#48 [Journey to Scratch] Is this Rock Bottom? Am I Committed? Humbled and Moving Forward.

The Golf Hypnotherapist (00:01.63)

It’s a beautiful afternoon for golf. I show up at a course I have yet to play, the absolutely incredible Tampa Palms Country and Golf Club. And it takes me a few minutes to figure out where to park. It takes me an additional few minutes to figure out where the clubhouse is, where I need to check in. I’ve been told there is a massive skins game going on at 1230.

I’m set to tee off at 1230. I come to learn that it’s a shotgun start and one person passes me on to another until I get in touch with the guy who’s running the skins. I then mow him the amount of money to participate all while still trying to figure out where my playing partner is, who happened to be a friend of a friend, somebody I met in passing at a baby shower.

who happened to see my golf hypnotherapist Decal on the back of my car. And we had a brief conversation, friendly short. come to learn that he is a plus one handicap. And he casually mentions that he has an opening in his future tea time and lo and behold, we are here. And I’m playing with him. Another buddy of his who is a plus three handicap and then a work colleague of his who is

By the way, he struck the ball probably in the mid teens. I don’t actually know. Three friendly, kind dudes, three really fucking good golfers. At this particular course, the driving range has been absolutely destroyed by the back-to-back hurricanes we faced in October. So there are nets set up. There is a massive putting green.

Unlike anything I’ve ever seen and I’m beginning to realize as I’m slowly but also hurriedly getting acclimated with my surroundings that my little Muni course I play, which I still love dearly.

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is leagues behind or below a country club course in terms of amenities, money poured into course maintenance, all things I know logically. Yet again, given the limited amount of experience I have playing a variety of golf courses, I mean, the greens significantly faster here compared to what I’m used to, a lot more undulation. And all of this said,

I finally run into my playing partner. meet up, we’re ready to rock, we get the cart situated, we’re starting on the sixth hole. And I watch the other guy Aaron tee off and he just stripes the ball. Then my buddy tees off, stripes the ball. The other guy, I have never seen somebody hit the ball so fucking high. It was so cool. I mean, the guy must’ve been six, four, six, five. And the way he just hit down on and compressed the ball, incredible to watch.

And then it’s my turn. mind you, this course, again, absolutely beautiful layout. It’s tight. It’s very heavily wooded. There’s not many houses back there. There’s tight. I knew ahead of time it was tight. did some research online. I knew it was gonna be a five or a three wood heavy day for me in particular. So I’m ready to go. I see three beautiful tee shots all.

hit the fairway, and as I go to step up and ready myself, I’m dialed in, I’ve taken my breaths, I’ve tried to really slow myself down because in reality, I’m nervous, I’m tense, I’m anxious, there’s this false amount of pressure. I’m playing the skins game, never done that before. New course, barely know the guy I’m playing with but feel like I wanna be friendly and befriend him. And lo and behold, I go to hit my first shot, I execute my backswing and whoosh.

I top the ball and it goes about 20 feet.

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And that’s where we’re going to pause before continuing. Welcome back to another episode of the Scratch Golfers Mindset podcast. I’m your host, Paul Salter, the golf hypnotherapist. And wow, that’s how I would describe the experience I had playing that round of 18 at Tampa Palms that I just gave you a good introduction to. And of course, I’m going to finish that story in just a moment.

But I’ll go ahead and lead with this. It was the most humbling round to date. I have never felt the collection of frustration, embarrassment, and just downright disappointment that I felt slogging through that round. And I’m gonna give you a little more insight as to the why and what occurred, of course. I want to plant the seed, however.

of what I hope that you will get out of this episode. It will be short, it will be sweet, it will be hard hitting, and most importantly, it’s gonna be raw and vulnerable. It’s actually pretty painful for me to share this because I was emotionally distraught, to say the least after that round. So disappointed in myself and really, you know, pretty harsh, not the most kind to myself. And thank goodness I have such, you know, my girlfriend is just like.

made of love. The only energy or vibe she vibes out is love and kindness. And she helped remind me to be kind to myself. And I’m very grateful for that, because it wasn’t pretty on the drive home. So my intention here is to share with you what I learned from such an experience, how I chose to lean into the discomfort.

that was created, what I’m taking away from it, and how I’m using it as fuel to move forward. Because one thing I want you to remember, that the core derivative, the root of the word emotion, is energy in motion. So whether it’s joy or anger, excitement or frustration, these are just different fuel sources.

