Podcast Transcript
Josh Nichols:
I want to get to the US Mid-Am and your unique experience there, but what are you currently fixated on in your golf game? Right? Not just here’s an example of what could be fixated on, but is there anything you are specifically? I know you’re busy, so maybe you’re not super fixated right this moment, but what is it for you right now?
William Knauth:
Yeah, of course.
William Knauth:
Yeah, yeah.
William Knauth:
Well, so when I get to a golf course, I’m fixated on whatever is killing me in my golf game. Right now, I have a particular series of feels that has gotten me out of a two and a half year case of the hooks. Okay, so. All right, so you remember last time we talked and I said that
Josh Nichols:
Whoa.
William Knauth:
once I got, you know, on the first tee of the Byron Nelson and I hit that ball left, I was doing it in the practice, or yeah, in the practice round and the Pro-Am too. It was kind of like once I got sick that week before and then I came out of it and my body was weird, but I had to go directly into competition. I started hitting it left during that tournament and that was like, I started getting the lefts then. I hadn’t had them before, but I got the lefts during that tournament. And then over the course of that summer, it started to become more and more clear that I was only seeing the left side of the golf course. Like off the tee, I would be trying to make it miss right. And sometimes I would succeed. Like I would still miss fairways to the right, but I never missed greens to the right. And…
Josh Nichols:
Wow.
William Knauth:
you know, and me missing fairways to the right was only a function of me trying to like slice it three fairways over. That was me just trying to correct this ball that was naturally going super hard left. That, it turned out, was tied to what driver I was using. I put the driver that they gave me in play there, and that driver goes left.
Josh Nichols:
Yeah. Yeah.
Josh Nichols:
Mmm.
William Knauth:
The Stealth 2 trash driver, you know, it’s a couple years out from that being out now, so we can all be honest about it. Anyone who had the Stealth 2, the Stealth 2 Plus in particular, horrible driver. And I’m not blaming that, but it did definitely like go left relative to my driver, which kept getting in my head more and more and more. All last year I had the hooks, even when I learned how to fade it. And then…
Josh Nichols:
Mm.
William Knauth:
this year still had the hooks, was missing everything left. And really it was a feel that I kind of found in my, so it was a couple of feels. So one was in my transition where I kind of pushed the handle from the top and push it all the way through using my right hand. So I was getting into this feeling before that, I was pretty much exclusively pulling everything with my left hand, trying to control everything that the club and the handle was doing with my left hand. But the problem with that is like, if you think about it, the physics doesn’t work, right? Because if you can only pull on this golf club, you can only do so much with it and you can’t actually move the handle forward relative to your rotational center in your reference frame because you don’t have that kind of leverage when you only pull, right? So I was…
Josh Nichols:
Mmm.
Josh Nichols:
Hmm.
William Knauth:
So I realized this and I was like, no, I have two hands. I can use my right hand. So by actually activating my right hand in a pushing sense, not in a whipping sense, but in a pushing sense, this was getting the club back in front of me a lot faster and allowing me to then with my second feel, getting my left shoulder to release up.
Josh Nichols:
Right. Right.
Josh Nichols:
Yeah.
William Knauth:
up instead of like trying to drag the handle around down into the left, get my left shoulder to release up and that lets my hands kind of travel a little bit more uninhibited through the impact zone. And those two things together actually like I started hitting like bullet fades if I wanted to and I found this kind of in the middle of the summer but it’s feeling wise it’s a very very big departure.
Josh Nichols:
Yeah.
William Knauth:
from what I had been doing. And the first time these feelings kind of clicked in a round, in like a competitive round, was the qualifier for the US Mid-Am. So I still didn’t like totally have it. And as I got nervous down the stretch, you know, I started making bogeys and part of that was due to the fact that I was like rolling with an uncomfortable feel that I had just found. And I was just kind of playing with it.
Josh Nichols:
Wow.
Josh Nichols:
Mmm.
William Knauth:
And it worked great the first like 11 holes I was just going off because everything was going straight, which I hadn’t seen on a golf course in two and a half years. Right. So yeah, every day, every day when I go to the golf course, I’m just trying to remind myself of those things like every single swing. So the same swing thoughts. And I’m just like, when I do it right, there’s just a particular feeling through the impact zone.
Josh Nichols:
Right. Wow.
William Knauth:
And I’m just chasing that feeling. I’m just chasing that feeling. And when I get it, the ball comes off great.
Josh Nichols:
Hmm.
Josh Nichols:
Yeah. Do you… so as you’re actually playing golf, are you consciously making that conscious effort to do those things while you’re actually hitting the ball, like in the U.S. Mid-Am Qualifier? Okay. So it’s not like I’m training it in my practice swing and then I’m sending it on the ball? It’s…
William Knauth:
Okay.
William Knauth:
thousand percent. And in the…yeah.
William Knauth:
Yeah, no, no. I think that… and this is a point that maybe can be debated, but I really believe that if you’re used to having a certain thought or series of thoughts while you try to execute an action in practice, then there’s no reason not to do that in the game. Right?
Josh Nichols:
Right.
William Knauth:
Because that doing otherwise would make the game more of a departure from your practice. And it kind of throws you out of your zone. Now the trick is like marrying up having these thoughts with good performance, you know, you need to make sure that your mental chatter isn’t too noisy. Because if you have too many thoughts, or if you, you know, aren’t sure, like if you aren’t committed to the set of thoughts that you’re gonna have and they’re coming in and out willy-nilly, that’s a recipe for failure. Right? Because that creates lack of commitment, that creates uncertainty, but I’ve found that like for myself, I need to have one to two swing thoughts in order to make good golf swings, right? On repeat over the course of a round because you know, otherwise, like, my brain isn’t fully activated into what I’m doing.
Josh Nichols:
Hmm you’re right you’re kind of giving your brain something to do while you hit the ball
William Knauth:
yeah it just it it just kind of happens that these ones that i have right now are more how how do i say it more interventional than the usual ones like like typically i like an example of another one i might have is like okay my takeaway i’m gonna make sure to feel a little more hinge right as i take it back that that type of swing thought is not super super like, it’s not interfering with that much, right? It’s over once you take it back. You might have another swing thought that’s give it time at the top. It’s a common one that I’ve switched in and out over time as needed. That one’s, yeah, everyone’s used that swing thought at some point. That one is, it’s pretty minimal intervention wise. It’s not causing a lot of strain on you.
