It's time for a new episode of faith in fairways with the founder Brad Thorberg, who after more than 16,000 license taught to over 2000 golfers has discovered the most forgotten and overlooked parts 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 birdie crew? Brad here come into ya episode. I believe we're on episode 13 already. Hard to believe over three months doing this podcast. It's been a blast.
00:37 Today's episode is about why you blow up on the back nine. We're going to get into that. Yeah, there's two main reasons you blow up on the back. Nine, no one just unnecessary pressure. You apply to yourself and to [inaudible] mental fatigue and we're going to dive into those two topics and then we're going to get into kind of my five top ways to help combat blowing up on the back nine and give you some tips that you can take away right away and start applying. Know this coming weekend, I started playing better golf and more consistent golf over the course of 18 holes. You know, often I hear I was playing so well. Yeah, and we've all been there. I mean how many of us have played and we started off [inaudible]. Yeah, the front nine. We had a good round going and, and we have this belief that Hey, if I do this on the back and have a career round or a great round or no, I should be able to just whoop up on my buddies and then it just falls apart.
01:30 How does this happen? Well, number one reason is you apply pressure. You get through the first nine with a good round going thinking, man, if I do that or a stroke or two better, I can play restaurant I've ever played. But you apply this pressure that now all of a sudden you have to do incredible things. You have to not make mistakes. So you start putting this pressure on of don't make mistakes, which gets you tense and gets you guiding the golf club and trying to force golf shots instead of swing and free and relax. And now you've added pressure. I mean, think of the opposite, cause I get this a lot too. Over the last 1516 years of teaching golf lessons, I've had a lot of clients who come in and just blow up on the front nine and then they play incredible.
02:14 I had a client just last week Mark, he sounded like 46 36 46 on the front, nine 36 on the back. How does this happen? Well, cause after 46 he mentally shut down and said, ah, it doesn't matter. You know, I'm not gonna play a good round today. I don't care. So there's no pressure. He's relaxed. Like, I mean, we've all been there, you know, the saying, the second golfers better, you know, so you hit a shot out of bounds or you hit a shot and you chunk the snot out of it. So you toss the ball out of the pocket. Just to hit again and you flush it, knock it right in the middle of the green. How does that happen? Because there's less pressure. It doesn't matter. You're not as stressed and pressure creates tension. And when you have tension in your golf swing, it throws your timing off matter how good your mechanics are guys.
03:02 I mean when you applied tension to good mechanics, you're still going to have bad shots. They're just not as bad as a person with four mechanics cause you know, just angle through the ball. So when you have extra things that need to be timed within your golf swing and you start [inaudible] squeezing a hair tighter and you get quicker. Cause as you get nervous, I mean think of this, I don't know what you field or profession you're in, but imagine you're an expert in your field and you have to give a presentation in an auditorium with [inaudible] 5,000 people listening and you practice this speech over and over and over and over this presentation and it's exactly 10 minutes, 10 minutes. Cause that's the time you have. You have 10 minutes to give it, you practice it over and over. It's 10 minutes. You get in front of the lights and the microphone in 5,000 people staring at ya.
03:48 I guess that'd be 10,000 eyeballs. And what happens? You get nervous. So what happens when you get nervous? You get [inaudible] quicker, you start speaking faster because you're uncomfortable. So when you're out there and you start applying pressure to yourself on that back nine to do well or do a few shots better, you get tents with your grip and you get quicker with your temple. And that just magnifies the faults within your swing. And even if you have a mechanically sound swing, you're still gonna have some misses. And that's where they show up because of the tension, because of the sped up tempo. And that's all because you're applying unnecessary pressure. Just go out and stick it to your game plan. Yeah, we talked about that last week in episode 12 of how to create a game plan or the cheat sheet before you take the tests on the golf course.
