Podcast Transcript
Josh Nichols
Alex Fortey, why do we make golf so complicated?
Alex Fortey
I wish I knew the one sentence answer to that, but it’s a baffling endeavor and I think the industry, I’m part of it I guess, but the industry has made it so much harder for people because they’ve realized they can make so much money off people and no other sport or pastime has as much instruction or people telling you, you are doing it wrong than in golf and it’s baffling. I wish I knew the one sentence answer to it.
Josh Nichols
Yeah, because you kind of grew up playing tennis, if I’m not mistaken. So you said no other sport has this level of you’re doing it wrong in sort of coaching industry. is that actually true? Because I’m in such a bubble of golf. is that baseball or something? Is that actually true, do you think?
Alex Fortey
But yeah.
Alex Fortey
I I think, I mean, there’s obviously instruction and, and, you know, technology and ways to try and improve like your technique could be snooker. It could be darts. It could be anything. There’s always ways to improve, but maybe it is sort of paradigm bubble kind of thing being in there, but I do try and step out of the, the, the golf bubble as much as I can to see what clues success leaves in other endeavors. know, tennis is still, I mean don’t play much anymore, but it’s still something that I enjoy and I do watch some kind of YouTube channels and I watch like the tennis matches and things like this.
But there’s just much, much less comparison of here’s what the pros do, this is what you should do. Because most people who you see on TV golfing, they’re in their 20s, they’re peak.
athletic performance. I’m 47 this year. I wish I felt 27. I mean, I try and keep myself agile and healthy and all that kind of stuff, but we just cannot perform like we could in the 20s. And these are supreme athletes. know, people aren’t going out trying to perform like footballers or even like elite baseball players when they’re playing softball with their friends, you know, things like this. It’s like there’s such a disconnect from, here’s what the very best do to what the regular golfers do. And I think that’s part of the problem.
Josh Nichols
Mmm.
Josh Nichols
Yeah, yeah, there’s the… It’s so enticing because you see someone like Scottie Scheffler who… It’s not pretty Adam Scott, Tiger, Rory sort of… Scottie doesn’t look elite as he’s swinging. He’s flailing all over the place and he makes it seem more accessible, yet it is not at all accessible.
but we as golfers and maybe instructors can do this. Like I was just kind of scrolling. Admittedly, I was scrolling YouTube shorts on a doom scroll sort of situation. But one of them was a Scotty Scheffler kind of swing breakdown with lines drawn over him. it wasn’t yours. for those listening, I wasn’t watching.
Alex Fortey
You
Alex Fortey
Hmm.
Josh Nichols
Alex Forte video or he’s doing this but it was someone else completely but he didn’t give any instruction he just said for those watching this what do you think like what what does this video show you about how to swing the club so he was inviting a question from the the viewer and I just you know that’s such a pervasive thing of let’s watch so-and-so’s swing
And you’ve done some of these, I think your most recent one was kind of how can you take pieces from Tommy Fleetwood, Jim Furyk, but how can you draw that balance of, they are really good at this thing, so they’re doing it the right way, quote unquote. So you should totally emulate, try to emulate.
completely what they’re doing or take pieces from what they’re doing because obviously you’re a fan of taking pieces.
Alex Fortey
For me, that one lesson thing was really just one small component. And what I try and do, I never try and claim I’m the world’s best golf coach. I I think I’m a good, I believe I’m a good coach. I feel like I can explain things well and I’m more about coaching rather than teaching. I don’t want people to be reliant upon what me or what I tell them. I try and, you know, because…
They’re the students that I want to help the most because that’s also more like me. It’s like people that are interested, that take a couple of nuggets and then kind of pursue the concept themselves for their own translation and feels. that one sort of lesson, it’s not saying obviously you’ve got to do all these things that Furek does or Fleetwood, but it was one concept that why do they strike their irons well? What clues?
do their successes leave? And it’s like, well, actually, they’re standing a little bit closer to it. They’re a little bit tighter through impact, and they’re gripping down just a little bit. That’s it. So the idea is to create awareness for someone, if they are struggling with their irons, maybe they are standing too far away. They’re not covering the ball enough. So you know what? When you’re out on the golf course, it doesn’t require crap tons of practice. It doesn’t require a complete overhaul. It just gets you little bit more over it.
It gets you little bit more control and more often than not, it’s going to give someone that slightly more consistent strike. That’s it. So you look at the clues that some of these players leave and then just see what transpires from it for each individual. But yeah, as far as like YouTube.
Josh Nichols
Yeah, you said at the end of that video, yeah, yeah, yeah, right. You said at the end of that video, you were after something small that moves the needle that does a few other things that benefit you, right? It’s kind of, here’s a small setup tweak that we’re not trying to change your swing plane directly, but if you change this small thing, it will do these other things kind of by default.
