April 2026 | Stuart McKechnie: CrossFit, Golf Performance, Mental Toughness & Training Consistency

In this episode, we sit down with long-time member and golf coach Stuart McKechnie.

Stuart shares his journey from growing up playing multiple sports to becoming a competitive golf coach and CrossFit athlete. We get into what changed for him this year, jumping from the 60th percentile to qualifying for quarterfinals, and why he decided to do all 4 workouts in one day.

We also talk about:
- Why fitness is becoming non-negotiable in golf
- The mental game and how it separates good from great
- How consistency beats motivation every time
- Why doing less, but with more intention, matters in training
- The biggest mistakes golfers make (and how to fix them)

If you’re into fitness, golf, or just getting better at hard things, there’s a lot in here.

Drop a comment if you want more conversations like this.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Hey everybody, welcome to the April 2026 edition of DOD Dialogues. I'm Jim Powell, the owner of CrossFit Doors of Daring. I'm joined by Courtney Barber, our head coach, and also an owner of CrossFit Doors of Daring. And today we are joined by one of our awesome members, Stuart McKechnie. Thanks for joining us, Stuart. Thanks for having me. I'm excited. Yeah, cool. Yeah, Stuart is one of our longtime members here, and he's also a golf professional and teacher. And so we thought we would be able to talk a lot about his career and his fitness level, which is pretty high. I think we're gonna find out when we talk about Stuart. Uh, and I think we can all learn a lot from Stuart today. Yeah, cool. I want to dive right in and start where we always start, which is Courtney. Tell any people what you did for your fitness today.

SPEAKER_00 0:52

Uh so I did the class workout today, which was a little bit of um murph rep. So break it up however you want. Mile run. Um, what was it? 200 double unders. Um 50 push-ups, 100 air squats. Yeah, 50 push-ups, 100 air squats. Yes, hand release push-ups. Um, so that was actually great, like kind of feel coming out of quarterfinals. Mile time wasn't what I wanted it to be, but we got some time to work on it.

SPEAKER_01 1:19

So you're the tortoise today, more than the hair.

SPEAKER_00 1:23

Yeah, I let Lance be the hair. Yeah. And Stuart be the hair. There's so bad.

SPEAKER_01 1:27

Stuart's a runner.

unknown 1:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:28

Stuart, how was your workout?

SPEAKER_03 1:30

It was good because it was running in it. So yeah, no barbell and running as always. Did you break it up or you just go run on the mile? I broke it up. Um, yeah, I'd done like my math was not mathing. I'd done too many push-ups at the start and then I had to kind of cut back on them, but I've done like five rounds overall.

SPEAKER_00 1:47

But that's that's where the whiteboard actually comes in handy a little bit. Yeah, like, oh shoot.

SPEAKER_01 1:51

Yeah, just jot everything down. Yeah, I I also did today's workout, so I was able to get here this morning, broke it up into four rounds. Um, I only did half the dubs because they're just so bad right now, but uh that's okay. You know, I'm just working on it, so it was fine. But it was that's a great workout. Nice little body weight piece. It was fun. Um you know, scaled was plenty. Yeah, it was plenty for me. 20 minutes of huffing and puffing, so it was fun.

SPEAKER_00 2:17

That's good.

SPEAKER_01 2:18

Cool. Um, Stuart, maybe tell our listeners a little bit about yourself, you know, just simple things like where you live here in town, family, what you do for a living. I kind of already said that, but you could build on that a little bit.

SPEAKER_02 2:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 2:33

Well, we we used to live in Indian land, we just moved to Waxall last summer, so that's yeah, like a year ago now. Um, my wife Aubrey, two kids, Ewan and Alistair. Um, people probably see Ewan running around at the gym a lot.

SPEAKER_00 2:48

He's also an honorary member.

SPEAKER_03 2:49

Yeah, he loves his fitness now, which is pretty cool. Um and then, like you mentioned, I'm a golf coach, um, mainly specializing in competitive junior players that play in high school and want to play in college. Um, and yeah, that's kind of the background.

SPEAKER_01 3:07

How old are your kids?

SPEAKER_03 3:08

Ewan's eight and Allie is three. He'll be four in May. Awesome.

SPEAKER_01 3:13

Those are fun ages.

SPEAKER_00 3:15

Ewan was in here the other day asking me to please help him write out a workout so he could do a workout. And he uh Monday when Stuart did all four quarterfinal workouts in a single day. Say what?

SPEAKER_01 3:26

Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, let's not Whoa, let's not skip over that.

SPEAKER_03 3:31

You did what? I done all four quarterfinal workouts Monday morning, which I would not recommend, and vacation will be planned differently next year.

