and welcome aboard the part train I'm EV this is serm what's up EV we got a real treat for you guys in case you guys are new we help frustrated golfers enjoy the ride again because if you can learn to smile through bad golf you can smile through anything today we got Virgil Herring on the show Premier Coach won 14 times as a pro coach brand seder 200 College six national champions like if you guys want to get better at go he's a real deal this episode is for you so if you guys like this video with you're going to hop aboard the channel Now And subscribe and no matter where their ball goes ter what do they got to do just enjoy the ride enjoy the ride guys take [Music] care Virgil Herring it is our pleasure welcome aboard the part train my man we're pumped to have you I'm honored to be here so thank you very much for having me hey V we have yeah we have so much to get into Virgil but first we wanted to ask you from a nerves management standpoint we'll we'll get to it but you've won 14 times the professional keep me honest on that number but I'm pretty sure that's what you told me and how do the nerves you've also coached a lot of of winners over the years how do the nerves compare coaching seeing someone your coach come down the stretch you coming down the stretch to win as a professional or doing your first Ted talk I will tell you that there there's nothing that I have done that was more un ning than I when I stepped on the tedex stage um you can talk you can talk the game all you want but when you step up on that platform knowing how big that platform is just like you can talk talk as cheap in that department um when it comes to golf in the player Department it took me a long time to win a multiple Day event uh I've won plenty of what I call one day Sprints where you don't really know where you stand you just go out there and try to shoot the lowest score you can and there's no real pressure other than you know your competing but there's nothing like sleeping on a lead uh and your mind starts racing because as the better you get the more your expectations rise because you know what you're capable of that's why you're practicing you have these dreams and aspirations and those dreams and aspirations have weight history has weight so when you get in that moment with the lead that's why it's hard to play with the lead because you've worked your entire life for this moment and you don't know how many more you're going to get and you let all of the things in the past and in the future interfere with the actual important part which is the present and so I spend a lot of time teaching people to what I call immersive presence because the only way to access higher levels of performance Zone State and then even deeper than that flow state is to be immersively present and it is most people struggle on the anxiety side of it which is forward thinking they get ahead of themselves there aren't many great players that are impacted by the past great players they hit a bad shot they kind of know that golf's eminently you're going to hit some bad ones they don't get wound up with the bad they get caught up in what's going to happen they start trying to control things that they actually have no control over that then puts their mental that puts the prefontal cortex involved they want to try to control things control the pain of emotional and mental failure and then all that does is slow down the transmission from the cerebellum to the muscles and then you you interfere with yourself and it took me a long time as a player to control that now I've only won two multiple Day events in my life and I've won 12 single day Sprints but those those were the two most satisfying because I was able to Corral all of the anxieties that I've had about all the years I'm 50 I've been working at this for 36 years to be as great as I can be and every time I find myself in the chance to win I get nervous I get excited I start wondering I start trying to control things that I actually have no control over and I I finally figured out how to control that and it's always like I do I have done a lot of hypnotherapy similar to what tiger did in his youth I have things on my glove that are like my anchors to bring me back to the present and learning how to hack the brain is something that I I put into my players now I don't do the hypnotherapy I have somebody that does it with me uh but it has played a huge role in Tiger's success Muhammad Ali's success among many others and it's a it's a very powerful tool EV isn't this a great way to start an interview Virgil Dives in you know somebody who's won a lot of events and every day every week you're still working on how to be less nervous because we all get nervous and how to perform at the highest level and I think what you're saying Virgil is so good for our listeners but you're an elite player but we know even that next level right the PJ tour guys and they're working on the same stuff because this it just doesn't go away so I think this is this is this is a great start for us I I think of the two right now I think there are three or four poignant stories that we're seeing align the pressure of History Greg Norman and the Masters I mean it got to the point where it weighed so much he couldn't play it yeah Rory mroy and the Masters it is now obvious that it is like a thousand pound backpack he can't walk 72 Holes without the duck hook on 10 and the duck hook on 13 from 2012 swirling in his head like a ghost Jordan spe in the PGA Championship and Phil Mickelson with the US Open Grand Slam history all three of those guys are one win away from being in probably the most elite category and think about how heavy the US Open is for Phil and how heavy is the Masters is for Rory because they've both come so close so many times and now now well Phil for sure is like am I ever going to get another chance Rory probably feels like he's got four pretty good chances and then after that probably luck Sam sne in the US Open too yeah for sure guy won 83 times right no it's uh and it's hard so history it's what you've spent your entire life chasing and now you get it and it right in front and it's so hard to let go of the possibility of achieving like this your one of your greatest dreams of your life yeah and man it takes it takes a level of skill you have to prepare for it and some people don't like to prepare for it because they don't want to think that they're arrogant or that they're getting ahead of themselves