Alex Fortey
Absolutely and like no one really because it’s boring as hell like to say work on your setup it’s like it’s so boring but the change that just that the minutiae the smallest things that you can do in your setup the variables that it can create throughout the rest of the swing is so profound that
People just skip those steps. they focus more, and most instruction focuses more on what do I have to do, meaning what do I have to manipulate? All these things, do I shallow, do I flex my wrist, do I tuck this in? The swing happens like this. When you’re standing over a golf shot, the only thing we can control is how we address it and our setup. And the more understanding we have of that, and the more disciplined we can to get that repeatable,
the more consistent you’re gonna be. Because, yes, it’s boring, but your ball position, if it changes one inch here and there, that’s gonna change not just the strike, but the rest of the swing. If you got it a little bit too far away from you, that’s gonna change again. There’s so many things that happen just from how you’re setting up the club that it’s impossible to try and fix it all. It’s less likely you’re gonna be able to do it whilst you’re trying to adjust and manipulate. And…
when people focus more on the setup, not only does it help consistency, but I find it just helps the kind of enjoyment of it because they’re not trying to sort of just hope, like trying to make changes or trying to do these somewhat complicated things when it matters out on the golf course. Because we’ve all been there. Yes, you can have a swing thought, you can have an intention. And it’s not like I go around, you know, I’ve…
had many, many struggles on the golf course. Many. It’s why I stopped playing for 17 years, really. know? And because I hated the game. So when I came back to it, I came with a fresh perspective and it was like how I was doing it. you know, I’m not I try and stay out of the the instruction kind of bubble, as you called it before. Like I don’t watch much.
Alex Fortey
YouTube at all. I don’t pay much attention to what other people are doing. I just pay attention to people I coach, people I play golf with, and I try and play golf with all sorts of shapes of golf swings, all types of people, all types of ages, all these various things that… So I try and see like, okay, what can these people do in reality? It’s not what the pros do and it’s not complicated.
Josh Nichols
Yeah, making it more complicated is, like you said, it’s a way to make more money. mean, do you feel like you’re kind of…
kind of fighting against a giant a little bit. Do you take that as like a personal endeavor of yours to say, I want to change how people view golf instruction or do you just truly kind of, yeah.
Alex Fortey
I definitely used to, but then it was like swimming upstream because, you know, I don’t play the game as far as like trying to, you know, network and put, you know, I don’t try and do many collaborations. I’m just not interested in a lot of it because I see, you know, when I came back to golf, it was more about playing and playing with other golfers.
and seeing what they do on the golf course, where it really matters. it’s like I suddenly had this light bulb moment that it was like most golfers are learning on a driving range with instructors and there’s nothing against them. I’m not saying like instructors are bad. So before anyone sends me hate mail, it’s not about that. But there’s a, for me, there was a huge room.
Josh Nichols
You
Alex Fortey
in the industry, guess, just for some normal conversations and to try and be a filter for all the noise that’s out there because when people are out golfing, whether they’re mid handicaps, whether they’re scratch handicaps, whether they’re college golfers, whether they’re senior golfers, whatever, we all have the same drive. Golf is such a stupid fucking game, sorry. I know it’s a bit of a swear, but I’m English, so I get away with it.
Josh Nichols
Yeah, tell us, tell us.
Alex Fortey
It is, it’s such a hard game in the fact that there’s so many different things that can happen. There’s so much that we can’t control, but this futility of thinking that we can create some kind of magic swing that’s always going to be reliable because the pros do it or whatever, it just does not translate to golfers when they’re out on the golf course because we can only remember one or two things, let alone trying to…
Josh Nichols
Mm-hmm.
Alex Fortey
go out and practice on the range for hours and hours and then work on these complicated drills and then apply them. That’s for the people who are really, really dedicated and have nothing else to do and they can see the benefits. But a lot of the times they don’t even see the benefits when they do that anyway because there’s such a gap from practice to course. And yes, you can bring in things like, you know,
Josh Nichols
Yeah.
Alex Fortey
practicing more like you play, like changing your targets and changing your clubs. Of course, that is very beneficial. But there’s not enough…
focus I think to give golfers just something to kind of do with a almost abstract concept on the golf course that helps them enjoy it a bit more and play a bit better golf because that’s all most people want. They want to be less crap, they want to be a bit more consistent and they don’t want it to feel like a battle all the time. They understand that golf is hard, they understand that they’re going to have bad rounds, they understand they’re going to hit bad shots, hopefully, but
they want to at least feel that it’s an enjoyable endeavor and they are improving a bit. But when you’re always looking for some magic bullet everywhere, no matter what level of golfer you are, you’re screwed. So it’s when you focus on the basics and the simple foundation and understand how you as a person moves best and how your anatomy changes that, your arm length, your wingspan, things like this, that changes the golf swing that you should be copying.
And once you understand a bit of that, and that’s what I try and help people with, it just becomes a little bit easier to be more consistent.
Josh Nichols
Yeah, do you, you know, it is such a fine line between, you know, online instruction, you know, kind of content that we all see, content that you put out, content that I put out. And like you said, you’re part of the industry, I’m part of the industry. So when we put something out, we aren’t talking to one individual in a one-on-one session.
coaching situation, we are talking to, in your case, hundreds of thousands of people. So you’re, you are kind of in a position where you have to generalize. So do you, do you hope, would you hope that golfers would be able to, okay, maybe, maybe this will cut at it closer, but would you, would you want, say me, for instance,
Would you want me to watch every one of your videos or find a video that addresses a thing that I’m struggling with? Of those two, what would you think?
Alex Fortey
Well, OK, so if you could fix, if you could improve one thing about like your swing game or whatever, you were like, OK, if I could actually be consistent and better at this one element, what would it be?
Josh Nichols
Yeah it would be I think striking the irons center contact on irons.
Alex Fortey
So what I would… So yeah, like basically you just focus… Like everyone kind of skips a lot of steps. They’re like, okay, how can I strike ions more consistently? I’ve got videos on that. But most of them, when I talk about that, basically boils it down to understand that if you can’t just make a nice little contact, a 20 % swing length and not necessarily a chip shot, but just…
understanding that you can repeatedly strike the center of the face with that correct contact on a mini shot, you build up from that foundation. If you keep trying to look at lots of different ways to improve your eye inconsistency and strike the middle of the face, you are going to be stuck. But there is that problem of bouncing or pinballing around, I call it. You pinball from, this was the tip. But most of them, what people are finding online is like, yeah.
