01.400 --> 0:16:04.080 I'm not sure if I've explained that very well. That's 0:16:04.200 --> 0:16:08.480 kind of what evolutionary psychology does. But you drew on 0:16:08.520 --> 0:16:12.360 this a lot in explaining why golf was so appealing, 0:16:12.480 --> 0:16:15.800 and maybe you could take me through that a little bit. 0:16:15.840 --> 0:16:17.280 What are some of the things that you found. 0:16:18.080 --> 0:16:22.280 Well, one of the first things in why golf is 0:16:22.280 --> 0:16:26.840 so appealing is the place where you play. I know 0:16:26.960 --> 0:16:30.400 that since I've been a small child, I've always thought 0:16:30.440 --> 0:16:33.960 golf courses were great places to be. Just the look 0:16:34.000 --> 0:16:36.720 of the golf course appeals to me. Even if it's 0:16:36.760 --> 0:16:40.320 a scruffy municipal golf course like Rock Creek Park in Washington, 0:16:41.640 --> 0:16:45.600 it still seems to strike a chord within me, and 0:16:45.640 --> 0:16:51.200 I think within most golfers. And I had some conversations 0:16:51.200 --> 0:16:54.960 with a friend named Bob Wright, who's a writer of 0:16:56.520 --> 0:17:00.320 some very serious and important books who loves to play golf, 0:17:00.400 --> 0:17:04.959 and he introduced me to a book called the biophilia 0:17:05.119 --> 0:17:10.600 Hypothesis I believe, which suggests that there are deep within 0:17:10.640 --> 0:17:17.960 our hunter gatherer reptilian brains associations with places of prospect 0:17:18.080 --> 0:17:22.320 versus places of refuge. Places of prospect are like the 0:17:22.359 --> 0:17:24.880 fairways and the greens on a golf course, and places 0:17:24.880 --> 0:17:27.360 of refuge are like the woods and that water hazards 0:17:28.040 --> 0:17:32.760 and the desire to be in a place of prospect 0:17:33.200 --> 0:17:37.960 is something that's existed within human beings for thousands and 0:17:38.000 --> 0:17:45.760 thousands of years, and there are some fundamental instinctive pleasures 0:17:45.880 --> 0:17:51.000 or desires. There's a chapter in Why Golf called the 0:17:51.040 --> 0:17:54.120 Blind Baby Smile or Why the Blame Blind Baby Smiled, 0:17:54.880 --> 0:18:00.080 And one of the psychologists that I cited was in 0:18:00.080 --> 0:18:03.600 trusted in why it was that a blind baby who 0:18:03.640 --> 0:18:09.240 could never see a smile could learn to smile. And 0:18:09.800 --> 0:18:13.000 it turns out that if the baby can be set 0:18:13.080 --> 0:18:17.960 up in a situation whereby kicking at things or striking things, 0:18:18.440 --> 0:18:22.119 it can move something in the environment, it smiles. The 0:18:22.119 --> 0:18:25.720 baby smiles even if it's never seen a smile. And 0:18:25.800 --> 0:18:30.399 that's an indication that the basic act of playing golf, 0:18:30.720 --> 0:18:33.800 the movement of the ball by striking it with a club, 0:18:34.480 --> 0:18:38.159 strike some cord within us that probably had to do 0:18:38.280 --> 0:18:42.600 with the genetic advantage of being able to manipulate your environment. 0:18:44.160 --> 0:18:48.440 So and that's probably also the case with so many 0:18:48.480 --> 0:18:51.600 other sports. I mean, golf is not the only sport 0:18:51.800 --> 0:18:55.119 that you move a ball around in a playing area. 0:18:56.200 --> 0:19:02.040 Almost all sports have that involved with them, so but 0:19:02.160 --> 0:19:05.359 that's one of the reasons why. Whether it be hitting 0:19:05.440 --> 0:19:08.679 a drive down the middle of the fairway or sinking 0:19:08.720 --> 0:19:13.600 a three point shot, or you know, hitting a hitting 0:19:13.600 --> 0:19:17.359 a baseball really solidly and seeing it go into the outfield, 0:19:18.040 --> 0:19:22.200 those are instinctively satisfying feelings for a lot of people. 0:19:22.720 --> 0:19:28.399 And it's it's wired into our wired into us. Whether 0:19:28.440 --> 0:19:31.080 it's in the genes or in some other fashion. I 0:19:31.119 --> 0:19:34.199 don't know. I'm not a scientist, so it's hard for 0:19:34.240 --> 0:19:38.200 me to make a definitive statement, but it's clear that 0:19:38.280 --> 0:19:41.639 there are some elements of golf, both in terms of 0:19:41.680 --> 0:19:43.639 the setting and in terms of the movement of the 0:19:43.680 --> 0:19:48.280 ball that are ringing a bell deep within our being. 0:19:50.960 --> 0:19:55.520 Now for a quick word from our sponsor, Meridian. Meridio's back. 0:19:55.680 --> 0:19:56.880 They've been they've. 0:19:56.720 --> 0:20:00.960 Sponsored earlier in the year, and this is all about hygiene. 0:20:01.000 --> 0:20:03.960 Men's hygiene, you know, making sure you're a groomed man 0:20:04.040 --> 0:20:06.840 and below the belt. Trimming tends to be a taboo topic, 0:20:07.000 --> 0:20:10.280 but Bridian is breaking the stigma and helping everyone take 0:20:10.359 --> 0:20:13.160 better care of their bodies. They have a new trimmer's 0:20:13.200 --> 0:20:16.359 the Trimmer Plus. 