276: Brendon Post – Why Trying Harder Makes Golf Harder

Podcast Transcript

Josh Nichols
What do you know now about performing under pressure that you wish you had understood earlier in your playing career?

Brendon Post
Oh, let me think about that for a minute. That’s a good question. What do I wish I I would say

Josh Nichols
Okay. Yeah.

I don’t know. I don’t necessarily know that answer for myself. It’s a hard one.

Brendon Post
So I still play competitively in the Philadelphia section. and I think the challenge every, every time that you’re on the golf course is trusting that what you’ve practiced is going to work on the golf course. And I think the hardest thing for a competitive player is to be overshot and trust

Josh Nichols
Mmm.

Brendon Post
Well, first of all, get all the clutter out of your brain. Try to silence your brain and say, I have this shot and trust what you’re doing. Because when you’re playing in a practice round, you don’t have all those thoughts going through your mind. when you’re then when you’re in a tournament, that word tournament scares everybody. Right. So when you’re in a tournament, a lot of clutter starts appearing in your brain. And it’s very

Josh Nichols
Mm-hmm.

Brendon Post
challenging to try to get yourself back into the practice round mode versus being in the the tournament mode. And that’s what we focus on with our players a lot is, you know, we play so great in practice rounds, but then what happens in a tournament? Why does all this clutter then appear? Why do all these negative thoughts appear? Where you’ve hit the shot, not a million times, but a lot of times, right? For the most part, especially a tee shot.

or a second shot out of a fairway. So it’s how do you quiet the mind to believe that you have the ability to hit the shot that you want to hit? Because you’ve practiced it enough, or at least at our level of play, we’ve practiced it enough, most likely.

Josh Nichols
Mmm.

Josh Nichols
Yeah, you possess the ability, right? The ability doesn’t go away. The last guest I had on, he said, the ability to make a motion doesn’t break down, but the ability to access that motion breaks down. And that opens up the whole, you know, a million different factors that could cause it to break down. But when…

Brendon Post
Right. Correct.

Brendon Post
Mm-hmm.

Brendon Post
Correct.

Brendon Post
Mm-hmm.

Josh Nichols
What do you primarily, for yourself but also for your guys, what tends to break down the trust? Is it an outside circumstance or is it internal? What do you tend to see of, lost my trust and this is why?

Brendon Post
Thank

I think it’s the outcome of the shot. It’s getting, it’s not staying in the present. It’s not staying on the task at hand. It’s thinking about if I hit the shot poorly, where is it going to go? So I think that the main thing for the player is, you know, the

Josh Nichols
Right.

Brendon Post
Clutter in your brain is not hitting the shot, right? You’re the one hitting the shot. if you can just stand up and trust yourself and say, I’ve done this a million times, let’s just swing the club and see what happens. It’s that acceptance, accepting the shot. know, it’s like Dr. Pryor says, trust, just accept the outcome of what’s going to happen. I think that’s the hardest thing. Like when I’ve…

Josh Nichols
Hmm.

Brendon Post
Looking back on some of the tournaments that I’ve been in and when I’m near the lead, it’s why did I hit the bat shot? It’s because I wasn’t accepting of what the results were going to be. You know, I was trying to manufacture something instead of just swinging the club and saying, okay, let’s see where the ball goes after I hit it.

Easier said than done.

Josh Nichols
Acceptance. Yes, so much easier said than done. do you… you know, to wrap on Pryor a little bit, when he says you need to accept, he also… kind of has… he uses the phrase, credible inner dialogue, so it has to be… it can’t be a fake thing you’re saying to yourself, just words, right? Just a mantra that you’re saying to yourself. You know, just accept the result. It has to be credible, and I take that to mean it…

Brendon Post
Mm-hmm.

Brendon Post
Right.

Josh Nichols
maybe has to be based on something, like it has to be real or grounded in something real. So what helps you accept the result and what helps that be real for you instead of just words or when you’re communicating that to your players, what helps you get across the reality of that?

Brendon Post
Well, so getting back to our players. One of the things that’s very interesting about coaching, and I would say it’s caddying because like I just caddied on the corn fairy tour event. Like when you’re the caddy or the coach, the shot that has to be hit is so crystal clear in your mind. Like you’re not thinking of anything else, but when you’re the player, you’re thinking of

every pot, well, I shouldn’t say, I guess I’m talking to myself. When I’m the player, I’m thinking of some of the things that could go wrong. Like say there’s water on the right side of the green. You’re like, okay, don’t hit it in the water. And the pin is tucked maybe a little right. You want to play to the fat side left side of the green. But there’s a bunker on the left, so you don’t want to go too far left. And there’s a ridge in the back so you don’t want to go too long, you know, so you’re bringing all these

situations in the play where when you’re the coach of the caddy you’re like well that’s simple it’s 150 yards it’s your eight or nine iron and if you just trust it it’s gonna land right next you know just to the left of the flag where you’re aiming at but when you’re the player there’s just a lot of clutter that’s being brought up because you see everything around you that’s why it’s very interesting I’m sure every golfer’s experiences but

When you’re in the trees and you’re trying to punch out of the trees, it is very crystal clear what the shot is that you have to hit, right? Where when you’re in the middle of the fairway and you have a nine iron eight iron seven, whatever it is in your hand, there’s a lot of options where when you’re in the trees, there’s probably only one option that you have. And that makes your brain relax a lot and say, I’ve just got to hit the shot.

That’s all it’s asking me to do is hit that job. Or when you’re in the fairway, you know, do you want to hit a high load? You want to hit a left to right, right to left? You know, there’s just a lot more that’s going on in your brain. And I think that doesn’t allow us.

Brendon Post
to fully, at times, to fully commit to the shot. But I think that as you get better, and as you work more on the mental part of your game, that acceptance then comes into play. And you’re like, I’m just gonna hit the shot and let’s see what happens. When you’re in the trees, you’re like, I have no choice, but I have to hit this shot.

