Speaker 1: I miss a green, for example, I'm already upset.
Speaker 2: When I find my ball in the bunker, I'm really upset.
Speaker 1: And when I find my ball in a brid egg.
Speaker 3: Friday Egg, the dreaded Frida Egg, fridagg bride Egg Egg
Speaker 3: bridegg bride Egg Lie, I'm about ready to run off
Speaker 3: the golf course.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Frida Egg Podcast. I'm Garrett Morrison, and
Speaker 1: today we're talking about the hidden reasons that golf is
Speaker 1: so appealing. My guest is Bob Cullen, who tackled this
Speaker 1: very question in a book called Why Golf. This is
Speaker 1: one of my favorite golf books. It touches on evolutionary psychology, philosophy, design,
Speaker 1: and many other subjects, and its basic purpose is to
Speaker 1: explain why certain people not only play golf but become
Speaker 1: absolutely obsessed with it. Bob's book Why Golf came out
Speaker 1: in two thousand, so there was no particular occasion for
Speaker 1: us to talk about it other than the fact that
Speaker 1: we wanted to. So hope you enjoyed the conversation. But
Speaker 1: before we get there, I want to tell you about
Speaker 1: the Friday Eggs new membership. It's called Club TFE and
Speaker 1: it offers exclusive content like weekly course reviews and members
Speaker 1: only videos and virtual hangouts with Frida Egg's staff. You
Speaker 1: also get early access to register for Frida Egg events
Speaker 1: and an annual gift. We're launching it on January tewond
Speaker 1: but you can sign up right now at the Friday
Speaker 1: egg dot com slash membership. All Right, onto the episode.
Speaker 1: All right, So, Bob, when we were talking about you
Speaker 1: coming on the podcast a while back, you responded, I'd
Speaker 1: love to come on. I'd love to talk about my
Speaker 1: book Why Golf, But I do have one request, and
Speaker 1: that is that we discuss the concept of the groundy.
Speaker 1: And so I've been curious for months now. I have
Speaker 1: resisted the temptation of asking you straight up, but what
Speaker 1: is a groundie?
Speaker 2: Well, the truth is that when you get to be
Speaker 2: my agent golf, you can't look forward to sort of
Speaker 2: Jack Nichol's style pars and birdies the way once in
Speaker 2: a while you might have been able to in the past.
Speaker 2: So and in my case, getting the ball in the
Speaker 2: air sometimes is a little problematic. So a groundie is
Speaker 2: a birdie that you make probably on a par three,
Speaker 2: without the ball ever leaving the ground. And I've had
Speaker 2: one of those. You scull the ball off the tee,
Speaker 2: but it rolls and rolls and rolls, hits the green
Speaker 2: and then you make the putton. It's second in my
Speaker 2: esteem only to the Aqua Sandy, which I managed in
Speaker 2: Florida last winter, which is when you scull the ball
Speaker 2: off the tee through a water hazard and it skips
Speaker 2: off the hazard and then lands in a bunker, and
Speaker 2: you put the bunker shot on the green and make
Speaker 2: the putt, and that is called the aqua Sandy. I can't, ever,
Speaker 2: I can't expect anymore to have a good round in
Speaker 2: the seventies, but I can occasionally pick up a groundie
Speaker 2: or an aqua Sandy or something like that and take
Speaker 2: some pleasure from those.
Speaker 1: I have a friend who once told me when we
Speaker 1: were playing, I'm not out here for a score, because
Speaker 1: if I were, I would just be frustrated. I'm out
Speaker 1: here to make birdies and interesting pars, and whatever happens
Speaker 1: in between is just sort of whatever. I am not
Speaker 1: going to bring myself to care about that. But I
Speaker 1: think a groundee, I mean, it's a birdie technically, right,
Speaker 1: but if you were to make a par in a
Speaker 1: groundy manner, that would certainly qualify as an interesting par
Speaker 1: as well. Yes, yes, all right, Well, many people might
Speaker 1: recognize your name not only from the book Why Golf,
Speaker 1: but also from the covers of some best sellers by
Speaker 1: doctor Bob Rotella, the famous sports psychologist. You helped him
Speaker 1: write books like Golf Is Not a Game of Perfect,
Speaker 1: How Champions Think, etc. I think people listening to this
Speaker 1: podcast will probably be familiar with this kind of series
Speaker 1: of books that doctor Rotella and you have done in
Speaker 1: the past twenty five thirty years or so. So maybe
Speaker 1: we could start with you telling a story that you
Speaker 1: actually tell in your book Why Golf, about how you
Speaker 1: got linked up with doctor Rotella. How did that happen?
Speaker 2: Well, it was one of the fortunate breaks of my life.
Speaker 2: There was a guy named Bob Carney. There is a
Speaker 2: guy named Bob Carney at Golf Digest, and he was
Speaker 2: set up to work with Bob Rotella on the book
Speaker 2: that became Golf Is Not a Game of Perfect, But
Speaker 2: because he got a promotion at Golf Digest, he backed
Speaker 2: away from the project and Rotella was left looking for
Speaker 2: a collaborator. And we share a literary agent, Raf Sagallen,
Speaker 2: and so Rotella said to Raith. I'm looking to write
Speaker 2: a book about psychology for the average golfer, and I
Speaker 2: need a collaborator. And Rafe said, well, I have a
Speaker 2: client who's a very average golfer. And so I happened
Speaker 2: to live in the Washington area and Bob Rotello lives
Speaker 2: in Charlottesville, Virginia, and so I drove down there and
Speaker 2: we chatted and decided it was worth trying to work together,
Speaker 2: and that collaboration produced eight or nine books and put
Speaker 2: my kids through college. It was one of the nicest
Speaker 2: things that's ever happened to me.
Speaker 1: What are some of the most important things that you
Speaker 1: learned from doctor Rotella about the mental approach to golf.
