The Mental Golf Show is all about helping serious golfers translate their game when it matters.
Host Josh Nichols — a U.S. Mid-Amateur finalist and Golf Mental Coach — has spent years investigating one question: why do good players struggle to access their best game under real conditions? Through in-depth conversations with players, coaches, and performance experts — plus solo topical episodes breaking down what he’s learned — Josh investigates the gap between a golfer’s potential and what actually shows up on the course.
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304: Jim Waldron - Stop Fighting Your Thoughts: A Better Way to Play Under Pressure
Episode 2
Tuesday, September 29, 2026 • Duration 01:20:32
Jim Waldron (balancepointgolf.com) works remotely with golfers around the world on yips and general mental game coaching. He also teaches full swing, short game, and putting mechanics.
In this conversation with Jim Waldron we talk through controlling your attention, managing stress, and developing a resilient mindset to improve performance under pressure.
Here are the key topics we cover in this episode (AI-generated 🤖)
- The role of self-image and ego in performance
- Controlling consciousness like a flashlight
- The “snow globe” analogy for a stressed mind
- Deep acceptance and non-resistance to thoughts
- The importance of routine and focus in golf
- The concept of good stress and its benefits
- The difference between internal and external focus
- The impact of life outside golf on mental state
- Strategies to develop meta-awareness
- The importance of living in the present moment
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Mentioned in this episode:
📊 FREE Mental Game Assessment: app.joshnicholsgolf.com/assessment - identify your mental strengths and areas for mental game improvement.
the importance of working on your weaknesses first
how the different aspects of your game all have different A-B-C-games
how to objectively measure your mental game
handling pressure
building mental resilience
seeking discomfort
and how to keep play and practice in their proper places
Jared first appeared on the podcast way back in April 2021, so it's awesome having him back on. I really like the way Jared thinks about the mental game. I know you'll enjoy this one.
He joins The Mental Golf Show to talk the neuroscience of stress, negative thoughts, performing under pressure, and he makes some interesting claims about the term "flow state" that I had never heard before.
Key topics covered in the episode (AI-generated)
The impact of stress on golf swings
Neuroscience of thoughts and muscle communication
The concept of flow and reactive states in golf
Managing thoughts before each shot
The importance of mental endurance in golf
The role of electricity and brain activity in performance
Strategies for controlling the last 10 seconds before a shot
The concept of upstream sources of negative thoughts
Practical exercises for mental focus and inventory
The importance of simplicity in mental strategies
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Mentioned in this episode:
🎓 The Next Shot digital course - Get Module 1 for FREE! - Move on from the last shot and be more present on the next one.
👕 William Murray - Get the best looking and best fitting clothes in the game 15% off!
299: Robert Linville - How to Be Truly Confident, Play Free, and Beat the Four-Hole Death Spiral
Tuesday, July 14, 2026 • Duration 01:17:18
Robert Linville has been Josh’s coach for over 10 years. He was a pivotal part of Josh winning multiple events and making it to the finals of the 2017 U.S. Mid-Amateur.
Robert has been a coach and swing instructor and owner of Precision Golf School in Greensboro, NC for 40+ years, working with some of the best players in the world on all levels of the game.
Hello everybody, welcome to The Mental Golf Show, where we explore high performance through the lens of golf. On today’s episode we have Michael Leonard, host of the Wicked Smart podcast, author of several golf books, and phenomenal player himself. This is actually Michael’s second appearance on The Mental Golf Show 3 years later. Feel free to go back to that one to learn more of Michael’s own story.
In this episode you’re going to learn how to neutralize pressure, not only handle discomfort but use it to grow, have a better target selection process, understand your own shot shape and decision making, the power of visualization and how you can use visualization to make yourself a better golfer, and how to push through scoring barriers and go lower.
297: Julie Elion - How Wyndham Clark Overcame Adversity to Win the 2026 U.S. Open
Monday, June 29, 2026 • Duration 01:10:32
Get Julie Elion’s new book Mastering Your Mental Game (link to Amazon)
On this episode we’ve got THE Julie Elion. Most notably the mental performance coach for Wyndham Clark. She’s also the author of her new book Mastering Your Mental Game, which is excellent.
So the timing of this one was pretty dang cool with Wyndham just winning the U.S. Open last week. We of course talk a lot about Wyndham and how he handles the adversity of the crowd and seemingly the whole world being against him. And we discuss how Wyndham and other tour players improve their mental resilience, emotional regulation, and other very accessible and normal practices golfers can do to perform better under pressure.
By the end of this episode I’m confident you’ll be able to reframe your nerves, handle anger better, and develop mental habits that give you the best chance to succeed more often.