Josh Nichols
So the amount of different options can cause…

Brendon Post
Ahem.

Josh Nichols
It brings in all of the potential issues that could happen. And so it’s almost like having too many options seems like a good thing. And we want that. you know, bringing four wedges around the green and saying I could hit a low one, medium one, high one, fly at 80 % of the way, fly at 20 % of the way and all these options.

Brendon Post
Right.

Brendon Post
Right.

Josh Nichols
It feels like I’ve got this big skill set, which is valuable, but it also brings in, it, the clutter you’re talking about. And what comes to mind for me is fear, right? Fear of bad outcomes. So yeah, it is. I mean, it’s interesting why an easy shot or a straightforward shot can lead, can have more fear behind it than, than a hard one. Why is that?

Brendon Post
Mm-hmm.

Brendon Post
without a doubt.

Correct. Well, I just think it’s that there’s just too many options, you know, it’s like, and, and, that straightforward easy shot. Um, and I think it happens a lot around the greens or a lot on shorter putts because we feel that we should execute that shot perfectly. We should chip a close that three footer. We must

We should make it, we must make it. That’s the hardest thing to convince yourself is, no, you might not make that putt. But the only chance that you have to really make that putt, to put yourself in the best situation to make that putt, is to pick your line, get your speed, and say, I’m going to trust my line and my speed. There’s no holder, and I’m just going to hit it the way that I want to hit it. And that’s really, really hard.

because you’re thinking of all the things that possibly could happen versus trusting your line, your speed and yourself to hit, hit the putt that you want to hit. And hopefully the hole gets in the way, right? and, you can, you know, the wild thing to me is you can see it in the tour pros. like when Rory missed the putt at the U S open, you could see he was really

Josh Nichols
Piners, yep.

Brendon Post
Nervous. Yes, you could see that he didn’t look in his body language He didn’t look trusting or if you go back to when Jordan Spieth That’s when I kind of watched a lot of golf back then but when Jordan Spieth lost the Masters like you could just see in his body language He was not correct in his thoughts he wasn’t accepting of what could happen and I think that’s the hardest thing and when

When you’re a player, it’s really hard, but when you’re a caddy, like when I’m playing, always try to pull myself out of my playing side and put myself into the caddy side to try to clear my brain. Because I’ll tell you, when you’re caddy, it’s so crystal clear. When you’re the coach, it’s so crystal clear. And sometimes with my players, what I’ll actually try to do is paint the shot in their brain, especially around the greens. I always give them, I always say to them,

You can hire me and fire me whenever you want. But when I’m around, I’m going to paint the shot that I see, but you’re the one that has to hit that shot. So I want you to be fully committed to the shot that you want to hit. Even though I’m telling you what I see, you can tell me what you see and we’ll, we’ll figure out if that’s right. And if you can trust that shot, right. And sometimes just me painting the shot helps them.

feel more committed to the shot. And I might paint a high shot, I might paint a really low shot, but I’m using my hands and I’m pointing the areas where I would land it, how I would hit it, and sometimes that helps create a more clear picture for them to hit that shot.

Josh Nichols
Right, it draws out of them. I’ve thought about this recently is actually in the on the subject of interviewing, instead of trying to make it applicable to every listener out there, I try to just bring out what am I curious about and when I bring my curiosity to a conversation and my preconceived notions and stuff, it

Brendon Post
Ahem.

Brendon Post
Right.

Josh Nichols
It kind of makes you have to counter it or tell your side of it. But if I was just trying to predict what you were going to say, then it wouldn’t really challenge you. It wouldn’t get your brain moving as much. your version of that with when you’re alongside a player or when you’re kind of doing that with yourself is I’m going to show you the shot that I would hit here. And if you want to have a conversation about the shot you would want to hit, this is the time to do that.

Brendon Post
Correct.

Josh Nichols
So why is it that you, or I guess how did you discover that that would be a good thing to do instead of, know this player and I know their game and this is the shot that I think they should hit. Why do you default to the shot you would hit?

Brendon Post
A couple of things. I’ve been playing golf for a long time and I’ve seen a lot, I feel like I’ve seen a lot more shots than they have. Especially our college players. So I feel like I have a good, you know, my computer has a lot of memory in there and because I’ve seen a lot of shots, I feel like I understand how the shots going to react.

coming off the club face, landing on the green. Now, I’ve also seen them practice a lot. So I might be trying to sway them towards something that I’ve seen them do in practice and I know has worked for them in practice, even though they might see a different shot. Now, I always leave it up to them. I always say, you have to be committed to this shot. You have the final say. You can say, coach, no, that’s.

That’s not what I’m feeling in my body. And I think a lot of times, you know, we hear sports psychologists talk about your gut versus your brain. And I always tell our players, trust what your gut is telling you, because that’s most likely how you’re going to be able to pull that shut off and clear your brain because you’re, you’re satisfied with what your gut is telling you. You know, the feel within your body, it’s like,

It’s like when you’ve, I’m sure you’ve had this many times because you’re a high level player, but you’ve even before you’ve gotten onto the putting green, you’re 10 feet from the hole and you’re saying to yourself, wow, I feel like I’m going to make this putt already. And I’m still 150 yards back in the fairway, but there’s just something within your body as you’re walking up to that green that you’re like, this ball is going, I don’t need to even read it. I know that if I just hit the pop, it’s going to go in the hole. So there’s that feel within your body that you have.

that I feel like I try to tell our players to trust because most of the time that feel that you have within your body, it’s going to be able to execute the shot that you want.

Josh Nichols
Yes, I love that. I love the idea of your practice is you’re engaging your mind, your brain, and you’re kind of like programming the computer a little bit. But then when you go play, you are just kind of letting the computer do its work or you’re not trying to use your brain so much. You’re trying to just act on what you’ve trained it to do.

