Explorez tous les épisodes du podcast Better Golf Academy: Strategy to Awesome Golf

Annika Sörenstam used to three-putt on purpose as a junior. Not because she was afraid of losing, but because of something way more surprising. Her story opens the door to research that breaks fear of failure into five separate pieces.

I'm pretty sure you'll recognize yourself in at least one of them. I found myself in three. And once you know which one is yours, the fix gets a whole lot simpler.

Scott Hoch stood over a two-foot putt to win the Masters, and missed. I found a psychiatrist's idea that explains exactly why a putt that short can feel that terrifying, and it has a lot to do with the smoke detector in your kitchen.

This kicks off my new series, Scared Money, all about the fear that quietly costs you strokes. If your heart has ever pounded over a short putt, start right here.

About seventy percent of amateur golfers barely warm up, and one study showed exactly what that's costing them. The number surprised me, and I've been playing this game a long time.

This is the Winter Game finale, and it's all about your first round back. I'll show you how to turn that rusty first tee into an actual fresh start. And I made a free worksheet that puts the whole series on one page.

Seve Ballesteros wasn't allowed to play the course as a kid, so he taught himself on the beach with one beat-up 3-iron. That story turns out to be the perfect example of a study that totally changed how I think about practicing at home.

If you've ever made fifty putts in a row on your carpet and then three-putted on Saturday, this one explains why. And the fix is surprisingly simple.

Harvard researchers had beginners practice piano without ever pressing a key, and their brains still changed. When I read what happened next, I immediately thought about every golfer stuck inside this winter.

Jack Nicklaus had his own version, and he won 18 majors with it. I'll show you how to borrow it in five minutes a day, no club required.

teve Stricker went from one of the best players in the world to Q-school, then rebuilt his game hitting balls out of a heated trailer into the snow. What happened next is wild, and it ties right into a surprising study on British postal workers.

If you think you need a free Saturday to get better, I want you to hear this one. The answer to how much you should practice might be a lot less than you think.

Annika Sörenstam walked away from championship golf for thirteen years, then came back at fifty and won by eight. I dug into the research on why that's even possible, and it's way better news than I expected for anyone taking a break this winter.

If you're putting the clubs away for the season, or you're just slammed at work, this one's for you. I'll tell you what actually goes rusty first, and spoiler, it's not your swing.

A study once found golfers made more putts just because they were told their ball was lucky. The magic didn't fully hold up, but what it says about trusting your clubs absolutely does.

In this series finale I bring everything together, the numbers, the driver, the shafts, the fitting, and the one spec no launch monitor can measure. It might be the most important one in your bag.

We've all hit that one perfect shot on a simulator and wanted to buy the club on the spot. It's one of the most expensive feelings in golf.

In this episode I walk you through what real fitters actually look at, and it's not your best shot. You'll walk into your next fitting knowing exactly what to ask.

I always assumed a lighter shaft meant more speed, and then I found a test where most golfers hit it faster with the heaviest one. That surprised me, and it might change what you buy next.

In this episode I break down what shaft weight and flex really do, in plain English, and how to test them yourself. Spoiler, the label on the shaft is the least helpful part.

I dug into the Trackman tour data and found that the women on the LPGA Tour get more out of their swing speed than the men on the PGA Tour. The reason why could be worth more yards than your last new driver.

In this one I give you the simple driver window to look for on the sim, launch, spin, and attack angle, in plain English. You might be one small setup change away from your longest drives.

I found out the radar on your favorite golf simulator was built by an engineer who used to track missiles, and what it proved flipped decades of golf lessons upside down. Once you hear it, you'll never blame your slice on the same thing again.

In this episode I break the whole wall of sim numbers down to the five that actually matter. If you've ever stared at that screen and just looked at carry distance, this one's for you.

Some of the greatest players who ever lived had swings a teacher would've "fixed" in five minutes. So why are the rest of us chasing a new swing tip every single week?

This is the finale of our Every Shot Must Have a Purpose series, and I'm pulling the whole thing together into one simple game plan for your next three rounds. No new swing required, I promise.

You can probably describe your worst three-putt from last weekend in perfect detail, but can you name one great drive? There's a reason for that, and a famous psychology paper summed it up in five words.

Today I'm talking about the Memory Box, the part of every shot that happens after the ball lands, and how one LPGA winner learned to manage it. Plus a two-minute habit you can do in the parking lot that changes what you bring to your next round.