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Timestamps & Topics:
0:00 - Intro: Listen to Josh’s new podcast Project Mid-Am: A Golfer’s Journey on Apple or Spotify
2:36 - The Nerve-wracking Experience of Coaching Wyndham Clark
9:04 - Why Honesty and Self-Awareness is Important for Golfers
296: Joel Suggs (PGA Master) - These three stats explain everything…
Monday, June 22, 2026 • Duration 01:25:54
On this episode we have Joel Suggs, a PGA Master Teaching Professional with decades of experience helping golfers of all levels understand their own games. Joel is the author of Golf Success Before Every Round, which was the number one new release in golf coaching on Amazon when it came out.
By the end of this episode, you'll learn why golfers already have the right answers for their game — and how to draw those out using facts instead of tips. You'll discover the three stats that cause virtually all big scores in golf, why analyzing batches of shots beats obsessing over individual ones, and what your tap-in count is actually telling you about your putting.
Joel is a unique and interesting guy so I’m confident you’ll learn some new perspectives from this one.
295: Steve Kamb - How to Try Again, Play More Free, and Not Let Fear Wreck Your Game
Tuesday, June 16, 2026 • Duration 01:34:49
Get Steve Kamb’s new book How to Try Again: An Approachable Guide to Navigating Chaos and Making Change THAT STICKS (Amazon link)
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Steve Kamb is the author of the brand new book How to Try Again: An Approachable Guide to Navigating Chaos and Making Change THAT STICKS.
In this conversation (and in his book) Steve helps us learn about life and golf and the many parallels between the two. We talk about failure, redefining, reframing and better understanding failure, the relationship between failure and fear and our deep need for survival, the importance of self-compassion and acceptance while also navigating change, finding the balance of playing the game you currently have and improving the game you currently have, practical strategies for letting go of control and expectations, theories Steve talks about like Expectation Bankruptcy and Failing Compassionately, and how to use experimentation and taking small steps to foster growth.
The mission of The Mental Golf Show is to explore high performance through the lens of golf, and this conversation hits right in the strike zone of that mission.
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Timestamps & Topics:
00:00 - Intro
3:16 - Redefining and Having a Better Relationship with Failure
🍀 Fairways & Fundays - Ireland Golf Tours - Named World’s Best Golf Tour Operator at the World Golf Awards in 2024 and 2025! If you’re interested in going on a golf trip to Ireland, send me an email and I’ll get you set up with them - josh@joshnicholsgolf.com
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🔥 🧈 Special thanks to Titleist for their support of The Mental Golf Show. Join Team Titleist here.
🍀 Fairways & Fundays - Ireland Golf Tours - Named World’s Best Golf Tour Operator at the World Golf Awards in 2024 and 2025! If you’re interested in going on a golf trip to Ireland, send me an email and I’ll get you set up with them - josh@joshnicholsgolf.com
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🔥 🧈 Special thanks to Titleist for their support of The Mental Golf Show. Join Team Titleist here.
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Key takeaways (AI-produced):
Golf mental performance and indifference — Josh's stated goal of "indifference" isn't apathy. Robert describes it as a deeper form of acceptance: trusting your prep enough to swing freely and let the result land wherever it lands.
Belief systems outperform confidence in golf — Robert frames confidence as an emotion that fluctuates round to round, while belief is the durable foundation a golfer can lean on when confidence disappears mid-round.
The "3 and 1" mental game exercise — Naming three things you did well each day (golf-related or not) builds a track record of small wins that reshapes a negative internal narrative over time.
Golf strategy as probability, not fairness — Robert argues that course management and shot selection are really about stacking the odds in your favor, since preparation increases probability rather than guaranteeing certainty.
The "law of deserving" and pressure in golf — Working harder often backfires when it creates an expectation of results rather than preparation for whatever happens; this mismatch is a hidden source of tournament pressure.
Recovering from bad shots — the "three or four hole blur" — Robert explains why golfers spiral after a mistake and why physical cues (breathing, a glove touch, a look at a specific tree) help golfers self-regulate back into decision-making mode.
Reframing narrative for golfers and parents of junior golfers — Parents can unintentionally reinforce a negative self-narrative by focusing on mistakes; Robert stresses that shifting the story a player tells about themselves matters more than swing mechanics alone.
Practice quality over practice quantity — Robert's three-tier framework (practice, non-competitive play, competitive play) shows why tracking practice data reveals whether reps are building a real ceiling or just filling time.
How much golf improvement is realistic in a year — Using handicap index as a benchmark, Robert suggests a 20–25% improvement is a reasonable target for a golfer who trains with real purpose.
Staying the course versus chasing swing thoughts — Constantly changing technique based on the last shot (what Josh calls "swing thought number seventy-three") undermines long-term development; sticking with a trusted process built around a clear "why" produces better results.
