#14 [Journey to Scratch] The 2-Ball Scramble, Another Way to Scratch, and Breaking 100

Episode Introduction and Summary:
Welcome back, fellow golfers! I’m Paul Salter, The Golf Hypnotherapist, and this is the first episode of a new series on The Scratch Golfer’s Mindset Podcast—Journey to Scratch. In this series, I’ll dive deep into my personal quest to become a scratch golfer after a 15-year hiatus. I’ll be sharing everything, from my mental, physical, technical, and emotional approaches to the game as I strive to achieve my short-term goal of breaking 90 by November 13th, 2024.
In this first episode, I update you on my last four rounds, where I’m seeing progress, and what I’m working on. Plus, I discuss the benefits of using mulligans and extra shots during practice rounds and how balancing practice with mindset work can accelerate your improvement.
Tune in each week for Tuesday’s Journey to Scratch recaps, and on Thursdays for insights from scratch golfers and solo episodes packed with tips and strategies to help you overcome the mental and emotional hazards of the game. Let’s get better together!
P.S. If you’re interested in learning more about how mindset coaching and hypnotherapy can help you get unstuck from the proverbial bunker of poor performance on the course and in your business, click here to schedule a coaching discovery call with me.
Key Quotes:
- “I f%cking broke 100. I was stoked. Shot a 99 the other day.”
- “I am living, sleeping, breathing aspects of the mental and emotional game.”
- “I swear if I played two balls every hole, I’d shoot a 55 with one of them and a 45 with another.”
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Time Stamps:
- 00:00: Introduction to Journey to Scratch
- 07:46: The Importance of Mental and Emotional Work
- 15:46: Using Mulligans and Extra Shots for Practice
- 19:08: Areas of Improvement: Short Game and Wedge Shots
Transcript:
Paul Salter | The Golf Hypnotherapist (00:02.592)
Hey, fellow golfer, welcome back to another episode of the Scratch Golfers Mindset podcast. I’m your host, the golf hypnotherapist, Paul Salter, and I’m excited to unveil the first installment of a series on the podcast that’s entitled Journey to Scratch. And this series, obviously, will detail and cover more in depth my journey after taking
15 year hiatus a vacation if you will from the game of golf and really covering every aspect of the mental physical technical and emotional aspects as I approach and arrive at my goal of becoming a scratch golfer and after I believe 13 podcast episodes to date I Had the clarity finally even though it was slowly in the works. It really hit me this past week
Rather than trying to cram valuable coaching and education alongside updates on my own journey chasing scratch into every single episode, I believe you will gain far more value if I separate the two entirely. So here’s what’s in store for the weeks ahead. Every Tuesday, I will recap my past week of practice.
play and detail my wins, challenges, learning lessons and what I’m specifically working on and how I’m doing it as I approach my short term goal, which I’ll introduce and share in a moment and my long term goal of shooting par, becoming a scratch golfer. Then every Thursday we’ll rotate between an inside the mind series where I have
fellow scratch golfer or someone who is damn near close or at least closer than I am to becoming a scratch golfer interspersed with solo episodes where myself of course will share more tips, shifts and strategies, insights, concepts, need to know information about how to overcome the mental and emotional hazards of the game. So with that said, we’re moments away. I’m gonna dive in and update
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on the past two weeks of play, give you an update on the current lay of the land, what my golfing schedule looks like right now. It’s, I believe it is, yes, July 15th, as I am recording this episode. And we’ll also dig into my last four rounds, which by the way, I am logging and actively tracking on the Grint, that app. So I am still learning a little bit more about how to use it. Bear with me, I’m literally pulling it up on my end.
But I want to extend the invite. If you would like to follow me on the Grint, PaulJSalter07, I’ll post that in the show notes. Hey, you’re more than welcome to follow along on my journey. And the last point I want to share is this. I’m conducting research to better understand how I can provide you with the concepts, the content and education you need to shoot.
more pars than bogies. I want to learn more about your challenges and fears, your desires and goals related to the game of golf so that I can create content that impacts you and your game at a much deeper level. So my ask is this, if you currently have a double digit handicap and you’re determined, like seriously determined to break 90 or break 80,
I would love the opportunity to hop on a quick Zoom call to ask you a handful of questions. If this is something you are open to, I’ll include the link in the show notes where you’ll have the opportunity to jump on a call with me. I’m gonna find this immensely valuable and really at the end of the day, it’s gonna help me to better serve you. So again, if you’re interested and willing to hop on a quick call with me, I would greatly appreciate it. The link to do so may be found below in the show notes.
