From Driver Yips And 3 Putts To 6 Strokes Gained With Just A Thought (Adam K)

Adam Krawsczyn went from driver yips and 3 putting from 20 feet to a golfer who thinks he can make anything inside 6 feet and hit every fairway.

He gained 6 strokes on his game in three months with zero mechanical changes.

He chose to believe in what was possible without much evidence.

In this episode, he shares what shifted for him, how he realized it was not his swing, and what changes he made to become a plus 1/5 handicap.

This is a great story about the power of the mental game.

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Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hey there, my girlfriend. It's nice to have you back and listening on this Christmas week. I hope you're enjoying the holidays. And I have a special podcast today because I have one of my clients, Adam Kaye. I'm gonna call him because I can't pronounce his last name. And I wanted to have him on to share his story because he's had some remarkable transformations with his putter as well as his driver, where he actually had uh the driver yips. And I wanted to have him share what he went through and how he changed his mental game and really made a huge transformation in his results, going from a guy who couldn't really get his driver up in the air, hitting some other hooks, to somebody who's missing one fair way around by not changing one mechanical thing. He did that also with his putting as well. He had a huge transformation this past season, and I wanted to have him on here to talk about it and share some things with you so maybe you could have some takeaways as you head into the 2022 season. So I'll jump right into it. Here's my interview with Adam. Hey Adam, how are you? Hi, I'm good. Okay, so this is Adam. Say your last name because it is one of the most complicated last names.

SPEAKER_01 1:07

Chris Sizzon.

SPEAKER_00 1:08

Chris Sizzon.

SPEAKER_01 1:09

Yeah, you pronounce it just the way it looks.

SPEAKER_00 1:12

Really? Yeah. That's like how many consonants are there in that name?

SPEAKER_01 1:15

No, I'm a little short on vowels.

SPEAKER_00 1:17

Short on vowels. That's what you said to me. I thought that was funny. So I'm so glad that you're here. And part of the reason that I wanted to have you on is to share your story because you're a really good golfer, and how you've been working on the balance between your mechanics and working on your mental game and kind of the journey that you went through. And I think some other people who are listening will be really be able to resonate a lot with that. We have been working.

SPEAKER_01 1:40

I think it's a year, probably at least a year.

SPEAKER_00 1:42

But tell everybody a little bit about yourself, like where you are with your golf game and what your goals were and kind of how we got connected.

SPEAKER_01 1:51

I uh was a very good junior player, very good high school player. Then I went to college, sort of, and made a bunch of bad college decisions. I ended up playing for uh about one year at Glenville State, which is in the middle of nowhere, West Virginia. I did win two tournaments in that year. So I guess I was still pretty good even then. I definitely was not working as hard at it, you know. Girls' parties, everything that goes along with college kind of took the precedent. But, you know, so I really regret not having put more effort into it at that time in my life. But coming out of that, I had to move on, had to start working once I got into that 22, 23-year-old range. I didn't play for probably 10 years. Um, just didn't have time. I was, you know, I was working my way up through the ranks in my career. So once we Claire and I got married and moved back to Cincinnati, we had our first child, daughter AJ, in 2016, and I left my job to be full-time dad. So stay-at-home dad, which was kind of the impetus for getting back into the game because I needed something to do outside of the house because there's only so much you can do, you know, hanging out with an infant all day.

SPEAKER_00 2:57

Um yeah, I know.

SPEAKER_01 2:59

And it only gets worse as you, you know, get up into the toddler years where you're actually, you know, having to chase them around. So I went to miles of golf here in Cincinnati, where uh they do fitting and have a real nice range, they have a real nice short game area, and they have an academy. So it was like kind of the perfect place to like figure out where I am and what I needed to do. We joined a club out here called Makatewa, and I played win the club stuff, played it. It was like every tournament, kind of like, okay, this I remember what this feels like. I want more of this.

SPEAKER_00 3:28

So, how many years ago is that?

SPEAKER_01 3:29

That was five years ago.

SPEAKER_00 3:31

So five years ago, you were shooting kind of mid eighties?

SPEAKER_01 3:35

Probably low eighties. I think my handicap was, and I could still shoot like 75 maybe, but my handicap when I joined Makiwa was six.