Speaker 2: I guess they could be encapsulated in one phrase, train
Speaker 2: it and trust it. I think before I started to
Speaker 2: work as a ghostwriter for Bob, I was one of
Speaker 2: those players who was constantly thinking about the last tip
Speaker 2: that I read about in a golf magazine and trying
Speaker 2: to use it on the golf course. And his understanding
Speaker 2: of the game includes the fact that your body really
Speaker 2: works better when you allow your self conscious your subconscious
Speaker 2: i'm sorry, your subconscious brain to control your movements, and
Speaker 2: it does so much better than your conscious brain can do.
Speaker 2: For example, if you think about if you're probably too
Speaker 2: young for this, but if you ever learned to drive
Speaker 2: a stick shift. When you first started to learn, you're
Speaker 2: using your conscious brain trying to think about when to
Speaker 2: put in the clutch, when to move the lever, et cetera,
Speaker 2: et cetera, and the car lurches and jerks and can
Speaker 2: barely move. And after a while, though, you start to
Speaker 2: learn it in your subconscious brain and you don't even
Speaker 2: think about shifting the car anymore, and you drive very
Speaker 2: smoothly from one point to the next. Well, the golf
Speaker 2: swing is like shifting your car. You ingrain the correct
Speaker 2: movements by training it, and then your best chance to
Speaker 2: play well is by not thinking about it and letting
Speaker 2: your subconscious brain control your swing. And the problem that
Speaker 2: a lot of golfers have and that Rotella helps them with,
Speaker 2: is that they get into a situation in a tournament
Speaker 2: if you're a pro golfer or with a three dollars
Speaker 2: Nassau on the line, if you're an amateur and you
Speaker 2: really want to win, you really want to play well,
Speaker 2: and so you turn on your conscious brain and you
Speaker 2: screw it up. The best advice that Rotella ever gave anybody,
Speaker 2: or me in particular, was, you know, just think about
Speaker 2: where you want the ball to go and swing and
Speaker 2: don't think about how to swing. And if you've done
Speaker 2: your practicing a little. Even if you haven't practiced, you're
Speaker 2: still going to produce a better swing relative to your
Speaker 2: skill level if you just let it go. And that's
Speaker 2: one of the skills that Rotella teaches, and it helped
Speaker 2: my game tremendously, although I have to say I'm like
Speaker 2: the preacher's kid. Rotelo also says, don't get upset about
Speaker 2: a bad shot, just let it go and accept it.
Speaker 2: And I'm not the kind of person that can do
Speaker 2: that very easily. My friends tell me that they call
Speaker 2: something the colin I have anguish and they count how
Speaker 2: many ccas they hear during the course of a Saturday
Speaker 2: round and then tease me about it at lunch. But
Speaker 2: it's some parts of the Rotella teachings come easier to
Speaker 2: me than others.
Speaker 1: Well, let me bring up part of Rotella's philosophy, which
Speaker 1: I don't question the validity of that has frustrated me
Speaker 1: in the past, and that is this idea of turning
Speaker 1: on and off the conscious mind, as you put it,
Speaker 1: I find that I don't have much control over what
Speaker 1: my mind does that as much as I would like
Speaker 1: to be in the moment, kind of in that flow
Speaker 1: state where you're not thinking about the specifics of what
Speaker 1: you're doing, You're just looking at the target and making
Speaker 1: it happen. You're trusting your training, you're not being self
Speaker 1: conscious about it. I'd love to get to that state.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure how to get there, because I don't
Speaker 1: know that I I'm really in control of what my
Speaker 1: brain does. And so I wonder, I mean, this would
Speaker 1: obviously be a good question for doctor Rotella himself, but
Speaker 1: I wonder if you, as somebody who kind of learned
Speaker 1: as this stuff as well as rote about it, had ever,
Speaker 1: you know, explored that notion that the brain is really
Speaker 1: hard to control, and some people are better at it
Speaker 1: than others. But I find myself, in particular, very poor
Speaker 1: at that.
Speaker 2: Well. I think one thing he would say is that
Speaker 2: you have to practice it, and so with his players,
Speaker 2: he doesn't want them working with a swing teacher the
Speaker 2: day of the tournament or just before a tournament. He
Speaker 2: wants their practice sessions just before a competition to be
Speaker 2: in the trusting mode, and therefore he tells them, don't
Speaker 2: think about your swing, just think about the target on yours,
Speaker 2: and think about that more and more as try to
Speaker 2: think that way more and more as the competition approaches.
Speaker 2: If you need to make a swing change, or if
Speaker 2: you need to work on your mechanics, then the time
Speaker 2: to do that is well before competition. Work on the
Speaker 2: mechanics in a kind of controlled way, and then as
Speaker 2: your competition date approaches or your round approaches, more and
Speaker 2: more you have to practice in the trusting mode. And
Speaker 2: that's one thing that kind of helps, But obviously it
Speaker 2: presupposes that you're doing a lot of practicing, which is
Speaker 2: not something everybody gets a chance to do.
Speaker 1: My wife tells me I need to meditate, and I
Speaker 1: think she's probably right that that is a kind of
Speaker 1: practice of exerting control over your own mind, of saying,
Speaker 1: you know, this is the mind is part of my body.
Speaker 1: It's not something that kind of exists. A pardon does
Speaker 1: what it wants. I am in control of it. But
Speaker 1: that's so hard to do, incredibly difficult discipline.
Speaker 2: It's not easy, and that's one reason why a lot
Speaker 2: of people have read the books, and they're still not
Speaker 2: winning the US Open. Although some of Rotel is Rotella.
Speaker 2: There's something else I have to tell you about Rotella
Speaker 2: that is not in any of the books, and that
Speaker 2: is his personality. Players respond to him, and he has
Speaker 2: a tremendous knack for figuring out what's going to work,
Speaker 2: what kind of words, what kind of approach is going
Speaker 2: to work with anybody that he trains or works with,
Speaker 2: And that's one of his gifts. And it's not something
Speaker 2: that's easy to reproduce in a book, because when you
Speaker 2: read the book, it's his words. But it's not the
Speaker 2: same as being next to him on the practice range.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, and I've heard people say the same thing about
Speaker 1: the swing coach, butch Harmon, it's not so much about
Speaker 1: the technique, though he has mastery of that. It's about
Speaker 1: the way he communicates and the confidence that he instills
Speaker 1: in the attitude that he encourages. And you know, that
Speaker 1: can't really be written down. It's embodied in the personality
Speaker 1: of the coach, and that is kind of the value
Speaker 1: of the teaching there. But certainly, I mean the books
Speaker 1: have have helped many golfers kind of conceptualize how they
Speaker 1: might be able to improve their mental games. I mean,
Speaker 1: at least it gives a path.
