Podcast Transcript
Josh Nichols
Okay, you just told me before we started recording, we think way too much about the golf swing and not enough about the golfer. What do mean?
John Dunigan
Swings don’t break down. People do. I’ve got a whole bunch of stuff for you. I’m sure we’ll have this all come up. people keep thinking that I gotta get my swing to hold up under pressure, which I will dispute the notion of pressure.
Josh Nichols
Okay, you need to tell me more about that. We’re not moving on until you tell me more. What do mean dispute the-
John Dunigan
Okay, if you think that there is pressure in golf, I tell my kids, the kids in Ukraine are under pressure. You’re walking around a park waving a stick at a ball thinking it means something. We have lost our perspective. Now I can see getting a higher state of interest.
Josh Nichols
Hmm
John Dunigan
when we get feeling a little bit jittery. that’s when you have to stop for a second. Wait, wait, wait. This is a game. We’re playing a game. This is, what is my daughter calling it? This is a first world problem. This is just not that big a deal. In the scheme of things. Now, me, personally, I am on the back end of my career. I’m 60 now. And it occurs to me.
Josh Nichols
Hmm.
Huh.
John Dunigan
I was actually talking about this with one of my young ladies who she’s gonna get good at golf. She’s just young, she’s gonna get good. And both her parents are doctors. Those guys do. That’s cool. They’re doing something. I try to help you become a stronger person who happens to be good at golf. I try to teach you some stuff about the game and about you and how to compete more effectively.
But what they’re doing is the real deal. That is life and death. Golf just isn’t. And I think if we could just be playing, by the way, Josh, I’m speaking to myself as much as to anybody else. But if I can just go back off a second. Back off.
We’re getting a little too excited about a game. And I spent a lot of time talking to folks. I mean, during lessons, have, how are we gonna decide to handle this? Then I have, man, we can keep going for an awful long time with this, man. All right, so look, we know you wanna play better, right? You spend way too much time trying to perfect your elbow position.
Josh Nichols
Let’s do it.
Right.
John Dunigan
Not enough time trying to put your brain and gear to score. So I call it, and I stole this. Remember, golf pros are egregious dealers. Thieves. Thieves. From the great John Wooden, basketball coach. Win every shot. That is my thing. I have a book coming.
Josh Nichols
Mm-hmm. Thieves. Mm-hmm.
John Dunigan
Win every shot. Win stands for what’s important now. And it ain’t your feelings. It isn’t the triple you made in the last hole. It is right here, this shot. And you have all this outside influences. I like to tell my people that thoughts are like farts. They just kind of bubble up out of nowhere. Right? So, you you don’t have to listen to them. While you can’t control your thoughts, you can take control over them. Redirect.
Josh Nichols
and they stink.
Mmm.
Okay? Okay.
Sure.
John Dunigan
Redirect your honor and go, okay, no, I’m going this way. And it’s a really big deal to have people to be aware and hopefully have, I’m trying to get my people to build it into their pre-shot process. I hate the word routine, by the way. just hate it. I need to take two waggles and two looks at the target. That’s what people think is routine. And that’s just…
Yeah, well, the process is getting ready. Getting ready to give it your best possible shot. So what happens is, you know this, man. So now you start to ramp up the pressure. Pressure. In quotes, folks, for those listening. You ramp up the pressure, and now what’s important right now has just become the future.
Josh Nichols
Hmm.
There you
John Dunigan
Now you’re worried about your score, worried about, 80 % of my business is extremely competitive, college, high school, that kind of stuff. And the coach is watching, right? And now you’re not even here playing the golf. We call it the golf here, by the way, Josh. You’re not even playing golf anymore. Now you’re focused over here. But what if we could get people to have such a, what I call ironclad process that it…
distracts them from the future and the now and in the past and brings them back to okay what’s important right now. Then we go back to the issue. is the real… Well let me ask you a question. I’m gonna interview you dammit. What do you think if you had to say there’s one issue that’s keeping people back? People now…
Josh Nichols
Right.
Yeah, do it.
John Dunigan
I’ll qualify as this if you’re not good. You don’t have a mental problem You have to you have to have a certain skill level before you can have mental interference that you could just suck fine But let’s that aside. What would you say is the one I give you three words max?
Josh Nichols
Right. Yeah. Skill.
That aside.
fear.
John Dunigan
man, hallelujah. So what are you afraid of? I tell my kids, you ever get on a roller coaster, Josh? Why?
Josh Nichols
Mm-hmm.
Because the thrill is fun. There’s fear, but you know, it’s fun fear.
John Dunigan
Oh. Oh. So wait a minute. It’s fun fear. Yeah, it scares you. That’s part of what makes it fun. Golf, people, is a roller coaster. And if you’re going to be good at golf, you have to jump on with the same big grin that you would have for getting on a roller coaster. people are not doing that because what they want is they want certainty.
Josh Nichols
Yeah. Yeah.
Preach.
John Dunigan
This is gonna go my way. Now, roller coasters hardly ever crash. Sometimes they do. Golf shots crash. But people want to be certain that that’s not gonna happen. Folks, when you play golf for long enough, at some point you just go, I’m going to hit bad shots. If we watch, I was just watching the replay last night of last night’s tournament.
Josh Nichols
Yup. Yup. Yeah. Yeah, it looks awesome.
John Dunigan
Riviera, I gotta go play that now, course.
Did the guys hit poor shots?
Josh Nichols
Yes.
John Dunigan
It seems like the guys and girls, the girls don’t seem to hit poor shots very often, the guys hit poor shots that are equally as bad. Out of bounds, shanks, you’ve seen it, right? Slices in the trees. I saw, oh my gosh, it just went out of my head. Who was it? Oh, it Sepp Straka. Just hit a sideways wedge. Like he missed the right bunker by another right.
Josh Nichols
Mmm.
you
John Dunigan
Now he goes, I’m so bad at golf. Well, clearly he’s not bad at golf, but those guys hit some of the worst shots that anybody’s hit. The same quality of awful. Yes, perhaps they hit fewer of them. But you know bothers me about people? How come we are so much more stricken by those bad shots than the guys who play for a living?
