Flag Hunters Golf Podcast
Hello and welcome to Flaghunters ! It is a privilege to bring to you this powerful insight into playing better Golf. In all my years of being in the game of Golf from competing at a high amateur level, to caddying, teaching, and being a overall Golf geek, I have an insatiable, curiosity driven desire to get down to the bottom of what it takes to truly get better playing the game of Golf that we all unconditionally love. This has been one of the greatest journeys of my life and I am deeply grateful for all that Golf has given me. Thank you for joining me in this incredible journey. This is my ever evolving love letter to Golf. Jesse Perryman P.S. Please Rate, Review and Subscribe !
Flag Hunters Golf Podcast
Crafting Golf Excellence: Jonathan Wallett's Insights on Coaching, Player Development, and Fulfilling an Ambitious Journey
Feel free to text me at (831)275-8804
Imagine tracing the evolution of a football-loving kid living next to a golf course to becoming a PGA master professional shaping the future of golf coaching. That's the journey of our guest Jonathan Wallett, who joins us to recount his transition from football to founding Elite Coaching programs and performance camps in Australia and Switzerland. As Jonathan unfurls his tale, listeners will be privy to a treasure chest of insights, from unique junior golfer practice methods to navigating the critical transitions in a player's development, all underscored by his practical advice for players and coaches alike.
This conversation with Jonathan Wallett is more than just a trip down memory lane; it's a masterclass in coaching philosophy and player development. His experiences, from steering the Hong Kong national team to mentoring today's elite players, reveal the delicate balance between honing technique and nurturing a player's distinctive style. Moreover, Jonathan's 'tour curriculum' at his elite golf academy, innovative online training, and scoring techniques showcase his holistic approach to golf coaching, which has significantly impacted the way the sport is taught and practiced.
What happens when games and networking intersect with the precision of golf? Our discussion leads to Jonathan's Elite Performance Coach Certification Program, where he's revolutionizing the way coaches globally enhance their skills. As we round out our talk, Jonathan shares his personal dreams of playing at legendary courses like Pebble Beach and Cypress Point, reminding us that ambition and passion drive even the most accomplished professionals. This episode isn't just for those embedded in the golf world; it's a narrative steeped in dedication, innovation, and the pursuit of excellence that resonates with all.
Once again, a big THANK YOU to Taylor Made and Adidas for their support.
To find us easiest, our Instagram handles are @flaghuntersgolfpod and for Justin @elitegolfswing. Our emails are jesse@flaghuntersgolf.com and justin@elitegolfswing.com.
To get signed up with Jonathan go to:
https://elitecoaching.lpages.co/2024-online-performance-camp-jt/
This is Jesse Perryman from the Fly Gunners Golf Podcast, welcoming you to another fantastic edition of the podcast. And this week we got a man that I was unfamiliar with. Justin knew very, very well. His name is John Jonathan Wallett. Jonathan originally is from England and now splits his time between Australia and Switzerland where he has his performance camps, and this man has really embodied what I set out to do. I feel we're kindred in spirit when I started this podcast and the intention has always been to bring truthful, factual information from every corner of the known universe as it relates to playing better golf, and John certainly embodies the same intention and he has created these performance workbooks. And, first and foremost, jonathan has a great background in golf I don't want to spoil it here, but he's going to reveal it on the pod itself and has been fortunate enough to work with many tour pros and as his results in years of coaching, he's created these programs. He's founded it's called Elite Coaching, his website is EliteCoachingcom and he has various programs on how to certify coaches and also these incredible workbooks, and I'm going to encourage every single one of you all that listen to go to EliteCoachingcom and thumb through the website, because there is a lot to unpack and the information. There is a lifetime of Jonathan's study that he's putting out there for all of us to take the information and have it become our own, and it's quite fascinating. So this podcast is very enjoyable. He's a very knowledgeable man, talks about his background, his years in coaching and what he is aspiring to do moving forward, and once again, I don't want to spoil it here, but I do want to include this he has his next camp, so he has camps that you can go to in Switzerland, switzerland and Australia, and his next camp starts on the 22nd of February and it runs through the 24th of February and it is in Australia. All of that information is on his website. So you can find him easiest Jonathan Wallet His name just as it sounds on Instagram, and you can email him at info at elitecoaching all one word elitecoachingcom. You can find me on Instagram as well at flag hunters golf pod all one word. Or you can email me, jesse, at flag hunters golfcom, and you can find Justin by the same means Justin at elite golf swingcom. He'll send us his email and then add elite golf swing on Instagram.
