Developing Junior Golfers with James Hong

In this insightful interview, golf instructor James Hong shares his coaching philosophy, the importance of long-term development in young athletes, and how parents can support their children's growth in golf and life. Discover practical tips for nurturing enjoyment, resilience, and independence in young players.

Transcript

Raymond Prior (00:01.098)
Welcome everyone to the Golf Beneath the Surface podcast. My name is Raymond Pryor. Your co-host with me is my co-host, Chase Cooper. Chase, you guys got the... everything bat... you batten the hatches? Hatch the batten... What do you gotta do down there when a tornado is about to come through?

James hong (00:18.455)
Okay.

Chase Cooper (00:19.936)
You know, it's funny, I get that question a lot from my students in Houston, where they're like, you moved up to Oklahoma, there's tornadoes all the time. And in my 41 years of life, I have battened down the hatches one time where I've actually battened, where I've actually gone into a storm shelter because of a tornado. There are

Raymond Prior (00:33.568)
Battened. The verb is batten. Thank you. Batten.

Chase Cooper (00:43.202)
They're very popular on the news. and other than if you lived in more Oklahoma where an F five went through the same neighborhood, like three times in the span of 20 years, which is just unbelievable. It's really not as scary as, it makes it seem. I'm, I'm actually more scared of hail than I am that I am tornadoes. so no, we didn't. That's right in my.

James hong (01:00.744)
.

Raymond Prior (01:01.888)
That might dent that big truck you got.

Chase Cooper (01:05.676)
my big old head and all that. Yeah, it's just, it's not good. it's funny you say that too, because my mom called me the next day and was like, Hey, did you guys get storms? And I'm like, what's what's storms? And she was like, there was like a tornado and around Oakland. And like, I didn't even didn't even know about it. So we just, we just slept right through. So not

Raymond Prior (01:20.136)
Okay, well the good news is you're tall enough you could see it coming long before everybody else is. Right.

Chase Cooper (01:23.502)
That's exactly that's exactly right. Hey, I've got to I've got to make an announcement to and our our friend that we have on this on as a guest today mentioned this before we hopped on the air but I'm a month sober of my Coca Cola addiction. A month sober a month a month sober. I will say and my student that I made the bet with is was here this morning when I came and he had a 32 ounce Coke from Sonic and I was like, but I did I did

James hong (01:31.016)
I'm sorry.

Raymond Prior (01:40.214)
Get some!

Chase Cooper (01:52.364)
full transparency, I took a sip in it and now James has a Coca-Cola bottle right in of my face right now. But I will say I took a sip and it tasted a lot sweeter than I remember it tasting. And I wasn't, I'm not hooked. I'm not back on. So I'm gonna keep, I've got water full transparency in my Yeti cup right here and I'm gonna keep pushing it. So one full year.

Raymond Prior (02:16.532)
Yeah, your brain and your taste buds are resetting.

Chase Cooper (02:21.262)
They are and you said they were going to and and you know, I would like to say the day before I made this this decision, I had four 32 ounce drinks and you know at six seven and over 200 pounds that's is that just that's just a normal amount or a normal amount comparison is like maybe one for the normal person. Is it because I'm so big I could drink more maybe no, I'm just kidding. It was it was a terrible. It was a terrible addiction. That's exactly right. I was trying to justify it but I couldn't do it.

Raymond Prior (02:41.3)
No, that's addiction dude. That's addiction. Yeah. No, that's good. Well, we are supporting your change for a healthier lifestyle and less of a dependence on sugar and caffeine. So good for you, dude.

Chase Cooper (02:58.99)
So our next guest is a good friend of mine and we have a fun banter back and forth every time we see each other. And so I'm just gonna go ahead and say this now, Honger, if I'm a little bit edgier than normal and a little grumpy, it's not only because I'm struggling from the addiction, just the lack of sugar, but also to the fact that you're egging me on already. So I'm just gonna go ahead and say that before we actually get to the official introduction.

Raymond Prior (03:21.1)
Yeah, yeah, So our guest today is James Hong, AKA Honger, who is now trying to trigger Chase into drinking soda by holding up soda bottles in his frame, for those who are in the listening medium of this. James, please introduce yourself. Tell us a little bit about yourself, where you're from, what you do. Please give us a little bit of that.

James hong (03:45.819)
Sure. I'm the director of instruction at Harborlinx Golf Course, which is located in Port Washington, Long Island. It's directly between Manhattan and Bethpage Black. So you see us on a map. We're dead smack center of those two. And I've been here for over 20 years, director of instruction for the last, I think it's the last seven years. And we're a public golf course. We're located right smack dab in the middle of country club heaven here.

on Long Island, so we get the best of all worlds here.

Raymond Prior (04:18.988)
Outstanding. There's a major on Long Island this year, if I remember correctly. One of the majors for the rest.

James hong (04:26.522)
This year, there's a couple of things going on out here and I think it'd be interesting to find out. Beth Page is gonna be hosting one of the ladies majors, which is gonna be a lot of fun. We're all scrambling for tickets already, trying to call in some favors and see if we can head on out there. So hopefully my favors will work out.

Raymond Prior (04:38.614)
Mm-hmm.

Raymond Prior (04:47.37)
Yeah, right on. James, tell us a little bit about your path to where you got. Just give us a bullet point of your history, just to give a little context for those listening and watching so that they can kind of get an idea of the history behind some of the stuff that we'll talk about today.

James hong (05:03.47)
Yeah, I mean, like a lot of us, like I started playing golf at a really young age, playing with my dad was an opportunity for me to spend some time with him on Fridays. He was, he was a college professor, so he didn't have any class or he had a morning class on Fridays. And then after school, he would pick me up. We'd go to local golf courses and play till dark. And, and so that's, that's kind of like how I started into it. And when I was playing, it was the stone age. we had wood drivers and stuff.

So it's not like today where you see a bunch of juniors on the golf course. Basically, if a junior showed up at a golf course back then, was, everybody's going like, God, this kid's gonna slow us down, right? Today, a junior shows up, everyone's like, this kid's gonna show us up. He's gonna embarrass us. So it's totally different world. But that's how I kind of got into the game itself. And then I had actually been coaching another sport and was actually to the point where I was a coach for

Raymond Prior (05:45.516)
Ha

James hong (06:00.048)
for two college teams. so those that know me, it was a sport of fencing. And so fencing, an individual sport, the way things are coached, the way things are developed, very similar to golf. And so I was working at the local driving range here and I befriended the staff there. They had me coming in on the weekends, doing club repair, basic stuff. And then it just kind of grew into working in the pro shop and stuff. And what happened was...

They were running a special in the pro shop. was basically if you bought, and this is back in the day of Callaway, great big birth is biggest big birth is and stuff like that. And it's like, Hey, if you bought a set of iron, if you bought a set of irons, you got a free half hour lesson. If you bought a driver or a set of woods, you got a free 15 minute lesson. And it was literally free. So none of the instructors there wanted to do it because they weren't going to get paid for it. And so.

The lead instructor there was a good friend of mine says, don't you just give him all the James? He already knows how to coach something. So I would do it. And then he would come up to me afterwards and say, we have a little problem. People are signing up asking if they can sign up for lessons with you, but you're not an instructor. So we had a good laugh about it and stuff. And eventually they, they had a sort of like the certification process with, Jimmy Ballard at the time, Colbert Ballard golf schools. And so they were nice enough to include me in that we all flew down.

went through that process of getting to meet him and get, know, that was my first certification in the golf world. And that kind of started things rolling. That instructor moved on, started a small academy at a local golf course, called me up one day, say, hey, you want to join me over here? I joined him over there, became his first assistant teacher. And then a year later, he said, Hey, I'm going to start a second school down in Florida. You run the one up here in New York.