Josh Nichols
right.
nights.
John Dunigan
They hate it. I’m not saying we gotta like this thing. But I’m saying it’s just happening. But I think that because we’re afraid that it might not go our way, we’re afraid of a big number, we’re trying to not miss, what that does is let us never swing freely enough. You’re constantly tightened up, trying to not miss shots.
which is, that’s not getting on the roller coaster.
Josh Nichols
Right, it’s getting on the roller coaster but not, kind of choosing not to enjoy it, kind of like gripping on tight, kind of, you’re not getting the most out of it. That’s how I get on a roller coaster. But this is so, the roller coaster thing is so interesting because you know, virtually to 100 % certainty, 99 % certainty that it’s not going to go off the rails and crash, but.
The reason why you’re still scared is because you think still possible. And that’s why I’m doing this is one, just the physical aspect of it, but the psychological, this could be a disaster and scary, but I’m going to give myself to it anyway, because I want the feeling. And in golf, we never say that we never say this could be a disaster. And
It could go off the rails completely, but I want that. So I’m going to give myself to that feeling. We, we do everything we can to not let that happen all the way down to I need to ingrain my golf swing. need to, I need to make the ball roll end over end perfectly every single time. I need to hit every single fairway, every single green. need to perfectly have a, you know, core strategy perfectly laid out. So we try to like,
not let any of that crash happen instead of giving ourselves to the possibility of
John Dunigan
So what are you thinking about before you hit? So I had one of my girls that I love very much, she is having a little trouble with putting. And I said to her, I get, no, forehead to forehead, what is going on in your head? And she said, well, I’m trying to get the ball to stop at the hole. This is my indoor thing at home. It has cool putting stuff, the Quintic overhead putt tracker.
And I said, nope, you’re lying to me. Don’t lie to me. Right. And it takes her several minutes to own up to the idea that sometimes, because she doesn’t want to admit it, but we’ve got to get to the heart of the matter. There’s a song about that. That sometimes just before she puts as she’s putting, don’t three put comes in avoidance of the future.
Josh Nichols
Yes, sir.
Mmm.
Hmm.
Yes.
Yeah, just hold them back. Yep.
John Dunigan
So now we’re not doing putting anymore because we’re afraid of three putting. Ironically, all her putts come up short. She’s afraid of going long. Right. Well, OK. Let’s let’s just see if we can go a different way. Let’s just let’s just see if we can put our attention in something that is useful.
which means attention switching, means your whole pre-shot process goes down to, and now I will do this the best I can, knowing that it’s not gonna go my way every time. Give me your best shot. Give me your best shot, knowing that.
It might not go your way, because it might not, but it might. So in case it does, let’s go. If we’re going down, we’re going down like this. Instead of going down protecting and steering, you know what mean? Yeah, if we’re going to go down, I’ll tell you a story. I teach you the guy. And he played on tour. It’s Sean O’Hare, a friend. And he has given me a chip in lesson. I’m in the middle. I remember it. It was at a Rodham and Golf Club. I chipped in.
Josh Nichols
Hmm.
Yes, go down swinging. Yes.
Cool, that’s awesome.
Mmm, yes.
after making a chip.
John Dunigan
Right? Eight hole hard par three. Chip in for birdie. And I go, no. I had the jolt of both paddles on. Have you ever had a yip? Like, whoa! Right? And I made the chip, you. I made it. And I was like, whoa. And then I got a full on case of the yips. Right? yeah. Think about that.
Right? So, and I had it for, I had it for probably four years. I don’t, I teach all the time. I try to play every Monday or Tuesday, but I really don’t have much time to practice. Well, it was early training season just before the West coast and we’re down there in Florida getting ready. And I’m just, I can’t chip it from me to the monitor to save my life. I’m hitting the divot as far as the golf ball.
Josh Nichols
Never heard of that.
No kidding.
you
John Dunigan
And O’Hare’s trying to give me lessons and he’s just like, man, you are helpless. And so what happened was, hey, you toss this club. You are helpless.
Somebody eventually canceled a lesson, or actually no-showed for a lesson. And here, if you no-show for a lesson, you will never get another lesson, by the way. There’s no chance. You no-show, you’re out. You won’t even be able to get on the schedule. But anyway, I took my track man and my video cameras to the short game area, and I put the video on. like, I had no idea I was making that flaw. I was actually tilting backwards.
Josh Nichols
yes. Serious players only. Yeah.
John Dunigan
through the dance, I never felt it. Never in a million years would I even have suspected I would do something so awful, right? So I started to fix it. Now I have not still practiced enough to ingrain it into muscle memory, which doesn’t exist, But I know exactly what to do. So we’re playing golf, right? We’re playing golf again. And I am playing…
really good. But I finally short-side myself on a long par three. And I got a flop shot, right, on the short side. And I would like your users to use this, or your readers, viewers to use this. First thing that pops into my head, cause thoughts are like farts that bubble up out of no place, is, he’s gonna be watching this one. Second thing, you are helpless.
Josh Nichols
Hmm
Haha
John Dunigan
Third thing, yo, you know what works. This is me taking control, redirect your honor, taking control. If we’re going down, we’re going down with a good move. Deal? I make a deal with myself, but I have the presence of mind in the pre-shot process to let all this crap run and then take control over it.
and then I hit the most beautiful flop shot, right? It got up and down. I gave it to the, see that one? And that was a case of one, accepting that I’m not certain.
Josh Nichols
Yes.
Mm. Bye.
John Dunigan
Two, was I nervous? Yes.
It’s not about having confidence, people. It’s about having competence and then convincing yourself to do it come hell or high water. I’m going down this way, right? I wasn’t comfortable. I use breathing, but it’s not like, just trust some of the stuff that folks say. No, it’s like, okay, look, this is how I’m gonna go. I’m going this way and see what happens.