🍀 Fairways & Fundays - Ireland Golf Tours - Named World’s Best Golf Tour Operator at the World Golf Awards in 2024 and 2025! If you’re interested in going on a golf trip to Ireland, send me an email and I’ll get you set up with them - josh@joshnicholsgolf.com
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🔥 🧈 Special thanks to Titleist for their support of The Mental Golf Show. Join Team Titleist here.
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Key takeaways from the episode (AI-produced):
1. Tee It Forward to Practice Low Rounds
Playing a tee up in casual rounds exposes golfers to birdie and eagle chances more often, priming the mind for a low score before it happens in competition.
2. One Shot Shape Beats Two
Committing to a single stock shot off the tee removes swing-thought clutter and builds the kind of target-picking confidence Michael saw in tour pros at the U.S. Open.
3. Visualization Needs Repetition, Not a One-Off
A single pump-up visualization the night before a round does little; Michael's work with the Kairo app involved dozens of sessions to actually build new neural pathways.
4. Train the Process, Not the Score
Visualizing routines, breathing, and target selection carries over under pressure in a way that visualizing the final number doesn't, since outcome-focused thinking tends to break down in competition.
5. Anger Can Be Fuel
Michael compares it to Bruce Banner learning to direct the Hulk — once a player learns to channel anger toward focus instead of letting it spiral, it stops being a liability.
6. Process Bad Shots Neutrally
Naming what happened without self-attack — "that went left" instead of "I suck" — keeps a bad shot from compounding into a bad hole.
7. Discomfort Is Where Growth Lives
Michael ties his biggest breakthroughs, quitting his job and playing Q-School among them, to moments of extreme discomfort, arguing the same principle applies off the course.
8. Long Putts Miss Short More Than Golfers Realize
A Korn Ferry player's stats review revealed Michael left 70% of 30-plus footers short; aiming past the hole on the high side helped correct the bias.
9. Vague Instructions Produce Vague Results
Telling your brain "hit the fairway" is weaker than picturing an exact line, distance, and landing spot. Specificity is what turns intention into a committed swing.
10. More Tournament Reps Normalize Pressure
Closing the gap between practice-round comfort and tournament-day nerves comes down to playing more competitive rounds — and following the actual rules when playing casually too.
🍀 Fairways & Fundays - Ireland Golf Tours - Named World’s Best Golf Tour Operator at the World Golf Awards in 2024 and 2025! If you’re interested in going on a golf trip to Ireland, send me an email and I’ll get you set up with them - josh@joshnicholsgolf.com
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🔥 🧈 Special thanks to Titleist for their support of The Mental Golf Show. Join Team Titleist here.
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Key takeaways:
Winning the Day Mentally: Before a tournament, Julie focuses her clients on winning the day mentally rather than fixating on the scoreboard outcome, because executing mental goals consistently is what leads to winning.
Name Your Feelings: Rather than pushing emotions aside or forcing positivity, Julie coaches players to identify and name what they're feeling — anger, frustration, nerves — before redirecting to their goals.
Excavating Your Mental History: Effective mental performance coaching requires digging into a player's personal history, including family dynamics, coaching relationships, and past experiences, to uncover what's holding them back on the course.
Coping Mechanisms That No Longer Serve You: Habits developed to handle stress in childhood may actually be working against performance as an adult, making self-awareness a critical first step in mental game improvement.
The Pre-Shot Routine as an Anchor: A consistent pre-shot routine acts like comfort food for the mind — something familiar and calming that players can return to no matter how chaotic the environment gets.
Reframing Nerves as Inner Applause: Instead of fighting first-tee nerves, players can reframe that physiological response as excitement and readiness rather than a threat to performance.
There's No "Don't" in Golf: Borrowed from caddy Fluff Cowan, this principle reinforces that players should direct their focus toward where they want to go, not away from where they don't.
Till the Soil Before Competition: Just like gardening requires soil preparation, performing well in competition requires deliberate mental preparation the night before — including brain drain journaling, box breathing, and honest self-assessment.
The Mental Scorecard: Tracking a commitment or engagement score hole-by-hole alongside the traditional scorecard helps players identify patterns in when and why their mental game breaks down.
Vulnerability Is the Real Role Model: Wyndham Clark's public journey with anger management demonstrates that the most powerful form of role modeling isn't perfection — it's openly committing to doing the inner work.
🍀 Fairways & Fundays - Ireland Golf Tours - Named World’s Best Golf Tour Operator at the World Golf Awards in 2024 and 2025! If you’re interested in going on a golf trip to Ireland, send me an email and I’ll get you set up with them - josh@joshnicholsgolf.com
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🔥 🧈 Special thanks to Titleist for their support of The Mental Golf Show. Join Team Titleist here.