Josh Nichols:
Yeah, me too.
Josh Nichols:
writes. Yeah.
William Knauth:
So let’s say you have two swing thoughts like hinge it in the takeaway, take your time at the top. Having those two, it just keys you in to each of those two parts of the swing. And if you’re rolling with them on the range, I say take them out on the course. And that actually like I’ve found keeps me more and more comfortable on the course. It just so happens at this moment out of necessity because I was fighting the hooks for so long. I have ones that are a little more difficult to execute. But that being said, like, I’ve been playing better golf since I started using them, so, right? Yeah.
Josh Nichols:
Yeah.
Josh Nichols:
Yeah. Right. Yeah. The numbers don’t lie. So then that kind of brings up to a couple of questions, but first would be, said, if you roll with these swing thoughts on the range, then you should then departing from them or trying to, trying to go blank on the golf course would be a departure. And that would probably hinder more than help, even though the kind of common refrain is, know, less mental chatter is better. You should work on it on the range and then just go send it on the golf course. Does that, does that mean that maybe it would be valuable to do practice without swing thoughts? Like is that, is there, I know it maybe is different for everybody, but like, what do think about that?
William Knauth:
So, alright, this is where, like, I feel like this type of topic of conversation is very personal to everyone and maybe not talked about enough because we don’t talk about our internal process at that level of detail quite enough for me to even know what goes through your head when you hit a golf ball. what goes through, like, for instance, A weird example and I’m sorry to like totally bring him into the conversation out of nowhere but like Scott Fawcett. Everyone knows that he talks a lot about mental chatter. That’s part of his thing with Decade is like, hey, be committed to every shot in exactly the same way. Work on your mental chatter on the range. All of this. I know him pretty well. I know he preaches mental chatter. I don’t know what his mental chatter is like.
Josh Nichols:
Mm. All right. It’s vague. That’s a vague term.
William Knauth:
I don’t know how many swing thoughts he has. I don’t know like what sequence of things, like what he’s thinking about when he stands behind the ball. Does he have like a think box, play box type of mentality? Does he like, I don’t know these things about him. And this isn’t to say like, he’s not like a good friend of me or whatever. This is just to say we don’t really talk.
Josh Nichols:
Yeah, yeah. Right. Yeah. You don’t get past that kind of top level here. Here’s either have mental chatter or don’t either work on it or don’t, like, is even is it, how much is too much.
William Knauth:
Right? Yeah.
William Knauth:
Or even the number of people who’ve asked the question you asked a few minutes ago, like, you have swing thoughts while you’re swinging? I have not been asked that question that many times, and I’ve been asked a lot of golf questions. Right? So we don’t talk about this that much, and I say all this to say we’re kind of leaving my area of expertise, because I don’t actually know what it’s like to try to swing without swing thoughts very much.
Josh Nichols:
Yeah. Yeah, right. Yeah.
Josh Nichols:
I see.
William Knauth:
because I’ve found it, like, if I try to swing without swing thoughts, that’s like the worst form of the yips that I can create because now I’m thinking about trying to not think about something and you’re like, you’re totally screwed up when you try to do that. But it might be possible for other people to figure out how to like, just turn it off. And for them, if they’re able to just turn it off, than maybe practicing that way on the range a little bit. I would theorize that that would be like the best use of random practice, right? Like the block practice is there for having lots of very deep introspective thoughts, right? If you’re doing…
Josh Nichols:
Yeah, right. Practicing turning it off.
William Knauth:
block practice right. It’s very meditative. It’s a very deep experience with internal thoughts. It’s not like stand and rake. Like you watch me hit balls on the range. It looks like I’m standing and raking. I don’t even go back behind the ball, hit a ball every 20 seconds. But this is busy, right? This is very, very busy, right? That’s like what block practice is made for if you do it right.
Josh Nichols:
Right.
Josh Nichols:
Agree.
William Knauth:
but random practice when you’re, or like gamified practice if you will, when you say, okay, I’m gonna shift my focus to the objective, if you’re the type of person who’s able to really turn it off, I would say like you should be turning it off to the level that you can on the golf course, but maybe not trying to do further than that. Because if you try to push that comfort zone,
Josh Nichols:
Right.
William Knauth:
once you get on the golf course, like it’s not gonna feel exactly the same.
Josh Nichols:
Right. Yeah, and you’re, like you said, you’re, you’re, now you’re busy kind of fighting your own thinking instead of going for the objective.
William Knauth:
Thank
William Knauth:
Exactly. And this is something I’ve also thought about when it comes to music, right? Like I have a little bit of experience playing music back in the day and the hardest thing to do is always to take it from, you know, the range to the course in a sense, but to like… if you have a solo piece that you’ve been working on to put it with ensemble, to put it like with the piano or to put it with the orchestra, these things, what they actually do, yeah, it’s a little bit of variation to what you specifically need to do, but it’s really just distracting you, right? That’s what’s hard about it. It’s distracting because you hear sounds that you haven’t heard before with it. And so, The tricky part is always like, okay, you’re hearing these new things, but you have to remember all of the little thoughts that you’ve developed over six months of practicing this piece and getting it ready for this point. You’ve developed a very long sequence of like little thoughts that you need to have to be successful in pulling this off. That’s kind of like what practice is. You’re determining that sequence of thoughts that you need to have, whether that’s conscious or subconscious. And so if you break up that sequence of thoughts, that’s what distraction is. And that’s how you lose focus. That’s how you lose time with whoever you’re playing with. Or you like make a mistake. You play a note out of tune that you would never play out of tune normally. Weird things happen just because you’ve been distracted and just because you know, you’re disrupting your train of thoughts that you’ve so perfectly, perfectly, you’ve perfectly sort of trained these thoughts, set them in order so that if you think all of these thoughts you will be successful and now you’ve put something else in the way. So this is why I’m like pretty strong on the philosophy of you should be doing on the course relatively similar to what it is in practice and a lot of people take
Josh Nichols:
trained.
William Knauth:
that philosophy, that type of philosophy and say you should make your practice resemble the ideal of what’s on the course. But that assumes that what they’re saying is the ideal for every person on the course. I would tend to flip that just a little bit and I would say this is the only difference between what I’m suggesting and like you know the the conventional discourse on Twitter for for instance.
Josh Nichols:
Right.