Speaker 2: Well, and some of it is some of it is
Speaker 2: just common sense. There's a chapter in Golf Is Not
Speaker 2: a Game of Perfect that says, if you're not spending
Speaker 2: seventy percent of your practice time on your short game,
Speaker 2: you're not practicing to score better. And when I started
Speaker 2: working with Doc, I didn't ever practice my short game,
Speaker 2: and if I practiced at all, I would take a
Speaker 2: driver out and whale the ball and try to hit
Speaker 2: it further. And under his guidance, I started to practice
Speaker 2: my short game, and sure enough, I dropped eight strokes
Speaker 2: off my handicapped during the year we worked in the book,
Speaker 2: and you know that trend didn't continue, but I got
Speaker 2: better every year we worked together because he was constantly
Speaker 2: reminding me to practice my chipping and putting.
Speaker 1: All right, well, let's talk a little bit about your
Speaker 1: own book, Why Golf, which came out in the year
Speaker 1: two thousand and I love this book, you know, It's
Speaker 1: one that I've been a fan of for years and
Speaker 1: read multiple times and often think about, you know, in
Speaker 1: the course of doing my job. And the central question
Speaker 1: of it is embodied in the title, Why is it
Speaker 1: that golf is so appealing? Why golf specifically, why is
Speaker 1: it that this is the game that we become we
Speaker 1: golfers become obsessed with. Some of the explanations that you
Speaker 1: give toward the beginning of the book have a lot
Speaker 1: to do with what I think of as evolutionary psychology,
Speaker 1: right where part of the explanation for why we like
Speaker 1: what we like and why we do what we do
Speaker 1: is deep in our genetic coding, right these things that
Speaker 1: are still there inside us, because humans existed for a
Speaker 1: long long time before we all moved into cities and got,
Speaker 1: you know, bureaucratic jobs and did all the modern things
Speaker 1: that we do now. Humans existed for many many more
Speaker 1: centuries before that and developed kind of modes of being
Speaker 1: and desires that had a lot to do with hunter
Speaker 1: gatherer society and what life was like in that kind
Speaker 1: of environment and that kind of social structure. And evolutionary
Speaker 1: psychology gets at some of those tendencies and humans that
Speaker 1: were developed way way back and tries to explain some
Speaker 1: of our behavior in the present day by referring back
Speaker 1: to those early instances of genetic coding and motivation and humans.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure if I've explained that very well. That's
Speaker 1: kind of what evolutionary psychology does. But you drew on
Speaker 1: this a lot in explaining why golf was so appealing,
Speaker 1: and maybe you could take me through that a little bit.
Speaker 1: What are some of the things that you found.
Speaker 2: Well, one of the first things in why golf is
Speaker 2: so appealing is the place where you play. I know
Speaker 2: that since I've been a small child, I've always thought
Speaker 2: golf courses were great places to be. Just the look
Speaker 2: of the golf course appeals to me. Even if it's
Speaker 2: a scruffy municipal golf course like Rock Creek Park in Washington,
Speaker 2: it still seems to strike a chord within me, and
Speaker 2: I think within most golfers. And I had some conversations
Speaker 2: with a friend named Bob Wright, who's a writer of
Speaker 2: some very serious and important books who loves to play golf,
Speaker 2: and he introduced me to a book called the biophilia
Speaker 2: Hypothesis I believe, which suggests that there are deep within
Speaker 2: our hunter gatherer reptilian brains associations with places of prospect
Speaker 2: versus places of refuge. Places of prospect are like the
Speaker 2: fairways and the greens on a golf course, and places
Speaker 2: of refuge are like the woods and that water hazards
Speaker 2: and the desire to be in a place of prospect
Speaker 2: is something that's existed within human beings for thousands and
Speaker 2: thousands of years, and there are some fundamental instinctive pleasures
Speaker 2: or desires. There's a chapter in Why Golf called the
Speaker 2: Blind Baby Smile or Why the Blame Blind Baby Smiled,
Speaker 2: And one of the psychologists that I cited was in
Speaker 2: trusted in why it was that a blind baby who
Speaker 2: could never see a smile could learn to smile. And
Speaker 2: it turns out that if the baby can be set
Speaker 2: up in a situation whereby kicking at things or striking things,
Speaker 2: it can move something in the environment, it smiles. The
Speaker 2: baby smiles even if it's never seen a smile. And
Speaker 2: that's an indication that the basic act of playing golf,
Speaker 2: the movement of the ball by striking it with a club,
Speaker 2: strike some cord within us that probably had to do
Speaker 2: with the genetic advantage of being able to manipulate your environment.
Speaker 2: So and that's probably also the case with so many
Speaker 2: other sports. I mean, golf is not the only sport
Speaker 2: that you move a ball around in a playing area.
Speaker 2: Almost all sports have that involved with them, so but
Speaker 2: that's one of the reasons why. Whether it be hitting
Speaker 2: a drive down the middle of the fairway or sinking
Speaker 2: a three point shot, or you know, hitting a hitting
Speaker 2: a baseball really solidly and seeing it go into the outfield,
Speaker 2: those are instinctively satisfying feelings for a lot of people.
Speaker 2: And it's it's wired into our wired into us. Whether
Speaker 2: it's in the genes or in some other fashion. I
Speaker 2: don't know. I'm not a scientist, so it's hard for
Speaker 2: me to make a definitive statement, but it's clear that
Speaker 2: there are some elements of golf, both in terms of
Speaker 2: the setting and in terms of the movement of the
Speaker 2: ball that are ringing a bell deep within our being.