but what it takes to be an elite anything is visualization and rehearsal in your mind because what goes on inside your mind in a vivid rehearsal and what goes on in the real thing is proven to be exactly the same but most people don't want to do that work they want to work on their golf swing or they want to hit putts but they don't want to work on something that they could do laying in bed night for 30 minutes before they go to sleep it'll probably help you sleep better too but at the end of the day learning how to control your mind happens before you get on the first te and most people are trying to learn how to do it in action and that's too late yeah we literally just talked to Keith Bennett last week and it kind of reminds me of what Keith said Matt where he said you know practices is like studying playing golf is like the exam and so why do we keep not practicing soft seven irons and expect full yardages right and why do we to your point Virgil you can't just beat a bunch of balls trying to work on positions and then you get on the golf course and you've got meaning you've got pressure you've got past you've got present you've got future and that's an entirely different feeling than hitting 25 vade irons yeah you know to a flag that you're not even looking at it's entirely different so before we dig into more of this Virgil I want to ask you what was on your glove so I have I have a little black dot and when I'm working with the hypnotherapist name is Steve rain he's one of the best in the world and this is all based around tiger stuff in his book that John andersan wrote the the the mind of Tiger Woods and also Louis usas when he won the 2010 Open Championship he had a red dot on his glove for the exact same reason is that you the hypnotherapist trains that spot to be the an Anor to your presence tiger used the velcro on his glove so it's like they're always trying what is something that you do every shot the velcro on the glove that sound is an auditory anchor boom you're in the office you know you know louing took his grip up here he saw it boom he's in the office then he's he's looking at it while he's s up to the ball all of those things are really set up to bring you into presence because that's what you're looking at and you're not thinking about what might happen or what just happened you're here now and that's like little things like there's so many little things that the best players do that they don't want you to know that they're doing because they don't want to give away their secret because it's their secret for them to play great what's the mechanic there specifically so obviously like I understand like Matt used to write stuff on his glove we've created gloves that have enjoy the ride on the front to kind of serice that reminder and bring you back that red or black dot is there a conscious thought around every time you see it or am I looking at the dot and that just means like it's game time like try to help me understand what actually happens by looking at the dot so you you go through like a 30 minute exercise with the with Steve yeah and he's he's telling you what that means like every time you hear this velcro rip or every time you see that red dot it's a reminder that you're in the office it's time to be present and he's he's just re and basically what it is that you're you're telling him what you want it to be like you have to go in with the intent what do I want Steve I get nervous when I'm getting close to achieving one of my dreams as a player I need something to bring you back the presence he's like is there something that you do every shot do you always mess with your hat you always mess with your glove I'm like I'm a glove guy I'm always messing with my glove and he's like okay let's put something on your glove and let's make a DOT and make it you know whatever and now every time you have to be intentional this is the sign that you're in the office yeah I mean it's really good I picture that right like you're walking up to the ball right you're kind of with it kind of not putting on the glove you take your gol glove off in between shots you're putting it on you see that red dot it it's it's like yeah okay like you said in the office it's a it's a shift that says just all right that's all here and you're coming it's I'm in the batter Bo it's time it's time to go yeah and I think another thing that's really subtle that I don't think many people think about and I want you to this is going to take a second to explain most people don't understand how to go in and out of high-end focus in around the golf okay you're supposed to be paying attention for about a minute hopefully like 70 times a day right for the tour level guys 68 times a day right yeah but what most people think is that is they have to stay focused from the first te to the 18th green and think about because I know how much you guys love golf think about how many times you get off to a good start and by whole six you are so gassed mentally because you've taken no time off from the t- boox on number one to the walking from the sixth screen to the sth T you've been on but you didn't need to be on for 97% of that time Fred Couples was the best like he was like there's another thing called externalization which is why it's so important to walk with your head up because if your eyes are looking into the Horizon it makes you small it makes the world big and it brings you into Center R was just talking about that on the I can fly podcast like just working on not being this being this this whole past year yeah yeah body language is critical and that's it's a hack right chest out eyes up externalizes you makes things makes the world bigger and you smaller which is what we really need to stay present but when you're walking with the head down you're only seeing like one foot by six feet of space and you're really big in that place and you have to learn how to like all of those things have really tiny factors but a build up over time so you get to the 17th hole you're so overwhelmed and you're you're gassed because you haven't spent any time out of the office and you only need to be on when the bag hits the ground or the caddy puts the bag down by the ball that's when it's time to get in the office and most people are focusing literally every step oh wa like almost like Winnie the Poo think think think think think think think think think think they're just thinking the whole way and they're gas they can't hold on