SPEAKER_00 3:41

So you is over in the corner also doing four workouts that day, which was so awesome. Wow.

SPEAKER_01 3:49

Uh so what led to this? What what led to you doing all four in one day?

SPEAKER_03 3:55

I we planned a vacation a few months ago. I did not, well, one, I never even thought I would get to quarter finals, two, I didn't know when they were, and then as it got closer, I looked at the dates and I thought, oh no, I've only got one day when we get back, but I really wanted to get the the data put in so that it's in the app and stuff, so in future I can compare myself. You wanted to know what you did, yes, so you know what to do. Ah which I know you've mentioned a lot in other podcasts. So yeah, that's pretty awesome.

SPEAKER_01 4:28

So you didn't think you would make quarterfinals. Tell us a little more about that. Why did you think you were not gonna make quarterfinals?

SPEAKER_03 4:35

Um, I didn't even know they had changed it to the 75% because it did it used to be like 90%. Uh-huh. Um, but even then, the last few years have not been great fitness-wise, because I haven't been as consistent as I would have liked to be. Um, but yeah, I I've kind of since I started this year started trying getting more consistent, um, and it kind of paid off quicker than I would have thought, and then the workouts were quite favourable for me, I would say. Um, I avoided a lot of the weaknesses until quarter finals, so there was a bit of luck as well.

SPEAKER_01 5:12

That's amazing. That's amazing. So, how how was the experience of doing them all in one day?

SPEAKER_03 5:18

Um, I'll never do that again, but uh it was good, it was like a good mental challenge, just like everything else, I think I'll feel easy now compared to that. Um, but just had to have a different mindset, just thinking it was a marathon, not a sprint, and just until Courtney and David told me in the second one that I could finish it, and I started pushing harder, so that game plan went out the window.

SPEAKER_01 5:41

But the one with the bar muscle ups? Yes, yeah. Yeah, did you finish it? Yeah, barely. Wow, not many people did.

SPEAKER_00 5:48

And you know what's cool too? That one, um, you know, just uh a little bit of um admitting on our part was super hard to judge. And Coach David and I like ended up co-judging him because one of us was counting total reps, one of us was counting each movement reps, right? Um, but it took us a little second to figure that out. And Stuart was just a rock the whole time. And I told Coach David, I'm like, that's the golfer in him because golfers have to be so mentally just like locked in and focused. Um, it's such a mental game, I think. And like he crushed that, never wavered. And even at the end, I mean, those dumbbells especially, I feel like just really start to hurt. Yeah, and uh, and you finished so strong, that was really awesome to watch.

SPEAKER_03 6:34

I think you guys talking helped. It was taking my mind off it when you guys were trying to calculate reps to focus on something else. Calculate something burning in your line.

SPEAKER_01 6:44

Yeah, you know, I happen to know another athlete who was really uh solid on workout number two, Courtney. No way who literally reminded me that I had to pay attention for the tie break time. Oh my god, in the middle of her workout, she's like, I got two reps left for the tie break. I'm like, oh yeah. Like it is really hard to count the total and keep account for each one of the different movements is really hard. You just kind of get locked in on one thing.

SPEAKER_00 7:15

And you reminded me in the middle of your workout that that took some because for me that was a big kind of part of the workout because I knew I wasn't probably gonna finish all the um bar muscle up. So I was trying to like gauge. It was important to gain that a little bit. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But cool. Um that kind of feeds into something maybe um we'll jump to that part, Stuart. Like, how do you think uh late or what do you think lately has kind of changed in your CrossFit training and stuff that took you from maybe where you were before to that now? What percentile were you this past year?

SPEAKER_03 7:50

Last year, um, or this last open I was like 82nd, 83rd in the year before I was like 69th.

SPEAKER_00 7:57

Yeah. So what do you think changed there in your training primarily?

SPEAKER_03 8:02

Just being more consistent and coming like a minimum four or five times a week and then doing some stuff at home. Yeah. Um, but yeah, just the consistency and just coming on days that I wouldn't normally have came because I didn't feel great. Um, but just keep showing up. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's a difference. Yeah. Oh new. Yeah, that's a thing.

SPEAKER_00 8:22

And to have, like you said, you know, you just want to see the data on that, to have like just showing up can make that big of a difference. Um, that's really cool. And I know you've worked on your nutrition and stuff like that too. And yeah, um, that's cool.

SPEAKER_01 8:35

That's cool. That's amazing. How do you how do you think about like days like today where you know it's gonna be a little bit of a subpar effort because you just really worked hard on Monday and you're probably really sore today with delayed onset muscle soreness, right? Doms yeah, two days later, I bet you're really sore. How do you sort of mentally approach getting into the gym and just trying to get something in? How do you set your mindset for that?

