The Golf Intervention

EP 47: Golf Myths Busted: What You DON'T Need To Do To Improve Your Golf Game

• Eric Layton • Episode 47

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In this episode of The Golf Intervention, we take a sledgehammer to some of the most persistent myths in golf improvement. From obsessing over perfect swing positions to blindly hitting thousands of range balls, we break down what actually works—and what’s just noise. If you've ever been told you need to "get worse before you get better," this episode is your wake-up call.

We also expose other common misconceptions like:
 ❌ Watching the club hit the ball—why this cue may be destroying your contact
 💸 Spending outrageous money on aftermarket shafts and gear with little to no performance gain
 🔁 The dangerous myth of needing to go backwards before progress happens
 📈 Why real improvement is often simpler and smarter than you think

We discuss how to separate feel-good advice from fact-based strategies, and what to focus on if you want to actually lower your scores without overhauling your swing or emptying your wallet.

What You’ll Learn:

  • Why you don’t need a perfect swing to shoot lower scores
  • Smarter alternatives to endless range sessions
  • How to improve your game without expensive equipment upgrades
  • The truth about “watching the ball” and why it might be sabotaging your consistency
  • How to identify and avoid common golf improvement traps

🔗 Links & Resources:




















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Tyler:

Today's episode is brought to you by the premium content subscribers on the golf intervention substack. And we would of course like to thank all of our listeners for tuning in, you make it all worth while. If you would like to support the show or sign up for our free newsletter, you can do that at thegolfintervention.substack.com or follow the link in the show notes.

Eric:

And welcome back to the Golf Intervention Podcast. I'm so excited to be on with my friend Rob Fails tonight. There's a thunderstorm in Richmond, Virginia, so if you can hear that, I don't know if that actually takes away from the podcast or not. I kinda like thunderstorm. It's

Rob Failes:

Oh man, I think it adds to it. Oh, oh. Hey buddy. Is, that's my, that's my dog.

Eric:

and Robbie's dog is on, so it's it's gonna be exciting. We got thunder. maybe he's on, because there's thunder there. Is there thunder in Charlottesville too? Is it

Rob Failes:

Yeah, I think, yeah, we're getting a storm too, and he's not, so, not so keen on it. Hey, buddy.

Eric:

got

Rob Failes:

Hey,

Eric:

bougie AST

Rob Failes:

you're good.

Eric:

he's drinking, drinking. Is it red wine? What kind of wine you got going

Rob Failes:

Oh, yeah. No, it's, it's a, it's, it's red wine.

Eric:

red wine in a, what do you call that? A Yeti goblet.

Rob Failes:

It's a Yeti. Yeah, it's a Yeti, like a go. Right.

Eric:

Yeti Goblet from Cypress Point, like the, a ouest thing I've ever seen.

Rob Failes:

I spent a lot of money in that golf shop, Eric.

Eric:

And so that's the byproduct of being invited to nice places. Like

Rob Failes:

Yeah.

Eric:

to just drop like a thousand dollars in the shop, which is the credit

Rob Failes:

We didn't have a choice. We had to,

Eric:

You gotta buy some things. So anyway, on tonight's edition of the Golf Intervention Podcast, we're gonna go some through some things you absolutely do not have to do to improve your

Rob Failes:

yes.

Eric:

And I was thinking so much about this, Robbie, because you know when you get to be an old person like me and you got kids and you got a mortgage and you're trying to figure out all these like keys to being more healthy or being better with your

Rob Failes:

Yeah.

Eric:

or being better with your time management. Like all these things that you want to do, most of us anyway, want to do. Two, be better at whatever all these things are. We do

Rob Failes:

Mm-hmm.

Eric:

husbanding, going to church, being a, a whatever, being a good human, right? So we're

Rob Failes:

Yep.

Eric:

seeking this out and there's always some guru out there who's willing to share with you their thoughts about that, right? And so I'm sitting there watching Instagram one day, scrolling through doom, scrolling this stuff like nobody's

Rob Failes:

Mm-hmm.

Eric:

morning coffee. And I'm thinking there are so many things that golfers think they need to do. Like they, it's like an

Rob Failes:

Yeah.

Eric:

I have to do this. It's a belief system. I have to do this to

Rob Failes:

Mm-hmm.

Eric:

And they're told that through these media channels. And today, golfers, we are gonna take you through a list which is negative. I get it. We're not the negative people. This is ne, it's actually meant to be funny. So hopefully this episode is a little bit humorous of things you absolutely do not have to do. To get better at golf.'cause again, going back to the self-help sort of, moment I'm going through in my life, like we all do, we all do this. It's not like a moment, it's just part of my life,

Rob Failes:

Yeah.

Eric:

to get better. You realize you have to allocate resources whatever it is that you're trying to do. So if you have a hobby, you allocate resources. What time, energy, money. Those are your main things that you're allocating. allocate it to your hobbies, you allocate it to your, to your lifestyle. You allocate it to your health and wellness. Like all these things, apparently, the type of wine that you buy, you're allocating this time, energy, and money are your main resources, okay? And

Rob Failes:

I.

Eric:

the truth is, to get better at golf, can't waste your time with these things that don't matter. You just can't do it. Because if you do, you're gonna be limiting your ability to improve. And we only have so much time. put into golf. So today we're gonna go through a list things you absolutely do not have to do to improve a golf. So hopefully you can listen to this and be like, the golf intervention has set me free and we are not making fun of you if you do these things, by the way, we've done these,

Rob Failes:

Correct. And I was, I was just getting ready to say that. Yeah,

Eric:

I know. I've done a lot of these things to try to figure out maybe

Rob Failes:

probably me too.

Eric:

Yeah. And some of

Rob Failes:

Yeah.

Eric:

It's just that they're not be all end all, you've gotta do this. Or you're, or you're

Rob Failes:

They're not moving the needle much.

Eric:

Yeah. So I wrote this big list. I could just read'em. It'd be

Rob Failes:

Yeah.

Eric:

But we're gonna go, we're gonna go through some

Rob Failes:

Yeah, like this past week? Yeah, this past week we went like back and forth. We had text, text chain going where it was like you would send something, then I would send something and we were going back and forth for a while there.

Eric:

Yeah, with a

Rob Failes:

So it should be fun.

Eric:

not have to do to play a better call.

Rob Failes:

Yeah.

