Full Transcript for Episode 71: VISION54 (Feat. Lynn Marriott & Pia Nilsson)

just want to expand the width of what golf training, golf coaching he is about. 00:02:34 Speaker 1: We don't. 00:02:35 Speaker 5: We think it's been too narrow, and so we call it more. We need to look at the reality of golf and have coaching for all the aspects needed to play the game. 00:02:44 Speaker 2: Pere one thing that I think we've seen even the PGA of America. Do you gals might have been part of this change? Is this the word change of golf instruction from instructor to coach. And you've always I feel like you've always use the word coach. How much does that matter? What is your approach on thinking about, you know, coaching versus just being a teacher or instructor. 00:03:08 Speaker 5: I mean, actually we love that and we find it fun because some now call themself coach, but they still do the same as when they call themself teacher and instructor. So it's kind of like, you know, I can be a teacher and teach you the grip, or teach your alignment, or teach you how to get more speed, or teach your math. But the coach for us is when you help a player go from point A to point B. It's like learning. It could be teaching, but then you need to coach them to help them have ownership and help them actually play the game better. And that's different from just teaching a skill. So we might teach some but we always continue and be coaches so we can transfer the knowledge to them. 00:03:49 Speaker 4: Yeah, and I'll just say this. I've been a PGA member for forty years, so you know, my initial instruct instruction as a teacher was to teach. And so I was a teacher. I taught people golf swings or strokes and chips, and you know, I taught technique and people got better technique, they got better, but then they went on to play golf and they didn't necessarily play better, and sometimes they played worse. But as a teacher, I didn't really think it was my fault or my responsibility. I had taught them how to have a better technique. So when I made that transition to coach, as Pas said, and that was all about what do they do on the golf course and how can I help them manage themselves on the golf course, and techniques part of that, and teaching might be part of that, but it's really helping them, as Ps said, take ownership, like be able to self manage out there and self regulate. 00:04:47 Speaker 3: You know. 00:04:47 Speaker 1: Then it's interesting. 00:04:48 Speaker 3: I mean I think about you know, you kind of get in a box in terms of instruction, right and I mean, you know, we're sitting at the proving grounds and you have people getting fit right now behind us, and you have fitters at times that are you know, paying attention to golf or maybe it's a ten handicap, twelve handicap and they're trying to fit them in equipment. They might also have instruction for them as well. With the golf swing right, and maybe you know, some people feel more comfortable saying you know, if you're taking it that far outside, it's not going to be great. I do think opening

up the mind to like just wanting to help somebody be better at golf at the end of the day is kind of the end goal versus you know, no matter if you're a coach or an instructor, a teacher or whatever, if you're helping somebody get better at golf through all of those things, that's the win. 00:05:28 Speaker 4: Yeah. But I think at Vision fifty four we have a little bit more of a distinction right now, and it really has been our focus for twenty plus years. We wanted to play better on the golf. 00:05:40 Speaker 1: Course, and that's where it matters, I know. 00:05:43 Speaker 4: But that is a clear distinction because so many players prepare to play and they work on their games on the range, they get fit for clubs, they do all of that, but they still lack skills on the golf course. 00:05:57 Speaker 1: Interesting. 00:05:58 Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, Marty, we just did a podcast with a PJA Tour player and we were talking about how you prep and get ready for golf tournaments, and it was interesting because he said all of the stuff he looks at in terms of numbers he looks at when he's on the golf course versus when he's hitting on the range, because he goes, you know, you can dial in numbers, especially when you're that level of talent. On the range, it's easy to do that, but it's important when you got on the golf course to see what those numbers look like. 00:06:20 Speaker 2: Yeah. Absolutely, And Shane, one of the reasons we love working with Pa and Lynn is there's a lot of similarities in what we're trying to do with club fitting because it'd be very easy to optimize a driver when you're just hitting one after another. We're trying to work on this concept of you know, game like fitting where it's like, how can we bring those aspects of on course play into the fitting environment. Both of you just had a fitting with Kim Paez, had a great. 00:06:48 Speaker 1: Experience, fantastic. 00:06:49 Speaker 2: What over the years have you seen in a fitting experience that some things that are maybe better than incorporate some of the principles of your coaching versus some maybe mistakes that can be made in just the fitting experience. 