I'll run the one down in Florida. You can come down during the winters when the season's over. And we'd started doing that. And ever since then, then all of sudden one day I got a phone call and said, hey, Harborlinx is looking for some teachers. Are you interested in interviewing? And I went over there for an interview. Didn't think I was going to get the job. And all of a sudden I'm sitting there and the GM is going like, turns to the assistant GM. So what are our next steps? And the guy goes, I'd like to offer him the job right now. I was just sitting there going like.

James hong (08:19.301)
Like this, like what? So, and then next thing you know, it's 20, 22, 23 years later.

Raymond Prior (08:25.9)
Difficult to let go of fencing.

James hong (08:30.132)
Very difficult. There are times when I feel the urge, like, hey, maybe I'll go back into it, just have some fun with it, and like kind of do the senior circuit and stuff. you know, it kept me in shape, but I realize now how taxing it was on my body, especially my legs, because me walking around, almost not a day goes by where somebody goes, why are you limping? I'm like, I'm not limping, that's the way I walk.

And a lot of it comes from all of the training that I did with that sport. But I do miss it,

Raymond Prior (09:03.116)
Yeah, okay.

Take us through a little bit of your, I'm going to use the phrase coaching philosophy. There are many different swing philosophies and different principles that people work from, from not just what they're teaching in the golf swing or putting stroke or whatever, all the way to how they like to interact with, the people that they're teaching, perhaps even with parents, or if you're coaching teams, what the team climate and or developmental models. So I'm just going to put a big wide net out there. Just take, take us through a little bit of your coaching philosophy and, and, know, kind of the, some of the pillars that's built upon.

James hong (09:38.29)
Yeah, I think, you know, kind of like if we just throw it all out there, if we're talking about beginners, it depends on the age group. So we offer programs, for instance, for four to six year olds, and it's called the Futures Club. so in that one hour program, a lot of it is just some fitness stuff, coordination, development. Obviously, we're not expecting everyone to look like Tiger Woods or

And we forget that some of these kids still don't know which is their right hand and left hand. So a lot of the instruction that we would give to adults, so to speak, is not going to work because these kids are not going to understand what you're talking about. And so just kind of getting things rolling, coordination, some of the TPI cyclone model that you see with their junior development program, plus some other things. We kind of put them all into a Cuisinart blender and throw them out there and see what works.

And of course we get feedback from the kids, can we do this again and stuff? And yeah, that means it's working. And of course the big thing with junior golf is make it fun. And the thing that I always get on with that is just make it fun, but make it challenging as well. And make it in the sense that this is a difficult game. So whatever level that that person decides to be on, they're gonna have to learn to overcome some obstacles.

when we're doing things with the little kids, especially the young ones, it's a lot of fun, but it's also challenging. But at the same time, we're trying to kind of set the foundation for realizing that you're going to fail, or maybe fail is a bad word for it. You're gonna have to go through obstacles. And it's like, how do you deal with that? And teaching that to the kids right from the start. so understanding what they're going through, showing them basic things.

Raymond Prior (11:23.306)
Mm-hmm.

James hong (11:29.891)
No matter what level we do, no matter what age group, happens is that when we're developing a skill, let's say it's just chipping or putting speed, we then play some competitive games where that skill that we were working on is heavily involved in that game so that they can start to understand what transfer is. And it's not like we give them a book and say, here's transfer. It's just one of those things that's just starting to organically evolve.

Raymond Prior (11:54.57)
Mm-hmm

James hong (11:59.612)
And I'll ask questions, hey, what do think you did really well there? What do you think happened there? And what I try to do is just take away the negativity, so to speak. I don't ask, what did you do wrong? What do you think bad happened there? As I just say, what do you think happened there? What do you think you did well there? And you get a lot of feedback from the way they respond. They may have done everything beautifully.

Raymond Prior (12:06.124)
Hmm.

James hong (12:28.566)
And the way golf is, it's so negative that they go, I don't know, or nothing. So again, there's that thing of just saying like, well, do you think you set up correctly? And I'm talking about still four to six year olds. It's like, you think your feet were okay? Yeah. Well, isn't that a good thing? And just kind of going through that process. And once they kind of pick that up, it's like a snowball effect. And it's great to hear some kid who hits a ball

Raymond Prior (12:41.515)
Mm-hmm.

James hong (12:58.43)
and you're that they're worried that, or you're worried about their reaction of shanking it, and they're gonna be like, that's okay there, I like the way I held my finish. that kid's getting it, we're getting somewhere here. So we do that with all ages and the beginners, for example.

Raymond Prior (13:12.684)
Mm.

Raymond Prior (13:16.694)
So a significant component here of what you're teaching particularly for young people is, first of all, we're gonna put you in a situation where it's not so easy that you can just succeed by just participating. Then we're also.

in response to both successes and failures, we're looking to get curious about cause and effect behind something, what led to it, or what did you do to facilitate a certain type of outcome versus what are some of the things that might've detracted from that rather than just judging something as good or bad, good shot, bad shot, I did nothing. So basically to try to be a little bit more curious and exploratory behind the experience.

James hong (13:52.093)
Right. It's, it's, you know, if I really oversimplify it, it's telling them, you know, just focus on what it is you're supposed to do. Don't worry about what happens afterwards. And one of my common themes with the kids of all ages, especially when it's the first time they're meeting me is it's like, Hey, I'm not your school teacher. This is not a red pen and this is not your report card. And you're not going to see me doing this and then sending you to the principal's office and your parents are going to get called. It's, it's not about that. So.

Because, you know, Chase, you've probably gone through this a million times where you ask a question and you can already see they're trying to process what's the right answer? What is it he wants me to say? What am I supposed to say? And I tell them, it's like, no, I'm asking you because it's, you're helping me learn about you. And, you know, I'm just trying to help you figure things out. So don't get judged here. So then, and that's a big deal.

Raymond Prior (14:46.273)
Yeah.

Yeah, oftentimes when we see children leaning toward where you can see I'm trying, they're trying to produce quote unquote the correct answer or what the adult wants them to hear. It's oftentimes a reflection of them being environments where trying and failing is not actually something they have permission to do. And there's a certain level of judgment and approval required in those environments that they're trying to find via their answer. So it's a difficult thing because a lot of kids grow up in places, not just in their homes, but in the institutions around them where

Trying and failing really isn't something that you're allowed to do or to be curious about. It's something that gets marked with a grade, which is another way of saying a judgment to a certain degree, which again, there's value in that. But at that age, what they're learning is some things are good, some things are bad, and then I got to correct for the adults around me, which can be a difficult learning environment.

James hong (15:20.416)
.

James hong (15:39.667)
And especially in our area, culturally speaking, it's a heavy Asian population here. And so now when you're talking about things like everybody's concerned about academics and all of these kind of things.

what school, colleges you're applying to, everything's about the final result, the score. And so it's very, very hard to educate the kids that this is not that, right? And on top of it, and you guys have talked about it in the past, it's the parents as well, it's educating the parents of, look, what you do in your home and how you treat education and classwork, that's your world. But in terms of this environment here, that's...

That's detrimental to their long-term development.

Raymond Prior (16:25.996)
Yeah.