Speaker 1:A shout out to Jonathan for coming on. I thoroughly enjoyed this. I want to keep this intro brief because the information is. There's a lot to unpack. It's very rich and incredibly helpful, a lot of common sense, and he touches all of the bases. And when you go onto this website and you start to look at the workbooks that he has and the interactive courses that he has on there, you're going to understand my excitement that is coming through the airwaves right now. So, once again, jonathan, thank you for coming on and Justin, thank you for introducing me to Jonathan, and I'm sure that this correspondence is going to last more than one episode. I'm excited, and it once again in closing.
Speaker 1:My intention has always been to find the coaches that we haven't quite heard of, that are well known in the black belt of golf instruction community, the guys and the gals that don't necessarily care about the adulation or they're not actively trying to market or promote themselves, but what they do have is a solid block of information that is undoubtedly going to help you and me get better playing this game that we love, so that we can enjoy it, appreciate it, immerse ourselves in it like we always do, but do it with a big smile on our first face versus a big frown, and Jonathan is certainly leading the charge with that. His track record speaks for itself and go ahead and have a listen and enjoy it. Any comments, questions, concerns? You all know how to get ahold of us. Please remember to rate, review and subscribe. And thank you to Taylor, manon and Adidas for their incredible support on the show, in the show, and please keep putting out great product and we appreciate it. And thank you everyone cheers and I hope that you have a great week and are having a great week.
Speaker 1:Hello, this is Jesse Perriman from the Flag Hunters Golf podcast, along with my co-host, justin Tang, from sunny and always humid and always where it's always summer in Singapore. He is one of the lead coaches out of the Tanamera Golf Club, good friend of mine, a great coach, and if you're ever in the Singapore area, you need to go see him. If you want to get a nice suntan, get hot, get sweaty and learn the game, go there, I promise you. And our guest today is an esteemed man. He's a PGA master professional. His name is John Jonathan Wallet. He is the owner and originator of Elite Coaching from the EliteCoachingcom, and you can find him at EliteCoachingcom. John. Welcome. I appreciate. We appreciate you coming on, justin. Thanks, pal.
Speaker 2:Hello Jess, Hello Justin, Thanks for having me. I'm really excited to talk to you guys. Thank you, John.
Speaker 3:You come with 30 years of experience and you're one of the rare PGA master professionals. Could you introduce yourself to our listenership and give us some background about how you came into the game of golf?
Speaker 2:Well, thank you, justin. And yeah, I mean I lived next to a golf course in Bath, england. So when I was young I had ambitions to play for Manchester United and be a footballer and actually at the beginning I actually really detested golf because right outside my garden there were all these, you know, great potential football pitches and the newest football pitch was, you know, about three miles away. So we used to, you know, put our jumpers down and play on the 13th fairway and get told off by angry golfers. But eventually I decided, well, you know, if you can't beat them, you've got to join them. So I started golf 10 years old and, yeah, and that was my introduction to the game, really, and how did you get good at the game of golf? Well, it's interesting and it's a great story, justin, because when I started, as I said, I lived right next to the 13th hole of King's Down Golf Club near Bath in England, and this is about the furthest hole away from the clubhouse. And in those days there weren't any driving ranges, there was just a small practice fairway. So actually for the first six or seven years of my golfing life, I actually never practiced on the practice ground or on the range.
Speaker 2:What I used to do is I used to just go around this loop of 12 holes 12, 13, 14. I used to do lots of different practice games. I had a practice book and I would go out from 25 yards and at first just count how many balls out of 20 I could get on the green. Then I would go to 50, then I would go to 75. And as I got older I went to 100. As my game developed, I started to not only just count the number of balls on the green, I would then count how many balls got within 15 feet of the hole. And I kept a lot of statistics just on my practice and just because I felt I wanted to tabulate my improvement. What happened is I just got better and better, as a lot of juniors do, but I've got maybe a little bit better, a little bit faster than the others, which culminated me at 16, 17 years old, playing in the England junior team and having success on a national level.
Speaker 3:There's a lot of unpack there in the last minute, so you actually practiced on the field of playing. This is something very foreign to the current crop of golfers.
Speaker 2:Yes, and I must add that I did occasionally incur the wrath of the greenkeeper and he did on occasion said to me that he was going to report me to the manager. Actually, it's the same greenkeeper even these days which is still there. He never did report me to the manager and I was really good in. I mean, in those days actually the greens were very firm, so rarely would I make pitch marks, but if I did I would repair the pitch marks and, yeah, obviously, replace the divots. And for driving, I used to, when I was about 15, and this shows you the difference I had a Joe Powell PerSimon driver and I put my golf bag out at 230 yards away from the tee and I would count how many balls out of 18 I could get past my golf bag still on the fairway. Because for me, 15, 16 years old, a good drive would have been anything further than 230 yards. I think these days you probably need a 16 year old to be putting at 330 yards, not 230.