00:07:05 Speaker 5: And I must say, just having done you know, fittings here myself a few years it's just getting better and better and better. And what I notice now when we've done it is more consideration to how I actually play golf. You don't tit like you know, ten seven irons in a row. There's more flexibility. And also you know, it's not scraping and hitting, because sometimes when you get fit, you keep hitting and they want to hit the good one, good one. They start forcing it and it gets so out of context to how you do it on the golf course. So I just felt there are more with the fit. There's more consideration to that. It took more breaks and you know, change targets more and make it more golf like and asking more questions how I play golf and what clubs I want to hit, instead of just being set formula how you do fitting

with everybody. It's more uniqueness to it because I can think it can be very uncomfortable otherwise when you just feel this pressure, I better hit five good drive Snyles, so otherwise I'm not going to get the good fit. 00:08:06 Speaker 2: You know. Yeah. One of the pieces we brought from from your school is remember you know you have your bag of balls you leave behind in the thing box you have to go grab one, be very intentional about your shot in our driver fittings. That's one of the pieces we do at the end is Okay, we're going to take away the pyramid of balls and I'm going to throw you one ball kind of like a tour player. Maybe how you aim it and pretend the fairways between those two poles out there and things of that nature. 00:08:31 Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I mean as close to an actual golf course as possible. So I want you to take us back because you know, you've kind of explained what you guys do and how you do it, and you know the conversations you might have with golfers about playing better on the golf course. But how did this begin? Like where did the idea of this come from? And we were talking before he got going. You initially had had this in terms of talking to instructors and coaches before actually talking to players. So take us back to the late nineties. 00:08:58 Speaker 4: Yeah, well I think we need to go even further back because Vision fifty four started in Sweden. 00:09:02 Speaker 5: Yeah, but you can tell your store first. 00:09:04 Speaker 4: Well I know, but I'm wanting to Vision fifty four. 00:09:07 Speaker 5: Well it came because in Sweden, Yeah, you know, after being a tour player. I just happened to get into coaching and I ended up being a head coach of our national teams in Sweden. But having been more Americanized and being on tour and played college golf and all of that, I just realized that we need to get these players here to have a little different shift because they had so many excuses where they couldn't be good. So we just realized that that the players on the national team, they had made birdies on each one of the holes of their home course, most of them. So we just started asking them like, Okay, you've already done it on each hole, so what would it take if anyone would ever be able to do it during the same round, Like just if it would be possible, how do you need to swing? How fit you need to be, how do you need to think? It just kept going and we realized it was just getting them out of having a better vision of the future. So that's where it started, and it's the best thing we ever did, because then we had to look at us as coaches, if we're going to support players towards this, who do we need to be, what do we need to know? And obviously Anika Serstam is one of the ones that heard it the first time, and she always had a fifty four head cover in her bag, so she's not expecting to do that, but going for the possibility. So but for me, it came with I've been a tour player and played college golf here and was among the first Europeans to come over and do that. And then when I started coaching, my first thought was what are the things I wish I would have had? And I had had fantastic teachers and coaches, but I knew not I didn't get enough actually observing and feedback what happens on the course because I could hit it well, but then I don't know why it didn't work on the course. So I just started to figure out what are the things they're still lacking. So that's where my discovery started. And I realized this is like golden nuggets here because we need all the what we have, but we need more of this what actually happens when I play golf, and every golfer has a unique way of doing it, we need to help them capture it sooner so it doesn't have to take twenty years. So and we started having a lot of success doing it. Like this, and I went to the US a lot for trainings and seminars and conferences, and I would always run into one other female teacher who was my age and was Linn. So we just became really good colleagues and realized that we both from different backgrounds, had thoughts about this could be done different in the future. 00:11:33 Speaker 1: So that was the initial idea. 00:11:35 Speaker 4: Yeahsage Genes, and then you. 00:11:37 Speaker 3: Guys team up together in the late nineties to kind of like start a company that wasn't originally collevision but before. 