Speaker 1: I graduated Seal Training or Hell Week with twenty guys
Speaker 1: out of one hundred and thirty five that started our
Speaker 1: buds class.
Speaker 2: So we started one.
Speaker 1: Hundred and thirty five, we got the Hell Week of
Speaker 1: forty three. We came out of Hell Week with twenty.
Speaker 1: That requires an extreme amount of mental toughness. So if
Speaker 1: I proved that I was extremely mentally tough and at
Speaker 1: the same exact point in life could not throw a
Speaker 1: baseball due to the yips, then the yips cannot be
Speaker 1: due to a lack of mental toughness.
Speaker 3: Put another log on the fire nobody he is get
Speaker 3: the time.
Speaker 2: Welcome to the fire pit with Matt Chanella as.
Speaker 4: Will Zalaturus used a lab to finish second at Riviera
Speaker 4: and Phil Nicholson used one at Live Goolf's Jetta event
Speaker 4: to finish T six.
Speaker 5: We're rolling right.
Speaker 4: Into part six of this series on the rise in
Speaker 4: relevancy of lab golf. If you've been following along, you
Speaker 4: know by now this is not just a story and
Speaker 4: a series about putters and putting strokes. It's also a
Speaker 4: story about ingenuity overcoming adversity, some risks which resulted in
Speaker 4: rewards throw in the cultivation of relationships, serendipity, mental toughness,
Speaker 4: timing technology, some sweat marketing with a sprinkle of stubbornness,
Speaker 4: and you have the American Dream, several of them.
Speaker 5: Actually, how many more episodes in this series?
Speaker 2: You ask?
Speaker 4: I'm not really sure yet, as many as it takes
Speaker 4: to tell this story because for me, knowing where it
Speaker 4: ends and the people who have offered their time, insights
Speaker 4: and perspectives, it's all worth it.
Speaker 5: I hope you feel the same.
Speaker 4: In Part five we met Brett Rumford, the Australian short
Speaker 4: game guru who pushed back on the original directed force
Speaker 4: technology and after a few passionate exchange with Sam Hahn
Speaker 4: and lab leadership, Rummy is now all in on the
Speaker 4: product process and the results.
Speaker 6: When you get to that first green, it's just all
Speaker 6: about locking into holding a part and just the more
Speaker 6: things that you can eliminate in the thought process with
Speaker 6: putting them, the better, you know, simplify it to just
Speaker 6: hitting that the best put you can. And a classic
Speaker 6: example was the story I told at the Cottaslow Open
Speaker 6: where I've got a thirty footer. There's lots of stuff
Speaker 6: that can happen in between the impact of that golfer
Speaker 6: going in the hole. But at the end of the day,
Speaker 6: you go, you just got to give up on that
Speaker 6: and just put the best stroke you can on it,
Speaker 6: and that was That's what was really evident. It was
Speaker 6: just an amazing moment for me which I went, Okay,
Speaker 6: I get it. I understand what Sam's on about, and
Speaker 6: Bill and the technology what it's all about. So it
Speaker 6: was just purely just emptied.
Speaker 2: It was amazing.
Speaker 6: It was quite don't want to use the word it
Speaker 6: was very spiritual.
Speaker 4: And before how are we go any further? I just
Speaker 4: want to say thank you to Dormy Workshop for their
Speaker 4: sponsorship of this podcast. The Bishop Brothers are based in Halifax,
Speaker 4: Nova Scotia. They're coming up on ten years of making
Speaker 4: handmade leather goods such as custom headcovers and accessories. For
Speaker 4: their complete collection of originals headcovers and classics, go to
Speaker 4: Dormy Workshop dot com and use promo code fire Pit
Speaker 4: fifteen for fifteen percent off your next purchase. So, as
Speaker 4: I explained in Part one, the reason I started reporting
Speaker 4: this story and series was a byproduct of Lucas Glover
Speaker 4: going from having a severe case of the yips to
Speaker 4: winning back to back PGA Tour events in August of
Speaker 4: twenty twenty three. He had gone from the outhouse to
Speaker 4: the penthouse of putting, and the transformation was seemingly overnight.
Speaker 4: After a few phone calls, I confirmed that a lab
Speaker 4: putter definitely had something to do with it, and after
Speaker 4: initial interviews with Sam Han and Bill Pressey, I quickly
Speaker 4: realized that lab golf was indeed a story I wanted
Speaker 4: to tell, But I also found out there was more
Speaker 4: to Glover's success than just the putter. Where we go
Speaker 4: in the next few episodes is a better understanding of
Speaker 4: Lucas Glover, his life and his career, a better understanding
Speaker 4: of the yips, and we talked to Jason Kuhn, the
Speaker 4: former Navy seal who helped Glover overcome every golfer's worst nightmare,
Speaker 4: and we find out how and why Glover decided to
Speaker 4: try a lab putter. We start with Sam Han, CEO
Speaker 4: of lab Golf since twenty eighteen, and his thoughts on
Speaker 4: Glover's back to back wins.
Speaker 5: And again.
Speaker 4: This interview with Han is in August of twenty twenty three,
Speaker 4: only days after Glover's second win.
Speaker 7: Crazy isn't it? Absolutely nuts? I mean there's nothing to say.
Speaker 7: I mean, it's just there's nothing to say that hasn't
Speaker 7: been said in the tens of thousands of words that
Speaker 7: have been written about him in the last couple of weeks,
Speaker 7: and he deserves every one of them. I've I've seen
Speaker 7: some remarkable turnarounds. I've never seen anything like that. I've
Speaker 7: never seen anything like it, and it's so fucking validating.
Speaker 7: And you know that all of this is kind of
Speaker 7: happening when it is, you know, Adam's stat's going through
Speaker 7: the roof this last you know, a couple of years
Speaker 7: since he's been using it, and we've got a handful
Speaker 7: of other guys out there that are doing really well.
Speaker 7: We've had some wins. We had two wins on the
Speaker 7: Live tour. We had a web Dot or a Cornberry
Speaker 7: win this year as well from a guy from Grayson
Speaker 7: Murray who's you know, same same kind of thing. I mean,
Speaker 7: really really struggled on the greens. And then now Lucas,
Speaker 7: and Lucas is uh. He's one of the few guys that,
Speaker 7: you know, one of the few pros that I've I've
Speaker 7: had very little interaction with this that that was born
Speaker 7: entirely through Liam so Lucas ran into Liam at one
Speaker 7: of the tour stops and you know, as the story
Speaker 7: goes that he's talked about it was just like, just
Speaker 7: give me Adams putter and don't tell me a thing.
Speaker 4: After playing professional baseball for seven years, Liam Bedford of Melbourne,
Speaker 4: Australia got a college golf scholarship at what is now
Speaker 4: Bushnell University in Eugene, Oregon. Their home course is Emerald Valley,
Speaker 4: which is where the offices of Lab Golf are located.
Speaker 4: His wife, who was getting her PhD at the University
Speaker 4: of Oregon, is what inspired the full time move from
Speaker 4: Australia to the United States. Like Sam Hahn, Bedford found
Speaker 4: LAB putters by way of Bob Duncan, who taught out
Speaker 4: of Emerald Valley.
Speaker 8: About a month before. A month before I graduated, Me
Speaker 8: and Sam would run into each other all the time
Speaker 8: because he's a member out of Emerald, and about a
Speaker 8: month before I graduated, he offered me a job to
Speaker 8: work at LAB in customer service. At the time, we
Speaker 8: were only I think I was like the eighth or
Speaker 8: ninth employee at the time, and yeah, we only had
Speaker 8: the directed force at that time. But my first introduction
Speaker 8: was like, yeah, twenty twenty nineteen. I think it was
Speaker 8: twenty nineteen with Bob Duncan on the putting Green in
Speaker 8: Evermonald Valley.
Speaker 4: Bedford worked his way up to run the tour department
Speaker 4: and player development for lab Golf. As he's going from
Speaker 4: PGA Tour putting Green to putting Green, I asked if
Speaker 4: he would share an example of his sales pitch.
Speaker 2: So I don't really have a pitch.
Speaker 8: I mean, I'm pretty organic as far as like it's got,
Speaker 8: I'll bring it up in a conversation or like I
Speaker 8: want it. I don't want it to ever feel like
Speaker 8: I'm making guys or doing something that they don't want
Speaker 8: to do. But the thing that's pretty hard to go
Speaker 8: past is the face stay square by itself. If you
Speaker 8: keep the shaft on playing, the face will return square.
Speaker 8: And if you can return the face square, the ball
Speaker 8: the starting line is going to start where you're aiming it,
Speaker 8: and it gives you the best chance to make the
Speaker 8: parts and start the ball in your starting line. There's
Speaker 8: a lot that goes into putting as far as green, reading, speed,
Speaker 8: and line, and you've got to match all those three.
Speaker 8: But if you can start the ball in your line
Speaker 8: at a higher percentage of the time, you have to
Speaker 8: have a better chance of making more parts. The biggest
Speaker 8: thing I emphasize is the face is staying square and
Speaker 8: also because because of where it's balanced and where it's shafted,
Speaker 8: we're shafting essentially very close to the center of mass.
