Josh Nichols
Okay, Andreas Kali, I’ve heard you say you would like for you to get it wrong twice before you get it right. And you’re referring to practice there. So tell me about that, what do you mean?
Andreas Kali
What do I mean? I like it. I like practice to be like a Goldilocks kind of thing. So you’re probably going to do something too much and then something not enough and then just right at the end. So there’s something about like covering the sides of the spectrum instead of just trying to get it right and then like always missing by a little bit.
Josh Nichols
Hmm, okay. Is there an element there of practice needs to intentionally be difficult and intentionally mess up?
Andreas Kali
Well, I mean, if you’re succeeding in practice, that means you probably can already do it. So there’s probably not a whole lot of learning going on if you’re just kind of repeating. But I think in general, there’s a certain way of getting a feel for things by doing something like, I mean, it could be just distance control with a putter, right? Like instead of getting at the right speed, try to hit this one too hard and then hit it not hard enough and then get it right. Like find the middle part, right?
Josh Nichols
Yeah. Why is that a good thing to do? If it’s a challenging task in the first place, why is it valuable to kind of quote unquote get it wrong at all if you’re like, okay, this is hard, so I’m just gonna try to do it well and that’s gonna be challenging enough.
Andreas Kali
Yeah, that’s probably got enough variety to it as well. Right. I think that’s really the important part, right. Is that if you are figuring something out, you’re probably going to get it wrong quite a few times. The problem becomes when you already kind of got it and then you just start logging or repeating. So there’s actually a little bit of variation going on in trying to repeat something you can’t already do. You’re already figuring stuff out. Like, okay, that felt like a lot, looked like it wasn’t a lot, or felt like I hit that putt really hard but it didn’t go far enough. The problem becomes when you feel like you’ve got it, you can get a little bit of false information. Again, to make it very simple.
Josh Nichols
Right, when you’re trying to repeat the same thing over that you’re already good at, when you say false information, what do you mean there?
Andreas Kali
Yeah. I mean, a lot of people, if they go on the driving range or something, they practice their driver and they might hit eight, 10, 15 crappy drivers. And then all of a sudden something clicks. And then they might hit 20, 30, 40 drivers in a row that are very good or acceptable. And then they might think, I got it.
The problem becomes you don’t ever hit 50 drivers in a row, right? And you usually probably had a putt before you hit a driver. Then probably after that driver, you probably hit a pro shot with an iron with a ball on the ground. And then if you had a good pro shot, you had a putt or else you had a chip or something. And then all of a sudden you get the driver back in your hand.
And then it can be false information saying, I thought I had the driver because I had 50 good in a row. Well, you forgot about the 15 bad ones you had before the 50 good ones. So you got in, I don’t know, a groove or rhythm or like got used to it. And that can give some false information.
Josh Nichols
Yeah, and on a golf course, I mean, there can be times where it’s 20 to 30 minutes between two drives on two very different holes. And the amount of stuff that can happen between those two drives, the amount of different shots, but also the thoughts that can come in and out — par four, par three, could make double bogey and a bogey — and the next drive is going to be so different than if you had made two birdies in a row. You could three putt both greens and your feeling of the next drive is just totally different.
Andreas Kali
For sure. And there’s also going to be courses where you might not hit a lot of drivers. So you play like seven holes and then all of a sudden you have to hit a driver for the first time. And so it’s not even a 30 minute break, right? It might be an hour and 45.
Josh Nichols
Yeah, boy, right. So you would never set up a practice where you’re gonna hit one driver every 30 minutes. Is that how you think about practice?
Andreas Kali
Nah, that would probably take too long. But I would for sure try to have a lot of practice where there’s sets. So if it’s possible and you have the facilities to do it, okay, I’m practicing this one part of my game. I feel really good about, let’s just say my driver since that’s what we’re talking about. Feels really good. All right, now let’s try and put it into play. We could go to the golf course, but we could also just hit a tee shot with some sort of boundaries on it. If you succeed, then you get an easier approach shot. And if you succeed with that, then you have to hit a chip or a putt, and then you go back to the driver so you can get some sort of order to hitting it, which would resemble what you see on a golf course. You’re not going to see all of it, but at least there’s going to be some variation.
Josh Nichols
Why not just play on the golf course always? Why is the practice facility valuable at all?
Andreas Kali
Well, I mean, honestly, I would prefer that people played a lot more. You don’t get as many reps in and it takes a long time. Ideally you would put people in a cart with nobody out in front and just fly. That would probably be ideal practice wise. I understand that you would lose some of the rhythm and there’s some of the input you would get from walking that you’re going to lose, but that would probably be ideal. The thing is, at least in Denmark, the courses are packed. So if you go on the course, it takes you at least five hours and you don’t get as many shots. I mean, there’s ways in practice where you can get the same sensations and emotions as you would on the golf course. But I think that’s the important part. And honestly, I think people need to be a lot harder on themselves in practice.
Josh Nichols
Yeah, okay, be harder on themselves. Do you mean kind of like holding to a higher standard or giving themselves more difficult things to do?
Andreas Kali
More difficult things to do. For sure, if it’s possible, get off the mats and don’t necessarily go where the grass is cut the best. Try and see if you can find some of those sandy areas to hit from. Like if you can hit from that, then it should be easy to hit from the fairway. Things like that. Make it uncomfortable would really be the actual word for it. Like make your practice more uncomfortable.
Josh Nichols
Yeah, not where, okay, if I’m succeeding at all, it’s bad practice. You wanna succeed, but you want it to be earned success, right?