Eric:

so I think that one of the most interesting ones that you said, which I could not agree with you more, is the one I'm gonna start off today. And these are not in any order, it's just a haphazard list of things and there's many more. But one of the things you do not to do to be better at golf is to beat thousands upon thousands of range balls. You just really, you just really don't have to do it. I know this because I went through a 10 year period where I practiced way less than I did for the previous 10 year period, and I improved a lot more during that time. So, Robbie, this is one from your list. So tell a listener why you think you do not have to pound tens of thousands of golf balls to improve at golf.

Rob Failes:

Yeah, and I think it starts with the belief that if you have a certain level of competency in that, like very sort of like sterile, kind of controlled environment of the range. It means that you are gonna do it when you go play. And golfers have this belief of, you know, and it might be like they get to a thousand and we're just putting a number there, but for you it might be, let's say 200, right? That's actually like, sadly enough. Like that's not an unreasonable like, number For some people is like, okay, well is it because you have the belief like, oh, you need to hit like, I don't know, like 10 in a row within a certain dispersion to, to be able to, to leave or something like, something like that. There's just a lot of things that people have that belief of. Is that okay? Like,, I'm gonna pick on, you know, some high school coaches that, or college coaches of, of golf teams and they say, oh, you gotta make a hundred in a row, three footers. Now we can debate like maybe they're learning some other skills from like a perseverance or grit standpoint that that gives them some, some benefit in the long term and, and. We'll, we'll just put that argument aside, but really that's a very, very, very outdated, and it's not an accurate assertion that if you do it in one context, you're gonna be able to do it in another. Um, really the, the point of training and kind of the point of the range is we see it is to develop reference points, is to develop, feel, is to basically calibrate your sensation of where the bottom of the swing is in space, where the face is relative to the path, the amount of momentum it has, an impact, things like that. Maybe to have some reference points and check what you're doing swing wise with between you and your coach, whether it be your grip, your posture, anything geometry wise that you feel like gives you better odds of line the skills up. Great. Or it might just be kind of running through, Hey, this is, these are the few things that I need to do when I go play from a, from a behavior standpoint that are gonna gimme the best odds, such as how I'm walking into the golf shot, how I'm aligning myself to a target, things like that. We also don't mind using the range for just tracking what your current dispersion is, right? So we use fingers to try to figure out, hey, what, what is the golf ball doing with a certain sample size? May say, 15, 20 golf balls. I think re like any of those options that I just listed, you can do in the context of probably 50 ball, 50 golf balls, 60 golf balls, if not less. If you're getting up at, you know, a hundred, 200 in that range, then I guarantee that you are searching for confidence, which does not come from results, in your practice. I can tell you that confidence is, if, if you think of it as like an outcome driven thing. It's gonna be, you're gonna be chasing your tail. It's more about the behaviors, it's more about the things that you can actually control. That's what we kind of want you to develop confidence in. Not, oh, did this one golf shot end up on the green? Or did this one golf shot end up, you know, within a certain dispersion or whatnot. So I think that's what people are doing. They're trying to find a certain number of outcomes that are gonna tell them that it's gonna be like, quote unquote okay. Right. When they go out and play the next day. And it doesn't typically bear fruit. So, that, that's what, that's what I would say is, is kind of the, some of the main points, with that myth.

Eric:

Well, I think it's just, it's this linear like effort So like I, I, I'm gonna put more effort in,

Rob Failes:

Yes. Yes.

Eric:

and in a lot of

Rob Failes:

Correct. Yeah. Agreed.

Eric:

If I wanna. I wanna be better at reading, I'm just gonna read more. I'm gonna read more and read more.

Rob Failes:

I.

Eric:

smarter. That's great. That's effort, right? And that's paying off with the time. If you're not very focused in your practice, you're just probably gonna practice yourself into maybe staying exactly the same as you've always been. Or maybe even worse, maybe a little better. It's just not, it's not this linear X time equals X performance. I wish it was, if it was, we'd all just put more time in, hopefully, and become, you know, great players. So,

Rob Failes:

Right.

Eric:

practice a lot. Some don't. I watch it. I run a tour event range, right? I've run it for nine years. I've seen Hall of Famers practice right in front of me. Some hit a lot of balls. VJ Sing. Darren Clark, some don't. I would say Steve Alker is as good as anybody on that tour right now. Bernhard Langer, they don't hit tons of balls, so it's not like they're, so I think there's not this correlation between how much time I'm putting in and playing better golf. And then the other thing tends to be is that golfers are always just trying to, when they practice, this leads me to my next point, to practice their quote unquote swing. They're like, I'm changing my swing or

Rob Failes:

Yeah.

Eric:

my swing. So bullet point number two is you don't have to find certain positions in your swing, okay? I don't care

Rob Failes:

Mm-hmm.

Eric:

favorite golfers do, that's another bullet points. I'm gonna combining'em together. Your swing doesn't have to look like Roy McElroy's. His doesn't have to look like Scotty Scheffler. Mine doesn't have to look like Rob Fields. None of that matters. And. So that's another bullet point. Who cares what they do? Okay? There is no perfect positions. Now, I will tell you, I see this every single day on the social media feeds. This person has a perfect backswing. Oh, this is a perfect backswing. Here's three tips to a perfect takeaway. of that exists. If it did, you would see them all do the same thing, and they don't. They're great

Rob Failes:

Exactly.

Eric:

So

Rob Failes:

Yes.

Eric:

you're just, you're working off a false narrative. So when you believe that there are certain positions or certain things that you have to do, you're really gonna struggle because you're gonna search for these things in your swing, right? So I, I kinda, I've never once, and I tell people this is true, my students will tell you this, I've taught 20,000 plus golf lessons, and I've never once, and I do use video for feedback purposes, but I've never once said that here's exactly where you need to go. And I definitely have never, ever. C put somebody's swing up beside a tour player and said, Hey, look at this position. Look at this

Rob Failes:

Yeah,

Eric:

It has never once happened. again, we're all different. there are no perfect there's only who we are and how it affects what we're trying to do and how we're trying to learn, right? And

Rob Failes:

exactly.

Eric:

I think that when you're searching for perfect swing stuff, this is what probably drives me the most crazy about social media, golf instruction is the perfect swing, the perfect setup, the perfect aim. So there's certain things that you just gotta, you gotta take, but from your mind and just wipe it out. Okay? See how easy that was. Let it go. See, we do that on the show a lot. We're like, let it go. See how

Rob Failes:

Yep.