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10 Key Takeaways
Answers Already Inside — Golfers already have the right answers for their game — a coach's job is to draw those answers out through facts and honest conversation, not to impose new ones.
Batches Beat Individual Shots — Analyzing batches of shots rather than individual shots gives golfers a far more accurate and useful picture of their actual game.
Improvement Over Swing Change — "Swing change" is rarely real — improvement is more accurate and more honest, because there is no definitive before-and-after moment, only a continuum of progress.
Three Stats That Matter — The three stats that matter most in golf are drives out of play, missed pitches, and three-putts — these are the primary causes of big holes and high scores.
Know Your Longest Club — Knowing the longest club you can reliably hit in play off the tee is one of the most useful pieces of self-knowledge a golfer can have.
Tap-Ins Aren't Everything — Tap-ins are neither inherently good nor bad — fewer tap-ins often correlates with lower scores, because it means more putts from makeable distances went in.
Simple Stats Stick — The golf mirror is only useful if the stats are simple, direct, and non-convoluted — complexity kills the habit.
One Thought, One Round — Good players go into a round with one long-established swing thought and adapt using their own proven golf medicine when things go sideways.
Strengths Fix Weaknesses — Working on your strengths is as important as addressing weaknesses — the good shots you already hit contain the answers to fixing the bad ones.
Humility Means Accepting Facts — Humility in golf means accepting facts as they are — the golfer who can look honestly at their own game without illusion improves consistently over time.
33:42 - 🏌️♂️ Basic Practice Plan - Practice made simple, intentional, and accountable.
34:45 - It Feels Less Scary to Play Scared, and How to Play Freely
39:29 - Expectation Bankruptcy: Our Lives and Golf Games Are Different, Now What?
52:36 - Acceptance vs. Change: Playing the Golf Game You Have vs. Reaching for the Golf Game You Want
57:50 - 🎯 Shot Pattern - The Golf GPS App Designed to Help You Play Smarter Golf - Start a free trial and get 20% off by using the discount code 'MENTALGOLFSHOW' or click this link to go straight there.
59:48 - Should We Try to “Find It” On the Course? Or Play What We Have That Day?
1:09:41 - All Or Nothing: Making a BETTER Choice, Not the PERFECT Choice
1:26:26 - Letting Go Of Future Results
1:29:46 - Steve Kamb’s book: How to Try Again (Amazon link)
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📊 FREE Mental Game Assessment: app.joshnicholsgolf.com/assessment - identify your mental strengths and areas for mental game improvement.
🍀 Fairways & Fundays - Ireland Golf Tours - Named World’s Best Golf Tour Operator at the World Golf Awards in 2024 and 2025! If you’re interested in going on a golf trip to Ireland, send me an email and I’ll get you set up with them - josh@joshnicholsgolf.com
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🔥 🧈 Special thanks to Titleist for their support of The Mental Golf Show. Join Team Titleist here.
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10 Key Takeaways
Failure identity vs. failure event — A bad round doesn't make you a bad golfer. The mental shift from "I failed at this shot" to "I am a failure" is where the spiral starts — and where the real work begins.
Golf and toxic positivity — "Just stay positive" is hollow advice when your game falls apart. Real mental toughness means acknowledging that a tough round genuinely hurts, not papering over it with forced optimism.
Self-compassion for golfers — Beating yourself up after a bad shot isn't discipline, it's self-sabotage. The harshest critic on the course is usually the one standing over the ball, and that critic is making your next shot harder.
Pre-accepting the outcome — The golfers who play their best golf under pressure aren't detached — they've pre-accepted whatever happens. Needing a specific score to feel okay is the fastest route to gripping tighter and swinging scared.
Expectation bankruptcy in golf — Whether it's the swing you had at 25, the handicap you used to carry, or the ball flight you think you should have, declaring expectation bankruptcy is what lets you actually play the game in front of you.
Acceptance and change on the course — "My driver is going left today" and "I can still make smart decisions" are both true at the same time. That's not resignation — that's elite-level course management thinking.
Golf practice with limited time — You don't need a ninety-minute range session to improve. Five minutes on a putting mat, ten swings in the backyard, one alignment check in the mirror — small practice consistently beats perfect practice occasionally.
All-or-nothing golf practice — The golfer who commits to a big practice plan and abandons it two weeks later is losing to the golfer who does one small drill every day. Consistency at a low level beats intensity that collapses.
Trusting your golf swing under pressure — Trying to steer the ball in competition is telling your body that your practice meant nothing. Letting go and swinging freely is how you actually use the game you've built.
Process over outcome in competitive golf — You can't control the leaderboard, the weather, or the bounce on 14. You can control your pre-shot routine, your decision-making, and whether you give yourself permission to swing freely on every shot. Fill the jar with those — everything else takes care of itself.