SPEAKER_00 3:43

Now, what's your handicap now?

SPEAKER_01 3:44

Uh plus one and a half.

SPEAKER_00 3:46

Plus one and a half. Yeah, that's awesome.

SPEAKER_01 3:49

Seven and a half shots, I guess.

SPEAKER_00 3:50

Yeah, in five years.

SPEAKER_01 3:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:52

Right. Just so everybody knows, too, is you work hard. You put in a lot of time into your golf game and golf and hitting balls and practicing, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:02

I do. That was kind of my outlet. Once I got the bug of playing competitively, it was on. You know, I'm 44 in terms of competition. This is the time to do it, um, especially with our family setup. And Claire, my wife, has been unbelievably supportive in allowing me to chase this dream getting better. Yeah, so I hit a ton of balls. This is I'm saying just over the past five years, I've hit a ton of balls, worked on areas of my game that needed to get better to improve. I kept a lot of stats so I would know what I needed to work on.

SPEAKER_00 4:33

Which I want to emphasize to everybody listening. That is so important because so often people will decide what to work on based on emotion. And when you decide what to work on based on emotion, you're usually not working on the part of your game that's going to help you improve the most. So you can watch people when they go to the practice area, you know what clubs they like. People love to go to the driver, right? They like to hit their favorite clubs, whether it's a hybrid or whatever it is, they're not working on the weakest part of your game. And by you focusing on your stats, that really helped you improve quickly going forward, which is one of the things that I emphasize when we go through coaching too, is that one of the ways that you know if there's a mental issue involved is if you can do it on the range, but you can't do it on the golf course. And that comes from you keeping stats, you looking at those numbers. I can hit 10 really good drives in a row, but on the golf course, it's a totally different animal comes out. And that's also an advantage of keeping your stats. I think that had a lot to do with your progress for sure in five years as far as your mechanics go. That was huge.

SPEAKER_01 5:40

Absolutely. I knew what to what I wanted to work on. So over probably, I would say the winter of 2017 and then last winter, I made some major swing overhauls that I required a lot of work, you know, hit and hitting just repetition and really getting that the new feels down. So you can do it internally play because it's easy to sit there and do it on the range.

SPEAKER_00 6:03

I think it's so valuable to do work in the off season because you don't you're allowing the repetition come in, whether it's mechanics or mentally, to create new thoughts. You can do that work because just like making a swing change takes time, so does it working on changing a thought takes time and having a very clear plan on what to work on in the off season, and you do that at an indoor facility into a um sim with a simulator.

SPEAKER_01 6:29

No, it's uh so it's still miles a golf, and they have heated bays, so yeah, you're still hitting outside, which is fantastic. Yeah, you're nice and toasty. I've I've been out there when it's been 20 degrees, and yeah, I get that gets a little chilly even when for me.

SPEAKER_00 6:45

I have like an under 50 and sunny roll. Like it, if it's under 50, it has to be sunny.

SPEAKER_01 6:51

Yeah, I mean, this and I would do this at night too. So there's like it's it's cold just having that access to a facility like that, and now it has top tracer on every bay, so you can get your ball speed and your launch angle and stuff like that, spend numbers. So it at least gives you some idea of you're not just beating balls into a field.

SPEAKER_00 7:11

That's a nice facility.

SPEAKER_01 7:13

It is, it's really nice.

SPEAKER_00 7:14

Miles of golf in Cincinnati.

SPEAKER_01 7:16

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 7:17

All right, just gave them a plug.

SPEAKER_01 7:19

We also have one in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

SPEAKER_00 7:22

Oh, there you go. Um very good. Let's so let's kind of fast forward a little bit to where you and I met because there was a reason your wife too encouraged you to reach out um to find some assistance with work managing your mind really around the game. And then what was the deciding factor to have that happen? So you're playing in competitions, was it that you were underperforming, like you knew you could do it, or were you just kind of frustrated about what was going on?

SPEAKER_01 7:48

So it was a combination of the two. It was like I was underperforming for sure. And I had no good reason. I mean, I did, I understood why it was putting and driving, probably the two most mental parts of the game, I would say.