James, one of the things we see in the research for development performance with children is that essentially the trend is the earlier your kid becomes a rock star, the less likely they are to be a high functioning adult and a high performing adult. So if your kid is the best five year old golfer in the world, the likelihood of them even playing golf when they're in their twenties is exceedingly low, right? So it's this, it must be good now because that will, if it's good now, then the trajectory later will be what it is, which we know there are so many things that happen between kids being

James hong (16:54.958)
. Yeah.

Raymond Prior (16:57.086)
5 and 10, 10 and 12, 12 and 15, even 18 and 25 that influence performance. So the best five-year-old might be just the biggest kid, right? Or the best 10-year-old might be the kid whose just parents have enough money that he gets to play golf more than somebody else does, so on and so forth, right? Or the mindset that develops behind all of these things. What do you see where children are kind of getting pressure that might disrupt a longer-term developmental arc?

that is not just about high performance, but also about like a developmental enjoyment based relationship with the game. What are some of the things that get disrupted at the younger levels that kind of just sets them off on a not so good? So again, one thing we know is parents wanting their kids to be really good at something right away. What are some other things that you see?

James hong (17:43.025)
Yeah, instant gratification, the peer pressure, parental peer pressure. And, you know, one thing

We like to bash the parents. I do it all the time. If you see me on social media, I make comments about it. But the reality of it is, that 99.9999 % of the parents are doing it out of love. just well-intentioned. It's just a matter of they just don't know what the resources are or where the resources are to get the answer. So the places they're going to social media forums, Facebook forums and YouTube or whatever.

Raymond Prior (18:03.531)
Mm-hmm. Well, it's very well intentioned.

James hong (18:21.167)
And so you don't know the information they're getting or they're feeding off of that, or they're asking other parents who themselves might be poor sources of information. Also, you see the outlier, outlier where one parent was ridiculously harsh with their child and it happened to work and they became successful. that must be the way to do it then. I'm gonna do it that way as well. And again, like you're saying, it's like that may have worked until that kid is even 17, 18.

Raymond Prior (18:36.618)
Yeah.

James hong (18:50.75)
and they got a college scholarship, but you don't know first of all, if that's gonna work with your child. Number one, you don't know what that person's gonna be doing at the age of 24. They may hate golf and not wanna touch a glove again. And their parents, right? So educating the parents, that's important. But as you were asking, that, it's not really clearly seeing that it's long-term development that...

Raymond Prior (19:00.491)
Yeah.

Chase Cooper (19:01.134)
and their parents.

James hong (19:18.111)
What you do at eight years old, you've heard this from a million teachers and million resources. Nobody cares that you're the world champion at the age of eight. Nobody cares that you won this and you won that. It doesn't mean a thing. No college coach in the country cares. So your family does and it's great for a celebration at your favorite restaurant, but that's about it. And by the way, the next week, almost nobody in the family, including the child remembers that they even won that tournament.

It's like a long forgotten memory. So I think it's just letting them know, hey, I don't care if every child in that junior tournament, which by the way is for seven year olds, I don't care that every child is out driving your child by 20 yards. It means nothing, right? It wouldn't surprise me at the age of 12 if your child is either as long as everybody else or is the longest kid now, right?

It's sometimes I have to bring up examples of, remember that, hey, see that kid that everyone's praising that past weekend at that tournament? Oh, did see Charlie over there? It's like, you know, I remember five years ago, everyone was saying how, boy, that kid, he should think about another sport because he's just, he doesn't get it. He's too uncoordinated or something like that, right? Now everybody loves the fact that he out drives. He's the longest driver in the area. So.

long-term development and understanding of that. And it's a process. a lot of times I tell when other instructors are asking me, say that it's a twofer. Normally when you're working with a student or you're giving lessons or something like that, it's you and the student, but it's a twofer because it's the student and the family, right? Whether it's the parents, the grandparents or something like that. But I think those are definitely the heaviest.

obstacles, the biggest obstacles in terms of that long-term development.

Raymond Prior (21:15.691)
Yeah. So those are the obstacles. What is the impact on the children essentially? Like what is the cost to a child who is again, starting golf for whatever reasons they start golf and the peer pressure, the societal pressure, the parental pressure, even just the general pressure of trying to be really good at something right away instead, like what cost does that typically play out as to the child? Both short term and long term by the way.

James hong (21:41.532)
Yeah.

Yeah, I think they start to self-evaluate based on those results and based on what other people are saying. And so if those are always in a negative tone, and when I say negative, I don't mean like you're ugly. I mean, it's just you hit a bad shot constantly telling them what they did wrong. Like I was mentioning earlier, that just weighs on you. It's just another layer, another layer, another layer. And then now you are seeing yourself, that reflects on you.

as a child and you think, oh, I'm not worthy of this game or whatever it is, however you're labeling yourself. so again, going back to the sense of what did you do? What did you do well there? Like, and even when it's one-on-one, it's like, well, what did I ask you to do? And how did you do in that? And it's like, again, everything is negative. So they're like, oh, I didn't do this well. did it like, well, I thought you did great in that. Well, I don't know why.

And then you can see it on their faces like, know what you're thinking. Well, if I did everything well, like you said, how come I didn't hit a good shot? Right. And just because you're not a machine, because this is golf. That's, that's the game. It's, you could be absolutely picture perfect and look better than Rory McIlroy and shank it right into the water. And sometimes what I'll do is I'll just pull out videos on my phone of look at this player, look at this player, look at what they did. Right. And stuff in.

Again, it's a long-term process. Sometimes it doesn't work right away. They'll probably still hang their head. And some kids, get it pretty quickly. So you're just constantly repeating yourself, just like you would with your own children at home.

Raymond Prior (23:23.594)
Yeah.

So if I'm summarizing there, the cost one is to the child learning judgment instead of observation, self judgment, not just performance judgment, good, bad, right, wrong, worthy, not worthy, deserving, not deserving, so on and so forth. And then ultimately what kind of happens too is it kind of sounds like your tone there is saying it kind of sucks the joy out of trying and perhaps failing at times and actually doing what's required to get better at something over time. When this is how, when this is what the demands are from adults and the

James hong (23:50.492)
Right.

Raymond Prior (23:54.407)
the cultural and or environmental criteria are.

James hong (23:56.167)
and

Yeah. And I mean, we all know about the car ride home stuff and whatnot. And I mean, from a personal experience a few years ago when my son was playing some junior golf tournaments and stuff, and I remember getting in the car and it was me learning from that and realizing, yeah, you know what? It's true. What a great experience. I don't even remember what his score was. I don't remember more than one or two shots that he hit.

I just remember standing there going, wow, so cool to see my son hitting these shots. And wow, look at him as they're waiting on the AT box. He's sitting there with the other kids and it's like all of a sudden they're best friends. And like, what a great experience. and I know some parents they're like, oh, it sounds like a cheesy script that I have to say. Well, you know what I did? I got in the car, went and got in the car and I was like, you have fun? And he was like, yeah, it was fun. I was like, yeah, so I had a great time. I loved watching you play.

What I just said now is exactly what I said to him. And we were talking about it and I remember talking about one shot. Wow, that was a great shot you hit and stuff. And that's all we talked about in the car ride. And they said, are you hungry? What do you want to go get? I'm starving. What do you want to eat? And he goes like, can we get, I forgot what we got. And we went and we got food. And I remember as we were coming home, he said, I have a goal. And this was just quiet. He just all of sudden, I got a goal.

Well, what's your goal? Well, today I came in, I forgot what he came in fifth or seventh or something like that, out of 12, whatever kids it was. And he goes, if I can come in better than this, that's my goal for the next time I play in one of these. Okay, great. What do think you want to do? He goes, well, I want to work on this. I mean, that was the conversation. And that was it. And he's like, okay, yeah, so whenever you're ready, we'll take care of it. Good.