I can’t think of anything, but it’s like, I’ve got to sort of let that club fall behind me. It’s like, well, okay, you do that, that’s manipulation. So there’s a cause and effect to all of this. Let’s find out why, like, I want you to know why you’re not hitting the middle of the face enough. And there’s gonna be dozens of possible reasons, but I want you to figure out first how to hit it out the middle on tiny little shots. And then from there, you build it out. You will figure it out. You’ve got more than enough
knowledge and information in your head to piece it together. You just have to sort of trust it a bit more and not keep chasing some magic kind of formula of like all these different things. It’s really, and that’s why I called it the art of simple golf. It’s not Alex Forte’s method to perfect golf or anything. It’s just, it’s trying to awaken people to realize like, you know what, I actually do play better.
I am more consistent when I keep things really freaking simple because we’re kind of dumb most of the time when we’re on the golf course and in life as well, we’re kind of dumb. There’s a lot going on. There’s a lot of distractions, whether it’s people, whether it’s the wind, whether it’s the slopes, whether it’s your score, whether it’s the bad shot you’ve hit before. And yes, there’s tons of techniques, methods, strategies to try and like focus and do all that. But most golfers,
Alex Fortey
are just trying to hit the ball kind of less shit. That’s it. They’re just trying to be a bit more consistent. So it’s like trying to find out what would make you feel good about your game and to be more enjoyable. And it’s like, all right, I want to be able to strike good irons. So I would say, let’s focus on one particular thing that’s going to get you to just keep chipping, pitching, and hitting those irons with trustworthy consistency. And
Josh Nichols
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Alex Fortey
nine times out of ten, it’s just going to be set up and not moving off the ball as much. it.
Josh Nichols
Yeah, right. Yeah. Yeah, that’s so, that’s so interesting because I, despite having talked to guys like you, been exposed to smart, grounded people so much. I mean, I’ve done hundreds of episodes of this podcast and I’ve talked to awesome coaches. I’ve had, I have an awesome coach who would talk the same way. I’m still just as prone to say, okay, well,
Ludwig does this look how good he does this and I know he’s literally 24 or something so it is it’s it’s so enticing but like you say By searching and ping-ponging around to try to find the perfect thing by trying to be perfect You’re moving yourself way further away from perfect Just just by searching so boiling it down to something really simple
Alex Fortey
Yeah, because you’re never fully mastering anything. You’re just about the time that you might be starting to get it. It doesn’t quite work, and then you look for something else. And you just keep spinning and pinballing around. progress getting better is very rarely linear. It’s always up and down, up and down. But hopefully, we’re kind of moving in a positive direction. But the…
Josh Nichols
Yeah, trending.
Alex Fortey
The boring thing is what works. But for some reason that made me think about, I realized this years ago, like when I was trying to compete and play. I was fortunate enough to be known as a ball striker. I had a good swing. Primarily I taught myself to begin with. But then I started, I can do pretty well at this. I can perhaps make a career of it. And I started seeing
Josh Nichols
Mm.
Alex Fortey
know, coaches, some very good coaches. So it’s not a slight on them, it’s more of a slight on me because I was thinking that was the way to succeed. It’s like, here’s what the top pros do, I’ve got to try and replicate them. But it was like a Euro Pro Tour event. And I remember looking down the range and it was just dozens of perfect goal swings. Everyone kind of doing the same sort of drills.
I mean, back then it was very much X factor and it’s kind of boring stuff, but it’s like everyone was trying to sort of swing pretty much the same, right? And I was like, okay, why are these golfers, you know, not all just young, just trying to come out like some, been trying it for a while. It’s like, okay, why are these not able to perform like the best in the world? And there’s fortune, there’s luck, there’s, you know,
holding a few putzes, all that kind of stuff. if you look, even now, if you took a silhouette of the top 50 golfers in the world and saw their swings just as a silhouette, one, you’d be able to tell who’s who for the most part, if you know golf swings and you watch a lot of golf. But they’re all kind of different, right? They’ve all got their own idiosyncrasies. They’ve all got slightly different planes, different movements, slightly different tempos.
Josh Nichols
Hmm.
Alex Fortey
It’s only when you start going down the world rankings, the order of merit, that the sort of more robotic kind of perfect swingers start to sort of, it increases. It’s like this sort of journeyman pro kind of thing of this model golfer, they all do this, they all do that. But it’s like what they’re doing is they’re chasing someone else’s concept of a golf swing. Like would you really teach…
Josh Nichols
Hmm.
Alex Fortey
Brooke Koepka’s swing, for example? No. But he is one of the best natural solid ball strikers and competitors that golf has ever seen. And there’s dozens and dozens of examples like this. So this chasing this sort of perfection or this data, this data, these numbers, all this kind of stuff. By doing that, you’re just getting away from what you do well. Now it doesn’t mean…
Josh Nichols
Mmm.
Alex Fortey
I’m not saying that you just sort of close your eyes and you just swing like Bubba Watson and just see what the hell happens. I’m not saying that at all. Like I work on my swing and you know, I’ve been working recently with Mike Shire, who helped Bryson DeChambeau a lot. And there’s been some fantastic coaches that have helped me as well, like Andreas Carly, Denmark. He’s got like an incredible stable of golfers coming out of there. And others short game, Andy Gorman. Like there’s plenty of golfers, coaches who’ve helped me through the years.