Josh Nichols:
Okay. Right.
William Knauth:
is I say like, okay, we’re all out here trying to match our practice to the course, but we don’t even know what the course should look like. Let’s find it in practice and then match the course to the practice. And you can always work on what you’re able to achieve in practice, but I think artificially creating that gap after you’ve practiced, can’t really help you.
Josh Nichols:
Yeah.
Josh Nichols:
Mmm.
Josh Nichols:
Yeah, yeah, this this gets at the the kind of age-old question about the mental game is how do I take my range game to the course and it’s probably because you’re you’re seeing the golf course as a different thing or too much of a different thing than you do the range you think
William Knauth:
Mm-hmm.
William Knauth:
yeah yeah and and i would i would totally add to that to say like this is why this is why the greats with like tiger for instance when he would talk about swing changes he would always talk about a process because there is an inherent difference between the two but it’s not one that can’t be bridged And the trick is like you need to bridge it. Right? It was the same thing in music. You would have slow practice and you have full speed practice and you have practice with an orchestra. Well, what do you need to do to go between the two? Well, you have a way to bridge it. So you’ll do things in like different rhythms so that you can group or three notes together that go really fast and then have time in between those groups. Right now these groups are four or five notes. All right and then slowly you bridge it up so that you’re able to do it at fuller speed. Well there is a version of that for the golf course too. There there’s a version where you’re on the range and then you go on the course and you hit shots on the course but you’re not necessarily playing a round of golf. Right, this is a step that a lot of people skip. Honestly, out of necessity, I totally get it. Like if you’re going on a golf course and you’re not a member of a country club, for instance, like it’s kind of hard to just go out on a golf course and play three holes and hit four balls from a spot, right? But you talk about a process. There’s, instance, you’re on the range, you have the feel locked in.
Josh Nichols:
Yes.
William Knauth:
Okay, let me now hit a tee shot on a golf course and see how it looks. it didn’t come off right. Try it a couple more times. You go find one of those shots. You try that shot a couple times. That’s something you can totally do that’s, halfway in between being on the course and being practicing, right? And this is a step that people don’t do. And I’m not saying this is something everyone needs to do. This is just something that works for me, right? This is, but it’s, that intermediate step between being on the range and being on the course or for Tiger, it was being on the range and being on the back nine on Sunday on in a major championship in contention, right? His on the course, you know, he figures that out quite fast. And then it’s on the course on a Thursday morning. And then it’s on the course, like in the heat on Saturday. And then it’s on the course the heat on Sunday, right? But you have to go through each of those steps in order to get to the last one, right? And it’s getting that first step that, you you need to bridge that gap, in my opinion, right? And it needs to be more than just, I’m gonna try to think in practice.
Josh Nichols:
Hmm.
Josh Nichols:
Yeah.
William Knauth:
Like I feel like I should be thinking on the course, but I’ve never actually been able to achieve. Like that’s the thing. Like we talk about, we talk about like the ideal for playing golf is not to have lots of thoughts. I don’t know. I, I’m not convinced that it’s possible to play without thinking too much. Right? We have this as an ideal. We’ve, we’ve set it as an ideal, but is it even possible? Are we, are we chasing something that we’re never going to find?
Josh Nichols:
Right.
Josh Nichols:
Right.
William Knauth:
If that’s the case, maybe we need to get more realistic about what we are trying to achieve.
Josh Nichols:
Yeah. Right. And say, let’s assume instead of fighting ourselves constantly, let’s just like, let’s leave the golf course how it’s going to be. now. And let’s, and in this way, it’s instead of trying to take your range game to the golf course, try to take your golf course game to the range, but not change what you think the golf course game should be. Right. How, how do you tend to think on the golf course and
William Knauth:
Yeah.
Josh Nichols:
Instead of trying to change that, change how you practice to match the golf course.
William Knauth:
Yeah, exactly. I would say that and I would say that philosophy is actually pretty congruent with what most people tend to try to do, right? It’s just a slight frame shift from trying to make both practice and the course match some predetermined expectation to like, this is what I know the course is like. Let me just, let me be myself during practice and allow that to be the same person who’s practicing who’s on the course.
Josh Nichols:
So then where in this process do you go from, I’m making conscious effort to, like my swing thoughts are very, like you said, interventional, and they take a lot of conscious effort to do them. Do you ever switch over to letting things happen? Like when you’re playing violin, it’s, you’re not
William Knauth:
Cough
Josh Nichols:
thinking about the technique, you’re… it’s happening to… you are? Okay.
William Knauth:
No, I am. Yeah, that’s the thing. Now you don’t think of all of it at once. And that’s the key, right? And it’s the same thing with swing thoughts. Like we have this idea that when you have one or two swing thoughts that you’re like thinking about your golf swing. And I would like really push back on that because you’re not. Like you’re thinking about two components of your golf swing. If you wanted to consciously think of every movement that you’re going to make, you would have
Josh Nichols:
Right?
William Knauth:
Seven trillion swing thoughts. I’m totally making up a number But like I I don’t doubt that it would kind of be on that order because to get every every muscle and every joint to move like in exactly the right way and Get your pressure shift, right? Like can’t can’t forget about your ground forces Like to get all of that consciously in your brain. It’s never gonna happen. I’m sorry
Josh Nichols:
Right, of course.
Josh Nichols:
Right? Every millimeter of the…
Josh Nichols:
Right. Right.
William Knauth:
Right? You’re not actually thinking about your golf swing. You’re thinking of, you’re keying in to like two things that you can keep track of in a 1.3 second span. And those checkpoints keep everything else on the tracks, but everything else is happening without you thinking about it. Right? And it’s, sort of the same thing as in, in music, you see people like, uh, when they’re performing on stage, they’re like Bob in their head. They’re
Josh Nichols:
Right. Yeah.
William Knauth:
They’re thinking the music, right? They’re thinking like, okay, downbeat of every measure, like I know this is the chord we’re landing on. It’s the same thing, right? They’re thinking about what, yeah, they’re thinking about what chord they’re about to land on. They’re thinking about like, what note they want to emphasize, like what’s the top of the phrase, like where am I gonna lean back and wail on this note, right? That’s…
Josh Nichols:
Right. They’re not thinking nothing.
Josh Nichols:
Mm-hmm.