Right? And I accept, which is very hard to do, I accept that it might not go my way. My expectation is that if I execute, I’m going be okay. Not perfect. Not necessarily perfect. Maybe perfect. Right? Maybe not so perfect. But I accept the wide range of outcomes that are possible. I don’t even worry about that. I just execute my shot.
to the best of my ability and then I’m gonna go on to the next shot. After that, I’m gonna do that process until I run out of golf balls or holes, whichever comes first.
Josh Nichols
Yeah.
Mm-hmm
The idea of the kind of bigger picture perspective of we’re getting too bent out of shape about this, this is not as big of a deal as we’re making it, and how that can inform this kind of shot by shot acceptance, how much are you thinking about, or how much would you say players should be thinking about kind of holding in mind that bigger picture, you know,
I don’t know if you saw the, I guess it would be the second to last shot that Bridgman hit where he left that putt three feet short, seeming pretty scared. Should he be thinking about, is kind of silly how much I’m scared right now. I should be, this is awesome. Like should he be thinking that in that moment, do you think?
John Dunigan
I’d like to see him step back and smile and go, all right, hey, hey, it’s a three foot putt. Easy peasy. I make these all day. What I do is I make these putts and then you go right back into your normal process. But I’m telling you, if you don’t interrupt the thoughts.
That shot’s gonna go off without you, right? So it is to recognize, and that’s why it’s so important. You know, obviously, Colin Morikawa, his coach has been a friend of mine for a very long time, like before, yeah, before Colin was born. And I went up to him and I said, you tell me what you’re telling that kid. And he goes, you talking about? I go, well, I saw your boy.
Josh Nichols
Hmm.
Sensing house.
John Dunigan
at the British Open that he won. Crunch time, Highest level of interest. We’ll call it that. You can call it that if you insist. I’ll call it highest level of excitement. Right? Isn’t that why we’re here? Right. So anyway, and I saw him just go like this.
Big, big grin on his face. I’m like, Sessinghouse, you tell me what you’re telling that kid. And he goes, no way, Yeah. Yeah, because that’s, but that is a secret. It is. Josh, did ever ask a girl out or boy?
Josh Nichols
Yeah, sure.
Wow, it’s a secret.
girl.
John Dunigan
We get nervous.
Josh Nichols
Yes, extremely.
John Dunigan
Did you do it anyways? At some point you’re gonna have to ask her out, right? And it might not go your way. And some of us will just shy away from it and never ask her out, right? I chickened out with my wife the first time. Our eyes locked. We were just telling the story at that night. Our eyes locked. She goes, no. I saw her and went, the old Cuban heart thing is totally true. And then I walked past her like this.
ashamed. Yeah.
I totally totally chickened out but then I chased her down and wore her out. Took nine months. Took nine months for her to finally agree to a date but at some point you gotta go yes and for me I got shot down for nine straight months right but I’m like nope this is this is where I’m heading
and it might not go my way. And we’ve been married for 26 years and got engaged three weeks after our first date.
Josh Nichols
Yes.
Mm-hmm
Mmm.
Hmm.
Yeah.
Mm-hmm
Three weeks. Wow.
Sure, sure.
Hmm.
Hmm.
John Dunigan
Three weeks. So nine months and three weeks was our courtship kind of thing. But it’s like you have to go, you just have to. You have to see what happens. And it’s okay to have it not go your way, because it won’t go your But as long as you’re holding on dearly to this has to go my way, how are you ever going to swing the golf club freely? It doesn’t happen. But if you go like this, I’m going to give it hell and see what happens because, all right.
You’ve probably told all your folks this many times. Number one, do you control your golf ball? Yes or no?
Josh Nichols
No.
John Dunigan
No. Sorry. You could influence it. Yeah, but you don’t have control over it. Or you’d never miss for crying out loud. We wouldn’t be having this guy. Do you control your golf swing?
Josh Nichols
Unfortunately, yeah, influence, yeah. Sure. Right.
I say no.
John Dunigan
Nope, don’t control your golf swing either. Or again, you’d never miss a golf shot. Do you control your process before hitting those?
Josh Nichols
Yes.
John Dunigan
that one you can control and take control of. Do you control the bounce on the green? Right? But, no, I could go on with things you think you control. I’ll save you. We think we have control over the things we don’t have control over. And it tightens us up. And we over control. And we do every kind of… It is…
but it’s based on acceptance and expectations.
Josh Nichols
Yeah.
Yeah. Does this change how, or have you changed over the years how you teach or coach or instruct the swing? Because, you know, the whole idea of you can’t control your swing and trying to get certainty and assurance that the shot is going to be good. So I’m going to ingrain my swing and make it really good.
Has that changed over the years? I’ve, cause I’ve heard you talk about kind of motor learning and the learning process in general. So, but I’ve also heard you say you don’t believe in swing positions. So how does this, how does all of this come into someone comes in, comes into you and they’re not hitting the ball well. What do you think about the golf swing in that as, as, as a factor in that?
John Dunigan
I was just watching a couple videos from one of the summits and in both cases nobody asked the golfer, what are you trying to do? What are you paying attention to during your golf swing?
That’s a miss, right? Can’t miss that. Yeah, pretty important question before you start trying to change the golf. Well, in my opinion, the secret of golf is when I do this, whatever that key thing is, Yours is going to be different than mine most likely. I just gave two people, a parent and a child, the exact opposite lesson in the same lesson, right? People are different.
So anyway.
If I do this, I’m gonna be okay-ish.
Josh Nichols
Pretty important question there.
Yes
John Dunigan
That’s the best I got for you, right? So for instance now my whole golf swing is going to hit a draw Right, it might be a almost straight draw it might be a nice draw and it might be one hell of a draw Right, and I don’t know which one’s And you don’t either right now what I have done with my whole
approach to my own personal golf swing, if you can call it that, is develop a move that eliminates a rightward double cross.
Josh Nichols
rightward double cross. What is a rightward double cross? Yes, aiming right for a draw and it cuts.