Eric:

Let it go. You're not

Rob Failes:

Mm-hmm.

Eric:

What do you think

Rob Failes:

Yeah. It's just searching for a guarantee, right.

Eric:

If I do this, it's the if then proposition. If I can find this magical piece to my takeaway, then I will have this great, perfect swing, and then I'm gonna go hit a thousand balls and groove it and perfect it and repeat it until perpetuity, and it just doesn't work like that. Right? That's why we

Rob Failes:

Mm.

Eric:

variability skill practice, right? This is the things that really make you a better player. And so you can see we've already honed in a lot on swing stuff, right? This is like swing, swing, swing, swing golf, swing golf, swing. What's it look like? What, where's my position? What I need to repeat it, This is, these are the biggest, probably fallacies in all of golf. And I will tell you, I feel like sometimes we're shouting into the void with this, but uh, there's some pretty wild stuff out there. And I'm like, this is, this can't be, this can't be a reality. Um, do you think about the perfect swing positions? Robbie, have you found

Rob Failes:

Yeah. Like I said earlier, I, I think it's, oh, no, no. I mean, it's, it's stuff that we've talked about ad nauseum on this podcast, but it's like the idea of like. Swing does not equal shot. Meaning like if you think of, oh, what's my perfect shot? Alright, let's just call it, you know, the ball ended up exactly where you aimed it, right? Well, that's because the skills all lined up for what you were trying to do. It wasn't necessarily because of a certain position at the top of your backswing halfway down, you know, anything like that. I, I've had a, a lesson with a client I think two or three days ago where we were actually disassociating the two. So there was something really, really clear that we were working on in like the early part of his backswing, just to give him better odds of kind of managing the face to path stuff. And so what I was having him do is like, all right, I want you to make the, the backswing that we're going for and leave the face wide open intentionally. Now I want you to make the backswing that you were doing earlier that was really biasing your club face way open. And then I want you to use your skill to close it too much, right? Just to teach him that, hey, like, yes, this backswing is gonna give you potentially better odds. We need to play it out and just test it and see how it's doing for over a long enough period of time to see if it's true or not. But it's not a guarantee. Meaning like if, if, if you did this clubface stuff that we're doing in the backswing, it doesn't necessarily guarantee anything at, you know, the, the four 10 thousandths of a second or, or three or however is it, is it one 10?

Eric:

It is

Rob Failes:

forget how long impact is

Eric:

small.

Rob Failes:

it? But it's a, it's a, it's a very, very small period of time, right? And the, and the ball's getting all its information from the club, like however much the, the, the, the in plane rotational club, the A plane rotational, the club, the about the shaft. It's getting the path, it's getting where it's hitting on the face. All of that information in that. Really, really small period of time. So you can't tell me that, that a certain like macro position in the backswing is gonna make the difference, guaranteed. When we talk about like those, those very, very minute skills, that's just what I see over and over.

Eric:

Yeah, no, totally agree. And, it's hard. It's hard when a student walks in and has a belief system that they have to do something right. That's what this, that's what this is really all about. I want you to ask yourself, listener like, are there things I feel like I have to do?'cause someone told me once and now I'm Trying to do it and I struggle with it, right? So sometimes like the

Rob Failes:

Yep.

Eric:

lessons, and they're a little bit hard. But I will say, because my relationships tend to be, long term in coaching, right?

Rob Failes:

Mm-hmm.

Eric:

when you have a, when you have the respect of the people that come to see you, They trust what you're gonna tell them, you can have that authority, to set them free from some of that, where they're like, really but my dad told me that when I was 12 he was a good golfer but my husband tells me this, but. My friends who are better golfers than me tell me that. But I took a lesson, this is a really hard one.

Rob Failes:

Mm-hmm.

Eric:

lessons from this person who told me these things that

Rob Failes:

Yeah.

Eric:

do. those are tricky moments as a coach, right? Because then you gotta go, well let's work through that. Let's just like, it's

Rob Failes:

Yeah.

Eric:

it's not me gonna be like, oh well that's so stupid. Like it doesn't work like that, right? We just say,

Rob Failes:

Mm-hmm.

Eric:

let's talk about maybe if that's actually true or not, right? And we'll go through it. One, one that I hear all the time from people, which is really interesting, and I'm not, this is definitely me not picking on anybody, is, if they make bad contact, it's'cause they didn't watch the club hit the ball. Did you ever get this one? Like I took my eye off it and I didn't

Rob Failes:

Oh yeah,

Eric:

ball.

Rob Failes:

Oh, yeah. Stood up or, yeah, yeah.

Eric:

one go most of the

Rob Failes:

Yeah.

Eric:

I don't know how to communicate this to them, but that doesn't matter at all. You know,

Rob Failes:

I think it's incredibly important to communicate that to him.

Eric:

I, I, I

Rob Failes:

Yeah.

Eric:

let it go

Rob Failes:

I think you've got to,

Eric:

Yeah. Have you,

Rob Failes:

oh, I will. No, I never, I I never let that go. There's like, I will, because again, it's, it like I am, I will take, I will take every single opportunity I possibly can to get them to disassociate, swing from shot,

Eric:

No, I, no,

Rob Failes:

And then understand the skill in between. And I'll go in there and I'll demonstrate, I'll say, okay, I'm going to have my eyes. Off the ball. I'm gonna pick my head up, I'm going to stand up, I'm gonna do all this stuff, and I'm gonna line the skill up, and then I'm gonna do, I'll demonstrate everything they said they think they should do. I'm gonna keep my head down, I'm gonna keep my eyes down until I hit impact. And then I'll like top it or I'll like, he'll shank it or like, and I'll just demonstrate to that like, Hey, like the thing that you think is gonna guarantee impact does not guarantee impact. And so I think golfers just can't hear that enough because A, it'll free them from that idea that we were talking about earlier. Like, Hey, I've got to hone this swing and do it enough times in practice so that I know, quote unquote, that it's going to be there for me on the golf course. I, I mean, I guarantee that's why people practice as much as they do is for that reason.

Eric:

Yeah, they're trying to, they're trying to guarantee so, which is, there's just no guarantees. Right?

Rob Failes:

Mm-hmm.

