The Challengers Pia & Lynn

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Lynn Marriott: I think work on a range is extremely overrated, because people can fake it on the range, but you can’t fake it when you get on the course.

On-screen text: The Challengers A series about people who QUESTION. ENGAGE. SUCCEED. Lynn & Pia

Lynn Marriott: I’m Lynn Marriott, and I’m a golf coach.

Pia Nilsson: My name is Pia Nilsson, and I’ve been coaching with Lynn, with Vision54, for 23 years now. So Vision54 is about 18 birdies, and it’s about always looking at the possibilities to go towards that. That’s what we want all golfers to do.

Lynn Marriott: We want people to have a skill set, where they can manage themselves. So that means managing their mind, managing their body, managing their emotions. And of course managing their swing and the technical part as well.

Pia Nilsson: So a question we ask any golfer coming to us is:

Spoken on-screen text: “What do you do when you play great?”

Pia Nilsson: Because they come to us to play great more often.

Lynn Marriott: More people know what they don’t want to do; what’s wrong with their swing than what’s right with their swing. Or when they play really well—what’s going on?

Pia Nilsson: Every human being on the planet, they’re unique, and every golfer, to play good golf, is going to do it in a unique way. So we can’t have a set way: “This is how you play great golf.” But it’s helping each golfer figuring out how they do it best.

Spoken on-screen text: We help people compartmentalize all the different skills they need.

Lynn Marriott: We help people compartmentalize all the different skills they need when they play golf. There’s actually three phases to every golf shot. There’s a future, there’s a present, and there’s a past. So the future is your think box, and that’s where you need to make a decision. Then the present is the play box. It’s where golf happens. It’s where you make the swing or the stroke. Then the memory box is dealing with the outcome. So there’s two things that you’re deciding on in your future of every shot—the actual strategy of the shot and what your play box athletic feeling is going to be. “Let’s hit one more. It doesn’t matter where the golf ball goes, but you’re going to do it with your eyes closed.”

Golf Student—Mia: “Hit the shot with my eyes closed?”

Lynn Marriott: “Uh-huh (affirmative). With the same play box, so you can really stay in it and feel that low center of gravity all the way to the finish.” What actually makes a memory stick in the brain is emotion, and golf is a very emotional sport. So it’s understanding that when I have a positive or negative emotion, it becomes a memory.

Pia Nilsson: To store and celebrate the good shots is essential if you want to be as good as you could be in golf. The brain needs a little emotion for it to store it as a memory. And for the bad shots, it’s very, very important, because we’re all going to hit bad shots in golf, and many think, “Well, yeah, but I need to learn from it.” We want you to learn too, but if you stay more objective, like: “The ball is in the water and I forgot to check the wind.” That’s objective. So I could learn for the future, but I don’t get the storing of memory. So it’s very important for competitive golfers that have to answer to media and sponsors and friends and family. Sometimes they rehash the misses for weeks and weeks and it can really get them.

Kevin Streelman: My name is Kevin Streelman. I’m a professional golfer. I’d say all golfers, all professional golfers, at some point they realize that the mechanics aren’t necessarily everything to good scoring. It’s very individualistic. You’ve got to get into yourself and try to understand why you do what, in tricky situations, in nervous situations, and Pia and Lynn understand that better than anyone. I was top 50 in the world, thinking I have this game down. I was playing great. All of a sudden, come the summer of 2014, it just all went away. I had worked with a coach who I didn’t really agree with, what was going on in my golf swing. I was at the U.S. Open. I missed the cut by a ton. I’m sitting there at Pinehurst Friday afternoon. I’ll never forget where I was, on this bench right above the putting green. Pia and Lynn had come for the week. They sat down and asked me a question I’ll never forget. “Kevin, if you taught yourself, what would you tell yourself about your golf swing?” “That’s easy. Club’s too stuck behind me. It’s a little shut. I need to get it more open. I need to get the club more in front of me. I need to rotate as I turn through. I’ll be more posted on my left side, and I should have the ball very much in front of me with just slight pull cuts.”

Kevin Streelman: They said, “Why do you go see anybody else? Go up to Hartford. Sunday, birdie 10. One-putt 10 and 11, and birdie 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, and 18. Win the PGA tour.” I was the same guy. Nothing changed. I believed in myself. Pia and Lynn helped me do that.

On-screen text: Lynn and Pia have coached players to over 100 TOUR victories. Four #1 ranked players in the world. 10 major champions.

On-screen text: ASK QUESTIONS. BE ENGAGED.

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Lynn Marriott: Every golfer needs to understand that you have to learn to manage your emotions or this game’s going to eat you up.

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