to it for 5 hours right yeah yeah let me ask you this Virgil um you've coached six national champions yep over 200 players that made it to college golf Brant sneaker when he won the Rookie of the Year and he won 14 times as a pro when you think about observing these different levels of success right the peak of a college athlete getting to college so getting recruited making it on the team um getting that D1 scholarship it's a big that's for most most of us that's like the Pinnacle right and then seeing a tour pro win at the highest level as a rookie and then yourself winning like what taught you the most about what did you learn the most from to help you figure out how to play good golf what taught you the most there I think Brandt taught me the most I know that I helped Brandt with with his golf swing a ton I I I get that and so is Todd Anderson and so is Butch Harman so he's worked with a lot of guys right but I was I was the guy from like 18 to 26 in in the very formative building years and like I have video on a drive I was looking at it recently because he's been struggling and I just watch because I I care it hasn't changed at all I mean it's like identical so it's it's that's habit that's muscle memory so as much as he try as much as people try to change it's really hard you're just trying to refine I'll there are a couple things I'll never ever forget his attitude is what made him the greatest player I've ever coached and this is one of the greatest stories I can tell because it really made an impact on me we were playing in a two-day event he was at Vanderbilt number one player in college golf we're winning the first day by six and he goes out he's 21 he's he's he goes out the night with all his buddies from college he doesn't show up to hit golf balls in a driving range and he literally shows up on the first te with 30 seconds to go before we're we get a two-stroke penalty I'm so angry at him because I'm I put up the money for the event we're winning it's a big deal so I hooked my t- shot on the first hole into the trees and I'm seeing red and he hits his he's right-handed I'm left-handed he blocks his into the tree were like seven yards apart so we pull the card up I can't even talk to him I'm so mad and he's like what are you GNA do coach I said I don't know I think I'm just gonna maybe it's going to hit it up over the trees and play it out to the right I don't know snz I'm so mad right now I can't even see straight what are you gonna do he goes well here's what I'm going to do I'm going to chip seven iron right out here in front of the graen and then I'm going to chip it in and we're going to crush these fools before we even get started he literally chips it out underneath the trees out in front of the green chips it in Winks at me and we win by 15 and I will like so he says that and I Look to Him like is that what you're really thinking and he looks at me as Stone like a stoneface killer he's like yeah what are you thinking and I'm like I ain't thinking like that and that's the difference brand was just like no matter what has to happen for us to win I doing it and no matter how bad he's hitting it he and he demonstrated it time after time no matter how bad he was hitting it if he had to hit a shot to win and he had hit a good shot all day his mindset was kind of like a great basketball shooter I haven't hit a good one all day I'm so overdue I'm going on a run and it's going to start right now and that mindset he he triggered me into L the largest group of my wins because when you hang around somebody that thinks like an elite Champion it's infectious and I can't imagine what it would be like if you hung around tiger Phil you know Rory when they're on their game how they just pull you up because of how they think and it's really infectious and it's trainable but you just have to learn to believe in yourself at that level and some people don't have the courage to do that you know it's it's really it's a really great story it's funny it's impressive it's just to look into these tour guys snaker watching him over the years he's he's kind of a quick player he's a fast player he's kind of a handsy butter it's the most beautiful stroke to watch he just seems so instinctual when he's at his best um it seems to come out in his personality Virgil and like that's great it seems like he's just he sees it he does it and we all can learn from that because you know when we're working on things in our swing it's just paralysis by analysis it's just talk about how you watch that with him it's just that flow so this is this is awesome stuff right so brand used to take a long time especially was going through his swing changes he took it way inside and closed up across the line stuck underneath flip hook so when he was going through his swing changes he'd stand over the ball like takeway takeway takeaway takeway and I'm like here dude you know it's kind of like P neelon stuff and ly Marriott think box play box yeah so he actually takes a very long time in the think box but the science behind feel and real Deborah Graham wrote in her book this the eight traits of a champion golfer you can hold a at 90% Effectiveness up to 8 seconds so I say as soon as brt crossed into the play box he had to hit it within eight seconds and he averages he averages about 4.2 to 4.7 so what you don't see unless he's winning you only see him as he walks in you don't see all the gations and he's actually has a little bit of nervous energy he takes care of all that in the think box and as soon as he commits man it's it's out of there and that is what we worked on to get him out of his head is like get it all out of your system and then as soon as you've committed cross the line and hit it and that's where that you know that little tap behind the Ball tap boom and is gone he's already committed and he's trying to hit it as fast as he can comfortably do it because the closer you get to zero seconds the more the feel is real M that's a great description I love that story and one thing I want to dig into here is you know an average player let's just say a 10 handicap right might hear that story and think man that's awesome but I could never have that right they of course they might think of course brand or tiger can have that level of belief when they've got that level of skill and enough previous outcomes to inform that but I also know there's a ton of power in acting as if right what would I feel what would I think what would