SPEAKER_03 9:03

Um, just like one piece at a time. So today I was like really sore. Um, but just tell myself if I move, I'll feel better than just sitting at home and doing nothing and then just getting through the warm-up. Warm-up felt rough, but then after I started moving, I felt good and it actually felt really good to move. Yeah. Um, whereas I bet I would not have felt great if I just sat and done nothing the whole day. So yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:26

And you feel better now?

SPEAKER_03 9:27

Yeah. Yeah. Still feel bad, but better than I would have. So yeah, I'm glad I'd done it.

SPEAKER_01 9:31

I think that's a great message for people to hear. Because I think a lot of other people would, you know, really work hard on a Monday like that and then be like, okay, for the rest of the week, I'm I'm gonna be on the couch. But uh hearing that, you know, second day of DOMs, you come in, you move, you feel better. I think that's a great message for people. Do you think there's an equivalent in in the golf world where hey, you know, you just gotta pay the man, you gotta you gotta put in the time and be consistent no matter what?

SPEAKER_03 9:58

Yeah. Um just regard like not so much obviously fitness stuff, yeah, just doing all the little things, but even just like golfers playing in tournaments, like just showing up every time and trying, even if they had a bad previous round. So could be the same as a workout. If you had a bad previous workout, just putting that one aside and then going to the next one and reset and go again, kind of thing. So yeah, I think it's similar in different ways.

SPEAKER_01 10:25

Yeah, just the discipline to show up and do your best, even if you feel like you're out of it, right? In it from a tournament perspective, and just take what you can from it. Yep. I think that's really good. That seems like it's a parallel.

SPEAKER_00 10:38

Yeah. Stuart, tell us a little bit about your athletic background before CrossFit, and then maybe like how you got into coaching and that kind of stuff.

SPEAKER_03 10:46

Um, so growing up, I I played soccer was like my main sport, but I played everything really in Scotland. Um so it was like tennis, badminton, like all different stuff, um, field hockey, different stuff in PE class. Yeah. Um, I never done any like weightlifting growing up, so it was always just running, which I think has obviously like helped the endurance background kind of thing, but severely lacking in the strength department. Um, whereas that's what I see like more in America is like in high school the kids are doing like bodybuilding, weightlifting classes, stuff like that. Um, so I missed all that stuff, unfortunately. But um yeah, it was mainly just learning new skills and things like that, which I think has helped in CrossFit for muscle ups and double undoors and and things. Um so yeah, I've done that right through as a never started playing golf till I was like in my mid-teens. So I was kind of late to it. Um but I do think all the other sports helped a ton. Um and then I think CrossFit kind of happened it was like when was it ten years ago I started? Um actually playing golf, I got a bad back injury and I couldn't do anything for like nine months, and it was just painful. And one of my friends at the golf club was a member at CrossFit, and he invited me to class, and I just went um and it was actually doing deadlifts that helped my back and I never say it louder for the people weren't any injuries after that, so um that's why I always hate it when people bash CrossFit saying, Oh, you'll get injured, it actually saved me from your injury, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:37

Yeah, and now and you're actually so strong at deadlifts.

SPEAKER_03 12:40

That's why I like it, I think, because that was kind of the thing that helped me. Um, whereas I had done like exercises and stretches, and nothing helped, but just building up like the strength and the stability in the core, I think, helped protect my back for sure.

SPEAKER_01 12:54

So and not just CrossFit, like so many people bash the deadlift for it hurt my back. Like no, it hurt your back because your back is weak.

SPEAKER_00 13:03

Your back needs some good deadlifts, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:06

No, that's awesome.

SPEAKER_00 13:07

And then I think sometimes too, you probably face that now with some of your student golfers, right? And their attitudes towards training and and stuff like that. I know one of your personal missions has been kind of to get more buy-in with just general athletic training um with some of your golfers. Tell us about that a little bit too.

SPEAKER_03 13:28

Um, yeah, I always push it to students to try and work out as much as possible because golf nowadays is like very athletic. It it's not like beer bellies and guys smoking cigarettes like it used to be years ago. Um, everybody's like athletes now, and you need to hit the ball really far. So um it's just like a non-negotiable. If they want to go and play in college, they need to work out, so they might as well start in high school so that it's easy when they get to college. Um, because yeah, it's kind of like Olympic lifts. It's a it happens in a split second, the golf swing, it's an explosive movement. People are swinging at 125 miles an hour nowadays. Um yeah, I think like Olympic lifts are now becoming really common in golf training, which is pretty cool. Really? Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:17

Not just your sort of traditional bodybuilding stuff, but more Olympics.