Raymond Prior (25:54.005)
Mm-hmm.

James hong (25:54.081)
and stuff and he started really enjoying it, really enjoying it and he played in a few more tournaments and what happened was he just kind of lost interest in it but he lost interest in it on his own merit, right? Because he found something else that he liked better than that so he's devoted his time to that and then as he got older he went back to play golf again and now he enjoys playing golf and it's like that's

Raymond Prior (26:06.986)
Mm.

James hong (26:20.282)
It's like I didn't try to build a tour player there or even a college player for that matter. It was, it's like, Hey, now you're starting to understand why dad likes teaching this.

Raymond Prior (26:28.937)
Yeah. Give us some, we might say do's and don'ts. I know it's a bit of a very kind of like binary.

type of a separation, but give us some do's and don'ts that you've observed for trying to develop children, not just as golfers, but as people who might enjoy playing golf and doing something as you kind of talked about with your son, where they are the main architect rather than us as adults. We're more facilitators. What are some do's and don'ts with that? Everything from psychologically, training wise, the early specialization, the immense amount of reps that we typically push children into. Give us some of the do's and

along the way.

James hong (27:10.749)
Yeah, I think some of the do's and don'ts. Number one, whether you're an instructor or you're a parent, it's talking to the level of the person in front of you. We're not talking to adults here. We're talking to kids.

Like I was saying earlier with the young kids is they may still not understand which is their right foot and their left foot I mean, I still have kids that are doing like this When I talk to them and so I'll ask them. Hey, which is your left hand? Which is your right hand and even if they know the time that it takes to process like if If chase asked me which is your right hand and I go like this

James hong (27:51.652)
Well, what do you think is going to happen if I say, want your right hand to be moving this way as you swing in something that takes 1.1 seconds? If it takes them that long to process what their right hand is, imagine what must be going on when they're thinking about everything in the golf swing. And especially, and we know this from the skill coaching alliance, the internal focus versus external focus.

All of that going on really is slowing the progress down tremendously. So speaking on the level of the person in front of you is turn your belly button, right? Something like that. get that button facing that way or just thinking of simple things on that level. And that's not dumbing it down. That's speaking to the person in front of you. And so if the child understands some higher

vocabulary, then fine, use it. But don't just assume that everything is understood. I think that's number one. Number two is you don't have to correct after every swing. You don't have to give a sports commentary. See what you did there is, and you know what happened there is like, if anything, it might be the other way around where either you don't say anything or if you can't help it and you have to contribute, it's, what do you think happened there?

Raymond Prior (29:02.507)
Mm.

James hong (29:20.365)
What do you think? Like I asked, it's like, what would you do well there? And let them take that over. Let them be the commentator of their own sports highlight instead of you dictating everything. And once you start doing that, that you'll start to notice that the relationship between you and the child really changes. And again, like I said, I'm talking to both parents as well as other instructors. Those are the two biggest things.

Raymond Prior (29:48.492)
Yeah, if I could just kind of pull a thread on what you said there about adults feeling the need to say something again, like it's a really important point for us working with children. Like, am I saying something for their benefit or for mine? Right. Like, am I trying to alleviate my anxiety by providing some type of commentary or judgment, or am I trying to help them? And oftentimes when we, when we start to speak up as parents, you can kind of think about it like as a dividing line between the sample size that this kid gets to experiment freely with. Right. So if I,

speak up after every single shot that someone does, I'm only giving them sample sizes of one. And for anybody with basic statistical knowledge, you cannot make any real conclusions or learning from a sample size of one. It's just way too small. Right. So as adults, like just shut up for a little bit, let them work through a couple of shots and see if they don't course correct on their own, not because they couldn't do it, but because they just needed a sample size large enough without somebody else telling them what to think and feel about it.

James hong (30:24.725)
.

Chase Cooper (30:35.15)
you

Raymond Prior (30:47.741)
And then if the sample size gets large enough, probably 5, 10, 15 golf balls, maybe then also insert with, what do you think about the sample size? Or what have you learned from what we, more than let me just tell you what it is, which one gives them enough time to experiment and then to trigger some self-directed reflection and learning rather than, let me tell you what was wrong with that before you go do the next one. So you can make sure to get that one right, which we know a very limited learning model there.

James hong (31:16.367)
Yeah, I mean, I.

For me personally, I call it the seven ball rule, which is the first two balls, your brain and body are too busy going, this is weird, this sucks, this is terrible, this feels awkward, this feels wrong. The next two balls, your brain's going, all right, I kind of see where we're going with this, but it still feels bad. And then the next two to three balls are kind of that adjustment. And somewhere in there is gonna be a pretty decent shot. And it's kind of like, you know, it's not so bad after all.

Raymond Prior (31:20.799)
There you go.

James hong (31:47.262)
and just, but giving them those five, six, seven, eight balls to process that over and over again like that, a grouping, so to speak.

Raymond Prior (31:56.406)
Yeah, right on, very good. Okay, chase over to you before I bogart this entire conversation. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Chase Cooper (32:01.452)
No, I love it. I've just been nodding the whole time. Like, yep, yep, yep, yep. I would say too on the seven ball roll, especially when you give them a new task, if you're trying to get them to do something, you know, and I do think it's so important for parents to, as Raymond said, shut up. That's the first time I've ever heard him heard him be that mean on the podcast. was like, Whoa, whoa, do less. That's right. just let the kid figure it out, you know, and, and, and I always go back to like, Hey, what are the goals on this shot? What are you trying to do? Well, I'm

Raymond Prior (32:19.221)
Do, mean, do less, do less.

Chase Cooper (32:30.904)
trying to hit a little draw and hold my finish. Okay. Did you hold your finish? No. Why? No. Right. Like, okay, let's go back. Let's, let's give me a good one. Hold your finish. Did you do it? Yeah. Where'd the ball go? Well, not quite where we wanted to, but did you do what you're trying to do? Yeah. Kind of. And then you kind of just layer it from there. Right. One thing I want to, I want to go back on and doc, I'd like your take on this that I've noticed just with my own coaching and, and, and James, you asked about right-handed left-hand and like, do they understand what, which hands, which, and sometimes in you were

James hong (32:45.168)
Yeah.

Chase Cooper (32:59.084)
You even did a little deal where you put your fingers up and you made kind of two L's with your left hand and right hand. And I see it still with high school girls, a bunch. And I'm curious from your perspective, if you see the same thing, I don't ever see boys do this as much, but I've got a ton of girls that do this still. And then doc, I'm curious on your take, is there any scientific research about directional differences as far as males versus females?

James hong (33:07.869)
Yes.

Raymond Prior (33:24.329)
Not that I'm aware of. We might.

Chase Cooper (33:27.672)
Cause it's joke with a lot of my high school girls that I just give a hard time to. Like I will say, hey, start this ball right, curve it left. And they will turn and face the target and put L's up and figure out where their right hand is and where their left hand is.

Raymond Prior (33:31.093)
Yeah.

Raymond Prior (33:39.018)
Yeah, not that I'm aware of.

What I might point to again, this is just kind of a bit of broad, relatively informed guessing is that we oftentimes get boys started in sports sooner. And we talk about things in ways where there's directions of stuff. They tend to spend more time watching sports on TV too. So there's just kind of a couple of different added channels. It's not that girls don't like if you're looking at a bell curve. It's not that no girls are in sports early and watching them on TV as much as boys, but on average there are far more. And on the other end of that learning or that bell curve,

Chase Cooper (33:52.078)
right left and yeah.