Without further ado, let’s go ahead and dive in again. The first installment of journey to scratch. And really, I believe the overarching theme of these particular episodes every Tuesday was born out of a discussion I saw and participated in on Twitter. Now I’m not going to call the person out by name only because he’s coming on the podcast really soon. And we’re going
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dig into it really deeply and I want it to be a fresh perspective and I want you to have no information about this individual coming on to or leading up until that episode. So he’ll be recording with me on the 25th and that episode will go live shortly. But he is someone who has a long history of competitive golf and he posted something and now let me preface. He is a golf mental coach. He’s a host of a golf mental game podcast.
Hell of a dude, a lot of respect for him, can’t wait to get to know him more as we record a podcast together. But he posted a picture with a caption that more or less said, you know, this is me 10 years ago, spending eight hours a day on the range, hitting thousands of balls. And as you can imagine, the comments section on his post was filled with thoughts and expressions of defeat.
and frustration, almost this general sense of fuck, like why bother? I don’t have the time to put that many hours in on the range. I don’t have the time to hit a thousand balls day after day, week after week. If that’s the only way to achieve my goal of breaking 80 or becoming a scratch golfer, maybe this game isn’t for me. So I asked
And I dropped a comment in that post and I said, knowing what you know now, what would you change about your approach back then? And he responded by saying that this was the way he thought and still feels is best to achieve his goal. And I will be very frank. I am not at his level of golf. I have not been in the game of
nearly as long as him. But my brain over here is really questioning. Like there’s gotta be another way. I’m calling bullshit on this and maybe I’m naive and maybe I’m gonna be humbled and eat a couple servings of humble pie. And I’m open to that. I’m really okay. And I know I’m gonna learn and discover what works best for me on my journey. And I’m gonna continue to share everything I learned with you. But I feel there’s another way. I feel if you wanna break 90, break 80,
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and even become a scratch golfer, you don’t need to spend hours and hours and hours on the range. I believe there is a massive advantage from doing some of the deep mental and emotional work to help you overcome some of the biggest mental and emotional hangups so that you can accelerate and improve at a much faster rate without having to reinvent your swing every three months or feel like you need to invest thousands of dollars and hours.
on the driving range. I think there’s another way. And I’m here to test it as N equals one, the guinea pig on how you can speed up your goal, achievement of that goal of breaking 90, breaking 80 and becoming a scratch golfer. So that’s what I intend to do. I’m gonna lay out where I’m at in my golf journey, the amount of time I am pouring into the game of golf right now and where I’m going in route to becoming a scratch golfer.
So every week I’ll start highlighting what I accomplished and what I experienced the week before. And to give you a lay of the land, here’s where I’m currently at. Every Friday I’m playing a full 18 rounds. I’m rotating through a few local courses in the Tampa, St. Pete area, and I’ll expand to a greater area. I mean, there’s so many to play here. I just played in Clearwater last week.
Based on who I’m playing with, if you’re local, I’d love to play around with you. Just let me know, hit me up on Instagram or drop me a message on Twitter. But with that said, every Friday I’m playing a round of 18. Once per week, I’m going through the range and the practice screen. I’m gonna hit a bucket or two of balls. I’m gonna get some chipping, some short game work in. So that’s two dedicated.
sessions of play per week and to be frank, I’m gonna push for a third as often as possible. I’ve been very fortunate to be able to squeeze a third round in of some form, whether it’s practice or playing. mean, just Sunday morning, I walked nine holes. It was a par three course in 50 minutes. I mean, does it get much better than that? It was awesome. But that’s where I’m at, two to three times per week. Now I already have a rock solid gym routine in place. However, come the turn of August, rather than being
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really focused on a hypertrophy muscle growth style of training plan, I’m going to be again to implement more of a golf specific and tailored training plan to help me with my rotation, flexibility, and motility mobility, excuse me, my core strength, my rotational power, and really just loosen me the fuck up. Because after gosh, 20 plus years of dedicated serious weightlifting, I feel like I still walk around in a state of
So I’m going to address some of those low hanging fruit opportunities to help me remain not only injury free and take a proactive approach to injury prevention, but to strengthen and increase power in those muscles and movements that will best translate to shooting better scores on the golf course. And outside of that, my area of focus is in the mental game. And let’s let me be frank, I have an advantage in that as I continue to compile research and share
in my teachings on the more pars than bogeys newsletter. Each week here on the podcast and actively on Instagram and Twitter, I am living, sleeping, breathing aspects of the mental and emotional game. But I’m also putting that into practice with daily hypnosis, daily visualization around the game of golf. mean, before every round of 18, I am literally listening to my own guided hypnosis recording entitled, play your best round.