Andreas Kali
Yes, for sure. And get your confidence from going through difficult things instead of this false confidence of making your practice easy, right? Like you go to even a tour event, you’ll see guys like they’ll take the club and they’ll hit the front of the divot or the back of the divot before they put the ball up. And you go like, dude, that’s the best lie you’ll see all week.
Josh Nichols
Yeah, that’s crazy. Are they trying to kind of develop confidence? Like I want to hit a good one and it’s gonna feel good and it’s gonna give me confidence? Probably.
Andreas Kali
Probably, but I think, I don’t know, like the guys I coach don’t do it. But I do think that there’s like a, I want to look good, I want to feel good, I want to do these things. And it’s just not how golf is, is it?
Josh Nichols
Something I do — I guess it’ll be tooting my own horn a little bit — something I don’t see other players do that I have done is, like around the short game, around a chipping green or something, I will, if I have a pile of balls or something, or five or six balls, the next ball up, I’ll kind of hit with my wedge and let it roll to wherever it’s gonna roll. Even if it’s just rolling three inches or something, it’s just gonna settle in a little depression or something. Because if the ball’s just rolling on its own, it’s usually not gonna randomly roll up onto a high spot where it’s teed up real nice. It’s usually gonna roll down to the lowest point, right? That’s how gravity works. And that is the normal lie that you’re gonna get on the course. Everyone else is getting the good lie, using their wedge to like tee the ball up so that they can get a lot of good spin and stuff. And that’s just really uncomfortable because you probably hit worse shots, but that discomfort is exactly what happens on the golf course and you just don’t see other golfers doing that.
Andreas Kali
Well, yeah, at least I was surprised how nice players are to themselves in regards to lies and shots when they practice, even like really good players. And I’m also surprised how comfortable the coaches are making practice. Now I understand that there’s a difference between practice and preparation at events, but it’s still, I mean, you should prepare yourself basically for the worst, right? So there’s no surprises.
So even though in your practice round you’re hitting every fairway, you probably need to put some balls into the rough to see how the ball comes out of the rough. Same thing, I mean, I don’t expect the guys I coach to hit every green in regulation. I hope they do. That’s the goal. But just in case, we end up hitting probably three to four chip shots on every single green to different locations just so we’re prepared, right?
And we honestly try to make quite a few, probably 50% of chip shots, fairly hard. I think it gives you like an honest position of where am I at, where’s my game, instead of hitting it into trouble on the second hole and being completely surprised.
Josh Nichols
Yeah, it seems like there’s a fine line there. I know we keep calling it false confidence and you and I are in total agreement here, but there does seem to be a fine line. If I am making myself super uncomfortable the whole time in my preparation and I’ve seen myself fail a bunch — let’s say it’s the Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday before a major championship where stuff is really difficult — so you kind of see yourself fail a bunch in those three days and you’re just living in this discomfort and failure land. And then it’s Thursday, do you think that player has lower self-image than someone who’s teeing everything up better?
Andreas Kali
No, well they might — the guys I coach don’t. We were at probably one of the hardest courses in the world last year at Oakmont. And the preparation that the guy I went there with did the week before was to play a fully renovated Karsten Creek four times from like the hardest tees — they just renovated it and supposedly they can make it impossible. So that’s what he did for four days. He played that course for four days and then he went to Oakmont and was looking at it going, yep, this is the second hardest course I’ve ever played in my life. I’m pretty sure he was the only player in the field who felt that way.
He was shooting 72, 73, 74, playing great golf at Karsten Creek. I don’t think he was lacking confidence. But of course you got to find the spot, right? You can’t just run somebody completely over. There’s a sweet spot in there where it’s not so difficult that it’s impossible, but it’s for sure not so easy that you’re getting comfortable.
Josh Nichols
Yeah, kind of always setting the task just outside of your comfort zone. Is there like a Goldilocks — let’s say you’re trying to find the right tee box for you, something that’s hard for you but not so impossible that you shoot over 100 every time. Is there like a, you should be breaking this score seven out of 10 times or three out of 10 times? Do you have thoughts like that?
Andreas Kali
Yeah, it’s probably not a bad starting point. If you’re succeeding somewhere between three to seven out of 10, that’s probably in the sweet spot. If you’re succeeding less than three times, then it’s likely too difficult. And if it’s more than eight times out of 10, then it’s probably too easy. I mean, that can become uncomfortable for a player. It can also be uncomfortable for the coach, right? Because you’re actually trying to get your students to look worse than they are. But it’s part of the progress and it’s how you get better at things by doing difficult things. Of course not so difficult — like you don’t take a complete beginner and put them at Oakmont. There are levels to this.
Josh Nichols
Do you ever find yourself kind of saying, I have to give this player what they want a little because they’re paying me, and in some ways you’re kind of in a sales position to sell yourself as a good coach so they need to feel like they’re getting better — but also, as a progress and learning guy, straight up good looking golf is not necessarily the best way to get better. Do you struggle with that internal battle?
Andreas Kali
No, not necessarily. I feel like if you see a student for the first time, you have some conversations, right? You might even have had them before they came. But as they’re there, you ask like, how can I help? And you start asking about things and start to figure out why are they actually there?
I mean, there’s some people who are there for just pure mastery. They just want to have a nice golf swing. Where for me, that’s not why I play golf. I play golf because I enjoy competing. I really never looked at my swing on video or anything. I just wanted the ball to go straight. I don’t care where the hell it was at the top or how I gripped it. I just wanted to shoot the lowest score.