Raymond Prior (34:12.301)
of the dudes that are watching on the very, very end, there's almost no girls in a ton of sports really early doing everything and watching them on TV constantly. So there is some under the first two standard deviations, but almost none. So that would probably just be like one maybe contributing factor, but overall I'm not familiar with any research on just like boys and girls differences delineating left and right.

Chase Cooper (34:37.41)
James, have you noticed a pattern there?

James hong (34:39.244)
Yeah, I noticed that and

I'm kind of curious if it's coincidence or not, but it seems to be happening, as you said, with these kids that are now in middle school or high school. And I'm wondering if it has to do with us going through COVID, that time where we were quarantined and didn't have that social interaction. And so a lot of things were learned in home, which means they may not have been learned or the time that it takes to learn it was significantly slowed.

because instead of us doing it just through social interactions like sports or in school, it was you, mom and dad. And if mom and dad are not standing there and telling you all of these things, you're not learning about it right away. And it's also processing information. So yeah, I see it a lot in kids. And even if they don't do this, it's like, hey, can you take the club in your right hand and they grab it with the left hand and I say, no, your other right hand, something like that. And then they get it.

And like you do, I tease him. It's like, really? We're still here? We're still doing this? Okay. Right.

Chase Cooper (35:41.262)
Yeah, always, always. And it really, was funny because it hit me because I had a girl in Houston that did it. And her dad sent me a meme on Instagram one time and it was a girl in Drivers Ed and they hit a stoplight or whatever. And the teacher said, turn right. it like the video zooms in on her and she pauses for a second and puts her right hand, the two L's up and

Raymond Prior (35:44.715)
You

Chase Cooper (36:02.913)
And her dad sent it to me as a joke. And since then I've noticed, I mean, I've got multiple high school girls here that still do it. And I joke with them and I'm like, you yeah, like you said, really, we're still doing it. But I just didn't know if there was any research to back any, any of the, the direction, cause it's obviously they know they're right and left, but when they turn in different planes and they've got it, they're facing one way, but have to hit it right, going in a different direction. That's when it starts. The confusion starts to set in sometimes. So I just didn't know if, if we'd seen any research on it.

James hong (36:31.455)
Yeah, it's like if you tell them to move one one part of their body and something else is moving instead and it's it's like can you turn your hips and their heads going like this is like that's

Listen, when you think about being a doctor, don't. Or let me know where you're practicing, because I ain't going there if you think that's your hip or something.

Chase Cooper (36:43.948)
Ha ha ha ha.

Raymond Prior (36:47.307)
and

Chase Cooper (36:50.348)
That's awesome. My first question I have for you, James, is what does, this is kind of a big bold question, but you've touched on some of the things that parents can't, like, you I thought your experience with your son on the drive home was fantastic because you just let him direct the whole thing and you just asked him some questions and he went where he wanted to go. And I think him having the control was huge there, but what does a healthy parent-player coach relationship look like to you?

James hong (37:21.749)
Yeah, that's a great question. I think a lot of us, when we give lessons, and I used to be this way, it's like, no parents are allowed, right? That's my time with your child and everything. And I used to be very like, no, you wait over there until we're done. And then I did a 180, just simply because who are these kids gonna be spending most of their practice time with? 99 % of the time it's with the parent. And I'm already creating this adversarial relationship.

And I remember one dad would be on the range, we were on the other side and he had his binoculars out and watching. And so was like, that was kind of like a little flag for me, like, you know, maybe you ought to rethink this. so bringing them in, but telling them, hey, no problems with you being there, but I want you to observe because this is what I want you to do with your child. And you're training them, as I mentioned, like, all right, when he or she's doing this, this is what I want you to look for.

that kind of thing and just educating them. So the process for me is that you have to educate your educate the parents and not in a confrontational way. And you want to do it in a proactive way, meaning don't wait for them to come to you and say, hey, I saw this this YouTube video. What do you think of this? Instead, if I'm looking at it the other way around, where it becomes me saying,

Hey, I thought you would really like this and having that library already pre-prepared and sending it to them. And so now what they, what they realize is I don't have to look for those resources. I have one in him. He's going to take care of it. And so what'll happen is, is either they're going to get all of that info from me beforehand, or now they realize if they do find something, the tone of the conversation is very different. Now it turns into, do you think

Do you think this is good for us? Do you think this is something I should pay attention to? And I'll look at it and go like, yeah, that's not really the case for you. And they will not waste their time. I'm I'm glad I asked you. Okay, so that's not good. And I say, no, but this one is really good. Got it, thanks. I'll take a look at that. Really appreciate it. That's one thing. I have some pre-developed videos, quick videos. It's almost like a golf tip, but it's for parents. It's like, hey, you might be thinking about this.

James hong (39:44.166)
and then I'll send them off to the parents and give it to them. And for our area, not our area, I'm sorry, our golf course, it's a lot of these kids are not working with me directly. They're not my students, but what'll happen is I'll send this general info to them. If you're interested in this kind of stuff, you might want to look at these two or three links or something. I thought it'd be very helpful for all you parents. Give me some feedback if you think it's really good and that's helpful. And also,

having parents meetings where we get together or we do Zoom meetings now and just have the parents come in and say, hey, listen, I wanted to talk to you about when your kids are playing in tournaments, what to look for, what to do, what not to do, et cetera, try not to talk this way. And sometimes I'm talking, especially when it's parent caddies, it's the frustration level is gonna be ridiculously high. And it's like, so...

There's that correcting every shot. Well, we went over this, we went over this, we went over this, and why did you still do that? No, just let them go through it. You're the caddy. Just hand them the club. Let them make the decisions. And even if your brain is going, no, that's terrible, wrong club, let them hit it. Because you know what? If it turns out it didn't work, that's the learning moment. And that's the moment where later on over a hamburger and some ice cream, you're going,

Hey, what'd you think about that time you took the hybrid from the rough? And that's gonna be a much better conversation with your child than beating them up right there. They already feel bad about the shot, right? And now dad or mom is going, whoa, like it's just, that probably sometimes could be worse than the car ride home, because it's in the moment.

Raymond Prior (41:36.564)
Yes, the parent as a caddy is a complicated relationship, multifaceted. We might, call this in my field, multiple relationships. I'm a parent and a caddy at the same time and a coach and a whatever, and those can get toxic real fast.

Chase Cooper (41:56.654)
Tricky, very tricky.

James hong (41:57.628)
But I'll tell you what also is important is I actually, like I was just talking about parent meetings, I have kids meetings and it could be during the lesson or it could be groups of three or a huge group. And what I do is I tell them the other side of it, which is nobody in this world loves you more than that person right there or the person sitting in the car waiting for you to finish. They will sacrifice their lives for you. They will jump in front of bullets for you.

Believe me, if you're there and you're going through quicksand and you're playing terribly, nobody else in the world wants to run out there and give you a big hug, grab that club from your hand, tell you to go off and say, I'll hit the shots for you. You go over there and relax in the shade. Nobody else wants to do that more than your parents. And you know what? They can't. And I can tell you as a parent, that is the most helpless, frustrating feeling in the world, that you see your child suffering and you can't do anything about it.