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Speaker 1: Well, I want to go back to golf courses as
Speaker 1: places for a second before moving on to you know,
Speaker 1: the appeal of playing the game itself, hitting the ball,
Speaker 1: et cetera. There are lots of interesting things in both
Speaker 1: of those pursuits, and there are evolutionary explanations, I suppose
Speaker 1: for both kinds of appeal in golf, but prospect and refuge. So,
Speaker 1: prospect environments are places where you can see a lot
Speaker 1: basically right, where you can can see over an expanse
Speaker 1: of land. You know, think of the savannah that it's
Speaker 1: kind of a prospect environment, whereas refuge environments are more
Speaker 1: like a jungle or a forest where you can be
Speaker 1: sort of hidden away. And you know, both of those
Speaker 1: environments can be appealing to humans for different reasons, right, So,
Speaker 1: what are the reasons that a refuge environment might be
Speaker 1: appealing and what are the reasons that a prospect environment
Speaker 1: might be appealing the sort.
Speaker 2: Of hunter gatherer paradigm. The hunters would be the ones
Speaker 2: that would go out into the places of prospect so
Speaker 2: they could hunt game or something like that.
Speaker 1: And you wouldn't want to hunt game in a forest, right,
Speaker 1: that's not the ideal place to be hunting, because you know,
Speaker 1: you can't see very far. You don't really have an
Speaker 1: advantage there.
Speaker 2: Right, Whereas the gatherers would tend to be people who
Speaker 2: wanted to be protected from or wanted to protect themselves
Speaker 2: from wild animals, and they would spend their time in
Speaker 2: a forest or some kind of environment where they had
Speaker 2: some natural shelter or natural protection against predators, and where
Speaker 2: they could find food sources that were available on the
Speaker 2: forest floor, hanging from the branches or something like that.
Speaker 2: So you're the obvious over simplistic explanation is that golfers
Speaker 2: are descended from hunters and gatherers, and non golfers are
Speaker 2: descended from gatherers, and that the reason the golf course
Speaker 2: is so appealing to some people but not all, is
Speaker 2: that some people have more of that hunter gene and
Speaker 2: some people have more of that gatherer gene.
Speaker 1: Now, I would say that a lot of golf courses
Speaker 1: are there's many varieties of golf courses, right. Some golf
Speaker 1: courses have a lot more prospect environments than others. But
Speaker 1: the golf course that are at least most appealing to
Speaker 1: me are ones where there are both kind of prospect
Speaker 1: and refuge environments where there's an alternation between places where
Speaker 1: you can see an expanse and places where you're more enclosed,
Speaker 1: and the golf course kind of moves in and out
Speaker 1: between those, and so it's a kind of combination or
Speaker 1: the best of both worlds, you could even say, where
Speaker 1: you get these moments where you feel kind of tucked
Speaker 1: away and protected or hidden, and you get moments where
Speaker 1: you're more behaving in a hunter manner and looking over
Speaker 1: a broad environment and seeing what's next. Those are the
Speaker 1: kind of more expansive moments of the golf round and
Speaker 1: then the kind of release moments. And then when you're
Speaker 1: in those, you know, kind of more sheltered environments, you
Speaker 1: get a different feeling. And so I think a lot
Speaker 1: of golf courses sort of deliver both.
Speaker 2: Maybe right. I think that for example, when I look
Speaker 2: at Oakmont today or Congressional, where the USDA has persuaded
Speaker 2: those clubs to remove thousands and thousands of trees, they're
Speaker 2: not as appealing to me as they were when I
Speaker 2: first saw them, and they had a lot more trees
Speaker 2: and tree lined fairways. So yeah, the association with the
Speaker 2: places of refuge is probably one of the things that
Speaker 2: makes the most appealing golf courses as appealing as they are.
Speaker 2: Although obviously you don't want to spend a lot of
Speaker 2: time in your place of refuge if you're playing around
Speaker 2: the golf.
Speaker 1: That's true. Yeah, you don't want to be in the
Speaker 1: swamp right.
Speaker 2: Right, or in the trees or where where some of
Speaker 2: us spend way too much time instead of out on
Speaker 2: that nice sun drenched fairway.
Speaker 1: Well, you know. Regarding tree removal, I would say that
Speaker 1: a lot of golf courses maybe went too far in
Speaker 1: the direction of making the entire golf course refuge right
Speaker 1: where you're surrounded by trees the entire time. And I
Speaker 1: think that the most successful tree removal projects have often
Speaker 1: been ones where enough trees were removed so that places
Speaker 1: of prospect were opened up, and there were moments when
Speaker 1: you can kind of see across the golf course and
Speaker 1: get that feeling, you know, that good feeling of being
Speaker 1: in command of your environment. But then there are also
Speaker 1: moments where there are some trees, there are enough trees
Speaker 1: left so that you can get the other feeling or
Speaker 1: the other side of it, and so on many golf courses.
Speaker 1: I like that tree removal has created the opportunity for
Speaker 1: both of those to be experienced. Now, you may say, Okay, Oakmont,
Speaker 1: pretty much all of the trees are gone on most
Speaker 1: parts of the golf course, and there's a particular argument
Speaker 1: for that. But I guess I'm glad that certain golf
Speaker 1: courses have moved back to a place where there are
Speaker 1: more kind of kind of prospects on the scene. I suppose. Now,
Speaker 1: another element of this that was interesting in your book
Speaker 1: is the idea of clipped grasslands right where you know,
Speaker 1: part of the reason that golf courses are appealing is
Speaker 1: that the grasses is kind of short, and so you know,
Speaker 1: what about that, what's the what's what's the feeling that
Speaker 1: we get from that.
Speaker 2: I think that that to a hunter in prehistoric times,
Speaker 2: the the site of clip grass suggested there was prey
Speaker 2: ahead and that was very pleasant to see and resonated
Speaker 2: nicely with them, so that it meant that the kind
Speaker 2: of animals that graze and like sheep or who were
Speaker 2: in the first golf courses or in other places other
Speaker 2: kinds of grazing animals were near hand and there for
Speaker 2: the hunting was going to be good. That's my feeling
Speaker 2: about it. But it's obviously not something you could ever
Speaker 2: probably prove.