Speaker 8: So with that force, with the force coming through the
Speaker 8: ball pretty much across the face, smash factor is the same.
Speaker 8: So the sweet spot on that face, because of how
Speaker 8: we balance it and how we shaft it, the sweet
Speaker 8: spot is huge. Like I typically get guys to hit
Speaker 8: three different putts. I hit a normal putt and then
Speaker 8: get to hit one really heavy toe and really heavy
Speaker 8: heel and watch the balls roll and all three are
Speaker 8: almost identical. And that's when everybody's like, oh shit.
Speaker 4: Given the looks of lab the sale of the product
Speaker 4: has never been easy. But like Pressy Home and Hahn
Speaker 4: before him, Liam Bedford leans into the unique look and
Speaker 4: uses it to his advantage.
Speaker 8: That's a part of the stick too, right, Like it's
Speaker 8: got to be that ugly for a reason, Like we're
Speaker 8: not just going to make a part of it looks
Speaker 8: like a spaceship just to make something and look like
Speaker 8: a spaceship, like it's got this function. There's function in there,
Speaker 8: and so like it's pretty easy to explain. And then
Speaker 8: especially most of the time, it's just like other reps
Speaker 8: who are friends that are poking fun and give me
Speaker 8: shit or players that have given me shit, and like
Speaker 8: it's water off a ducts back. It's all part of it.
Speaker 8: It's all fun. Like when when guys actually get to
Speaker 8: roll it, like they'll make fun of the directed force
Speaker 8: specifically and just like, oh man, that thing's huge and
Speaker 8: that thing looks like a bottle opener, it's a branding iron.
Speaker 8: But then then they actually hit puts with it and
Speaker 8: they're like, oh shit, like this thing, this thing rolls
Speaker 8: the hell out of it, and it's it's I typically
Speaker 8: always try and take a directed force with me in
Speaker 8: for most places I go because I want people to
Speaker 8: do that. I want people to be like, why the
Speaker 8: hell would you make that? And then then it's a
Speaker 8: good opportunity to be like, well, let me show you
Speaker 8: why is this fun? It's amazing, it's amazing, how cool
Speaker 8: is this? Like we're a small company that three years ago.
Speaker 8: Three years ago I felt guilty buying a stapler on
Speaker 8: company money now. It's it's not that we're that we
Speaker 8: that we can we've got all these sexcess cash now,
Speaker 8: but like it's to see to see the things the
Speaker 8: growth of the company. We're in a new building now,
Speaker 8: we're on Like our building that we're at now is
Speaker 8: at Emerald Valley's golf Course, which is a gorgeous championship
Speaker 8: eighteen whole golf course where the Ducks play out of
Speaker 8: our facilities there. We've got a bunch of guys that
Speaker 8: that love golf, that are around golf. The atmospheres, the
Speaker 8: culture and the company is great. It's just really cool.
Speaker 8: We're just we're moving in the right direction. And not
Speaker 8: only we're moving in the right direction of growth, the
Speaker 8: culture is staying the same as well. And we've got
Speaker 8: a really bunch of a really good bunch of guys.
Speaker 8: And even though that's weird to say it's sixty people,
Speaker 8: it still feels like a small little family.
Speaker 4: Bedford doesn't know Bill Pressey very well, but he certainly
Speaker 4: knows who he is. And here he reflects on Pressey's
Speaker 4: ingenuity and impact.
Speaker 8: What else can you say, but the the resilience is
Speaker 8: a great is a great word. He had an idea
Speaker 8: and had a like brought it to life. It wasn't
Speaker 8: just that he had an idea and like and talked
Speaker 8: about it and did something. He he figured it out
Speaker 8: like he went He went forward and tried and tested
Speaker 8: and tried and tried and tried until it worked, until
Speaker 8: he found and found out a way that he could
Speaker 8: manufacture it so and then he could not just make one,
Speaker 8: he could make multiple. And the concept is brilliant, Like
Speaker 8: the whole concept is absolutely brilliant. Making something that's lying
Speaker 8: or balanced that the puttest is going to try and
Speaker 8: stay square. It's incredible, Like that says such a great
Speaker 8: idea and such a great thing that we joke all
Speaker 8: the time at work, like how does how does no?
Speaker 8: How did nobody think of this?
Speaker 5: Beforehand? From pressy, I had Bedford summarize sam Han's rule
Speaker 5: and impact on the company.
Speaker 8: Sam has got a brilliant brain. He just knows how
Speaker 8: things are gonna work. I feel like he just he
Speaker 8: knows something that we all done. Like we we all
Speaker 8: there'll be things that happen and we're just like what
Speaker 8: the hell? Sam, Like he's just putting us in a
Speaker 8: huge pickle. And then it turns out that it was
Speaker 8: the best decision that we've made. He is brilli He
Speaker 8: he cared. But the best part, the best part about
Speaker 8: Sam is Sam is he is the most caring, loving
Speaker 8: boss that you could ask for. Like he genuinely cares
Speaker 8: about every single person that is in that building and
Speaker 8: wants everybody to live a happy and fulfilling life. And
Speaker 8: that's probably part of the reason why we have been
Speaker 8: successful over the last couple of years, because he cares
Speaker 8: about people more than he cares about the business. But
Speaker 8: because he cares about people, people care about the business.
Speaker 4: What are some stories that you have, some personal stories
Speaker 4: of like watching somebody have that aha moment and being like, Wow,
Speaker 4: that's cool.
Speaker 8: I mean, you can't go past Lucas right, Like Lucas
Speaker 8: is unbelievable since he's put the putter in play. I
Speaker 8: think he's had one week in negative shirts and putting
Speaker 8: where that was the normal. His first six events for
Speaker 8: that he's worst finished with a T six like it was.
Speaker 8: It's insane like that, how one piece of equipment change
Speaker 8: can just straight up change a guy's mentality and his
Speaker 8: whole energy that his confidence level is truly it was remarkable.
Speaker 8: I speak with his agent Mac quite a little bit.
Speaker 6: And.
Speaker 8: Just from his team side of things, like the amount
Speaker 8: of confidence that they have in themselves now that they
Speaker 8: can actually go win. I truly don't know if in
Speaker 8: six months ago that like Lucas will finish well, but
Speaker 8: he has to hit it five shots better than anybody
Speaker 8: else to have a chance. But now like he's putter
Speaker 8: is putter was what won in the back Nan at
Speaker 8: the FedEx.
Speaker 4: Meet Mac Barnhart of Rock Sports. I got to know
Speaker 4: him in the nineteen nineties working at Sports Illustrated, whin
Speaker 4: Mac was managing, among others, Davis Love. Many would say
Speaker 4: it was Barnhardt who helped cultivate the Sea Island Mafia
Speaker 4: of tour pros. Barnhart still lives in the Sea Island
Speaker 4: area and runs Rock Sports, which is essentially a team
Speaker 4: of people who manage the lives of professional golfers all
Speaker 4: over the world.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I came up under Benny Giles. Vinnie was probably
Speaker 2: one of the best amateurs ever. And I don't know
Speaker 2: if I'd got into this job. If you'd told me
Speaker 2: my job was to go sell advertising on players, it
Speaker 2: would have no meaning to me. But Minnie was a
Speaker 2: you know, he was a player's manager, and that's how
Speaker 2: he brought me into business. So I don't know if
Speaker 2: you just said, hey, I'm going to get into this
Speaker 2: and you've got to go sell hat deals, it would
Speaker 2: have never occurred to me to do that. But to
Speaker 2: have purpose in kind of their lives being part of
Speaker 2: the WII and them is it's pretty exciting. It's as
Speaker 2: good as it gets.
Speaker 5: How many players would you say you've you know, you've
Speaker 5: worked with so to speak, you know, over the thirty
Speaker 5: one years, would you have any estimate?
Speaker 2: Gosh, I don't know, probably forty, Probably yeah, forty or so.
Speaker 5: And when did Lucas Glover come into your life?
Speaker 3: Uh?
Speaker 2: After he graduated Clemson in two thousand and one, played
Speaker 2: and played in the Walker Cup and he signed with
Speaker 2: us after that he turned pro.
Speaker 5: And how what's your first recollection of Lucas Glover? Like,
Speaker 5: what would you have summarized at that beginning?
Speaker 2: Like had dinner with him in Greenville, South Carolina, and
Speaker 2: the restaurant's still there. I can't remember the restaurant. I mean,
Speaker 2: you know, you watch him play, you meet the parents,
Speaker 2: you're around the coaches, you run his teammates, but just
Speaker 2: he and I sitting in a restaurant, dinner's over, and
Speaker 2: just I knew then, I'm like, you know this, this
Speaker 2: guy's different. We you know, we became very close friends
Speaker 2: real quick. He had the kind of same southern upbringing
Speaker 2: I had. His dad played pro baseball or you know,
Speaker 2: and my dad played pro baseball, and we just had
Speaker 2: It wasn't like a lot of the other golfers that
Speaker 2: I dealt with. He had a little different mode.