Speaker 3:Yeah, especially in the days of Joe Powell, persimon technology and Ballata balls. 200 yards was a very, very respectable poke at that age. And I think, and it's my sincere belief, that if everyone practice on the field of play, they will get better, much faster. I mean in other sports, say, take swimming, for example. You don't practice in the kiddie pool, you do at a younger age, but when you're an adult, learning the swimming stroke, you don't practice in the kiddie pool, you go straight into the adult pool and you learn your strokes. Same for tennis, same for soccer. You would never go to Sir Alex Ferguson and say hey, gaffer, got 100 balls here, I'm going to kick me some balls at the practice range. There's no such thing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that's I mean. I didn't realize how fortunate I was at that time, to be honest, and actually I only came in reflection in later years, because what happened is, yeah, I played in the England junior team in 1986, so when I was 16 and then the following year and but then now I'm in the national team. Obviously, national coach hadn't really had any coaching and the sort of phrases that in those days were practice to your hands bleed, do the reps burn it in. You know, fowdo was obviously, you know, coming up to his prime and so I stopped really doing all my statistics. I stopped practicing on the course, if you like, and I felt if I was going to get serious about the game, I decided I want to. You know, try and tread the fairways with Seve Ballastaus and Nick Fowdo and go and get a European tour card.
Speaker 2:I felt I needed to start to practice. So I started going over the practice ground hitting my seven iron to 150 yard marker, hitting three 400 balls a day, not doing any very practice, just trying to burn it in, build a repeatable swing, trying to perfect my swing. I also always hit the ball with a little baby fade and I was really is a really reliable shot for me. But I sort of got it in my head that I, you know, draw went longer and that would get me up on the par fives and that would take me to the next level.
Speaker 2:So I started to mess around with my technique and from the ages of 17 to 20, I went to the European tour school. When I was 20 in Spain, I did not get my tour card, even though of the of the England junior team in 1987, six out of the team and did have some, you know ended up did getting tour cards at one stage or another. And so, even though I'd practiced a huge amount from 17 to 20, and I was pretty sure that no one had done the reps as much as I'd done, I'd actually got worse and I actually, you know, failed. And this certainly um learned some reflections later on in my coaching journey.
Speaker 3:That's a very common refrain that I hear from guys who, quote unquote, didn't make it on tour despite their amateur results for telling a stellar professional career. So, besides messing around with technique, what? What other things derailed you from your past?
Speaker 2:Well, I think, um, you know, it frustrated me because I knew, you know, everyone said, you know, it's about sacrifice, it's, you know, discipline. And I knew, you know, I've really been disciplined. I used to, you know, go to the practicats six o'clock in the morning, in cold weather, in all weathers, and in fact actually recollect. The manager even wrote a letter to me once saying how impressed he was with you know, despite the weather, any adverse conditions, I was out there practicing. Unfortunately, I wasn't doing it the right way. And I was doing it the right way when I was very young and that's what accelerated my improvement when I was young but then stagnated my improvement when I was older.
Speaker 2:Um, but what I then did? I started coaching, um, you know, just normal stuff, club, club players. But it irritated me, um, that you know, I put so much effort in and got so little out, so that when I was about, um early my early thirties, I decided I wanted to do some research and really try to understand what the critical success factors were at tall level. You know, I knew it wasn't doing the reps, I knew it wasn't sacrifice, I knew it wasn't trying to perfect your swing. So what was it? And this led me to doing a research project on the tour, which it took me a while because I was just doing this part-time over a five-year period, where I interviewed 50 tour players and the criteria was 40 men, 10 ladies, and the criteria was they must have all won on tour. My findings from that is effectively, if you like, my teaching curriculum for my lead players.
Speaker 3:I must say this that is one of the greatest contributions to the game of golf, where you identify the critical success factors to what it takes to succeed on tour. And I've done all your courses, I've read all your seven is it seven? Performance workbooks and I can say that and. I can say that you've distilled the critical success factors and managed to explain why some people succeed and why don't, and the answer is not always found in technique, although it is part of the equation.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely, and technique is part of the equation, there's no doubt about that, but you know it's a word. I use competence as opposed to perfection, and I know you said that you have Carl Meyers on this podcast previously and Carl's a wonderful coach with a fantastic track record at tall level and you know, as he says is a lot of players go down that rabbit hole of trying to perfect their technique and really do they come back out the other side. It is about competence, you know, being able to have some sort of consistency and reliability in your ball flight, but it's definitely not about perfection.