which you can get for free. Just visit the link in the show notes to help me really implement and embody the swing changes I am focused on and how I want to show up with a winning mindset, stepping into my round, confident, patient, trusting, and calm. And this is the totality of the work I am doing on a daily and weekly basis. Now, at first glance, fuck, that kind of sounds like a
But truth be told, my gym workouts are 45 minutes. Regardless of your golfing goals, you should absolutely be in the gym a few days per week. And that’s a conversation for a different day. I’m spending, let’s call it five hours at the golf course when I play 18 between my warmup and my playing time. Another hour two with the range or maybe a couple extra hours if I’m fortunate enough to get a second round in per week. But all of the daily mental and emotional work, it’s 10 to 20 minutes a day. It’s not that much.
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You have 10 to 20 minutes per day. can, know, sans without your Instagram, Facebook and TikTok scrolling, you know, choose not to binge another episode on Netflix or get stuck down the YouTube rabbit hole. You have opportunity
And the best part about this work, the mental and emotional work that you’re learning here on the podcast and in the More Pars Than Bogies newsletter that comes out every Friday is all of the emotional resiliency and mental toughness you’re cultivating for the golf course, it benefits you off the course as well. A true win -win situation, which is fantastic. So with that said,
Let’s dig into my last two weeks. We’ve got four rounds and you’ll notice that there’s some slight pauses here. I’m just pulling up the Grint app so I can pull up my scorecards and walk you through some of my rounds. And what I really would love to do is just begin with this announcement. I fucking broke 100. I was stoked. Shot a 99 the other day playing with a gentleman and good friend who will inevitably become my brother -in -law here in the next year or so. Shot a 99.
This guy shot a 93 I believe I would freaking killed it with such an awesome round but uh Absolutely stoked so I’ve got four rounds in the last two weeks I shot a 99 at Heritage Harbor Golf and Country Club a 105 at Rogers Park and a 104 at Cove K and then I shot a 33 on 9 a par 27 for that for that nine holes
But boy was I on fucking fire yesterday. Things are coming together. And as I think about this overarching goal of becoming a scratch golfer, I know that it is a goal that is down the road. And in order to keep focused and keep prioritized and keep energized with the utmost of intention of improving every single week, I need a shorter term goal to focus on. And my goal that I’m announcing with you and the podcast listeners of the world.
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is to break 90 before November 13th, 2024. So as of today, I’m about four months away. I need to break 90 by then and I absolutely will as I continue on this pace of consistent practice play and managing my emotions and my attitude on and off the course.
As I got to set this goal and I’m really reflecting on these four rounds I played, like let me be very frank, the three rounds of 18, there were a handful of mulligans in there. Like let’s not hide anything. In the round of nine holes I played yesterday, there was one single mulligan that to be frank, I’m not sure actually helped me gain a stroke, but it is what it is. I wanna be truthful. And it got me thinking, I had the pleasure
of playing a round of 18 with Mr. Chris, Chris, don’t hope I don’t butcher your last name, Chris Ardalena. He’s an instructor down in Clearwater at Cove K, course, phenomenal human, outstanding instructor. you’re in the Tampa Clearwater, St. Pete area, highly recommend you check him out. I’ll link his information below. He’s coming on the podcast in a few weeks. It’ll be a fantastic discussion,
I made a joke with him. There were a couple times where, you know, I kind of pushed or shanked a shot. I was like, I’m just going to take another one. We’re out here at seven in the morning. No one’s on the course. was a beautiful day. And you know, then I would just fucking pipe the next shot right down the middle. And I was like, man, I swear if I played two balls every hole, you know, I’d shoot a 55 with one of them and a 45 with another. And he’s like, ah, yeah, the classic two man scramble. And it got me thinking, you
Early on in our journey, feel like sometimes, and maybe this is just my perspective, there’s a little bit of a, I don’t know if it’s a stigma for using mulligans. You know, we’ve got the breakfast ball that turns into the breakfast ball per hole. And before you know it at the end of the round, you’ve used 10 to 20 mulligans. And it’s like, what’s your real score? Yet on the other hand, when you are early in your journey, it’s a game of fucking reps. And every chance you get,
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If you can squeeze in an extra repetition, why not? Well, further convoluting the situation is pace of play. You know, if you’re playing with a twosome, threesome, or foursome, and you’ve got a group waiting behind you, okay, maybe once you get your breakfast ball or your mulligan, but at that point, you don’t really have an opportunity to squeeze in extra shots. And you have to recognize there is a fine line, and I’m aware of this, of when it
and when it’s not appropriate to take an extra shot to get an extra practice rep in. And even if you don’t count that second shot towards your score, just going through the motion of slowing down, addressing what it is you misprepared for or didn’t do a good job of with the previous shot that was a mistake or a poor outcome. It’s just a chance to ingrain another proper rep, another proper execution of your pre -shot routine. But the reason I’m bringing this subject up is I’ve had to start
contemplating where I’m drawing the line. You know, if I truly want to shoot and break 90 or when I do, it needs to be a perfectly clean round. No mulligans, no breakfast balls, no redo’s or second attempts. Yet, I want to squeeze in as many competition like practice reps as possible. So my invitation to you, and this is something I’d love to discuss, so feel free to drop a comment on Instagram.