I do if I was like that and then see what happens how do you help fill that Gap because you know you've talked about how to help people go from I hope I can do it to I believe I can do it to I know I can do it and I want to talk about helping people kind of close the gap of belief when they don't feel like their physical game warrants it so this okay okay this g i unpack this slowly okay yeah when I was thinking that I could play I was being coached by Jim mlan and I I was an angry golfer because when I was a pitcher I was a good pitcher until I tore my rotator cuff the angrier I pitched the better I played so I then immediately attached to well obviously I'm not angry enough playing golf so the angrier I got the worst I played so that just meant I wasn't angry enough so I just turned the volume up and that's that was the 1920 year old version of me so he asked me why I got so mad and I told him that that story and he's like okay I love it you hold on to it too long but let me let me help you with something what's your handicap versin I said I'm a plus4 who's your favorite golfer and at that time was Greg Norman he Greg nor man's a plus nine so he's five shots better than you how many Fairways does Greg Norman hit I I don't know 12 he goes nope eight how many greens does he hit I said H I don't know 16 he goes no 13.8 so we'll give him 14 so he misses six Fairways and four greens that's 10 bad shots and he's five shots better than you so here's my rule you can't get mad until you've hit your 16th bad shot because up until then you're performance at your talent level so if you pull that back to a 10 handicap and let's just say Scotty sheffer's that Visual and he's a plus 10 that's 20 shots add 10 you're not even supposed to get upset until bad shot 30 so now hold that in like okay now why don't I just believe that I can do it until I get the bad Shut 31 because up until bad shot 31 I'm playing the way I'm supposed to play but the expectations of Hope interfere with what you know and there is the constant dilemma that we're all facing is that we we we don't move out of Hope belief to know very well we we think we know when we only hope and sometimes the people that really know hope under pressure right and learning how to be in those places for real is the big difference yeah Virgil I I I think the example what you gave about brand he's in the trees and what does he say to talking one of the great players in the world I'm gonna punch it out short of the green so I can put myself in a good place to chip it in now he chipped it in now if you're an amateur and this is where I just don't think people can't make jumps in their game oftentimes or even a good player who struggles on that day just can't accept being smart so you can put yourself in a really really confident position to then perform on the next shot but it takes that that Grace and that humility to get there you talked about Jason day on the on the mark podcast his goal in 2015 and his record setting year was to average three on par 3es par 3es are the hardest holes in the golf course so if you're an amateur why don't we just say my goal is to average a bogey on part threes this is talk about this level of discipline and how to approach shoot playing good golf well obviously it goes into like do you know actually how far you carry the golf ball can you predict what direction it's going to curve as soon as you have that you can destroy a golf course but most people don't know how far they really carry it that's a really important word really carry it how instead of they think they carry it and they they don't just accept the fact that they play a 15 yard you know fad or slice or a swinging draw that's 20 feet of 20 yards of curve for that matter if you know how to manage your dispersion you just kind of chess match your way around but the real dilemma is most people have a well everybody has a choice do you play golf to hit great golf shots and you don't care what you score or do you play golf to shoot a low score which means you might not hit any great or crazy cool golf shots but what ends up happening is people want to hit the heroic golf shot that they're not really qualified to hit but they also want to shoot a low score so they get conflicted with who they want to be at the moment and they try to hit some kind of heroic slinging hook around the tree and for what reason it didn't really it's not really worth it if you're trying to shoot a low score you're trying to shoot a low score you have to what's the percentage play and then play the percentage play have you and I were talking about this coming off a good hole or a good hole and then controlling your emotion on that next hole to to realize this is a completely different set of circumstances instead of trying to carry over the momentum and then make a rash decision yeah and you and has reminded me before he goes are you are you going out today and this is a great point that no I would bet very few of the average player actually has an intention of what they want out of this round am I going to to test a new swing feel right I've been working on my swing or am I testing to shoot a score am I trying to shoot a score right that's the same thing Virgil with your point about trying to hit great shots versus a great score obviously everybody would answer both but you're right I think that whole idea of Hope versus believe versus no I think so many of us just hope to hit that shot we hit on hole two and re reproduce because that's the intoxicating thing there we've all hit a pure High draw four iron that is just the greatest feeling in the world or a low piercing three-wood or whatever the shot is for you yep but maybe that's a great reminder to everybody is if we could remove oursel from the intoxication of reproducing an amazing shot to trying to shoot a score I bet our our expectations would automatically change 100% but that requires presence because you're drifting back into the past or Flash forwarding into the future and you know here's like a lot of things that the Great do that not many people know like on Jack Nicholas's yardage book on the top flap he had the greatest shot he ever hit with every Club in his bag so when he's when the cad is like all right jack we're 163 seven iron the last thing he sees is the seven iron he hit in the 1981 US Open that hit the flag stick that creates the visual as he sets in over the shot he there's not the most powerful shot is not cre creating a