Brendon Post
Okay.

Brendon Post
Right.

Brendon Post
Mm hmm. Correct.

Josh Nichols
I like that going with your gut and that goes for decision-making but also for actually over the ball and letting yourself make a swing back to your trust thing. So with going with your gut, that brings to mind a thought. A question that I tend to ask a lot of guests is, what are your thoughts on swing thoughts, swing feels?

what you should be thinking over the ball or over a putt or over a chip. Like how active is your mind when you’re over the ball?

Brendon Post
That’s a great question because I did listen to your podcast with Dr. Yellen or Steve Yellen yesterday and I’ve read his book and it’s very interesting. You know, I think everybody is different. have to say just being around a lot of great players, everybody is different and what works for them. Like I’ll use an example.

Josh Nichols
Yes, yes.

Brendon Post
I just got it for a corn fairy tour player who I’ve taught off and on from the age of 10. And he’s come to rely on me a lot lately, not from a teaching standpoint, but just from a bouncing ideas off standpoint. He has a coach that he works with, but anytime he has lessons, he’ll talk to me about it, me videos. the one thing that I’ve really learned a lot from him, because he was a

And I’m gonna go on a tangent here. Hopefully I get back to where we were. But when I first started working with him, he would never, he wouldn’t want a lesson. He would just want to go play. And that’s how I would give him lessons. His putting stroke was awful, his golf swing was fine. But now to watch him evolve, he has a chart that he follows. And on that,

Josh Nichols
Mm-hmm.

Brendon Post
chart it says how far every club goes and you know with the half swing three-quarter swing he was never mechanical before and I’m not saying that he’s mechanical now but he’s able to hit a nine iron from 130 yards he’s able to hit a nine iron 160 it all depends on the situ on that situation and I think that he uses a lot of swing feels okay

When he always, when I’m working with him or he’s around me, and he’s like, Hey, take a look this. He’s like, this is what I’m feeling. Those feels help calm him down a lot. Right? So when he’s in the moment, he’s recalling these fields that he’s working on, even though what he’s feeling, it might not look like what I think it should be feeling. And I say to him all the time, your fields are completely different from my fields.

So if that feel is working and it’s making you hit solid shots, then that’s fine. Let’s use that feel for right now. So I think.

Everybody’s different. Some people like swing thoughts. Some people like feels. Some people like to focus on the target. I think everybody is so different that you have to do what works for you. Now, and like I tell him this too, is you could wake up one day and that feel could disappear. So now you have to have a different feel that’s going to make you hit the ball the way that you want to hit the ball. It’s like when you

And I tell them this too, when you go to sign a piece of paper, is a signature ever the same? It’s never the same if you really look at it. So are you going to always produce the same swing? I think we’re practicing to try to produce the same swing, but I don’t think that you can, that every swing is going to be the same or every field is going to be the same. But what you’re hoping for is that you’re just hoping to see the right shot.

Brendon Post
come out of that shotgun, right? Like, it’s amazing to watch Scottie Scheffler play with his footwork. And, you know, sometimes he has different finishes. And I think he go, and I could be totally wrong, but I think good players go into a shot with an idea of how they want to hit it. And somewhere in the downswing, they might be going, boy, this is not going right. So I’m going to have this finish or I’m going to have this finish or

You know, there’s something that’s going on in your brain where you’re like, I’m not in the right spot, but I know if I do this on my downswing, it’s going to happen. I know that happened so fast that, you know, the sports psychologists are saying you don’t have enough time once you get to the top of the backswing to have your brain change what’s going on. But there’s things that happen and you see some people have some crazy finishes or make some crazy motions and they still have some great shots. So they’re trusting those feels that they’re having.

as they’re swinging to help them produce a good shot. Now, sometimes that might not work, but I think that in order to keep your mind crystal clear, having a swing thought, having a swing feel, focusing on the target, I think that helps people. Just my opinion.

Josh Nichols
Yes.

Josh Nichols
Right. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, you mentioned Stephen Yellen how, you know, I’ve had guests say absolutely not. It should be completely blank. And I’ve had guests that, you know, are high level players themselves and they say, yeah, I have three or four kind of feeling checkpoints that I’m trying to hit during a swing. And

Brendon Post
Yeah.

Josh Nichols
you know, someone like Stephen Yellen might kind of fall somewhere between the two of, he said you, the goal is to be able to think about the position of your hands and not break wholeness. Also having that crystal clarity while also being able to think about the position of your hands or something. So that’s, that tells me that if high level players can, can think about

Brendon Post
correct.

Brendon Post
Mm-hmm.

Josh Nichols
three or four different things and it helps them hit better shots and then there’s people that say, no you shouldn’t have any thoughts, to your point. I mean it’s totally individualistic. that, to the point of we train ourselves to try to make our swings totally repeatable but it just won’t be, is that something… do you see that as like a…

like a common error of, you know, the average amateur or even college players or even high level players like yourself where we chase repeatability too much? Like is that possible or is that, no, you should do that and then be okay when it’s not. How do you think about that?

Brendon Post
Wow, chase repeatability. I think, yeah, we chase, we’re always chasing in golf, right? Going back to the, to the corn fairy tour player. Like he had 20, through all the qualifying stages for DP World and PJ Tour, he had 22 rounds under par. And then in the, and, and then with me on the bag in the Bahamas in the first,

He had two more rounds under par. didn’t make the cut. He missed a play too, I think, but still under par. And then we had our, one of our players here went to go caddy for him in the next spot. And I’m like, if he doesn’t finish top 20, I’ll be shocked because he was, um, he was, I felt like he was in a good spot, but then all at once he started chasing these fields and started chasing perfection. And he knew something was off in a swing, but

I feel like the pieces that are off in our swings, like when we get off, I don’t know when you get off, I know when I get off, it’s like, what, first of all, what made us get off? Was it windy? Like that we play in a lot of windy conditions. So we started trying to hit different shots that we don’t, I don’t want to say we don’t normally hit, but could bring us down a bad path. And like when we’re off, we’re just off by like so, such a small amount. Like the longer I’m in this game,

The harder I think this game really is. like, how do people learn this game? How do they get to where they’ve to where we’ve gotten to? So getting back to that, like he’s chasing that, that feel and he doesn’t get the feel until he gets back to his instructor. So another, so with that story, he didn’t shoot under par in his two rounds. Mr. Cut again, goes back to his instructor and then he finds a feel. Now he’s going to go off to Panama.

