This week on The Weekend Golf Guys, Tom and Jeff teamed up to remind golfers everywhere that your brain can wreck a round faster than a topped tee shot. They hammered home the idea that if you’re not having fun out there, you’re basically paying good money to be miserable — and that’s just bad economics. Frustration, fear, and those wild expectations we all carry around? Yeah, those are the real swing killers.

Tom talked mindset, Jeff talked mechanics, and together they made one thing crystal clear: your setup and your patterns matter way more than whatever complicated nonsense you saw on YouTube at 2 a.m. Jeff even pulled out some wisdom from Dr. Bob Christina, explaining how your physical structure — the way you stand, balance, and move — shapes your swing more than any “try this one weird trick” tip ever will.

Then Jeff rolled out one of his classic lesson moves: he takes the golf ball away. Just removes it. Students freak out for a second, then suddenly start swinging like actual athletes instead of nervous wrecks trying not to embarrass themselves. No ball means no fear, no overthinking, no “don’t shank this.” Just balance, motion, and a swing that finally makes sense.

Tom backed him up, pointing out that golfers don’t need a dictionary of technical jargon. They need simple, practical stuff they can actually use — grip, stance, alignment, and a brain that isn’t screaming at them. Keep it simple, and the swing gets better. Make it complicated, and the golfer gets worse. Every. Single. Time.

The show wrapped with Tom sharing how folks can reach him for instruction, and of course, we reminded everyone to subscribe, leave a review, and keep the game fun — because golf is hard enough without you turning it into a science project.

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What Jared Shared From His Book, “EVERYDAY GOLF PSYCHOLOGY”
1. Emotions aren’t random—they’re signals
• Anger, fear, embarrassment, overconfidence… none of these are “mental weaknesses.”
• They’re outputs of something deeper: expectations, flawed goals, poor preparation, or misjudged skill.
• Trying to “stay calm” without understanding why you’re upset is like trying to fix a slice by adjusting your grip every hole.

2. Overconfidence is a silent killer
Most golfers don’t realize they’re overconfident until they’re already playing poorly.
Overconfidence often comes from:
• A few good practice sessions
• A hot streak on the range
• Misjudging actual skill level
• Tournament performance exposes the truth: practice success ≠ competitive readiness.

3. Fear of embarrassment is more common than fear of failure
Recreational golfers especially worry about:
• Looking stupid
• Holding up the group
• Hitting a bad shot in front of others
This creates tension, rushed routines, and poor decision-making.

Focus: The Real Engine of Performance
4. Focus is driven by goals, not discipline
Jared was adamant:
“Focus isn’t something you do—it’s something your goals create.”
If your goals are vague (“play well today”), your focus will be vague.
Clear goals = clear attention.

5. Phones destroy focus more than people admit
• Even checking your phone between shots fractures your mental rhythm.
• The brain doesn’t fully “return” to golf for several minutes.
• Recreational golfers underestimate how much this matters.

Accessing Information During Shots
6. Great players access more detail, not less
They see:
• Wind patterns
• Lies
• Shot windows
• Tendencies
• Emotional state
Most amateurs try to “simplify” too much and end up ignoring critical data.

Bridging Practice → Competition
7. Practice must simulate pressure
Otherwise:
• You build skills you can’t access under stress.
• You create false confidence.
• You never learn how your emotions behave in competition.
Jared’s strategies included:
• Adding consequences to practice
• Tracking emotional patterns
• Practicing decision-making, not just mechanics
• Using post‑shot evaluations to build awareness

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This week on Those Weekend Golf Guys, John Ashton is joined by two of our favorite smart‑aleck swing whisperers, Scott Monroe and Jeff Smith, for a conversation that wanders all over the golf landscape — in the best possible way.

We kick things off with the U.S. Open, where the golf was great, the crowds were… enthusiastic, and the etiquette was somewhere between “country club polite” and “rock concert adjacent.” From there, we jump into the hot‑button topic of music on the golf course — does it help you groove or make you shank it harder? Depends on who you ask.

Scott drops an absolute gem of a story about a pro in Australia who literally blacked out mid‑round and kept playing. Yes, really. That leads us straight into the mental side of golf — why this game demands a totally different headspace than sports where you never stop moving. We dig into hypnotism, visualization, and positive self‑talk, including Scott’s upcoming work with hypnotist Ricky Kalman, who might just be the next secret weapon for golfers everywhere.

We also talk about the future of young talent: Can late bloomers still make it? How has NIL changed college golf? And what does the modern path to the pros look like now that 19‑year‑olds have sponsorship deals bigger than our mortgages?

It’s smart, it’s funny, it’s a little chaotic — in other words, it’s exactly what you expect from Those Weekend Golf Guys

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