golf shot it's recreating it and you have to so when you have the intention right in front of your face the last thing you see is the greatest seven iron I've ever hit was the seven iron at the US Open in 1981 to hit the flag stick what a great way to walk into a shot but most people don't document their rounds they talk about it but they don't document it so they don't have any thing to remember as they step in if there is one thing that I'm absolutely 100% positive of the tour players do all the little things that take no work to build the groundwork in the base to be a great player because they're doing things before they actually hit the shot to increase their self-image and you cannot outperform your self-image and your self-image by definition is all of your talents minus the interference is your self-image so if you're walking around with a scratch game and enough interferences that make you a 10 handicap no matter how good you think you are your self-image is a 10 and you will be a 10 you can't outperform who you believe you are and that is ultimately the challenge for coach and player my job is to get you to believe in yourself more than you've ever believed without being false and your job is to allow yourself to believe you can do it when you've never done it before and there's the dance if it took experience to win nobody would have ever won it's the people who see themselves win in their head before they do it to become the legends that we talk about so frequently and they don't people don't want to understand the back office stuff they want to see what they saw on TV but that what they saw on TV was the culmination of practice that was ultimately way more difficult than than the shot at hand and it their practice made that shot under the greatest duress easy because they practiced harder than they play you know it just made me think of my La think about something my last round of last year um it was a breakthrough moment but it was kind of Full Circle for me because you know I hit a natural cut I struggled hit a draw I have noses I just I really struggle to do it and it kind of Beats me up because when I was playing when I was younger in college could do it more often so was my last round of the Year Virgil I'm even after the 10th hole and we're playing this golf course in Chicago Ravis slow Country Club the 11th hole is a 190 yard par three with a back left hole location skinny green tough hole just just one of the toughest holes in the course and I just made Birdie on 10 to go one under I think typically earlier in the air be like I got the shot I can hit this draw I got the momentum but it was one of those moments where I actually said to myself I just got to said ah [ __ ] this hole again the shot for me because I just struggle the draw it and try to pull off a heroic shot is to just aim 40 feet right take a little less club and my goal is to try to have a good two-putt from 40 feet you know and I did it and it's possible to three put that but I get up there all that momentum feeling like feeling like I got this this is my day try to hit that shot and eight out of 10 that thing things going hard left and those are the moments though where you've got like man I know I can hit this shot it's my day my swing's good I can hit that draw but it's like just check yourself so that was a good moment for me because earlier in the year when I was feeling momentum in rounds I think I I felt like I could really hit that shot because I've done it before and then I would really really see myself go south so not to pet myself in the back but I'm kind of patting myself on the back yeah for sure you should be there's two things to take out of that right number one is this is one of my ultimate rules is that when you're in the zone you're not thinking but if you're not in the zone you better be thinking so when you were you birdi 10 yeah you weren't in the zone so you were thinking so you played the shot you knew you could play because not every hole is a birdie hole and 11 at Ravis slow is definitely not a birdie hole 10 was a straight away 380 yard Par Four yeah I've played I used to teach golf with witha golf club oh my God you know okay so gravis slow is it's that's a hard hole so every Tour player is gonna walk up to that t-ball and be like I'm hitting it in the middle of this green and I'm gonna walk out of here with a three and if it if I make my birdie putt great but I'm like like I just want to get out of here with a three and go to the next hole right so what you did in the past was that you thought you were in the zone all coming off a birdie and you weren't and deep down inside your brain knew better but you wanted to see if you could do it that day for whatever reason you recognized you're playing good but you're not in the zone because if you were in the zone you wouldn't have thought that's fasc that's a fascinating way to look at it it's like you would have just grabbed your four iron you'd have taken dead aim at it you wouldn't have even thought about your golf swing and you'd have hit it to two feet and You' have made that birdie but that's not what happened you were thinking you're like okay I'm not going to make the same mistake that I've made in the past that is what I mean it's like great golfers aren't always in the zone that's that's an important thing to note here is that they are just like they're trying to stay immersively present to create the environment that can happen it can happen it doesn't mean that it will and golf only has two of the 17 flow Traders so it's it's not like football that's got 13 or like high-speed surfing or mountain biking that's got all 17 the more dangerous things are the more you're locked in because your life depends on it there's nothing really lifethreatening about golf other than the environment that you're playing in and are you playing in a competition that asks you to be slightly better than you are on average those are things that amp up your performance but here's an interesting stat proven choking at anything occurs when you're being asked to perform more than 20% higher than your highest capability in the past that's when choking occurs when you're being has to do something 20% past your capabilities because flow state is when you're actually doing something like 8% 12% past like you're you're out there and you find yourself playing in the proam and you get a chance to play with Rory and he's all of a sudden making you feel really