And let’s see what happens. like we’re all in those situations of. We’re chasing consistency, right? Which is the worst because nothing about golf is consistent. And we’re chasing that chasing that repeatability, which I don’t really think there’s. Repeatability in golf per se like. Yeah, you’re trying to make your swing as repeatable as possible, but with the exception of maybe a

Brendon Post
T shot, every shot is so different, right? Like you could hit a driver, but say it’s dead calm, you might hit 14 drivers the same exact way because it’s dead calm. But if you get wind coming into you off the left, off the right, you might change the way that you’re going to hit that driver. And then once you get in the fairway, to me, there’s so many different shots that you can hit. You can hit your fades, your high shots, your low shots, punch shots. So, you know,

To me, it’s I guess getting back to feels, you’re looking for what feels right so that you can hit that shot. And trying to feel maybe something in your hands or something in your body, trying to understand, like I believe a lot in the hands, your hands are gonna tell you what that club face is at all times. So I always revert back to our players with their hands a lot. What are your hands telling you? Like Adam Young.

preaches, you should be able to hit the ball, toe, center, heel on command so that you know that or low on the face, high in the face. Like I think that’s an art. And I think that when we get, when we lose our good ball striking, that’s what we should kind of revert back to is can I hit it off the toe? Can I hit it center? Can I hit a heel? Can I hit it high, low? So

I think chasing repeatability is good in a way, but I also think that we have to realize that nothing in golf is really a repeatable shot. know, so it’s, there, there’s a fine line.

Josh Nichols
Yeah, yeah, that’s, I didn’t even think of that. Yeah, of course. I didn’t even think about Adam Young in this. That’s exactly what he talks about is, you know, chasing consistency is totally unrealistic. his whole thing was it would be better to get good at being inconsistent and it’d be better to almost invite the

Brendon Post
Yes.

Josh Nichols
variability and I’m

Josh Nichols
Yeah, it’s just, it’s such a tough one because everything we see and read and about instruction and swing mechanics and stuff is kind of grooving, grooving emotion. And this is how it needs to, this is how it needs to be when you’re in the simulator and perfect conditions. This is how you need to be able to swing. But when you get out on the golf course, it

We panic when that goes out the window, but we should be okay when it goes out the window because that’s just how it goes. So I’m curious of your thoughts here. If you, let’s say you had a tournament in one month and you could, this is a made up scenario, but you could either only practice

Brendon Post
Right.

Brendon Post
Mm-hmm.

Josh Nichols
for that entire month before you show up to the tournament? Or you could only play for that entire month before you show up to the tournament? Which one would you choose?

Brendon Post
Wow. There’s another one that you didn’t throw out there. Only visualize. because, yeah, because, you know, I’ve been doing this a long time and I’ve been teaching a long time before I got into coaching. And I remember, and I’m sure you have these memories too, but I remember I went to go play in a tournament and going up to that tournament, I hadn’t played golf in a month.

Josh Nichols
yeah, of course, totally, yeah.

Brendon Post
because I was so busy teaching, you know, on the lesson T. But what I did do in between lessons or maybe during a lesson when, you know, that lesson was just kind of on an automatic repeat is I visual, I knew the course I was playing. So I visualized all the shots that I was going to be hitting during that. And I went and played fantastic in that tournament because I felt so comfortable with all the shots that I was going to hit. And then there are tournaments that I’ve

played where I practiced a lot going into the tournament and I played great going into the tournament. And then there, but there’s also been times where I played fantastic in a tournament. took a couple of weeks off and then I went into another major tournament because I was teaching so much. took those weeks off and I played awful, but my expectations were so high because I said to myself, well, I just played awesome two weeks ago. Where did that game just

go right but if I had put my and I and I happen to miss a cup but if I put my mind if I had my mind in a better place I really wasn’t that far off like I missed a cup by one but my mind was so cluttered and I got so mad on certain shots but if I had stayed calm and just said okay I just hit the shot there that was where I was meant to be let’s go hit the next shot I probably would have made that cut easily now backing up

Josh Nichols
Hmm.

Brendon Post
to our previous conversation, you know, there was an old pro that used to come to where I used to teach and he taught me something that was very eye opening to me. He took a golf club and say, well, okay, say this is the club face and I’m hitting the ball this way. He turned the club so it was upside down or reversed. So the toe of the club is now facing the ground and he took it back and swung and hit the ball. And I’m like, how did he just do that?

Like, and he swinging a pretty fast, high rate of speed. I like, it took me a couple of weeks to figure out. He’d come like every so often and say, did you figure out how to the ball like that? I’m like, I am totally stumped how you hit the ball like that. And then he took me through slow motion of how he did it. So I got said, if this was a club face, you know, he had a toe down and turned. So as he came through, as he was swinging back, he flipped the club in his hands.

in the backswing to square the club face up and then the club was perfectly square how it should have been coming through. And I was like, wow, that was pretty amazing. So then I started practicing that and I’m like, this is really easy. Like I’m not thinking any swing mechanics. I’m not thinking any position. I’m just saying, okay, when I swing back, I’ve got to get that club to feel like it’s square in my hand. So when I come down, it’s square coming into impact and

Josh Nichols
Whoa.