Speaker 3:Let's switch gears here a little bit. Who are your early influences, when you were embarking on your coaching career?
Speaker 2:Well, I think I learned a lot. I was very fortunate to end up working with Dennis Pugh, or my own game, for five years. At that time Dennis Pugh was the sort of top coach in Europe. He was working with players such as a lot of the Australian players, like New Zealand players, like Frank Nobulo, greg Turner, peter Malley, steven Lini, robert Allenby. He'd done a lot of work with Fowder as well, because he was at one time he was sort of partnering with David Ledbetter and Ledbetter was based in the States and so Fowder was playing the European tour.
Speaker 2:But you know, a great breakthrough in Dennis's coaching is I think it was in 1991, 92, something like that Colin Montgomery came on his lesson tee. Now until sort of 1990, 1991, you know, dennis was coaching the you know the perfect swing, if you like. And he said Colin Montgomery came on his tee and he asked him to hit some shots like he'd do as a golf coach and he's hit the ball better than anyone else has ever hit the ball on that lesson tee. And that included players like Fowder, major major champions. And he said he was just amazed at the consistency of his strike, the consistency of his ball flight. It was absolutely sublime.
Speaker 2:But when you videoed his swing, you know all the plain lines were nothing like what he'd been teaching. You know, the body pivot was totally outside his collar door and it was, he said. You know that was a, if you like, a defining moment in his coaching career where he realized that you had to have a certain set of principles but you have to adapt them in a flexible way and that every player, and certainly at the highest level, is a unique individual. And then Dennis went on to have some wonderful successes in his coaching. You know he sort of mentored and coached Francesca Molinari from a junior player through to a major champion and many, many others. And certainly that had a big impact on my philosophy as a coach, understanding that, yes, you need to build competence. There's some certainly some, definitely some, some some principles you want to adhere to, but at the same time you have to understand, you know, what is the DNA of a good swing, not the aesthetics of a good swing.
Speaker 3:So let's talk a little bit about your work with the Hong Kong national team and Tai Chi coach. I've met Tai Chi a couple of times when he came to play in Singapore, and I must say he is very impressive as a golfer but, more importantly, as a person.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean I'm very fortunate to have the opportunity to coach Tai Chi, which started at the when I was coaching the Hong Kong national team and running the national program there, which was, I think, in from the end of 2015 to the end of 2018. Yeah, I mean, what we tried to do is we tried to build a program from the ground up. Okay, so I think it's so easy to sort of send in these national programs, to think, right, just try and find that one superstar. But I had a wonderful mentor, if you like. He was the CEO of Hong Kong golf, head of the European tour Middle East, a guy called Mr Tom Phillips, and he said listen, you know, maybe one or two, we get one or two good players. But he said build a good system. That should be your legacy, not to focus on one or two players. And so that's what we did. We built a schools program, we built a player funnel all the way up.
Speaker 2:And one thing if there's one thing I'm really proud of, whilst Tai Chi has done fantastic and I'm coaching him and he's a fantastic guy and I love everything about what we do, but almost my proudest moment from the Hong Kong thing is the work with the local coaches. I really wanted to build the program around the local coaches. I wanted to really involve them and not just parachute, you know, some foreign coaches in, but instead actually build the program through the local coaches. And we're able to do that. We did a lot of coach education, we tried to, you know, coach empowerment and I think hopefully that will help over the long term bring, you know, hopefully a flow of Tai Chi through.
Speaker 2:And if it's not and just to also to say that I don't define success as making the tour player. I actually defined success, certainly in a national program, as building a lifelong passion for the game, because these people might end up being, you know, the 18 year old junior national team player. He might end up being a committee player, a committee member at the golf club at 38. Or he might be a junior organizer or a referee, but just building a lifelong passion for the game and of course, you know, also to create the pathway for the few that do want a career in the game.
Speaker 3:You also do a lot of work with tour and elite players at the collegiate levels. You help them get scholarships. Can you talk a little bit about your work with this particular segment of players?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, I think, as I said, when I was, you know, I was a failed player.
Speaker 2:Then I was doing club coaching, which I didn't particularly wasn't passionate about, and once I'd done this research project of wanting to try to understand better why I failed, for me that was, if you like, my passion project, and I wanted to help players not make the same mistakes that I'd made, put all the effort in and get nothing out.