04:35 So a few missed that one. Definitely go back and listen to last week and that'll tell you exactly how to warm up like a tour player. The step under that first tee just using confidence but you gotta have that game plan. That game plan allows you to stay relaxed on the back night cause you don't need to shift your thinking that you need to do more. You stick to your game plan and over the course of nine holes you're going to score the same as you did on the front or a shot or two better, maybe a shot or two worse, but you're close. And that's where practice, which we talked about in episode 10 how to practice properly. As you keep practicing and putting in those hours, you're going to see the fruits of that labor and you're going to be shattering your career rounds and no time.
05:14 But you've got to stick to the plan. You got to start practicing the right way. That'll help release that crash or you apply to yourself cause there shouldn't be any pressure. Guys, this is, this is a recreational activity. Yeah, this is fun. I mean, think of how many, I see this all the time. How many you can sit on the patio. Oh, the clubhouse looking at 18 green. And you're lucky to see one or two smiling people how to 16 you know, the last four, four foursomes, the walk off there might be one or two people smiling. Usually it's sad, but you could sit on a patio or a deck at the base of a mountain watching skiers, cause I live in Colorado, flying I, and it kinda fell down on there, but the whole way down that mountain. But they're grinning ear to ear and this is the same thing.
05:57 They're investing time and money into a recreational activity. That's all this is. This isn't your livelihood. This is for just fun. So keep it fun. You don't need to be applying pressure that's [inaudible] unnecessary to yourself. That's screwing up the back nine of your round because you're tents and you're getting quicker with your tempo. So stop doing it. And then I know that's easier said than done. But as you start retraining your mental focus with your practice in your pre-round warm ups and, and visualization techniques, it's gonna help you stay relaxed. It's going to help you have more belief within yourself that you can do this, that you don't need to force something to happen. Just stick to the game plan. [inaudible] Be relaxed, take deep breaths and all that's going to help you stop the blob. So stop putting that unnecessary pressure and stick to the plan that you've created by warming up properly and it's going to get better because you're practicing better now.
06:53 So that's number one. Number two is mental fatigue. So even if you're not putting the pressure, what I see so often over 18 holes and four to five hours out there is mental fatigue and mental fatigue is going to cause a lapse in judgment [inaudible] and poor focus and all of a sudden you start making those one or two mental miscues w where you make that decision to go for it when you know you shouldn't have but you gave in and you did it anyways. Cause you're tired, you're tired on the bag night, and you feel like you need to make up a shot. So you're not only applying pressure, but then mentally you're making the poor decision because you're fatigued. And what causes that is you're not fueling your body properly that day or on the golf course. So leading up to getting there, or on the course, you don't have gas in the gas tank to get you through four and a half hours of grueling golf.
07:38 I know it's recreation. I said that it's fun, it's enjoyment. But you're out there for four and a half hours taking a test. You know, for those of you who had a can remember back that far, and you had to take tests in schools, exams, you know, finals, SATs, act tests. When you sit there in your grueling through thinking [inaudible] two or three hours, but now you're out there for four to five thinking through everything. It's exhausting. Your brain is burning up a lot of calories just through thought, and now you're exhausted. And when you're exhausted, you're gonna make [inaudible] poor judgment calls and you're going to start to lose focus. You're going to start to wander on what you no he's doing or what's for dinner or what am I doing after this? And your mind wanders, you're not focused on the shot at hand, which is the only thing you should be focused on is the very next shot, not the last one, not the next three holes, but the shot you have right now.
08:29 What is the best option to get you closer to the hole within your ability level so you get mentally exhausted and fatigued. And the other part of that is dehydration is one of the number one things. They did a study, I can't remember who it was. I'd have to look it up. I had it, one of my emails that I sent out to my birdie crew, Oh I talked about hydration. Cause this, this group did this study and they factored in that you, you lose, I think it was, you're losing 12% of your total distance for club as your body is dehydrated and you become 20 percent more inaccurate. I mean, it was crazy. The splatter pattern and distance consistency was all over as I became dehydrated. Cause when you become dehydrated, you lose focus and you're not as precise with your thinking and your mechanical movements because you're dehydrated.