William Knauth:
those thoughts are the same kind of check-ins that you have when you have a swing thought. We just have this misconception because it happens so fast and we’re putting two thoughts into like such a small window. we’re like, we’re thinking about so much. But really we’re, you’re thinking about such a tiny fraction of what’s going on. And so when you say, how do you, when do you transition? I would think of it more as like a necessity thing because really like it’s it’s not like i think you can ever intentionally transition out of a thought because you think it’s too intrusive because through your practice you’ve kind of determined that you need that checkpoint right you’ve kind of determined that you need that checkpoint so the the transition happens when
Josh Nichols:
Yeah, right.
William Knauth:
you start to realize over time, this is something that happens in practice, you realize that you don’t need that checkpoint anymore. So each day you come back and you, like, the feeling happens and you weren’t thinking about it as hard that time. So then the feeling happens again, and then the next day you’re a little less inclined to have that thought. And, you know, just over the course of maybe two weeks that thought might disappear.
Josh Nichols:
Right.
William Knauth:
right, but it’s something that can only start to happen once you get your results without needing the checkpoint.
Josh Nichols:
Yeah. Does that… you know, there’s actually something kind of… Like on the one hand that that feels like a goal, right? For the checkpoint to just be part of you, to just be your default, but it to where you don’t have to think about it for your body to do it. But there’s also something kind of, scary about that happening because now you don’t, you know, kind of when you’re early on in a swing change or early on in your swing feel heavily interventional. that you’re doing, it’s almost like it’s it’s nice because you can exaggerate as much as you possibly want, and you can’t over exaggerate it, right? You you I’m gonna try so hard to do this thing, and it’s almost like a nice thing to be able to just like I’m really going to over exaggerate, but once it becomes automatic, you’re kind of like I’m not actively doing anything anymore. I’m just kind of letting which is again back to the Ideal that maybe someone like me would propose right? We just want to have a default good move and just let yourself do it but that That means that you don’t your brain doesn’t have anything to anchor to while you’re swinging So is that the goal is to get to where you have made your thing the default without needing to make effort for it.
William Knauth:
I say that that is not the goal explicitly, right? The goal is to get the ball in the hole in the fewest shots possible, right? And I’m being like a little facetious saying this, but like what you just described is something that you’ve theorized thinks, like you’ve theorized that you think that helps you get the ball in the hole in fewer shots. I’m questioning that theory.
Josh Nichols:
Sure. Yeah.
Josh Nichols:
Yeah.
Josh Nichols:
right. Right,
William Knauth:
Right? So the perfect golfer who finally gets to that point, maybe that is the ideal. And I don’t disagree with that notion that that’s like the direction we should be pushing. But I think realistically, pretty much any golfer who’s ever lived, their ideal lives with like a finite number of swing thoughts still. And so like, yes, that is an ideal to push toward. But
Josh Nichols:
Yeah, right.
William Knauth:
we have to remember that’s not actually the goal of what we’re doing. The goal of what we’re doing is to play good golf. And if having those checkpoints is helping you make better swings on the golf course, then you absolutely should not sacrifice those good swings on the golf course in the name of trying to quote unquote, do things right from a mental standpoint. Right? That, that I think that important thing to remember in framing this discussion.
Josh Nichols:
Right.
Josh Nichols:
Right, yeah, totally agree, totally agree. Yes.
William Knauth:
is that it really is like, okay, you want minimal swing thoughts. Well, you should know how many swing thoughts you need as check-ins from your practice. And that’s how many you should be rolling with on the course. No fewer, no more, right? Because that’s what you’ve determined through your practice, part of the purpose of your practice. You’ve determined that that’s what you need, right? Those are the guide rails you need. So use them.
Josh Nichols:
Mm. Yep.
Josh Nichols:
Yes. Yeah, yeah. I want to absolutely bludgeon this dead horse because this is really fascinating to me because I don’t like you to your point. I don’t dive deep on this very often. It’s more like broad swath, no swing thoughts or yeah, one or two. And that’s kind of it. And that’s just totally too generic. And there are… Transcendent principles between person to person where? It doesn’t mean there’s not an ideal it just kind of needs to be that it’s just not kind of needs to be consistent for yourself, but For you, you know, eventually this move this this kind of exaggerated effortful move is going to
William Knauth:
Mm-hmm.
William Knauth:
Mm-hmm.
Josh Nichols:
Maybe you’re not this way, but for me kind of the pendulum swings to where I’m trying to do the thing so hard that eventually I’m I need to stop doing it because it’s actually making things worse So at that point for you, I know it doesn’t sound like you’re there yet, but what do you do at that point?
William Knauth:
Well at that point something shows up in my ball flight that I need to correct so I come up with another swing thought to correct it and that swing thought replaces the one that I had. Right? So that’s sort of my process when it comes to that. It’s…
Josh Nichols:
Got it. Okay. Bright.
Josh Nichols:
So you’re not trying to like land at the bottom of the pendulum and stay there. You’re always like kind of teetering 5 % left and 5 % right of the bottom of the pendulum.
William Knauth:
It’s, all right, this is a question for an algorithms class.
Josh Nichols:
Hahaha Sure.
William Knauth:
how do you know when you’re at the bottom of the pendulum? That’s my question.
Josh Nichols:
Right. That’s a good point. And that’s what I was saying is the, maybe that’s when your default just happens without any effort. Maybe.
William Knauth:
I would like, well, maybe it is, but also you’re at the bottom of the pendulum given that you’re thinking about it. So you stop thinking about it who says you’re at the bottom of the pendulum anymore, right? Like all this stuff, like how to accurately determine when you’re at the bottom of the pendulum, that would be a fascinating problem to try to approach. I’m not smart enough to figure it out, right?
Josh Nichols:
Alright. Right.
Josh Nichols:
If you’re not, then I certainly am not. Yeah.
William Knauth:
I think about my golf swing all the time and yes, I’m not playing as much golf right now as I used to. But man, I have a feeling that if it were possible to just know when you’re at the bottom of the pendulum, I probably would have figured that out at some point. No? Like, when I was in college and I was hitting like two, three hundred balls a day, like at least, and then some days five, six hundred, and I was working on stuff the whole time.
Josh Nichols:
Right. And you would know how to stay there.
William Knauth:
I had a whole series of different swing thoughts like through that time. You would think, you would think at some point I would have recognized like one instance where I knew, I have it slotted. I need to stop thinking about that and then stop thinking about it and then have it work. Like that never happened for me and I’ve never heard of anyone having that happen, right? So, so like obviously that would be nice. That would be very, very nice.