Speaker 2:And so, in 2002, I founded the elite coaching golf academy and since then I've just been focused on junior elite player, junior elite players, elite players and playing professionals and helping them, you know, build a pathway to, you know, going to the next level, based on what I call the tour curriculum, which is effectively the research from these 50 players. And then, of course, my experiences have worked on the European tour for quite a number of years, and now I'm working, you know, 10, 12 events on the Asian tour, as well as running academy programs here in San Francisco of Australia, as well as we're doing an increasing amount of online work. And obviously that's how I met you, justin, and I think you know that really excites me because you know whether it's a player in Buenos Aires or Orlando, florida or London, we can actually deliver this curriculum wherever you are. And I think, and I think that really excites me, certainly over the next few years- so you're effectively a global online elite coaching academy.
Speaker 2:Well, that sounds too much, that sounds a bit too much, but I mean ultimately, as I say, the pain I had of putting a lot of work in and not getting much out. You know I love. You know you mentioned Tai Chi Ko he's. You know he's done well because he is a wonderful student, he is a wonderful learner, he's like a sponge and you know, whatever we work on and he decides to put into his game, he's super disciplined and you know he deserves every success he's been having. And so I think yeah, I mean I think it's very, very rewarding for me to help to work with, you know, passionate, you know enthusiastic and ambitious young players.
Speaker 3:So yeah, let's talk about your performance workbooks and I think as we discuss it, our listeners will be able to get a glimpse into your coaching philosophy. So you've got Pathway to the Tour, tournament Play Building Belief and Confidence, cocoon Concentration, the Tour Player Practice System and Creating your Inner Vision. Now a lot of other coaches that I see online actually have those, have programs that have names kind of similar to yours, like Pathway to the Tour, but none of them actually have your results.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, I can't talk for the others, but what I will say is the. You know, as I say, the research from these 50 players and my reflections of working on the tour, and I wanted to document that so I could use it to help those junior players and the elite players I was coaching, and then I've been through a few different ways of doing that. I did the workbooks, as I say. Now it's. You know, we're focusing on the online performance camps.
Speaker 2:We've really created a great learning platform whereby you can work through at your own pace through online education platforms. You know critical topics to being successful at tour, like performance, practice, focus and concentration, building belief and confidence in a vision, and these things that you mentioned. And so, yeah, and then what I like is we introduce or the, and I pass on. I suppose we'd be the best work, because this stuff I've learned from others, so I pass on what I've learned and then, through the online platform and through the exercises, the players can apply it in their own unique way. And that's what I like, because it's all about, you know, building the individual, empowering the individual individual, and so it's not you've got to do it this way. This is the concept, and then, through the exercises. It's up to your own creativity, your own identity to work out how to apply that in your own unique situation.
Speaker 3:And I think what's great about these performance workbooks is that they are empirically based off of your research. It's not something that you cobble together like on your own, and not from just your own experience, but from the experiences of your clients who've been there and done that, and I think that's the crucial difference, instead of just some surface level instruction that you see on magazines all break 70, break 80 is the case. Maybe this is what the tour does.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I mean, I was. You know, I did this research project on tour, but then, obviously, I started building some relationships, when there's some of the people I interviewed including that, you know those 57 had been world number one, so it's a very high quality. You know interviewees, if you like and I started working with a number of players, a couple of them rider cup players and top 10 in the world, and, to be honest, I always felt a bit embarrassed to send the invoices in every three months. Because you're out there on tour, you know, at dinners, on the ranges, with the best players, with the best coaches, I almost felt they should send me an invoice for that journey and for that rich experience, because you learn so much.
Speaker 2:You know you really do learn so much. And you know I'd come away from a tournament where there's a US Open, where there is a British Open, where there's a French Open, whatever, and I'd have notes and notes, and notes, and you know, then I'd work out, you know how I can sort of distill that into something that can help some of my younger players. And so, you know, I feel very fortunate and certainly, as I say, you know, 99% of what I've learned is from others and the other 1% is, if you like, reflection of what I learned from the others. So yeah, very fortunate.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so like, for example, the 12 player practice system, it's got a 158 page book, easy to read, easy to understand. But I think when players actually put that in practice it's going to reap so much dividends for them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly, it's about steering them away from that sort of, you know, ball beating mindset and giving them practice games you know, practice games in different formats, which I've seen on tour, which I've used on tour with tour players, which I'm currently using on tour with tour players, and so to really give them that competitive edge.