SPEAKER_03 14:21

What I kind of tell a lot of the kids that I teach, I'll ask them, right, what did you do? And they say, Oh, I've done some like bicep curls and and and stuff like that. I'm like do bigger compound exercises and things like that. Cause um, and the same as like them on machines a lot of the time, which I think CrossFit's really good that we don't have machines because then you haven't actually stabilized with your core yourself rather than a machine doing it for you. Um, so yeah, I think it all transfers really good to to golfers as well.

SPEAKER_02 14:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:51

You don't have to call out the gym, but uh you said you started CrossFit ten years ago. Where where were you living then?

SPEAKER_03 14:58

Uh we lived in West Texas in the oil fields, yeah. In Odessa Midland, like Friday night lights nights. Um, which was yeah, it was pretty cool. Um going to that first CrossFit uh box. Um just and I I think the first dead the first workout was like deadlift rowing in Burpees, I can still remember that. Um and then we were just kind of hooked on it and kept going and then that was it. Nice cool, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:27

And you've dabbled in coaching some CrossFit too, right?

SPEAKER_03 15:30

Yeah, I coached for a couple years. Um when we moved from West Texas, we moved to Pinehurst and Southern Pines, and I coached uh there for a couple years, which was pretty cool and fun.

SPEAKER_00 15:42

So cool. Yeah, I give Stuart every now and then I'm like, come on Stuart, come on, do it. But he's too awesome doing his golf stuff.

SPEAKER_01 15:50

So he seems like he's pretty busy. I know. He seems like he's pretty busy.

SPEAKER_00 15:53

I know, but like what's the cool what's the cool thing about like diving into the coaching side of things, right? Going from athlete to coach. Um now, like what are kind of some of your favorite things about being coach? Maybe favorite things about being athlete.

SPEAKER_03 16:08

Um athlete-wise, just the competitiveness, I think, because I played tons of sports growing up, so we still get that obviously with the leaderboard. Yeah, um, so that kind of keeps the competitiveness going. Um, as far as coaching, I just like seeing the development and like students and stuff kind of where they start and where they end up, and that was the same that I liked in CrossFit because when I was coaching, I was doing a lot of the on-ramp foundations classes as well, which was really cool to see them. Like, I remember one lady that I brought on and she had never touched a barbell before, she now owns a gym in Texas, a CrossFit box, which was like I would never have said that when I saw her in her first foundations class, which I think is like really cool. So, just things like that where you can see it can take people. Um, obviously that's an extreme, but just other people just going from no fitness to actually working out. That's a big transformation.

SPEAKER_00 17:06

You just need that first day and a good coach, and yeah, that's awesome.

SPEAKER_01 17:10

Have you had have you had big transformations like that with golf students as well? Like when they first start working with you, you're like, wow, I'm not I'm not sure I see the potential here, and then and then they just sort of blossom.

SPEAKER_03 17:22

Yeah, that's especially with kids. Um, and I tell that to parents all the time is the best, like seven, eight, nine-year-olds are rarely the best when they're 17, 18. Um, it's usually ones that you wouldn't think. Um, and it's the whole like early specialization thing, trying not to do that. Um, because then they they kind of only get good at one thing and they don't become athletes and then they get left behind later kind of thing. So yeah, I would definitely say that the kids that are really good when they're younger are not always the best later. So it kind of you can't really tell when they're young if they're gonna be so really, really good.

SPEAKER_01 17:59

If I were to rephrase that, you would encourage parents to have their kids learn and play new sports. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:06

If anybody remembers that from the crossing methodology, right?

SPEAKER_03 18:11

Yep, always learn new things because that's how you get better, obviously.

SPEAKER_01 18:14

Yeah, right on. Yeah, yeah. Well, one of the things that that you didn't mention in uh your intro of yourself is that you have a master's degree in kinesiology. Yes. So you know a little something about the human body and movement and all of that. How has the CrossFit methodology sort of resonated with you, with your background, knowing as much as you do about human movement?

SPEAKER_03 18:40

Just knowing that like the different energy pathways and systems and things that we're working on, um and here, and even on like days where you might look at it and think, Oh, that's just an easy like workout, like maybe tomorrow, for example. Some people might look at that and go, Oh, that's not that intense, whereas it has a purpose. Um, you can't just go all out every single day. Um, so just kind of knowing that stuff that there's a method beh behind everything. Um I think it's it kind of helps keep me on track, and that I know there's a bigger plan to the whole programming and stuff like that. So yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:19

Yeah, that that sort of fitness IQ that that you have because of your background, right? Understanding the programming.

SPEAKER_00 19:26

Another part that Stuart didn't say is that golf digest listed you as one of the best young teachers in America, right? Um, and I think just knowing you, talking to you, um, seeing a lot of the content that you put out into the space, that doesn't surprise me at all. Um, but what do you think kind of uh sets you in that upper ush echelon of especially golf coaches for young athletes? Um, what kind of sets you apart? What makes you really good?