Josh Nichols
Yeah.

Josh Nichols
Yeah.

Brendon Post
That was very eye-opening to me saying that why do we focus on so much mechanical things? Where really the only thing that matters is getting that club face back to the ball square or the way that we want to contact the ball so that it produces the desired ball flight that we want. Because you see all these players chasing perfect swings, but who are some of the best players that have ever played? Like, sure, Tiger Woods had a perfect swing, but you can…

Look at Jim Fierke or Bernhard Langer. mean, that guy was a machine for a long time, right? There’s so many different Arnie Palmer with this weird finish. There’s so many different swings out there. You have to figure out how your swing works and how to own that motion. there’s also, now I’m going down the rabbit hole, but your body will also tell you the way that you should swing a club because like we have a couple of players on our golf.

Josh Nichols
Yeah.

Brendon Post
team who were football players and basketball players as well. But because of that, they have no range of motion in their shoulders. So they have a very low backswing and they have one of them has to hit a draw. One of them has to hit a fade. They’re just allowing what their, what their body is telling them to do to hit that shot. Right. So, look at another thing about golf that’s really interesting is that

Josh Nichols
Mm.

Brendon Post
We all think we have to hit a perfect golf shot. Like if I walked out there and place the ball 10 feet from the hole and said, tell me how that ball got there. Does it really matter how the ball got there? You could have hit a ground ball all the way up there and it’s 10 feet from the hole. You could have the perfect high draw, perfect high fade to 10 feet from the hole. It doesn’t matter. The ball is just there and now you have to hit the next shot. So that’s something that we try to tell the players is it doesn’t really matter how the ball gets there. It’s just that

Josh Nichols
Alright.

Josh Nichols
You

Josh Nichols
Hmm.

Brendon Post
as we’re playing that round of golf, have to know what our course management is, where we want to hit the ball, where we want to try to place it so that we put it in a position to hit our next shot. And it doesn’t matter how solid you hit it, how much the ball curved, how high it went. It just matters where it ended up so that you can hit that next shot.

Josh Nichols
Yes, yeah, Gio Valiante. He, yeah, he talks about kind of, mastery versus ego, playing others or playing, I don’t know if he mentioned this, but kind of playing your idea of, ideal golf and this, this fake thing that you made up in your mind versus playing the golf course as it is. And he even said kind of

Brendon Post
So.

Josh Nichols
playing against the course architect or something. it just, makes it a much more kind of, it’s okay being ugly. It like a messy, it’s all right letting it be messy, right?

Brendon Post
without that one. Yeah, without it. mean, I remember we had a girl on the girls’ tomb. I thought her superpower was she never cared how she hit the ball. And I saw her birdie six holes in the row and she did not hit one shot solid. Matter of fact, one of the shots was a ground ball from 130 yards that finished three feet next to the hole. I’m like, perfect. Let’s go make birdie. Right. So, know,

Josh Nichols
Yeah.

Brendon Post
Like I say to our players all the time, the scorecard has no pictures on it. It just cares what the final score is and it doesn’t matter how you do it. the other thing, when you get to our level, I also think everybody can strike the ball really well at our level and they can hit great golf shots. But what separates the really good players from the great players, this is just my opinion, is their brain.

how they play the game inside their brain and their short game in putting. And to me, putting is the most just, you know, watching at that from a college level to the tour level, just to see how great those guys are at putting and how good their speed control is, how good they are at reading greens. I think in order to play your best golf, you have to be very great up here and great.

around the greens.

Josh Nichols
Yeah. When did you go from like a decent player to a really good player yourself?

Brendon Post
Well, I think I went through kind of three stages.

You know, I played in high school, wasn’t very good, always the fifth man. Um, but the golf coach really relied on me a lot because he knew I was never going to go high, but I was never going to go low. So it was very consistent in the, like the high thirties, low forties. So, and then after I got out of high school, I didn’t play golf in college because I wasn’t that great. But one of the things that I did every summer was I worked really hard on my short game and I got to a point that I knew

Anytime I was around the green, I was going to get it up and down and I was not a very good ball striker. I hit a lot of bad shots. I hit the ball much better now. My short game isn’t as good now. So that was my, I guess my first aha moment was just improving the short game. My next aha moment was when I started working on the mental part of my game more is visualizing shots. I could

my swing still wasn’t great, because I visualized shots, my shot, I feel like my shot making got better. And then after that, I’ve gotten to the point where now I don’t practice a lot or play that much because we have three kids and they’re all over the place. But because I’ve, I’ve created such a great foundation, I can just kind of pick up a club and go, okay, I know where I want the ball to go in this general direction. So I’m going to hit it there. And then,

My main goal always when I’m playing now is just to get the ball in the green because I know if I get it on the green, can, I’m a okay putter. But if I disagree, my chipping isn’t as good. So my whole thing is course management wise, I’m super strong because I’m just trying to get it where I can putt, right? So I hit a lot of greens. I don’t hit it super close, but I hit a lot of greens because I’m saying I just want to get it on the green so I can leave myself a putt and

Brendon Post
I would say, you know, those are the stages that I’ve gone through is short game, mental and course management have helped me so much. then now if I ever have a chance to practice, I always say this to my assistant coaches. If you ever see me hitting a ball, kick me off the range and put me on the putting green or put me around the short game. Cause that’s what I really need to do is I need to focus on chipping, pitching and putting. If I can chip, pitch and put.

Josh Nichols
All right.

Brendon Post
then I know I’m gonna shoot low scores.

Josh Nichols
Right. Yeah, you know your own game and you’re strong here, weaker there. Yeah, that’s… I mean, the way you’re describing it, it goes right in line with kind of our theme of it’s okay for it to not be perfect. You’re going out knowing it’s not gonna be perfect. right, nothing I can do will make it perfect because I can’t practice…

Brendon Post
Mm-hmm.