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different energies operating at select different frequencies that you, that I have the ability and opportunity to harness and redirect. And so oftentimes we get so frustrated.

that we’re feeling frustrated, angry, sad, disappointed, that we just let that energy stew. It gets repressed and we go seek out quick hits of dopamine to numb, to dissociate. And you know what, to be frank, I was guilty of some of that on that following evening, mindlessly scrolling on Facebook before finally I caught myself, told myself to stop it, and I went and cold plunged, and then I came down.

came and sat down and brain dumped, emotionally vomited my what went well, what went better, what did I learn that after round report that I was struggling to do, I was numbing and avoiding with Facebook. But remember, energy, emotion is fuel and we can learn to harness and redirect that fuel, even if it’s a fuel source that is initially uncomfortable and so-called negative, when we slow down, lean into it,

be mindful, present, intentional, and conscious, and do that heavy lifting or that deep work to redirect it and use it towards something productive and positive. And that in of itself becomes a superpower because the collection of negative emotions I shared are part of not only the normal human experience, they should be emotions you experience on a somewhat regular basis.

as you’re pushing yourself outside your comfort zone, as you’re working to ascend to the next best version of yourself and to becoming the next best version of the golfer that you aspire to be. So let me pick back off or pick back up, there it is, where we left off in that story. I topped that opening tee shot. And again, I play…

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admittedly a little bit of a casual game of golf with my playing partner. So typically I bring a mulligan and I’ve gotten pretty good at eliminating those mulligans or breakfast balls every now and then, you know, if I were on my home course, I would have just been like, fuck it, I’m hitting one more. And I looked at the guys and like just hit another one. So I hit another one and solid contact, put it out there. It was a five wood about 220 or so to the left of the rough, just short of the bunker is a slight dogleg right.

Big sigh of relief, okay. Okay, we’re in business. We do remember how to swing a golf club. Next shot, I’m about 154 yards out. There’s a front bunker and a back left bunker. Boom, great approach shot. Knock that sucker on the green, two putt for par. Whew, okay, we do know how to play. We’ve settled, we’re good to go. So, you know, we just kind of chalk that up to a mulligan and we par the horse.

par the hole. So really it was a bogey, but I’m feeling good. can remind myself, you’ve removed that shot. I’m right on schedule. Par for the course. So we go to the second shot, or second hole, me. Shank the tee shot, just hooked it completely left. we’re OB. Again though, hit a good iron shot, get up and down. I salvaged a bogey on that hole. So it really, was a double bogey cause I had the OB. But again, like striking the ball well, feeling good.

I bogeyed the next hole, which was eight, because we started on six and on nine.

It all fell apart. I hit my tee shot incredibly, incredibly thin. Like it wasn’t a top, but it went, you know, 80 to a hundred yards, just a low line drive, slight left hook to it. Okay. So I’m like not on the fairway yet. I passed the red tees, but I’m not on the fairway yet. So it’s pretty thick. bring up, I use my five wood again, top the ball. fuck. Okay.

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Regroup, regroup. I just told my playing partner, I’ll walk to that ball, you go find yours and it’s fine. Except his ball is so much further away because he has striped it down the middle, he stays with me. Okay, take a deep breath, still gonna hit the same five wood. Boom, topped it again. Fuck, what is happening? Okay, I am just lost. I’m out of touch with my rhythm, my feels, my swing. Okay, the ball is a little bit closer. So then I pull out an eight iron.