Speaker 9: And meaning it was it was there was something that,
Speaker 9: you know, a different meaning that there was a little
Speaker 9: more grint, a little more grind or a little more Yeah.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, Now he reminded me more of a baseball player mentality.
Speaker 2: There wasn't much of fodder in his speaking of GoF
Speaker 2: it was seatball, hit ball. He was not one of these.
Speaker 2: He wasn't caught up in how good he looked on
Speaker 2: the course. He wasn't caught up in how anything other
Speaker 2: than playing golf. I mean, he was just that guy,
Speaker 2: and you know, and very honest, and you know, shared
Speaker 2: his thoughts really well, which is, you know, at twenty
Speaker 2: one years old, not many people are developing that yet.
Speaker 2: But he seemed to have his thoughts that way, right.
Speaker 5: You're life coaching these guys from the beginning, like an understanding,
Speaker 5: like just because you have a win doesn't mean you've
Speaker 5: got ten wins coming. You've got to like you've got
Speaker 5: to bang can understand. It's it's a commitment to this
Speaker 5: bigger thing. It's that's my that's my that's my sense.
Speaker 2: I mean, I think over time it's changed a little bit,
Speaker 2: but you know, this is a this is a really
Speaker 2: crazy sport and that you you have coaches at high school,
Speaker 2: you have coaches in college, and you get out and
Speaker 2: you're the prior. You know, you're the sole propriority of
Speaker 2: this business. And it's not like you have peers that
Speaker 2: you know, it's not like you have teammates as a
Speaker 2: baseball team does to come in and shake you loose
Speaker 2: every once in a while. And if you come out
Speaker 2: and your playing and you're a big enough deal, you've
Speaker 2: got a lot of people telling you what you want
Speaker 2: to hear at all times. And the guys get used
Speaker 2: to that. They don't even understand someone going against you know,
Speaker 2: you know about if you have a different idea. You
Speaker 2: see these guys struggle, who do they turn to? You know,
Speaker 2: who's who's organizing? Who you turn to I used to
Speaker 2: use this Alex rod Reeves. You know, I don't know
Speaker 2: how much money he made for the Yankees, but he
Speaker 2: round the second. He didn't question, he slid, stood or
Speaker 2: went home. And I think there's comfort in that. So
Speaker 2: I think having a team around these players, that's not
Speaker 2: just a team saying, hey, how much money can we make?
Speaker 10: Ye?
Speaker 2: I mean really, you know, if you play well, you'll
Speaker 2: make money. If you don't play well, you won't make money.
Speaker 2: It's kind of easy, whether off the course or on
Speaker 2: the course. So if in the sense of how these
Speaker 2: how you approach these players. Now, I've been doing it
Speaker 2: for so long. I've seen careers starting, careers end, so
Speaker 2: you kind of have a blueprint of what's going to happen.
Speaker 2: They're going to come out and you've heard me say it.
Speaker 2: We use this talent minus distractions equals performance. These kids
Speaker 2: have no distractions coming out of college. They're just bass
Speaker 2: to the wall. And then you know, things happen, and
Speaker 2: distractions don't mean negative. They need great things. You win,
Speaker 2: that's a distraction, get married, have kids. You know every
Speaker 2: player is going to go through this. You're going to
Speaker 2: go through ups and downs and when it's up, you've
Speaker 2: got everybody in the world, and when you're down, it
Speaker 2: seemed I look around and you're seeing to be nobody.
Speaker 2: There's nobody guiding the path back, I guess, And so
Speaker 2: I don't know if it's like coaching. Sometimes it is
Speaker 2: like coaching. Sometimes it's trying to help them because they
Speaker 2: do have a life and its pretty much most of
Speaker 2: these guys have done nothing but play golf their whole life.
Speaker 2: That's it. And you know it's sad to me, but
Speaker 2: so they don't have a lot of you know, their
Speaker 2: life is made, I mean making it in the golf
Speaker 2: is started at such a young age. Now, they didn't
Speaker 2: play other sports, they didn't do anything right. So I
Speaker 2: guess like coaching comes in. But you know it's it's
Speaker 2: managing whatever's thrown at you because you know it. We
Speaker 2: know with Lucas, you know it can be as bad
Speaker 2: as it can get, and it can be as good
Speaker 2: as it can get. It doesn't take long. It changes
Speaker 2: in a hurry, and you've got to shift gears.
Speaker 4: Prior to August of twenty twenty three, Lucas Glover had
Speaker 4: four PGA Tour wins, which included the two thousand and
Speaker 4: nine US Open at beth Page Black. He has played
Speaker 4: in two President's Cups, one Walker Cup, and two Palmer Cups.
Speaker 4: Three of his wins and all of his team events
Speaker 4: happened in the first ten years of his twenty year career.
Speaker 5: What was Lucas's biggest highs that you've seen? What are
Speaker 5: what are some of the most amazing moments in Lucas's career.
Speaker 2: I mean when he went Disney, his first win was
Speaker 2: a big one. Uh. Obviously, when the US opened beth
Speaker 2: Page it was monsters. I mean they all weren't just wins.
Speaker 2: They were I mean, there were signs things happening that
Speaker 2: you could start to see with Lucas. But you know,
Speaker 2: I don't he was never in all these ups and downs.
Speaker 2: He's never really been down. He's been frustrated, but he
Speaker 2: was never I mean, there was never like, well can
Speaker 2: I do this type attitude. It was just like, you
Speaker 2: know what we're going to do next kind of thing
Speaker 2: to get it back. But I mean he's not a
Speaker 2: high high guy. I mean the US opened, I mean
Speaker 2: it was fun, but you know he was back in
Speaker 2: you know, travelers playing the next week, playing golf. That's
Speaker 2: I mean, he likes to beat people, but having the
Speaker 2: trophies and stuff, I mean, he doesn't linger on that
Speaker 2: too much.
Speaker 5: At Bethpage in two thousand and nine, as Mac alluded to,
Speaker 5: it was a major for the meteorologists. Round one was
Speaker 5: washed out, so was most a round two. It was
Speaker 5: so bad. It ended on a Monday. And in spite
Speaker 5: of it all, Glover shot rounds of sixty nine, sixty four, seventy,
Speaker 5: and seventy three to finish four under and beat Ricky Barnes,
Speaker 5: David Duval, and Phil Mickelson, who all tied for second
Speaker 5: at two hunder. Beth Page. That golf course alone on
Speaker 5: a perfect day is going to is a grind, right
Speaker 5: like that, that's beth Page Black. Then you throw in
Speaker 5: all you know. Then you throw in a US Open
Speaker 5: US Open rough, you throw in the gallery New York
Speaker 5: City oysterous, you throw in this massive weather shit show,
Speaker 5: tea times, just logistics, everything, probably not entirely surprising that
Speaker 5: given all those circumstances, Lucas comes out on top.
Speaker 2: That helped made it as tough as you could. He
Speaker 2: didn't get to play on Thursday double this first hole,
Speaker 2: so you just, I mean, that's just perfect Loo because
Speaker 2: put him again, put his back against the wall and
Speaker 2: see what happens. Right, Yeah, I mean, but he loves
Speaker 2: New York. I mean he's a big Yankees fan. I mean,
Speaker 2: so it's almost that was all perfect for him. He
Speaker 2: loved it. That's where he wanted to be. You know,
Speaker 2: Lucas up until recently, super low scoring events were not
Speaker 2: his forte. He you know, he just didn't shoot low enough.
Speaker 2: But you put him on a golf course where par
Speaker 2: was really good, he'll whoop you. I mean, that's his stuff.
Speaker 2: And he's tough, you know, the tougher it is. It
Speaker 2: seems like he can get a little tougher, but it, yeah,
Speaker 2: it was. That was a god send, you know, because
Speaker 2: he had played in that US Open before and when
Speaker 2: he qualified the next time, he even mentioned to him
Speaker 2: he goes. I like that place. I remember pretty distinctly.
Speaker 2: I liked that place because it was tough. I mean,
Speaker 2: and that's what I think he comes out the best.
Speaker 2: Is the tougher you make it the better. He is.
Speaker 5: The low's mac when you I mean, I know you
Speaker 5: say he doesn't he doesn't get in there, or he
Speaker 5: doesn't even come. But I mean, you know we've there
Speaker 5: have been moments in his life that he's probably leaned
Speaker 5: on you more, or leaned on other people more. Are
Speaker 5: there moments you know where you've you felt like, you know,
Speaker 5: over these last you know, twenty two twenty three years,
Speaker 5: you've had to like be a little more hands on
Speaker 5: with his, with his with his you know, being a
Speaker 5: friend more than anything.
Speaker 2: Ye Hey, life happens. We've all been through it, right, Yeah,
Speaker 2: I mean those are I mean, it's nothing better than
Speaker 2: to have someone lean on you. I mean that makes
Speaker 2: you feel purposeful, right And Lucas, you know, Lucas's guy
Speaker 2: some really good friends. You know, it's not just me.