Annika Sörenstam's coach used to ask her one question after rounds, and it had nothing to do with her score. When I heard it, I realized I'd never once tracked it in my whole golf life.

In this episode I'm giving you a second scorecard to keep, and all it takes is a pencil and a few dots. Fair warning, your first number might be humbling. Mine sure was.

Bill Murray went on Joe Rogan's podcast and, of all things, gave credit to two golf coaches and a book for his handicap heading down. What he said about it is not what you'd expect from Carl the greenskeeper, and I can't stop thinking about it.

Today I'm breaking down the invisible line that sits behind every golf shot, the one that separates thinking from swinging. Once you see it, you'll start noticing exactly where a lot of your bad shots are coming from.

What's the lowest score you actually believe you could shoot? In this episode I tell you about a coach in Sweden who asked her team one strange question in 1991, and the teenager in that room who went on to do something no woman in LPGA history had ever done.

We're kicking off a brand new five-part series on Every Shot Must Have a Purpose, and I'm giving you a five-minute scorecard exercise that might change the number you think you're capable of. Fair warning, it might be lower than you're comfortable with.

Some days I play badly because I'm too wound up, and some days because I'm too relaxed, and for years I couldn't figure out which one was the real problem. Turns out Tiger Woods had an answer for that in his book, and a strange old experiment with mice explains exactly why.

This is the finale of our Tiger series, so I also bring all five of his strategies together in one place. If you've been following along, this is the one that ties it all up.

Tiger Woods got just as mad at bad shots as the rest of us, but he had a rule that gave his anger an expiration date about ten steps long. I break down where that rule came from and why nobody can quite agree on the number.

There's also a brain study from UCLA that explains why one tiny thing you can do on the walk to your ball might turn the volume down on a blown shot. It's the simplest reset I know.

In the summer of 2000, Tiger Woods played four rounds on a course with over a hundred bunkers and never stepped in a single one. The way he pulled it off is so simple it's almost funny, and you can do it this weekend.

I also share a stat about how often even scratch golfers come up short that genuinely surprised me. Once you hear it, you'll never pick a club the same way again.

Tiger Woods' dad used to drop golf bags, jingle coins, and rip open Velcro right in the middle of his son's backswing. It sounds a little crazy until you find out what scientists learned by making dart players throw while hanging off a climbing wall.

I'm sharing the easiest way I know to bring a little pressure into your practice, no Green Beret required. It might be the most fun way to get tougher on the first tee.

I always assumed you learn golf from the tee box forward, because that's how everyone I know learned it. Then I found out Tiger Woods learned the entire game in the exact opposite order, and his book is even written that way.

There's also a fun study with a projector, some circles of light, and golfers who suddenly started making more putts without changing a thing about their stroke. It changed how I'm planning my next practice session, and I think it'll change yours too.

Some of the best soccer players in the world react to the referee's whistle almost as fast as Usain Bolt reacts to a starting gun. That stat stuck with me, because I'm pretty sure I do the exact same thing over a big putt when my partner's counting on me.

This is the finale of our team golf series, and it's about the kind of pressure you only feel when someone else is on the line with you. I'll give you a simple way to handle it next time it shows up, and we'll bring the whole series together.

Some researchers at Berkeley spent a season counting high fives in the NBA, and what they found actually predicted which teams would play better. I laughed when I first read it, and then I realized it explains a lot about my own bad partner habits.

I'll also take you to the final hole of Saturday's last match at the Presidents Cup, where two teammates pulled off a pretty great finish. Then I'll share the five things great partners do after a bad shot, and the three things most of us do instead.

The best golfer in the world has an alternate-shot record that looks like a typo. And on Friday at the Presidents Cup, the whole format went sideways for the Americans in a way I've honestly never seen before.

I'll explain what Olympic relay swimmers have to do with it, and why the usual way of thinking about alternate shot might be backward. Then I'll give you four things to do before and during the round that are basically free strokes.

There's one swing I only ever make in a best ball, and it's usually the best swing I make all day. That tells me something about my golf that I didn't really want to hear, and I think it's true for most of us.

I'll take you to a wild moment from Saturday at the Presidents Cup and break down the simple math of best ball in plain English. Then I'll give you a five-second conversation to have with your partner before every hole.