I believe and my eight iron wasn’t going to get me to the green. was just a club. felt confident hitting. I probably needed to hit my six to reach the green at that point, but I chose to hit my eight. Made good contact, pushed it right. Cause I didn’t finish my swings. I was so concerned about where it was going to go. started coming up a little early, pushed it right. It went out of bounds. Lo and behold, I’ll spare you. I carded a 10 on that hole. It was par five, ugly, horrendous. Okay.

what not much to do. The next hole again, horrendous off the tee box, just pulling it left, still thin contact. And I am just starting to get into my head. I am so concerned with the ball’s flight, trying to, you know, subconsciously deep down, there’s this need to keep up with everybody, this pressure to perform, to not slow them down. These thoughts starting to creep up to the surface. They’re distracting me. I am not

playing well and I go on to have to pick up one hole on that front nine. I stopped keeping score not out of desire, but to simply keep pace of play. And then it was just so far down the priority list. I stopped, but that front nine was the worst front nine I have played. Maybe since the first couple of rounds, I started playing back in April and early May of this year, struggling to make contact.

rushing and really for me, there was that awareness I needed to slow down. I needed to find my breath and I’m, I’m engaging in some of my go-to breath work strategies. I’m attempting to reverse the negative and unkind self-talk that’s present. And it was just one of those days where it felt like nothing was working. And when we made the turn, so to speak, when we got that fresh shed of nine on the, you know, what was our back nine.

The Golf Hypnotherapist (12:41.61)

I told myself just to fuck it and just try to have fun, keep things light. I was intentionally forcing a smile on my face to lighten the mood, the energy. And you know what? The first five holes of the back nine, I played them at four under, four over, excuse me, four under. Wow, that would have been wicked cool. Four over, things finally started to settle. I had a great drive with the cut I’ve been practicing and dialing in.

Couple phenomenal approach shots hitting some greens and regulations a couple really good putts that the short game the chipping I should say remained pretty strong and consistent throughout I’m very happy with that. My putting was horrendous because half the time I was playing ketchup Everybody else had already finished the whole but for those five holes I was four over and There was a little sign of life and normalcy after that. I hit another couple out of bounds

put it this way, showed up with 12 brand new balls, I walked away with one ball. Thankfully, barely hanging on by a thread. It was just one of those days. I was embarrassed, disgusted to a degree, disappointed, and embarrassed because I played so far beneath my potential, embarrassed because I let the unfamiliarity of new surroundings

distract me and ultimately pull me away from my warmup routine, both my technical one on the putting and chipping surface, you know, using the nets instead of the range as well as my mental prep. To be frank, I skipped all of that. I was overly concerned with getting there on time, finding the park and getting acclimated and just trying to kind of settle in that I didn’t actually take the time to intentionally settle in. And it showed I was distracted. I was emotionally fragile.

and I went on to have one of my worst performances to date on the course. And there was even an underlying part of me that was so distracted by just potential opportunity if I’m candid. know, here I am with a plus one and a plus three handicap, people I aspire to not only play with soon, and I will get there, I will become a scratch golfer. That belief is not wavered whatsoever. And I was starting to view it through the lens of coaching too, knowing to be just very candid.

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how well connected these individuals are. It’s in the golf and the entrepreneurial world, know, wanting to leave, to be frank, that good impression we all are inherently biologically wired with to belong, to be liked, respected, trusted, and start to build that relationship. And it just led to distracted, unfocused play, worried, anxious play, concern of expectations and impression of others. And it was a humbling experience.

But I’ll tell you what, thankful, so thankful for the cold plunge, which I just believe to me, was really just a switch that allows me to have to become immensely present because on the drive home, I was less than pleased to say the least. I mentioned earlier, I allowed myself moments of getting lost mindlessly scrolling on Facebook. And it took me putting my big boy pants on, getting in the cold plunge to kind of regroup, re-center.

I then took a walk and voice noted my after round report and started to settle in. And as I got a little space and distance from the rounds, some kind, loving reminders from Jessica, it dawned on me how I’ve continued to be intensely interested in becoming a scratch golfer, yet my actions have not quite aligned with being committed.

And there are low hanging fruit opportunities I’m still not consistently executing on. And for me, one of them is just still purely mobility and flexibility. I lack a lot of rotation ability. I also, if you ever were to have golfed with me prior to today, you would notice such an upright rigid posture.