good and you start and and everybody's playing good he's elevating you you're now playing way above your pay grade but not so far past yourself because you got insurance because you got teammates but you're just locked in because it's easy and it's free man being able to control what goes on around you and keep the percentage plays in mind and know who you are for real is what I call that's the separator between Elite and good good and average and average and poor is that the elite players know where they are in their mind they they don't get in the way of the Zone but they also know when they're not there they're playing chess and Virgil you're not say right you're not saying doubt yourself for the listeners you're saying I mean golf is all about risk management risk assessment and at least starting at that point and some shots are considered riskier for you versus other shots have jump in yeah I I I kept trying to figure out how to ask this in this last five minutes while listening and it's let me see if I can do it so what I keep hearing is this this dance as you called it Virgil of these great players like brand and we talked about Jason day and Jack Nicholas their self-image their belief is up here very high yet they also accept that they're going to have bad ones and they take their medicine when they do and they don't relate and Link those little chip what could be a chip in the armor to us it doesn't affect their belief or their ability on the next one or them as a whole yet amateurs don't accept that the bad ones are going to come we expect all of them are going to be like that shot I hit on number two which was an incredible shot and yet our self-image is way down here so I ask is that because that formula's backwards is our self IM low because we keep expecting to hit the miracle shot every time I'm trying to figure out to help our listeners do that dance where you've got to be able to accept that you're GNA have a lot of bad ones but you can't let that impact your self-image that's really hard dance to do yeah once again there's a lot of expectation management and Truth within the expectation management right so a lot of people don't want to accept the truth that's number one the truth being could you pull it off yes but if we told you on the blackjack table on this particular flop right here you have a 2% chance of winning are you going all in no but on the golf course you're going all in why would you do that because you you you you know you're not playing in a tournament and you just want to see if you can do it but then as soon as it doesn't happen then you're you're all pissed and you're like it doesn't make any sense because we play in a world that we haven't decided who we want to be that day or that shot and we just say let's see what happens but then you doesn't pull off and then you get then you get pissed about it well that's a you problem not a golf problem or anything else problem and like that's that's so that's so normal but at the end of the day the best players in the world have that belief because they practice under conditions that are more difficult than the game like if if they're trying to work on short putting to win a you know major Champion like Rory I would imagine knows that he has generally thrown away the Masters on the putting green more than once and he knows that there are a lot of dicey four-footers that you play outside the hole well what's he going to do he's not going to make one he's going to force himself to make three in a row to say he can win because when he sets up over the putt to win he's going to say all I have to do is make one of these I've been practicing having to make three of these all I have to do is make one that's easy they hit drives like let's say Rory is a natural drawer of the golf ball but he has to hit a fade off 18t he's going to go to his golf course wherever he plays at to get prepared he's not going to hit one fade he's going to say I have to hit five in a row before I walk out of here because when he steps on that t- box on the 72 hole with a One-Shot lead with Brooks kka breathing down his neck he's got to step up there and say I only got to do this one time right and we don't know what 10 handicap is practicing like that well that's what that's where I want to go next Virgil is help help our listeners figure out how to practice now we all have less resources than Rory ma right we got family we got kids we got jobs we got in La all you do is hit off mats it's crazy to me they don't have grass out in California evans's gota just sit off mats all the time but and usually we got an hour to an hour and a half to practice maybe once a week depending on who you are yeah how do you how I always be a lot yeah I always practice as I grew up I played division one college and my coach always looked at us look we're going to break this up we're going to train we're going to have training portion and then we're going to have tournament portion so talk to the 10 handicap the eight handicap the 12 handicap about how they should be practicing with the limited time and resources they have so when they do get to the course that weekend whatever they do next they're in a better spot good I'm going to take for granted that this 8 to 12 handicapper has been playing golf for a while okay I'm going take that okay so I'm going to say that they wouldn't have to hit golf balls to work on their golf swing because what we know about milin which is this real scientific term for muscle memory what we know about it is that if you have position changes that you need to put into your golf swing you would be better off in your house finding those positions and holding them for 10 seconds 20 times three times a day so like if it's a back swing position you're trying to get your left arm flatter and your left wrist flexed you do it you take it up there you put it in position you hold it for 10 seconds you do it 20 times before breakfast before lunch and before you go to bed that's better than 99% of your rain sessions okay now I'm going to say it'd be wise for a 10 handicap to give a good idea like where do you throw away most of your shots and I would bet that the the there are three places it's because 82% of the game has played with three clubs driver wedge and butter um I would spend a lot of time I'd get loose with my wedge work on the short pitches medium pitches you know up to full pitching wedge i' kind of move through the bag pretty quickly like maybe