Speaker 2: I always tell people the only eye in this thing
Speaker 2: is Lucas, And there's a lot of wheeze. There's a
Speaker 2: lot of people that you know that Lucas has got
Speaker 2: really strong relationships with people and the friends around him,
Speaker 2: the people what they'll do for him. You know, there's
Speaker 2: Michael Simms and there's a kid named David Griffiths. Nobody
Speaker 2: remembers that from England and the messages that continually go
Speaker 2: around between us, all of us. So Lucas has had
Speaker 2: that strong friendship based because of who he is, right
Speaker 2: and so Yeah, there's been incredible downtimes, but like I say,
Speaker 2: it never felt I mean it was sometimes you were
Speaker 2: frustrating that he was down, but it never felt never
Speaker 2: felt hopeless. There was never anything like that. So but
Speaker 2: you kind of dig it when you know you I
Speaker 2: know he's going to come back, you know, I know
Speaker 2: he's going to be okay. But just to have you
Speaker 2: know you're going to that is what the life is.
Speaker 2: Love these guys when they go through these times, if
Speaker 2: they don't have anybody to reach out to, and they
Speaker 2: not really they don't really have a stable footing of
Speaker 2: knowing who their base is. And Lucas has got a
Speaker 2: lot of bass. He's got a lot of guys that
Speaker 2: are in his corner and that no matter what, regardless,
Speaker 2: and I think that helps in these times.
Speaker 4: Mac mentioned Michael Simms, one of the more thoughtful, kind
Speaker 4: and spiritual people I've met in my travels playing and
Speaker 4: reporting on golf. Like our mutual friend John Ashworth, Simsy
Speaker 4: is famous for his sloth like tempo, not only in
Speaker 4: his golf swing but his life cadence. The pace of
Speaker 4: his soul moves slowly, and that's seemingly because it's so
Speaker 4: big a regular at goat Hill Park. Simms prefers to
Speaker 4: play per Simmons, but back in two thousand and one
Speaker 4: he was not only the winner of the North South
Speaker 4: at Pinehurst, in which he beat Bryce Moulder in a
Speaker 4: thirty eight hole final, he was the quarter finalist at
Speaker 4: the US Amateur at east Lake, which was won by
Speaker 4: Bubba Dickerson Worth noting his buddy Lucas Glover played that
Speaker 4: year in the US Amateur and he was knocked out
Speaker 4: in the first round of match play. Simms is now
Speaker 4: a forty five year old Bermuda native who worked with
Speaker 4: Bob Tosky and although he's no longer chasing it, he
Speaker 4: has played in all five Butterfield Bermuda Championships. Sims is
Speaker 4: currently working with Barnhardt at Rock Sports and in a pinch,
Speaker 4: has caddied for Glover over the years.
Speaker 5: How would you summarize your relationship with Lucas Glover.
Speaker 11: He's one of my best best buds. We've known each
Speaker 11: other for a long time. We've supported each other through
Speaker 11: a lot of good times, hard times and everything in between.
Speaker 5: Give us your perspective on kind of his career. His
Speaker 5: secret sauce to being able to sort of have the
Speaker 5: career that he's had.
Speaker 11: I mean, it's grit, there's a lot of hard in it,
Speaker 11: and he just never gives up. I mean, you've seen
Speaker 11: what it's looked like in the last prior to these
Speaker 11: last four months. I mean, you tell me that would
Speaker 11: drive to anybody crazy. But he never stopped working at
Speaker 11: it or trying to figure it out. You know, he
Speaker 11: just never he never gives up.
Speaker 2: That's him.
Speaker 11: I mean, he's he's a gentleman at the same time,
Speaker 11: you know, he's a fierce competitor, and it's it's his
Speaker 11: heart that gets him through all this stuff. It's that
Speaker 11: inner belief of I know I can do this. Yeah,
Speaker 11: I mean, and then his career. I mean, what's happening
Speaker 11: right now is is very special and it's unlocked a
Speaker 11: lot of doors for him.
Speaker 4: We're getting to what was special, but first It's January
Speaker 4: twenty twenty three. Liam Bedford, whose Labs Tour rep is
Speaker 4: out working to practice putting greens on the PGA Tour.
Speaker 4: Mac Barnhardt and Michael Simms are riding sidecard to Lucas
Speaker 4: Glover's twentieth year on the PGA Tour and where we're
Speaker 4: at with his career is that he has become infamous
Speaker 4: for his putting. He's not only on a long stretch
Speaker 4: of poor putting stats in which he's back of the
Speaker 4: pack in every category, it's also that he's looking bad
Speaker 4: doing it. Whatever the phrase must see TV is any
Speaker 4: and all clips of Glover with a putter was the
Speaker 4: complete opposite of that. There wasn't a golfer on planet
Speaker 4: Earth who didn't cringe at the sight of Lucas Glover
Speaker 4: on a putting green. And yet he kept going. He
Speaker 4: continued to compete, to cope and in some cases make
Speaker 4: a cut and cash a check. It was nothing short
Speaker 4: of remarkable. Here's Mac Barnhardt summarizing Glover's first few months
Speaker 4: of twenty twenty three, but also the last few years
Speaker 4: in general.
Speaker 2: I think he's one of the top up ten ball
Speaker 2: strikers that's been measured since they came up with shotlingks.
Speaker 2: So you can imagine to be able to do that
Speaker 2: much of the game and then a two foot pot
Speaker 2: drive you and you know go into a hysteria. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I mean, look, I mean I've probably have lost more
Speaker 2: players through the yips than I have through injury. They'll
Speaker 2: never admit it. Because you just don't say it. You
Speaker 2: just don't say yips, you know, crazy, because they would
Speaker 2: rather say, you know, it's a wrist injury or a
Speaker 2: back injury, but it's the yips and it just happens.
Speaker 2: And that's one of the big things in this I
Speaker 2: hope that maybe we can get back by the fact
Speaker 2: that if you have the yips, it's not a mental weakness.
Speaker 2: It's not a mental you know, it's not like you
Speaker 2: just can't pull it off, can't handle the pressure, because
Speaker 2: that's not what it is. But yeah, it's it's frustrating
Speaker 2: to watch a guy that can do the tough elements
Speaker 2: so well and the things you would think were easy.
Speaker 2: But the thing about Lucas was it he never was
Speaker 2: like he didn't quit working and he didn't make an
Speaker 2: excuse about it. He would tell me, you know, my
Speaker 2: hands are numb, I can't fill my hands. He goes,
Speaker 2: that's you know, that's not you know, that's not being nervous.
Speaker 2: Nervous is not that right. You don't win the US
Speaker 2: open being nervous. So it's just been you know, to
Speaker 2: watch him go through what I mean, we did anything,
Speaker 2: we try anything, We putty with our eyes closed. We've
Speaker 2: done he put it with his eyes closed. He's practiced,
Speaker 2: We've we've searched out every possible help with this that
Speaker 2: we could, and we've kind of found it. It looks
Speaker 2: like but there's no way to describe the people to
Speaker 2: understand that you can do something and then your body
Speaker 2: not allow you to do it. And that's that's hard
Speaker 2: to watch. I mean, I mean that's hard to watch.
Speaker 4: This is the all by Lanny Watkins and wit Watson.
Speaker 4: When Glover missed a short one trying to break sixty.
Speaker 2: This party goes way back and he completely decent. It's
Speaker 2: like he he almost missed that. Wow, is that I've
Speaker 2: never seen anything like that?
Speaker 4: Wit Watson said what most people were thinking when Glover
Speaker 4: flashed an example of the yips. I have never seen
Speaker 4: anything like that. Going back to mac Barnhart and the
Speaker 4: idea that Glover was trying anything and that they searched
Speaker 4: out all they could find, and that he seemed to
Speaker 4: think they've found the solution.
Speaker 5: What'd you find?
Speaker 2: I found a guy that a former Navy seal sniper.
Speaker 2: I found heard about him a couple of years ago
Speaker 2: when the Braves won the UH. When the Braves won
Speaker 2: the World Series. There's a guy named Tyler Mattson that pitched,
Speaker 2: and I'll follow the Braves and this guy I was
Speaker 2: out of baseball from with the throwing yips, and here
Speaker 2: he is striking out people and you know, the highest
Speaker 2: pressure situations you could ever do. And I'm like, this
Speaker 2: isn't possible. What's this guy taken? And knowing some of
Speaker 2: the Braves people, and I finally figured out there's this
Speaker 2: former Navy seal that used to play baseball. So I
Speaker 2: found him and called him and said, hey man, you know,
Speaker 2: he goes, I don't know golf, and I was like, well,
Speaker 2: I've got a kid with the yips, and he goes,
Speaker 2: it's okay. He just was a matter of fact. He
Speaker 2: said to me, that's okay. So I talked to him
Speaker 2: for a long long time, and I went to Lucas
Speaker 2: and said, hey, I got somebody, and he goes, no,
Speaker 2: I'm good, I'm good. I got I've got it. So
Speaker 2: it took a year and a half, I think after
Speaker 2: I started talking to the seal to convince Lucas to
Speaker 2: talk to him. I think he started talking to him
Speaker 2: in May of this year. But I got such a
Speaker 2: comfort it's like my heart stopped almost when the way Jason,
Speaker 2: Jason Kuhne said to me, he goes, No, it's okay,
Speaker 2: it's not a big deal because man, you go to
Speaker 2: any other person and say the yips, They're like, whoa,
Speaker 2: I don't think it's soppable. I don't you know Ian Baker,
Speaker 2: Finn and people have been run out of the game
Speaker 2: with it. But yeah, that's what we've That was the
Speaker 2: start of it. It wasn't just that, but that was
Speaker 2: the start of it.