09:18 So being hydrated is so, so crucial. You know, are you drinking enough water when you wake up and through the day and on the golf course or you're getting in your electrolytes? I mean, those are very, very important things that most of us overlook. Cause like, ah, we're just going out and golfing. Yeah. But there's so much more than that. I mean, it's four and a half, five hours of your day. No, it's a fifth or sixth of your whole day. You're out there and leading up to it and you're making, you know, 35 to 45 explosive movements. You're walking, you're in the sun, you're, you're doing rotational movements. You're testing your balance and you're thinking like you're taking a four hour exam, you need to be hydrated, you need to fill your body correctly. Otherwise you're just making poor Jordan judgment calls. You give up, he hit a few bad shots and you're just exhausted mentally and you just give up on, ah, it's another bad day.
10:05 Yeah, yeah, I'm not going to get it back today. Who cares? Or, okay, losing the focus of trusting your game plan. Oh, your warm up. You came up with that game plan and you, you, you know, you forget about it. You don't even trust it. You put it on the back burner. You start going back into thinking about mechanics and all these magical things. Swing thought's going to fix everything and it's not, and we've talked about that, but that's what you've wired your brain from years and years and thousands and thousands and thousands and golf balls on the driving ranges. You've wired your brain. Just think mechanically. So when you get out there and you get mentally fatigued, you lapse back into thinking mechanics and you stop thinking of where and you start thinking how again, and it just unravels quickly and you hit a poor shot. I mean I've been there, he hit a poor T shot and you punch out.
10:56 So you made a smart choice on hole 13 in your punch out, and then you hit a shout up on the green and you're still frustrated about the poor tee shot and you're exhausted. So what happens is you don't put as much focus into reading the plot and you just kind of stand behind it instead of getting up there and feeling the break with your feet at the mid point. Yep. In the last three feet of the cup and behind the cup. So then you hit a putt. Hmm, yeah. Next thing you know, a racist four feet by and you didn't realize it, it slopes it back down and he'll pass the pen and now you've got [inaudible] coming back and you three putts and you're just losing it. It is all from focus because you're mentally fatigued because you haven't fueled your body properly. You haven't stayed hydrated, you haven't been doing visualization techniques at all. The best players do to kind of, Hey are you so you've already been in these positions and you know the decision to make and you're less likely to make a poor decision. But that's why you unravel on the back nine it comes from unnecessary pressure and mental fatigue.
11:54 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 you around before you get to the first tee head to www.mygolfcode.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 consistent golf today.
12:17 Five ways we can combat that and play better golf. You know, number one is you gotta have a game plan. Yo, are you creating that pre-round game plan before you get to the first 10 are you using confidence and do you trust it? Are you still warming up trying to go through five or six swing thoughts until you have a magical thought that hits a couple solid shots and think you have it cause you don't have, it ain't going to last for the next four and a half hours. You have to play with what you have, not with what you want to have and that comes from warming up proper. That's going through my cheat sheet warmup, which is up and running now. So if you had to my golf code.com/ [inaudible] cheat sheet, you're going to be able to get my warmup series on how to warm up properly before your round of golf and get those cheat sheets to fill out in.
13:07 What you have to do is practice going through your warm up. You're also not going to do it properly and you're going to just go right back to thinking of mechanics. So that takes practice. You have to practice how to warm up. It sounds crazy but it's so, so true. Yeah. This will take time because you've wired your brain to think so much about how to swing the club over the last several years that you don't trust anything anymore. Do you have to train yourself how to warm up, create a game plan and go trust it on the golf course with confidence? Do you have to warm up properly too? If you haven't done it already? I mean, this was like four weeks ago. You got to change the way you practice, especially if you're in golf season and now we're moving into the off season here in the Northern States.