Speaker 1: Right. Well, that's the thing about some of these ideas
Speaker 1: of evolutionary psychology is that it is kind of hard
Speaker 1: to prove. There's really no way to prove aside from,
Speaker 1: you know, making a convincing argument about it. But yeah,
Speaker 1: I find this idea that golf courses kind of replicate
Speaker 1: a landscape that humans are coded to react well to.
Speaker 1: You know, wherever you want to take that argument, whatever
Speaker 1: specifics of golf courses you want to point out, that
Speaker 1: does seem right to me that golf courses just give
Speaker 1: you this feeling of, ah, this is a good place
Speaker 1: to be. And do you still have that feeling today
Speaker 1: when you walk on a golf course.
Speaker 2: Yes, although I have to say that compared to twenty
Speaker 2: odd years ago, if I were writing the book today,
Speaker 2: I would give more emphasis to the fact that one
Speaker 2: of the appealing things about golf is that it's a
Speaker 2: game where you can measure your improvement. You know, when
Speaker 2: I wrote this book, I was working my handicap down
Speaker 2: from twenty one where it was when I started working
Speaker 2: with Barbrook Dell to five, which is as low as
Speaker 2: I ever got. And now that my handicap is going
Speaker 2: in the opposite direction because of a variety of things,
Speaker 2: mostly age. I really find that I miss the notion
Speaker 2: of improvement and the striving to get that handicap a
Speaker 2: stroke lower and regularly work on your game. As David
Speaker 2: Oakley observed, you can't when you get to the point
Speaker 2: in life where you have all the time you need
Speaker 2: to work on your game. Your body won't let you
Speaker 2: there are and your body won't let you hit the
Speaker 2: ball that far anymore. I remember once about I don't
Speaker 2: know twenty years ago, being at a clinic with Jack Nicholas,
Speaker 2: and he was demonstrating how he hits the ball. He says, well,
Speaker 2: that's the way I do it, but well didn't go
Speaker 2: anywhere anymore. Of course, he was only hitting it two sixty. Wow.
Speaker 2: I'd love to be able to make the ball not
Speaker 2: go anywhere the way Jack does. But you know, age
Speaker 2: robs us all of the ability to hit the ball
Speaker 2: as far as we once could, hit it as high
Speaker 2: as we once could, and so forth. And it's tough
Speaker 2: to want to practice enough on the things that you
Speaker 2: can still do as you get older, Like you're chipping
Speaker 2: and you're pitching, and you're putting to compensate for the
Speaker 2: loss of distance and clubhead speed. So anyway, so if
Speaker 2: you don't and I don't, I'm afraid want to spend
Speaker 2: a lot of time practicing your short game to compensate
Speaker 2: for your reduced clubhead speed and so on, you find
Speaker 2: your handicap going in the wrong direction, and that takes
Speaker 2: a lot of pleasure away from the game. I have
Speaker 2: to say, in retrospect, I would have said, you know
Speaker 2: that the notion of improving, of reaching a goal and
Speaker 2: then climbing to another goal is one of the most
Speaker 2: appealing aspects of golf. It's not I don't think a
Speaker 2: coincidence that golf, probably of all sports that I can imagine,
Speaker 2: has the best handicap system and the most scientific way
Speaker 2: of determining you know exactly where your game is in
Speaker 2: terms of your scoring and that handicap number. You know,
Speaker 2: I just got my handicap the other day from the
Speaker 2: Maryland State Golf Association, So every two weeks I get
Speaker 2: an update, and it's it can be both a great
Speaker 2: thing or a saddening thing. If you see it going down,
Speaker 2: that really is encouraging, and if you see it going up,
Speaker 2: that kind of takes a little of the spice out
Speaker 2: of the game.
Speaker 1: I'm afraid, well, let me defend your book here for
Speaker 1: a moment, because I do think that you bring this
Speaker 1: idea through in the book. You know, we've mainly been
Speaker 1: talking about your ideas about the appeal of golf courses
Speaker 1: as environments or as habitats. But there's a big set
Speaker 1: of ideas in this book about why the act of
Speaker 1: playing golf is satisfying. And one of those ideas is
Speaker 1: that it offers a realm for improvement, which is what
Speaker 1: you're talking about right now. And you know, here's here.
Speaker 1: There are a number of great passages to refer to here.
Speaker 1: One quote that jumped out to me this time reading
Speaker 1: your book is that golf is a great sport for
Speaker 1: the striver, right, And if I could just read a
Speaker 1: quick passage to maybe get your your thoughts going about this,
Speaker 1: you say that that people are happiest when they are
Speaker 1: working toward a goal. In our distant ancestors, this trait
Speaker 1: helped assure survival in our time, serve Bible is rarely
Speaker 1: an issue, and this is at least for people who
Speaker 1: have the opportunity to play golf. Yet the striving trait
Speaker 1: lives on within us seeking an outlet. This is why
Speaker 1: people try to circumnavigate the globe in hot air balloons.
Speaker 1: This is why we have tourists trekking to the top
Speaker 1: of Mount Everest. It is why each autumn the marathons
Speaker 1: in New York and Washington are oversubscribed. People want to strive.
Speaker 1: Striving makes them happy. Therefore golf makes them happy. And
Speaker 1: in fact, this is also one big reason why this
Speaker 1: was your story as well, why people may let golf
Speaker 1: go in their twenties and pick it back up in
Speaker 1: their thirties or forties. Because in our twenties, a lot
Speaker 1: of us are striving in many realms of our professional
Speaker 1: and personal lives. Many of us are building our careers,
Speaker 1: looking for promotions. In our twenties, we're looking often many
Speaker 1: of us are looking for a mate. In our twenties,
Speaker 1: we're looking to start families. And those are both arenas
Speaker 1: in which people really have to strive in order to succeed.
Speaker 1: But by the time many people are in their thirties, forties, fifties,
Speaker 1: they've kind of settled into a life, right, They've maybe
Speaker 1: settled into a family life, They've maybe settled into a
Speaker 1: professional life, and the striving is not as much part
Speaker 1: of what they're doing. And so that's why people sometimes
Speaker 1: take up golf because it offers a place to strive.