Josh Nichols:
Forever.
William Knauth:
But this is why I say, like, this is question for an algorithms class, where it’s like, We need a way of deciding when we’re actually at the bottom of the pendulum. And for me, actually, what I’ve found is that a decently reliable way of finding the bottom of the pendulum, it’s not easy to find the bottom of the pendulum, but it’s easy to find a little bit past the bottom of the pendulum. That’s when you recognize weird stuff happening with the ball flight. That’s when you switch swing thoughts.
Josh Nichols:
Right.
William Knauth:
So you’re doing your pendulum and you go way down and you go a little bit past and then you switch directions and then you go a little bit past and right so that process you would theoretically think does converge to the bottom. It converges to the bottom like it doesn’t just one shot hit it but like that process from a theoretical standpoint you would think lands you at the optimum over time.
Josh Nichols:
Mmm.
Josh Nichols:
Yes.
William Knauth:
and it doesn’t require you actually knowing the bottom of the pendulum because I’m not convinced you’ll ever know that.
Josh Nichols:
Right. Yeah. It’s more about, it’s not knowing where the bottom is. It’s just kind of like, I’m just always trying to move towards it. And I, we pass by it, right? Like you, I know you tweeted around that you played after the U S mid am where you, you said everything was just on. And so it’s like, found the bottom of the pendulum right then. And you’ve moved past it. Right. Maybe theoretically.
William Knauth:
Mm-hmm.
William Knauth:
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that was a fun day. I yeah, I mean, maybe or maybe like since that moment, like I just I’ve played golf one time since then, or actually, no, no, no, a couple more times. But like, yeah, maybe I’m just rusty since then. Like when it wasn’t even that I wasn’t at the bottom of the pendulum for the U.S. mid-am, I actually think I timed that up pretty good. So you talk about like
Josh Nichols:
Right.
William Knauth:
you know, Tiger was always like, I’m gonna peak for the majors and everyone laughs at that. No, dude, I peaked for the US Mid-Am and I know the score didn’t show it, but the reason I shot like a really, really solid 65 the next weekend in the wind, one bogey that was a three putt, okay, it’s a really, really good round of golf. The reason I shot that round… was because I was swinging exactly the same way and hitting it exactly the same as I was at the mid-am. I just made a few putts, hit a few just outstanding chip shots from really horrible spots that I got into because it was windy and you know, you don’t have control of your ball at that point. Like, but I was hitting it exactly the same as the mid-am, right? The swing felt the same, the ball flight was the same. I honestly probably hit it better at points of the mid-am. But it was just a matter of like, okay, at the mid-am 13 aside, I didn’t make any putts, right? I was having trouble reading those greens. You know, not anyone’s fault but my own, like it happens to everyone. I just wasn’t making putts that week. So then I went back to my home course where I know all the reads and all of sudden, like, you know, where my swing was at.
Josh Nichols:
Mm.
William Knauth:
plus all the hours I put in in Scottsdale trying to get my putting up to speed because I couldn’t read those greens. All those hours of putting practice, like all of a sudden, man, I’m rolling the Robert Rock. and I was just, yeah, and I was making all of my seven, eight footers, right? And those are the putts that like really make or break rounds when you’re having a lot of them. And I was just making them.
Josh Nichols:
All right. Matched with your green reading, yeah.
William Knauth:
and all of sudden, that great round, wasn’t like it came out of nowhere, it was because I really did actually have it for the mid-am. Right?
Josh Nichols:
Yeah, right. Yeah, wasn’t like, that was the one shining moment of your entire year was that round and everything else was crap. And it just like, happened to catch lightning in a bottle in that one round. It was no, it just kind of like things converged in the right way and things were good already. Yeah.
William Knauth:
Yeah. Well, in like my last round before the mid-am, I was playing a handicap match at home. I giving this guy 17 shots. A friend of mine, only hole I wasn’t giving him a shot was our last hole, the 10th hole. And, you know, I got off to a little bit of a slow start with some bad putting, so I was like four down with seven to play, giving the guy a shot a hole. And then I made like four birdies in a row. And I ended up getting to that last hole, the little par three, all tied up. And I hit it to a foot and a half to close out the match. Like that was my last round before the mid-am. And then my practice rounds, like I was playing with good friends. One of my old teammates, Scott, and another guy I played college golf with. Really, really awesome dudes. But anyway. we go for this practice round in 36 holes, I think I hit like one ball into the desert and it was like a foot in. Right, it was, it was just Stripe Show. Right, for the most part it was Stripe Show. I wasn’t making putts in the practice round, like the rest of it, like I was hitting my driver straight, my three wood straight, iron straight, right? I almost made like two hole in ones.
Josh Nichols:
Mmm.
William Knauth:
And was like, it was seriously good. And I think like, I would like to give myself a little bit of credit. kind of sensed, okay, this is the point I need to aim at and how aggressive I need to be in trying to get my swing to this point so that it lands at the right place at the mid-am. Right? I tried to time that out using my experience. But even that, like that’s like shot in the dark crap shoot stuff. I think I got it right.
Josh Nichols:
Yeah.
Josh Nichols:
Right. Yeah.
William Knauth:
But like you can’t reliably get that right. Like I think I got it right though. That being said, I made a 13 with all of it dialed.
Josh Nichols:
Yeah. Right. Right.
Josh Nichols:
Yeah, that’s insane. that, you know, for those who don’t know what Will is talking about, he played in the US Mid-Am. You’re 25, like this is your first opportunity to play it, and you’re 26, okay. Is this the first? Okay.
William Knauth:
26 26. Yeah, so I didn’t try last year. I missed the sign up I can’t like fly to South Dakota or something so when the New York site was full like I’m out Yeah
Josh Nichols:
Okay. Yeah. Got it. Right. So, so this was your kind of first attempt and you made it and, um, it was in Scottsdale and you, your opening nine holes was, and, I want to set the 13 aside, but, but
William Knauth:
Mm-hmm.
William Knauth:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, no, the whole, the first six holes was like, it was lots of different train wrecks. There was a 13 mixed in there, but there were other train wrecks too.
Josh Nichols:
Right.
Josh Nichols:
Yeah, was it was it nervy? Was it? I know you’ve experienced bigger nerve situations than that. I feel like right. I would imagine.