And I know that is due to having been rear-ended three times and just my low back subconscious not feeling safe, always in that state of bracing. And I got that feedback from my playing partners and put it this way, something I wanted to mention. I was so tense throughout that round, I left with blisters. You and I both know that as a tall tale sign that I was gripping the club too much, it was the tension that was really there throughout. So I have worked tirelessly the last 72 hours.

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Just going through the motion and execution of taking a much more relaxed posture, hands hanging loosely, left hand on the club, right hand loosey goosey, off and on, off and on. Low back is straight, athletic firm posture of course, but not that upright stiff as a board, which really inhibits my ability to rotate. That thoracic rotation ability is so limited. So I’m working on a relaxed posture.

And for me, have I mentioned in my last episode, I believe the forever golf app designed for fundamental rotation, mobility and flexibility that has become non negotiable at this particular moment. I am three for three and days of execution. I don’t know what that will look like how many times a week I want to commit to it, whether it’s three or whether it’s five. But right now I am just trying to build positive momentum there and really start knocking down dominoes of consistency.

I do not hit down and through the ball well enough. hit behind the ball too consistently. You might have seen on Instagram, I’m placing a towel a few inches behind my ball and really working on making sure the low point of my swing is in front of the ball. And I’m taking a hell of a lot more videos and sending to my coach regularly because enough is enough. I have promised myself I will never feel.

the collection of feelings I felt during that round ever again. I am upping the ante, pushing myself for better execution, practice and intentionality at all that I do around the game of golf. I took the time to get the measuring tape, the

Sharpie marker out to measure putts on my birdie ball putting that that are three three to nine feet away I have a straight line drawn. have specific tees place for different drills. I’m gonna be doing I need to stop slacking on my putting practice I need to stop hitting balls for the sake of hitting balls I am taking my game to the next level and I know as I am dialing up this intention this discipline this commitment

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My little guy is gonna come within like 24 hours of this episode going live and that’s still not going to derail me. It will place Paul’s on some of them of course because he will be the utmost priority along with Jessica. But the point is I’m using this horrendous experience to bounce back stronger, taking an honest look in the mirror as to what went wrong, why it went wrong and really just owning the fact that it was me.

I am to blame, I am responsible, I take full ownership and I have a lot of work to do on the little things to really get or set things in motion to make massive progress in 2025 on my journey to becoming and I will, I expect to become a scratch golfer. So there’s a lot of opportunity ahead. There’s a lot of opportunity to dial in my discipline, which is so timely because I just finished Ryan Holiday’s book.

Discipline is destiny. If you have not read it, highly, highly, highly recommend it. And it’s also re-ingrained the necessity of slowing down, of finding more ease in my life, removing the false sense of urgency. And a lot of this work can be done away from the course, which translates to the course, a true win-win. So it’s time to dial in some of my discipline.

be more intentional in my practice, my mobility and flexibility work on road to becoming the best possible golfer I can be. This hardship, this one-off experience has already proven to be a phenomenal teacher for me. And I encourage you after a tough round, a tough day at the office, a tough conversation with your spouse or your kids,

to also take that 30,000 foot view through a lens of objective non-judgmental curiosity. What can you learn? How can that experience make you better? Because remember, it’s not a failure, it’s a learning lesson. It’s not a failure, it’s a learning lesson if you choose to view it that way. Well, thank you so much for tuning in to another episode of the Scratch Golfers Mindset podcast. I do wanna share one quick update.

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This is gonna be my last Tuesday episode indefinitely as I’m just gonna have to better manage my bandwidth the next couple of months as we are pouring into our little guy here. So same regular dose on Thursday, a mix between solo episodes and guests. I mean, we’ve got.

Jim Waldron coming up soon, Ryan Mokay, Henry Stettina, Michael Leonard, and so many more wonderful guests already in the pipeline for the next couple of months. So be sure to tune in every Thursday for more deep, educational and empowering content to help you overcome the mental and emotional hazards of your mind to play to your potential. Have a fantastic week. Hit them straight and I’ll catch you in the next episode.