Transcripts - Episode 4: Mastering the Mental Game and Smarter Shot Strategy

The Birdie Board podcast is brought to you by the Birdie Board app — the easiest way to track matches, scores, and handicaps with friends. Now, here's your host, Corey, with another episode of the Birdie Board podcast.

Welcome back to the Birdie Board podcast. This is episode four of our podcast. Today, I have a new mic, so hopefully that helps me sound a little clearer and not in a tunnel or on a some 50s radio show.

Just thanks to everyone who has listened to this show. We've gotten 25 downloads so far, which is small in comparison to podcast shows, but I think is a pretty cool accomplishment that so many people have already started listening to this podcast.

So this episode is going to be about just some high level — I kind of want to say — course strategy that I have found to be successful in my game. Now, I've definitely mentioned this in other episodes: I'm not coming to you as this slow scratch golfer. I'm probably around a bogey golfer right now, sitting around a 20-ish handicap. On a good day, I can get 80s; in a really good day, I might even be able to push low 80s. But just because I'm a higher handicap doesn't mean I don't have tips and tricks that have worked for me — strategies that have worked for me — and they might be able to work for you as well. So that's what this episode is all about.

The first part of this is just talking about the mental game of golf, which is obviously one of the hardest pieces of our sport. There are so many different ways you can go about a shot, but I think the common understanding among everyone is if you think about your swing too much, that's probably going to not help you out with your next shot. I have always found that with my best games, when I'm not thinking about my swing, that's what I'm playing the best. And it really comes down to the psychological point of view where you're just letting your body work. You're not going to fix your change on the core. You're not going to fix your swing while you're on the core. So you use the range; you use the simulators to do that. When you're out on the course, you really need to get practice your mindset — shift to other things other than your swing.

One of the things that has helped me the most is really dialing in on where I want the ball to land. So, in my mind, I'm thinking, I want it to be right side of the green; I want it to be right side of the fairway. I'm trying my best to will that thought pattern into existence. So getting that thought pattern where I'm trying to get the ball to a particular target is really going to help you the best.

I've read studies about free throw shooting in basketball, and that's one of the best things that can help basketball players as well — they’re not trying to think about the mechanics of a free throw. Rather, they're trying to think, “Okay, I want to put the ball at the back of a hoop.” And if they think about that target, it helps their body mechanics just naturally work. It really taps into that hand-eye coordination.

So that was one of the biggest things I've read about that I took to my game of golf. And some of my best rounds in, like, the low 80s — and I've had one in the 70s — they were all following that mindset of, like, I'm just feeling like wherever I think I want the ball to go, I'm going to be able to get it there.

Now, I've seen the opposite happen with my golf game, where the more I think about my mechanics — like, okay, I got to hold this lag, or I got to keep my arms straight, or something like that — those are always the rounds where I'm, like, not even a bogey golfer anymore. I'm shooting mid to high 90s; really bad days, maybe low hundreds. But it never — I've never had a bad round where, if I'm thinking about the target, that I'll shoot in, like, the hundreds. If I am in a good mindset and I'm always thinking about the target, then I'm going to have a good day. So that's one of the main things that has helped my mental game.

So let's just kind of go through a hole and talk about some other things that help at each part.

So, the T box: one of the biggest improvements to my game recently was actually not being hesitant off the T box. The T box used to be — and probably still is, but it was significantly worse than any other part of my game. And what was happening is I was so afraid to lose my ball off the T box or do a little trickling shot that I was hesitant, which was kind of causing that. And the reason I was hesitant is because I had a rule misunderstanding. The rule misunderstanding I had is that off the T box, no matter where I lose the ball, I'm either going to have to re-hit it or I'm going to have to take a two-stroke penalty and drop it back in the fairway. The difference between my rule understanding is I treated all the stakes as the same, but only off the T box. So I knew what they were once I got on the fairway, around the green or something like that, but I didn't know what they were — like, for some reason, I misunderstood what they were off the T box. So I was so afraid because I didn't want to have to re-hit. And then I knew in my mind, if I lost my ball anywhere in the fairway or anywhere down the hole, I was going to get a two-stroke penalty and pretty much ruin that hole.