00:11:42 Speaker 4: No, we had this vision that if this is going to happen for more people, we need to train coaches differently. So, I mean, that was our whole passion. So we started a company and it's still our incorporated name, Coaching for the Future. And so in ninety eight we did our first coaching seminar in Stockholm, Sweden, and I don't know, we had like forty coaches come, some college coaches from the US, I mean from all over and you know, I had been actually head of teacher training for the LPGA for ten plus years, so I said, let you know, let's do this thing and really help coaches, because you know, teachers are only going to teach what they're told to teach. So I unfortunately at that time, I felt like the PGA and also in the LPGA was doing a better job than the PGA, but they were still they you know, they were at low level basic skills as coaches, and people were not getting better at golf. So how can we help that? 00:12:45 Speaker 3: I mean, if you're coaching somebody and they're not improving, coaching in general, right exactly. 00:12:49 Speaker 1: I wanted to. 00:12:50 Speaker 3: Get them to a place where they're obviously playing better, scoring better, shooting better numbers. 00:12:53 Speaker 4: I mean that's the way, and enjoying the game more, right, Yeah, I mean that was a big deal for us. 00:12:58 Speaker 5: So, I mean they enjoying the game, because we shocked how many come off the eighteenth old being miserable and it doesn't make sense. So obviously we've been doing tool coaching for very many years and they're many very great players, but they're very

unhappy and it doesn't make sense. So we just want to want them to be good but actually enjoy and feel that there it means something to them to do this competitive. 00:13:24 Speaker 1: Golf thing, is it? 00:13:25 Speaker 3: Are you guys mostly working with tour players, mostly working with everyday golfers, Like, what's the percentage mix of the students you guys work with. 00:13:33 Speaker 4: I mean, we still do a lot of golf schools, and we do some very unique golf schools, like one is called to day on course only and that's all they do is they're on the golf course with our coaches. But I'd say like maybe thirty percent tour coaching now, yeah, and then golf schools and writing books. So we've been pretty PA has been really the initiator of this, but it's been writing some books to help people make these skills tangible that we do. And we have a big project. We're writing a coaching book. Cool yeah, cool yeah, coaches. 00:14:09 Speaker 1: Both of you. 00:14:09 Speaker 2: I think a big part of our concept is to coach the human. But at the same time, I feel like, at least from what I've observed, you haven't been afraid to dabble with some technology, things like eye tracking, maybe some brainwave stuff HRV. We did HRV stack, Yes, the Stack speed training. I kind of call it biohacking, but it's not really taking the shortcut. It's just you know, what tools have you been a part of used either through research or do you currently use in your coaching and what do you think is coming on the technology front. 00:14:42 Speaker 5: Well, you know, so we've always been curious, and you know, we always believe in the technique and technology. We just think it's insufficient. So you know, even with TPI and body swing connection, we were some of the first to get certified with that, and early on wanted to learn from track men and on and always stay up to date. But then what happens to with our coaching. Most of the golfers come to us because they need these things that are still missing. So it's like we want to be updated and use some of the technology, but then when they come to us, they want to learn the other skills you need to play the game of golf. So therefore we do most of what we do without the technology. But it doesn't mean we don't believe in it. It's just because that's what golfers are lacking. Yeah, does that make sense? 00:15:31 Speaker 2: Definitely, And you. 00:15:32 Speaker 5: Know, obviously we think for the future we can keep on staying so in tune with it to see what AI can do and all of that and the measurements, but we can never go away from It's still a human being who's going to play golf, and the human being has this subjective reality to you know, you need that. We need to listen to to trust the decision and stay focused and feel the swing moves and deal with all the variability. So we just don't want just to forget that just because we have so much advancement in technology. 00:16:07 Speaker 4: Yeah, a couple of things I want to say regards to technology. One is I hope the framework or the mindset is that we are using it so people become less dependent on it, so that they have more ownership. And I don't see that happening yet, but I hope that that's the future. 00:16:29 Speaker 2: I just did a teaching and coaching summit and Chris Como talked and they asked him what all the technology, if you could pick one thing, what would it be. And he's been on vocal and force plates and you know, everything imaginable and he said, well, the video. I mean, and I think it's because he's he's kind of trained himself so much with these other tools that he can kind of decouple from it. So it's kind of similar in that regard. 