John Dunigan
That would be my draw fading. Cause that’s, that’s no way no, right? So I was just having a discussion with one of my good buddies about like.
Now, Scottie Schaeffer has the worst left tendency on tour. However, that’s not the worst, it’s the best. Because faders actually want to miss left. They don’t want the ball just going spinning to the right. They don’t mind the straight ball miss that just stays in the left rough. It’s the double cross that’ll kill you in golf. When he’s gonna fade a golf ball and it draws, it’s off the reservation. Reload.
Josh Nichols
Yes.
Yes, I heard this.
Hmm.
Yes.
Yes. Yes.
John Dunigan
So it’s not a one-way miss, people. It’s a one-way curve. Eliminate the double cross. But understanding that, the range of shots. So I was in here, I have the track band, and I was in here, and I’ve been working out, I’ve got my work-up stuff behind me and stuff, and getting stronger. I did this little thing with just a seven iron complete block practice, which is not, by the way, awful. I don’t care what anybody says. Block practice works, too.
Well anyway, my variance after a lot of shots, my path varied by 0.5 degrees.
Natsuki. That’s Torpro. That’s Jim Jerk. My clubface variation was 0.7.
Josh Nichols
Mm-hmm, agree.
us take.
You
Yeah.
Sure, yes.
John Dunigan
I must have been the gods of golfers smiling because that’s staggering consistency Right even with that and my variation on Smash factor, which is ball speed divided by close. Okay, I Use that because I don’t know what the ball speed is supposed to be for a 7-hour. So there so 0.05 ball speed
Think about how much that is. 0.05. Smash factor. 0.05. That’s variance. Yep, that’s not variance. And the distance is changed by up to 15 yards. I was like, my God. I should have saved the whole thing in video. And you can’t, dude, I don’t, I wouldn’t hope for more consistency than that.
Josh Nichols
Right. Smash factor. Right. Is that variance? From shot to shot variance? Okay.
No kidding.
can’t be more consistent than that. Yeah.
Yeah.
John Dunigan
And the damn ball, now they all either went straight, curved left or curved more left. That’s the best I got. But the front to back, this one’s like, oh my God. I’m .05 Smash Factory difference. Staggering, right? Staggering how hard the game is, but then you golfers think that you should have every shot exactly the way you want. At some point, you’ll give up or golf will beat it out of you. Right?
that you give your best effort, you’re going to get some kind of outcome. You’re going to now, by the way, you could tell that I have a little emotionalness, right? So I may say something dirty. I might do it. I will.
Josh Nichols
Yes.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Okay. Okay.
John Dunigan
You don’t have to like it. But you have to accept that the variations in your outcomes are going to be way wider than you think they should be. Or like when I played mini tours, I outworked that. I shouldn’t miss that golf ball like that. Right? Which is, here’s the problem. If I just accidentally move that golf ball a quarter inch back in my stance, I’ve probably just pushed it right to the green. You know what I mean? Like,
Josh Nichols
changes everything. Yeah, the smallest thing.
John Dunigan
You don’t even know. This is why we never fix the one off error. You don’t even know if you aimed it wrong because you were too dumb to check that. Right? Or located the ball in the wrong spot because you were too dumb to check that because you were mostly interested in the famous golfer lament. What’s wrong with my swing? Always comes first.
Josh Nichols
Mm-hmm.
So, so then on the consistency thing, is it still, is it still important to try to get those numbers low? To get as consistent as you can?
John Dunigan
You’re trying to mash them down. No doubt about it. You’re trying to mash them down. But then here’s the thing. You get out there, and I’m playing the golf, and my first golf ball has a lie like this. It’s down here below my feet, a foot below my feet. I’m like, well, screw all that stuff I’ve just been practicing. This has nothing to do with that except…
Josh Nichols
Yeah. Yeah.
Yes.
John Dunigan
I know how to use a golf club. See, that’s the difference between golf swing and I know how to use the tool. And your brain is going to find its way around a more steady state where it looks very similar swing to swing. But man, on that club, I made probably the steepest swing you’ve ever seen. It would make Scottie Scheffler’s chip shot look flat. Right? You know how steep that dude is, right?
Josh Nichols
Yes, it’s insane.
John Dunigan
It’s because that is how you have to use the golf club in that case. So rather than swing positions and all this stuff and try, I heard it again this weekend. Well, I’m trying to take out the timing.
Josh Nichols
Right, yeah.
John Dunigan
Okay, so you got like 27 degrees of freedom up this arm, be different motion ranges, right? Got 27 more on this arm. I think we’re up to 400 now. Then you got the rest of the body. Right? It’s a timing game, folks. That’s why you see Scottie Shelford’s swing didn’t look any different. Right? Timing a little bit off. And boink. He shoots five over and nine holes. But…
Shootin’ a million.
Not happy about it, I’m pretty sure. We’ve seen him get mad. But what’d do? He made an on the fly adjustment. Two weeks in a row, played himself out of the tournament and played himself right back into it because I think, and I never met him before, but I like him. I think he just goes, my job is to do the best I can.
My kids think my job is to play my best.
That’s big distinction. Scotty says, do the best I can and adapt on the fly. Junior golfer, college golfer, and a lot of tour golfers say, I need to play my best every day. And I always say, if it was your best and you played every day, it would be your average.
Josh Nichols
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
You would have a new standard to be annoyed about, you know.
John Dunigan
You still be best So what if we said this? All right, I expect Joshie Nichols my boy come on around Josh You go out there and give it hell out there, right? I’ve got you might have your C game today You might have your a game today, but Tiger Woods says it was three times a year So maybe we just throw that one out Right. Maybe we just rather than expecting our a game, right? Maybe we just throw that out cuz that’s gonna be the anomaly
Your BNC game is where you live. Let’s figure out how to get the ball around the golf course. I’m very proud of my daughter. I love her dearly. I 14th this week and they haven’t been on grass. We’re never apparently getting out. We had 10 inches last night. We’re never going be on grass. I keep telling my students golf is postponed till June. Anyway, yeah, she calls me and she goes, I have no effing
where this ball
AC Shot 74.