So if all of a sudden mom or dad kind of blows off a little bit of steam in that moment, try to understand it's just, it's not you, it's not what happened, it's them, it's the percolators, the lid's gotta come off for about five seconds, right? They still love you, right? And sometimes I'll say this in front of the parents and then I'll turn around and say to the parents, you also have to realize that this is not a 32 year old man that's in front of you, this is an 11 year old.

who's under tremendous pressure. And I'll use the analogy that you guys used in one of your podcasts about imagine being there and you had a bad day at work and someone is constantly yelling at you about what you did wrong at work today. How would you feel? And so having both of them there in that moment and letting them kind of share in that and realize, yup, you guys are gonna be and butt, button heads, but there's still gonna be a hamburger and ice cream at the end of the day. So.

Just understand both of your situations and be more understanding and realistic about it.

Chase Cooper (44:00.33)
I think it's really good that you talk to the kids too. I think it's easy as coaches. kind of just, you know, go hammer the parents on it. You know, I, I will tell my parents, I'm like, look, when you're out there caddying, you're a caddy first and a parent second and like your job is to support your player. you know, they go off throwing clubs or hitting other other players or whatever, you may have to step in and do something about it, but you're, you're caddy first. Right. And it's, it's really, really, really, really difficult to

to do it in that world. And then I tell the player, I'm like, Hey, you're not always right. And your parents aren't always wrong. And you're gonna learn as you get older that you're for the most part, your parents were more right than they were wrong. Then the last thing I would say is like, it's typically much better if the parents have played golf before, because if they haven't ever felt high level pressure on the golf course, if they've never played in a tournament before and felt what bad golf in a tournament feels like,

James hong (44:35.942)
Right.

Chase Cooper (44:57.11)
It's really hard for them to fathom what their kids going through when they're playing much worse than they normally do. Cause until you've played golf and felt it, this, the sports, a different animal than a lot of other, other sports that they've experienced. And it's, it's really hard for them to understand if they've never, if they've never played. So I'm usually happier when I get parents that have come in. Now there can be some double edged swords there, but it's happier when parents come in and they've played at some level and felt the pressure before and felt what it feels like. Cause it's an easier conversation to have.

James hong (45:02.135)
Right.

James hong (45:24.494)
Yeah, I quite often will tell either parents or the kids that it's like you have to understand this is a game of failure, not success. And it's.

If it was a game of success or it was meant to be easy, fairways would be 700 yards wide. The holes would be three basketball hoops wide. There'd be no such thing as sand and trees and whatever. It's like, it is about managing the misses is about managing yourself. It's like you can, we can talk about course management stuff, but at the end of the day, it's like, are you able to manage yourself like in that moment? And,

It's like, are you gonna be 100 %? Absolutely not. But if you're gonna be, let's say 80%, you did a great job. It's not so much about your score, it's how you handled that day, how you handled that moment, right, when you were there. It's real easy for us to be sitting there in the trees and going, why is my son still doing this? Why is my daughter still doing that? It's like, because it's easy for you, you know, sipping on a Long Island iced tea under shade.

stuff like that. And so, you know, just constantly reminding parents and kids of that situation.

Chase Cooper (46:32.044)
Right. Right.

Chase Cooper (46:38.252)
I like your, I agree with your policy on parent involvement. just from the fact that the, like you said, the parents are always going to be there and see, see them and, the car rides rides home. And I think the more that we can educate them on the communication between player and them. And then, you know, just the long-term development side of things, I think is so important, but how do you handle those parents that just can't help themselves where they are obviously, you know, they're hurting their, their, their kids.

James hong (47:08.272)
Yeah, sometimes I mean, I can I can remember three or four instances where I had to just step in there and say, all right, enough. This is it. This is it. Right. And I not that I'm cursing at them or yelling at them, but I talk sternly to them like I'm actually their parent. And I'm talking to them and saying, this is what's going on. Relax. You realize your child is this way. And sometimes I've had conversations with the child beforehand about what's going on.

And when I talk to the parent, I'm going say, do you understand how what you're doing in this particular situation where you're yelling at your child, that's the reason why he is going through this at school or he is going through this when he's doing homework or something like that or social interactions with his friends and whatnot. It's that tie in. And sometimes it's that realization of maybe the parent's going like,

Well, how'd you know about that? I was like, how did I know about that? Your child told me about it. Well, how did I find out? Because you know what's one of the first questions I ask? How was school today? How'd do? How are you? How things going? And I'll have that face-to-face conversation. How many times do you ask your child that? How many times have you asked them, you okay? How many times have you noticed that...

Chase Cooper (48:17.439)
are you.

James hong (48:30.221)
they're kind of down at dinner or something like that, or they're all of sudden they're snapping at you or they're not responding. Are you picking those things up? And how much of it, I don't wanna say it's your fault, but how much are you contributing to that by the way you're acting right now? And I think what also helps is the fact that I'm a parent and I have two boys and they're both, one's in college now, the other one's graduated. So it's like,

Whatever you're going through now with your child, probably I've had some experience with it in the past. And I mentioned being proactive. It's like sometimes I will tell parents stories that like, I'll just say, boy, you know, when my sons were this age, this is what I went through. Did any of you noticing you're experiencing that? You'll see like, yeah, yeah. And again, you're just building that bridge with the other parents. So sometimes when you do are able to step in there and say enough is enough.

They respect that more. This is not coming out of left field. It's like they realize you're thinking about their best interests because you're an experienced parent yourself.

Chase Cooper (49:37.612)
Do you think from your side of it on any of that?

Raymond Prior (49:40.844)
Yeah, well, we can certainly see that the environment that parents create for children is giving them permission to try and fail or not, or we might say to varying degrees. And when children are judged by adults around them, even though logically they can kind of understand this is my caretaker, they love me, what they sense is something different, that it's not safe for me to, and then fill in whatever blank. Tell the truth, fail, fail in a certain way, act in a certain way.

make certain types of mistakes. again, parents are always really well intentioned. They're trying to motivate their kids. But as adults, we really got to pay attention. Why do I need this kid to do the thing that I want him to do and the way that I want to do it? Is for me or is it for them? Because when we parent or coach as adults from our own insecurities, our children are inheriting those.

James hong (50:24.021)
Great.

Raymond Prior (50:32.381)
And they inherit them through their actual lived experience. Right. So it is important for us to one, pay attention to this kid's playing golf. it more about them or is it about me and why? And then also how am I interacting with them? And is it, I giving them the things that I would want my kid to actually have, or am I trying to force them down a path for whatever reasons that I have decided? And oftentimes we start to pay attention that and hopefully have other people around us who kind of point out like, Hey, I'm not so sure that's exactly how you really want.

to be parenting your kid, even though it's well-intentioned, can start to pull that apart. But oftentimes what we see is parents want their kids to be safe and really high performing right now. Certainly the safety part, but in us for them to feel safe, we oftentimes smother them in ways that they are not emotionally safe. And then in which case then for them to maintain their attachment to us, they will sacrifice whatever's on the other side of that, like their own authenticity, the truth, freedom, whatever that might be, which then now

James hong (51:06.886)
.

Raymond Prior (51:32.128)
we can see there's a compromised attachment relationship there. And then ultimately what happens is we push them into a whole bunch of things that maybe they do or don't want to do and often to degrees that aren't actually safe for them. For example, parents are making kids early specialized early now, in part because of the developmental models have become so monetized, even with private equity in some of them.

And if I want my kid to go to Stanford and play golf, well, they better be really good at 12 so the Stanford coach can get them right. So we try to push them. And now they are a massive risk for overuse injuries because they're not cross training. They're in massive types of risk for being isolated and feeling lonely because now they're not participating in sport to also hang out with their friends and interact with other people. But because now it's become an obligation and a job all the way to now.

the way that adults are showing up for me and this now is becoming contingent upon my performance here. So I get one parent when I play this way, I get another parent when I do that. Like those types of things wear on a child and come at a cost and they often start very early because parents are doing something not for the kid, for their experience, for mine for whatever reasons are stemming from my own insecurities.