Eric:

I had one the other day. That was really a fun lesson.

Rob Failes:

Did I say? I guarantee that's why people practice.

Eric:

I'll

Rob Failes:

I, I definitely used the word guarantee there.

Eric:

I just said, I just, I

Rob Failes:

I guarantee there's no guarantees.

Eric:

yeah, the only guarantee is no guarantees. Write that down. People write

Rob Failes:

Yes. Ah, I love that. That's the show title. Ooh,

Eric:

We're gonna get that on a shirt. intervention shirt.

Rob Failes:

it.

Eric:

The only guarantee is there's no guarantees. but the belief systems run deep, right? That's why we

Rob Failes:

I love it.

Eric:

why we have this episode. We're gonna go through some, a vast array of topics, but so we're gonna be jumping all over the place, but adolescent the other day where, really good player, I would say competitive, competitive um, on the amateur side at the state level, really struggling with their short game and, just making really bad contact on wedges, like just not hitting them well. And, the way we had to solve it in 30 minutes, was I had to unwind this really good player's belief system about how to make contact with a we shot, right?

Rob Failes:

Hmm

Eric:

it took a little while. highly coachable person, but also someone that's like really into golf, right? Who has

Rob Failes:

mm-hmm

Eric:

about how they hit the ball. And a lot of it is true. so I had to unwind, some things when it came to how the club moves down and moves up on the arc and what we're trying to do there. And it was a little moment of like, alright, not sure Eric's right about this. I could sense it a little bit, right? Like

Rob Failes:

mm.

Eric:

I, I don't know. And great relationship with the person, but No, no, no. Very coachable. And so it was trying it, and then after, we

Rob Failes:

What was the idea? I'm just curious.

Eric:

an arch height issue, right? Like it's the, it's the,

Rob Failes:

Yeah.

Eric:

I gotta hit down on the shot and compress like

Rob Failes:

Uh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Eric:

And it was getting diggy really like big fat divots. Like

Rob Failes:

Yes.

Eric:

behind it. Well, you're not really hitting behind it. You're just like, the arc is so low, like you're just

Rob Failes:

Too low,

Eric:

of it.

Rob Failes:

right?

Eric:

Okay. so we talked about the concept of our kite unwind it. And, we're not gonna go into that. We discussed that on a show, but essentially, it was pretty technical in 30 minutes, right? And was very open, and then all of a sudden he's hitting probably five outta six, really, really crispy, picking him right off the top of the turf like he hadn't before. And I, had to wrap the lesson up and go, it was 30 minutes. So to get somebody's

Rob Failes:

Mm-hmm.

Eric:

to kind of change, a pretty technical concept, get him to learn how to practice it, and then onto my next lesson,'cause I got one coming in, right? I just have to move on, right? So I saw him a couple days later, I'm like, how's the wedge play going? He goes, my gosh, that was phenomenal. It's changed everything about what I think about that shot. He goes, I was totally wrong about what I was trying to do. He wasn't stubborn about it by any means. He was totally open. But, that was what we, this is what we battle all the, all the time. And that was not from somebody learning something on social media. I assure you. He doesn't care about any of that. This is what we deal with when people walk in the bay and they're like, oh, I know I have to do this. I know I have to do this. I saw this release pattern thing I have to do. I gotta, and I'm like, okay, is it working? Is it not working? Like, what, what's the

Rob Failes:

Yeah. Yeah.

Eric:

And so we spend most of our time gently unwinding people's belief systems these days at times, because of all the things they hear from all the random people. And so it, it's a really interesting time, I think in golf instruction. That's why we put the show out in a lot of ways. We always say that. We're trying to help you wade through all that, maybe just ignore it all

Rob Failes:

Yes.

Eric:

but whatever. It's fine. And try to hone in on the things that matter. What are the relevant things to your game and what aren't? So let's spitball a couple more, like just off the top of our head, you, things you don't have to do to be good at golf. Ready? I got one for you.

Rob Failes:

Yep.

Eric:

You do not have to get$300 up chart shafts on your irons. You do not. I promise you. I promise you, you don't, you do not to use a line on your ball to put. You could, but you don't have to.

Rob Failes:

Yep.

Eric:

you do not have to ignore bad thoughts. You don't have to ignore bad thoughts when you're on the golf course. You don't have to think positive thoughts when you're on the golf course. Do you

Rob Failes:

Yep.

Eric:

I mean, this is

Rob Failes:

Nope.

Eric:

if I've had the biggest growth in my, probably last five years as a person, whatever, golfer, teacher, friend, husband, parent, it's some things I've learned from Dr. Pryor for sure. um,

Rob Failes:

Oh my God. Yeah.

Eric:

and I think that this notion of, of you're gonna, you're gonna ignore the things that come into your mind or you're gonna create these like magical, positive situations. It's like, it set me free. See what I'm saying?

Rob Failes:

Yes.

Eric:

it set me free to just be me, right. And

Rob Failes:

Yes.

Eric:

best me in the moment, and then be very. Accepting of myself in all outcomes and that I'm good. You know what I mean? Like really

Rob Failes:

Yep.

Eric:

And and I can be really present in the stuff that I'm doing and, and that's helped me a ton. So, out of those things that I just named off there, Rob, anything jump out to you? Things you don't have to do to be a good

Rob Failes:

Mm-hmm. Yeah, I mean, obviously the, the think positive thoughts one would be my number one, right? Um, again, like it, it just goes back into our propensity to judge stuff, I think is, is way overblown. I mean, we, we get into judging everything like, Hey, this, you know, that shot was good. That shot was bad. This thought was good. That thought was bad. This, it, it was great. It was terrible. And we just don't have to always judge everything. We can just say, Hey, it is what it is. And, you know, it's, it's, it's not that it shouldn't have happened. It's not that it should happen, it's just, it, it is what it is. Let's, let's observe it nonjudgmentally and then stay present because again, it's, it's, it's always in the past, right? Or in, or in the future. Like whenever we're making those judgements, we're always comparing what I experienced to what I should have experienced in quotations, right? And so by definition, that's off time. Like as soon as you start to, to, to go down that rabbit hole, now you are in a timeframe that doesn't exist. And that is not where performance happens. That's not where happiness is, that's not where thinking clearly is. That's not where, uh, really anything, any, like you were talking about, any high performance, um, state does not happen in a timeframe that doesn't exist. It happens right here, right now. So, yeah, I mean that's, that's what I try to, to get all of, you know, the people who, who trust me with some of the mental stuff, um, that, that I've kind of, you know, delved into. I stay in my lane as much as possible and as soon as it starts to look and feel like. You know, like quote unquote therapy. I stop real quick'cause like, hey, like it's outta my, it's not my lane. My, my goal is to, my job is to get you to perform on the golf course. And so to perform on the golf course, I need you to just understand a couple things about,, acceptance. I need you to understand about being on time and on task and that's about it, right? So having low acceptance of your thoughts is a really big deal. And I think that's a, that's a very, very important thing to, to develop over time is an acceptance of anything that could possibly come through your head. If you do any sort of meditation stuff, you'll learn really quick.'cause like your mind is designed to tell you a story and it's not always true. It's very rarely true, right? It's, it's your perception of what you're thinking about, you know, and it's not always actual, right? So just appreciating that I think is a, is a huge deal.