But what I’ve sort of done with them in the past is take it a bit too literally and try to do too much for my swing. It’s like, OK, what are the principles? What’s the checklist that I need? And it takes a bit of practice to entrust, really. It’s more not just practice. It’s trusting that my checklist that I’m creating as far as how I set up my pressure points is the more disciplined I get with that.
the better I’ve become since I’ve been playing more golf. And, you know, it’s so easy to get away from that. And I don’t know, and that’s where I get annoyed with the industry, because that’s what I said at the beginning. It’s like, we’re always being told we’re not doing it right. We’re told that we’ve got to do it differently. We’ve got to, you know, it’s always, you’re doing it wrong, you’re doing it wrong, you’re doing it wrong. Whereas if we never saw our swing on camera, I’m pretty sure…
90 % of golfers would perform better if they never saw their swing on camera.
Josh Nichols
Wow, yeah, yeah, that’s such a fascinating thing. As you get closer and closer to number one in the world, the more variety there is, but as you get further from number one in the world, the more uniform and robotic. I’ve never thought about that, but that in actuality, in reality, that makes perfect sense.
the fact that we’re kind of all chasing an ideal rather than being okay with our games as it is. Because the way that you got there was probably by leaning into who you are and you venture away from that. You said you started hating the game. Why did that make you start hating the game when you kind of, like why did you walk away from it? That’s a pretty drastic.
decision after that.
Alex Fortey
was actually, my friend actually texted me earlier back in England. He was gonna caddy for me at Celtic Manor, where they held the Ryder Cup. There was a pro event there. And we went down and I think we played nine holes of a practice round. And he mentioned that there was a party going on back in, know, early 20s, mid 20s. And there was a party going on.
back in Birmingham and I said screw it, let’s go. And I was just done because it was fear. It started to develop to be a bit of a phobia somewhat but we can talk about that. That kind of got worse when I came back to golf actually. But it was a big reason why I stopped because I was just so fearful about which golfer, which Alex was gonna show up today.
I had no idea. And I would practice and practice and practice and work on the swing and work on the swing. And even the day before, I’d be like, I’ve got it. I freaking got it. And the day I turn up on the range, it’s not there. I can’t find it. And I’m trying to find this specific feel, this move. And I still struggle with that. I really, really do, being authentic. But I’m a lot better because I’m at least aware of it now. But this, instead of just…
being able to go out and play and enjoy it and see what happens. There was just so much pressure on to perform and I didn’t come from any money, so it was very much gotta perform to pay the rent and all that kind of stuff. And golf is freaking hard enough as it is. Without having that on you, plus then not kind of trusting that the tools I had were good enough because I was thinking that it had to be something.
perfect when really okay was plenty good enough. So that’s where the psychology came in and I was just like, I’m never gonna, I was just like I’m not going to be able to be who I want to be right now. So I just quit and yeah, like I played and then I got into sort of coaching juniors and an internet, a European golf language school thing. I did that for a few years, which was great. But then I hung up the clubs for
Alex Fortey
17 years. I didn’t really touch him maybe like once in Australia I hit a bucket of balls when I was living out there and I didn’t miss it. I didn’t miss it at all.
Josh Nichols
Wow. And what stretch, what years are we talking about, the 17 years?
Alex Fortey
Well, it’s like it was
Where are we?
Yeah, like it was, I mean, I started playing again when I moved into Hunting Creek here in Kentucky. That’s when I started, I joined the club. I started, I wanted to play again. Cued us to the course, cause I remember going on the third hole and I was like, actually want to play golf again. And that was in 21. So yeah, mid 2000s to then, I can’t remember the exact dates, but it was a long time.
Josh Nichols
thousand.
Alex Fortey
A long, time.
Josh Nichols
So the kind of phobia that you’re talking about, that is, if you are willing to talk about it, when you say, when you got back to playing, the phobia almost got worse. What do you, tell me more. Flush that one out.
Alex Fortey
Well, was definitely tied to the past because I would have such a fear of like which Alex, like I would stand on, it wasn’t just first T-nerves, it was just the day, the round. I would be like, I don’t know where this ball is gonna go. I just completely lost trust in myself and who I was and my swing and all the practice, all the training, the hard push, push, push meant for nothing. And so this phobia came of like just having no clue of what was going to happen.
Josh Nichols
Right.
Alex Fortey
And I would try, you know, I’d try harder. I’d try and work on pre-shot routines. I’d try and like find the bubble and, you know, all these kind of stuff. Just didn’t do anything because there was just too much in my head and it just became paralyzing. But when I started playing, you know, wanting to play golf, good golf again, and caring about how I played, you know, I’m in a new country. I don’t know people, but then people, you know, I’d already
Like I’d been doing videos and teaching for online and in person a little bit, but I just wasn’t really playing golf. But there’s, you know, a lot of it is external, but expectations or what I perceived people’s expectations of me were. And that applies to regular anyone, any golfers. We all have this fear about performance in front of anyone really. But this feeling that I had to be something to, to…
to be worthwhile. The fact that my whole identity was based on how I performed at golf and how people perceive me. And I wanted to impress, as it were. I wanted to be like, oh, he does know how to play golf. Or he didn’t use to. I just wanted to be able to show it. And it was so crippling that I would avoid playing with new people. Or if I had to play with new people.
Josh Nichols
Hmm.
