Fairways to Fortune | Learning to Embrace Pressure

Speaker A: Welcome to Office Hours, where accomplished leaders, coaches, athletes, and entrepreneurs share the lessons that can help us improve our performance in business and life. Today, Office Hours presents Fairways to Fortune with PGA amazing coach Virgil Herring, where the principles that create success on the golf course become a blueprint for creating success in every area of our lives. I'm David Meltzer, and alongside Virgil, we'll explore how prep, preparation, discipline, patience, and consistency can help us improve our performance and accelerate our pursuit of our potential. In golf, as in life, one bad shot does not determine your entire round. What matters is how you respond, refocus, and approach the next opportunity. It's time to take what we learn on the fairway and turn it into fortune. This is Fairways to Fortune. Let's tee it up. Changing your mindset is critical. From Fairways, the fortune. I'm here live in the Meltzer studio with the incredible PGA expert himself, the PGA Golf Channel expert, PGA coach of the champions, the incredible Virgil Herring. Dave, how we doing today, buddy? I'm doing great, man. Uh, you know, I couldn't help but think of you this last month because I got to be with two of the best football coaches of all time. And considering you are one of, if not the best, golf coach of all time. I was looking for similarities in coaching. Uh-huh. And, uh, I was with Urban Meyer and Nick Saban. Uh, and one of the things that rang true was their philosophy about winning championships. And both of them indicated early in their career their attachment to winning instead of their attachment to creating winners. You see, winners win champions, win championships. And if we only focus in on winning or winning championships without acquiring the right talent, which is more critical than ever, whether it was Rick Macy telling me, look, in the end, I have to acquire the best talent. The Serenas, the Rodericks, the Caparratis. There has to be a genetic basement to start from, be the world's best. But two, uh, I have to develop that talent with the desire that they must be what they can be. Uh, I can't think of a sport that it's more aligned with Sabin and Urban Meyer. About one, acquiring talent, acquiring people who have the potential to be champions and. And then developing champions to win championships.

Speaker B: Yeah, I think what's. What's interesting about it is, like football, there's a lot of movement and speed that is reactionary. Right. So when you. When you're reacting, that's more instinctive. Right. The golf ball is not moving, so it's a. This is. Golf is a responsive sport. You have to make everything happen. So the quieting of the mind under, in golf circumstances and how to do that under maximum pressure is where it gets a little dicey for a lot of really good players. Because when you work really hard to get to this place to win a major championship, it's easy to have expectations that put a lot of undue pressure on the situation versus when you're Ray Lewis going up against Peyton Manning, you know, so to speak, you're trying to just react and out outreact him and what he's trying to do. So the preparation that it takes to become great in golf is different. But what you're looking for is the person who will have, like, the resilience to fail and think that the failure is the lesson. Not a, uh, demotion to. I'm never going to get there. They have to, uh, have. Obviously they have to have the work ethic, but that's a given if you're going to get to that place. But one of the sneaky pieces that I know that Tom Brady talked about having and all the people that knew Peyton Manning and Michael Jordan is that when the ultimate heat is occurring in the moment of this is where we have the opportunity to win. The people who can slow things down in their mind and not overthink the situation and just trust that their training has put them in a position to do this. And this pressure that you're feeling is actually an advantage, not a disadvantage. That mindset is really critical to coach, and that's really a big, big deal. And golf for sure.

Speaker A: You mentioned Tom Brady, who I've been blessed to be around as well. Blessed to share a stage with him in Mexico City, with Chicharito, who actually more popular in Mexico City than Tom Brady, uh, the greatest Mexican soccer player of all time, who's probably pretty busy right now. Uh, Tom Brady, myself and Tom Bilyu. Um, and Tom Brady said something that really was a separator of the greats that I represented. He said at halftime going in. It was fourth down going into halftime at the super bowl in Atlanta, we were losing 28 to three at that moment, at fourth down before halftime. At that moment, there was a 99.7% chance that they were going to lose, that New England was going to lose, and yet he just kept playing. This happens in golf all the

Speaker B: time.