Eric:

I remember a long time ago there was this like I. Prodigy young golfer, this is probably 20 plus years ago, and I'm pretty sure I remember his name, but I'm not gonna say it because I don't want to attach to the wrong person. But I remember this, the situation, and I remember seeing on the golf channel, this sports psychologist who was working with this kid, he was a kid, he was 18 years old, 19 years old, trying to make a run at the PGA tour. Really, really talented. the sports psychologist said, we've been, um, measuring how many thoughts he has per hour. And now we're learning to eliminate thinking like we're, we're trying to limit we have these

Rob Failes:

Nice.

Eric:

for him to turn off

Rob Failes:

fantastic.

Eric:

The guy, I mean the guy Implo,

Rob Failes:

Oh, man.

Eric:

never made it.

Rob Failes:

Yeah, it's really, it's really rough.

Eric:

a young, much younger person back then thinking really doesn't make any sense to me. Like I didn't know anything

Rob Failes:

makes no sense.

Eric:

I didn't know anything from anything. But that really made no

Rob Failes:

Yeah,

Eric:

to me. um, I, I don't know. I don't know why the guy never made it.'cause he didn't, he did not make it. but that seemed to be the wrong route. So I think that, again, yeah, we're not sports psychologists by any means. But you can't create an environment and a framework for your own development or us as coaches to help people create their framework for development without understanding what it means to have acceptance. Right. Because the whole coaching, the whole coaching framework that you and I talk about is based on these principles, right? Of

Rob Failes:

Mm-hmm.

Eric:

able to go, oh yeah, I have a shot dispersion pattern, right? Oh yeah. I'm

Rob Failes:

Yep.

Eric:

yeah, yeah. Like I, I'm a, I'm a husband and a father and I'm not attaching that to any of this stuff. There, there's gotta

Rob Failes:

Yep.

Eric:

building blocks, that help us develop the whole framework of performance. And so we

Rob Failes:

A hundred percent

Eric:

speak to them. In some way, shape, or form to our students because we have such a belief system in that.

Rob Failes:

Correct.

Eric:

and so you, you're gonna have, and I'm gonna have people, we're gonna hit a, we're gonna hit a shot in a lesson, and they're gonna go, they're gonna go, oh, that was like, it was like way left. I'm like, well,

Rob Failes:

Mm-hmm.

Eric:

way left. It was like 20 feet left from one 70.

Rob Failes:

It was actually just inside your dispersion last.

Eric:

Correct. And so maybe this is a new student. And then you have to communicate to them dispersion is and why we're accepting

Rob Failes:

Yep.

Eric:

Right. And so that's just

Rob Failes:

And.

Eric:

And so it, it's, it's super interesting to me, this whole discussion of thoughts and and negativity and all this stuff. It's

Rob Failes:

And if

Eric:

yeah.

Rob Failes:

for, for those of you all who, who haven't been, if this is the first episode that you're listening to, if, if you go back and listen to our epi, our episode with, uh, Dr. Pryor, Dr. Raymond Pryor, you'll, you'll get a lot of this. But when we talk about acceptance, it's not about like resigning yourself to less, it's not about, you know, just being complacent. It's just about observing what is happening as it actually is. Not telling yourself a story about it. It's not, it's saying, okay, the ball was here, it is now over there, and you can pretty much drop it after that. Like, if you want to, right? If you want to, if you wanna learn from it, if you wanna have a growth mindset about it, you can say, okay, well what did the club do to the ball to make it do that? You can say, all right, well ball hit the toe face was a little closed. Cool. Let's go find it. Uh, what you don't have to say is, that was a bad strike. That was a bad shot. That was, I shouldn't do that. Like, that is all, in my opinion, lower acceptance levels because you're not viewing the thing that's happening as it actually is. You're viewing it as you would want it to be. And that's very, very, very different. Right? So, um, high, you know, having a high level of acceptance of your thoughts is the same thing, right? I cannot have you trying to fix your thoughts on the golf course that is multitasking with something that is non-relevant. The ball does not care what you're thinking about. Like, from a, i I should backtrack. Um, your intention for the shot and what you're trying to do is relevant, obviously. And then the ball, you're gonna move the club based off of that and the club's gonna move the ball. So that's obviously very relevant, but the ball does not care if you were. Thinking, oh, this is gonna be a good one. This is gonna be a bad one. Right? This is, um, a hard shot. This is an easy shot. Like the ball doesn't care about any of that stuff. Okay. The only thing the ball cares about is what the club the club is telling it. And by extension, like what you're telling the club, not from a conscious standpoint, but from like a feel perception, kind of a, a prediction standpoint. Um, aside from that, I mean, you can pretty much drop everything else. You don't have to, you don't have to think positively. You don't have to fix your thoughts. You don't have to, um, push out or avoid bad quote unquote bad ones.'cause again, we're like, what's a bad thought? What's a good thought? I, I have no idea. Right? It's, it just, it's a, it's a subjective judgment, right?

Eric:

What you do need, need to do is move on. Play the next shot, uh, and be on time for that one. played,

Rob Failes:

Yep.

Eric:

in a little pro member thing a couple weeks ago with a great, couple that I teach, and the guy hit, he played great all day, pretty much had a little bit of a stretch, a couple hole stretch, hit a ball in the water on the fifth hole and on the 12th hole, he was still literally lamenting the shot and, and so his wife and I were making fun of him a little bit. We were like making, making light of it.