two eight irons three six irons a hybrid or two you're saying don't hit 25 seven irons in a r up because if the game let's just say that the game is designed to have two putts for every hole it's not really quite real it's just caught 30 shots and you're going to hit 14 drives that's 44 the 10 handicaps going to hit five greens so he's going to hit 13 chips and he's probably going to hit another nine full wedges so that's 62 shots and they're going to shoot 80 well that's like 77% of the game is with the lob wedge the Putter and the driver so that leaves 18 shots if they shoot 80 with the other 11 clubs so you're averaging like 1.6 shots per Club in the bag minus driver W putter so a what's a Full Bucket what's a large bucket 90 balls probably yeah I mean like a pyramid's 90 usually 90 balls in a pyramid yeah right so I would say you know 40 variety wed shots from 20 to full uh two n irons Three N irons three seven irons pick go odds or evens 3 three three three get to the driver or three-wood a slicer usually hits three-wood better than the driver hooker usually Drive the golfa better than the three-wood and then hit it get like visualized like to find two poles or two flags on the driving range that's your Fairway and make yourself feel like I got to get seven out of 10 of 10 out of 14 you know whatever then go over to the putting green and for a 10 handicap they're they they have to dominate from three feet in if you don't miss a three-footer you're going to kill it a college golfer's 4 feet Tor players five feet so it's 10 like if they just do take 10 balls and put it around a cup the length of their Putter and they go around 10 times hit 100 putts and they could make 90 that's a pretty good day at the office melson used to make a 100 before he 100 in a row just go in a circle 10 times and he when he won the Masters in his first Masters I was there I was with brand it was the first time he'd ever completed the drill the first time he made a his first hundred and he didn't what to do with himself he's like well I give myself a couple hours to do this and I just did it in like 22 minutes wow well he didn't miss anything for the first time in his life that day right and then lag putting is to be able to lag it into the six foot blanket 3et on any side of the hole is a six foot blanket do you think you can hit a 30 foot putt into a six foot hole Yeah well do that you already know you're going to make your three-footer now you're not wasting Strokes on the putting green you've worked on your chipping and pitching and you're driving the golf ball effectively how much better could you really do in that hour and 20 minutes not much I love I love that that's a that's a whole plan right there yeah that's the plan so let me ask you this Virgil dive into the mirror work a little bit more for a second do you think that and this is someone that's working on a swing right now right um do you think that getting to your position or whatever you're trying to work on and hold it for 10 seconds and doing that 20 times is that more effective than beating balls because you're not going to be distracted and dejected from the result because I know from personal experience it's very difficult to work on things and see very poor results because the average player is wondering is this helping me how is this helping me I have no feedback that this is actually helping me is that why the mirror is better understanding how the brain melinates motion not many people understand that right so then that requires a level of trust between you and the coach so the answer is I know irrefutably scientifically proven that if you know that you've pivoted and you got your Club in the position you're trying to get into and you hold it your brain is saying hm he really wants me to know this position why does he want me to know it so much well I guess I'll just learn it and it fingerprints it it stamps it over and over and over and over again until it becomes second nature the reason why it's hard to hit balls with a swing change is that most people one aren't videotaping every swing to see if they've actually done it they just tried really hard to do it so they assume that they did when largely they didn't and then they think I just did what coach asked me to do and I hit that one like [ __ ] so now what's wrong and it's not something new it's the fact that you didn't do what you were trying like heck to do and that is what I call job security the job security that I have is that you know what I'm asking you to do you were so passionate about doing it and you're diligently trying your best and you literally can't believe that the only thing you're were trying to do is get your left wrist flat at the top and you swore on your life that you did it and that you didn't do it didn't and it's heartbreaking that's why doing it in slow motion and holding it the brain imprints it it's like that's my new destination that's my new destination and all a sudden you don't even you know it you have it's there every time man it's so crazy like you just have to trust that if somebody who's a really good golf coach and there are many of them out there that understand how the the cerebellum stores muscle memory you could really cut how much you practice like beat ball practice to get way better because that's how muscle memory milin Works you've had the Breakthrough with slow motion swings recently yeah this is the first time ever I've been able to hit a decent shot in slow motion you know I'm someone that rolls it way inside drops it in it's stuck and I either block it or I have to flip it and so you know what's really funny I'm glad you brought that up Ser because this is something that I thought was really fascinating in my last lesson um Josh my Coach Josh Alpert he he said you know the thing to keep in mind is he might tell me just let it drop and turn and I might be trying to do it it might make total sense that yes we've my I fixed my grip we've got it in a better position the face is more Square so I have now per I've given permission to just drop it and turn but my body inherently and intuitively says hell no you're insane because for someone that rolls it way open tilts and has to flip it not manipulating the face and Swinging really hard to close it down is total death way right terrifying and my body has not been given to your point about filling all those putts and all those moments maybe that's really the answer to the question that I asked