Speaker A: We saw it, uh, with Hovland and Clark and a variety of other people. It's happened to, um. Where is that in a golfer that he's not out of it, or does it work the opposite way? I can't beat Tiger Woods. I can't beat Scotty Scheffler. Although Scotty's the king of second place right now, which is remarkable. Um, an achievement in itself. Uh, but yet, uh, you know, when you're coaching someone, how do you deal with. You're not out of it.

Speaker B: Yeah. So like there's like one of the, the most difficult things, especially when you have somebody with a pedigree of like Tiger, who has a long history of never giving it away once he gets the lead. To convince your player that just because he hasn't thus far doesn't mean that it can't occur and you can't be the person to make that happen. That that then takes the courage to be willing to put yourself in that spot, be vulnerable enough to feel in your heart that you can take down the greatest and if it doesn't happen, not look at yourself as a failure. Like being in the arena is so important. But you have to embrace the role of a champion. Even if you don't win does not mean you're a loser. That is so important for people to hear. Just because you do not win does not make you a loser. And that's really hard for people because they, with our, uh, everybody's so black and white now. Yeah. And I would prefer that my players are gray and become so process driven to be the best that they can be. Because until they change the rules in golf, you can't tackle your player, you can't kick their ball out of bounds or in the water, so you can't control anything else other than yourself. But oftentimes we fall prey to thinking that we have more control than we actually do. And that's what trips people up,

Speaker A: you know. So interesting because Scottie Scheffler has not been winning, but he's number one in the world, um, because he is the top all the time. I think his worst is 12th.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Uh, six times. Coming in second in the biggest championships in the world. Football's, uh, interesting as well. I coach mindset in football to a lot of players and coaches.

Speaker B: Uh,

Speaker A: and I talk about the biggest winners are the ones that win despite two things, bad calls and injuries. Now in golf, there's no team and there's no refs.

Speaker B: Uh,

Speaker A: you're, you're right. Which I love about golf. You have to call the penalty on yourself. That's right. So there's no referees, there's no bad calls. Correct. And there's really no injury other than to yourself. So it's not going to impact you if your caddy's hurt. That's correct. Right. Or your coach is hurt.

Speaker B: That's right.

Speaker A: It should not impact you at all.

Speaker B: Correct.

Speaker A: They're very easy to replace. No fun, uh, you know, offense for the game day,

Speaker B: for sure.

Speaker A: But it makes a big difference if your starting quarterbacks hurt. No matter if you're Ray Lewis on defense, you know, and your starting quarterback goes down, it's a big impact on winning.

Speaker B: That's exactly.

Speaker A: Your statistical chance goes down. But the similarity beyond there's, you know, in order to win, you got to win despite injuries and bad calls in football is they're both a game of inches. And these inches happen all the time. It's a tip. It's the angle of the football that hits the goal post or the ground. Right. Going out of bounds or not. Uh, first down or not. Game of inches.

Speaker B: Oh, no doubt.

Speaker A: But golf, Anyone that's played golf, it may be less than an inch. It's a game of maybe millimeters sometimes.

Speaker B: Yeah, for sure.

Speaker A: Um, and we saw that, you know, last week with both the guys playing the last hole on the third round perfectly. And an inch closer, it won't have rolled far away and give Scotty a really bad putt, which he bogeyed, and instead Hovland birdied. And that's the difference. It ended up in. In going to overtime and then obviously, the playoff victory.

Speaker B: How the Hovland won. Yeah.

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Speaker A: Another mindset question.

Speaker B: Uh,

Speaker A: life is about a game inches, right? This one little turn, one. If I just would have waited at the light a little bit longer one second. How. How in that human perspective of inches, do you manage a young player like us amateur champs that you do? Because I find that younger players don't get that wisdom.