Brendon Post
It’s not going to be perfect.

Okay.

Josh Nichols
you know, 20 hours a week, I have to be okay with my game as it is. that coming to an acceptance of my game is what it is, so I’m going to play my game as it is, it allows you to access more of your skill rather than wishing your game was different, trying to play up to another level, changing your strategy to, need to make more birdies because I need to be able to go lower.

whatever it is, you’re accepting of your game as it is.

Brendon Post
Yep.

Brendon Post
Yeah, we have a saying on the golf team. It just has to be good enough. It’s just got to be good enough. It doesn’t have to be great. It just has to be good enough. So, you know, I think that you have to realize in your game what works great for you, like whether you’re a great ball striker, whether you’re a great long iron player, short iron player, whatever it is, and you have to put yourself in the position to use your strengths.

You know, my strength is just course management. And I think that what I try to preach to players is, especially when we’re playing a practice round, we try to put them in situations where, okay, if we miss it here, what are we going to do? those shots just have to be good enough. It’s not like if we miss a green, you have to chip it to three feet. You could chip it to 12 feet because you still, you’re a great putter. Let’s just make the putt, right? So.

I think the main thing is keep the ball in play. We always say keep the ball in between you and the flag. Obviously, if the flag’s tucked in the front and there’s waterfront, you want to go past the flag. for the most part, you’re not going to face that shot, but maybe once around. So if you can keep the ball always between you and the flag and keep it in between the trees somehow, you don’t always have to hit driver. You know, I agree with Scott Fawcett and Lou Stagner that it’s great to hit driver.

Josh Nichols
Yeah.

Brendon Post
But why would I ever put myself if I have say a 375 yards hole, why would I ever put myself at 50 yards if I’m not a good 50 yard wedge player? And I know looking at my stats that I hit a closer from 90 yards. I make more birdies maybe from 120 yards. You know, it’s just interesting how we also don’t, I think as people, we don’t look enough at our stats because we had a very good player here. He was

ranked inside the top 150 in the country at one point, who I told him, said, you know, have you ever noticed you make more birdies from 150 to 175 than you do from a hundred? And I’m like, why would we ever put yourself at a hundred if you’re making more birdies and hitting and your proximity of holes closer, you know, from that 150 to 175. And it’s funny because then after I said that it came to fruition, we were playing at Innisbrook.

And I told him that like a couple of mornings ago and then I was on a par five with him. I’m like, what are you going to do here? He’s like, I’m going to hit it to a hundred yards. I’m like, okay. So he hits it to a hundred yards. You know, after we had the conversation a couple of days ago, hits it to a hundred yards. Then he hits it to 18 feet, which is PJ Tore average. And he is so mad that he can’t focus on the putt now. And he blows the putt, you know, four feet next to, and then he misses the putt because he’s so mad over that last shot. like, so that’s just getting.

Josh Nichols
Mm.

Brendon Post
understanding course management, understanding, Hey, you just hit it to PJ tour average 18 feet. Okay. So now let’s refocus and get ready to put a good, well, make a good read, understand your speed and put a good stroke on this plot and give yourself the best chance to make it by getting your mind right. don’t know. It’s, it’s really, you know, doing this for as long as I have, it’s just really interesting. Like how I always go back to that mental.

Josh Nichols
Mm-hmm.

Josh Nichols
All right.

Josh Nichols
Yeah.

Brendon Post
part of the game, if you can get your mind right, it’s amazing what could happen. It’s like, sorry to keep backtracking, but it’s like our player, our player that just catted for the Corn Fairy Tour player, he told me when he got back, you know, if he just kept his mind right, we would still be playing these next two days. And that player said the same thing to me two days later. He’s like, you know, if I had just kept my mind right, we still would have been there, but I just wasn’t in the right spot.

Josh Nichols
Yeah.

Brendon Post
and I just needed a reset, you know? So…

Josh Nichols
What was okay in that specific case get if I had just kept my mind right what was what was the specific thing for him? What was right? What would have been right the right place for him to be mentally?

Brendon Post
to understand that he wasn’t trying to hit perfect golf shots. Like when he goes wrong, he is looking for that feel.

there’s a story that his coach and some of his former players tell of that. He hit a shot. He hated it. When the ball was still in the air, he threw another ball down on the ground. By the time he was almost hitting the second shot, the first one went in the hole. So he was looking for a perfect shot, know, perfect ball contact, perfect flight through the air. None of that appeared, but the ball still went in the hole. Right. So

It’s just getting himself in that correct mindset saying, okay, don’t have my A game today, but I still have a, my game is still good enough to manage it around where I can still make the cut. And if I, if I were to have made the cut, maybe I could have got my swing to where I felt it was good. I felt like I was hitting good golf shots would, which would have been even created more clarity for my mind to play better golf.

Josh Nichols
sure.

Brendon Post
or to score better. You know, there’s always that fine scoring, playing, contact, like there’s always so much that goes into the game.

Josh Nichols
Yeah, it’s one of the strongest paradoxes. always think about the paradox of being more okay with playing bad golf allows you to play better golf. It’s the hardest thing in the world for golfers to do is to release perfect golf in order to get better golf, release control in order to get control. Have you ever struggled with that yourself?

Brendon Post
so hard.

all the time. Yeah, all I mean it’s so hard- yeah, without a doubt. It’s so hard. Like, you wanna hit a perfect golf shot. But it’s so hard to hit, It’s so hard to accept the bad shots, cause you know what you can do, but you have to bring yourself back. I always say to myself, but the scorecard doesn’t care what you do.

Josh Nichols
Yeah. Do you still?

Josh Nichols
Yeah.