So I have to be mindful when there’s people who are there looking for mastery who honestly don’t really care about the score. They just want to hit it a certain way and swing a certain way, and that’s the pursuit they’re doing. Then for sure, okay, we’re doing golf swing only and we can just hit a ton of six-irons today.
And the same thing the other way around — it’s a lot easier for me for guys who just want to compete to the best of their ability, tell me what to do, I’ll do it. I can relate to that. But if I’m a good coach, I feel like I should be able to help anyone. I’m the one who needs to be able to adjust.
Josh Nichols
Yeah, they have an end goal. Do you ever try to nudge the player into, are you sure that’s what you actually want? Because you say you want to have a good golf swing, but you get awful mad when you shoot an 89.
Andreas Kali
And that’s the thing, right? Because then it becomes a continuous thing — I only got what we started with. And over time they might say that’s what they think they want or what their playing partners want or what their friends want. And over time they’re going to go, you know what? No, that’s not for me. Or sometimes they get inspired by playing partners or something, and all of a sudden they bring whatever their ambition is into the lesson.
I mean, I’ve got a guy, it’s very clear. He’s gotten really good. He’s really ambitious. He’s in his mid-50s. He’s in great shape. He’s gone from like a five to a plus handicap, only working on the golf swing, really. And he’s always been very clear — he just comes in and goes, I wanna look like Hogan. That’s all I wanna do.
And he’s gotten better by just practicing his swing. But the very easy thing is to look at the low hanging fruits. If you want to be a better golfer, he needed to practice his putting inside of five feet and he needed to practice his lag putting outside of 25 feet. And then he needs to hit the green every time he’s got a wedge in his hand.
At times you’ll ask like, what do I need to do? Well, then we need to be doing something completely different. And he looks at it and goes, I ain’t doing that. Like I’m not using my spare time on a putting green. I can live with that. That sounds like, but for him it’s like, yeah, I understand putting is part of the game and I’m going to put when I go play and stuff, but I’m not going to stand there for hours. I like hitting balls. That’s what I like to spend my leisure time doing.
Josh Nichols
Sure, and he’s allowed, right? It’s a game, right?
Andreas Kali
I don’t decide why people play golf.
Josh Nichols
Yeah. Do you encourage your players to take stats? Do you have a stat program that you like the most?
Andreas Kali
Yes. So the players either use Upgame Pro or, for the really good ones who can afford it, they use Statistic Golf, which is Edoardo Molinari’s program — I think it might’ve changed names, I think it’s now Be Our Coach, actually. I think they did a thing together.
Josh Nichols
Okay, I didn’t know he had one. Got it.
Andreas Kali
But you have to be playing for a lot of money to get that. I think Upgame Pro if you are below a three handicap, and just Upgame Basic if you’re above a three handicap, are good. What do you use?
Josh Nichols
I use Shot Pattern. It’s a relatively new kind of one man operation thing. It’s simpler, but it’s got strokes gained and a cool GPS view of the golf course and stuff. It’s plenty for me. I’m below a three handicap, so I guess I could do something more complex, but what’s so good about Upgame? I’m not asking you to sell it for somebody — like why is that valuable for players to be using?
Andreas Kali
I think it is valuable because it basically measures two proximities when you hit. So when you go in and put your stats in, you go on the golf course and GPS wise you put in where you intended to hit it and then you put in where you ended up. And then you get a dispersion to where you tried to hit it versus to the flag, right? To the target.
Which means that’s way more valuable for me as a coach because really if we’re practicing, we’re really practicing trying to tighten up dispersion to our intended target. So it doesn’t really make sense to me to just get the distance to the flag. However, it does make sense to me to get the distance to both, because if that proximity is the same, that probably means that the player I’m coaching is aiming at all the flags, which he also shouldn’t be doing, right?
Josh Nichols
Hmm, right.
Andreas Kali
So I think that’s really, really good. And I think they have just added a mental process to when you input your data, which I really like. Where it can say like if you were uncommitted or fully committed or whatever, all these different things, and you can slowly and steadily start to pull in the data and see like, okay, how good am I when I actually commit to a shot? Take a fearless swing versus when I’m a little bit careful.
And sometimes it becomes a lot better to show the student that and go, it’s not your swing. It’s the fact that you’re worrying about where not to hit it that is costing you all these shots more than anything.
Josh Nichols
Do you see — I know you said they maybe just released this so it’s maybe not hard data that you’ve seen a bunch of — obviously this is the mental golf show so I would be biased towards of course the mental game is important, but do you see a clear correlation when mental game is bad, golf shots are bad? Is it that clear in what you’ve seen experience wise?
Andreas Kali
So far, yes. If you’re worrying about where not to hit it, or you’re pissed about something that happened in the past, or you’re scared of something that’s about to happen and it hasn’t even happened yet, you’re likely not performing as well as you would if you were 100% present and right here now.
Josh Nichols
What about your own personal golf game? What do you think you’re better at than most, physically and mentally?
Andreas Kali
My own golf game? I think I’m really, really good at putting the ego aside and just shooting a score. I don’t think I’ve ever been ashamed of breaking par hitting only seven greens.
Josh Nichols
Yeah, just doesn’t matter.
Andreas Kali
I actually think I would be probably proud of it. Whereas some of my students would go like, that’s not even like hardly real golf I was playing.
Josh Nichols
Hmm, why would they say that?
Andreas Kali
I think a lot of people who get really good — having a little bit of perfectionistic tendencies can really actually make you progress to a certain level. And then I think at some point that becomes a limitation, where all of a sudden if it’s not completely perfect, you’re pissed. But there’s like a motivating factor in it, trying to pursue it. The problem is that it ends up stopping your progress. And I think a lot of people can always find something wrong.