Shoot me an email, paul at unstuckyourselfmindset .com or hit me up on Twitter, parsoverbogies. Where do you fall on the topic of using a mulligan, hitting a second shot, a little two ball scramble, if you will, during your rounds? And as I’ve started thinking about it, I’m trying to get out at the crack of fucking dawn, 6 .30, 6 .45 in the morning, go get around and sometimes it works best on the weekends with my schedule and commitments. If I’m playing by myself,
I’m gonna take a couple extra shots. Absolutely. Even if I’m playing with just one other buddy, I’m gonna squeeze a few in right now to get as many reps as possible. Yet, I am going to make it an intentional commitment once every other week, two, maybe three times a month, and maybe it ultimately becomes once a week that at least one round per week where I’m at in my journey, not a single mulligan or breakfast ball is taken. That way I continue to get
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reflection of where my scoring is so I can understand and prioritize where I need to make improvements. And I’m curious to know where you fall in the line. I feel like for me, the first couple of months when I was getting back into this, like there was some jokes, yeah, I’m taking a mulligan, but I felt a little pressure and a little bit like, a little judgment. And maybe that’s all in my head, or maybe you felt that way as well. But I’m inviting you, know, wherever you are in your journey, unless you have competitive aspirations,
Take the fucking ball again, have fun. This is a game to be enjoyed and fun. And you and I both know how indescribably intoxicating it is when you hit the sweet spot and launch that sucker exactly as you intended. So that’s where I’m at on the two ball scramble. It will not be a focal point in my practice and ramp up as I prepare to break 90 by November 13th, but it’s definitely something I will use just as a tool to accelerate.
progress. And with that said, I want to start talking a little bit more as we wrap up this episode about my past four rounds. So like I mentioned, I played four rounds, a 99, 105, 104, and then a pretty solid true as they come 33 on a par 27 yesterday. And as I always encourage you to do with a quick post round reflection, what went well,
could have gone better, what did you learn, what are you taking away to work on? I wanna share with you where I’m at in my journey, what I learned about my game the last couple of weeks, and what I’m focused on moving forward. First and foremost, I’m a lot more confident off the tee box than I was two or three weeks ago. My three wood is that one club where if I could only use one club all day, every day, it would be my three wood.
but for whatever reason, just the grip, the weight, the feel of that club in my hands, I’m very confident 220, I’ve even hit it up to 265 down the middle off the tee box, that is my go -to. So I’m thrilled to start being able through repetition to identifying my go -to clubs. And those clubs for me are my three wood, my pitching wedge, it’s really a utility wedge, as well as my three iron.