00:16:54 Speaker 4: Yeah, but I think you know, you said this the other day that like you have this avatar and you have all these numbers and measurements of the club and the body and all that, But what about that inner reality, like you said, that subjective reality. The more we can use technology to help people self regulate that and notice like increase your self awareness so they can self reference and self regulate, then yay. Now we're talking about people that can go out and manage themselves on the golf course when it matters. 00:17:29 Speaker 3: All right, Pee, I got a very I'm going to call it a simple question, it's probably got a complicated answer. So every golfer goes through this professional amateur, good amateur player, club champion, whatever the case may be. You get to a place on the golf course that you've always wanted to get to, whether it's breaking a personal number, maybe you've never been this many under par before. And then you start to think about it and you bogeat to with the last three holes, or you bogee or double the last hole, you get a shot out of bounds. Why do we do that? 00:18:01 Speaker 2: No? 00:18:02 Speaker 5: It's yeah, so you know they have as humans, you can be in the t three timeframes, future, present, the past. Right, So what happens to you me all these conferences when we get to that moment the mind is exactly so it's like you need to find the balance when you play your best. You know, we always need a little future. We need to know where the next shot is going. 00:18:27 Speaker 1: But usually what. 00:18:27 Speaker 5: Happens is it goes too much to the future. So often players need when they get to that moment in time, they need to walk between shots and feel their feet or focus on their breathing and be extra focused on getting really present before the shot and if they want to, you know, feel the grit pressure, do much more to double up because the human tendency is to expect the future, right, and it's so so anything you can do and knowing it's totally normal, but you need you can't do what you did the leading up to that point. You need to change. And this is where this variability comes in. And it's so fun to help golfers with this because it's a moment that we all all get you, all right, you know. And I still

think from the when Anika Surta Stamp shot fifty nine at Moon Valley here in Phoenix, and the first thing she said walking off the green was Pierre now knows even more possible to go lower? Wow, because she started with eight birds in a row, and she got scared. It's felt too good to be true, so she did exactly this. 00:19:35 Speaker 1: She got moved into the future. 00:19:36 Speaker 5: So she then she made a couple of safe parts till she caught herself like, I'm having a good day. I need to go back to only caring about the commitment for each shot and only caring about that. And even though the thought about the score is there, I don't give it an energy. 00:19:52 Speaker 1: I mean, it's just so interesting. 00:19:53 Speaker 3: We did a podcast with Matt McCarty and we were talking before the podcast got going about you know, low numbers, that what's the which you've shot, and he goes, I think he said, his fourth professional tournament, he shot fifty nine I think in the first or second round. It was a mini tour event. He said it was a relatively easy golf course. And then he said the next day, again, golfers, our minds are always racing, We're always thinking about stuff. And he said, the next day, he's even par through eight, and he's like so mad, you know, because again I think. 00:20:19 Speaker 1: He'd seen what's possible. 00:20:21 Speaker 3: Yeah, and then all of a sudden, you start out and you're even through eight and you're going, wait, why am I not doing what I did yesterday? So for him, he went to the past, you know, not the present, right, instead of going to you know, person's playing, well they going in the future. He went to the past as opposed to be in the future in the present. 00:20:35 Speaker 5: So this is part of this management that belongs to the fundamental skills of golf. 00:20:40 Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, it's it's it is, It is always wild. I do want to ask you guys, because I've seen you guys talk about this in different platforms before. The think box, the playbox, the memory box, do you mind just kind of expanding on on how you guys got there and what that means for the golfer. 00:20:54 Speaker 4: Yeah. Well, the distinction is is that there's a preparation time. So now you're in the future. Sure, you're preparing the shot, so your brain's actually like, oh, I want to eat it there with this club and this shape and blah blah blah. So that's the think box is the preparation. The play box is totally the present. It's like totally immersed right now in this swing and stroke with what I've committed to. And then the memory box is how to deal with your outcomes on an emotional level. And I was going to say earlier, when you're talking about how people race to the future, some people actually go to the past, and that's because they haven't learned the skill of a good memory box. But we can talk about that more. 00:21:36 Speaker 1: Interesting. Yeah, interesting. 