William Knauth:
yes and no. It was a weird, different type of nerve. So, like the feeling on the first tee of the U.S. Mid-Am, I’m teeing off the back nine of Troon Country Club with like nobody around. And there’s like a guy in a suit like announcing the names and clapping. Like the other members of the group are maybe smattering a little bit of applause, but it’s different from when I teed off the Byron Nelson. Everyone who was watching Scotty was coming off of a green right next to my tee when they when I tee like there were a lot of people around for that So it was different when I realized like I’m shaking more than I was then Right like I was Feeling myself on the first tee the Byron Nelson a little bit less. So this one I was like a little bit jumpy
Josh Nichols:
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
William Knauth:
I wouldn’t say I was like actively super nervous about the outcome, but you know, my body just felt jumpy. My body also felt really jumpy on like the first couple holes of the qualifier. Right? Sometimes you just feel that. I don’t know when it’s gonna come, when it’s not. It usually goes away after a couple holes, which in this case it did. But yeah, so the jumpiness… The jumpiness led to, I would say, two bad shots. Okay? Two bad shots that cost me three strokes in the first two holes. So I hit the first fairway and then I had a pitching wedge at the green and I was just like feeling a little jumpy and I kinda jumped at it, right? I jumped at it and I hit it thin out to the right into a bunker, didn’t get it up and down. There’s bogey. Next hole, I’m recognizing the jumpiness and kind of like I feel a left ball coming almost. And I was in the fairway going for this par five. So I’m like, yeah, I expect this ball to draw a little bit. And then I hit it and it was just like the biggest block slice I’ve hit in my life, probably because I was like, you know, protecting against the left ball a little bit.
Josh Nichols:
Yeah.
William Knauth:
huge block slice roasted this three iron right but it was it was a block slice that just went into the desert didn’t find the ball so i had to play my provisional which i made birdie with but you know that’s a bogey that should have been a birdie right um and and then and then we made the 13 and then after the 13 it was like after the 13 i i made it like an unfortunate double on the next hole uh
Josh Nichols:
Mm.
Josh Nichols:
Yeah, okay, yeah. A couple shots, three shots total. You’re right.
William Knauth:
Well, I was trying to catch up with my group that was halfway down the next next hole. And then I had a… Took me three to get down from the front fringe and the middle of the green to back pins. So then I made two more bogeys. But those were less train wrecks, more just like, okay… I’m coming down from something my like feel on these like weight shots isn’t quite right so I didn’t get it down. But like the rest of it was kind of, I was just a little bit off and it came off in the worst possible way every time.
Josh Nichols:
you
Josh Nichols:
Yeah. Yeah.
Josh Nichols:
Yeah. Okay. Right. Yeah. There’s some, there’s sometimes when you hit a terrible golf shot and it’s, that’s actually all right. And I get up and down for par and it’s just a different story. But I’ve also been behind pace. I’ve also had like terrible holes in a USGA championship and all the, all the things that aren’t actual hitting golf shot related of pace of play, kind of feeling self-conscious about making my other, my, make my playing partners play worse. All those things start to flood in and I’m actually hitting good golf shots takes like back burner for a few holes. So that’s, I don’t know if that’s what you did, but that’s, that’s what happens to me after you’re like a big mistake. Yeah. Yeah.
William Knauth:
It… yeah, yeah, just a little bit. I will say it was an interesting scene when, like, all of sudden I noticed there were, ten rules officials around. Right? Like, ten rules officials around, I’ve already met the group behind me, pretty much. Like, you know, at one point I’ll go through the whole story, but like, spoiler alert, I like…
Josh Nichols:
Right? Yeah.
Josh Nichols:
Mmm.
Josh Nichols:
Please.
William Knauth:
At one point I was going back to the fairway to hit a pitching wedge again. And I’m going back there and they’re coming up, their balls are in the fairway, they’re getting up there and there’s a rules official dropping me off and I’m gunning from my divot to make sure it’s the right divot and dropping a ball and it’s like, I’m doing all of this, my group is finished out hitting their tee shots on the next hole.
Josh Nichols:
Hmm.
William Knauth:
you know, when I finished out for the 13 and I’m going to the next tee, like I’m walking off and I said to the rules officials, I was like, hey, hey, don’t worry. Like I’ll catch back up fast. You know, I’m a fast player. Just watch. Right. And it was true. Like they were on 14 tee when I came off of 12. So I, they were, they were done with, they were done with 13 and going off 14 tee when I was hitting my tee shot on 13. And I got to him in 14 fairway.
Josh Nichols:
Mm-hmm. Wow. What? Wow. Right. So you played all of 13 by the time that they were hitting their second shot on 14.
William Knauth:
Yeah, yeah, even making a double on 13. I all of 13 and hit my tee shot on 14 and got to that ball in the time that they hit their tee shot on 14 and got to their ball. So yeah, yeah. And carrying my own bag by the way. Yeah, for the first round.
Josh Nichols:
Right. Yeah. Were you running or did you have like a, were you? Wow. Yeah. Okay. Were you actually like jogging a little bit? I’ve done that. Wow. Really?
William Knauth:
No, no, was, yeah, yeah, I was, I was just carrying my bag. I was walking a little bit fast, but, you know, I walk fast anyway. I’m a New Yorker.
Josh Nichols:
Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So the, you know, I, have, you know, I’m not as interested in, okay, how do you make a 13 and a USGA? Like that’s of course, that’s like a crazy story. It’s kind of like a cool notch on your belt a little bit. know you don’t want that notch on your belt. You’d rather have made match play. You’re right. If you’re not going to go down in blaze of glory at least, but
William Knauth:
I don’t mind it, I have to say. It’s kind of fun. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Josh Nichols:
On a more kind of macro scale, do you, like you qualified for a USGA championship and you’re, you’re very busy like these, the, the last couple of years. I mean, you’ve, you’ve probably been busy for, I know you’ve been busy for years and years, but how do you either keep your game good enough to do that? Or how do you actually improve your golf game? while being so busy. Like good enough to be able to qualify for a USJ championship.
William Knauth:
Mm-hmm.