So what I did was I was talking to my friend Ryan, and we were talking about the rules, and it kind of hit me that I was misunderstanding what this rule actually was. So that changed my strategy off the T box. So now I know, okay, there is a risk still that I might have to re-hit it or take a two-stroke penalty and drop in the fairway. If you didn't know, it's a USGA rule. It was implemented a few years ago to help increase pace of play.

So let's just talk about this for a second. So if you hit it — your ball — off the T box and you hit it into a white stick area, then you have two options: you need to re-T it, and your team for three; or you go up to where your ball went out, you go over the fairway, and you can drop up to two club lengths into the fairway — but it's a two-stroke penalty. It sounds terrible, but for most bogey golfers, that's probably better if you pair it with a relentless approach to your T box.

So it didn't work for me originally because I was so hesitant off the T box. So what happened was I would hit my T shot maybe 100 yards, and now it's like, okay, I'm either re-teeing it for three and risk doing that again, or I'm dropping it for a two-stroke penalty and I'm hitting four, but I'm only 100 yards up.

So now you're probably starting to see what this strategy looks like. So now, okay, I'm just going to try to crank this drive. It's going to be fun — which is awesome. I'm just going to try to crank it down there. Best case scenario, I have a great drive right down the middle of fairway. Worst case scenario, I'm down there and I'm maybe 200 yards, 250 down there, and I'm in a white stick area. Well, now you have the option, like, okay, I'm going to re-hit it, or I can go all the way down there, I can drop for a two-stroke penalty, and now I have, like, an approach shot and could go up and down for bogey. That has changed my game and opened up a lot more strategies for me throughout my — me — playing.

Now, you compare this even more with other strategies. So you're standing at a tee box, and you see white sticks up at the right-hand side, but maybe there's red sticks up the left-hand side, or maybe it's just open. You need to aim towards that left-hand side if you are not super confident with your drives, so that you're minimizing the impact of a lost ball. So if you're up the right-hand side, you know if you're going to lose that ball, you're either going to have to re-tee it or you're going to have to take a two-stroke penalty. But if you're going up that left-hand side with the red sticks, if you can find your ball in those red sticks, then it's only going to be a one-stroke penalty — a lot less detrimental — and you're still going to be up there 200, 250 yards because you're still kind of going with that mentality: I'm just going to try to get it down there as far as possible. So those tips have helped me the most off the tee box.

So let's move now into some of the approach shots. There's a really interesting statistic that I learned about. I think it was from, like, golf cataigest or something like that. Someone did a study about how your distribution of shots changes as you get closer to the hole. And what the study found was: the farther away from the hole, the more — the wider — your distribution of shots are. The closer you get to the hole, the skinnier it is. So it kind of changes from an odd long width to an odd long height in misses. And you need to understand that about your own golf game and just, in general, in golf statistics in general, because it helps you plan your shots better.

So if you're off the tee box, you might have what this study is saying is your error rate is going to be the width. So it's not going to be as long as — like, you're probably going to be consistent probably between, let's say, 220 to 250. That's not a huge range when you're thinking of a 250 shot. But your width might be 50 yards or 75 yards of error, depending on how good of a golfer you are. So understanding that, like, okay, off the tee box, I need to be more worried about the left to right of my shot rather than how long my shot goes. I think a lot of people get hung up on, like, oh, we have a hazard at 260, and your drives are usually 245 to 50 — it's like, okay, chances are you're not going to get to that. And you should be more worried about that tree on the right and the openness on the left, and you better aim to the left.

But it changes as you get closer to the green. So once you get to your approach shots, it's more neutral. Once you get even closer to — maybe point out — some of your wedges, like that 50-yard shot or 100-yard shot, your error rate is going to get longer. So when you're looking at, like, your green, you should be a little bit more concerned about, okay, what's the error if I go too long? What's the error if I go too short? Left and right might be a factor if it's a tight green, but what the statistics are saying is it's not going to be as much of a factor as what the length is.