Speaker 2:Because, you know, just talking about practice, I see it as in a sort of a three level, yeah, a three level thing where you have technique and we define technique as a way of doing something, where then we have to convert technique into skill.
Speaker 2:Skill is a way of doing something in a variable situation. So you might have a putting technique of, you know, just trying to keep the path, keep the arc constant in the face square, and you might be doing that on a six foot part and training that technique. But then to convert that into skill, you then might try a left to right six foot part, a right to left one, an uphill one, a downhill one, but then the next stage is to turn that, turn that skill into performance, whereby we can perform that skill in a pressurized situation. So this is then we might do a performance game where there's pressure attached. So it's, you know it's like transferring technique to skill, to performance, and certainly in that tall player practice system that's what we're trying to do. We're trying to build competitive confidence in the skill that you've created, whether it's putting, whether it's chipping, whether it's pitching where to play long, long and striving, whatever. We're trying to help you transfer that to competitive confidence so you know you can use it to school lower when you play your tournaments.
Speaker 3:So, without giving too much away. Could you give our listeners a snapshot of what's in the book pathway to the tour? We have a lot of collegiate players, a lot of mini tour players that are on our listenership. That would be interested.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I mean, it's one thing I've actually found. I found that the I mean that pathway to the tour I feel is, you know, I've distilled a lot of what I've learned. I think it gives a wonderful structure into the skills you need to really, you know, go on tour. One thing I did learn along the way is books are a way of learning, but it's probably not the optimal way of learning, and so where I've transitioned to now is we do webinars.
Speaker 2:This is hence the player performance camp, or online camp. We do webinars whereby, like you and I are interacting now and we talk and players can ask me questions, and then I give them sections of the book as their homework which they work on on this online platform. They can send me through the homework, so whatever for feedback, and then we have the next class the following week, and I found this interaction, this toing and throwing, is a lot more fruitful than actually someone just getting the workbook, and I mean you know you can work on it alone. There's this 31 chapters with 32 exercises in that pathway to talk, and certainly it's worked successfully for some, but not for all and that interaction through the webinar series, and that's why we're doing the player performance camps. That's why it's yeah, that's been, if you like, made it a little bit more profitable for a lot of players.
Speaker 3:So let's go right into the online player performance camp. Can you share with our listeners what they can expect from this latest program?
Speaker 2:So what they can expect is it's an eight week camp, if you like. You know, effectively I run camps in Evion in France during July and the rest of the time in Sanctuary Cove, australia. So to actually come to Evion or to come to Sanctuary Cove is obviously quite a long way to come and, of course, it's expensive as well. So what I wanted to do is wherever you are in the world, I wanted you still to get access to the sort of things we would do in these one month camps. And so that syllabus which I've learned from the tour, and I've divided it into eight key topics. And then each week we have a one hour webinar where I talk through the topic with the group.
Speaker 2:Now, it doesn't matter if you're not able to attend live. We do a screencast so you can watch it in the convenience of your own home the next day or later that week, and then you get exercises to do so you can think about how to apply that concept in your own situation. And then the next week we have another class. So this lasts for eight weeks, eight different topics, things like pathway to the tour, building belief, focus, performance, practice, playing your best, performing your best, tournament day. So it's just one topic. If I'd known that at 18, how to perform your best tournament day, if someone had taught me that, I mean that's worth, in my opinion, gold itself, and this is all tour proven information. And so, yeah, I mean one thing that frustrates me only because it is the mistake I made, but one thing that frustrates me is people doing the time, putting the hours in, doing the work, but not getting the results, because they're not, they don't quite understand a few of the key principles to success at the highest level.
Speaker 3:Can you also talk a little bit about the Score Code program.
Speaker 2:Yes, the Score Code program is. You know, I mean, I'm always learning, I'm always learning and this is something you know I wrote last year and I'm really excited about it. I've been using with Tai Chi all through last year. I feel like my guinea pig. I hope he's not watching this podcast, but it was really great. I mean it's really helped Because ultimately, we're trying to make the game as simple as possible.
Speaker 2:We're trying to make the inputs as simple but then the outputs as maximum as possible, ie your score and your results. And I'll give you just a small insight into the Score Code. So you know, people talk about greens in regulation, but actually, you know greens in regulation at tall level, you know there's not a huge difference between you know the player finishing, you know 10th on the money list and 50th on the money list. I worked a number of years ago with Richard Bland, who is now on the Live Tour, and I remember, you know, introducing the concept to him as statistics and he said oh, you know, my greens in regulation statistics are the same. You know, when I have a good year, when I have a bad year, they don't change by more than one or two percent. I'm not particularly interested in that. So in the Score Code we don't focus on greens in regulation but we actually focus on greens in regulation within five meters. So greens in regulation, if you like, within 15 feet as a rough guide.