William Knauth:
I would say that part of it is pretty much raw effort and commitment. There’s no substitute for time that you put in. And so I don’t get as much time. It’s difficult to find time. I have a girlfriend. I have a pretty demanding life as a PhD student. The golf course is pretty far from where I live. All of these things do not set up for me playing much golf. And, you know, if I were a normal Satan person, I wouldn’t be playing very much golf and I wouldn’t stay good enough to qualify for a USGA championship. But I would say that I’m just that crazy for golf, that I will find a way to get to the golf course. I will find a way to get my work in. And I will do that like pretty much at
Josh Nichols:
I see.
William Knauth:
any costs like beyond like my my phd and my girlfriend and things like that but if it means like okay i’m not getting to go out to the bars and hang out like okay you know i’d rather go play golf anyway you know you know it it’s just everyone makes their own sacrifices and decisions and for me like golf practice and and competitive golf is something that it’s like last on my list for sacrafi- for sacrificing, right? So I would say that it’s not any secret sauce that I have different from anyone else in my situation. It’s just that I make the conscious effort that this is my thing that I’m not sacrificing. And that’s kind of intentional on my part because I live a life that can drive a person crazy. And so this is something that keeps me from going crazy. It’s something that keeps me happy. And so I’ve made the conscious decision that I will do what it takes to keep this in my life to the extent that I can.
Josh Nichols:
Yeah.
Josh Nichols:
You would do the PhD stuff worse. Worse if you didn’t play golf. You would be a worse boyfriend, probably, if you didn’t allow yourself to play golf, right?
William Knauth:
Yeah. Yeah, totally. Totally. And it’s not just that, but it’s really about like, I’ve started to realize there is gonna be a time in my life when I look back on my time living in New York City and being in grad school and whatever. And I guarantee you the biggest regret I could have is like not playing golf. Right?
Josh Nichols:
Right.
William Knauth:
Right? Like not playing golf in my mid and like not playing golf in my mid twenties when I have the ability to be competitive. That would be just like a huge regret later in life. So I’ve I’ve just sort of decided like it’s it’s not anything special that I do personally. It’s just like this is the thing. This is the thing outside of work and my girlfriend that I’m committed to. And I
Josh Nichols:
with the time that you did have, yeah.
William Knauth:
keep my commitment to it. And I take that commitment very seriously. And that’s it.
Josh Nichols:
So it’s not like, yeah, I spend my one hour that I have, like, this coming week, I’ve got an hour to practice. Let’s say you don’t spend that hour like exponentially better than other people. It’s just, you get more than one hour where other people might not with the same. Yeah. Right. Okay.
William Knauth:
I just make sure I get my hours, right? Right? Because it’s so easy to cheat yourself on that. Be like, today’s little inconvenient and then blame life for why you’re not getting to the golf course. Right? For me, I’m willing to blame the golf course for why I’m not getting to the rest of life. Right? And that’s the only thing. Now, the other thing that I would…
Josh Nichols:
Mmm. Mmm.
Josh Nichols:
Mmm.
William Knauth:
The only reason I would say maybe I’m more efficient at practicing than most people is because I’m a very experienced practicer across different disciplines and like I’m self-taught too so I understand my own swing at a level where I can jump right into it, jump right out of it and be able to work with myself relatively efficiently but still like there is no substitute for time. I’m sorry, but like no matter how efficient you make that one hour of practice, if you’re not getting that one hour often enough, you’re not gonna be any good. Right? You can make that, you can make that as efficient as you want, but the guy that’s standing on the range for five hours is still gonna beat you. Like that, it’s just how it goes. There’s no substitute for the time as much as you wanna optimize efficiency, you need the time.
Josh Nichols:
Mmm.
Josh Nichols:
Yeah, not to make this about me, but I’m gonna make about me. I want you to kind of help me level set my expectations potentially, but I, you know, I’m… I made it to the finals of the Mid-Am in 2017, so I was 25… 26 or something. Yeah, I was 26. And so that’s been eight years now, and in those eight years I… we have two kids where we have, I have a three year old and a two month old. I have a business. I have a podcast. I have a wife. I, we have a house. what else is there? Let, let’s just, let’s just, let’s leave it at that. Do I let, would you say, yeah, they’re like, you need to like pump your pump your breaks. You’re probably not going to.
William Knauth:
already a long list.
Josh Nichols:
be able to make it back or let alone like when anytime soon.
William Knauth:
Well… here’s what I’d say. So I maybe wouldn’t frame it that way. And of course I am totally not qualified to be giving you advice on this front. Let’s just be clear. I’m 26. I live in an apartment that I rent from the university at which I’m a student. this is… Yeah, yeah. But what I would say is, yeah, from a golfer perspective,
Josh Nichols:
Steer Steer it.
Josh Nichols:
Of course, of course. Asking from a golfer perspective.
William Knauth:
Like what else do you have going on in your life? Right? Like do you have friends that you see regularly? Do you like to go out to the movies ever? Do you like, like I don’t know and you can answer these or not, but you have like things in your life other than those things. All right. If you wanted to be competitive in golf again, are you willing to give those up? And are you willing to create a general level of stress where you decide, okay, I’m gonna organize my day. So I get my hours in with everything else. I’m gonna make sure that time isn’t sacrificed. But I’m gonna make sure that I arrange this in a way where I know there’s time for golf, and then I’m gonna go do golf during that time and commit to it. And whatever stress comes from that, I’m gonna deal with. That’s the kind of life you’d have to choose. And that’s a choice you can make or not make. Right? Like that, but on some level, you have to make a commitment if you’re going to be good at golf again, right? Not that you aren’t now, but if you’re, you know what I mean, like the feeling where you’re like, oh, I’m good, right? If you’re going to get that feeling again, it needs to come from somewhere. So if you’re asking the question, like, how do I get it back with X, Y, Z, blah, blah, blah, right? Well, it’s not a question of with blah, blah. It’s like, how much of that can you take away?
Josh Nichols:
Mm.
Josh Nichols:
Yes. Yes. Yes.
Josh Nichols:
Mmm.
Josh Nichols:
Mmm.
William Knauth:
and be okay with it and sacrifice that for the golf. I happen to be like relatively far on the spectrum of I’ll sacrifice a lot for golf. Right? Not everyone is there and I don’t blame anyone for not being that far on the golf sicko spectrum. But I do truly, truly believe that at some point if you do have that many constraints on your life and you want to be good at golf, something has to give. And you have, like if you want the golf, you need to make a big commitment to it in the same way that if you want an extremely lucrative career with a lot of upside, most people who make a lot of money work long hours, right? Like people who have like a lot of upward mobility in their careers tend to be people that put in extra hours.