That is, I will get this damn thing around this golf course one way or the other.
Josh Nichols
Mm.
Let’s hope not.
standards.
Yes, right, she’s got a good relationship with that uncertainty.
John Dunigan
instead of extracting and then completely panicking, you know, it’d be interesting if there was some way that I could force like when I practice coach golf at, if I could force you to miss every shot and go shoot the lowest you can anyways, like there is one, there is a section there in this encore scrimmage called, coach’s choice, where I would take me, I’d throw the ball wherever I want.
I did that, let’s see, I was having a high school training camp and at the end of the nine holes, coach’s choice, I said, you guys have fun? Like yeah, it’s really cool. I go, hmm, hmm. Had you hit the balls into the places where I put you in, would you have had fun? And one of the boys goes.
What’s the difference? Expectations. The difference?
Josh Nichols
Mmm.
Yes.
Exactly.
Yeah. Hmm. Right. Kind of saying, I, this game is about literally the coach’s choice game. This game is about being in terrible positions, but yet when we go to the golf course and it’s our own game we’re playing and we’re quote unquote in control now, this game is no longer about, challenges. That’s crazy.
John Dunigan
This, it’s crazy, isn’t it? Right? It’s what if we just jump in there and I am naked before the world. Let’s see what happens. You know, that’s of my favorite things is just go, okay, let’s just see what happens. Yeah, yeah. Instead of I have to, or I can’t, those are the things that are absolutely killing people. I have to.
Josh Nichols
You
Mmm.
Let’s see what happens is huge is that’s such a powerful mindset.
It needs to go this way.
John Dunigan
I should never, right? I should never. I need to. Or how about shut up?
Hit the effing ball. Just hit your shot. Take your shot. Ask her out. See what happens.
Josh Nichols
Yeah, shoot your shot.
Why, if, if when we get out to the golf course, kind of all the practice goes out the window and I’m, I’m using that too broadly. You’re probably already saying, well, not all the practice goes with it there is value for practice. That’s your whole app. Right. But, why do we, why should we practice off of the golf course? If
the only, it resembles nothing that the golf course gives us. What do you think about that?
John Dunigan
Okay.
that I think that you suck at practice. So what we’re doing is we’re not practicing in a way that transfers to the golf course. So Will Wu and I created this whole practice coach golf app. It is not easy. One of my younger girls yesterday goes, that’s hard drill. go, well, it’s a hard game. Right. But everybody wants to take it easy. Everybody wants the practice to go beautifully. And one of my kids wrestles.
Golf is wrestling, but thank God nobody tries to push my face in.
we’re expecting things that don’t come, we train for something that never shows up. Right? Now, and I just said a little bit ago, that block practice is good. If it’s in a controlled setting and it’s used as far as some block, some many, some more golf course. So right, that’s the practice schedule. That’s, that’s, it’s not that hard. But for instance, here we are doing,
The folks from Trackman were sitting right there when we designed the Performance Center. So yesterday I’m doing Performance Center. And I film my girl. getting recruited for college and stuff. Very cool. And I filmed her. I was like this. She didn’t know it. Her dad thinks I’m on the Instagram. And I’m filming her like this so she can’t see it.
Josh Nichols
Yeah.
Mmm.
Welcome to golf.
Mm.
Yes.
John Dunigan
nothing remotely close to what she would do on a golf course. So then I said, hey, will you film me? So she filmed me. And I go, okay, would you just go look at those two videos? See which looks like golf and which doesn’t look like anything like golf. And of course she gives me that nervous laugh. I go, yeah. Well, if you want this stuff to transfer.
What happens is so you you organize all this practice usually in a very poor state, right? You’re just not practicing correctly Like the we’re gonna put ten foot on a string line for an hour
Josh Nichols
Yeah, you’re gonna use your string line on the golf course on a straight flat putt every time.
Yeah.
Huh.
John Dunigan
All the time. Wait, hey wait. Let me get my level for this. So.
You spend all this time working and this is a more more golf ish. There’s a little bit of weight on there because you’ve got the strokes gained. You’ve got your short side misses and the coach going, you just misagree with the wedge. Well.
So we’re in performance mode. do you your pre-shot process on the golf course? She goes, yes. I went on the golf course. I go, cool. So you’re spending all this loads of time at practice. We probably practice way longer than we play, right, in golf, most people. And then you go out into a tournament condition and decide to do the whole thing differently. Is that what I just heard?
Josh Nichols
Right.
Mm. Mm.
John Dunigan
You so it makes it very clear, but it’s like, I got to get more reps. No, no. You have to have appropriate reps, right? In the right order, right? Right process where you’re constantly going. And I showed her so, and now I am a little bit cheating because I’ve done it a few hundred times. I go, I’m going to swing this golf club 50 miles an hour and I’m going to carry it 50 yards. I hit it.
50.0 miles an hour. I carried it 51 yards, so I was off. But it’s like, that’s why you practice, because we’re trying to go, when I do this, I’ma be okay-ish. When I do this, this golf club should go 50 miles an hour, because that’s one of the things that creates a distance. Then we know it’s launch angle, center of this have hit, dynamic loft, yeah, we know that. Okay, fine.
Josh Nichols
Mmm. Mmm. It’s pretty good.
John Dunigan
But now we have a way of going, okay, here’s my hypothesis, right? And what do do with the hypothesis? You test it. Now, a lot of people do the review, right, before the test. Meaning, they hit a rant wrong once. how many times do I hear that day? Let me do that again. Like, no, no.
Josh Nichols
Yes. Let me hit a good one.
John Dunigan
You have to get it right the first time. Ish. Right? But people don’t train for that. They train like they have a hundred tries at hitting a 50 yard shot on the carry. And there is a utility for that. If you don’t know how to carry a ball 50 yards, there’s a utility for that. But damn, if you think that’s golf, you have lost your mind. Right? So now we try to get it right. I hypothesize this might do it. But I ain’t sure. Right?