SPEAKER_00 8:00

Um, chipping and bunker go right up and pitching. I get a lot of people who, you know, with those ships. Yeah, yeah. Um and we could keep carrying on to all the other clubs. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:09

So my wife was like, all right, you need to figure it out. If you want to continue doing this, like you need to figure out how to get more enjoyment out of it. Because right, you know, I was just going through the motions. I was spending a lot of money to go to these tournaments and not get the results and also not have a good time doing it. I was like, well, I've made two swing changes. I have a swing instructor in Orlando, Dave Stanley, who's worked virtually with me since I started playing again. And then I was working with Mark McDonald here in Cincinnati, so I have like two really good sets of eyes watching my swing. You know, maybe that's not it. Maybe that's not the problem. Because I've put the time in, I've put you know, the resources in of having track man at my disposal, having really great swing coaches at my disposal, and none of that, none of that got me to where I wanted to be. So that's what led me to being open to at least that first call with you when Claire said, you know, Kathy, she does an introductory free call, just talk to her, see what you think. And you know, I felt like it was five minutes into the conversation when I was like, okay, she gets it. Like the difference being I I didn't have to explain lingo or what I was trying to convey because you've been through it yourself. And that was such a big selling point for me with you was like you you knew exactly what I was talking about. So it's not like I'm having to communicate all this to somebody who's A, never played golf or B, like understands the game, but not on a competitive level. And you check really checked all these boxes. And so we decided to work together. And first thing we probably worked on was putting.

SPEAKER_00 9:44

We started with putting, but it was about the results that you were getting, and then looking into the thoughts that you were having over the ball, and then what was showing up for you. And do you remember what your dominant thoughts were with your putting?

SPEAKER_01 9:57

Um, it was mostly about I was approaching it from fear of missing short putts, but also like not even being able to confidently two-putt from 20 feet. So, like that's a bad place to be where you're lagging 20 footers. And I remember the very first tournament after we started working together, I go out and I four-putt the first green, and I'm like, oh wow. Okay. But then, like, honestly, it's probably the best thing that could have happened because it's like I can go through and pick out the things that I was thinking that you directly told me I was thinking, you know, like being scared of missing putts and not feeling like I have the ability to make putts, or just going blank and not thinking about anything, which can sometimes be good, but you know, you also have to be able to commit to the shot or the putt in a way that you're engaged after you miss so many or hit so many poor putts, you like start to just check out.

SPEAKER_00 10:47

And and so part of it is also the story we start telling ourselves that this is what I'm gonna do now. I'm gonna miss a couple of these. I I'm a person who lags 20 footers, and then the rest of the round is gonna go downhill, and then we end up putting pressure on our full swing to hit it closer so that we don't have this problem. It becomes a snowball effect, right? For the rest of your round, and also it works back from the green to the T.

SPEAKER_01 11:08

Yeah. So then I'm thinking I have to stuff iron shots to make birdies. Yeah. Or I have to knock it on and two on a par five and hope that I can two-punt. That's just not a good place to be. And honestly, it did not take very long to I got to the point where I don't even think about putting anymore. I make six feet and in, I make the putts, I hit good putts, whether they go in or not, I'm not concerned about it from outside of that.

SPEAKER_00 11:30

Yeah, which was a big shift too, right? We was like trying not making it, and it takes time for your brain to shift because we have these thoughts, and the more we stick with them, they become habit thoughts. So you get into this situation, and unless you're aware of it, you get into this situation, all of a sudden these thoughts start popping up in your head, and you're like, why are they all coming back? It's just because it's a habit thought. But one of the things is for you, shifting took some repetition on yourself, and then also telling yourself a different story about how you show up on the putting green versus being a person who struggles on the putting green, right? You just kind of walked into that belief that I'm a pretty good putter.

SPEAKER_01 12:09

Now I look at myself as a pretty good putter. You know, I'm really good at short putts, and some days I make longer putts and some days I don't. Like there's nothing I can do outside of hit good putts. Right. And that's a very uh freeing place to be because then you're not worried about the result, you're just worried about put, you know, letting yourself hit a good putt.

unknown 12:28

Right.

SPEAKER_00 12:29

And not making the result mean that you're not good at short puts and that you're still not a good putter, which is the habit that we can get so often into.

SPEAKER_01 12:37

Yeah, and sometimes you know, I'll still hit like a nasty pull on a five-footer or something. And before, where I would let that bleed over into everything that happened after that, now it's just like that was a terrible putt.