Speaker 2:So I had a player, a young player actually just called me last night. He's just played in a global junior tournament in Portugal and you know he had five. He shot 76, 72, 72. And he had five greens within five round one, eight in round two and five in round three.
Speaker 2:So we're, you know, in the greens in regulation part of the Score Code you know we're not focused on, we're just focused on greens within five and same with the short game he's that we found through the tour is actually your percentage of shots within six feet, your percentage of shots within six feet. So roughly at tall level, if you were to get 50% of your short game shots and we define that within 50 yards, if you get 50% of your shots within 50 yards, within six feet, your up and down or down in two percentage will be very similar. That's what we found at tall level. So all our practice games, if you like, route back into getting the ball within six feet because that's the deal breaker, and so we're marrying up in the Score Code, we're marrying up our tournament statistics, or tournament performance without practice performance, around a few key indices and yeah, it's worked well and and hopefully it will continue to work well for some, for more and more players and you during our course.
Speaker 3:You also talked a little bit about putting Tai Chi through the ringer. So, for example, if he didn't hit his part of the fairway the right side of the left side he would then have to take his ball, walk it back 20, 30 yards, as the case may be. At the start he really struggled and it made him frustrated, but that also built mental strength to some level. But it also sharpened his technique from 20, 30 yards further back with the long irons. Can you talk a little bit more about these drills that you do with your players?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, obviously we try to match the drill with the level of the player. But let's say Tai Chi is an example. He was here in Australia for the last couple of weeks and you know he likes yeah, he puts the ball back 30 on every hole because he wants to make practice tougher than the tournament itself. That would be a game we play with him. Another player from the Asian Tour who's down here, Matthew Chung, you know a game we played with him. He, you know he's, he hits a lot of greens.
Speaker 2:But one thing I said to him we need him more greens within five. That's the deal breaker. It's not hitting a lot of greens, hitting greens within five. So the game I had him playing here when he was in Sanjiko was, if he did not hit the green in five, he hit the ball off the green, okay, and so he had a short game shot. So and he's sure game is probably slightly weaker. Part of this game is what he'd say.
Speaker 2:So now we're sort of emphasizing that you got to hit the green within five or you're going to have to get it up and down to save your part. So you know it's, and we're designing this sort of stuff all the time and, yeah, in in, in this player performance, online player performance camp, we give you all these games and, I think I think, the gold, because you know I got to. Well, really, I was going to say young children, but they're growing. One of them just had their birthday this week, eight years old and 10 years old. But one thing I've seen with them is if we get the math book out, we start talking I don't know maths, they're not interested. But if you have an app which is a game, which involves math, they love it. So the more you can gamify things, probably the more engagement you get, and the more engagement you get, the better focus you get. The better focus you get, the better productivity you get.
Speaker 3:You know I like your. I really appreciate your approach. You take the complex and make it simple. You basically want to keep your players in the stretch zone without them knowing about it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly. Well, that's very well said, Justin. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 3:So can you share a little bit with us about the Elite Performance Coach Certification Program?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean. So that was, if you like, and that's how I've been fortunate to meet great coaches like yourself and I mean that's been a wonderful journey because, you know, in the coaching world certainly I mean you said at the outset that you know, I mean I've been a coach 30 years and actually it's a little bit more. It's 35 years and time flies. I still feel a young start heart, but obviously I'm not when I look in the mirror. But one thing certainly, in the first half of my coaching journey, it's all alone, you know, and you like, in that boat, rowing on your own.
Speaker 2:In those days there wasn't much internet, there wasn't, you know, YouTube or nothing. So is the golf magazine once a month reading you know what the best coach would be talking about. And it was a lonely journey. And you know, since I've been able to do that leap performance coach certification course, connect with other coaches I think it's 35 countries now and people like yourself, justin, and to discuss and discuss coaching ideas and to share ideas, to network. Yeah, I mean it's been wonderful and you know, I feel very fortunate and I've gained, you know, gained way more than I've given in terms of talking to coaches like yourself and you know, picking up different ideas, different concepts, and being able to, you know, pass those on to the players. Can you share?
Speaker 3:with our listeners. Some of the guests lecturers, if you will that have come on program.