Speaker 5: More in Jason, Hey, good morning, how are you. I'm
Speaker 5: doing great, how are you good?
Speaker 2: Good?
Speaker 12: Give me one second here, can you kind of just
Speaker 12: essentially introduce yourself, you know, I'm Jason Kuhn, you know,
Speaker 12: and then just give me like a line or two
Speaker 12: or a bio of just a short bio in terms
Speaker 12: of who you are and how you kind of fit
Speaker 12: into this narrative on Lucas and you know where he
Speaker 12: is now and kind of his life and mind.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Absolutely so. I'm Jason Kuhn. I'm a performance coach.
Speaker 1: I've been working in human performance and team building for
Speaker 1: almost a decade. In August will be ten years since
Speaker 1: I started Stonewall Solutions which is the leadership development, performance training,
Speaker 1: and team building company that I run. As I was
Speaker 1: doing that, I was working with a lot of sports
Speaker 1: teams corporate groups. And as I would work with sports teams,
Speaker 1: I would meet players tell them my story. I had
Speaker 1: the yips, very a really intense case of it in
Speaker 1: two thousand and one two thousand and two in college.
Speaker 1: It ended my career at through six wild pitches in
Speaker 1: an inning. So as I travel around tell my story
Speaker 1: work with players, people would come up to me afterwards
Speaker 1: sometimes and tell me, Hey, I'm struggling with the same thing,
Speaker 1: mostly in baseball, and I started working with players just
Speaker 1: kind of on a pro bono friendly manner, offering advice
Speaker 1: as some things that I had done to help defeat
Speaker 1: it myself. I never played again competitively, but I taught
Speaker 1: myself over time how to throw again. So eventually I
Speaker 1: met Tyler Matzik. He was out of baseball for five years.
Speaker 1: He was a former first rounder out of Mission Viejo,
Speaker 1: and we worked together. I developed a system called ironing
Speaker 1: it Out. Our theories and thoughts on the yips were
Speaker 1: very much in alignment, and we developed a lot of
Speaker 1: it together. As we worked together. Working through this we
Speaker 1: also worked on the traditional mindset stuff that I teach.
Speaker 1: He got back to the big leagues, won the World Series.
Speaker 2: With the Braves in twenty twenty one.
Speaker 1: So it led it to golf. Was Mac Barnhardt with
Speaker 1: Rock Sports Group introduced me a couple of players playing
Speaker 1: on the corn Ferry Tour and I worked with them
Speaker 1: through the yips. It was successful, and then from there
Speaker 1: that led to Lucas Glover and him and I worked
Speaker 1: together starting in last April, and then the results that
Speaker 1: you know he's had have been in the media things
Speaker 1: like that. So some of that has been credited to
Speaker 1: the training of you know, him and I. He did
Speaker 1: it all, not me. I can't do what he does,
Speaker 1: but I helped him, you know, I worked as an
Speaker 1: asset to help him solve that specific problem. So prior
Speaker 1: to all of that, I was a college baseball player
Speaker 1: and a Navy seal and that's where I learned. I
Speaker 1: put all of this together through experienced base lessons, and
Speaker 1: I wanted to help provide something for athletes, competitive athletes,
Speaker 1: primarily pro athletes, that was practical and effective. I think
Speaker 1: that what sports psychology offers them often and the mental
Speaker 1: skills coaches hired by the team are well intended people
Speaker 1: who provide value, but I don't think it's on a
Speaker 1: level that matches everything else that is offered to them
Speaker 1: in terms of strength and conditioning coaches, pitching coaches, wing coaches, whatever,
Speaker 1: And a lot of it is somewhat ineffective, you know,
Speaker 1: it's just not practically useful.
Speaker 5: Do you remember did Mac reach out to you? Was
Speaker 5: it an email? Was it a phone call? How did
Speaker 5: you guys actually get connected?
Speaker 1: I believe Mac reached out to me through a DM
Speaker 1: of some sort, whether it was an email or perhaps
Speaker 1: on Twitter or Instagram. I want to say it was Twitter,
Speaker 1: but I can't remember quite for sure. But yes, he
Speaker 1: had been researching solutions to the YIPS, and you know,
Speaker 1: the traditional methods are all out there. If you google yips,
Speaker 1: they'll be all sorts of things that pop up, and
Speaker 1: they'll promise you the world, charge you a ton of money,
Speaker 1: and they have no real credible results or maybe breakthrough
Speaker 1: case out of tons of people that they've worked through.
Speaker 1: So the percentage of success is very, very low. So
Speaker 1: he started looking up some other ways I believe, I
Speaker 1: don't want to put words in his mouth, and he
Speaker 1: came across me and asked me if I thought it
Speaker 1: would translate into golf, And I believe one hundred percent
Speaker 1: that it would because it's the same problem, just in
Speaker 1: a different action.
Speaker 2: I mean, there's a lot of people involved this, so
Speaker 2: it's not just me, but you know, it's Michael Simms
Speaker 2: and you know Kobe tu As trainer, and Jason Bell,
Speaker 2: you know, is instructor. There's a lot of people talking
Speaker 2: behind the scenes like what can we do? You know
Speaker 2: what this is happening? And it was a ball change
Speaker 2: and then it was you know, Tommy Lamb, who's his caddie,
Speaker 2: who hung with him, like nobody's business. But there was
Speaker 2: a lot of people working behind the scenes to get
Speaker 2: kind of figure this thing out. But I knew the
Speaker 2: minute I taught the Jason that I had, I was like, Wow,
Speaker 2: this might work because this guy didn't even flinch. He'd
Speaker 2: said he had to throw in yips. He's like, he's
Speaker 2: I got it, don't worry about it. And he goes
Speaker 2: and he tells I'll never forget him, saying, hey, listen,
Speaker 2: this is not an ongoing thing. You go through my
Speaker 2: You'll go through my program and you either get rid
Speaker 2: of them or not, and I got so much confidence
Speaker 2: in that and knowing Lucas and and knowing after I
Speaker 2: think three sessions with this guy, the confidence change I
Speaker 2: saw Lucas, I just saw it was like a different
Speaker 2: sounding person, and it kind of I mean it was
Speaker 2: that was when I say I found I mean, it's whatever,
Speaker 2: but it's yeah, it's uh, it's been a search for
Speaker 2: a long long time.
Speaker 5: You know in golf. That's that the YIPS is such
Speaker 5: like it's like Voldemort and you know, Harry Potter, it's
Speaker 5: it's just the name you don't speak of, but that
Speaker 5: you were like yips. I got Mac, I got this.
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely well. I've worked with several amateur baseball players
Speaker 1: at that point, probably thirty or forty, and had been
Speaker 1: successful with all of them, and so I felt very
Speaker 1: confident in my ability to solve it. I understand what
Speaker 1: the YIPS is, I know how to define it. I
Speaker 1: understand the solutions to defeat it, and every time I
Speaker 1: work with a player, it gets better and better as
Speaker 1: we refine that process. And I think it's funny that
Speaker 1: you referred to Valdemore in Harry Potter, because I actually
Speaker 1: use that reference in one of the podcasts I was
Speaker 1: on before too, and so has Matsik in some of
Speaker 1: the media interviews that he's been in when he speaks
Speaker 1: about the YIPS. But one of the things that we
Speaker 1: have to do is break down the barriers of the
Speaker 1: stigma that is associated with the YIPS, because that's part
Speaker 1: of what's causing the problem. People aren't allowed to talk
Speaker 1: about it, and then it starts to manifest and it
Speaker 1: gets worse and worse, and then they're in such a hole,
Speaker 1: and the deeper it's set in, the harder it is
Speaker 1: to defeat.
Speaker 5: And I think that people don't.
Speaker 1: Want to talk about the YIPS because they don't understand it,
Speaker 1: and naturally, as human beings, we're afraid of things that
Speaker 1: we don't understand. But when you watch a guy who's
Speaker 1: getting paid millions of dollars to throw a ball or
Speaker 1: strike it with a club, and they've been doing it
Speaker 1: their whole entire life, but then they go out and
Speaker 1: they go out and all of a sudden throw it
Speaker 1: into their toes or fifteen feet over their throwing partner's
Speaker 1: head when they're normally just nails. You know that's not
Speaker 1: because they don't understand how to throw the ball. Or
Speaker 1: understand where a release points should be, or completely forgot
Speaker 1: how to mechanically deliver or strike a ball right, something
Speaker 1: else is going on.