Speaker 1: And so you still think that's true, But for you,
Speaker 1: that part of the game has become less, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because I guess I'm afflicted. Bob Rotello would tell me,
Speaker 2: I'm defeating myself. I'm afflicted with the sense that even
Speaker 2: if I started again devoting a lot of time to practice,
Speaker 2: I would not be able to do any better and
Speaker 2: probably not do as well as I could twenty years ago.
Speaker 2: So I as a result, I really rely on golf
Speaker 2: to give me a companionship and exercise. You know, my
Speaker 2: buddies that I play with are very important in my life,
Speaker 2: and the exercise I get playing golf is important to me.
Speaker 2: And just the sheer pleasure of hitting the ball well
Speaker 2: occasional or even making a groundie or an aqua sandy
Speaker 2: is important to me. But I can't invest myself as
Speaker 2: much as I did in seeing you know, can I
Speaker 2: get to be a single digit? Can I get to
Speaker 2: be less enough six? And you know, one of the
Speaker 2: things you find out, unfortunately, is that it takes twice
Speaker 2: as much work to get from six to five as
Speaker 2: it did to get from twenty to ten. And you know,
Speaker 2: the practicing that I had to do, I did it
Speaker 2: in part because when I was writing about golf, I
Speaker 2: felt like it was an occupational necessity.
Speaker 6: You know.
Speaker 2: Bob Rotella, in fact, and I both got a little invested.
Speaker 2: In the back flap of the books that we did
Speaker 2: there'd be a little paragraph about me. And it started
Speaker 2: out in the first book saying, in his time working
Speaker 2: with Bob Rotella, Bob Collen's handicap has gone from twenty
Speaker 2: one to thirteen. And you know, the next book it
Speaker 2: was twenty one to eleven. And you know when I
Speaker 2: became a single digit with about the third or fourth
Speaker 2: book that Rotella liked that and I liked it. But
Speaker 2: I got down to five and I realized that, you know,
Speaker 2: to get anywhere from below five, I would have to
Speaker 2: start spending hours a day at the golf course trying
Speaker 2: to improve marginally on my putting or marginally. And I
Speaker 2: don't like practicing putting. I'll be perfec be honest with you.
Speaker 2: In one of the Rotel books we had that we
Speaker 2: wrote about putting, I had some great putting drills from
Speaker 2: Dottie Pepper. I interviewed her and she gave me a
Speaker 2: few drills that we incorporated into that book. And those
Speaker 2: drills are great. You have to, for example, draw a
Speaker 2: straight line on the putting green, I find a straight putt,
Speaker 2: in other words, and then put three balls down a
Speaker 2: three feet, hit them in three in a row, and
Speaker 2: then move it back to five feet, hit them in
Speaker 2: three in a row, move it back to seven feet,
Speaker 2: hit them in three in a row. And if you
Speaker 2: can do that, your practice is done. It adds pressure
Speaker 2: to your practice, it grooves your stroke. It's a tremendous drill,
Speaker 2: but it's boy, it's tough on your back.
Speaker 6: And so if somebody invites me to play in a
Speaker 6: member guest and I don't want to embarrass myself, I
Speaker 6: will practice putting for a week or so and it
Speaker 6: works every time.
Speaker 2: The drill improves my game by several strokes. But it's
Speaker 2: just not fun. And as I get older, I find
Speaker 2: I'm really only in it for the fun anymore. And
Speaker 2: so you know, give me a nice group of guys,
Speaker 2: a nice day, and a three dollars Nassau and that's
Speaker 2: about as happy as I'm going to get from golf anymore.
Speaker 2: I'm not going to get there. I'm not going to
Speaker 2: get happy because I'm striving to lower my handicap from
Speaker 2: seven to six. Well, that was great, And it's true
Speaker 2: that in any endeavor, people are who understand their own
Speaker 2: psychology will tell you that the journey is a much
Speaker 2: greater source of joy than the destination. And you know,
Speaker 2: so feeling like you're working and making progress is a
Speaker 2: great part of golf, but it's part of golf I've given.
Speaker 1: Up, and so then the pleasure that you get out
Speaker 1: of golf now is primarily social.
Speaker 2: One of my proudest achievements is I taught my wife
Speaker 2: to play golf. I didn't teach her. She had learned
Speaker 2: a little bit as a kid, but she started picked
Speaker 2: it up again when she was in her fifties, and
Speaker 2: now she wants to go on golf vacations all the time.
Speaker 2: You know, when we go away this winter, we're going
Speaker 2: to a place where there's a golf course, and she's
Speaker 2: going to want to play every day if possible. And so,
Speaker 2: you know, as golf is giving us something we both
Speaker 2: enjoy doing together in our golden years, and it's true
Speaker 2: that being with friends, you know, the golf trips you
Speaker 2: take with your buddies, those things, the camaraderie, the weather,
Speaker 2: that all those things are extremely important and golf is
Speaker 2: a way of giving them to yourself.
Speaker 1: Are there moments now, even as you feel your skills
Speaker 1: on the course are declining and that the opportunity for
Speaker 1: improvement is more part of your past than it is
Speaker 1: part of your future, are there moments when this kind
Speaker 1: of balance between difficulty and achievability that golf has still
Speaker 1: appeals to you. And what I mean by this is that, yes,
Speaker 1: golf is an extremely difficult game, but it's also possible
Speaker 1: to play it extremely well for anyone. You know, it
Speaker 1: doesn't matter if we're not wonderful athletes. We can all
Speaker 1: hit great shots, and so that is the achievable. That's
Speaker 1: the allure of playing golf in part that you know,
Speaker 1: great golf is within our grasp right and occasionally we
Speaker 1: can play it, but it's extremely difficult to do that consistently,
Speaker 1: and so we kind of have to wait for those
Speaker 1: moments or work toward those moments. So you know, even
Speaker 1: as you say that, you know the act of playing
Speaker 1: golf and trying to get better at it has become
Speaker 1: less important to you. Do you still feel like golf
Speaker 1: draws you because you feel like, you know, sometimes I
Speaker 1: can achieve a state of grace.