Brendon Post
I remember when I was playing, I was doing a Monday qualifier for, I guess at the time, was maybe nationwide. I was playing against a former tour player. We were in a playoff, I think it was like four for two spots and we somewhat already got the first spot. We were now on to our third hole, it a part three downhill hole. And I hit, I mean, I hit a seven iron that didn’t get like 10 feet off the ground.

one hopped in the hole for a hole one. I said, Ed, I’m really sorry about that shot. I know that was awful. That was just really bad. but I, you know, I was now the first alternate because he didn’t make the whole one, but like the scorecard didn’t say how it was done, but it, served its purpose, right? I think that’s the hardest thing to, understand about this game is how

we don’t have to be perfect even though we’re all trying to be perfect it doesn’t have to be that way and if you can realize that it makes the game that much easier but that’s also the hard part of game and it’s like um you know i don’t know another golf pro that i used to work with all the time said i wish this game was just about ball striking because if it was i’d be like top 10 i’m like but it’s not you know it’s about a score that we have to shoot

Josh Nichols
the

Brendon Post
And it’s more the ball striking. It’s about short game. It’s about putting. It’s about course management. there’s so it’s like it’s a big puzzle that you’re trying to fit all these pieces together. And it’s so much fun. Like to me, it’s fun that you can hit bad shots and still score well, you know, so and you can hit great golf shots and you might not score well.

Josh Nichols
Right. Yeah. I love the, yeah, it’s exactly right. I love the idea of being more okay with messy golf and you’re, recognize my own golf career is when I was chasing perfection or where I

Brendon Post
Yeah, messy golf is great.

See ya.

Josh Nichols
I felt that I needed to groove emotion in order to hit the ball better, and that was the way that I was going to play better golf. Those parts of my life, when they seemed like they should have led to better golf, I stagnated and plateaued. But when I kind of said, I’m going to work on my game, I’m going to work on the things that I need to work on, but when I go play, I’m just going to play and play what I have and accept whatever comes of it, knowing

Brendon Post
Mm-hmm.

Josh Nichols
I’ll get back to work on it. It’s okay. it doesn’t have to go perfectly. And during those times I thrived and accelerated and got way better. So it’s just, it’s such a, it’s such a paradox, but do you, I, I have a selfish question for you. Just, it’s about me specifically. Okay. how old are you? First of all,

Brendon Post
Mm-hmm.

Brendon Post
Yeah, yeah.

I am 55.

Josh Nichols
Okay, 55. So I’m 34 and we’ve got two young kids. We’ve got a three-year-old and a five-month-old. So young, really young kids. But I also have really big goals that I want to accomplish still. I want to make it back to the U.S. Mid-Am. I want to qualify for it. I want to, you know, I’d love, I want to win it. Make match play, win some matches and win it. So I have these big goals still.

Brendon Post
Mm-hmm.

Brendon Post
Mm-hmm.

Josh Nichols
And I have this kind of, know I’m capable of it because I’ve been there before, but I also don’t have the time that I used to have when I did accomplish that. So with all of that, if I spit that all in, all into your computer, what, if you were me and maybe I’m asking this basically because you have been me in some ways, but if you were me, how would you go about getting better and reaching those goals?

Brendon Post
Mm-hmm.

Brendon Post
Yep.

Brendon Post
Well, first of all, does your wife know all this?

Josh Nichols
Yes, she does. She knows we have two kids, at least. I don’t know about the rest.

Brendon Post
Okay, so it’s… so I would… Well, first of all, think the first step is you lay that all out there, right? You know, I go back and forth, are goals good or are they not good? You know, but I think having goals, in my opinion, think having goals is good. You have to strive for something. It’s, you know, I get…

Josh Nichols
No, she does.

Josh Nichols
Mm.

Brendon Post
when players come to me and say, just want to get better. I’m like, okay, that’s not really a goal. And I get it, you know, because I’ve said that too. I just want to get better. So I like your goals that you’ve lived in out there. But I think a couple of things that I learned when we had, so our kids are 17, 16 and 12 now. And for an extended period of time, and this is even when I was playing very good golf, I was teaching two hours away.

So I’d actually stay overnight at times, but I would always practice. I’d practice on a Saturday evening before I would come home. So, you know, I’d practice hitting some shots, some, especially a lot of short game putting, but if my mind was never in the right spot saying I should be home, I should be with my family, I would immediately leave because I’m not going to do any good work if my mind is not in the right spot.

And when I had my mind in the right spot, whether I practiced for 10 minutes or two hours, if my mind was in the right spot, I was very productive in my practice. But if my mind was not in the right spot and I felt like I should be somewhere else, my practice is awful and it didn’t help me at all get better. And I learned a lot from, from that. And also from visualizing.

You know, when I was driving home, I had a lot of time, two hours. So I would visualize some shots that I would want to see on a golf course. Maybe some shots I’d want to see on a range, some putts I would want to hit. So I did a lot of visualizing too. But I would say that when you’re trying to reach these goals, if you’re practicing and you don’t feel, don’t keep practicing, leave. I’d also make sure that your body, your, to me, your body is the most important golf club in your bag.

Josh Nichols
Hmm.

Brendon Post
So if you can keep your if I had a choice and I learned this from where I used to work If I had a choice of hitting balls or working out I would always work out because that would keep my body in the shape that I needed to be in in order to swing the club the way that I wanted to and the reason why I learned this so my background is Where where I taught for 10 years? Dr. Greg Rose from TPI actually designed the facility that I was at and when he left to start TPI

Josh Nichols
Hmm.

Josh Nichols
Yeah. cool.

Brendon Post
He allowed me to then come teach at the facility he started. One of the things that I noticed by working with all of our members that we had is during the winter, they would work really hard on their body and on their swing. And then come April, May, and June, we were in Maryland. So they’d start playing the end of March. April, May, and June, they’d play great golf. And then come July, they’d start to play bad. And they’d come see me and they’re playing. They’re like, I’m playing the way that I was before.