Where I don’t know — I think I was good at just competing and finding ways to compete. I didn’t hit it far enough to dominate golf courses or anything, so I kind of had to shave off as many strokes as I could. With the simple stuff, like don’t three-putt, get up and down from the easy and the medium spots. Maybe don’t get into trouble if you’re chipping from a really hard spot. Put the ball in play, get good with your wedges. All the old school things I was good at.
And I had to be if I wanted to compete, because I didn’t have the skills to hit it close on a couple of par fives and not get up and down. I had to maximize my rounds.
Josh Nichols
Right. When was kind of the bulk of your really good golf? What year range are we thinking here?
Andreas Kali
Well, I quit playing when I was 27 and I’m 43 now. Yeah. I’d say I don’t even know when I played my best. I feel like I was a freshman in college in the States and I played really well. Then lost it for a couple of years. Then my first year as a professional I played quite well. And then I just slowly got a little bit worse every year. After playing professional for like four years I was like, there’s no point in this. I can see that I’m putting in more and more effort and I’m getting worse. And that kind of felt pointless.
Josh Nichols
Yeah. Why were you getting worse, do you think?
Andreas Kali
I think I didn’t know how to practice. I didn’t know what to practice necessarily. I think when I went and saw a coach, I would get a lesson for my swing and then I wouldn’t know how to practice it. I would just know that I needed to do this and then I just did it and hopefully something good happened. It was very random. And I feel like I had a mindset of the more reps, the better, not necessarily the quality of the reps. So if I went out early and just beat 1500 balls, that would be better than 1499. Put the headphones on because it was hard to concentrate doing that and it was just reps which didn’t have a lot of quality in them, there was a lot of quantity.
Josh Nichols
Yeah. Would you, if you could bring those years — let’s say it was 10 years — up to right now, would you think those 10 years would be, like would you get better knowing what you know now?
Andreas Kali
Oh, for sure. I’m honestly not that much worse at golf now and I don’t play. I’ll play, I don’t know — I played seven holes last year out in California with a rental set. I was two under through seven without practicing, without anything. The year before I played 18 holes out in California at a fairly tricky course I’d never seen before with like a rental set. I was plus one. I don’t play worse now than I did. I’m just a lot smarter now.
And I have an understanding of if the ball’s going to the right, I know why it’s going to the right. And if it’s going to the left, I know why it’s going to the left. Where back then I had no idea. I would just kind of hit and then apparently it’s going to the right. Now I’m going to go home and sleep and hopefully it’s gone tomorrow.
Josh Nichols
It was totally accidental. Everything was accidental. Yeah. So why is it — I guess, is it just pure busyness or that you don’t get to practice or play, or you just don’t desire to?
Andreas Kali
Nah, I have to kind of redefine why I play because I played to compete. I don’t desire to put in the work to compete anymore at all. It’s almost like, you know, like a chef — if they’re in a restaurant for 50 hours a week, when they’re done, they go buy pizza. They’re not gonna make more food. I’m on a golf course or a driving range all week, so when I’m done with golf, I’m kind of done. I’m not going to go play 18 afterwards.
I played to compete. The hours I have to put in to get my game to a level where I’d feel like I could compete, I’m not willing to put in. So the golf rounds I do play are a lot more recreational now, which they have never been. It has to be a fairly nice place. It has to be with good company. We have to make sure that we have a nice lunch afterward. Like it’s a really good time. I’ve just never tried that when I play.
Josh Nichols
Right. Yeah, it was just grind. Yeah. Okay. So the idea of — what you know now is uncomfortable, difficult reps and a bunch of them to reach the standard that you would even want to be at. You just simply don’t want that. You don’t want that discomfort. It would be too much.
Andreas Kali
No, I have other things I’d rather do and spend my free time on. Like I have my family and I have my dog and I have my garden and all these things that I’d rather spend my time doing than spend my off time practicing.
Josh Nichols
Right. What are you — as far as being a coach, because that is what you are very good at and that’s what you spend the bulk of your time doing — what do you think you are better at as a coach than most coaches?
Andreas Kali
I think I am extremely passionate. I am engaged in the students I have. I think I’m honest. And I think I am, I don’t know, I think I’m fairly stubborn, but also really curious. Which means that I enjoy learning new things based off of the problems that arise that my players have. But I’m also really stubborn in hanging on to things that I think are working well.
Josh Nichols
Right, well that’s an interesting combo. You’ve been doing this for almost decades now, you’ve built up a ton of things you know work, but you also are still curious — do you feel like you are as curious to learn new things as you kind of were at the beginning or halfway through? Or do you feel like you’ve found your groove?
Andreas Kali
Yes and no. I would say that there are other things I’m curious about now than there used to be. I think when I got into it, I was really, really passionate about learning the swing and learning what produces certain ball flights and learning why some swings work and why others don’t. And that was also what I was teaching the players I coached. And it worked for a long time until things happen, right? Like all of a sudden, my feedback loop was perfect golf swing, perfect shots. So we tried to perfect this move and honestly the players were getting better. So the feedback loop for me said, okay, whenever we’re not hitting well, it’s the swing, and the same feedback loop my players had.
Whereas then all of a sudden you find out that when you’re not getting access to that skill — if you are thinking about where not to hit it, or if you’re hitting at the flag all the time — it doesn’t matter how perfect it is, there’s some randomness. So as soon as the ball leaves the club face, right, it’s up there for six, seven, eight seconds. It can be affected by wind, it can be affected by whatever. So then you go like, okay, it’s not all swing, it’s also target selection. Then we’ve got good targets. We’ve got a really nice golf swing. We know what distances we’re hitting these golf balls. Turns out that I might know what the right target is, but in the back of my mind I’m going, it’d be nice if I pulled it.