I’m to go with my best. Let’s see what happens. Take that to drive.
Yeah, Accordingly to my lunacy I’ll call it a drive shot not a driver swing You got a flop shot right? Got bump and run Are they same? You got an approach shot, right? You got a low approach shot You’ve got a low fade approach shot, but and you don’t have to have by the way, I don’t Man, you don’t have to have all nine shots folks
Josh Nichols
I’ve shot.
Yeah. Iron shot. Yeah. No, no.
Nine? Okay, no, not nine. Okay.
John Dunigan
The nine shot Tiger Woods thing, that’s chaos for 99.9 % of people in the world. That makes you worse, not better. Well, just consider them shots that are different. my, part of it is my theory about golf club design. The driver’s got a right tendency to it, hard right tendency, right? The length of the club, how far the center of mass is away from the grip end.
how far the center of mass of the head itself is from the shaft. The droop effect, the club drooping downward coming through. There’s three rights and no lefts. I the only left I can think of so far is without an adjustment is they have their upright lie angles. They’re upright. That’s the only thing. That’s one left and three rights. Ball’s going right Rossy. The irons have an extreme left tendency.
Josh Nichols
Yeah.
Yes.
Yes.
Hmm.
you
John Dunigan
Houston, we have a problem. Your iron feel is different from your drive feel. So let’s call it a approach shot and a drive shot.
So I have some ideas. If you can loan me a couple million dollars so I can go through a foundry and build some golf clubs, it’d be really cool. I swear to God I’m gonna get a 3D printer at some point. But it’s very interesting. now, instead of that, what if you’re out there just trying to make the same swing with your approach shot and your drive shot?
Josh Nichols
Hmm. Hmm.
Yeah, do some brace and stuff. Yeah.
Yeah.
different results.
John Dunigan
Yeah, it could be completely back in the day. I don’t view any born yet We used to say stuff like oh man. He’s just a great iron player. He’s just a great driver Right because their swing mechanics did very much align with that Right. Well, what if we went okay, it’s not a golf swing. That’s my approach shot And this is my drive and I kept them separate
Josh Nichols
favor. Yeah. Yes.
Yeah, you go kind of into a different mentality. It’s I’m about to hit a tee shot or a drive shot. I’m no longer in iron mode. I’m in driver mode. Yeah.
John Dunigan
Wouldn’t that be cool? Wouldn’t that be cool rather than just beating your head against the wall trying to make the same swing on two? Think about this. Think about this. If you, if the golfers out there.
The low point is six inches different between a drive shot and an approach shot. Maybe more. So that sets up a whole, and it’s not just set up. It’s not just set up because of the right tendency of the driver.
Josh Nichols
Hmm.
Yeah. Yes. Behind the ball, ahead of the ball.
Mmm. Mmm.
John Dunigan
Very, to me it’s very interesting. So now you train this stuff up and now what you have done is you have put your, in this cabinet you’ve put your approach shot, right? In this cabinet you put your drive shot and now you practice them. And now you have a certain degree of block practice, maybe even mini blocks. There’s enough for that. Then you start to shift quicker, but you’re always
Using the priming see I said this yesterday. I know you know how to do this like your brain cognitive understanding You you know what to do? Only problem is you’re not priming the feel of it before you do it Right. So what happens is people have nothing to hang their hat on Right. I a kid. Yes. Okay. Okay, and I cuz I’m fun guy I go 60 yards one chance
Right? Because we’re working on a way. There’s a kid who destroys the golf ball.
60 yard shot. He’s going to drive it down there frequently. Right? And he hits it 89 yards.
Josh Nichols
Mm-hmm.
Dad.
John Dunigan
I go, that’s the worst shot I think I’ve ever seen in my entire life.
Josh Nichols
That’s a bogey at best.
John Dunigan
Yeah, that’s that ball’s in the pool. So, so then we go and we start to talk about the calibration. Right. How do you calibrate swing size? How do you calibrate the acceleration? Right. And how do you feel that in advance before you jack it up the first time? Right. And then he started to started to kind of get it right.
And we stuck to 60 for a bit, started getting a feel of this is the force I’m going to use for my distance wedge shot. Then we start to lengthen the backswing, shorten the backswing, hit different ranges. So it’s beautiful. That kid is going to be so much better, because he’s got a launch monitor at home. And he will actually, as long as he sticks with the program, the how to.
He’ll get so much better because he’ll identify the field so that he can get it right the first time. Think about that. No re-dos. I can’t tell you how often people want re-dos. It’s funny. We’ll do it here, and I’ve got the whole quintic overhead putt tracker, and OK, you’ve got a four-foot putt breaking on a 3%. What do you got? Right? And they’ll do their thing, and they’ll miss by like this far. Let me do that again. Next putt.
Josh Nichols
goodness, yeah.
Mmm.
Mm-hmm.
Yes.
John Dunigan
You can possibly go back there and go, okay, review it, but you’re not gonna put it again. You can review, okay, I missed something there. Was it speed? Was it, did pick the wrong line? Did you get the read correct? And then we’ll just go around. You can process, post-processing is very, very, very good, but people are skipping the pre-process.
That pre-process might be where the magic is. Right? Because that’s where you get to confirm your hypothesis. Fixing the previous shot only fixes the previous shot. Confirming in advance, ooh, when I do this, it’s going to be darn good enough to play good golf. Right? But then you’re going to run me to perfection, right? Then, like, I tell kid, and I think I have this 100 % correct. I think I do. What distance, what shot length?
Does the tour average 10 feet from the hole? Is it rough or fairway? How far are they away from the hole where they average 10 feet?
Josh Nichols
Yes.
Hmm.
That’s gotta be like.
40 yards, or even less. 25? Yeah.
John Dunigan
Yeah, I think it’s 25. 25.