Rob Failes:

Yeah,

Eric:

goes, he'll be mad about that for weeks. So I saw him the other day, a couple weeks later and I'm like, you still still upset about that ball on five? He's like, oh yeah. So I said, you know, you're lamenting. He said, I'm la I'm a lament.

Rob Failes:

yeah,

Eric:

But, he was able to rate the ship and sh he shot a, I think he shot an even par on the back nine, even with lamenting.

Rob Failes:

yeah.

Eric:

um, he was able, he was able to rate the ship

Rob Failes:

There you go.

Eric:

one

Rob Failes:

it was relevant, right? When it was time to play the shot, he was able to to be on time and on task to that shot,

Eric:

I

Rob Failes:

right?

Eric:

point you, you

Rob Failes:

that's cool.

Eric:

just made, the broader point of this episode is define what's relevant, right? What is relevant to your improvement and hopefully on, we've made the case for this almost what, 50 episodes in, what are the relevant things for your improvement

Rob Failes:

Mm-hmm.

Eric:

And

Rob Failes:

Yep.

Eric:

It's so easy to get caught up in the things that are irrelevant. Right? And we were pointing some of'em out like. A$300 shaft upcharge, like, yeah, do you need that? Probably not. You know, that's irrelevant to your

Rob Failes:

Yeah.

Eric:

Like most of the

Rob Failes:

Nah.

Eric:

no matter what they're selling you on there. Swing positions relevant, not relevant. Definitely when you're about to hit the ball, not that relevant. All these things like in your practice, just time, just energy. What is the things that really matter for you to improve? And usually it's just one little thing at a time. Like, let's take this one little skill development step forward learn to play a little bit better. Um, so

Rob Failes:

And can I add a little point to that? This is gonna be back to the shaft thing. Um, hunter and I were asking, Paul Wood about shafts and we asked him like point blank, like, Hey, ping measures more than just about any other. I, I, I gotta imagine they probably do in like testing, quote unquote for like more, as much as any company out there, right? They're always doing these research projects. They're always like trying to help us push forward. Would you ever design a shaft because Ping does have their own shafts in in-house that they design with all the testing that you've done. Would you ever, ever, ever design a stock shaft that does not perform. As optimally as you can, and they said, Nope.

Eric:

No,

Rob Failes:

it's like,

Eric:

not.

Rob Failes:

why, why on earth? Everyone's different. Okay. I want to want to, like, everyone has different launch characteristics. Everyone has plays in different conditions. Everyone has different goals, like nuanced things that you need. You might be the, the level three golfer, right? Who for your goals and where you wanna get to. You need a certain type of, you know, shaft for the shot that you're trying to hit. And you know, you've done enough testing where this, I really like this shaft. And it might be an upcharge shaft, it might be an off the market shaft. Great. But what we're talking about is when you talk about big data, like of all golfers, we're talking about level one golfers shooting higher than 88, level two golfers, 88 to 77, 76, and then level three golfers 76 down. We talk about that big data aspect of it. The difference in a stock shaft that is developed in Ping versus an aftermarket shaft is gonna be like, you're, you're looking at like the, the smallest, I mean, it's, it is, it's not relevant. It doesn't move the needle.

Eric:

Doesn't move the new, you put your resources into something else. Right. That, that's all I'm saying.

Rob Failes:

Yeah.

Eric:

I guarantee you I could fit pretty much any developing golfer into Ping stock. Ping stock. To your point, they're, they're producing their own shafts, right? They, this is like the other companies after HFS too. But Ping to your point, has the Ping Ulta shaft. They have the, they have the Tor Chrome and the Tor Black. They've got these lines of shafts,

Rob Failes:

The one you fit me for, it's great shaft.

Eric:

It's a great shaft. It's a great shaft. So what I'm saying is you could become a great golfer with those shafts too. Right? So that's, that's the point.

Rob Failes:

Yep.

Eric:

if you're gonna put your resources into something, um, put it into something else, right? Don't put it into that because

Rob Failes:

Yeah,

Eric:

not gonna matter to you. Um,

Rob Failes:

lessons, right?

Eric:

to

Rob Failes:

Yeah, yeah.

Eric:

I'm sorry. You don't need shaft puring either.

Rob Failes:

No, please God. Don't do that.

Eric:

so there's all these little, there's all these little things that I was gonna point out. Things you don't need to, there's other things like speed training.

Rob Failes:

Keep going. Let's, yeah,

Eric:

have to do speed training? No. Um, could you hire a personal trainer or work on your fitness all day long to get better? Yeah. Do you have to? No. Most of us. So, there's all these things that you like, go ahead. You're cutting.

Rob Failes:

so,

Eric:

me

Rob Failes:

so just to be very sorry. Okay. So again, for our lessers who are, are new to the show, when Eric's saying speed training, he's really talking about over speed training, because speed is one of our core essential skills. It's the third skill that we need to train when it comes to touch and feel. And you do need to develop a certain level of speed with driver for the level of golfer that you are, again, like level two golfers, that's where this starts to become really pretty darn important because we need to get the ball on the green regulation. And fortunately, more par fours to get through level two. Level three. Again, very important. So we do need to be pushing speed, but the way that we do that does not have to be out of context. Speed sticks. Ripping the, the thing as hard as we can in both directions

Eric:

It

Rob Failes:

doing all this stuff. It could be, but you don't have to do it.

Eric:

Correct. So a lot of people could get a lot better at golf and never hit the ball with more swing speed. I would say a high percentage could improve without swinging faster. So again, what are you putting

Rob Failes:

Yeah.

Eric:

energy into? And I know this because I'm, I'm a limited resource guy with all the things I do in my life, right? Mainly starting with time and energy because I just don't have that much of it, right? When you're dividing yourself out as a golf pro, golf pro schedule, which is, I work 11 and a half hour days, and then you've got,, four kids at home and a wife and a small business that she runs, and then you and I have got the podcast you wanna talk about time allocation, like it's gotta be pretty good, right?

Rob Failes:

Yeah.

Eric:

I'm still trying to exercise some as much as, as much as seems reasonable at this time of year, playing golf still as much as reasonable this time of year. Being someone that has friends and goes to church and has other activity, you've gotta figure all this stuff out, right? Like you're limited

Rob Failes:

Yeah.