Speaker 2: Once in a while in any round of golf. I
Speaker 2: think that's correct. I think you know. I'm not sure
Speaker 2: I agree with you that anybody can play great golf.
Speaker 2: I'll tell you a story from a clinic that I
Speaker 2: went to with Jack Nicholas. Another story, And as part
Speaker 2: of this clinic, people were getting golf clubs, and the
Speaker 2: golf club sets included hybrids, and Jack said, how do
Speaker 2: you like those hybrids? And find Jack you know, and
Speaker 2: he said, well, I don't use them. You can't work
Speaker 2: the ball with that.
Speaker 1: You can only hit it high and straight, and yeah,
Speaker 1: that's so bad.
Speaker 3: And in Jack's world that was true, because Jack's golf
Speaker 3: game operates within such fine tolerances that he can't work
Speaker 3: the ball with a hybrid club. He wants to be
Speaker 3: able to fade it and draw it, and he gets
Speaker 3: he can do that with the old standard irons, he
Speaker 3: can't do it with hybrids. And after that clinic, every
Speaker 3: time I hit.
Speaker 2: A big hook or a terrible slice with a hybrid club,
Speaker 2: I'd say, no, Jack, you're wrong. You can work the
Speaker 2: ball with a hybrid club because you know, the average
Speaker 2: player doesn't swing the way Jack swings. Jack swing is
Speaker 2: a different animal altogether. And so anyway, I think the
Speaker 2: average person is capable of some good shots and once
Speaker 2: in a while doing them, and if you practice more,
Speaker 2: you get more consistent with it. But nowadays, you know
Speaker 2: the for me, a long drive is one that catches
Speaker 2: the other side of a hill and rolls out to
Speaker 2: two hundred yards. I'm never going to hit the ball
Speaker 2: to seventy again, not that I ever did very often anyway,
Speaker 2: But and so what really I think highlight my golf
Speaker 2: rounds are the recovery shots. You know, when you when
Speaker 2: you when you hit the ball in a bunker, but
Speaker 2: then you knock the bunker shot to two feet and
Speaker 2: make the put. That that's one of the highlights. Or
Speaker 2: you know, the the occasional shot where the ball comes
Speaker 2: right off the club the way you want it to.
Speaker 2: And if it's if it's a well designed course, you
Speaker 2: know you've got some shots there where they look harder
Speaker 2: than they are. And so you you hit the ball
Speaker 2: over a bunker and onto the green and stop it
Speaker 2: and I don't stop it very sharply anymore, but I
Speaker 2: can still keep it from rolling out through the green
Speaker 2: and if I hit it well. And those kinds of
Speaker 2: shots that look harder than they are are the kinds
Speaker 2: of shots that good golf course architects build into their
Speaker 2: courses and which can give me that same feeling of yeah,
Speaker 2: I can do this. But to be honest, it's mostly
Speaker 2: the occasional recovery shots. You know, if I have a
Speaker 2: good day in the bunkers, I'm having a good day.
Speaker 1: Right Yeah. Well, when I say that anybody is capable
Speaker 1: of great golf, I don't mean that anybody is capable
Speaker 1: of putting together eighteen holes of great golf, right right, Obviously,
Speaker 1: that's that's not true. I mean, you know, maybe maybe
Speaker 1: most people would be able to get there with a
Speaker 1: lot of practice, but most of us don't practice enough
Speaker 1: or work hard enough on our games to or have
Speaker 1: enough time to develop those kinds of skills.
Speaker 2: But you put your finger on one of the lures
Speaker 2: of the game, and that is that anybody who can
Speaker 2: break a hundred can remember hitting a great drive down
Speaker 2: the middle, or hitting a seven iron crisp to a pin,
Speaker 2: and then the lure is, well, if I could do
Speaker 2: it once, I sure certainly should be able to do
Speaker 2: it more often. Whereas if you are a pole vaulter,
Speaker 2: you know you're never gonna get very far off the
Speaker 2: ground with a pole in your hands, or if you're
Speaker 2: a boxer, you're never going to last more than five
Speaker 2: seconds with a professional heavyweight. And so golf has that
Speaker 2: element that you mentioned that is very alluring, the notion
Speaker 2: that I've done it once. There's no reason except for
Speaker 2: for consistency, that I can't do it all the time.
Speaker 2: And of course consistency is the mystery of the game,
Speaker 2: one of the mysteries of the game. But anyway, yes, yeah.
Speaker 1: You're correct, it's within reach. Yeah, exactly. The achievability factor
Speaker 1: that is kind of what golf offers is that is
Speaker 1: that little mirage I guess most of the time of achievability,
Speaker 1: and to the extent that you find that appealing, that's
Speaker 1: the extent to which you remain obsessed with the game.
Speaker 1: Do you think that's accurate.
Speaker 2: I think you're right. I think that's what keeps you
Speaker 2: practicing if you are a practicer, and that's what kept
Speaker 2: me practicing because I knew that if I worked on it,
Speaker 2: I would develop more consistency. I remember when my kids
Speaker 2: were young, we'd go down to the beach in South Carolina,
Speaker 2: and there are a lot of good practice ranges down
Speaker 2: there in the Myrtle Beach area. I don't know whether
Speaker 2: you've ever been there. Yes, well, I would go to
Speaker 2: a probe before our vacation and I would ask for
Speaker 2: some drills, and he would give me drills to improve
Speaker 2: my contact with the ball or something of that nature.