Speaker 2: And one of the.
Speaker 1: Things that I did was when I got out of
Speaker 1: the Seal teams. You know, when I met with a psychologist,
Speaker 1: I felt like he was telling me what was wrong
Speaker 1: with me and then getting frustrated when the methods he
Speaker 1: would give me would not be effective, rather than listening
Speaker 1: to me describe what I was experiencing and helped me
Speaker 1: develop a solution. So when I got out of the
Speaker 1: Seal teams, you know, I had some confidence and maturity
Speaker 1: and a lot of experiences. And there's a very similar
Speaker 1: thing that happens when we shoot a gun. And I
Speaker 1: finally started asking myself the right question. I just tracked
Speaker 1: my arm until I'm going to track my arm until
Speaker 1: it feels something feels different. And I stopped right about here,
Speaker 1: and I was like, Okay, something's happening right here. What
Speaker 1: has happened happening? Why is it happening, What's causing it?
Speaker 1: How do I override it? How do I stop that
Speaker 1: from happening? How do I get the dexterity and fluidity back?
Speaker 1: And I just started reverse engineering and peeling back the
Speaker 1: layers and developing this solution. But the number one thing
Speaker 1: is they're defining it wrong, so they're treating the symptom
Speaker 1: not the cause. I'm generalizing sports psychology. And then for
Speaker 1: those that do define it well, the methods that come
Speaker 1: into place are revisiting trauma, you know, visualization and you know,
Speaker 1: some breath work and stuff like that, and those can
Speaker 1: be a part of the solution. Perhaps they don't even
Speaker 1: have to be. But to consider those to be a
Speaker 1: comprehensive solution that's going to help the player be able
Speaker 1: to overcome the problem and play competitively with cameras on
Speaker 1: and tons of people watching and things like that is
Speaker 1: ridiculous in my opinion.
Speaker 5: What's a session entail is that a phone call.
Speaker 2: Is that it's a zoom call. It's a zoom call
Speaker 2: like this. I don't think Jason. I just met Jason
Speaker 2: the other day for the first time, and manyum two years,
Speaker 2: I've talked to him a bunch, and it's a zoom
Speaker 2: call like this. I don't think Lucas has made him
Speaker 2: in person. Out of you don't need to, but you
Speaker 2: made him in person. It's even better. You get an
Speaker 2: understanding of things that just has not been looked at
Speaker 2: as far as how to approach this YEP.
Speaker 5: Thing mental, physical, combination, spiritual, soulful. How would you summarize it?
Speaker 2: You know, I haven't been through the program. God knows
Speaker 2: I need to, but I haven't been through it. I
Speaker 2: don't know. I mean, he's explained to me stuff, but
Speaker 2: I've tried. I don't want to try to get him
Speaker 2: on here. He'll tell you. But I think it's I mean,
Speaker 2: I think he had the yips. He's throwing yips, and
Speaker 2: so it cost him his baseball career. So he was
Speaker 2: I mean, he's very I mean, he's committed to this.
Speaker 2: I mean because actually he says to me, after he
Speaker 2: became a seal sniper, he still had to throwing yips
Speaker 2: and he goes, so I knew it wasn't mental weakness.
Speaker 2: And I was like, you know, everybody thinks it. It's embarrassing.
Speaker 2: It's embarrassing to you, you know, And and that's one
Speaker 2: of the problems, right That's where it starts, is the embarrassment.
Speaker 2: And he convinced me that the anxiety, anxiety was not
Speaker 2: causing the yips. Anxiety was coming because you had the yeps,
Speaker 2: and that made a whole lot of sense because most
Speaker 2: of the people want to cure the anxiety. How do
Speaker 2: you do that? Breed deep, relax, you know, go into
Speaker 2: you know, meditation, whatever. And I don't think that's how
Speaker 2: Jason does it. I think it may be the opposite.
Speaker 2: I think you attack and it must, like I say,
Speaker 2: I know things with him that you know with Lucas
Speaker 2: says that you could just I didn't see it physically
Speaker 2: with Lucas. I saw it mentally, the way he walked,
Speaker 2: the way he was talking to me. He just had
Speaker 2: this different, like I got it attitude so much so
Speaker 2: that when you first started watching it, when somebody told
Speaker 2: you they got it, and then they get it and
Speaker 2: you start watching, you know that you're on to something.
Speaker 2: And I mean it was pretty people we knew. I mean,
Speaker 2: we can the tour don't let us gamble, but the
Speaker 2: tour let us gamble. We could have heard them.
Speaker 5: Is it ultimately the essence of this mind over matter
Speaker 5: sort of.
Speaker 1: So one of the biggest problems. And so what they
Speaker 1: told me is, hey, you've got performance anxiety. And I
Speaker 1: never liked that term because I didn't feel anxious when
Speaker 1: I went out to pitch, all right, I went out
Speaker 1: in an inner squad as a senior pitcher on a
Speaker 1: Division One team who the year before was ranked in
Speaker 1: the top twenty five. I had pitched in the playoffs
Speaker 1: as a closing pitcher with bases loaded and in high
Speaker 1: leverage situations. So now I'm in an inner squad pitching
Speaker 1: against my own teammates with nothing really at stake. I
Speaker 1: can completely blow it and I'm still probably going to
Speaker 1: be our closing pitcher that year because of what I've
Speaker 1: done in the past. Right, I've already proven myself. So
Speaker 1: the environment was not escalated in pressure, it was de escalated,
Speaker 1: and I walked four straight batters and did not throw
Speaker 1: a single strike. Now I wasn't missing the catcher completely,
Speaker 1: but I was missing the strike zone. And then I
Speaker 1: went out to warm up a day or two later, thought, oh,
Speaker 1: I don't know what was what happened that day, but
Speaker 1: I knew that day something was different, something was off,
Speaker 1: but I didn't know how to identify what it was.
Speaker 1: So just tried to put that behind me. Move on,
Speaker 1: and I'm playing catch with my throwing partner. Everything's fine,
Speaker 1: everything's normal, hanging out, joking with the dudes throwing, you know,
Speaker 1: focusing on my mechanics, and then all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: I say, I want about fifteen feet over his head.
Speaker 2: He's like, what are you doing?
Speaker 1: I was like, I have no idea. Then I threw
Speaker 1: one way, you know, I thought, well, I got to
Speaker 1: extend out, you know, just get extension follow through, and
Speaker 1: it looked way, oh, we're almost hit a guy, you know,
Speaker 1: And the guys thought I was joking around, like, dude,
Speaker 1: what's going on with you? I was like, man, I
Speaker 1: don't know. So to answer your question, is it mind
Speaker 1: over matter sort of. So the reason why I don't
Speaker 1: like performance anxiety is because every player I have worked
Speaker 1: with has said the first time they experienced the yips,
Speaker 1: they did not feel an elevated level of anxiety or
Speaker 1: fear that was a byproduct of the tension occurring in
Speaker 1: their wrists and hands as they try to deliver or
Speaker 1: strike the ball and not knowing why it happened, if
Speaker 1: it's going to happen again, or having a solution for
Speaker 1: it it does, which makes you incredibly nervous. And that's
Speaker 1: where you get the tingling sensation and a similar, you know,
Speaker 1: a similar sensation as an adrenaline hit, and what that's
Speaker 1: doing is it's extrapolating the blood from your extremities into
Speaker 1: your vital organs to keep you alive. And you lose
Speaker 1: feeling in your hands and feet.
Speaker 2: But that is on top of.
Speaker 1: The tension that's taking place in the muscle groups in
Speaker 1: your hands. So the yips is a mechanic. Anytime we
Speaker 1: strike the ball inaccurately, it's due to a mechanical interruption
Speaker 1: or a misjudgment and angle or distance right. And so
Speaker 1: when it's a mechanical interruption, it's normally due to a
Speaker 1: lack of awareness or ignorance. So with me having not
Speaker 1: played much golf, if you watched me putt, you would
Speaker 1: probably be like, hey, you need to change your grip
Speaker 1: like this and put your feet closer or wider or whatever.
Speaker 1: And now that I have that knowledge, I would simply
Speaker 1: consciously choose to apply it. Or perhaps something's oft in
Speaker 1: my swing that day, because it's a very fast, dynamic,
Speaker 1: you know, somewhat violent motion, especially when we're hitting it
Speaker 1: with the driver and something's a little bit out of timing,
Speaker 1: so you can see that on video screen. Coach identifies it. Whatever,
Speaker 1: you fix it, and you just weren't aware that it.
Speaker 2: Was off that day.
Speaker 1: But with the yips, it's of subconscious initiation of tension.