SPEAKER_00 12:49

And I happen to be human, and that's what happens.

SPEAKER_01 12:52

So on the next one, I'm not even thinking about that. I'm thinking, you know, I've moved on, and um, there's no way 18 months ago that I would be in that position.

SPEAKER_00 13:02

Yeah, it is such a huge difference, and all it is a thought, it's an awareness first of noticing what's going on in your noggin, noticing your patterns of thinking, like I have a tendency to do this, and then just deciding to think something else and deciding not to let that affect the rest of your round. It is so simple, but it's not always so easy because then for you that started transferring over to your driver.

SPEAKER_01 13:26

Yeah, and that's what I wanted to point out was it sounds really easy with the putting, but with the driver, that was a completely different animal. Like that was something that was mentally, I had some deep issues with the driver. Yeah. With putting, I don't think that I drastically changed anything mechanically, which was the cool part. Like it was just like I just started thinking about these things, which in a different way, which was much helpful once we got to driver. Like the statistics before I started working with you, I would lose three to five shots off the T per round and another three shots putting. So that's eight shots strokes gained versus a pro that I was losing per round. So then I would have to make that up in iron play and short game, which sometimes I did to shoot 73, 74, but not consistently and not in competition. We've not talked about iron play other than how good I am at it.

SPEAKER_00 14:20

Yeah. Right? And that now you're able to take some pressure off of it. And so then it starts showing up even more, your talent starts showing up even more. When you can take your pressure off of different parts of your game, it's like taking a layer of clothing off so your swing can come out. All right. So, what has started happening with your driver? You you start going a little sideways.

SPEAKER_01 14:40

I think that first tournament after we started working together when I had that four putt on the first hole, I didn't pull driver out of the bag for the 54-hole tournament. Like it was three woods, hybrids, you know. So I'm starting from a very disadvantaged position by not being able to even get the driver out of the bag because I know what's gonna happen with it. And the frustrating part was when I would hit it, you know, it would be either a big block right or be a smother hook, you know, two-way miss, which is the worst feeling in the world to be on a TE and know that it's gonna miss one one way or the other, and I have no idea which one it is.

SPEAKER_00 15:14

Yeah, that's not a good feeling.

SPEAKER_01 15:15

No, you know, versus taking my three-wood out, which I had all the confidence in the world, and you know, I could hit it 270 down the middle. Like you can still play a lot of courses that way, but that's not sustainable. Yeah, so it just kept getting worse and worse and worse to the point where I just was like, I can't continue playing golf this way, so we need to figure something out.

SPEAKER_00 15:37

When you were on the range, it wasn't that bad, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:39

And I would hit balls on the range and it would be fine, just no problem, little tight fade every time. So I'm like, it's not mechanical because otherwise I couldn't sit here and do this on the range. Yeah. So what I realized it had become was something mental was creating the physical response on the course, which was then making it mechanical because something clearly to hit a smother hook, you know, 70 yards off the T, something physically major has to happen to do that. But I wasn't doing that on the range.

SPEAKER_00 16:09

That's when it was like, okay, we got to work on this because it's like, okay, I got the putting down, but now let's start dissecting what's going on in my head about my driver. And this is a thing too, I want to add is sometimes we can say, you know what? I'm doing all the right things. I know what to do, I know how to think. I don't think there's any anything there, but we can't read the label from inside a bottle, which means sometimes it helps having someone like dissect what's actually going on and calling you out on things that we believe to be facts when actually they're maybe not facts. They're actually just thoughts that we could shift or different ways that we look at things that we just believe so strongly. And when you can look at it a little bit differently, then you can start opening the door up to really what the problem is. What was the biggest thing that you recognized with your driver mentally?

SPEAKER_01 16:58

Mentally, like I felt like I had no chance to get it in play. So that's where I'm starting from. And I know that that's like the root issue of what's happening on the golf course. You know, it had become full-blown driver yet. So I knew it had to be something that we accomplished with my brain to get past it. And that was like with the putting, I just bought right into that and it happened very quickly, and it was good. But with the driving, like I my brain put up all the defenses. Like, there's nothing that we can do. I like I'm too self-aware to be tricked into being able to think that I can hit the driver. And that's another bad spot. But you caught on to that really quickly.