Speaker 2:We try to get a cross section of lecturers within that program. So I mean one I really like is Dr Paul Shemp from the University of Georgia, who studied and researched what great coaches do, whether that's in golf, whether it's in other sports, and you know from a scientific perspective. And then he delivers his distilled findings. And you know he worked with the Swedish professional team for a number of years, so he's got good tour experience as well. So people like that. But I tried to get a whole cross section of people. You know Mike Kansky I'm very close to Mike Kansky recently gave a putting lesson last week to Wyndham Clark and he went to win us coaching us talking with Mike this morning. And you know Mike Kansky travels the world coaching, on tour putting, so he's someone who delivers with us and so we've got all these different specialists and experts in a variety of topics, of which I feel as a coach, you know if the more we know, the more tools we have in our toolbox to help you know, the more variety of players that we face.
Speaker 3:Another guest lecturer that I was very impressed with was Cameron Smith. Smith's coach, grant Field. So that's kind of yeah, that's the kind of standard of lecturers that we have on the coach certification program and it comes in three levels. Can you just shed a bit of light on the differences in those three levels?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so it's a three level journey. We have elite performance coach certification, level one course, which is eight webinars, and what I found with that one, that's quite a good introduction one, because a lot of coaches, like I was as a, as a young coach, think it was. You know, it's all about P4, p6. Don't get me wrong, p4 and P6 play a huge role in how players perform. But there's a whole, there's a lot, much more than that as well, and so we're sort of really trying to, if you like, shape the thinking of the coach away from only instruction to actually seeing them seeing themselves as, if you like, a 360 degree coach.
Speaker 2:Then we move that journey on and the level two course, which is again eight webinars, and finally in the master course, which is 10 webinars, 10 different lecturers or experts in a whole variety of fields, and so hopefully we're arming those coaches with as much tools as possible so they can really help their players more and develop their coaching careers. And you know I get just as much pleasure from, you know, one of the past coaches sending an email saying listen, I've just got a position as national coach now in whatever country or regional coach, or I've got my own academy now and you know which is my dream? And she's telling me their stories and I think, yeah, that's very rewarding. And yeah, I mean, not only as a player did I make a lot of mistakes, I made a lot of mistakes as a coach as well, and so hopefully, you know, the more you can help others, the better that is.
Speaker 3:I really like the term you used earlier 360 degree coaching. It's not just about technique, is also not just about mental game. It's really a little bit of everything, just like a great meal you got to have a good starter, good means and good desert, yeah. And I think a lot, a lot of coaches don't realize that and those who realize it don't necessarily know where to go for help.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and yeah, it's a great analogy, justin, exactly. Yeah, I've probably been focused a bit too much on the desert side, but, but no, we're excellent Now. That's a really good analogy. And yeah, you've not only got starter, main course and dessert, then you've got the different ingredients in each of those meals and, and the way you cook it as well is critical, isn't it? Cooking in the right amount at the right time, with the right ingredients? And that's the art of coaching, if you like, and I think that's why we, all you know, I say to the coaches like yourself, who are already great, great coaches, I really, you know, hopefully we can be a better coach next year than we were last year and the year after, because we're all on that journey and we're, all you know, open to learning and, and hopefully you know, gathering new things which can then help our clients not only perform better, but also perform better quicker.
Speaker 3:Where can our listeners find out more about you and the products that you offer?
Speaker 2:Yeah I want to direct them to is maybe my Instagram page of Jonathan Wallet that's. Wallet is in Perth, w A W R E W T, and from there you know there's a link tree where they can go to all these. Find out about the online performance camp, the coach certification course, my website, elite coaching dot com, and other things, and send me an email and we'll get back to you within 24 hours. Show you know based on what you're interested in. And, yeah, anyway, we can help. We're there to help.
Speaker 3:Jesse, any last questions for the master?
Speaker 1:No, this is fantastic. The whole time I'm listening and, jonathan, your website is fantastic, absolutely fantastic. And here's a dumb question in closing, people from the US that are interested in buying any of the workbooks that they have no problem going on to the website and purchasing those correct, yeah, correct, yeah, okay, all right, great fantastic.
Speaker 2:Okay, thanks, justin. I look forward to the invitation of playing Pebble Beach one day and, yeah, that would be. And my favorite, one of my ambitions in golf now is just to also play Cyprus point. I walked around there years ago but I never played. And yeah, one of my ambitions is to, you know, just down the road from Pebble Beach to play Cyprus point and if I can do that, that would be fantastic.
Speaker 3:I'm sure Jesse would be able to arrange something for you we shall see.
Speaker 1:Thanks, jonathan and thanks Justin.