Speaker 1: It's the predatory survival instincts kicking in due to past
Speaker 1: experiences and certain levels of awareness and intelligence. So I
Speaker 1: think it's for the most part, pretty intelligent, self aware
Speaker 1: guys who get this, who care for all of the
Speaker 1: right reasons. And so if you think of the brain
Speaker 1: is split into conscious and subconscious, or intentional and automated,
Speaker 1: the automated part of our brain is perceiving a threat,
Speaker 1: and when it perceives a threat, the body's natural instinct
Speaker 1: is to create muscle tension and tightness to protect the
Speaker 1: vital organs. Just like if you're about to get in
Speaker 1: a car accident right and you're like this, i'll lose,
Speaker 1: Or if I threw a punch at your chest unexpectedly
Speaker 1: but you saw it coming, You're going to make your
Speaker 1: pectoralized muscles tight to absorb that blow, to protect the
Speaker 1: vital organs and your rib cage. You're not going to
Speaker 1: consciously say to do that, or think to do it,
Speaker 1: or engage that. You're going to have a body movement.
Speaker 1: Your body is going to move and respond involuntarily without
Speaker 1: you telling it to right, So the same thing is
Speaker 1: happening with the yips. It has So is it mind
Speaker 1: over matter, Yes, but it's coming through the subconscious mind,
Speaker 1: which makes it more difficult because it's automated, it's involuntary,
Speaker 1: it's unintentional, right, And it has nothing to do with
Speaker 1: mental toughness. Players that show up every day battling the
Speaker 1: yips and playing competitively knowing that they're struggling with this problem.
Speaker 1: It's like going out and playing through an injury with
Speaker 1: a broken wrist.
Speaker 5: You just can't see it.
Speaker 1: And they're coming out every day and battling through it
Speaker 1: knowing that people don't understand it, knowing that people are
Speaker 1: labeling them with being mentally weak and can't handle it
Speaker 1: or whatever else. Yet they're showing up every day, and
Speaker 1: that is mental toughness on display. It's admirable in my
Speaker 1: book for as far as I'm concerned. And I'll finish
Speaker 1: with this. I know I got long with that answer,
Speaker 1: but I graduated Seal Training or Hell Week with twenty
Speaker 1: guys out of one hundred and thirty five that started
Speaker 1: our Buds class. So we started one hundred and thirty five.
Speaker 1: We got the forty three.
Speaker 2: We came out of hell week with twenty.
Speaker 1: That requires an extreme amount of mental toughness. So if
Speaker 1: I proved that I was extremely mentally tough and at
Speaker 1: the same exact point in life could not throw a
Speaker 1: baseball due to the yips, then the yips cannot be
Speaker 1: due to a lack of mental toughness.
Speaker 2: This has been going on for ten years. We tried,
Speaker 2: you know, we're trying. We're throwing a lot of ideas
Speaker 2: out there. You know, We're at Congarea a couple of
Speaker 2: years ago, and I know he was puttying with my
Speaker 2: I'm left hand, he was putting with my putter, and
Speaker 2: I'm like, man, people switch hitting baseball use this thing.
Speaker 2: But he's making everything left it, you know. So yeah,
Speaker 2: I mean I think that's you don't want a guy
Speaker 2: that will just try anything just because you say it.
Speaker 2: But you've got to say it. You've got to go
Speaker 2: and give your advice or whatever. But no, it did
Speaker 2: take a long time for it sink in. You know,
Speaker 2: We've had, you know, we had some things working up
Speaker 2: until then. There's a kid named Wore Jarvis who has
Speaker 2: done amazing things in this hip category, and he helped
Speaker 2: Lucas a lot, and Lucas won on Deer and but
Speaker 2: it you know, like I said, we've we've been throwing
Speaker 2: ideas out for so long, but you just he's it's
Speaker 2: got to be his decision because he's the one that's
Speaker 2: got to commit to anything that happens. You know, everybody thinks,
Speaker 2: you know, changing teachers or changing clubs. You know, I don't.
Speaker 2: We don't do anything that's that's his decision, right, We
Speaker 2: will offer anything up. But yeah, Lucas, I think why
Speaker 2: he's still here at forty three, why he's still you know, competitive,
Speaker 2: is the fact that he's not flippant about how he
Speaker 2: changes stuff. I mean, changing golf balls is not an
Speaker 2: easy process to Lucas. He really dials in and wants
Speaker 2: to figure out, why is this ball working better? Why
Speaker 2: is this ball right for me? Right? Why is this
Speaker 2: Everything he does is like that. So I think that helps.
Speaker 2: I think a lot of guys, you know, you see them,
Speaker 2: they get the yips. Well they don't want to make
Speaker 2: they got the yips, so they start firing teachers and
Speaker 2: hiring teachers, and they start changing putters, and they're not
Speaker 2: really focusing on the real truth, right, you know, and
Speaker 2: in this business you see a lot. You know, they're
Speaker 2: the last people they blamed. I think Lucas took responsibility
Speaker 2: for it being all on him, He really did, but
Speaker 2: he took it, but it didn't mean that he wouldn't
Speaker 2: search on corners to find help. But he's going to
Speaker 2: make the decision. It's never going to be out.
Speaker 1: With golf, we're having much faster results, and I think
Speaker 1: part of that is because there's a tool in your
Speaker 1: hand and you you can look at the ball instead
Speaker 1: of looking at the target, and there's several benefits in
Speaker 1: that as it relates to the yips that you know.
Speaker 1: We when I played trained with players, it's hours and
Speaker 1: hours and hours of training. So I can't get into
Speaker 1: the to the real depth of that without taking up,
Speaker 1: you know, too much of your time. But I think
Speaker 1: those are two things are of the reasons why we're
Speaker 1: getting faster results. And I think that the switch of
Speaker 1: the putter is a good idea because it changes the
Speaker 1: mechanical action. Does it necessarily mean it's going to work
Speaker 1: for every single person and yip's relief, No, because there's
Speaker 1: more to it than that.
Speaker 5: Lucas Glover specifically, you know, by the way like Mack
Speaker 5: was saying, and this we start. I started reporting this
Speaker 5: in the September last year, but at that time Mac
Speaker 5: was saying that you guys had had three Zoom sessions
Speaker 5: and that maybe there was a chance that you know,
Speaker 5: you didn't even actually have to meet in order to do.
Speaker 5: Have you ever actually met Lucas Bubery yet, I believe it.
Speaker 1: Or not, we have ever met in person, but I'm
Speaker 1: really looking forward to it.
Speaker 10: I love the guy.
Speaker 1: I've developed a you know, we have a professional working relationship,
Speaker 1: but I would say a friendship as well. I think
Speaker 1: he's a fantastic person and well deserving of his success,
Speaker 1: and I just couldn't be happier for him, and I
Speaker 1: really look forward to meeting him in person.
Speaker 2: One day, you know, I was talking to Jason about
Speaker 2: how it was going, and he goes and he was
Speaker 2: pretty much, yeah, we got it. So I'm hearing the
Speaker 2: guy talking, I'm here in Navy seal, tell me like, yeah,
Speaker 2: we got it, and I'm here, Lucas goes, yeah, I
Speaker 2: got it. Like it was just just like whoa. And
Speaker 2: then you hear from Jason Baal, and you hear from
Speaker 2: Brad Paxson, you hear from covid u E. Everybody I
Speaker 2: talked to is like, yeah, we're on the something. Wait
Speaker 2: a minute. I just got chills thinking I can remember
Speaker 2: everybody nobody went wait, wait a minute. No, everybody went no, No,
Speaker 2: He's it's just it, you know. And Simsy, Michael Sims,
Speaker 2: he talks, you know, it's probably his best friend, talks
Speaker 2: to him all the time. Michael is a great player,
Speaker 2: you know, played door and it was everybody knew it.
Speaker 2: It was just it was everybody at one time was saying, yeah,
Speaker 2: we were on to something.
Speaker 5: Back to Michael Simms.
Speaker 2: I knew he could do it.
Speaker 11: And it was frustrating for for the both of us,
Speaker 11: you know what I mean, for everyone, you know. But again,
Speaker 11: he just he just never he never ever gave up.
Speaker 11: It's been it's just been a neat process to watch
Speaker 11: him work through all this stuff, you know. I mean
Speaker 11: he he worked with a mental guy, uh woord jartists
Speaker 11: for quite a while and it definitely, you know, it's
Speaker 11: it's still lived there, but it was it was definitely
Speaker 11: a little bit better and and but it never ever
Speaker 11: went away. And I think I think that's that was
Speaker 11: the hard part is his life, just waiting for it
Speaker 11: to happen. That was that was the hard part, waiting
Speaker 11: waiting for it to happen, you know, And you could
Speaker 11: almost you could almost feel it as he was walking
Speaker 11: up to a up to a green, and we had
Speaker 11: a lot of conversations about that, about the weight.
Speaker 2: About the weight of it.
Speaker 11: Yeah, I mean, it's when you don't know why or
Speaker 11: what or it doesn't it's so frushing because you don't
Speaker 11: know how to I don't want to say diagnose it,
Speaker 11: because you know what's happening, but you don't know what
Speaker 11: to do with it. And that's like, you know where
Speaker 11: Mac comes in and you know Max sitting there, he
Speaker 11: is following so many things, and he came across this guy,
Speaker 11: Jason Kuhne. You know, we're always taught it's a mental thing, right.