SPEAKER_03 19:58

I don't really know. Girl on Stuart Brack. No, I generally don't know. I just care a lot about my students. That's it. Yeah, I would say that's it. I just yeah. It's kind of if they're invested, then I'm super invested. If they're not invested and I see potential, I'll push them to be better. Um but yeah, um I think that would be it.

SPEAKER_00 20:22

Yeah, I think one of my things that like I kind of alluded to this with him doing the four quarterfinal workouts in one day. I see with you as an athlete, just like this mental resilience and this mental toughness. And I know you post a lot about that on in your social media, like how important the mental side of golf is, right? Can you speak to like how you coach that a little bit and and maybe even how that plays out in here, but especially in golf?

SPEAKER_03 20:50

Um, yeah, so it's it's really like massive with juniors because they're obviously still developing their brain and everything, so it's it's a little bit tougher, and especially nowadays because they think everything's instant because that's the world that we live in. Um, so I think the biggest thing is just learn and enjoy the process and focus on the process, and the outcomes will take care of themselves. Um whereas the biggest mistakes I see with them is that they just think outcome, outcome, outcome, and then they can't do their best in the process. Um and I think CrossFit's good for that because it's just day by day you're working on one thing at a time, you're not really maybe some people are, but you're not really thinking too too far ahead about the outcome. It's just chip away one day at a time and eventually you'll get there. Same as workouts as well.

SPEAKER_01 21:41

Do you think maybe that that's what separates the the good golfers that you work with from the great ones is their ability to just sort of stay in the moment and have the right mental game.

SPEAKER_03 21:54

Yeah, 100%. Because I've seen kids that like they swing it great and they can hit it a mile. But mentally they just don't have it. And then there's other kids that if you looked at them, you'd think he's awful and he scores better than the other one. Um, so yeah, I I would say like mental, that's the biggest differentiator between like the good and the greats for sure.

SPEAKER_01 22:16

Where does the mental stuff show up? Um, you know, I I've played a little bit of golf in my time, no nowhere near at your level, but I used to play some golf. And for your athletes, where where does the mental part show up? Does it show up all throughout the game or does it show up more in the short game, the long game? What what's your view on that?

SPEAKER_03 22:34

Everywhere from like before tournaments, during tournaments, after tournaments, like literally every single place, in between shots, before shots, immediately after shots, during shots. Um and they're obviously doing it for like five hours if they're playing 18 holes. So just trying to teach them like you need to kind of switch on and off between shots because nobody can concentrate for five hours at a time kind of thing. Um so yeah, it's all over the place. Interesting.

SPEAKER_00 23:03

That's huge. Even I mean, you know, my background's softball, and it's I think these the longer games that are slower with a lot of downtime, that's like the trap. The hardest. Right? There's way too much time to think. And it's like, what are your thoughts doing to you in that time frame? Yeah. Um, one of the things I've noticed too that you do really well, Stuart, is the way that you goal set and like even this past goal review meeting, which guys, if you haven't scheduled yours, schedule goal review with a coach because those are awesome. Stuart took advantage of it. Um, but you had set out some bigger goals, right? And then map them out, um, even like weekly cycles, all that stuff. And that is definitely your coach brain kicking in, right? But um, but how do you approach that maybe with your golfers, or how would you suggest other, you know, people like maybe members approach that too?

SPEAKER_03 23:54

Um, just like reverse engineer it. So I kind of look at like right, what are the biggest weaknesses? Um, so just for example, for me it was like overhead squat, strict handstand push-up, things like that, and then just work it backwards all the way at the beginning and just look at the foundation. So I've like started working on mobility for overhead squat because that's the foundation, and then um started going to PT to get exercises for that, and then just gonna build it month by month, and then we'll retest it next year in the open if it comes up.

SPEAKER_00 24:28

Um quarterfinals is like bam, opportunity to test it.

SPEAKER_03 24:32

Um, and it's good that we're doing like the the other total this week as well, so I'll get to see that and then we can retest it in future. Um, but yeah, just setting the big goal and then working it backwards and then like making it really small process goals and just chipping away at it.

SPEAKER_00 24:48

Yeah, and like you can do that with a coach or you can do that on your own. There's a lot of tools to help you with that. And then how do you do you do anything like that with your golfers that you coach?

SPEAKER_03 24:57

Yeah, so based on their age, um, I'll kind of dictate a lot of it, but just kind of seeing where they are right now, where the their long-term goal, and then just work it backwards. So, like I would go like look at their scoring average and then just say, right, let's get down to this by next year. Yeah. Um, and then along the way, like tracking their statistics to see how they're doing with different parts of their game and see where the weaknesses are, and then attacking like the biggest weaknesses, and then just gradually chip away and then reset the goals once they reach them. Yeah. Um, and just keep doing that over and over and over and see where they get.