Josh Nichols:
Mm-hmm. Right.
William Knauth:
And so like, let’s say you wanna have one of those jobs and you wanna be really good at golf. Well, neither one cares about the other, right? So if you can pull off both, then you can pull off both, but each one requires the same commitment that it would if the other didn’t exist. And that’s the thing to remember.
Josh Nichols:
Right. Yeah.
Josh Nichols:
Right. Yes. That I really appreciate that answer because that’s that’s not just for me, right? That’s a general principle, right? You either you you put in this effort or you won’t get good enough or you won’t stay good enough or whatever it is. Like you just have to and you if you can’t or won’t then you got to be okay with not being good enough. Right. So I appreciate that answer.
William Knauth:
Yeah.
Josh Nichols:
And it sounds like you’re doing a good job of it in your own life, I guess. Trying to.
William Knauth:
I’m trying to. I won’t pretend that I have it 100 % figured out. I mean, like, is it possible that I’m… that my hair is falling out a little faster than it should because I’m putting too much stress on myself? Like, sure, like, that’s possible. Like, I live a very, very high-stress life at the moment, and part of that is due to the fact that I make such an effort for golf. So, do I have it perfect? I don’t know. but I also just like can’t imagine a world where I’m not doing this for golf, so that’s why I do it.
Josh Nichols:
Yeah. All right, well, this is, this has been awesome. I’ll, I’ll let you get back to your insanely stressful, crazy life where you decide to play golf anyway. So, if I like having you on here because you don’t really, you’re not like pushing something, right? You’re just like, you just love golf and you’re smart. So that’s why I like having you on. But if you were to like, send people to like follow you on Twitter, right? Is that kind of it?
William Knauth:
Yeah.
William Knauth:
Uh, sure. Yeah, yeah. I… So I haven’t been as active on Twitter recently. I will say Twitter is one of the things that I’ve kind of had to sacrifice in order to keep the golf. I spend… I used to spend a lot of time on Twitter. And it’s not that at any point I decided I don’t want this in my life anymore. It’s more that like, well, naturally, I have so many hours in the day. I need…
Josh Nichols:
Sure. Preach.
William Knauth:
so much like quiet time. Like I just my life isn’t going to be filled with this. I have math to do. I have golf to do. I have a girlfriend to see. And on on some level like I’m sorry but Twitter is not something that has the same level of commitment right. But that being said I do still go on there on occasion and when I do I’m always out to talk golf. So absolutely.
Josh Nichols:
Yes.
Josh Nichols:
Right.
Josh Nichols:
Yeah, you’re a good follow.
William Knauth:
So yeah, so head over to my Twitter, Free Willy with three L’s and four Y’s. Profile pictures me and a six-toed cat. So yeah, that’s me. I realize, I never told the story of the 13. I think we should do that.
Josh Nichols:
I didn’t know that it’s six days. Yeah. Okay.
Josh Nichols:
Run through it real quick.
William Knauth:
yeah yeah okay so we’re on the 12th hole of troon country club third hole of the tournament i realized after like after this t-shot and a couple more i think i was just aiming right because i striped this three wood striped this three wood but it just barely bounced into the desert on the right so i hit a provisional where i aimed a little bit more left that one was of course in the middle of the fairway so i get up find my ball So it’s just suspended in a bush. Now part of my mistake was I hit it so great in the practice round I never tried a single shot out of the desert. So I’m out here and I’m like, this looks hittable. Just kind of like playing t-ball a little bit. So I tried to hit it and I made contact but it went a little sideways and stayed in the desert but not a bad spot so I just chipped out. Lying three in the fairway as if I had hit the provisional.
Josh Nichols:
Yeah, wow. Okay.
William Knauth:
Right? No, no sweat, so I gun it. 147 pins a little back, so I want to play a little short of it. It’s a little downhill. So I’m like, okay. Solid three-quarter pitching wedge. So I hit this thing and it’s tracing the flag up and down. It lands just on the back fringe, shoots over the green in the desert. boy. So I go back there, find the ball again, suspended in a bush again. So we’re sitting there, but anyone who’s been to Troon Country Club knows behind the 12th green is just absolute wilderness. It’s a huge slope going back there. So unplayable dropping next to it isn’t an option because the ball isn’t going to stay there and there’s nowhere to drop. Back on the line isn’t an option because it’s all wilderness. So you’re going back to the fairway. So I go back there. This is when I met the group behind me. I gun it from my divot and it wasn’t 147 anymore, it was 145 because I was dumb and I shot it from two yards behind the ball before. Well there’s two yards that cost me going over the green probably. So then I hit it again and this time I caught it like a little bit funny, pushed it, came out little knuckly, so that one hit on the right fringe and bounced over the back again. Now I’m back in basically the same spot.
Josh Nichols:
two yards.
William Knauth:
but this time I’m like, no, this looks totally hittable. So then I whiffed. And then once you whiff, you lose the stroke and distance option. Now, I would have been going back to hit eight from the fairway, which is hilarious to think about, but I didn’t have that option anymore. I was just stuck down there. So then I tried again, whiffed again.
Josh Nichols:
Mmm. Mmm.
Josh Nichols:
Yeah. Right. Right.
Josh Nichols:
Mm.
William Knauth:
But it like dropped out of the bush the second time then I hit it sideways Then I got it just barely out great flop shot from horribly short-sided to 25 feet Left the left the 25 footer an inch short right in the middle tapped in for 13 Final stats finished the hole with the ball. I started with that’s always a good one Hit pitching wedge eight times
Josh Nichols:
outrageous.
William Knauth:
But I only made but I only made contacts six times and it counted for nine shots
Josh Nichols:
Okay, right. Two of us. Yeah. I some penalties. Right, right, right.
William Knauth:
Yeah, there was the unplayable back to the fairway and then the other time that I, you know, I was, I probably should have taken that unplayable. But yeah, between the tee shot, between the tee shot and when I flopped it onto the green after I got out of the desert, every shot in between there was a pitching wedge.
Josh Nichols:
That’s outrageous. All right. Well, this has been awesome, man. I’m going to run. Thank you so much for your time.
William Knauth:
Thank you so much, this is fun. All right, see you.
Josh Nichols:
All man, we’ll see you next time. See you.