Speaker 11: I mean, I don't know about you, but my whole life,
Speaker 11: if you got the yips, it's it's got to be
Speaker 11: a mental thing. It's got to be a mental thing.
Speaker 11: So it was really really refreshing to hear somebody come
Speaker 11: out and be like, it's not a mental thing. I
Speaker 11: just did all these I just did all of this,
Speaker 11: and I know I'm mentally strong enough to handle what
Speaker 11: I have in front of me. Something else is glitching
Speaker 11: the system, and it's neat that he's able to put
Speaker 11: it into a formula not and you know what I mean.
Speaker 11: And it's different for kind of everyone, but with the
Speaker 11: base always being the same. So he just used his
Speaker 11: experience to to understand and figure figure a few things out.
Speaker 5: And that's the Navy Seal.
Speaker 2: That's the Navy Seal. Jason Kune.
Speaker 11: Yeah, like I said, I mean, I can't wait to
Speaker 11: give the guy a hug if if he accepts hugs.
Speaker 11: But a lot of respect to that guy, man.
Speaker 2: I mean, yeah, with the.
Speaker 5: Navy Seal, you got to check to make sure they're good.
Speaker 2: With them shoot and kind of make sure.
Speaker 5: When did lab the concept of LAB and putters show
Speaker 5: up on your radar? And then what happened?
Speaker 2: You know? Again again, like I say, there's a whole
Speaker 2: team of us. There's a lot of people. Brad Faxon
Speaker 2: is down with Jason Bell in Florida. I said that,
Speaker 2: you know, obviously Brad's one of the best putters. And
Speaker 2: I don't you know, I don't know if I've got
Speaker 2: the timeline exactly right of when the phone call was
Speaker 2: made or when, but I know Lucas wanted me to
Speaker 2: grab a putter from Lab one of the broomsticks. And
Speaker 2: I remember, you go through the whole cycle, all right,
Speaker 2: it's what length do you need? Loft lie, you know,
Speaker 2: you go all the stuff. You hear it all the time,
Speaker 2: and he goes, I don't know. He called me pooh
Speaker 2: because I don't know, poo. Just get me Adam Stott's.
Speaker 2: I'm about the same size as him, and I'll figure
Speaker 2: it out. And that's what we did. So I called
Speaker 2: Liam at and I've never met Liam, and I called
Speaker 2: him and said, hey, man, confused, ship us a putter.
Speaker 2: And he did, shipped it down and next thing I know,
Speaker 2: Lucas is in his garage putting with it. And so
Speaker 2: I don't remember the exact timeline, but there was no
Speaker 2: This was not I ordered a specific putter. It just
Speaker 2: just Getscott. Just get Adam Scotts.
Speaker 5: Let's go more from Michael Simms.
Speaker 11: Matt calls me, he goes, hey, do you know the
Speaker 11: lab guys. I was like no, but I can get
Speaker 11: their number. And he's like, all right, we need to
Speaker 11: get Lucas a lung putter. I'm like wait what He's like, Yeah,
Speaker 11: he's gonna, you know, try it out in these next
Speaker 11: couple weeks.
Speaker 5: I was like, perfect, and we're back to Liam Bedford.
Speaker 5: How did Lucas get the putter?
Speaker 4: Like, how what actually physically happened? How were those putters
Speaker 4: delivered to him?
Speaker 8: He called me, Oh, he didn't call me. Uh, his
Speaker 8: agent called me.
Speaker 2: Mac called me on.
Speaker 8: Might have been the week of the John Dia or
Speaker 8: it might have been the week before the John Dea.
Speaker 8: I can actually remember the day and I could look
Speaker 8: it up. He called me on a on a Monday,
Speaker 8: I think it was. It was Monday when I was
Speaker 8: in the office. I wasn't traveling that week, which was lucky,
Speaker 8: and he called me said, hey, can I get pretty much?
Speaker 8: I want the same thing as what Adam's got. I
Speaker 8: want the same same part of that Adams got, which
Speaker 8: we did build it a little bit different. Adam plays
Speaker 8: so with a broomstick because you want it as upright
Speaker 8: as you can possibly get it, just to have the
Speaker 8: most replica of a pendulum sort of motion. Typically, we
Speaker 8: built him as upright as we can get it under
Speaker 8: inside of the legal limit. So the legal limits eighty degrees.
Speaker 8: Our standard for a broomstick is seventy nine to five.
Speaker 8: So typically all of our broomsticks are seventy nine point
Speaker 8: five degrees, and Adam actually plays at seventy eight. He
Speaker 8: plays at one one and a half flatter. From that,
Speaker 8: he just feels like he can get into a better posture,
Speaker 8: make a better stroke, keeping on playing a little better,
Speaker 8: a little flatter. So we still we made made lucases
Speaker 8: at seventy nine to five. But then every other spec
Speaker 8: on the potter is exactly the same. It's the same headweight,
Speaker 8: same shaft, same components all around. And yeah, he we
Speaker 8: built it that day for much as soon as I
Speaker 8: go off the phone call, built it and then overnight
Speaker 8: chipped it to the event that he was playing, and
Speaker 8: I can't remember which event that was, but we over
Speaker 8: not shipped it. And then on Tuesday morning, I made
Speaker 8: sure I texted Lucas made sure he got it and
Speaker 8: he said I've got it, and that was pretty much out.
Speaker 2: And it went down. We knew he had to go
Speaker 2: to either go left handed or something completely different. We
Speaker 2: needed to get something new in his hands because he
Speaker 2: kind of had a new way to do this, a
Speaker 2: new brain and a new attitude and having that be
Speaker 2: fresh in his hands meant a lot. It helped a ton.
Speaker 2: And people think it's just a putter. Well, I mean
Speaker 2: he's hit some bad putts with that putter, so it
Speaker 2: wasn't just a putter, but it was a combination the
Speaker 2: putter and the new stuff.
Speaker 5: Just it seems very quick that you were able to
Speaker 5: like reverse what seemingly was ten years of baggage.
Speaker 1: Well he had been fighting it for a while and
Speaker 1: had an idea of what was going on. But I
Speaker 1: think it helped to have someone come in and just hey,
Speaker 1: this is one, I've been there. Two, I'm not mentally weak.
Speaker 2: And neither of you.
Speaker 1: And three this is what it is, this is what's
Speaker 1: going on, and then you know, here's how we're going
Speaker 1: to go about defeating it. But I think that for
Speaker 1: I'd give a lot of that back to Lucas, you know,
Speaker 1: because again you've got the maturity and the professional makeup
Speaker 1: and mentality of a true pro, a championship pro at
Speaker 1: the highest level you could play at your game, and
Speaker 1: so he was able to pick it up quick, understand
Speaker 1: it quick, and apply it quick. I didn't have to
Speaker 1: hold him accountable to doing the drills or whatever, like
Speaker 1: I got it.
Speaker 2: I got it.
Speaker 1: I got it, got it, and he'd go and then
Speaker 1: he'd come back, and we kept progressing and getting better,
Speaker 1: and yeah, there were some ups and downs and whatever,
Speaker 1: and then you know, he got got to where he
Speaker 1: did and it was it's just so fulfilling, you know.
Speaker 1: I watching Tyler pitch in the World Series, I just
Speaker 1: I bear hugged my wife with tears and I said,
Speaker 1: you know, at the time, I thought going through the
Speaker 1: yips was the worst thing that ever happened to me.
Speaker 1: Even now, I think, having lived the life that I've lived,
Speaker 1: I think it's the best thing that ever happened to me,
Speaker 1: because I'd rather be here watching him pitching the game
Speaker 1: than pitching the game myself. Becoming a CEO after failing
Speaker 1: or imploding short of my potential in baseball was redemption enough.
Speaker 1: But to be able to do this and then help
Speaker 1: a player get back into the game, and then he
Speaker 1: gets back to the big leagues. But then he wins
Speaker 1: the World Series, I mean that was enough. Then it
Speaker 1: goes into golf and Lucas wins, wins a championship, you know,
Speaker 1: just to get him back doing well enough again, it
Speaker 1: would have been fine, but he wins when then he
Speaker 1: wins another one, and it's just like you're telling me
Speaker 1: there's not a guiding hand in this and how it
Speaker 1: all comes together. You've lost your mind.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: I don't have enough faith to believe that that's all
Speaker 1: just random. And by chance, I think that, you know,
Speaker 1: God brings it all together. And I could just feel
Speaker 1: him smiling down on me, blessing me with more than
Speaker 1: I deserved through all of that, and it's just it's wonderful.
Speaker 11: On that note.
Speaker 5: And up next Lucas Glover.
Speaker 10: After three or four weeks, three or four sessions with him,
Speaker 10: this snow putter idea came. You know, Mac pushed it
Speaker 10: a little bit in facts and let's just let's just
Speaker 10: try it. And I had two weeks off around the
Speaker 10: PGA and mentioned it to Jason Tune and he said, hey, man,
Speaker 10: let's let's go.
Speaker 2: Let's try it.
Speaker 10: We got some time and and it just clicked.
Speaker 3: H put another log on the fire. Nobody here is
Speaker 3: get the tie