It’s just not good. What can we do? And I started realizing the one piece that they kept forgetting to work on was their body. So their body went back to the way it was before. And once we started creating programs, with that in mind, so whether it’s a 15 minute body warmup or 30 minute workout that they would do just to keep their body where it was,

Josh Nichols
Hmm.

Brendon Post
that helped them keep their golf game pretty solid throughout the whole year. And then once October, November came around, then they would really jump back in really hard, getting their body even better than it was. we’re trying to, know, once they came out of the spring, we’re trying to keep them very level by keeping their body in shape and that, you know, they’d still come for a lesson here and there, but because their body was staying in better shape, it helped keep their swing where they needed it needed.

Josh Nichols
Yeah.

Josh Nichols
Hmm.

Brendon Post
to keep their swing. So I think your body, like if I had to go in order, I would say your body’s first, your mind, and then your golf game is what I would focus on. Like for example, with our players, when we start, I always tell our players when I’m recruiting them, I feel the places that we’re going to help you the most are your course management, your mental game, and your short game. Most of them all have swing instructors. So I’m always going to rely on their swing instructors.

Josh Nichols
Hmm.

Josh Nichols
Wow.

Brendon Post
If something goes wrong, I’ll go to the swing instructor or when they’re playing their best, I say to them, when you’re playing your best, I’ll put you on the launch monitor. Let’s put you on the video. Let’s put you on 3D so we know what we have. And then if something goes wrong, we can revert back to that. during our right now, our players come back next week. We do have a tournament the first week, which isn’t what we normally do, but we couldn’t pass up a trip to Puerto Rico. So after we get back from Puerto Rico, we have actually

Josh Nichols
yeah.

Brendon Post
The book that we’re going to read now is, you know what, you’ve read it. We’re going to read this book now. But last year we read, for example, last year we read, last year we read this book. So we do a book club every February to get our minds in a better spot to start the season. And then that, that helps them tremendously. So to get back to your question, I would work on your body.

Josh Nichols
Yeah, yeah, go off beneath the surface.

Josh Nichols
Mm-hmm.

Josh Nichols
Yeah.

Josh Nichols
So cool.

Josh Nichols
Yeah. Okay. So I, yeah. Yeah, go.

Brendon Post
your body, your mental, your short game, you know how to hit a golf ball. That’s what I would really focus on.

Josh Nichols
Hmm Wow, that’s that’s interesting because that that is that’s the dilemma that I I face is okay, I don’t have much time so I I think I just have to hit a bunch of golf balls and if that’s the you didn’t even listen on it’s not it didn’t even make your list it didn’t make your top three so That’s so interesting. Is that and this is what you’ve specifically done

Brendon Post
Thank

I don’t think so.

Nope. Nope.

I mean, you’ve, you’ve, you’ve, yeah, you’ve played college golf, right? So you’ve hit a gazillion golf balls. And I think, yeah. And you have a trainer, right? So, so you have that plan. So like where you are in your life with your two kids, I would work on your body, your mental game and your short game. You know how to hit a golf ball. You’re going to hit great shots. You’re going to hit bad shots. But next year, I think.

Josh Nichols
Yes.

Josh Nichols
Yeah.

Brendon Post
And when I say short game, putting. Sorry. Putting would be huge.

Josh Nichols
You’re

Josh Nichols
Yeah, yeah. Okay. So that’s, that is, extremely, convicting is the only, it’s the only where the comes to mind. was just like, okay, my, my desire is so I don’t practice what I preach. What I talk all about this, like it’s okay to, yeah, it blew my mind. I, it talks.

Brendon Post
What?

Hmm.

I blew your mind.

Josh Nichols
I talk so much about it’s okay to play messy golf. You’re not going to play perfect. Your body already knows how to swing. And yet the very first thing that I do when I have 20 minutes is I try to hit as many balls as I can in my backyard. When I have a putting mat, I haven’t worked out in days. I have time to read a book or study something mentally or visualize. And I bypass all of those. When that’s

Brendon Post
you

Mm-hmm.

Josh Nichols
Agree with you. That’s what I would tell someone else to do in my position. I already know how to hit a golf ball. I’ve hit a bazillion golf balls and my sort of compulsory panic practice is Kind of fear-based of like I don’t want to lose it. I don’t want to I don’t want to hit bad shots and that’s a bad motivation so I When you when you go about it the way that you’re describing I’m actually giving myself a

of vote of trust. I trusted my ability that I’ve built over the years, and I’m allowed to let it be what it’s going to be. don’t have to act on fear.

Brendon Post
Mm-mm.

No, not at all. Not at your level. I mean, you’re such a great golfer right now. If you can get your body right, your mind right, become a great putter. In my opinion, putting fixes everything, even though Dr. Mark Brody might not agree with me. I believe them. Excuse me. I got a scratchy throat. Yeah, so that’s what I said.

Josh Nichols
Hmm.

Josh Nichols
Heal’s all wounds.

Josh Nichols
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Man. That’s I’ve got, okay. I’ve got some changes to make. I won’t be the same after this, after this conversation. So I appreciate this, but, I, at the risk I’ve got, I always, I say this at the end of every podcast, I could go on for hours. I checked off like two things that other things I wanted to talk to you about. So it’s, this has been awesome. I, I didn’t know you, before today we’ve emailed back and forth a little bit.

Brendon Post
Mm-hmm.

Josh Nichols
I’m glad you guys landed on Golf Beneath the Surface to read. It’s, listeners of podcast know that I, it’s my favorite golf book. I told you that over email. So yeah, I’m glad we got to know each other and this has been an awesome hour spent with you.

Brendon Post
Mm hmm. Yeah.

Yeah, it was great. It was great. Thank you. And if you ever need more time, I’m here for you. Good luck in your goal there. I love it.

Josh Nichols
Yeah man, I appreciate it, Brendon. Best of luck this semester.