There's a swing I hit in almost every scramble I've ever played, and I'm not proud of it. It happens right after somebody else already hit a great one, and it turns out a French engineer with a rope explained exactly why more than a hundred years ago.

This kicks off The Team Game, a brand new series on team golf, inspired by a weekend of watching the Presidents Cup. I'll share the one simple habit that shuts this problem off, and it'll change how your team plays the greens.

Two golfers start at the same level, same goals, practically the same handicap. A year later, one of them is a completely different player, and the other is standing in the exact same spot. The difference wasn't talent, and it wasn't effort, it came down to one mechanism running quietly underneath everything they did.

This is the finale of the Atomic Habits series, and instead of just recapping four episodes, I'm building one real golf habit with you, live, using everything we've covered, the kind that actually compounds into a different golfer a year from now.

A hospital cafeteria changed nothing except where the water bottles were sitting, and soda sales dropped over eleven percent in three months. Nobody's willpower changed. Just what was easiest to reach.

Part four of the Atomic Habits series gets practical, into habit stacking and redesigning your own environment so getting yourself to actually practice stops depending on how motivated you feel that day.

There's an ice cube sitting in a room that's slowly heating up, one degree at a time, and for a long stretch, absolutely nothing happens. Then, seemingly out of nowhere, it melts. That's not really about ice.

Part three of the Atomic Habits series gets into what James Clear calls the Plateau of Latent Potential, and why the exact moment most people quit a new habit is usually right before it was about to work.

Two golfers get asked about practicing before a big tournament. One says he's trying to practice more. The other just says that's what he does on Tuesdays. Same intention, completely different outcome, and James Clear's got a pretty good explanation for why.

Part two of the Atomic Habits series gets into identity-based habits, the three layers of real change, and why the golfer who actually sticks with practice isn't relying on willpower at all.

A fifteen-year-old gets hit square in the face with a baseball bat, ends up in a medically induced coma, and gets cut from his high school team a year later trying to come back. Six years after that, he's a college team captain and a national Academic All-American. The habits that got him there are the whole reason a certain book exists.

This is episode one of a brand new five-part series based on James Clear's Atomic Habits, and I'm opening with the story he opens the book with, plus the math behind why tiny, boring improvements compound into something enormous, and the one sentence I think every golfer chasing a scoring goal needs to hear.

Five episodes of looking backward would be a pretty rough way to spend a week, so today I'm telling you what we should actually do with all of it.

The finale of Golf Needs a Village pulls the missing path, the missing mentor, and the doors I didn't knock on into what I built because of them, and leaves you with one real thing to do this week, wherever you're starting from.

This is the episode in the series I've had the hardest time figuring out how to talk about, because it's the one that's actually on me, not on my circumstances.

Episode four of Golf Needs a Village gets into real research on regret showing that the doors we never knock on hurt worse over time than the ones that slam in our face, and one door I want you to go knock on this week.

There's one image from my childhood I keep coming back to while building this series, and it's not dramatic, it's a school van. Someone drove the van to away games every week, faithfully. But that was the whole job.

Episode three of Golf Needs a Village gets into Emmy Werner's famous decades-long study on resilient kids, the one finding that shows up again and again, and why the difference between a ride and a mentor turned out to matter more than almost anything else in my own story.

I always assumed I started golf too late, and for years that assumption just sat there unquestioned. Then I found the actual research on how long this game takes to develop, and it wrecked that assumption completely.

Episode two of Golf Needs a Village gets into a real study showing golf is a twenty-plus year developmental sport, not a ten-year one, plus the Olympic research on what actually separates medalists from everyone else, and what it means for the time you think you've already lost.

Two weeks ago I ended up in an ambulance with a hundred percent blocked artery, and it's the real reason I'm finally telling this story.

Episode one of a five-part series turns the mic on myself, why college golf never became a real option growing up, using Tony Finau's immigrant, garage-built beginning as the mirror, and why I decided not to sit on any of this any longer.

Imagine finishing eighteen holes with your hands feeling just as calm and soft on the last tee as they did on the first. That's not a fantasy, it's an actual trainable skill.

This is the finale of the Golf Grip Pressure Series, and I'm handing you four real drills, no golf club required for the first one, to actually build soft hands permanently, plus the bigger idea tying the whole series together: most swing problems are secretly tension problems.

Ever make a smooth backswing and then completely lose it on the way down for no reason you can point to? There's a real, physical reason, and it's not your swing plane.