SPEAKER_00 17:35

And like I called BS on that thought.

SPEAKER_01 17:37

Yeah, yeah. I mean, yeah, you did not let me get away with that at all. And so, in addition to like coming up with the way that we thought about it, it was about also how my brain lets me think about it. I had to accept that I have to change the way that I think about it. And that was step one was like, all right, I'm not trying to trick myself. I've seen myself do it on the range, and then the biggest thing that you said to me was accepting something without evidence. That was huge, huge, huge for me was like, okay, at some point I have to take that leap.

SPEAKER_00 18:11

For sure. Like, so believing without evidence is what we have to do if we want to do something that we haven't done before. Because our brains like to look to the past to see what we can do. It's kind of like learning to walk or ride a bike, right? We have no evidence that we can do it. So we have to believe. You can watch a little kid get up and they believe they can do it when they don't have any evidence because they certainly don't have enough life to look into the past. But as adults, right, we'd want to look and see and have that proof that I can do it before I believe it. And you have to believe it before you can do it. And that takes, I use the word surrendering to it. I'm just going to surrender and decide to believe, even though I don't have any proof. And then you start stepping into that person who doesn't. So, in other words, you want to step into the person who hits drives. Like, what does that person do? What do they think? You know, start envisioning yourself being that person who hits all the fairways, and then you'll start getting the results of that. So you have to believe ahead of time.

SPEAKER_01 19:08

Yep. We had this conversation early September, I think. And so it's like, I know what the alternative is, which is hitting terrible drives or hitting three wood off the tee. Like, there's no way around it. I have to just accept that I'm that I'm a good driver of the golf ball without any evidence. And pre that conversation, maybe I would hit like two good drives in a row and be like, all right, there's no chance I'm hitting the third one. Well, like that's just not what I do.

SPEAKER_00 19:35

So now we know with that thought, yeah, that that is going to produce that result.

SPEAKER_01 19:40

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 19:40

Right? Because your brain wants to be right. So him saying that there's no way I can hit three in a row, for sure, he's not gonna hit three in a row because your brain wants to go see, you can't hit three in a row. And now you have evidence, like we were just talking about, that your brain looks back at, but I can't hit three in a row because on that round, like I didn't. Then we create this little loop for ourselves and we got to break out of that.

SPEAKER_01 20:00

So that's prior to the conversation. Then after the conversation, I was like, I'm getting better at driving the ball. And I would go out and hit some good drives. And I quit thinking about you know, previous drives, what I've done. Like, I would just, all right, this drive is what's important. I'm gonna commit to it. I'm gonna I'm getting better at driving the ball. So I would go from maybe hitting two good drives around to maybe five. So that starts building.

SPEAKER_00 20:27

Right. That was just a simple thought. I'm getting better at driving the ball. So much better than I can't hit three in a row.

SPEAKER_01 20:32

Yes. And that was the big thing we talked about was look at it as like a buffet. You can go back, right? Like you don't have to eat everything all at once. And I knew my brain wasn't gonna let me believe that I'm a great driver of the golf ball. Because I just knew it.

SPEAKER_00 20:46

But right, because I call that that's too big of a leap for your brain. Your brain spits those thoughts out. You can't go from like, I'm the best player in the world, kind of thought when you're a 30 handicap. Your brain's gonna call BS on you. So we have to go to like little ladder thoughts, I call them, which is bridging the gap to that space, which is basically what you did with in the past, I've been a good driver of the ball. You know, I'm getting better at driving the ball. All the things that your brain can believe, but they're better than the thought that you had, even though they're not quite the thought that you want to have.

SPEAKER_01 21:17

Yeah. So it was like, I'm getting better, I can be a good driver of the golf ball, things like that.

SPEAKER_00 21:22

Yeah, great thoughts.

SPEAKER_01 21:23

And that's what I'm thinking about, instead of thinking about what I previously had done or how I previously had hit a drive on that hole. It just completely changed that thought to without the evidence, I started to believe these little bridge thoughts, and then it would slowly build to like, okay, I'm hitting five good drives around, I'm hitting six good drives around. You know, I'm still hitting it in trouble every now and then. This is like maybe over two weeks, and in that time, with that improvement, I won a tournament and finished solo third in the tournament with the bridge thoughts, right? So I'm still driving in enough to get myself in trouble, but. But not enough to completely derail what I'm doing.