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Now you’ll notice I’m lacking a gap between my pitching wedge and my three iron. I’m still working on finding that club that without a doubt in any situation I can hit it. I can hit it consistently and in the direction and at the distance I desire. And that’s going to come through more repetitions. And I’m aware of that. The seven iron is really starting to move in that direction. And it’s not to say I am uncomfortable with the other clubs, but if I’m to pick up my three iron,
my three wood or my utility wedge, I’m confident I know exactly where how to hit the ball and I can swing true with the utmost trust free of any swing thoughts and hit that ball to the best of my ability. So very proud about where I am there. I also feel I am doing really well starting to grow comfortable and confident hitting a five wood out of the fairway or even, know, a little bit of deep, deep, deeper rough.
when I am on some of those longer holes and have about 220 or further to the hole. And that’s just another tool in the tool belt. But I recognize since I’m already hitting my three and my five so well, I’m not gonna overly prioritize training hitting my five wood and using these fairway woods. Right now I need to continue to focus on my short game. And that’s where I’m at, continuing to focus on the short game. I had
big lapse in putting speed the last couple of weeks. It cost me dearly. To be frank, I was just leaving putts 10, 15 feet short. Anything outside 25 or 30 feet was kicking my ass. So this past week, I spent a lot of time practicing that. The way that I practice that is rather than even aiming for a hole, I measure out or eyeball about 25 to 30 feet.
from the middle of the green to the fringe. I place the ball in the middle of the green and I’m trying to land right on the cut from green to fringe. So I’m not even worried about the ball going in the hole yet. I’m just practicing my speed and my ability to gauge distances. And once I do that, then I flip around and start putting towards the hole.
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So that’s a drill I’ve started to work on. I felt it paid off a lot yesterday when I played nine. I spent about 20 minutes warming up with chipping and putting, and I believe I only had one, I’m gonna look right now, I think just one three putt the entire round yesterday. My phone is on airplane mode. Let me just pull this up real quick. I wanna check my scorecard. Yes, I believe it was just one three putt, which is very, very great. I had one.
I had a couple one -putts yesterday as well. So really, really good there. And then the biggest opportunity for growth is still deciding what to do when I am between 30 and 70 yards. And what I mean by that is I know I hit my 52 about 95 to 105. I hit my 60 about 80 to 95. But anything less than I’m still having difficulty learning, do I need to choke up on the club a little bit?
Or do I need to shorten my backswing? And Chris, who I mentioned earlier, gave me some wonderful feedback. Instead of slowing down my swing, which I was doing, I was still taking a full swing and trying to slow down, gave me some great feedback with these wedge shots to shorten the backswing and then still be aggressive through my swing. And that’s where I’m going to really pinpoint some focus as early as this evening. It’s Monday the 15th as I read this, as I get out to get some practice in today. And as
I look into the next week. We’ve got a round of 18 to schedule to be played on Friday. And outside of that short course work Rogers Park golf course in North Tampa has a par three nine hole course and it costs a whopping nine dollars to play.
So I expect to get many rounds in there. I can walk that in under an hour and just get quality reps on the short game while I continue to build confidence with my nine, my eight and my seven iron as well as my short game wedges. And with that said, if you’re in the Tampa, Clearwater or St. Pete area and you’re listening and you’d love to meet up for a round, hey, I’m just as interested too, shoot me a message, happy to make
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happen. And with that said, that concludes the first installment of my journey to scratch again, this will be a new part of the podcast every Tuesday, where I bring you up to speed on what’s working, what’s going well, and where I’m struggling because I don’t believe you need to spend hours on the course every single week to become a scratch golfer. And I hope hope to disprove disprove that notion by sharing
optimized quality over quantity approach with a big emphasis on the mental and emotional game aspects as I accelerate my journey to breaking 90, 80, and ultimately shooting scratch. Thank you so much for listening. I sincerely appreciate if you found it valuable taking 30 seconds to leave a rating and an actual review.
on Apple podcasts or Spotify or wherever you’re listening means the world to me, helps me get my podcast out to other avid golfers like you. And you and I both know when we all play better, we have more fun. And eventually when we get competitive, maybe we start winning even more money or at least earning a couple beers or meals from our bodies. What a great feeling. And again, if you are a double digit handicap golfer right now,
I’d love to have a quick conversation to learn more about your challenges, your fears and your desires, as well as your goals, so I can better create content that helps you play your best. If you’re interested, there’s a link to schedule a call with me at your convenience in the show notes. And I’d love to be frank, just to have the opportunity to meet you as well. Have a fantastic rest of your day and I’ll catch you in the next episode.
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PAUL SALTER
Paul Salter - known as The Golf Hypnotherapist - is a High-Performance Mindset Coach who leverages hypnosis and powerful subconscious reprogramming techniques to help golfers of all ages and skill levels overcome the mental hazards of their minds so they shoot lower scores and play to their potential.