Alex Fortey
I would dread it, like I would lose sleep. And it was bad, but…
The only way through it was through it and realizing that there was something, I wish I knew where I saw it, but there was one phrase that really helped. And it was realizing that, someone kind of asked me, I really wish I could give credit for who asked me this. But it’s like, when you’re playing, how much are you thinking or judging the other person that you’re playing with? I’m like, not at all, I got my own shit going on. And they’re like, exactly.
Josh Nichols
Hmm.
Josh Nichols
Hehehe.
Alex Fortey
So why do you think that they are thinking or judging about you? And I was like, yeah, I sound like a right idiot. Because yeah, golf is hard. Like there is so much going on. It’s consuming. Even when you’re just sort of having fun. Like everyone’s got their own demons, their own battle, their own process, their own swing thoughts. They couldn’t care less what you were doing, really.
So that kind of really helps switch the narrative a bit. was like, I’m going to carry on doing what I do. But the thing that really helped my actual performance was really focusing less on the swing and that changing all day and focusing more on being diligent in my mini checklist of like, I wouldn’t necessarily say a…
Josh Nichols
Yeah.
Alex Fortey
I mean, I do have a pre-shot routine. didn’t realize I had one, but I do have one. And just being diligent in, if things are a bit off, just going through my checklist of like, okay, when my grip pressure’s okay, did that stay connected with my palm? Like it’s all, to me, like did I stay on my left side or did I move? All this kind of stuff. It’s like, so I can knock off a couple of things if I hit a bad shot. It’s like, I’m just focusing on those.
basically and since I’ve been doing that and helping other people do that their consistency goes up a lot more.
Josh Nichols
Right, so you were, you let go of all these things that you couldn’t control, other people’s opinions, maybe even end result, end score, and refocused on here’s literally a checklist of things that I can control, that I can reliably do every time. You can’t reliably maybe even have the same kind of swing plane or whatever hip.
turn, who knows, but you can reliably have the same setup and there are things that you can reliably have.
Alex Fortey
And I think just even trying to do that helps forget a lot of other stuff as well. You see what I mean? Like who’s watching or what my score is or what happened. It’s like you just sort of focused on that mini little checklist. It doesn’t mean like I’m standing there for five minutes. Like I’m a pretty, if you ask most people, I’m a pretty quick player. That’s why I said I didn’t, I asked a very good golfer. He was club champion and stuff. And I asked him one day,
Josh Nichols
Mm-hmm.
Alex Fortey
I actually texted him because I was interested. I was like, what would you say is the good about my game and bad about my game? I can’t remember a lot of it, but I was surprised that he said how disciplined I was in my sort of routine. I was like, huh. I never even, like, didn’t intend to do that because I’ve always, well, I had tried a lot to do these practice routines, to visualize, to…
how many swings to step into the bubble and all this kind of stuff. But it just didn’t, it just created more stuff. And I know that sounds a bit counterintuitive to the checklist, but it was like, I was more then worried of thinking about, where do I not want to hit it? Or, you know, too many other things came into it and it’s like, okay, the only thing I can control is stand here, just like I would in a simulator or something. It’s like,
There’s less variables. The only thing I’m really concentrating on is, I setting up OK? And maybe like one swing concept. And when people do that, the scariness, the variables just sort of dissipates. And yeah, I have a very simple routine. And I just sort of stick to it, because it helps me.
Josh Nichols
not mess around with too many different things, I guess.
Josh Nichols
Yeah, when you give yourself so much, this is the maybe paradoxical thing or the thing that maybe you run into or I run into with coaching or instructing is we are trying to help this player who’s struggling improve and we give them new things to do or introducing new ideas to them and
And often it can, you know, when you learn something new, starts as a very conscious thing. You have to, you have to hold it in mind. So it, it’s, it almost turns up the volume, right? So before you can commit it to habit, it’s, it, it becomes noisier, but so it’s almost like by trying to improve you, you make yourself worse because you’re introducing new, new volume or a higher volume of things. So it,
Alex Fortey
Yeah.
Josh Nichols
How, do you ever think about when you’re helping someone, even just one on one, do you ever think about stripping away things? Like you talk about art of simple golf being your business. Do you ever think about it as let’s get rid of things that you’re doing or is it always, let’s try this? Okay.
Alex Fortey
absolutely. Absolutely. And here’s the thing, like I used to do a lot more kind of like half day sessions or, you know, people wanting to come into town for a day. after a while, I was like, not, I mean, they would go away happy. I’m not saying like I’ve ripped them off or anything, but they would go away happy and they would have many things, but it’s like,
Josh Nichols
Yeah.
Alex Fortey
I started to realize like how much can we actually retain and remember let alone go away and execute it well, right? And I started to notice and it’s when I started playing a lot more golf with all types of golfers realizing what it’s like in the trenches and I think more coaches should do that. Like not necessarily playing lessons, but just seeing
golfers in their natural habitat, as it were, right? Like even golfers who practice a lot. It’s like, man, there’s such a disconnect from when they get out on the golf course. And we can only remember like a couple of things. And I find that that’s why I like doing a lot of online stuff because it’s like you just, it’s like one thing. It’s like, heck, you just need to…
move your left hip forward a little bit more, address. Because that’s going to do X, Y, Z, A, B, That’s it. You don’t have to go into all the details. Most golfers are not going to go away and drill and practice and hit thousands of golf shots. They’re going to sort of hit a few shots and go, that makes pretty good sense. But when they come back and play next time, they can’t be thinking, I want to make sure I’m here and here and placed in the club. It’s like, no. But they can remember to just.
move their left hip forward a couple of inches, right? So it’s trying to find these very easy concepts and even just nudges. And you can say, well, that’s not the complete picture. I don’t care. I really don’t care because the amount of times I know that people have benefited from even a YouTube video to say this one thing or lessons I give online or in person or people I golf with sometimes like, do you see anything? I’m like, try this.