SPEAKER_00 22:03

And there's a little tug of war in there too, because that old thought wants to come up. So you feel that temptation or that urge to think the old thought that you're not a very good driver of the ball. And you have to keep reminding yourself and reminding yourself of those bridge thoughts.

SPEAKER_01 22:15

Yep, for sure. So I'm like, okay, I'm I'm starting to believe in this. Like it's like not becoming so crazy to think that I can be a good driver of the ball. And of course, this was mid-September, right? And I still had three tournaments in October. So I play quite a bit during that time, and it's like really good. I'm like driving it really well. None of the old thoughts. And so I play in the NCR Invitational NCR Country Club in Dayton. And I play with a guy that I haven't played with in probably two years. And so he was fully aware of how I used to drive the ball. We get about, I don't know, seven holes in, and he's like, What is going on with you and the driver? He's like, I've never seen you hit a driver like this. I was like, I don't know, man. I'm just a good driver of the golf ball now.

SPEAKER_00 22:58

And I love that.

SPEAKER_01 23:01

I mean, it's probably, you know, one of the best feelings I've ever had on the golf course was to have somebody notice how well that I'm driving the ball. Like just hitting fairway after fairway, pretty long for me, you know, and this is something different. And hearing stuff like that just added to it, to the point of like, I'm a good driver of the golf ball. And then we go to the US four-ball qualifier in Indianapolis, and I missed one fairway.

SPEAKER_00 23:26

Awesome.

SPEAKER_01 23:26

And my partner in this, I haven't played with in a while. And so he hadn't seen me drive it like this either. So he, you know, he's kind of expecting to have to carry me on some holes that I drive it in trouble. And I don't. I just I mean, he's just like got his head kind of sideways, like, that is the best drive I've ever seen you hit. And I was like, uh, stick around, there's more.

SPEAKER_00 23:44

Like I love that. And that's not with you making any mechanical changes.

SPEAKER_01 23:48

Zero mechanical changes. That's just me finally believing that I can drive the ball well.

unknown 23:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:55

And letting the mechanical part that I've worked so hard to get into a good spot happen instead of letting my brain get in the way of it.

SPEAKER_00 24:03

Exactly. That's called playing to your potential, right? Instead of getting in your own way. It's so easy to think that you have a mechanical problem. But most people know too that they don't have a mechanical problem more because of just how it feels. It just feels really crappy, just how you feel, right? You know inside, whether it's mechanical or mental. We just sometimes lie to ourselves and try and we try and outwork it. You can't outrun a mental issue, right? By outworking it at all.

SPEAKER_01 24:32

I mean, you can hit 300 balls a day and it's not going to solve the problem. Like it's it's just not. Um I tried.

SPEAKER_00 24:42

I'd finish that basket of balls, that big basket of balls, and at the bottom, the answer wasn't there.

SPEAKER_01 24:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:47

Yeah. Okay. So working on shifting just one thought, and this is the thing too, I want to emphasize with people is sometimes all it takes is just shifting one thought. The thing is, is that those thoughts can be sticky. So it takes persistence. And a lot of times people don't stay persistent. One of the things that Adam did so awesome, and I think awesomely, uh, and I think a lot of that had to do with because you did it with putting and it was a little easier for you. So there was a little bit you knew the pattern in doing that when you shifted to the driver was just not giving up on that thought. Um, and knowing that you had to just keep building on it from I'm getting better at driving to now, like I'm a freaking awesome driver of the ball.

SPEAKER_01 25:24

I know, and and the results, like I've never seen anything have an impact on results like this. I mean, but you can imagine if you go from losing five stroke shots around off the T to in the last time I played bogey free 67 and I gained one shot off the T, which is just massive for me. So that's like six shots difference from where I was three months ago.

SPEAKER_00 25:48

You know, that's huge. Six shots in three months?