Eric:

your time and energy and so. When you take on any one of these quote unquote tips that you're hearing, you've gotta put it into, you've gotta just put it into a balance sheet and be like, okay, time, energy, money, relevancy.

Rob Failes:

Yes.

Eric:

out the other

Rob Failes:

Yes,

Eric:

That, that's the, that's the point. And if you wanna

Rob Failes:

correct.

Eric:

just go back to our other previous, however many episodes and listen.'cause I think that's what we try to hone in

Rob Failes:

Just listen to the podcast.

Eric:

Um, but it was, I didn't even mention some of the

Rob Failes:

Subscribe.

Eric:

I hear.'cause I don't want, people think I'm making fun of'em. But I hear these things and I'm like, oh my gosh. Somebody told me one the other day, Robbie, about this crazy swing

Rob Failes:

Oh boy.

Eric:

Um, he, he literally hunted me down between lessons. Big fan of the pod, Lee Mal, I mentioned him by name, big fan of the pod. he, he found me in between lessons. He goes, Eric, you've gotta hear this one. I said, what's that? He goes, I saw this swing tip and it said, it said on your back swing. You need to pretend you're dumping water out of your left ear.

Rob Failes:

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Eric:

Do we have any idea what that means? Rob fails.

Rob Failes:

Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Eric:

I don't know where it came from. I'm like, what if someone believed that was true? What if someone listened to that and was like, my gosh,

Rob Failes:

gosh, dude.

Eric:

been dumping

Rob Failes:

Uh,

Eric:

outta my left

Rob Failes:

oh,

Eric:

I gotta get to the range right now. I am. I am

Rob Failes:

a hunter.

Eric:

to be the king of

Rob Failes:

and I got on a, on a, on a, on a binge of, uh, of, you know, pre pretty great ones Earlier. The other later, uh, last week, we saw one again. No disrespect, but this one guy had a, um, he had a tennis ball wrapped, wrapped around. He had a, he had a string around his right knee with a tennis ball hanging from it, and he was just standing up, no club, just like making from set up right into his follow through, getting the tennis ball to like swing around his left foot. He was like, alright, you're gonna just sit here, you're gonna go and you're gonna get home and you're gonna do this for 20 minutes and, and that'll fix everything.

Eric:

You are ready. You're ready for the tour.

Rob Failes:

It was just the most ridiculous thing.

Eric:

ear, can you imagine how good you'd be at golf? Oh my gosh.

Rob Failes:

good.

Eric:

watching the ball, watching the club hit the ball with your line

Rob Failes:

Yes.

Eric:

railroad tracks like these are, it's all coming

Rob Failes:

Mm-hmm.

Eric:

The picture is coming together. So I don't know who, I don't know who

Rob Failes:

Just the, Ima

Eric:

they,

Rob Failes:

I, well,

Eric:

the

Rob Failes:

I will send this to you. It's, it's, it's really hard to picture, but it's just like the most hysterical image of this guy taking this tennis ball, hanging from a string from his right knee and just like swinging the tennis ball around his left leg, into this ball through It was like you had, you had to see it kind of thing.

Eric:

The more absurd it is, the more likely it is gonna hit the algorithm and start

Rob Failes:

Yes. Like that's what gets views, right?

Eric:

And so that's why we, sat down and thought, can we have an impact? I thought, I thought, um, podcasts was the way to do it because it's not as

Rob Failes:

Yeah.

Eric:

driven. It's a long form. And I thought we could say, Hey, let's teach a principal. Let's talk about it. Let's have people

Rob Failes:

Yep.

Eric:

if you were

Rob Failes:

A hundred

Eric:

for a lesson, a lot of times what we do is we just help people gain understanding, We're not tying them up.

Rob Failes:

percent.

Eric:

One of the other, you do not need to use swing training aids to play

Rob Failes:

Mm-hmm.

Eric:

good

Rob Failes:

Yeah, you don't have to do it. Yeah.

Eric:

have to. every now and again, there's a little something that may help a little bit, I don't know. But at the end of the day, you don't need to use swing training aids either. And so I have to feel like. Having taught golf now for a long time, decades. And I think, I kind of feel like for me, I'm just in this mode where it feels like people are just really improving at golf. And it's fun. Like, it's just, it's just really fun. I don't know what that means other than I think that the communication's gotten better. And my goal, is to help educate people when, when it comes to education, education means to draw out of people, not to put into people, And I'm always trying to draw out of them their best abilities to play this game. I think that, I don't know, after 20,000 plus lessons of 20 years of doing this,

Rob Failes:

Yes.

Eric:

happening right? A lot of times. so. Can we help people gain understanding? That's all we ever wanted to do in this podcast. I think it's working. I mean, we hear that from people all around the, all around the globe, really, who say that you all have really, really helped us. So if you got those stories, share'em with us. We don't really do anything with it. We just like to hear, we just like to hear, we love to build relationships with people. So anyway, let us know how you're doing, if you learned anything, any other, dying tidbits you wanna share for people that they just don't have to do. You do not have to

Rob Failes:

Oh man. All right.

Eric:

get better at golf,

Rob Failes:

Let's look back here.

Eric:

or you're looking at the text thread now.

Rob Failes:

Yeah.

Eric:

a lot of'em.

Rob Failes:

Oh, plumb Bob.

Eric:

Oh plumb. Bob,

Rob Failes:

Don't have to plumb Bob.

Eric:

you don't have to. Plumb

Rob Failes:

I.

Eric:

I've seen some good punters of plumb. Bob. I'm, I will say you do have to use aim point. You can't put right without me, I'm just telling you. But that's true. You, if you're not using it by now, you're just kidding

Rob Failes:

Yeah. I like guess get worse before you get better. I like that one.

Eric:

my number one reason for the show and I totally forgot about it. You do not have to get worse before you get better

Rob Failes:

No.

Eric:

And anybody that tells you that is completely lying to you. I just have to say that I'm getting fired up now. It's getting late. The thunder's world booming through my house, I think that was actually the thing that spurred me on to this episode.

Rob Failes:

Yeah.

Eric:

that I had heard that multiple times. Like I know I gotta take a couple steps back before I improve. And I'm thinking, why

Rob Failes:

Yep.