13:47 If you're down South and you're still in golf season, you should be spending 70% of your time on hitting golf shots when you're working on your full swing. So if you will, you know, simple math here. If you're going to practice 10 hours over the course of a month or over the next four weeks, you put in 10 hours of golf practice. First of all, five hours at least should be short game, really 60% so we'll say six hours, six hours of 10 hours should all be short game chipping. Pitching, putting bunkers, speed control, hitting putts online inside five feet, you should be working six hours of 10 on short game from there, 70% of your time. So you know, two and a half to three hours should be hitting golf shots. It should be going through this warm up, you know, doing a pre-round warmup routine, playing nine holes on the driving range where you hit a shot and you have to let go if it's a bad shot and focus on the next one.
14:40 And what club would you hit instead of going right into [inaudible], Oh gosh, I must've done this. Let me try it. You know, rotate my hands more or don't move my hips or keep my head down. If you think that you're doing wrong. And then the last hour, hour and a half is mechanics. You should be working on the mechanics your coach has given you. If you don't have a coach, go get a coach. I have been coaching people for over 15 years. You got to have a coach. They can see things faster than you can and they can get you working on the right thing, in the right order to help you speed up your progress so much faster. So you're not out there racking your brain with, you know, 25 YouTube ideas and the last two hours of golf channel, and you're just a basket case, but your last hour and a half should be on mechanics.
15:24 But that's what a month should look like if you put in 10 hours, if you're going to devote 10 hours, that's how it should be. So number two is you gotta be practicing the right way. It's three basically rewiring your brain to play better golf of how to focus and let go of a bad shot and get into the next one and trust that with the proper game plan. So having a game plan, adjusting your practice routine. Yeah. Number three, did you guys start working on some visualization techniques? This is huge and I'm working on a program right now, on visualization in the mental side of golf for a lot of my clients. And it's in the works and hopefully we can roll that out in a month or two. But you got to go through visualization the day you play golf or it doesn't take long.
16:08 It takes guys like you just set aside three minutes in the morning or five minutes in the shower, but you've got to set aside time where you're alone and it's calm and it's quiet. So it could be in the shower, could be, you know, five minutes in the car before you back out of the garage before you go to the course. Do you want five minutes where you kind of think through the next 18 holes? How are you going to play him? You know, just like right now in, in, in a minutes time, I can go through several holes. If I was going to go play former club, I belong to ptarmigan country club. If I was going to go out there, whole one, no first hole, shorter par four goes downhill. I'm going to hit my driving iron off the tee. No reason to hit driver driving R and puts me on the flat part or the fairway up above where I have about 110 down the Hill to the green.
16:54 It should be as simple par if not birdie hole to par five driver off the tee. I'm going to tee up on the right hand side. I'm going to aim it at the left bunker and play my straight to a little bit cut. And if it catches the Hill, wonderful. If not, I'll have about a know a good five iron four under the green. If it catches the Hill, I'll be sitting at a seven or six iron to the green and I'll go for it and I'll go do a yard that's in the front of the green. So I don't go along and I don't really bring the bunkers better left into play know. So now I'm already thinking through how am I going to manage that course in my head so I don't [inaudible] poor judgment calls when I get out there. I've already kind of pre kicked my tee shots.
17:34 The clubs were all probably be. So it's real easy to make the right choice instead of overthinking it based on how good or bad the last hole was, can lead you to making a poor decision on the next hole. So you have to go through that visualization and literally in five minutes, you can play 18 holes in your brain. You can put yourself in some [inaudible] tougher spots, or you know, well, sometimes I miss here. Well, let's be smart today and make sure I make this shot out of those trees. Instead of trying to go for it like I did two weeks ago and make double bogey. So play that visualization game in your head. You gotta do that. You gotta be visualizing rounds of how to get in and out of trouble. How are you going to attack different holes off the tee so you don't make a poor judgment call on that tee box based on how good or bad the last hole was or how good or bad the front nine was.
