It's time for a new episode of “Faith N Fairways” with the founder, Brad Thorberg, who after more than 16,000 lessons taught to over 2,000 golfers has discovered the most forgotten and overlooked part of your golf game that is keeping you from playing your most consistent and confident golf ever.
Now, here is your host, Brad Thorberg.
00:23 What is up the Birdie crew? My fellow golfers, I like to call you the Birdie crew. I hope you're all out making birdies the past few weeks. Well, we want to get into today is we want to know what is the secret better golfers?
00:37 No that you don't. I know you've played with golf or some where you look at their swing and you're like, man, that swing does not look good. How are they scoring so well? How do they hit the ball more solid than I do? Even though I've put in all this work on my golf swing here, I feel like my swing is in a better place than theirs. You know, and there's this one thing that better players do that most of you are not doing. You know, an analogy there that I love to share with a lot of my clients is this is what a better player does versus you right now. If you were to go play a game of darts, you throwing a dart at a dartboard would be like standing there thinking, all right, make sure I have 60% of my weight on my front foot.
01:17 I want my right elbow parallel to the ground. I want to get a a good hinge back from the elbow. I want to keep my thumb on the side, my, my pointer finger just barely on top of the dart and I want to Xcel and I throw the dart and you're thinking of all of that, trying to throw a dart. That's basically how you're trying to swing the golf club. You're standing over that ball and you're thinking, all right, you know, do this. You know, make sure I take my hands, you know, slow and low, you know, or, or don't move my hips, keep my head down, make sure I, I get my weight through. Don't peek, you know, relax. You're thinking of all those things you're thinking. I mean there's, there's a million thoughts of so many of you run through your brain when you're, when you're standing over a golf, oh, it's just so much harder than, than throwing a dart.
02:06 It's around a dart. You have the dart attached to your fingers and you're releasing it. Here you have a [inaudible] club in between your fingers and the item you're trying to hit the ball to a much further target. So you're standing over this golf, well thinking of three or four things of what to do, what not to do. And what better players do is they just focus on where they want the ball to go, not how to get it there. And then that's, that's the big secret that so many of you struggle with. And, and you know, Kudos to a lot of you who put in the time and the investment into working on the mechanics of your swing. Well, you're so inundated with swing thoughts. Now when you get out on the golf course, you're using them as a crutch. Thinking of how to swing and now focusing on where what world champion Dart players do when they're throwing a dart at a dartboard is they're actually trying to look at word Dart has already entered the dartboard.
02:57 That is how focused they are and where they're trying to go with that dark. They're not thinking of their mechanics. Sure. In the off season or leading up to the tournament, they might be working on their mechanics. They might be working on keeping the elbow a little, a little higher, might be working on their breathing. It might be working on their posture with their shoulders, but when they get into game mode, they are laser focused on where dart has already entered the dartboard. That's how focused their eyes are, they're focusing on were not how, and so many of us, we read articles, we watch youtube, we get golf lessons, which is wonderful. You need those things because I truly believe as your mechanics get better, your misses get better and golf's a game of misses person at the better. Mishits wins. And we've talked about that in the past, but when you get on the course, you can't be focusing on those mechanics and you've ingrained this habit over and over of focusing on how to hit [inaudible] the ball instead of where you're trying to go.
03:55 Yeah, that's really a huge leap to take someone who's average, who can shoot a good round and then blow up 15 strokes worse the next, or shoot a good front nine and blow up on the back nine. Or sometimes you blow up on the front nine, you play really good on the back nine. Why is that? Well that's because you stopped focusing on how, because you gave up, you're so focused on how and you are so 10th I'm trying to force something that you couldn't hit the broad side of a barn and then you're like, well today is over with. I'm not going to play it very well. So then you just, you forget all of those mechanics and you just start to naturally react like an athlete. Good. That's a saying I have with a lot of my clients, especially those who are former athletes.
04:37 I'm like, you just need to be an athlete. Be Reactionary. You know, if a fast balls coming at your face, you just hold your hand up and you catch it. You don't think, all right, fold my elbow up, open my palm, move my head to the side, squeeze my hands. You don't think of those things. You get your teeth knocked out. You mean try this? Yeah. This would be a really good test. I used to do this with kids. Oh, when I taught junior clinics, as we'd do the tie, the shoe drill, and I'd say, all right, here's what I want you to do. I want you to untie your shoe and we're gonna time this in, in. We would have them in partners and we would tell him this with stopwatches. And I said, all right, when I say go, I want you to tell me out loud what you're doing know.
05:19 So I'm making a loop. I'm rapping. Yeah. I'm pulling a loop through. I want you to tell me verbatim how you're tying your shoe and what you're trying to do next. I want you to tell me what the next step is. When you, when you're in the process of tying that shoe, and I mean, you'd be amazing. Probably half the kids couldn't even get their shoe tie. The tie their fingers together. They get frustrated. It take them 30 seconds to a minute and then I'd say, all right, here's what I want you to do. I want you to just be quiet and I want you to tie your shoe as fast as you can. Don't think about it. Just do what you've been doing for the last three, five, 10 years of your life and boom, they're his shoe in like one or two seconds. Guys.