Episode four of the Golf Grip Pressure Series gets into how grip pressure actually spikes at the top of your backswing without you noticing, why that spike is the real cause behind casting and early release, and a simple pause drill that lets you feel it coming before it costs you a shot.

Back in episode one, I promised we'd actually settle the lead-hand-versus-trail-hand debate that got this series made. It turns out real data on tour pros flips a piece of popular advice most golfers have heard.

Episode three of the Golf Grip Pressure Series resolves the hand dominance question using real motion-capture research, keeps the Fred Couples soft-grip story, and gives you the actual thing to check for on your next chip or putt instead of picking a side.

I just finished watching Josh Hill sink a three-foot putt to win the Walker Cup for Great Britain and Ireland, and while everyone else was watching the moment, I was watching his hands.

Episode two of the Golf Grip Pressure Series uses that putt as the case study for Sian Beilock's research on why skilled performers choke, Debbie Crews' work measuring grip tension directly on golfers, and the one-word cue that can interrupt the spiral before you even start your stroke.

I went looking for one clean answer on grip pressure for this series and instead found an actual argument playing out across golf instruction, including real disagreement over something specific: which hand is supposed to be doing more of the gripping.

Episode one of the Golf Grip Pressure Series opens with the questions that actually got this series made, plus a real motion-capture study on tour pros vs. amateurs that flips a common assumption about the short game. The full lead-hand-versus-trail-hand answer comes in episode 83.

Picture the four-foot putt that actually matters to you, heart racing, hands not quite steady. The question that cuts through all the noise in that moment isn't whether it goes in, it's what you can actually control right now.

This is the finale of the Four Foundations of Golf series, and I'm pulling everything together, expectations, strategy, practice, and the mental game, into one system you can actually run on your very next round.

Every golfer knows the feeling — you groove your seven iron on the range until it's perfect, then step on the course the next day and none of it shows up. That gap isn't bad luck, and it's not you forgetting how to golf overnight.

Part four of the Four Foundations of Golf series gets into why the practice that feels the best is often the practice that transfers the least, and exactly how to restructure a range session so it actually looks like real golf.

In 2014 a former pro with three math degrees built a golf strategy system that turned an unranked amateur into a world top-3 player in three months — and it worked so well the NCAA banned him from teaching it to college golfers in person.

Part three of the Four Foundations of Golf series gets into the strategy behind that system: why you're actually playing with a shotgun instead of a sniper rifle, and how to pick targets that protect you even when you miss.

A scratch golfer and a 26-handicap golfer are separated by less than two birdies a round. The real gap, over five shots a round, is hiding somewhere almost nobody actually tracks.

Part two of the Four Foundations of Golf series gets into Jon Sherman's "war on double bogeys," the real math behind why a fairway bunker might be scarier than the trees, and a two-second GPS trick that quietly turns your worst misses into safe ones.

The best putters alive only make about half their eight-foot putts, and even at the best events of the year, the leaders average under five birdies a round. That gap between what golf looks like on TV and what it actually is might be costing you more strokes than your swing ever will.

This is episode one of a brand new five-part series based on Jon Sherman's book The Four Foundations of Golf, and today I get into his ridiculously simple happiness formula, plus exactly what a good shot actually looks like for a real golfer, not a tour pro.

A rundown tennis club in Moscow, usable outdoor courts only four months a year, has produced more top-20 ranked women's players than the entire United States. That's not a story about talent. It's a story about a system, and it's the same system we've been building all series.

This is the finale of the Cracking the Talent Code series, and I'm pulling everything together, the wire, the gap, the spark, and the coaching, into four questions you can actually run on yourself before your next round.

wo researchers sat courtside at every single UCLA basketball practice for an entire season and wrote down every word legendary coach John Wooden said. What they found breaks basically every stereotype about what great coaching sounds like.

Today, part four of the Cracking the Talent Code series, I get into why the best feedback in the world is almost never a speech, plus exactly how to run this same system on yourself the next time nobody's standing there watching your swing

A twenty-year-old rookie survives twenty holes of playoff pressure to win the 1998 U.S. Women's Open — and the real story isn't the win itself, it's what happened to an entire country's golf scene afterward.

Today, part three of the Cracking the Talent Code series, I get into the idea Daniel Coyle calls "ignition," the spark behind why anyone actually puts in the reps to get good, plus a wild stat about kids learning music that says a lot about what's actually holding your game back.