It’s like could be even just turning your right foot in because you’re moving off the ball too much. They do that and they’re better and they’re like, I’ve been playing great the last few weeks just because of that. Perfect. That’s golf. They’re enjoying it more. And I think that’s where I try and be a bit different to other people. It’s, I mean, there’s so much going on in the swing. There’s so much to understand. There’s so much, I mean, I’ve read the golf machine. I don’t understand.
Alex Fortey
I understand bits of it, but it’s like translating that to real golfers is very hard. most golfers don’t give a shit. just wanna be a little bit better and enjoy it a bit more and not be guessing as much. I guess that’s it.
Josh Nichols
Yeah, I love the idea of just one thing, like one really simple thing, and master it before taking on another new thing because psychologically, we say I can multitask really well, or I’m bad at multitasking, or I can do it okay, or whatever, but all multitasking is when we’re trying to do two things at the same time. Maybe in your swing, you’re trying to…
stay centered over the ball and shallow the club or something. Maybe you’re trying to do two things. All you’re doing during that swing is switching mentally between the two, really, really, really fast. So in a way, you’re kind of doing both worse, right? Maybe you are doing both, but you’re doing both worse and you’re crowding your mind. So just pick one of the two.
Alex Fortey
Absolutely.
Alex Fortey
Yeah, you that analogy of you’re chasing too many rabbits and it’s exactly it. It’s like, get, so if you find that you move off the ball too much, keep your nose still. Just throughout the swing, just keep your nose still. You know what? So many good things happen because you do that, that’s fine. That’s plenty good enough for most people. So yeah, we think we can multitask and I’m good at multitasking. It’s like, well, you shouldn’t be, you know.
Josh Nichols
Yes. Yes. Just pick one.
Josh Nichols
Mm-hmm.
Josh Nichols
Mm-hmm.
Josh Nichols
Hmm, yeah.
Josh Nichols
Yeah, right. Yeah, stop, stop multitasking. Man, that’s so, that’s so interesting. So do you, as far as someone on like a game improvement journey, or maybe let’s point it back towards you. Do you, I know you said you have that simple checklist. Do you think that that checklist would ever become, okay, I, I’ve done this so many times. I don’t need to do this anymore. Like I don’t actually need to think about it. It’s
Alex Fortey
You shouldn’t try to be.
No.
Alex Fortey
Oh yeah, it definitely starts to become, you you’ve got automatic. That’s what you want to try and get to. And there’s times when it feels that way. There’s times where it’s not. There’s times when the swing, you know, every golfer knows this. You wake up, you played yesterday, you think, okay, that was pretty good. You wake up today and it’s like, body feels a completely different human being. You know, just nothing quite moves the same.
whether it’s you worked out or whether you just slept a bit wonky. know, it’s so there’s so many variables that we can’t control. But if we can just keep. Yeah, it’s just it’s I know it sounds so boring, but just I really urge people to try and keep it much more simple like. And people say, play safe, play boring golf is not necessarily that, but just don’t try and do too much.
Like just try and make nice solid contact and build up from there. Like get good at hitting half shots, 80 % shots. And when you feel comfortable just hitting that boring shot, then you can ramp it up a little bit or then you can try and do too much. there is a difference. mean, I do practice, but I practice a lot less than people might think.
and I practice on stuff that people might not realize and it is just like set up or just standing there not hitting shots, working on my grip and address and just trying to get all the pressure points correct. Because it’s so important to that reliable golf. So when you do stand up there, it doesn’t feel as weird when you’re on that first tee, you just kind of say, okay, boom, boom, boom, go. And you just go for it. And it’s…
It’s a stupid game, man. It really is. It’s a stupid game. So we have to try and find, why am I doing this? I I always say this. If you’ve not said, screw it, I quit, I hate this game, you’re not a real golfer. Because that’s why we play, because perfection is unattainable. Now, don’t get me wrong. I could give you hundreds of examples of people
Josh Nichols
haha
Josh Nichols
Yeah.
Josh Nichols
Mmm.
Alex Fortey
who would say like, my God, he’s never satisfied with a golf shot or whatever. Because I talk to my shots quite a lot or they’ll still go straight, they’ll still do this. I’m like, Because I learned golf before this fancy equipment, I guess, and I was a prolific practicer and golf wasn’t just about scoring. It’s like the same with tennis. I would practice serve, serve, serve. Serve was the best part of my game. Using as a little kid, had to…
over 100 mile an hour serve. But would practice it on my own. Just boom, boom, boom. I would practice against a wall. Bang, bang. So was the technique. It wasn’t so much about, what score, whatever. And golf has kind of been the same for me. I’m getting better at it. And I’m trying to stay a bit more silent when I hit certain shots. you know, I do, I have to remind myself that perfection is unattainable, but I do always try and aspire for it. But I know the,
I’ve gotten better and golfers I’ve helped have gotten better when they focused on the boring stuff first and then building out from there. You know, I learned a lot from Harvey Penning’s Little Red Book, like more, more, I wouldn’t say holistic stuff, but just real, real translations of what we’re trying to feel.
And I think so much of the golf industry with all the instruction, all the technology has just screwed people up. And if we can do better to reduce the variables before and during a swing, we’re going to be a lot, lot better. And it’s partly why I’ve gone to a Vodaf, golf, the one that Bryson DeChambeau uses, Jason Day now, and a few other players coming up. You know, moving to the combo length, you know, it’s similar to one length, but it…
Josh Nichols
Yeah.