05:59 And a golf swing only takes 1.2 seconds. I remember, you know, my journey as a Golfer, oh man, I had an ugly, ugly golf swing. I saw my swing for the first time at the Mel soul fill rinsed in golf school in Kansas City, Missouri. Yeah, we had to record it with those big old damn quarters on VHS. I think the VHS is still sitting somewhere back home, but that's the first time I saw my swing. I was 17 years old, is between my junior and senior year of high school and I was already probably about a four or five handicap. I knew if I didn't go out of bounds I could score pretty well. Well, I never really worked on my mechanics. I just worked on hitting golf shots and learning how to hit golf shots with what I had. And by doing that I hit the middle, the face a lot.
06:43 I worked a lot on short game and if I didn't have penalty strokes, I'd usually shoot in the 70s by then. Sometimes break are on on a nine and I was playing pretty consistent golf. But boy, if I fight God into my own head, it could blow up in a hurry. Airman number. That same summer. I went for the [inaudible] amateur matchplay qualifier and I just shot 73 74 that previous weekend back home. And then I go into Lincoln to firethorne country club for the amateur qualifier and I shoot like 91 I just blow out. But I think I lost like six balls that day. I don't know where I was going. I was trying to think of all right, you know, for some reason I started to think of swing thoughts, which was so random cause I've never really had a lesson on my swing. But after seeing my swing, I saw how ugly it was and they gave me drills to work on and I struggled, but they only gave me two drills and I just worked on him and worked on and worked on them all summer.
07:37 I must've gotten thousands and thousands of reps to where I stopped thinking about it. I played miserable Golfer a few months, but come that next golf season. I played my best golf. I think I won a couple triangulars. I want our own invite. I went on to, well I've told this story before where I seven put it at districts or else I would have probably finished first or second and districts instead. I think I took six and then went on to state. Didn't play so great as state my senior year, but I had to go through almost six, seven months to change one little thing in my swing with one or two drills. I stuck with one or two drills for six to seven months and so many of you are popping on Youtube and changing up your swing thoughts daily and you're going out to the golf course and you're just creating the the mind bomb when you get out there of how to swing the golf club cause you got so much data wrapped around your brain.
08:32 Yeah, it's crazy. Even though Brad has cracked the code to consistently breaking 90 there are still three major mistakes he's found from working with over 2000 clients that will sabotage your around before you get to the first tee. Head to www dot [inaudible] golf code.com now to receive your free guide where he outlines all three polls and provides you with some easy action steps to start playing more golf today.
08:58 You're one of my first jobs was that I went to work for golf tech out in Colorado and that's where I really made advances in my golf swing. I finally was able to hit a nice little baby draw. It's now my natural shape. I struggled with scoring for probably a year because I was a good player cause I played with what I had. But all of a sudden here I am trying to force it into out. I'm trying to force a release of the hands and I'm just struggling, struggling, struggling to make contact even though the swing on camera looked beautiful. It looked way better than any swing I've ever made leading up to that. And I've been playing golf since the age of three, you know, all the way til now at 35 and know the, my swing, it was hideous. It never, it was an over the top power slice, I guess you could call it.
09:44 But I kept it in plan. I knew how to keep the ball in play cause I knew if I didn't go out of bounds I could shoot in the 70s and I managed the course with what I had and it wasn't over mechanical. But once I started to see my swing on video, it made leaps and how my swing looks. But it was a process to get over forcing the swing, forcing thoughts. And even just last weekend, this is how hard it is guys. You got to work on changing the way you think because even last weekend, how's that playing golf. Okay. And I catch myself thinking, all right, you know, I haven't played in a few weeks. I'm stiff. Gotta make sure I turn, got to make sure I turned. So here I'm trying to force my hands low and around my body to get a good turn. And in doing that, I'm sure I had a great turn.
10:25 I'm sure if I had, you know, the camera on it looked great and I swung on plane. The guys I like shanked three shots ob that day. It was ugly but I also had some beautiful shots, almost had a hole in one from two 20 with a five iron. But that was when I wasn't thinking. So when you're thinking of how to do something, sure you might hit a few good shots, but your bad shots are going to be really bad cause you're almost going to miss the club with [inaudible] probably a better looking swing. But your tents, if you're thinking of how to throw the dart, if you're thinking of how to tie your shoe and you're thinking through the steps of that, you're not moving fast and fluid and smooth your you're tense and you're slow and things are out of sequence and you're, next thing you know you're tying your finger to your shoe.