Well, then we have to go through the mental process of hitting, you know, like zoom in, hit the shot at that thing and accept outcomes and so on and so forth. So I would say a lot of it is — my curiosity is extremely context driven. For the players, they end up in situations and then I need to know the answer to why we ended up over there, or the questions they might have, because as they get better and progress, the questions become more and more nuanced. They’re not as basic as they used to be.
And whether that is — I’m not a club fitter, but me learning about drivers and clubs and equipment whenever a manufacturer is trying to put the newest club in their hands and it’s not performing like it should. Why is that three wood better than the other three wood? And because he’s contractually obligated to play this one or this brand, but he actually hits this one better. How was that designed? How come some of them you have to basically take the shaft out of the head multiple times for it to feel more stable? What the hell’s going on in there, et cetera. So I would feel like I’m curious about other things now.
Josh Nichols
Yeah, and the better the player, probably the smaller — like we’re trying to shave .1 stroke off of your scoring average. So we’re tinkering with these tiny little things. Are you aiming 15 feet right or 12 feet right of the flag? Is your dispersion 18 feet wide or 16 feet wide? The better the player, the smaller the details you’re trying to be curious about.
Andreas Kali
Yeah, correct. Or they might have like one part of their game that is significantly worse than the rest, right? So we’ll probably try to improve that part while hanging on to the other things.
Josh Nichols
Right, yeah. So how does one know — and this is probably the wrong question or the wrong way to ask this, so I’ll leave it up to you to either tear this question apart or whatever — but how does one know when their swing is good enough and they need to shift to feel and just play?
Andreas Kali
I would say, well, first of all, it’s good enough if you can produce consistent contact, consistent functional contact, and I would say functional distance, meaning that you can hit holes in regulation. There’s always going to be something about direction with face and path. I think even — I didn’t watch any of the Bay Hill, but I would imagine that those guys were controlling face and path the best. Whether that’s Berger or Bhatia or the guys up there — that’s the constant thing, basically controlling direction for these guys.
I think if you can’t do that, then of course you need to focus on hitting the ball before the ground, you know what I mean? And you have to work on some sort of distance, but if you can reach greens in regulation, then you probably need to start looking at other things. Whether that is knowing the right targets, knowing how far you’re actually hitting the ball, controlling distances, maybe getting a little bit smarter on how much wind affects the ball in different climates, et cetera.
Josh Nichols
Right, so you get to a certain point where you’re proficient enough — you’re not hitting only two greens a round, you’re not getting the right distance only two times a round. You said consistent contact. I know it’s totally player dependent and every single player is an N of one, but I’ve got a friend who’s trying to get to scratch and he’s a four or a six handicap. He’s worked a ton on his swing over the last couple of years and continues to, but how would we know — how would I help him know you’re good enough, your contact is consistent enough? What do you mean consistent there?
Andreas Kali
Well, contact wise, it would be three dimensional, right? So there’s a horizontal component towards and away from the target — where does the club bottom out? Then there’s a horizontal component towards the player and away from the player also, and where does it bottom out? And then there would be a vertical component to how far below ground does it bottom out or how far above ground? You have to be able to control all these three dimensions when you’re doing it. And like, how do we know if it’s good enough? Well, if you’re not hitting them fat or thin and you’re not like shanking it or toe shanking it, then we should be in a pretty good spot.
I mean, an easy measurement — if you’ve got things — is like, how many greens do you hit in regulation? That would be very easy to look at. If he’s averaging like nine or 10 greens in regulation, would he get better if he got to 11, 12? Yes, for sure he would. He would have more birdie putts. But if he is averaging 12 greens in regulation and he’s still shooting four or five over on average, then it’s probably not his long game that’s the problem. Either he’s getting too many penalty strokes off the tee, he’s three putting too much, he’s missing too many short putts, or he’s chipping twice too often.
Josh Nichols
Yeah, or potentially the six greens a round he’s missing are really big misses and that’s a different thing — he’s capable of the three-dimensional thing, but then the six times are way off.
Andreas Kali
Yeah, of course. And then you have to dig into why are those six way off, right? Are you as a coach technically proficient enough to see the swing and go like, dude, there shouldn’t be that big of a miss in there? I can see one going a little short every now and then, but it shouldn’t be like off the planet. Are you standing over the golf ball thinking about what’s for dinner? So you have to have like some sort of spider sense or experience as a coach where you’re going like, I don’t think that’s the problem. Or you could look at it and go, I think that is the problem.
Josh Nichols
Yeah, right. Especially the coach that he works with — like, we’ve been working together for years, not me, speaking from the POV of that coach, we’ve been working together for years, I know what your misses should be, and if they are consistently not that miss, then something else is going on. Your target is too conservative, too aggressive, you’re getting mentally uncommitted, like you said, thinking about dinner or something. So each player has this job of knowing that was a big enough miss that it needs to throw up a red flag. There was something I’m doing there that is abnormal to my normal thing, right?
Andreas Kali
Yeah, but that’s on us as coaches as well, right? Is to know that the feedback loop might be larger than just didn’t hit the green, bad swing. I mean, it could be so simple that you grab the wrong club. Well, now the perfect swing might be the worst thing that can happen then.
Josh Nichols
Yep. Right. Yes. You’d rather hit a bad shot if you grabbed too much club.
Andreas Kali
Yeah, yeah, exactly. Shanked it and then it got pretty good, right?