But they think I hit my 125 yard shot to 20 feet. I suck at golf. My swing sucks. No, you suck at understanding golf. You don’t suck at golf. And then using this, now this is years of, so the first thing it does is I built a test center in TrackMan. And I have all these individual tests. And what I found through tracking this, the frequency with which my students at the Division I level, plus five handicapped people, plus four, plus three,
Hit a golf ball inside 10 feet? Very seldom. Inside 20 feet is very good. And guess what? You might hit two or three, one or two inside 10 feet. And that’s why, by the way, quick cheat, 15 footers shall now go past the cup one to two feet. We don’t hit enough balls. The number of balls hit to 10 feet versus 15 feet, staggering the increase.
look at this stuff most days it is amazing so 15 footers we have a 0 % short rate right even but I’m gonna 3 putt downhill go yeah but fact is statistically you don’t miss any 3 footers anyways right and if you hit it more than 3 feet past it can’t go in anyways folks that’s not one to two feet past
So I’m trying to change how people look at the game. Practice how to look at it from a mental approach.
Josh Nichols
Hmm.
Does this, maybe for lack of a better term, does this kind of throw under the bus like 95 % of golf coaches and instructors, the stuff you’re talking about? No?
John Dunigan
No, I and I’ll tell you the first thing it drives me nuts when some of my own buddies will say something to other golf coaches Dude, I I just work a lot I’m not watching what other coaches teach and if you if Josh if you watch me on a one lesson basis or if I put up a thing on on Instagram or something like that YouTube You could absolutely
Destroy me. that’s… because I’ll use stuff that I know is actually wrong. But it works on that dude. Right? I don’t care about being wrong. I care about that guy having more fun playing golf, hitting better shots. So we could tear each other up all of the time. Right? All the time. Everybody out there has got something good to say. Right? Everybody out there.
I will say the thing that I’m not nuts on is the over emphasis on pure swing mechanics. Right? And I just don’t think that you can tell people that if you had this two degrees more closed at
There’s a lot of movement in the golf swing, man. There’s a lot. So trying to perfect this, you know Mark Blackburn. He’s a friend and he’s a very good guy. And he constantly recommends Will and I have a skilled coaching lines program for coaches. And he constantly recommends us. I thank you, Mark. You’re awesome. But I didn’t get to ask the question when he was talking to PGA show.
I was gonna go like this, tongue in cheek, why haven’t you fixed that Matt Fitzpatrick’s backswing? He’s way too inside, man. You can’t play golf from there. And he did not catch that, it was tongue in cheek at first. But he goes like, actually, turns out to be a really, really good way to hit a fade.
is a world class coach. He could take all these colors in the palette and add a little bit of white, a little bit of…
and help any golfer on the planet without a preconceived idea of this is the only way to swing. So he’s got into an art form. He’s really, really cool. That’s what I think. think when you understand the way everything fits together and you can actually run with a person’s pattern.
that is extremely good and make it a little gooder, we call that here. You got some. You got some. Yeah.
Josh Nichols
Yeah, yeah
Yes, right.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Hmm.
Yes.
Mmm.
Yep.
Hmm.
Yes. Yes, just a sec.
my wife’s keys. I’ll edit that out. So the the the it’s it’s more important to know how to use a golf club than know how to swing, I guess or swing well.
John Dunigan
bad boy.
Yeah, there are certain elements that every every golf coach in the world can help you with. Hey, you know what? You are you have no rotation in the backswing. From from there, you just got to swing super steep or it’s going to be all hands and we go, hey, you know, all right, let’s try this. Let’s try. We’re going to turn your belt buckle back toward. Point at your right shoe.
and see if that lets the whole thing turn. And then he might go, yeah, but it’s not supposed to work that way. my god. my
Josh Nichols
Doesn’t matter, right, I gotcha.
John Dunigan
The guy’s got a bigger wind up hits the inside of the ball. He can finally hit his driver He could only hit a wedge in a nine iron before that right That is absolutely like knowing the mechanics so I am what is this? Swing catalyst I love these people. I’m an ambassador for them which is the 3d force plate I have and Ambassador for cave s
Like behind that curtain is two different motion analysis systems. Like I’m heavy into that. And like the forces and torques at the golf club and the feet and the mechanics of how the body moves. Right. That stuff is terribly important. Terribly important. But I feel like that ain’t the end of it. You’ve seen plenty of guys with gorgeous golf swings shoot 80. How can you shoot 80 with that golf swing?
maybe because it ain’t been elsewhere.
Josh Nichols
talking about me like that stop it you’re attacking me personally I I don’t this what what we’ve talked about today is
I don’t know, I feel like I have more questions than answers and that’s a good thing. the big takeaways that I can leave with is it’s okay, or let’s see what happens, you’re gonna be okay, let’s get it to where the shot will be okay-ish. Perfect consistency, one, doesn’t exist, but also,
doesn’t actually predict where the ball goes. There’s no certainty. It’s better to know how to use a golf club than for it to be correct. Errors are good. Making mistakes is a good thing. You don’t have to, say again? Yeah. Yes, errors.
John Dunigan
Essential signposts for the brain to learn from. If you’re not making the errors, you might not be practicing well enough.
Josh Nichols
you’re probably not playing golf, right? You’re doing something else.
John Dunigan
Yeah, when when when have you ever? When have you ever hit the ball perfectly for entire round of golf? Why do expect this going to happen today?
Josh Nichols
Never.
Yeah, why do you try to make your practice session that way? because of ego or something, right? Because you like ease, right?
John Dunigan
think golfers are uniformly soft. We’re soft, including me. Very soft. You need to wrestle. You need to see what it’s like to really struggle. And we have to admit that golf is a struggle. And stop. I think some of our parents are…
trying to remove every struggle from their kids. And man, that is setting them up for an ass whooping from life, not just golf.
Josh Nichols
Yes. We, yes.
Mmm.
Hmm.