Josh Nichols
Mm.
Josh Nichols
Hmm.
Josh Nichols
Mmm.
Alex Fortey
gets progressively longer from seven iron up. That has been phenomenal because it’s reducing the variables. It’s like, okay, I’m gonna learn my setup. Boom, there’s my setup. It’s just made golf a lot more enjoyable for me and people that have suggested have these clubs. I’m not trying to necessarily pitch them. I’m just saying it’s all about reducing the variables. And if I can, if anyone is listening to this and cares,
Josh Nichols
Got it.
Alex Fortey
Make an objective to reduce the variables. Don’t try and hit all these fancy different shots all the time. Just get good at the most boring basic stuff first. Then you’ll start enjoying it. Then you’ll get more consistent. And then you can refine and improve it a bit.
Josh Nichols
Reduce variables. love that.
Alex Fortey
And I wish I knew that 25 years ago or whatever, you know, I really do.
Josh Nichols
Yeah, yeah, we think taking on more variables is the way to get better because we desire control. So when we say, I fear lacking control. So I’m going to, I need this, I need this, I need this, I need this. And the more I can control, the better I feel about myself. But that’s by, like you said, chasing all the rabbits instead of picking one, you…
you actually gain more control when you let go of trying to control everything. And that’s kind of the way towards actual improvement where it would be, it may be feels slower or it’s slower short term, but longterm it’s faster because when you’ve chased all these rabbits, now you’re further off the path and you have to make your way back from your shortcut that you’re trying to take. Now you gotta like work your way back.
Alex Fortey
Yeah.
Josh Nichols
and then get back on the path. yeah, by taking the straight and narrow path, it might seem slower, but over time it’s faster.
Alex Fortey
Yeah, no, I like that. It’s…
I mean, part of the enjoyment of golf is trying that I’m not saying to always hit the sensible shot. I go for stupid shots all the time, but you know, because that’s golf. We’re meant to try and enjoy it. And part of the enjoyment is being on these beautiful pieces of grass and being able to, you know, hit these various shots like it’s there to challenge us. And I need to do a better job when I’m playing to
Josh Nichols
Sure.
Alex Fortey
sort of remember that and not just be so tied on to did I execute my task perfectly or not. And I do beat myself up a lot, but I’m getting a lot better. And the thing that moved the needle the most for me was reducing the variables in the swing and reducing and basically focusing more on the stuff that I can control the setup and stuff like that than anything else.
Josh Nichols
So what’s next for Alex Forte’s golf game? What goals do you still have left in your life?
Alex Fortey
I mean, I keep toying with an idea of if I do I want to try and compete again and stuff like that. You know, I am a decent golfer, but I’ve never really been able to prove it under the gun. And I don’t know, I’m not quite there yet, but we’ll see. But I’ve realized that the only way through something is to just go and do it. But…
I don’t know what I’m trying to… The problem is, if I try and pursue something to say, yeah, I can do it, or I gave it a good try, am I fully willing and ready to be like, no, you’re shit, you couldn’t do it when it mattered, am I still gonna feel proud of who I am afterwards? And that sounds big, that’s my whole life I’ve been that way. It’s not necessarily healthy, I’m not saying that, but…
A lot of my identity has been like what I do and who I am. And I’ve always wanted to be proud of myself. And unfortunately, still performing at a sport. Golf was not necessarily the best sport for me to try and pursue, just because of the challenging mental aspect of it. I’m a lot fireier. I know, like when I played tennis, I say when I played tennis, like I was good, but it’s a long, long time ago.
But I’d do a double fault, for example, and wouldn’t be like, oh my god, what am going to do? Everything’s lost. It’s like slicing one out of bounds or whatever. In tennis, well, all right, I’m just going to hit a good serve next. It would just be like that. And for some reason in golf, I’ve never quite been able to master that aspect to sort of clean the slate. Whether it’s because I’m an over-thinker or I try and dig too deep, I don’t know.
I’d like to be sure, but I just want to keep trying to enjoy some, you know, being competitive, however that may be. you know, just like everyone else, you know, I just want to be competitive, have fun with friends and hit good golf shots and not be depressed if I don’t play well. It’s not much to ask, but it’s kind of tricky with golf.
Josh Nichols
Yeah.
Josh Nichols
Yeah, so I
Yeah, it is, it is. And I want to move us towards the finish line, but I can’t leave without kind of poking at what you’re saying of I’m not quite there yet. the getting there to where you can kind of put yourself out there again, the thing stopping you is the maybe fear of failure. To just put like one overly simple term on it, it would be fear of failure.
Alex Fortey
I would guess so. And I think I’ve probably made it a little bit harder for myself in the fact that people know who I am. And, you know, if I go and try and qualify for the US Open or something and I shoot a horrendous score, it’s like, oh, look, he’s a fraud or all this kind of stuff. So there’s that extra kind of weight on it, I guess. But I mean, I’m not exactly like the world’s most famous YouTuber or anything, but I mean,
It’s there’s an extra weight that if I was just hiding in the shadows wouldn’t matter as much perhaps. But yeah, it’s definitely a fear of failure and it’s tied to, you know, I’d studied a lot of NLP and I’ve had my own emotional challenges in life, some big shocks that I was only just about able to scrape through and realizing that every emotion is tied to the same
previous emotions throughout our entire life. So when we feel fit, you you mentioned fear, it’s not just fear about this one golf shot or this competition. It’s tied into all those other emotions, all those other times where I feel like I failed and where that fear comes from. And really, it doesn’t fucking matter. None of it matters. course it doesn’t. Like, course it doesn’t. It’s on such a small scale. Even, you know,
Scotty Sheffler talks about it, which is his superpower. Yes, he’s a great ball striker and he keeps the club face square for really long, incredible. But his superpower is the fact is, it doesn’t mean, it’s not the end of the world for him how he plays. When he’s playing a PGA event or a major, it’s very, very similar to him just playing with his friends. And that is an unbelievable superpower.