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So, 0:21:50.600 --> 0:21:53.760 prospect environments are places where you can see a lot 0:21:53.840 --> 0:21:57.320 basically right, where you can can see over an expanse 0:21:57.520 --> 0:22:00.160 of land. You know, think of the savannah that it's 0:22:00.240 --> 0:22:04.800 kind of a prospect environment, whereas refuge environments are more 0:22:04.920 --> 0:22:08.760 like a jungle or a forest where you can be 0:22:08.920 --> 0:22:12.240 sort of hidden away. And you know, both of those 0:22:12.320 --> 0:22:17.439 environments can be appealing to humans for different reasons, right, So, 0:22:18.000 --> 0:22:20.840 what are the reasons that a refuge environment might be 0:22:20.960 --> 0:22:24.600 appealing and what are the reasons that a prospect environment 0:22:24.840 --> 0:22:27.160 might be appealing the sort. 0:22:26.920 --> 0:22:30.720 Of hunter gatherer paradigm. The hunters would be the ones 0:22:30.760 --> 0:22:33.760 that would go out into the places of prospect so 0:22:33.800 --> 0:22:39.000 they could hunt game or something like that. 0:22:40.440 --> 0:22:42.680 And you wouldn't want to hunt game in a forest, right, 0:22:42.680 --> 0:22:46.159 that's not the ideal place to be hunting, because you know, 0:22:46.200 --> 0:22:48.199 you can't see very far. You don't really have an 0:22:48.200 --> 0:22:49.280 advantage there. 0:22:49.240 --> 0:22:52.920 Right, Whereas the gatherers would tend to be people who 0:22:52.960 --> 0:22:56.600 wanted to be protected from or wanted to protect themselves 0:22:56.680 --> 0:23:00.720 from wild animals, and they would spend their time in 0:23:01.119 --> 0:23:04.680 a forest or some kind of environment where they had 0:23:04.680 --> 0:23:09.160 some natural shelter or natural protection against predators, and where 0:23:09.160 --> 0:23:17.760 they could find food sources that were available on the 0:23:17.800 --> 0:23:21.119 forest floor, hanging from the branches or something like that. 0:23:21.760 --> 0:23:26.960 So you're the obvious over simplistic explanation is that golfers 0:23:27.000 --> 0:23:32.000 are descended from hunters and gatherers, and non golfers are 0:23:32.000 --> 0:23:35.639 descended from gatherers, and that the reason the golf course 0:23:35.840 --> 0:23:40.000 is so appealing to some people but not all, is 0:23:40.040 --> 0:23:43.439 that some people have more of that hunter gene and 0:23:43.960 --> 0:23:46.160 some people have more of that gatherer gene. 0:23:46.800 --> 0:23:51.119 Now, I would say that a lot of golf courses 0:23:51.119 --> 0:23:54.280 are there's many varieties of golf courses, right. Some golf 0:23:54.359 --> 0:23:58.399 courses have a lot more prospect environments than others. But 0:23:59.440 --> 0:24:02.520 the golf course that are at least most appealing to 0:24:02.640 --> 0:24:07.280 me are ones where there are both kind of prospect 0:24:07.359 --> 0:24:12.640 and refuge environments where there's an alternation between places where 0:24:12.680 --> 0:24:17.960 you can see an expanse and places where you're more enclosed, 0:24:18.560 --> 0:24:20.960 and the golf course kind of moves in and out 0:24:21.240 --> 0:24:25.159 between those, and so it's a kind of combination or 0:24:25.280 --> 0:24:28.320 the best of both worlds, you could even say, where 0:24:28.359 --> 0:24:30.480 you get these moments where you feel kind of tucked 0:24:30.520 --> 0:24:35.080 away and protected or hidden, and you get moments where 0:24:35.119 --> 0:24:39.680 you're more behaving in a hunter manner and looking over 0:24:39.760 --> 0:24:42.639 a broad environment and seeing what's next. Those are the 0:24:42.680 --> 0:24:45.600 kind of more expansive moments of the golf round and 0:24:45.680 --> 0:24:48.560 then the kind of release moments. And then when you're 0:24:48.680 --> 0:24:53.480 in those, you know, kind of more sheltered environments, you 0:24:53.560 --> 0:24:56.400 get a different feeling. And so I think a lot 0:24:56.400 --> 0:24:58.400 of golf courses sort of deliver both. 0:25:00.119 --> 0:25:03.040 Maybe right. I think that for example, when I look 0:25:03.080 --> 0:25:08.720 at Oakmont today or Congressional, where the USDA has persuaded 0:25:08.720 --> 0:25:12.480 those clubs to remove thousands and thousands of trees, they're 0:25:12.520 --> 0:25:15.320 not as appealing to me as they were when I 0:25:15.359 --> 0:25:18.439 first saw them, and they had a lot more trees 0:25:18.480 --> 0:25:25.320 and tree lined fairways. So yeah, the association with the 0:25:25.359 --> 0:25:29.679 places of refuge is probably one of the things that 0:25:29.760 --> 0:25:32.840