So when you're approaching a green, your goal is, one, to try to get on the green so you can have a chance at putting. But two, if you're not going to get on the green, at least give yourself a nice chip. And that's where you want to strategize. So if you're looking at a green and you're saying, okay, most greens have — not most — so a lot of greens will have a fair way leading up to them and then rough on the backhand side. So if the pin is right in the middle and you're saying, okay, Corey, I buy into this length statistics that you're sharing, what that probably means is you want to play a little shorter of the pin, because then if you're too short, then you have a nice chip from the fairway. But if you're playing it long, then you're going to be in the rough, and depending on the course, that could — I mean, some courses around here, that might help you — but most likely that's not going to help you. And the case is get even drastic or when you throw bunkers into the mix. So when you're approaching a green, think: how do I minimize the length error rather than the width error, because statistically you're not going to have as much variability in that width when you're approaching the green.

So another thing. So now let's — okay — that was kind of the approach shot. So let's now get to the green. And I'm going to keep it simple. The best tip that I've gotten with my putting — and I think putting is one of the better parts of my game — is to have a routine. So my routine starts when I'm about to putt, and it's different for everyone, but I'll just talk about my routine. So I've already read my putt; I kind of have an idea of where I want the putt to go. I line up my ball markers to that line. All of that is just pre-shot routine tracking — I'm just kind of waiting for players, pace of play, things like that.

When it's my turn to putt, that's when my routine starts. I stand behind the ball; I look at my line, and I try to imagine the ball on that line. I go up to my ball — I'm looking at the hole — and I take three practice wings. It's always three. Nowadays, if I take two or four or any different number, I will miss the putt. I'm just so — I feel so unnatural when I don't go through this routine. I step up to the ball; I look at the hole one more time, and then I take my putt.

I think what this does for me is kind of goes back to what I talked about in the beginning — that mental aspect. So it's helping me think about the target rather than my putting mechanics. I'm not trying to think, oh, I need to take my putt back eight inches and go through at this pace. I'm just thinking, okay, the last thing I see right before I take my putt is the hole. I look at the hole, I look down, and putt — and I try to do that pretty quickly so that I don't even have to give myself a chance to start thinking about my mechanics.

I guess if there's one tip I have practiced mechanically would be to swing through the ball. And what I mean by that isn't, like, a strength thing or pushing it or anything like that. What it does is I move my — the mental picture that I have is I move my putt through the ball on the line, toward the line I want to go. A lot of times on the greens I play out, they're not too treacherous. So it's usually just like, okay, I'm trying to get the face of the club to the hole. And I think what that does for me is it just helps me stay consistent with the face through the putt, and it just keeps my ball on line. So those are the main things that I've had that have helped my putting.

Let's see. So we've gone through off the tee box. We've gone through the approach shots and wedges. We've gone through a little bit of the green. The last thing I kind of have on my list here is just playing your handicap throughout the round. So some of the rounds that I've had is — and you can use birdie board for this, but you can also do some calculations on your own — but you can calculate what your par is for every hole.

So, if we're thinking — let's not consider slope recourse rating, which I talked about in the last podcast if you want to learn about it — but let's keep things simple and say slope and course isn't a factor, and your handicap is an 18. So what that would be in the most simplest case is you would have one additional stroke on every single hole. So if the opening hole was a par four, you treat that as a par five. If you treat — if you mentally go into it as “this is my par five,” you will play that whole drastically different. You might see, okay, I have three shots to get onto the green, and then I need a two-putt. And this hole is maybe a dog leg to the left, so instead of cutting the corner like the par four kind of encourages you to, you're like, okay, I'm going to just get up to the corner. I'm going to take a seven iron to it. And then maybe I have 180 into the green, but I don't need to get to the green with that chop, because this is a par five. I have two more shots to play with. Okay, I know I love my 80-yard shot in, so I'm going to play a 100-yard shot so I get an 80-shot yard in. And then I'm very consistent with that club, so most likely I'll be on the green, but if not, I'll have a nice — I shouldn't be too far off, where I'll have a nice chance for a bogey, but it would be your handicap’s par.