SPEAKER_00 25:35

And that helps to stay process oriented too, right? Because a lot of things maybe can affect your scoring, but like swing velocity or whatever, that's yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:44

When when do you find the best time for that goal setting exercise? Is it preseason, post-season? Is it both?

SPEAKER_03 25:52

I do it with um post-season. Um and that's kind of one of the biggest things that I've learned over the years is that a lot of golfers they think, and it's probably it's it is the same for CrossFit, they think that they can just be their best the whole year, which is not possible. So just going into like right post-season, we're gonna evaluate and then make a goal for the next year, then go into pre-season, in season, um, and just work through the cycle and then reevaluate and just go through that cycle each time.

SPEAKER_01 26:24

Yeah, so this would be a great time for CrossFitters to be evaluating their performance in the open andor quarterfinals, yeah, determining what went well, what didn't, and setting some goals for next year. Yeah, I think so. Because this is sort of most of us, it's our postseason. Yeah, right. Yeah, a few that are moving on, but not many.

SPEAKER_00 26:44

Yeah, and I think even like for people who aren't super competitive in the CrossFit space, the summertime, right, when things are a bit more casual for a lot of people, is a good time to kind of step back from the like raging on every workout. Look at really like what we're trying to prioritize and and fine-tune that a little bit, right? Yeah, um, do the accessory work that really matters for you. Focus on a specific part of a workout, right? Um I know, like Stuart, a a big one for you is like you've been continually getting better at your wall walks, right? Like you're not gonna be burning down that house all year long. You have specific ideas of how you want to approach that and get better at that, right? So I think this is a great time of year to do that.

SPEAKER_01 27:30

Yeah, and focus on a specific weakness or challenge and just keep working through it in small increments. Yeah. I know uh a lot of you know famous golfers, you know, sort of it used to anyway, a couple decades ago, really pride themselves on like how many hundreds of balls they would hit a day and how much time they spent on the range. Um, you know, in CrossFit, we try to preach, you know, too much is sometimes too much, right? More is not always a good thing, right? So is that true for you when you're teaching juniors golf? Is it the same thing? You try to rate limit them a little bit, or is in golf more is better?

SPEAKER_03 28:10

I think when they're starting out, they need more volume just to kind of get the reps, but after that, definitely not. Um, and that's like what you'll see. If you got any driving range, you'll see people just getting the largest bucket and just rifling through golf balls non-stop. Um, and there's not much like feedback between shots, they don't know what's going wrong, and they're just like hoping that they're they're gonna find something. Um, so I'd rather they do much less and then um higher quality, skill and everybody does it. But if you go to like a professional event and watch them, they hit one ball and then they'll maybe not hit another ball for like 30 seconds, they'll walk around, they'll do a couple rehearsals, they'll work on stuff, think about something, and then hit one. But if you go to a driving range and see amateurs, they'll maybe hit like five balls in 30 seconds, and they're just they're they're working out at that point, they're not really practicing golf. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 29:08

See, this is like it's so similar to softball, because it's exactly when I coach softball. And now, you know, my son's playing baseball and he just wants the same swing. And I'm like, oh no. Um, but you know, he's young, I'm sure, like a lot of your students, and so he doesn't want to listen to mom. But um, but yeah, it's so hard. I think that's what separates people who want to do something with very high quality and do something really great versus just do it a million times, right? And I think that's the pause point. And even in CrossFit, that's the thing, right? It's like I don't want to just do 50 bar muscle ups, however, I can do them, right? I want to do one pretty well, figure out where I went wrong, whatever, then do the next one, or maybe even not do the next one, maybe just step it back and do a couple drills until I can do one correctly or whatever. And um, I think a lot of people miss that. Um, especially if you're new to athletics, right? You would say like you might not have that experience or that like outlook on on physically doing something, like and how to tw make those changes and those tweaks.

SPEAKER_01 30:18

Yeah. Um, I want to go back to this point you made about you know fitness now being such a big part of golf, right? And you encourage all your golfers to focus on exercise and fitness. You know, people aren't walking around smoking cigarettes with pot bellies anymore. Got it. Um darn. But like I guess my question is among your peers, how many of them do you think are leveraging CrossFit style fitness to A, improve themselves and B help their athletes? You think it's common?