Josh Nichols
We’ve touched on this a few times, kind of like what’s going through your head over the ball. Something I’ve heard you say is it’s impossible to be thinking about all the movements of the golf swing while you swing. So what should we be thinking about as we’re over a golf ball?
Andreas Kali
Good question. I’m not saying this is the right answer, but my preference would be that it is fairly abstract. So not very precise. It could be a certain ball flight that I’m trying to sense in my body or in my hands or in my feet or whatever. It could be all these vague things that are like rhythm or balance or complete the backswing or, you know, stuff that doesn’t really mean something very literal — it’s so personal what it means. Like the more abstract, the better usually.
I think all the research that I’ve read says that that’s a lot easier on the brain and that puts you in a much more creative space. Now there’s a chance that you don’t even have like a foundation for this, right? There’s something you actually kind of earn. So for some people it could be just, I mean, I line up over here to this target and now I’m just going to aim my club head this far in front of the ball. Or on the inside quadrant. It’s at least still outside my body. It could be trying to make sure that the first part of my backswing is good or that I hit a certain follow through or something, just to increase the odds of making contact.
But I think if it’s simple enough, you can think about your swing. There’s some of the stuff where people start trying to force like how impact should look or how their transition or something and I’m going, ooh, it’s a little scary. Now I don’t mind it the way Justin Rose does it, because it looks like he is doing some drills to create some sort of sensation that he clearly doesn’t do when he hits the ball. Or Alex Noren — clearly doesn’t do when he hits the ball, right? But I think the more precision you have in your head when you’re hitting that shot, in general, odds are that you’re gonna be worse off.
Josh Nichols
Yeah, that’s — I like that you said abstract and creative space. If it’s something precise and maybe more tangible, the part of your brain that is kind of the controlling part — the executive function sort of, to use a brain term, like prefrontal cortex sort of — where I am going to try to make a golf swing happen, that’s usually not the best space to be. A better space would be kind of like subconscious, reactive, and an abstract creative feeling-based thought engages that. Is that kind of how you think about it?
Andreas Kali
Yeah, yeah, yeah, but I also think it’s hard because you have to switch, right? Because you’re basically doing a math equation before you grab a club and then you have to get into this creative space. I would say probably the worst I see is people doing the opposite — just kind of sensing and feeling whatever club they feel like hitting, and then going completely into math when they’re standing over the golf ball with a checklist of 10 different things they need to do. That would probably be your recipe for the worst shot. If you’re going to hit the worst shot, that’s probably how you would do it.
Josh Nichols
Wow, I’ve never even thought about that as how opposite it is. The better way is math first, feeling and creativity later. Most people — or at least the players who are doing it improperly — are kind of lazy and creative with their pre-shot, and then over the shot are robotic and controlling. I’ve never heard it phrased that way. I like that.
So let’s say — I don’t know who it is and you don’t have to say — but put in mind the best player that you currently work with or the most successful, whatever that you currently work with. And let’s say you’re walking around with them in a practice round, maybe it’s the Oakmont situation, but are you ever telling them, okay, you’ve struggled a little bit up to this point, try thinking this during the swing. Do you ever introduce things like that?
Andreas Kali
No, I don’t think so. Well, yes, actually. I mean, we’ll talk more about it if they’re hitting bad shots. We’ll talk about like, what were you trying to hit? And I feel like with some of them, we talk sometimes about the handbrake — we’re just pulling on it a little bit. I’m like, dude, put that swing on that you’re practicing, that you’re seeing in practice, which is free and aggressive. Don’t stand there going like, okay, it needs to go right, like that’s why you aim in a certain spot. You took care of that. You can’t add that. So we’ll have that. And we have some terms that are inappropriate for this podcast on what not to be when you’re hitting your shot.
But I think in general, it’s a lot of calming things down and it’s a lot of not overreacting to things. Unless we do have to do some stuff, right? I know the boys really well. Some of them I’ve coached for 12, 13 years now since they were juniors. The tendencies they might have technically or the way they behave — they’re still kind of the same tendencies. So we have a really large knowledge base of experience, like, do you remember back when this happened? Do you remember this? Remember that what you’re doing in your practice round or even in your warmup doesn’t necessarily have a correlation to how you’re about to go perform, et cetera. And I think it’s just a matter of perspective. What’s the task at hand? Let’s get back to it. Then if they know that if they have questions, I’m there to answer those questions.
Josh Nichols
Right. Yeah, it sounds like you field their questions more than tell them how they should be thinking. It seems like asking questions is a better way.
Andreas Kali
Yeah. I mean, I’ve got two guys — one is just outside the top 50 in the world, the other is close to getting into the top 100. I don’t need to teach them that. There’s not like, okay, let me show you how to hit a seven iron. They’re too good for that. They’re pros, they’re really good pros. They’re not just making a living playing golf. They’re really good at getting their stuff done. And then I am there to make sure that we don’t get any funny ideas and make sure we don’t waste time.
Like we’re not spending three hours on the range trying to figure something out. I’m like, dude, it’s the ball position again. I should have known. Yes, you should have known, but you didn’t. And that’s why I’m here. So we don’t stay in there for the next three hours going overdraw because the ball is too far back in your stance again.
And then it’s basically practice rounds with me being an asshole and putting him in horrendous situations. And losing a little bit of money to me every single time, basically, unless they’re really good, because they know that’s a good investment. And what they’re losing to me is nothing compared to what they’re gaining in prize money afterwards.
Josh Nichols
Hmm right. Do your players ever kind of freak out on Andreas Kali? Like get mad at you and really?