SPEAKER_01 25:51

I mean, and that's in strokes gain. That's not like saying like I'm six shots better every time. And I didn't, I just never realized how big of an impact it is. The more fairways I started hitting, it it just became like less stressful to play the game and so much more fun because I could actually attack a golf course, I could actually have the confidence to go out and say, I'm not focusing on results, but I know that if I hit drive the ball the way that I've been driving it, I'm gonna not shoot over par. And it's just a matter of how many putts I make to how much under par I'm gonna be.

SPEAKER_00 26:24

So yeah, how about that?

SPEAKER_01 26:26

That's a nice fun, fun spot to be from for sure.

SPEAKER_00 26:31

Okay, so so we're gonna keep working together through the winter. And so, what was your purpose on doing that, even though you're not in season? Yeah, of course, I love talking to you. I'm not saying, like, you know, what the heck are you doing? I'm just saying what your mentality was on keeping going through the winter.

SPEAKER_01 26:46

Um, so I didn't want to spend another winter of just beating balls. Like that was not, I was like, I've done that, had minimal effect on what I did. It might have even made me worse. What has not made me worse, which has made me much better, is working with you. So I was like, what can I work on that I historically have not? Like, what's the next step? How do I keep getting better? And so I definitely need to at least talk to you once a month.

SPEAKER_00 27:12

It's so interesting too, because even though you're not playing, we have the best conversations. I loved our last conversation. I think the last two conversations, we said we didn't even have an agenda and look at all the stuff we found and to talk about as far as different ways of looking at things and up-leveling, it's just constantly up-leveling your thinking.

SPEAKER_01 27:29

Absolutely. And it's much deeper things that we're talking about that you know, we're not um triaging anything now. We're like really that's perfect, yeah. Yeah, like we're really doing the work, and it's just you know, so helpful. So that was my goal was to continue working on mindset with you, fitness and mobility, which is something I've never really put a lot of effort into, I think would be much more beneficial than hitting, you know, 300 balls a day.

SPEAKER_00 27:58

So I 100% agree.

SPEAKER_01 28:00

Yeah, yeah. And the last thing was kind of refining my short game, just like improving technique a little bit that is more repeatable and not so feel-based.

SPEAKER_00 28:10

So you're gonna work on your mental game, your fitness, and your short game, which is just one of those things that you want to fine-tune over the winter, so that when you when the season hits for you in Ohio, tell us what you have planned next year.

SPEAKER_01 28:22

What are you gonna accomplish? Be playing very similar schedule to what I've played in the past, Cincinnati Metropolitan Golf Association events. I play a lot of West Virginia Golf Association events, and then I'll play the USGA qualifying stuff as well, probably US Open, USAM, US Mid-AM, US four ball. I'm excited to go into a season with this mindset versus where I've been in the past because it's not even close to it's it's completely different. So right.

SPEAKER_00 28:52

You never know what's possible now, right? Because it totally different.

SPEAKER_01 28:55

Yeah, yeah. So I I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop, you know, but I think you've kind of talked me out of that kind of thinking. Yes. Like it's it's not, I know it's been a hard thing with me because it's uh what did you call it? It's like between the was it abundance and scarcity, scarcity, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 29:15

So I've always kind of had that scarcity mindset, and um, you know, I think we're moving into the to the abundance, and yeah, so easy scarcity mindset is comes up uh in so many different areas of our life, right? And one of the things is like just little comments like that, we can believe it so much. Certainly the other shoe's gonna drop, something's gonna happen, right? Something, the wheel's gonna fall off, so to speak. But if you don't listen and hear that thought and then question it, is it a fact? Is that true? How do I know that's true? Or do I want to decide it's not a useful thought? So just drop it. Like, don't even let it come into your brain. Correct. Yeah, yeah. There's nothing good can come out of that. Nothing. Yeah. So all right, Adam, thank you so much for jumping on the podcast today. And I look forward to talking to you to you every month. And I know that you're gonna do amazing things in 2022.

SPEAKER_01 30:08

Well, thank you for having me. It's been great.

SPEAKER_00 30:10

Yeah, so much. All right, talk to you. All right, my friends, it all started with a phone call, a free phone call with Adam and I to find out if we were a good fit, if coaching was right for him and what he needed to take his game to the next level. And if this is something that you are interested in, if you want to see what's possible for you in 2022, I invite you to jump on a call with me. You can go to KathyHartwood.com forward slash chat. I look forward to talking with you.