Speaker B: Well, like, I like to let people fail and then help them realize after they fail that, hey, guess what? You. You lived another day. Everything is moving forward, and it's really. It's gone. So now you can take away the emotional. Like, you don't have to build it up anymore. As in, like, if I don't do this, I suck, or this is never going to work out. I'm never going to get. Because it went away. So now you're like, okay, so that fear is. It's a ghost. It's not real. So now you can fall in love with. Okay, I'm going to be able to go out here and perform like a champion. I want to hit golf shots. Like, I think the greatest players of all time hit them. And that allows me to see what I need to do if I do not succeed on how to get better at being my authentic self. Because more times than not, when people are competing at golf, they are not who they are. They are trying to be somebody else because they think they're not enough. So they try to recruit other people's thoughts and other people's way, and that's not. That gets in their own way. That shuts. That brings the prefrontal cortex online because why are we doing this? Uh, I sense fear. I sense I need to protect you. So then prefrontal cortex gets involved, and that makes competing terrible. And so then everything gets clunky. You become locked up, and you can't let go. I'm always encouraging my players play like the champion that you want to be, because if you do not succeed, it gives us a clear roadmap of what we got to do to be better. But if you're not playing authentically, you. And you're trying to be somebody else or protect yourself from being hurt by being less than you, we actually don't even know who we're fixing. So don't be afraid to be. You hit the shots you want to hit to win. And if it doesn't work out, it makes it so clear what we got to do to keep getting better. Because if you got to this point and we just didn't make it, we're there. We are right there. Not there. We're right there. And most kids are afraid to fail because they. If they feel like they go all in, they put all their chips in the middle of the table and they don't win. They feel like they lose all their money.

Speaker A: Yeah. And

Speaker B: it's not true. It's not

Speaker A: putting it in the bank. It's an investment.

Speaker B: Yes.

Speaker A: It's so true. Um, putting is interesting to me as well. Um, the analogy I would use is Shaquille o' Neal may be one of the best basketball players ever to play, but he's one of the worst free throw shooters of all time. Free throw shooting is a skill. Putting is a skill. There's putters that are amazing putters that I Will never see the PGA Tour.

Speaker B: Correct.

Speaker A: Right. Because they have that skill. When it's a skill, that means you can develop that skill. It's not a matter of Dave Melter could never dunk a basketball. I, I could get better free throws. Better than Shaq. In fact, in his numbers. Correct. If I shot free throws.

Speaker B: That's right.

Speaker A: Um, I see putting the same way. But even on the PGA Tour, I'm amazed how guys are not at the level of uh, putting that they should be. And just like Shaq was not at the free throw level should have been to make him even greater. What do you think holds those people back that may be below average putters that are exceptional golfers.

Speaker B: Well, so when I think of that, I think in although not the most recent version of rory, but the 10 years of no wins in the majors for Rory, he probably lost five of them with the putter.

Speaker A: M.

Speaker B: V.J. singh. At least five in his prime. Right. So a couple of things. Elite putting is within the brain. An absolute perfect marriage between what your brain predicts is the line and the speed at which the ball is hit by the body. They line up beautifully. And when I was, I was very fortunate to coach Brant Snedeker for a long time. He might be one of the five greatest putters in the history of the game and a good friend of his. And he's a PGA Tour announcer. Ned Michael said, you know what Brandt does better than anybody that I've ever seen is that he matches the line and the speed that his brain sees with what his hands do. And I'm like, man, that says it all. How do you get that? I think part of that's a gift. Right.

Speaker A: So there is some genetic energetic inheritance.

Speaker B: There is. But I also think putting is not sexy enough to practice all the time. But hitting the golf ball is. So when you look on the tour, there's no real bad ball hitters. They all hit it great because it's the. It's really what fills up most golfers soul is that perfect strike of a golf shot.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: But it is not very often that once they get that that they're okay with putting the same amount of time and working on or more. Because literally the golf tournaments are one with the putter that I know the statistics say you have to drive it great. But the end of the day what we see is the people who win putt better than they usually do. Not putt better than everybody. They just putt better than they usually do. Because everybody has something that they're really good at. So, like, Rory obviously hits it very long, and he hits his irons very good. Well, if he putts good, he doesn't lose, period. When Tiger. Tiger could win in a variety of ways, but most. There was only one Tiger. There's only one Jack. Those. Is

Speaker A: Tiger one of the elite putters?

Speaker B: Oh, yeah. He and Jack would probably be considered one and two because nobody, uh, made more important major championship putts than those two guys did because they have 18 and 15.