Eric:

in here and you wanna improve, we're gonna talk about the thing that takes, takes you to the next step to improve. It's not about taking three steps back. I think that's, that. I, I will tell you that's probably in the

Rob Failes:

What do you think that is?

Eric:

Um, why do you think that is? I think it

Rob Failes:

Like, what do you think that is?

Eric:

I think it comes from,'cause I'm older than you, so I've been through some more of this. I think it comes back from the golf guru days where people were like, oh, you're the, you're the swing teacher. You're the, and you have this philosophy of swing positions, right?

Rob Failes:

Mm-hmm.

Eric:

when you're trying to put everybody into a model like that, many people get worse. They never actually get better. And so then you're, then you're like.

Rob Failes:

Yes.

Eric:

Do you see what I'm saying? So now you're selling

Rob Failes:

Yeah. Yeah,

Eric:

like, oh, you may get worse because now you're doing, this is the opposite of how you and I would teach somebody. You're making

Rob Failes:

yeah.

Eric:

thing rather than you helping them

Rob Failes:

Yeah.

Eric:

better, if that makes sense.

Rob Failes:

Yep. Mm-hmm.

Eric:

the whole notion that you're gonna get worse before you get better, just isn't, it isn't true for me. And I think that some more egocentric instructors,, I'm not trying to be critical, but it's just true. they just believe so much in what their philosophy or their model of quote unquote the

Rob Failes:

Yeah,

Eric:

that they have to, they have to, they have to say that because some people are just gonna get worse, and maybe they do get worse before they get better.

Rob Failes:

So, so I think I can put that into context a little bit. So I think in, in the context of what, what you said earlier, it's like, okay, here's a swing position because this is the correct thing to do. A hundred percent, like most, like a lot of people get worse and never get better. There are times where, and we want to be able to, to separate when this happens, when, when change the swing in order to bias the skills in a more advantageous way. But the overall dispersion gets bigger because the pattern is different and you haven't skill trained enough. Uh, AKA play golf enough with that different movement. So the key there is like when you are changing your swing or when you're doing something different swing wise, is it in order to bias the skills in a desirable way. So like a good example would be like, Hey, you got X Tour Pro. He hits it 70, 80 feet high. Now he's gonna go play in a course where he needs to be able to hit it higher and stop the ball in some really firm greens. Like, okay, so we're gonna implement some, some ideas to try to get his peak height higher. Cool. So you see in training, like with what you're doing, uh, the peak height's definitely getting higher, especially on the ones where he is hit in the middle of the face. Problem is, is that because it's different and he just hasn't skill trained with it enough? The overall dispersion of where, in terms of like where it's hitting on the face or the face of the path gets a little bit bigger. That's where I might say, okay, well because of this, what we're doing, it's gonna be worth it. Because you are actually, you're not necessarily getting worse. You're, you are getting better because you're accessing a skill that you, that previously wasn't as accessible. You just need to learn how to reduce your dispersion of the other skills with that same movement. Right? So I think in a lot of times golfers will misinterpret that. They'll, they'll hit a couple shots that they don't like because again, that dispersion that just gets bigger, say, oh, well this swing is making me worse. Like, no, like, let's actually take a look at the data it's doing the thing we want it to do. It's increasing your peak height or it's getting the ball to curve. Uh. To the right or left a little less or the ball's going further. Right. But you're just seeing a little different dispersion like, that's okay. We're gonna skill train with this new pattern and we're gonna get that dispersion a little bit tighter. Two very different things. In one scenario, it's the instructor is saying, this is the correct thing to do. Here you go. And another hand, and on another end of the spectrum it's alright, we want the skills to be biased in a different way. Let's test some things to see what works. Oh, we see something that actually works, but your dispersion a little bit big. Who cares? Like we can definitely train and, and, and get that dispersion a bit tighter just through some skill training.

Eric:

Right. And I think that that 30 years ago didn't exist for the most part. Right?

Rob Failes:

Mm-hmm.

Eric:

have

Rob Failes:

Yep.

Eric:

help with skill trade. Didn't have the technology for dispersion, So what happened? People know the names, Bobby Clampett, Ian Baker Finch. There were some guys that wanted to. Improve and it was just swing changes, It was just someone's notion of how they should swing it. And some these teachers taught great players, and so it did work at times and it didn't work at times, and to your point, you gotta gain access to skill through a swing change. Although we don't really understand skill, we can't measure skill, we don't know how to train skill. Back then that much, was really hard to do that. So everything was just about the swing.

Rob Failes:

Yep.

Eric:

just the swing. It's the

Rob Failes:

Mm-hmm.

Eric:

It's the swing. Everything's a swing. So I hope that we on this show have giving you that InBetween swing and shot aren't exactly the, there's an InBetween called skill, and those are the things that

Rob Failes:

Yep.

Eric:

lost in the equation. So most of the time when people come to see me for lessons, there might be some swing tweaking, but a lot of it's skill development, or we're working on things like strategy or we're working on their routines or their processes to help them play better. And so they just play better, but the point is, you can improve at this game pretty quickly most of the time, right?

Rob Failes:

Mm-hmm.

Eric:

You, the listener out there can find a good instructor, can take you through that process too. And if you need to take lessons, you can fly to Charlottesville on your private plane and go see Rob fails at the Boris Head resort, Birdwood golf course home of UVA. I think he would love to help you out, don't you think Rob fails? Just bring your, bring your

Rob Failes:

I would.

Eric:

in there, Dr. Drive your car,

Rob Failes:

Mm-hmm.

Eric:

come see him. Anything you want to add at the end of this episode? Rob, anything else, any fun stories?

Rob Failes:

was fun, as we said it would be.

Eric:

It's always fun being with you, my man. Like we said, when we got on, it's been a

Rob Failes:

Likewise,

Eric:

It's been hard to get stuff out. We've both had a lot

Rob Failes:

I.

Eric:

I've had a lot going on with my family, which has caused me to have a routine that has been un-normal. And so our time has been very minimal. So I apologize to the listener. I know you've been waiting for a new episode of the Golf Intervention Podcast and here it is. And we are glad you that you are tuning in anyway, hope you get to play some golf this week and play really well. Anything else, Rob?

Rob Failes:

Think we got it.

Eric:

Alright, until next time, have a great week everybody.

Rob Failes:

Cheers.

People on this episode

Contributor

Eric Layton

Host
Contributor

Rob Failes

Host