When you play like that, you can really start to get better at your game. It makes it more fun, in my opinion. Now, I don't do that every single game I play or anything like that. I do a lot of different matches with, like, birdie board, and we played a lot of stay before lately, things like that. If you're just trying to improve your game and practice and kind of have a low-stress round, adjusting all the holes to your handicap before you play can really help. And it also helps you really think about the strategy for each hole, because you're not just trying to think about how the heck am I going to get a par on this par four — four hundred, four fifty yards — but for you, it's not a par four; it's a par five for your handicap. So it opens up a lot more opportunities.

So those are all the tips and strategies that I've been using in my game lately. I think they've really helped me. I got into the 70s for the first time ever. This year I shot a 79 one time. I shot at 80 exactly once the last two seasons. So I've finally gotten into the 70s. And I think these tips are really a big reason why I was finally able to break that barrier. And I'm definitely shooting in the 80s more than I ever have because of these tips as well. So hopefully they'll help you.

Like I said in the beginning, I'm not coming to you as, like, a scratch golf for them to share some things that have helped me. And I hope they help you too.

So I want to close this podcast with just some app updates and some updates about birded board. So in the App Store right now is version one four zero. I added a few changes to the app. So when you log into the app, the first thing you'll see now at the top of pages — just some of our latest stay connected things. So you'll see the latest podcast link there, the latest blog post, and then some of the social media posts. I guess it's a good time — I do have Birdie Board set up now on all the social media platforms. I'm going to show tons of clips from these podcasts. If you've missed any, you can catch up on there. I'm going to share app updates. I'm going to share when new blog blog posts have been released. I'll retweet or repost things from other accounts that I think are cool for golf. So if you just want golf-related things, I'm really just trying to build, like, a — I like to call it — like a Birdie Board community. I think it'd be a great place for you all to join and just enjoy golf together.

So one four zero — it includes that get connected section at the top. Another thing is if you have match credits or if you're subscribed to Birdie Board, you can now open up the menu and see that. So you'll see how many match credits you have or if you're subscribed. Previously, you could only see that at the point of creating and creating a match and then about to start it. That's still there, but I just put it in a more obvious place as well that you guys can see it.

Version one for one is on the way. It's in review in the app stores right now. The biggest change in this upcoming version is on the score matches. If you go to a round, you'll see, like, the round hole by hole. That used to be a horizontal, and after some feedback and using it myself and stuff, that wasn't the best usability because Birdie Board's always in a vertical view. So when you're past, like, all hole eight or nine, it's really hard to start tracking what row’s who and all of that. So changing it to a vertical was really nice because now you can see all 18 holes on one screen unless you're a little bit zoomed. And even if you zoomed, I tested that you can still see most of the holes. So it makes the usability extremely better.

The difference with the old version is you used to be able to expand the rows and kind of see more details about how each hole played out. And that capability is still in there — just, instead, you tap on the row, and a little sheet will slide up from the bottom that will show you those details. So that's in the app. So I expect it probably to be released today.

And then what's coming up in the future is I'm just working to make the create match a little bit more seamless. Right now, if you add two match or two rounds to your match, and you wanted to change it to stay before, you would actually have to delete one of the rounds, change the first round to stay before it, and then add the round back and then add that as stable for two. Obviously that's even confusing even for someone who has a little bit more of a technical background like me. So I'm simplifying that. I'm hoping to have that done sometime in the next week or so.

And that's about the app updates at Birdie Board community. Like I said, we're on social media now, so we'd love for you guys to follow us and just kind of keep track of everything. Whatever platform you're on — I think I'm on just about everything now — so whatever your favorite platform is, you can go ahead and just follow Birdie Board on it. If you search Birdie Board, you should be able to find it. It's the same logo and everything.

And that's it for this podcast. I appreciate everyone listening and looking forward to talking to you guys next time.

Thanks for tuning in to the Birdie Board podcast. If you enjoyed it, subscribe and share it with a friend who loves golf as much as you do. And before your next round, grab the Birdie Board app — free on the Apple App Store and Google Play Store — and let it handle the scoring while you enjoy the game.