Yeah. That one is so hard. And yes, that is an entire another episode. And there’s probably whole other genres. I know there are genres of podcasts about parenting and how that is a flaw of parenting. And, man, goodness, I’m in the middle of learning that myself. I got a three year old and so we’re at a six month old, but we’re in the middle of like, we don’t want him to fail or feel pain ever because he’s this precious little guy. But I know
how valuable it is and…
John Dunigan
Man, I feel you brother. It is so hard as a parent to not let that kid fall over. It is so hard. You want to give them, I guess if we’re going to be good parents, that’s why I love golf. The one thing I love about golf is that it is just giving us relentless opportunities to fail on a shot by shot basis and then come back and fail and come back.
Josh Nichols
Mmm.
Yes.
John Dunigan
You know, the amount of times that my own kid has, I, the best one, she heart 85 yards, water up the right hand side, hybrid club. And she hits it, it hits the fringe, boink, and the water. Like, oh. And now dad is a little angry. Except he can’t get angry now. Cause she’s been trained that that ball goes left. Right? Mr. Green left. I don’t care. You got, you got rough left, water right.
It’s hard to swim and swing at the same time. So, she hits it and makes a debacle. She makes a triple out of it. And I go, no problem. Get right back on. Because I don’t know. And after the round, I did ask her, where were you trying to hit that? I was trying to hit left. Because you miss. Sorry. What a rotten time to miss. And she didn’t even miss by much. She hit the fringe. Anyway, the next hole, she hits a driver 7,000 yards.
Josh Nichols
Mm.
you
You
John Dunigan
And she goes, Hulk smash dad. She hits it up there to about 10 feet, makes birdie, and I go, and I use the whole word, but I’ll save your people. I go done again. She’s walking off the green. go, you are effing relentless. That’s what I love about you the most. That is my prize right there. If I can get people to just keep coming, right? Just keep going. Whatever you shoot, you shoot, but you’re just gonna give it hell till we’re done.
And that’s a, maybe that’s a good place to end on. That’s what I’m really looking for.
Josh Nichols
Ha ha ha ha ha!
Mmm.
Go down swinging, that’s one I forgot. That one is so awesome. Okay, John Dunn again. Man, know you’re awesome and I knew this was gonna be awesome, but I did not know it was gonna be this awesome. You brought the heat. let’s see, we’ve got the app, we’ve got the alliance. Tell people where you wanna send them.
John Dunigan
Okay, so the Practice Coach app, Will Wu, PhD in motor learning, works Olympic medalists, PGA Tour winners. He, the actual smart guy, but I’ve got better hair. He’s a great guy. I love him like a brother, but he and I started out with this skilled coaching line, which is a program for golf coaches to…
blend motor learning science so they have some evidence-based methods with my 44 years of coaching experience, right? So that was great. We decided we have to get after the people who are playing because they don’t practice well. They practice usually very not well. And what that does is it keeps them from seeing how good they can get. You could have the same, you could have, in fact,
If you were going to do anything different, just stay off the range and just practice on the golf course only. There, I just saved half the world of golf. Yeah. My daughter learned mostly on the golf course. Very little. The swing mechanics were bite-sized chunks. Very little. I have a YouTube, MG Golf, I think it is, for when she was two to six. It’s pretty cool. But anyway, anyway, so the practice coach app was made for the golfer to practice much better. For my students, I know…
Josh Nichols
the actual smart guy among all of us.
Ha
Yeah, I was gonna ask you that, okay. That’s good to know.
Yeah, that’s awesome.
John Dunigan
You guys do this, have you been practicing this way at home? So we made an app for it. If you hit the practice coach design, it’ll just run your practice based on your recent performance. You can also use a practice on your own, which you can decide what you want to practice.
It’ll blend this practice variability that everybody’s missing from practice. It’ll blend Will’s algorithms on how many reps, know, what order that this goes in. There’s a work on my swing. If you want to work on your swing, number one, you better know why. Why do you want that? Why do you want to make that change? And you better know what it looks like because you can forget about what it feels like. You know why?
because you’re feels transient at best. So you know what it looks like. You better know how it is intended to alter, improve, hopefully, my club delivery, either face to path or contact. Otherwise, don’t do it. Don’t do it to look like Adam Scott, although Francine, my wife says he needs to play with no shirt on, which is not false. So there is a work on my swim module, but you better be working on the right thing because we’re going to teach you how to learn it real good.
Josh Nichols
Yeah.
Yep. That’s pointless. Yeah. All right.
Ha ha ha ha!
John Dunigan
Right? So, but then like we go, okay, now we’re gonna hit the shot with it. Big difference. Normally it’s just work on your swing. Well, those swing mechanics might not help me with my clubface awareness. So that’s what it’s based on from short game to full swing and on course practice, which is invaluable and never used correctly.
You know on course practice on the real field. I don’t care what you have for a punting green a short game area It doesn’t look like a golf course Then you get on the golf course and you go, okay this one that’s where we should practice an awful lot So if I had my way although Apple won’t give us any data about what how people are using the app, which is fantastic You should be practicing half of your damn practice time on the golf
So that’s, that’s a practicecoachgolf.com and that’s on the app store and the skilledcoachingalliance.com and that is for the coaches. But we have a few parents in there too. They wanted to see how, how we do it. And I guess our philosophy and stuff. Well, that’s about it. I am on Instagram, but I don’t, it’s just John Donegan, I guess. guess Facebook, I’m on that, but I don’t look at that hardly ever. I just don’t like social media. I’m sorry. I don’t think it’s good for us at all.
Josh Nichols
Yes.
Hmm. Hmm.
Yes.
Hmm.
That’s awesome.
Okay. Okay.
Yeah, preach. Yeah.
Yeah. Everyone should be.
Yes, well that’s your whole philosophy, I mean basically, is be more real, life is dirty, golf is dirty, and that’s okay, right? Huh, okay, John Dunigan, thank you so much, this was truly, truly a pleasure.
John Dunigan
Yeah, I just don’t. just don’t. I just don’t. The world needs to see what the real world is rather than a highly real.
Yeah.
My friend, this was a pleasure. Hopefully we’ll do this again before too long.