SPEAKER_03 30:53

No, not really. Um, I don't know why. I've seen there's one junior girl, I won't mention her, I don't coach her, but I've seen her and she does CrossFit competitions, and she's a very good golfer because she hits that mile, um, and she wins a lot of competitions. Um, so it's obviously helping her. Um, but there's some pros. Um, Scott Stallings changed his like life pretty much by starting CrossFit, and he's now like a massive Crossfitter. Um, and he's like said that it's completely changed his golf game and his just his lifestyle because he said he was kind of he went to the doctor and said that everything was horrible in his checks and numbers. Um so yeah, but uh even years ago, Rory McElroy commented on CrossFit like Love Your Wads, but nobody really picked up on it.

SPEAKER_00 31:45

Um, I remember that in the CrossFit space, people picked up on it.

SPEAKER_03 31:49

Nobody in golf really picked up on it for some reason, but now if you watch like um like the golf documentaries and stuff, they're always in the fitness truck um at events, and like there's a pro golfer, Adam Scott, who's been like one of the best for years and he's like older now, yeah. And he is he says that his fitness has kept him injury free and he can still hit it as far as the the younger guys, um, but he does workouts like three hours before he plays a tournament. So if he has a 7 a.m.

SPEAKER_01 32:20

T time, he says he gets up at four and does a workout so that he's lots of fitness, but maybe not that much CrossFit in the golf space. It's interesting.

SPEAKER_00 32:31

Do you think there's still some of that stigma like that you were talking about like you could you could hurt yourself, it's maybe too physical, too heavy, like yeah.

SPEAKER_03 32:40

I think so. Yeah, just people don't understand it fully, and they kind of look at the CrossFit games and the elites and think that's CrossFit and it's not, that's just one percent of CrossFit. Yeah, um so yeah, it's just I just think it's people not understanding what it fully is.

SPEAKER_00 32:56

It's like me watching pro golf. I thought that was all golfers. Then I went to go watch Lance play golf. It was it didn't look like that. I think why are you calling out Lance, man? That's not right. I think some of the guys are trying to get Stuart to go play golf with them. Be a fun uh community outing, ladies too. You guys go play. I won't be there.

SPEAKER_01 33:21

Do you work with adults, Stuart? Or is it all about junior?

SPEAKER_03 33:26

I feel so bad when I tell them I'm sorry, I don't know. I can't help it. I've got another coach on staff if if they want help, but um yeah, I'm just too busy with juniors. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 33:36

Yeah. What what would you say to um an athlete that you're working with who you know need some more fitness in their life, but either they or their parents are a little bit wary of CrossFit and they're like, ah, that's not for us. What what might you do to convince them to walk into say CrossFit Doors of Daring?

SPEAKER_03 33:59

Um, just that the whole thing we're fighting against early specialization, so becoming an athlete first and a golfer second is probably the most important thing. Um because if you look at like all the best players in the world, they played other sports growing up and they done other things. Um so like Gary Woodland that won last week. Um he he played basketball and golf in college, I think, and he played baseball and all other stuff growing up. So he was an athlete before he was a golfer. Um and he made it, and parents obviously want their kids to be as the best as they can be. So I think they're just leaving something on the table if they if they don't go down the the athlete that's kind of a direction. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 34:49

Cool.

SPEAKER_00 34:49

Anything else, Corey? Yeah, I think well that's such a good point. I think um, especially something with me being a parent too. One of the reasons why I love my kids being in here, um, you know, Glory does gymnastics, Kai plays multiple sports. It's like I want them to be able to kind of pursue wherever like life leads them, you know. And if they're only doing one thing, um then it's gonna be much harder for them later to pivot or try something new or whatever. And I want them to be comfortable when they're done playing sports, which for 99.9% of us, there will be a time when that, right? Um, I want them to feel comfortable walking into a gym and staying healthy and fit for the rest of their lives, right? Um, which is, you know, I think for all of your students, even if they do go on to play golf for a very long, long, long time, we still want them to have that confidence of being a healthy, strong individual when they're done. Um and uh and I think like sometimes we forget about that in youth sports, part of like the hyper specialization, maybe um, has become like I just know my 10-year-old is gonna play softball or golf or whatever for the rest of her life. And it's hard because you kind of have to tell the parent, like, well, maybe however if she does or if she doesn't, this path will be awesome for her, right? Um and sometimes that's hard, but I think maybe that's one of the most valuable things, and just the relationships that are built up in that and the confidence. Um do you think it helps like athletes that you coach when they play other sports or do other things? Um, does it help them mentally as golf as golfers?

SPEAKER_03 36:44

Yeah, big time because obviously, yeah, just working out in general is good stress relief. So if they're feeling like overburdened by stuff, then it's a good way to kind of get away from that. But just even going through the workouts that are difficult and overcoming it, then they know they can do hard things and that just transfers to life in general.

SPEAKER_01 37:05

So and isn't there value in being a beginner again at something?