is you kind of have to on one hand at the beginning of the show we talked about acting as if and that high belief but you it's really hard to get there without the work to support the belief so right you have to put in the work say I've done it I can do this if you you can't you can't fake confidence right you either earn it or you don't yeah and that's where in the Black Box up here when you set up over a shot you can talk about how confident you're going to be but deep down inside your brain's like whatever dude way this is happening right and that's that's my that's my that's a coach's job the coach's job is to train you how to train so that you have true confidence so that under the maximum amount of pressure that you can put yourself under whether that's a PGA Tour event the member guest or four four of your buddies teeing it up every Saturday morning at 10: a.m. the pressure that you feel asking yourself to perform at the highest level is no different than what tiger felt yeah it's on a different level but measured inside the heart rate the breathing rate and what's going on inside the brain it's identical and helping people understand that it's all the same makes it human and you have to give them a process and a system to follow and then it's their discipline to follow it that dictates how good they get exclamation point I can't believe we're already in an hour that was really fun that was great we we we'll have to bring you back and dive into other Concepts more deeply but we love I love The Practice stuff today there's a lot great stuff Virgil but I really think this is going to be so good for our listeners yeah about how to practice and you've studied this and done this your whole career so kudos to you for really simplifying that concept I I'm I'm very aware that there are many great golf coaches out there and I just have a passion to help people understand how to truly learn because the the there's a massive bridge between what people think it takes and what it really takes and my job is to kind of hold their hand or navigate them across the waters to the other side and some people need more hand holding than others because the fear of letting somebody else down the fear of letting themselves down or somebody that's paying for them to do it or the encourager of the dream there's a huge gap between I hope I can do it and I know I can do it and there are that there are more than just me I am absolutely guarantee there's hundreds of people that know but to be around somebody that truly knows how to get you from Hope to believe to know is what it takes to be great at anything and I'm just fortunate for all the the people that have helped me get there obviously I've I've done a lot of work myself but it was through the encouragement of others to chase knowledge true knowledge and true facts to what it takes to be great and I would be I I mean this kind of show is so down my alley as you can probably feel like you're you're in my wheelhouse and there's literally days of content stored inside this nogame because you have to ask me a question for me to find find the file that matches what you want because if not I'm just going to blabber for hours and you're not not going to know how to put it all together because just like a 20,000 puzzle piece box I dump out on the table but if you said hey can you find me the R part of the roof there it is and that's that's really what it comes down to and I just have to ask people this if you're really interested in playing Great Golf find the best players in your area and ask them who they work with they don't generally lie if the best players have found the best coaches and it's hilarious you go to a town go to a city and you see all these great players and if there's 50 great players 36 are seeing one guy 10 are seeing another guy and four are seeing another guy and everybody else there's a reason why they're not being seen go find those guys and then you have to find the cost Effectiveness for you because the better somebody is the more they charge but at the end of the day my history is seeing I make things happen in one hour faster than some in 10 and it's all about finding some somebody that can resonate with your brain and your talent level to get you to believe in yourself to work on a process or a system to be as great as you can be because the results are proven how it works and you find somebody that can do that for you that's how you achieve your dreams yeah and we'll ask you this final thing Virgil and you might have just said it so if you just said it let me know but um is there anything we said today that you really want to leave someone with and Hammer home or is there anything we didn't cover that think's worth mentioning before we go and then we got to tell people where to find you I I believe that expectation management true expectation management is the largest Chasm for amateur golf because they spend a lot of time thinking about that one shot that great shot that awesome shot as if it's going to be an everyday occurrence if you understand how far your ball flies truly in the air and you have a general idea what direction it's going to curve you can mathematically disassemble a golf course to the best of your ability anything that you do to get better only means you're learning how to straighten the curve and hit it longer that requires then proper effort and work in a system with a coach but most people don't know how far they hit it so they always pick the wrong club and they don't want to trust that their natural ball flight which almost always shows up will show up they hit and hope instead of play to what they know and the fear of underperforming in front of peers is a damaging animal that people have to learn how to navigate because almost all of the all of the fears that we have are grossly over imagined you just have to spend a lot of time in in the world of what you know it's a good quote and increase your know increase your knowledge to to lower your handicap love it love it well if you guys like this episode Virgil you got your own show code on on the verge so definitely check that out um and just Google Virgil Herring h e r r i n g and you guys will probably be able to find all of the great stuff that Virgil does so thank you thank you thank you very much for having me on man this is like I can do this all the time so I'm very GR for the opportunity and the platform I love your podcast great job let's do it [Music] again