00:21:37 Speaker 5: So you know, so we just like the distinction of the names because most golfers just moush them all together. They step into the shot and they're still undecided on the club or the wind or whatever, and they're still fiddling with maybe what is my thwing's thoughts. So it's just like very cluttery. So we just want to clean it up for golfers so they can perform better. And that's that's what's any golf no matter what handicap level or how long they played golf, they need some kind of a process, a future, present and past of every golf shop. 00:22:09 Speaker 1: Marty. 00:22:09 Speaker 3: I think when I a couple of years ago, I played some pretty good tournament golf and I was putting well, and I remember I got to a place in my mind where I you know, my mind can raise like I can think about a million different things. I mean when I'm playing golf and I remember I got to a place that summer where I realized that there were two outcomes when I hit a putt. I was gonna make it or I was gonna miss it. And as long as I was okay accepting those two things, I was gonna be okay. And so, you know, a downhill like I'm left handed, a downhill right to left putt on a quick green, you know, and you know it's a little nervy kind of putt, and it's like, just try to hit a good putt and then after if you make a good stroke or a good committed stroke, there's two outcomes, and that's kind of it. 00:22:48 Speaker 5: Yeah, that's an awesome memory box round. 00:22:50 Speaker 1: Yeah, I didn't bring that back in twenty twenty five, Marty. 00:22:53 Speaker 2: What is the talk a little bit about focusing a little more on that memory box, like what is the what is the importance of that and maybe even to get it technical on how the brain works. 00:23:05 Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, because actually it's based on on brain science. So we know as humans, no matter where I come from on the planet, thinks that the experience that is emotional, it gets stored stronger as a memory if I react to something more factual, objective, two days later, it's hard for me to recall it. I mean, if you've seen a movie that doesn't engage you and you're not into it, like two days later, it's like, I don't quite remember. So it's just human nature. But what we have found many golfers that they can have a habitually hit great shots, good shots, good enough shots, and they just say that was good and they put the club away. So there's just objective and then the shots they're not good, they go like, oh god, right, and they don't know that. So what happens is the ones that emotionalize gets stored as a memory and then they pop up when I get to similar situations. 00:24:02 Speaker 4: So if you're designed to do that, yeah, So. 00:24:04 Speaker 5: If I've done that every time on the fourth hole of my home course, whether I have hooked it in the trees, I've done it. You know a few times I can come to that tea and I can already feel the misshot. But there's no mystery. It's just how our beautiful brain of designed for survival. So we just wanted golfers

to be smart about this so you can keep gaining confidence and have more shots you trust on the golf course. 00:24:31 Speaker 3: I want to ask you know you think of the term vision fifty four and kind of the ideology of it in fifty four, you know, shooting this perfect score. But something I found really interesting is you guys just worked with an F wind driver. Obviously that is not golf oriented, but how is that experience working with an F wind driver and using what you guys have kind of implemented for golfers two different style of athletes. 00:24:52 Speaker 4: Well, I mean it's really fun because it's like, Wow, he's in this car for three plus hours, right, and he's got a kind of go in and out of what we call the playbox. You know, on the straightaways, he can come out of it a little bit, but when he's going to do the cours, yeah, I know exactly. I'm like, this is a whole different league. But we talk a lot about how to stay sensory present and you know with him, and it was really cool because he says, you know, the way I feel the car, I actually feel it my bum and he goes, you know, me and the car are won. But then he might not hit a corner that he likes, and he talks about that in his head. That's exactly like golf is interesting. I mean, like, oh, I should have hit that putt, you know, ball more out to the right, right. Yeah, And so it's how to manage the self talk that comes up and then get back to being sensory present. That is just like golf. 00:25:46 Speaker 3: It was there as you guys had those conversations. Did you see golfers in the way he was thinking just in terms of you know, I mean, every athlete is very different, but the core athletes are extremely I mean very good athletes are extremely petitive, and they're smart, and they understand their sport way better than most people. I think think they understand their sport. Did you see some similarities in some of the pro golfers you guys worked with With an F one driver. 