Speaker 2: And when we got to South Carolina, because the kids
Speaker 2: were small, I couldn't take an hour. I couldn't take
Speaker 2: six hours to play around a golf but I could
Speaker 2: take an hour and a half and go to a
Speaker 2: range somewhere and work on those drills. And when I
Speaker 2: came back from those vacations, I was always a stroker
Speaker 2: to better than I had been because the drills made
Speaker 2: me more consistent. And if I wanted to get better
Speaker 2: at golf, now, that's what I would start doing. I
Speaker 2: would get a pro and I would get some drills,
Speaker 2: and I would improve what I have, even though what
Speaker 2: I have now is not going to be what I
Speaker 2: had twenty five years ago. And so yeah, I think
Speaker 2: that's one of the great allures of the game for
Speaker 2: people who are like you or me, the striver that
Speaker 2: you want to improve. You can see the possibility or
Speaker 2: the potential of playing well, and you're willing to work
Speaker 2: on drills or other kinds of practice that will slowly
Speaker 2: make your game more system You know, I would spend
Speaker 2: an hour on those South Carolina practice ranges, swinging on
Speaker 2: one leg because my pro told me that, you know,
Speaker 2: you've got to work on something, and it worked. You know,
Speaker 2: when I came home, I was I was shooting a
Speaker 2: couple or three strokes better than I had been when
Speaker 2: I left on that vacation. And people said, you must
Speaker 2: have played a lot of golf, and I said, no,
Speaker 2: I just did a lot of practice.
Speaker 1: Right. You finished this book with a really lovely chapter
Speaker 1: I think about Twilight Golf. Yeah, and I wonder if
Speaker 1: you still love Twilight golf.
Speaker 2: I don't do it as often as I used to,
Speaker 2: but I still do it occasionally. And you know, I'll
Speaker 2: have to tell you that that that Twilight Golf chapter
Speaker 2: featured by two children who are now close to middle age,
Speaker 2: and they don't play golf anymore. I don't know why
Speaker 2: I could couldn't instill it in them. In any case,
Speaker 2: Twilight golf was something that I did when they were young,
Speaker 2: and we had dinner at six o'clock because that's when
Speaker 2: they wanted to have dinner, and I didn't have the
Speaker 2: cocktail before dinner, and then it would be six thirty
Speaker 2: and there would be two perfectly good hours, and I'd say,
Speaker 2: let's go out and play golf, or I would go
Speaker 2: out and play golf. And when you're a working person,
Speaker 2: which I was, then those are your hours to play.
Speaker 2: You got to use those twilight hours, especially if you
Speaker 2: can get your kids to go out and take the
Speaker 2: kids off out of the house for a couple of hours.
Speaker 2: So I really like that, and I still do it occasionally,
Speaker 2: but not as much as I did when the kids
Speaker 2: were small.
Speaker 1: What I really like about this portrayal of twilight golf
Speaker 1: is you know this idea that you're on this kind
Speaker 1: of abandoned golf course for the most part, and you
Speaker 1: have a line in here where you say, even though
Speaker 1: the day is kind of coming to an end and
Speaker 1: you're kind of aware of advancing time, it seems like
Speaker 1: you have more time when you're playing twilight golf than
Speaker 1: at any other time. Of the day, and you know,
Speaker 1: that just strikes me as something that's that can be
Speaker 1: really pleasurable, and I wish we're kind of more common.
Speaker 1: In golf. People are often sort of rushing through a
Speaker 1: golf round, making sure they're not holding anybody up, and
Speaker 1: they're keeping score, and there's a set of rules about
Speaker 1: how you go about it. And twilight golf, those rules
Speaker 1: kind of seem to be suspended and you're able to
Speaker 1: play a little more. It's a time to bring kids
Speaker 1: out on the course, you know.
Speaker 2: Because you're not trying to finish around. And you know,
Speaker 2: I have to say I am a stickler for a
Speaker 2: pace of playing golf. Yes, we were at Pine Needles
Speaker 2: a couple of weeks ago. There was a group of
Speaker 2: guys that were playing a tournament among themselves and they
Speaker 2: were putting everything out and winding everything up.
Speaker 1: Three times, grinding over two footers, crazy.
Speaker 2: Playing behind them. It took us five hours to play,
Speaker 2: and I was very unhappy about that because I like
Speaker 2: to play in four hours. But twilight golf, maybe I
Speaker 2: put too much pressure on myself to move along and
Speaker 2: and to never hold anybody up and so forth. Twilight
Speaker 2: golf maybe was special in fact now that you talk
Speaker 2: about it, because I didn't have that kind of desire
Speaker 2: to move, move the game along and not hold anybody
Speaker 2: up and get done with my round in a four
Speaker 2: hour at a four hour pace. And so yeah, maybe
Speaker 2: the maybe one of the one of the real attraction.
Speaker 2: It's one of the great things about twilight golf is
Speaker 2: that you know, if you don't play six holes, you
Speaker 2: play five, nobody cares, and it takes a time pressure
Speaker 2: element away from the game. And the time pressure element
Speaker 2: is necessary in golf the way it is in this
Speaker 2: country today. You can't have somebody playing five hours on
Speaker 2: a course that has other people on it, because it's
Speaker 2: not fair to them. But there's something nice about being
Speaker 2: liberated from the time constraints which you are to some
Speaker 2: which you are basically one hundred percent liberated in twilight
Speaker 2: golf if you're playing it at a course that you
Speaker 2: belong to and that you know you can switch from
Speaker 2: one hole to the next, skip a few holes and
Speaker 2: or hit an extra shot, or all those other things
Speaker 2: that are part of the pleasure of the game that
Speaker 2: you can't have on a Saturday morning when everybody's trying
Speaker 2: to get around the golf course. Before lunch.
Speaker 1: Well, Bob, thank you so much for talking with me today.
Speaker 1: The book is called Why Golf. I recommend that people
Speaker 1: revisited it if you read it years ago, it's a
Speaker 1: good one to pick up again. But thanks again for
Speaker 1: coming on the podcast, Garrett.
Speaker 2: It's been a pleasure and on behalf of golf Riders Everywhere.
Speaker 2: Thanks for doing what you're doing.
Speaker 1: This episode of the Frida Egg podcast was edited by
Speaker 1: Meg Atkins. If you'd like to support the Frida Egg,
Speaker 1: the single best way to do that is to join
Speaker 1: Club TFE. Go to the Friday Egg dot com slash
Speaker 1: membership to learn more and to sign up. Thanks for
Speaker 1: listening and we'll be back soon.
Speaker 3: Y