James hong (52:43.877)
Yeah, I think it's like, what's the end game? It's like, because I want my kid to get into Stanford. So you think by being good at golf, they're going to get into Stanford. It's like,

Raymond Prior (52:46.462)
Right.

James hong (52:53.358)
why don't you just get them a tutor for the rest of their life and so that they could get, you know, 100, 100 pluses or something. It's like, to me, it's like, no, you're not supposed to be playing a sport so that you can get into a college or something like that. You're supposed to be playing a sport to enjoy yourself, to have something that's fun to do, to interact with other kids and friends and whatnot. And you know what? If it turns out you're actually kind of good at this, well, we'll see where it goes, but it's not the other way around. And I think too, what we see is,

At a young age, they see a lot of success, parents tend to think that's going to continue. That rate of climb is there. Exactly. And I was teaching this one girl who from the age of six to nine, I think it was eight, nine, whatever it is. And she played obviously in US kids golf tournaments during that period. She never lost. She won every tournament she entered. And then once she hit about the age of eight or nine, well, it wasn't

Raymond Prior (53:26.345)
Yeah, in a linear fashion, which it doesn't.

Chase Cooper (53:29.24)
Mm-hmm.

James hong (53:50.101)
enter six tournaments and win all six. It was like enter six tournaments, don't win or win one or well, she didn't win any. She enters 11 tournaments, doesn't win any, but you know, she came in top 10 in all of them. What's the, it's fine. So I know the big thing that we worked on with the parents was there is no what happened. Nothing happened. The other kids caught up. Nobody, it's like, she just happened to be here earlier and faster than everyone else. And now through time, through

maturity, everyone's here. Nobody in the world, and I'm talking about including Tiger Woods, was like this while everyone was here and then it just stayed that way.

Raymond Prior (54:29.439)
Yeah. There are a thousand different contributors to development. And like you said, just being the best seven-year-old golfer might mean literally you are just bigger or you had a golf simulator at the house, whatever. And then all the other factor start to start to contribute. And the more factors that start to contribute, the less separation there is between people. Right. And then what happens is now you have a skill division and then you have a mindset division where now as you get to the top of the learning curve, you have to be able to do.

many things really well instead of just one characteristic that you were not necessarily born with. No doubt.

James hong (55:05.889)
Yeah, I've talked to a couple of these coaches who have had who now have tour players, but started with them as juniors like Rick Sessinghouse with more Akawa. And now you have got her up with Jason Birnbaum and asking them, what do you see yourselves doing now with them now that they're at that highest level versus what?

you were doing with them as a junior, and like how much of it has carried over. And everybody at VAST has said this basically, it's like, no, we still do the same stuff. It's just that we realized at a young age that whatever we're talking about doesn't mean you're gonna get it now, right? You're gonna go through these stages of five years from like, I get it now, I see why that's important. Or maybe your body's just not able to do it now. But eventually when you're at this age or this level,

you will be able to do it. Just understand it's going to happen then. It's not something you can force into a hole like that.

Chase Cooper (56:02.734)
Well, one of the things I would add is, and I think there's more research about this coming out now that, we're going to hear more about it in the future, but there's whether it's the federations, whether it's these national teams, a lot of these, a lot of these programs are trying to almost steer some of their players away from college golf because it's such early specialization. Everything with, with that as a means to an end, whether it's

I got to play well to get an AJGAs. I got to play well to get a golf scholarship for my parents. I've got to do this. And then once I get to college, do the college coaches have your best interests at heart or do you have to play the best right this second? So that way their job's not on the line. so there's, there's just not enough. You've, you've made the comment a couple of times and we've talked about it too, this long-term development model and some of the federations that we've, I've started to kind of get some information from like their goals to develop their players until they're 25.

Like they've just got these steps to get them to this age because that's when most males and females quit growing and quit kind of developing. And, and now they're adults and they didn't just rush and they're really specialized to be the best player they could be at 10 or 11. They slowly developed. And next thing you know, they got really good and they still kind of love the pursuit. Most hopefully they love the pursuit, love the game rather than getting so burnt out at such an early age.

James hong (57:17.837)
Yeah, I mean, I was joking around with a couple of the kids where it's like, probably have sent more people away from college golf than, you know, I've had students that could play division one, division three golf where I've either said, don't do it.

It just doesn't fit you. You won't be happy. Or they, through our program, have become independent, well-meaning people where they realize that's not for me. I'm not gonna do it. And of course, their biggest concern is what happens, what's gonna happen when I tell my parents. And I tell them, I you your parents are the most supportive people in the world. They may be a little surprised, I'm not gonna lie to you, but they're not gonna lock you in the basement and say, how dare you.

You know, you're come out when you change your mind. And they're kind of like apprehensive when they tell me. And I'm like, no, that's cool. You don't wanna play? And I just ask them, like, what's your reason behind it? they're like, well, this, this, and this. was like, sounds like good reasons to me. I don't see what the problem is, right? And talk to your parents, don't be afraid of it. They said, if anything else, your parents will respect the fact that you're standing up for yourself and you're becoming an independent person. They will like that.

Chase Cooper (58:31.79)
and you're healthy and happy, you know?

James hong (58:35.304)
Yeah, and I tell them, it's like, you realize you're so good as a golfer right now. If you don't get one ounce better than you are right now, your life is already set. Your bosses are gonna invite you to their clubs on the weekends. Your coworkers are gonna be inviting you out to play with them. The funny thing is, is you're gonna go, you're gonna shoot 78, you're gonna be pissed at yourself. And meanwhile, they're going back to the office going like, my God, did you see, did you see her?

She kicked my ass, oh my god, oh, I don't like that. They're gonna see you as some golf god, you're gonna get all these, your life is set. So what are you worried about? It's like, you don't have to play golf in college, you're fine.

Chase Cooper (59:06.734)
exactly right.

Chase Cooper (59:15.086)
Yeah. So many business deals, especially in the, in where we're at Oklahoma, Texas, all the oil and gas stuff that can be done, you know, through scrambles and all the, all the golf opportunities there. It's yeah, you're definitely right. Um, very, very, very loaded question, but I want, I want you and you've talked about it some, but I want you to kind of organize it into and kind of just review everything you've kind of talked about. Um, for a parent listening, what they've got a five, six year old, what does a great

junior development schedule look like for a kid from ages like six to 18? What does that look like? What's the James Hong development model for that age of kid?

James hong (59:56.441)
Yeah, if you're introducing them to the game, you don't have to run and get 15 private lessons right off the bat. If you want to get them a private lesson, go ahead. But I would suggest if there's a good program there, a group program where they get to see other kids, at a young age, they might be a little self-conscious with what's going on. And so if they see other kids and

making friends through it and going to that. And it's like once a week. If it's twice a week, it's twice a week, but you don't have to be twice a week, right?

Chase Cooper (01:00:29.208)
James, any coach to kid ratio that you suggest?

James hong (01:00:32.903)
Yeah, like ours is six to one small groups. I think we could do seven or eight to one, but I prefer six to one or smaller. Just so if nothing else, safety, just being aware because they're not walking around with like toys. They're walking around with real golf balls and real sticks. So just being being aware of that. So I think just that's good. Introducing them to the game and.