Andreas Kali
Yeah. But they know why I’m doing it. And we’ll have times where, dude, I’d like you to back off, I’m not in the mood for this stuff where you’re being a hard ass. And then you have to feel the situation — is this just because he’s being lazy, or is there something underlying and I have to back off? I feel like I’ve got a good feel for that.
But I mean, it’s a hard game, right? Because whatever they make, a lot of people are getting a cut — whether that is agents or caddies and all these things. And so for a lot of people, I don’t understand how — a caddy would find it hard to be a complete prick to the players in prep. Because the player can just go, all right, you’re fired. So I mean, I don’t want to be a prick, but I’ll be the prick. I guess they could fire me as well, but at least I’m true to myself.
Josh Nichols
Yeah. You don’t want to be a yes man and say, yep, you got it. You’re nailing it. You’re playing so good. Your swing looks like everything’s perfect.
Andreas Kali
I feel like I’m the only guy not pulling in the yes direction.
Josh Nichols
Yeah, they need that though.
Andreas Kali
I feel they do as well. At least that’s what I think, so that’s what I do. But they know that it comes from a point of seeing how good can we get. It’s not me just trying to be a prick. And they know that when we’re done with practice, we’re done with practice. And they’ve been used to it, right?
Josh Nichols
Is there a way that you see your pros — the top 50, top 100 player — you said they’re pros, they’re not just making money playing golf, they’re pros, they know what they’re doing. Is there a way that you see them carrying themselves, or like taking themselves seriously, or having a sense of humor about themselves maybe — do you see something about them that my four handicap buddy probably isn’t doing and should be doing?
Andreas Kali
Yes. I would say in general, I feel like they’re a lot more structured. They know what to get done. Before they show up to the course, and they might not follow it completely, but they have a plan in place. At this time I’m doing this, at this time I’m doing this. And not only that — when I’m going to the chip and putt green, I’m doing this, this and this, I need to get this figured out. When I go to the range, I’m doing this first. When I go to the putting green, I’m doing this and this. When I go see the physio, I’m doing this, this, this. And as soon as that’s done, the day’s done. And then they’re not going home thinking about what they should have done or what they could have done differently, or did I do enough. They go to work.
And there’s a borderline to that becoming a job that is not necessarily good, but it’s also them knowing — it’s not like I just go to work. It’s like, I want to see how good I can get. So I want to get the most quality out of what I’m doing. I’m not just going to stand here beating balls. Of course, that’s in the ideal world. There’s always going to be times where there’s a little more pressure, it’s a little more important, and they might lose sight of what it was. And then again, there’s me or an agent or a caddy there to help and go, hey, what’s the plan today?
Josh Nichols
Right. Yeah, keep them on the rails.
Andreas Kali
I feel like it doesn’t seem like work. It seems perfectly natural to them that this is part of being a professional golfer. This is what you do. And it’s not necessarily what everybody does, but it’s what they do.
Josh Nichols
Yeah, so the kind of average amateur player — treat it like a pro would, go about it like a pro. In your mind, how would a pro go about this? That doesn’t mean I need to be doing this for eight hours a day and I need to be miserable or something.
Andreas Kali
No, no. Yeah. These guys are having fun. They love it. They’re living the dream. But I mean, you got to figure out like, why am I doing it? Why would I even want to go practice? Is it to master some sort of shot? Is it because I want to see how good I can get? And if you know why you’re doing it, then afterwards you can go, okay, I’m going to come up with a plan. You could ask your coach — if I’ve got two hours a week where I can work on my golf game, what should I do?
Josh Nichols
Yeah. Not just be driven by your emotions. This is what I feel like doing. Or I finally have two hours, so I need to cram in a hundred golf balls. Yeah. What’s next for you? How do you see the next 10 years shaping for you?
Andreas Kali
Well, I’m traveling more than I used to. I used to be called like a stay at home coach. I’d be kind of like the harbor where the boats would just sail in every three weeks and get polished off and then off they went. I’m traveling more this year with people at events. I’ve got nine professional golfers that I coach across four different professional tours. And I’m spending more time with them, more time on phone calls with them when they’re on the road.
Doing some seminars. This is my first year of doing it, so I don’t know if I’ll be doing it in 10 years, whether I like it or not. If I like it, I will probably continue to do it. And I think the part that makes me like it is the guys that I coach. They’re really, really lovely guys and I enjoy being around them. And honestly, 50% of the time, well, as soon as they go compete, I go watch them — less as a coach and more like a proud parent would. So I really enjoy that. It’s fun to see the world.
Josh Nichols
And it’s like a channel of your — you said I play to compete — it’s like your channel of that now. It’s your outlet of competitiveness.
Andreas Kali
Yeah. Kind of. It’s becoming it at least. It’s cool to go to the States to go to some of the events on the PGA Tour. One of them’s got a cart this year, see him compete at like these places I’ve seen on TV, right. And be there myself and go, huh, that looks way different. Or even seeing players that I thought were world class, who are world class, but seeing how the guys that I coach, how they stack up. I don’t know — I think I’m not saying the best players in the world aren’t amazing because they are, but I think I’ve found that the guys I coach, they’re not that far away. Some of them, at certain points, might even be a lot better than I thought they were.
Josh Nichols
Yeah, do you get like a well, these guys are way more normal than we work them up to be?
Andreas Kali
Yeah, for sure. I had two expectations before I ever went to a tour event with a player. I was expecting that their practice and prep was on a next level. In general, I was hugely disappointed. It wasn’t anywhere near as inspiring as I thought it’d be.