11:09 So you gotta start focusing where do you want this ball to go versus how to get it there. And you really got to start focusing on, on how you practice it. There needs to be a transition there and that's why you know next week you really want to tune in cause that's where we're going to get into why your golf practice, it is ruining your golf game. We're going to dive right into how to practice cause if you don't practice properly or create kind of a a program for your practice, you're just discombobulated in your head taking of of how to do something versus where to go. And there's no dark champion on the [inaudible] face of the planet who's thinking of how to throw a dart. They're looking at where that darts been. So start focusing when you get out there. Where do you want this ball start?
11:53 Where do you want it to end? Then just remember to swing easy. 80% effort starts here in tears. Starts here, ends here. You've got to train your brain. That one thing that will really help is to get into some visualization practice. Yeah. You know I talk about this. This is why you want to definitely go to my golf code.com and get get my free ebook cause I talk about the mental side and how to visualize kind of shots in the round before you get there. Cause if you've already pre done that, it's so much easier to see it step up and do it like an athlete instead of sitting there thinking of how, how do I swing the golf club versus where do you want it to go? But if you've already pictured where it's gonna go or needs to go, it's so much easier to just step up things.
12:33 Start here in here and swing 80% effort and you'll be shocked as to how much more solid you hit the ball. Where will your swing look better? No. Well your swing is getting better if you're working on it. But that doesn't happen on the golf course. I mean this stat will blow your mind. I mean if you do, you think about it. If you went and shot a hundred on the golf course, 100 you're really only making maybe 40 to 45 full swings. If you shoot 90 are making 35 to 40 full swings. If you're shooting in the 80s you're, you're in the 30 range of how many full aggressive swings you're making over the course of 18 olds. So 18 holes, four and a half, five hours maybe some of you are playing some nice country clubs where you can zoom around and for, that's awesome cause five hours is just way too long these days.
13:21 But even then you think about that four to five hours, you're only making 30 the 40 full swings. You could go in your backyard or you could go into your living room and do a drill and in 15 minutes get in 50 reps. So the practice on how to do something needs to happen, not on the golf course when you're on the golf course, it needs to be, here's where it starts, here's where it ends. 80% effort. Hit it there and play with what you have, not with what you want to have with your swing that day and know that it's ever evolving even when you get into a good place. I mean guys, my career around was years ago, but I, my swing is always changing for better or worse. That's the golf swing. That's the beast here. We have with this game of golf that makes it so fun and addicting is, is you're always trying to strive to get better.
14:10 But it doesn't always mean it's in the best place it's ever been and that's why you work on it. But you can't be out on the course thinking, how do I swing the golf club, be an athlete. You look at where you want it to start, where you want it to end and hit it there and play with what you have now with what you want to have. So right now, if your is producing a slice or in my day, you know, through my teens, when I played decent golf, I called it a power fade. But I played it. I didn't try to hit a draw cause I knew if I tried to do that it's going out of bounds or I miss the golf. Well I've played with what I had. I managed the course as the course was tightened. It didn't sit up from a power fades slash Aka slice, you know, I'd clogged down, I go to a three would or I tee off with an iron and I just, I the course with what I had that kept me on the course relying on my short game [inaudible] and that allowed me to play some really good golf with [inaudible] poor mechanics compared to what you know, we consider good mechanics when you're looking at stuff on youtube or watching videos.
15:05 So that is what better players do. They focus on the where versus the how be a world class athlete, be a world class dart thrower. He's so laser focused that you see the blade of grass two feet in front and you see that branch sticking out on the edge of the tree, 350 yards out there and you're going to start the ball over there and it's gonna [inaudible] [inaudible] curve off of that branch into the right center of the fairway and start focusing and picturing that versus make sure I turn my shoulders, make sure I keep my head down, shift my weight, don't turn my hips. Then turn my hips and no, relax my hands. All these goofy things. Moving the ball around in my stance. Doing that. You gotta be consistent with your thought. You got to focus on where you're trying to go and you'll be amazed as to how much better you hit the ball.
15:54 More solid, more consistent, and keep it in play. And with a short game, you will start scoring more consistently versus scoring 84 97 or 8,901 you gotta stop thinking of how, so that is the secret. Better golfers know you want to totally stay tuned. Next week, tune in. Why are your golf practices ruining your golf game? This is going to be huge. We're going to dive into some different [inaudible] concepts of practice, how to practice on what you're doing so, so wrong right now. That's just creating horrible memories and a mindset. When you get on the golf course, we gotta change that so you can start playing your best golf, your most consistent golf. So start working on those visualizations. Start focusing on where you want to go. Pick out tiny targets. Stop trying to make beautiful swings on the golf course. Beautiful swings that don't hit the ball ball did not end well. Golf's a game of bad shots. The better bad shots wins to do that. Focus on where you're trying to go. So that's a wrap for today. Hopefully that gives you guys some nuggets to take out to the courses
16:59 Weekend. Stay tuned next week for now, head to my golf code.com. You definitely want to check out some visualization and mental cues and we'll talk to you all next week.
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