Speaker A: When I look at those two guys, I would consider them to be in the top five of every aspect of the game.

Speaker B: Yes, for sure. And I think what makes Scotty Scheffler so interesting is Scotty Scheffler's game is very balanced. He doesn't have any weaknesses, but he also doesn't have anything that he does better than anybody else.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: But he's in the top five of everything.

Speaker A: Just puts him second every time. That's exactly right. Well, you know, using this analogy to business, to fortune, some of those parallels exist. So I want to finish up the show by asking you what your takeaway of the day would be. To translate or analogously utilize the lessons that you taught us today, the insights that you gave us from the fairway,

Speaker B: uh,

Speaker A: to fortune.

Speaker B: Well, I want to. I was actually thinking about this before we started the show of, like, what is it about golf and a community that you're looking for? And then are you authentically being the best, uh, the. Your best self when you're out there trying to do things to get your wealth, to get the. The place where you can join a club that you wanted to be a part of, or are you pretending to be somebody else in, like, almost like you're an actor. Right. And because I don't believe that you can get to a place where you're able to really enjoy the fortune of being able to use the game and merge it with the lifestyle to create a great business situation for you? Unless you're authentic. And I'm always encouraging people, try the. Try your best to be okay with you and give the best version of yourself. Don't try to be somebody that you're not, because then you don't know what to fix if things go offline.

Speaker A: Yeah. And that's similar or aligned with my takeaway, which is take your shot so you know where you're at. Don't be afraid to take the shot. Uh, you'll never know how far you have to go unless you go for it and say, I'm two yards short.

Speaker B: Uh,

Speaker A: I Got to get two yards somewhere else or whatever it is. And so many people limit themselves because they're afraid to go in the lake. You know, they're afraid to go out of bounds, they're afraid to miss the putt. Some people won't even enter the tournament, and they won't even start to go to the range because they're so afraid of taking their shot. So, uh, I got great, great, uh, value out of the idea that, hey, especially when you're starting young, when you're starting something, how do you know where you are unless you're giving 100% and going for it? You're going to fail. You're going to fail. I use the analogy today about LeBron James, who I truly believe is the greatest athlete of all his physical men. Everything he does, hand, eye coordination, strength, cardio, speed, jumping like, that guy's amazing. But he belongs to my nephew's country club. And when he came to the range the very first time, and he hired the coach there, you know, to train him in golf, he sucked, right? I was at the range with my nephew watching, and he was laughing at himself, right? But he sucked.

Speaker B: Uh,

Speaker A: the greatest athlete of all time couldn't hit a golf ball when he first started, and yet he didn't quit. And I think he's like a four or five right now. Just to show you how his basement in utilizing practice and procedure.

Speaker B: I think it's interesting, just real quick on that, is that there was a recent conversation with LeBron and Steph Curry about why all these basketball players are falling in love with golf. And it is because they have fallen in love with understanding that what is difficult is what you should be chasing. And golf is very difficult. And because their body has been moving linear, essentially, and now they're in a rotary sport, their body's muscles don't. Aren't used to doing it. So it's a struggle for them, but they love it because they've learned to embrace the struggle as a sign of, um, I'm going in a positive direction, not in a negative direction. And that's what. That's really a powerful thing to think about. Takeaway, right?

Speaker A: I thought Steph Curry liked it because nobody could block his shot. It's kind of nice to take a shot where nobody's blocking it.

Speaker B: That's exactly right.

Speaker A: Which is probably why he's so good at golf. Marshall Falk, by the way, great golfer as well,

Speaker B: very good.

Speaker A: Eric Dickerson, some of my friends are just, you know, great pitchers are great, quarterbacks are great. Dilfer is a great golfer. I played with him as well. Anyway, if you want to utilize the fairway to make fortunes, then follow us on fairways to fortune. Blessed to be with the Golf Channel superstar, our PGA professional coaching some of the greatest champions in the world, on and off the fairway. Reach out to Virgil Herring. Have him coach you, your teams, your leagues, your organization. He's the best at mindset, heart set and putting or handset. Thank you, Virgil, for joining me.

Speaker B: My pleasure. Thanks for having me on.