And number two — and this is going to come off completely arrogant, but this is my honest opinion — there weren’t as many guys who sounded as good when they hit a ball as I had expected. There’s a couple. Contact, flight, the whole thing. But I think I’m also biased. I might be in the part of the world — I’m dead serious — within a 10 mile radius of the most guys that sound great when they hit a ball, maybe in the entire world. So I think I’m used to something different. I remember going to the PTA last year and I was like, okay, if you’re going to pick a country who sounds the best at this event, you’d pick Denmark, hands down.
Josh Nichols
Yeah, and so it’s not even just the acoustics of Denmark, it’s the actual player and the contact next to each other.
Andreas Kali
Yeah, and it was more than one player. It was like four guys standing there going like, holy crap, this is better than most.
Josh Nichols
Yeah, is there — I mean, is it a Denmark thing? Like, why do you think that is? Is it you?
Andreas Kali
It’s probably not me — I didn’t coach all four of them. I was only there with one. But some of my colleagues coached some of the other ones as well. It’s probably a mix. It’s a mix of us having pretty good coaches in general, us having a pretty good support system at a very early age. It’s probably a mix of the Trackman data from Denmark, so we’ve probably measured quite a bit of impact data. On top of that, I think we are the second tallest country in the world, so there’s probably some genetics in there. So it’s probably a combination of a lot of things, really.
Josh Nichols
Sure. Is there like a turf difference, a ground surface difference that you see?
Andreas Kali
Hmm, it’s pretty crap honestly. We don’t have great facilities, which might actually be it — you have to strike it pretty well. It’s like a mix of strike and speed. I think if you went to the PGA Tour last year in driving distance, I’m pretty sure there were three Danes in the top 10. And we only had four guys with cards. They kind of bomb it. So there’s a mix of speed and then the actual strike.
Josh Nichols
Yes. Speed is always going to be a huge factor on sound for sure. And if it comes out of the screws.
Andreas Kali
Exactly right. And I’m not saying that if it sounds better, it’s a better shot necessarily. There’s just something in me — it’s like a shot that’s just hit really good. Like there’s not necessarily actually a correlation between people that I think sound the best and their strokes gained approach. But when somebody hits one right on the nose the right way, you go like, let me see one more.
Josh Nichols
Hmm. Yeah, that’s another level. Okay. I mean, that’s cool. Andreas Kali, you’re cool, man. You’re humble, but also almost like, I know what I’m doing and I’m going to let my results speak for themselves. You don’t have to shout from rooftops or post a bunch of content of yourself or whatever. I like your vibe. I think it’s cool.
Andreas Kali
All right. Thanks, Josh. I think you’re cool, too.
Josh Nichols
Well, I have to shout from rooftops for people to even notice me. What do you have going on? Like, where do you want to push people to? What do you want people to look at — something you’re selling or social or something?
Andreas Kali
I’ve got an Instagram account. It’s pretty big with a lot of nice looking swings on it. People are probably not going to get a lot smarter because there’s not that much of me on it. Since my players got really good, because of the Instagram account I started getting a ton of requests for lessons and things. One of my goals with my career is leaving the coaching of the sport in a better spot than it was when I started. So I try to travel the world and educate coaches. But I also know that I can’t do that all the time. So if there’s any coaches listening and they want to know more about my philosophy and what I coach, I actually sell a fully recorded two day seminar on my website, andreaskaligolf.com. It’s a lot cheaper than what I’d usually charge for the seminar, but people can sit with it at home if they’re interested.
On top of that, because my book is so full, my lesson prices have gotten quite expensive, which limits the people that can actually afford me. So what I’ve done to basically try to help certain folks out — honestly, if somebody’s showing up with a slice, my lessons are fairly generic. And if somebody shows up with a hook, it’s also fairly generic. And if somebody shows up with can’t make contact, it’s also fairly generic for that. I recorded like these — they’re a little bit more than one hour videos on improving your strike, turning the slice into a draw, or turning the hook into a tiny draw — and they’re like, what are they, 79 bucks? Which is a quarter of my one hour lessons. But again, because people reach out asking what do you think of my swing, it becomes a lot of the same lesson if there’s a really big problem in the ball flight. Those are available on my website too if people are interested. Turns out that coaches like them as well. It’s just a ton of tools for people’s toolboxes, but especially for people who want to get better and like to fiddle around with it a little bit themselves. So those are all on my website, andreaskaligolf.com. Besides that, I’m not selling a whole lot. I don’t have any training aids. I don’t have any merchandise.
Josh Nichols
Sure. You’re not doing Skillest or online coaching or something like that? Some?
Andreas Kali
I’m doing some on Skillest, but again, it got so busy that my prices are extremely high — really, really high — and they’re high to try to slow it down. I want to help out as many people as I can. The biggest problem always becomes a matter of time. The more people I help out on Skillest, that’s time out of my day that I don’t get back with my family and stuff. So it was basically my attempt at helping out more people at a lesser rate. I still have some online lessons and I still give out everyone one every now and then on Skillest, but they’re just really expensive.
Josh Nichols
Yeah, got it. So the pre-recorded things will get you 80% of the way there, and if you really want to fork out the money, we can get you that last 20%. Right? That sort of thing. That’s cool. Okay. andreaskaligolf.com — I’ll have a link in the show notes.
Andreas Kali
That’s correct. Yeah.
Josh Nichols
Andreas Kali, this is awesome, man. I appreciate your honesty. You’re not what’d your players call you — some like a jerk or something. You’re not that, right? You’re just honest and you know what you’re talking about. So I love it.
Andreas Kali
Try to.