18:20 That's going to keep you from blowing up on the back nine and preventing you from making some poor choices in back to back holes where all of a sudden you go double double and you wonder what the heck happened to such a good round. So visualization. So pre-round warmup. Are we doing it? Are we practicing correctly? Are we visualizing, you know, three to five minutes that day. You know, before golf, the best players in the world do visualization techniques for like 30 minutes a day every day. So we need to start doing them three to five minutes, at least the day we're about to go to the golf course. Number four, stay hydrated. This sounds crazy, but you know, another business I have is I coach people on fitness and nutrition. Yeah. And I've worked with over 1500 people on their nutrition. [inaudible] It's nine out of 10 people just don't drink enough water.
19:07 You got to drink water. You should be drinking half your body weight in ounces of water a day. So you got to wake up and the first thing in the morning, chug an eight, 10 ounce glass of water. Don't force yourself to drink water because you're going to be outside in the elements in the sun. Testing your brain for four and a half to five hours. You gotta be hydrated. I mean it's okay to have a beer or two, but if you're not drinking water, that alcohol is just speeding up the dehydration process. So you got to stay hydrated, drink water, get your electrolyte drink. I have mine, I love it. It helps me. There's no, no caffeine built into it, but it gives me some vitamin B for focus. I love it. It's, it's helped me in a lot of my clients. But you got to have your rehydration drink.
19:49 And then from there, number five, because you've got to fill your body properly if you're not eating properly. If you're skipping breakfast and you grab a carb heavy lunch and then you head to the golf course, you're going to be exhausted and mentally sluggish the rest of the day. You set yourself up for failure, guys, you got to feel your body properly. What does that look like? For me, when I coached my clients on nutrition, you got to find your protein first. You should have some good protein with your breakfast and your lunch. Good, lean protein, healthy fats, healthy, complex carbs, but find your protein first because that fuels your metabolism. That's going to help keep your energy up and your metabolism burning, which helps with your energy and your focus and then you stay hydrated and then bring a healthy snack to the coarser. You're not grabbing some crappy candy bar at the golf course, you know, bring something rich and protein, whether it's a protein shake, some you know, low sodium beef jerky, but Marine, some protein to snack on some trail mix with some healthy fats are wonderful for brain function, so getting some almonds, cashews, or whatever to get some healthy fats in.
20:56 That'd be wonderful to have a plan. If you don't have a plan, you're planning to fail. We know that in all aspects of life. So you gotta have a game plan. You got to warm up properly. You gotta be practicing correctly leading up to your rounds of golf. So this changed the way you practice. You got to start visualizing your rounds so you don't make poor decisions based on previous results. So you're sticking to your game plan that much more because you've already visualized it. So it's so much easier. It's like deja VU. You gotta be hydrated. Stay hydrated through the day. Come on in five, fill your body correctly, guys. You got to stay hydrated. You've got to fill your body correctly. I mean, let's be honest. I mean, if we're being honest here, look at the top 20 players in the world. What do they all have?
21:38 Slim waistlines none of them. None of them are overweight with giant waistlines. They all have slender waists. They're all in shape. Golf is an athletic sport where you're explosively swinging it. A club rotationally violently at a golf ball. It's 75 to 115 miles an hour, 30 to 45 times over 18 holes. So you got to get your body tuned up. Starts with staying hydrated cause that's gonna help you stop overeating. And then it dives into how do I feel my body, which I can help you guys with cause that's what I also coach people on. But that is the five ways to help stop blowing up on the back nine. So hopefully that helps you guys. Some things you can start implementing from there. Stay tuned. Next week next week we are going to dive into how I believe it's how par has ruined your golf game. We're going to dive into par in the mental bomb that is in your brain and how it's just sabotaging your golf game out of the get go for a lot of you. So we're going to dive into that come next week. So stay tuned for that. Oh, you don't want to miss that. That's going to just help
22:48 Unlock a lot of that pressure you're adding to yourself that we've talked about in this episode. So stay tuned for that. Until then, remember to swing easy. Find the good in every shot, and we'll talk to you all.
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