00:26:09 Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean yeah, And that's a good question. 00:26:14 Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean I was saying so, and I think for them it's even more extreme. There's so much facts and signs and numbers and he knows that, and he needs to have this checklist and there's so much going into that for the car and him driving the track and all of that. But then still to be the best driver, he needs to be back to being intuitive and present and being in the field so it feels like it's golf, but even more challenging because of the speed golf. 00:26:41 Speaker 3: You're not normally going to die. 00:26:43 Speaker 4: But he's even shared with us. He goes, obviously, I don't think about that. It goes, you know, it's it's quick. But I just I've got to you know, it's just got to I've got to stay present. 00:26:54 Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, do your job and you'll be okay. And you're right, same as a golfer, do your job. If you can stay in it for eighteen holes and you're a professional golfer, you're somebody like Marty who's extremely good at golf. If you can handle all the emotions of a four and a half hour round of golf, it's probably gonna go pretty well. 00:27:09 Speaker 4: Yeah. 00:27:09 Speaker 2: Yeah. 00:27:10 Speaker 5: And another thing he you know, in golf, we talk about a lot commit to golf shops and what that actually means, and he said he needs to have one hundred percent commitment too, for every corner. He can't be like ninety five. It's not good enough. And so many similarities there as well. 00:27:25 Speaker 3: How's the relationship gone with you guys in ping? And how did that start? 00:27:29 Speaker 4: I love ping? 00:27:31 Speaker 1: How did the relationship well? 00:27:33 Speaker 5: For me because you know, I came in I came here in the seventies to play for Arizona States. So I was fortunate enough to get to know Carston and Luis way way way back and started playing Pings then. And so the family has always been so supportive and it was what I played on tour, and as I started coaching, I had training camps here in Phoenix at Moon Valley and I've been honored to be so captain and being around the family that way. So it's it's for me much more than the club company. It's the culture that is. It's fantastic, and it's it's a really nice family to belong to. 00:28:13 Speaker 4: Yeah, and I came back here from a stint of working in California and became the director of instruction at Carston at ASU and and that was really when I became, you know, part of the Pink family and the thing and so the thing that I appreciate the most is like this cutting edge research, all these engineers, attention to detail, and then this feeling like you're part of a family that they really care. I mean, it's really unique, you. 00:28:47 Speaker 3: Know, I mean I have similar experiences, you know, I mean I was a blogger, you know, and I was writing articles like coming out of College, and they out lived in Phoenix, and they'd buy you out, and you know, you'd get treated like you were somebody important, you know, even though I mean I wasn't important. You know, they made you feel like it mattered. And you know, you get an email from Bill, you know, every six months you need anything, you know, those types of things. And then to get to this point where I've been able to work alongside the company, I mean, you really get that same sensation, and you hear from the tour players as well. I mean, I kind of across the board. It's a great company. 00:29:15 Speaker 4: So I just want to add too. The thing is here is that they also have an open mind, like they're interested in learning about what we're doing and how we're doing it. And sometimes I haven't felt that with other companies. 00:29:28 Speaker 5: Yeah, I was going to say for me too. Early on, we just talked about your teachers here locally and in mind coming here from a foreign country. Was Pembernett, who was an LPGA player and she worked for Ping and she taught me just about everything I know about professional golf and the golf swing and how to act as a profession how to regroup my clubs, and without term I wouldn't have that connection with the ping. 00:29:55 Speaker 2: I think it'd be very easy for us to kind of think about our business as transactional. You know, you buy the equipment and you know, come see us for your next set irons. But we truly believe that it's in our tagline play your Best, is that we want people to play their best golf on the golf course. We want to have lifetime customers, and so I think it's been an awesome fit to have both of you officially part of the part of the family and helping us out. 00:30:19 Speaker 3: Peel In. This has been lovely. You guys are awesome. Been a fan of you guys for a long time. So I'm so pump we got to do this on the podcast. Thanks for the insights. People want to check out anything you guys do, go to one of those camps. Is the easiest way to go to Vision fiftyfour dot com. Is that the easiest way to do it, So check that out. Two of the rock Stars and golf. This is the Pink proven Grounds Podcast.