Josh Nichols
Hmm.
Alex Fortey
I’m trying to sort of get more like that, I guess. yeah, fear of failure, it’s all self-manifested.
Josh Nichols
Mmm.
Yeah, I-
Josh Nichols
I mean, I’ve watched your videos, so you never come across as someone who we all expect to be perfect at golf. So for you to go to a US Open qualifier and shoot at 84, we would understand, you know what I mean?
Alex Fortey
Yeah, I mean, that’s the thing. I know that. And, you know, I have to thank a lot of people that I’ve met and friends at the country club here, Hunting Creek, you know, encouragement. And one of the things like my fear of not wanting to play with new people or just being, because I would play and I would be so bad. And I was just like, it’s pure embarrassment. And it wasn’t until I actually, you know,
Josh Nichols
Yeah.
Alex Fortey
not to make light of it at all, the first step of recovery is admission, right? Whether it’s alcohol or whatever it might be. And I finally thought, screw it. Instead of trying to sort of be like, everything’s fine, everything’s fine, I started to be like, you know what? I started telling people, even if I was gonna go and play with them, I’m actually really freaking nervous. I’m gonna really struggle, I’m probably gonna play shit.
but I’m gonna go through it because I have golf phobia, you know? And that actually started to really help because, you know, they’re like, doesn’t matter. And I used to think that they’re just saying that. But then as I talked about earlier, it’s like, no, it doesn’t matter. They wanna enjoy my company. So when I started to not get as frustrated and angry, like I would still, I mean, people joke that if I don’t swear after a shot,
Josh Nichols
Hmm
Alex Fortey
like something’s wrong, because even like good shots, I’m like, shit, I missed that a bit. It’s just the way I am. It’s not good, but it’s the way I am. But trusting that people are authentic and genuine, and yeah, they wanna see me play well, but it doesn’t matter if I don’t hit good shots, as long as I’m good company. And I have a lot of people here to thank for that. So that’s what I wanna try and, know, and when I’ve realized people were nervous about playing with me, I’m like, my gosh, you’ve got nothing to be worried about, I don’t care.
Josh Nichols
Sure, sure.
Josh Nichols
All right.
Alex Fortey
You know, it’s the stuff that we put in our head is baffling, but it is all tied to our history, our past, our successes, our disappointments. And I think some of that is just getting older and a little hopefully a little bit wiser to realize none of it fucking matters. It doesn’t. You know, we have this pursuit, this pursuant of trying to get better. And that’s it.
Josh Nichols
Hahaha!
Josh Nichols
Yeah, well, hundreds of thousands of people like you and watch you and trust you to give them good information. and so that while might add pressures can also be a vote of confidence that, yeah, we, we believe you hundreds of thousands of people believe in you. So, you’re, yeah, yeah. So your YouTube channel, the art of simple golf, like I said,
Alex Fortey
Well, I appreciate that. Thank you.
Josh Nichols
over 300,000 subscribers, so it’s awesome stuff. You pump the stuff out. And each one is, like you said, it’s little nut of an idea. It’s not some big overhaul sort of thing. So it’s really good, simple stuff, hence the name.
Alex Fortey
It’s for real golfers and generally it’s older golfers, know, over 50s because they’re a bit more open to it because they’ve generally tried. They’ve been down the route. You know, maybe they’ve been playing golf for a long time or they’ve tried the perfect sort of methods. And it’s like, yeah, I just kind of need one thing. Is it the complete solution? And I’m not saying to go from tip to tip.
Josh Nichols
Yes.
Alex Fortey
tip that’s also a problem but that’s why I’m like explore this like one video just quickly I think it’s it’s don’t turn your shoulders in golf swing that with the driver I’ve done a couple on don’t turn your shoulders but it one with the driver and it’s very popular but some of the comments are hilarious because they they they like you when you demonstrate you you did turn your shoulders and stuff like this I’m like that’s the idea the idea is you don’t
Josh Nichols
Yeah.
Alex Fortey
don’t have to try so much to sort of do all this. You don’t have to do all these really hard talks and big rotation. Just by trying to move a couple of inches this way is going to be plenty good enough for people. And it’s still just straight over many people’s heads. But there’s millions of people like, this is amazing. This is transformed because it’s making it simpler. Less is more, you know, in most things, not just a golf swing.
Josh Nichols
Yeah, well, PSA to everybody out there, stay out of YouTube comments in general. It’s a scary place, as I’m sure you know.
Alex Fortey
Yeah, I don’t actually, I mean, I respond to much and it really doesn’t. If people are sort of like, this is whatever blah blah blah, I’m like, fine, fine. You be you, I’ll be me. Yeah, exactly. Best of luck. Keep going from tip to tip to tip. Good luck with that.
Josh Nichols
Thanks for watching. Yeah, yeah
Yeah, yeah. Okay. Well, Alex Forte, this has been a real pleasure. Thank you for your vulnerability. Thank you for kind of setting us straight.
Alex Fortey
No, thanks for having me on.