SPEAKER_03 37:09

Yeah, because you forget how hard it is to start again.

SPEAKER_01 37:12

Maybe they're so good at golf that it'd be good for them to just pick up something new just so they can be a beginner again and sort of use that other part of their brain it takes to learn a new skill. That's one of the things that I love about CrossFit is like there's always something new to learn. Yeah. Um, even if we don't get new movements in the CrossFit open, there's still things to learn.

SPEAKER_00 37:32

Do you want crossovers back?

SPEAKER_01 37:35

I don't know that stepping up on a box with a wall ball could be considered a new movement.

SPEAKER_00 37:40

Um okay, I have one last question if you don't have anything. And that's really for our members. I know a lot of our members actually play golf, and I know you you're not available for coaching them, but let's give them some nuggets, right? So if you're talking to one of the guys at the gym, you're like, hey Stuart, three tips. Yeah, top three tips, right? What are top three tips to make my golf game better? So when I go with my coworkers, I'm playing better golf.

SPEAKER_03 38:06

What would you say? Well, I go like myth busters or so. The biggest one that I see that people tell each other is keep your head down, and it is dreadful. It is the worst advice you've ever you'll ever get. Because if you keep your head down, you can't rotate your chest properly, and then when you can't rotate your chest, your arms start to fold up, and you look like an old man swinging a golf club. So let your nice let your head release and rotate, don't you keep your head down.

SPEAKER_00 38:34

Neutral spine in crowds of it.

SPEAKER_03 38:36

Um yeah, so and that well that takes my next myth number.

SPEAKER_00 38:40

You don't have to keep your head locked on the thank you.

SPEAKER_03 38:43

The spine, yeah, your back should not be flat, believe it or not.

SPEAKER_00 38:48

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 38:49

Because your back is made up of three components your lumbar, thoracic, and cervical spine. Your lumbar spine should be flat, but your thoracic can flex and extend, and your cervical can flex and extend. So when you try and keep your whole back flat, you actually arch your lumbar spine, and then you add rotation and you get back pain. So if you get back pain when you play golf, that's probably why. Because you're trying, you've been told at some point keep your back flat. Yeah, for a while.

SPEAKER_00 39:16

And that's not how our backs are.

SPEAKER_03 39:17

I can let your shoulders round slightly and it'll take pressure off your lower back.

SPEAKER_01 39:21

Right. I love it.

SPEAKER_03 39:24

Yes, that's good. Um, that's the third one. Yeah. Just practice your short game way more because if you go to the driving range and you look at the short game area on Putton Green, nobody's there. Yeah. And that's like half the game or more, and everybody's in the driving range, and you only hit like everybody's whacking drivers, you only hit that maybe ten times around. So yeah, just spend time in the wrong place.

SPEAKER_00 39:49

Yeah. Hey, fun fact my dad's a pretty good golfer, he's like on the mini tour. He's a cool athlete. But yeah, I won a putting contest when I was like, I don't know, like seven years old or something.

SPEAKER_02 39:59

There you go.

SPEAKER_00 40:00

Fun fact about Courtney, never played golf ever since that day. That was my one highlight.

SPEAKER_01 40:04

You should have kept going.

SPEAKER_00 40:05

Claim to fame right there. I know, should have done it.

SPEAKER_01 40:08

I'll tell my fun golf fact. My son, we played a father-son tournament at a golf club that I belonged to for a little while. He couldn't have been more than seven or eight, something like that. We played a father-son tournament, and he hit a 60-foot putt off the fringe for us to win the tournament.

SPEAKER_00 40:27

Dude, that's big 60 feet off the fringe.

SPEAKER_01 40:31

It was ridiculous. It was ridiculous.

SPEAKER_00 40:33

That's what keeps you coming back to play golf as I can ever to golf. You know, you're like ready to quit golf, and then something like that happens.

SPEAKER_01 40:40

Seven or eight. It was ridiculous.

SPEAKER_00 40:41

It was awesome. Yeah. Okay, so maybe DOD uh social community outing to all play golf together.

SPEAKER_01 40:47

That'd be cool.

SPEAKER_00 40:48

Stuart won't coach you, but he'll play with you for fun. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 40:51

Cool. Stuart, thanks so much for coming talk to us. Teach us a little bit about golf, teach us a little bit about your background. It was awesome having you on. Thanks a lot for joining us. Thanks for having me. Enjoyed it. Awesome. Thank you all for listening. Uh, smash that like or follow button on whatever platform you listen to us on. We'll be on YouTube, we'll be on Spotify. Um, please do leave comments if you have ideas about other things you want to see on the show. This show is for you. Thank you very much.

SPEAKER_00 41:21

Bye, guys.