If the program itself has a good reputation for that, that's even better, word of mouth. And I think, are there takeaways, meaning there are things that, there are resources, like I was talking about, the program is saying, parents, here are some things that you can look into to help with your kids, growth in the game, loving the game even more, and they send you some links, positive coaching alliance, or all of these things. And that way, now, like I mentioned, they're being proactive.

they're already providing resources to the parents so they don't have to go out themselves and look for it. And the word of mouth is it's exponential because then other parents are going, we don't know what to do. What would you recommend? Now those parents are going, you gotta go check this out because they have all of that set for us when we walk through the door. So you'd love it, that's perfect for you. So instead of that parent going to YouTube or something, they're coming to you already. I heard about your program.

Right, so for the business model, if you're worried about that, the word of mouth alone is going to make you a very successful program.

Chase Cooper (01:02:06.446)
Yeah, more so I'm curious about like ages and again, these are very generic, but ages six to eight, here's what you'd like to see eight to 10, 10 to 12, 12 to 14. Like again, if it was your development model schedule, what does that look like?

James hong (01:02:19.632)
Right. So, so our program is for the six to nine year olds. It's meeting once a week in the spring and in the fall. It's a once a week class hour and half and going through some basic introduction of things. Again, the kids don't have to be perfect. They just have to be aware of what it is we're working on and emphasizing what it is that they should be remembering and sending off.

Like you could be using some on-form thing or whatever for videos to the parents. Hey parents, this is what your kids should be practicing when they're home. Feet close together, ball in the middle, weight to the left, brush the ground, hold your finish, that kind of stuff. And just sometimes what I'll do is this with our groups is when the parents are coming to pick them up, I'll say like, what did we learn everyone? What's one? What's two? Because you know what happens, they get in the car. What'd you do today? Nothing. Nothing. Did you have fun? Yeah, it's okay.

Chase Cooper (01:03:12.3)
nothing. Yeah, that's

You

James hong (01:03:17.126)
Right, stuff like that. just the parents being able to see, OK, got it. Plus they have the videos, got it. And so there's that environment that you're building. And as they progress, like, they do, do they look like they have they're more interested? They want to be a little bit more serious. Maybe they want to play in junior tournaments or maybe they feel like as a 10 year old, 13 year old, eventually they want to play high school golf. Then.

you can start to have a little bit more of a second tier program, which is basically doing the same thing. It's like they've weekly practices. Yeah. If they're offering like once a week, twice a week, and you want to attend those, go ahead and look at that. We don't try to force things down people's throats, but knowing that these are your options, because you've probably heard this, Chase, we've gone through the beginner's program. What next? Well, here's what's next. Right? It's like, it's like going to school or like a martial arts.

Chase Cooper (01:04:08.834)
You're right.

James hong (01:04:13.222)
like you're a yellow belt, then you're gonna be this belt and giving those options. And like I said, it's not like, well, your kid has to be in our program five days a week and he has to take three lessons a week and on top of that and all of this stuff. Again, there's that monetizing specialization. It's like, that should be the choice of the child. That should be the choice of the parents. Hey, I want more, I want more. Not forcing it to them, right? So if they want more, okay.

I do have one child that comes twice a week for lessons. And I think it's kind of glorified practice, but I could also see why it's happening because when they do practice on their own, they do kind of get, but that's part of the learning curve. That's part of the learning process. But on them, it's like, tell them, I really shouldn't have to see you more than once a week, if anything. And I don't mean once a week in a lesson. I once a week in a group practice. And if you want a lesson every now and then, we'll set up a lesson.

But in this area, it's like you're taking a lesson every week if you want to be good at anything. And so it's like our lesson schedule is always filled because of that. But I think just giving those options to them and seeing what it is and I'll ask the parents as well. So what do you think is going on? What do you think your kid needs more and stuff? And hearing from the parents.

because also by inviting that conversation, the parents are now realizing, as I mentioned, you're a resource. So they can actively come to you with any questions instead of thinking, I don't wanna offend him, so let me ask somebody else and find out. And so that tends to go a lot with club fitting, for example. getting back to your question, I just like to have this...

outline of a program. And if we get the same kids signing up each time, then the program is developing because we're seeing the same names. We're developing based on their rate of improvement. But if we're always getting a lot of new kids with each cycle, then we have a basic foundation in place. Like I was mentioning earlier, where we might be doing, all right, this is an introduction to putting speed, and this is what we're doing. We're gonna work on this, we're gonna work on this.

James hong (01:06:38.18)
And then 15 minutes later, all right, everyone, you're on the blue team. You're on the red team. You're on the green team. And we're to do his putting game and everyone's going to get a chance to put them in the circle. There's the speed that we were working on and they're going to get points for their team. Okay. Winning team is going to get, you know, a sleep of golf balls or something and giving them something as that. But sometimes we don't, we don't offer a reward because the thing that I get concerned about sometimes is if they see something at the end.

Now they're only playing this for getting that award rather than kind of going through the process. And I think it's really good when we play a game and a group wins and yeah, the losers are disappointed, but it's kind of like they're walking off and like, Oh, time for your parents to pick you up. And nobody's nobody's sitting there going like, well, we're the winners. What did we win? What do we get? It's like, and sometimes when they do it, know, you get our undying support and love and affection and a handshake and let's head on back.

Chase Cooper (01:07:40.086)
What if a parent asks you, they've got a multi-sport athlete and they're wondering about when to make a decision. What's your take on specialization and when?

James hong (01:07:49.542)
Well, first thing I want to know is how old is the child? It's 15? Well, what sport are you saying you want to specialize in? And is it actually the sport that you are willing to make sacrifices for? Because you may want to specialize in golf, but you're willing to do the extra work for tennis. So why are you choosing golf? Well, golf, I have a better chance at a scholarship.

Chase Cooper (01:07:52.782)
15.

James hong (01:08:17.929)
I don't know if that's the best reason. I think it's because are you willing to do the extra work? Because once it starts to get to that level, it is for all intents and purposes a job or it's another subject that you have to prepare for in school. And so if you're going to go to that extent, are you willing to do that for this sport versus this sport? That's something that I'll ask any of the parents that are bringing that up. And sometimes

they will say, it's like, no, we've decided it's gonna be golf. It's golf all the way. And for a 15 year old, okay, well now you're telling them this is what you're gonna have to start doing. You're gonna have to start doing this, this, this, this, and you're laying it out. like, I'm not trying to force it on the parent or the child, but enlightening them to things that they may not have been aware of that they had to do.

And sometimes I do get that like, I didn't know we had to be prepared for that. What do we do? And it's, and then again, moving them in that direction as well. There's a lot of nuances there with that. But again, I, like I said, I'm not someone who says, great, you want to be a D1 golfer? Let's go. Let's, let's get out of it. Let's say, this is what we're going to do. See you tomorrow morning at 6 a.m. blah, blah, And then all of a sudden we're six months into it and they're like, I hate this.

I didn't know it was going to be like this.

Chase Cooper (01:09:46.478)
Last question. What's your take on speed and how do you teach speed to your kiddos?

James hong (01:09:56.014)
Yeah, I teach speed as kind of, yeah, do speed training, but also you have to be careful of injury at a young age. Very careful. And so what we might do, for example, if I'm giving a lesson or we're doing practice, it's like, okay, we're almost done. It's time for some, I call it dessert, right? They were working on something and it was frustrating for whatever time. They're like, I chopped top and shanked everything. It's like, all right, it's time for dessert.

and let's pull out your driver, let's hit five balls, let's just see how fast you swing. And up, 55 miles per hour, good. Next one, good, good. Sometimes there'll be a little bit more focused. It might be like, can you make it higher than that? Can you make it higher than that? Can you make it higher than that? Is that as fast as you can swing? Now, if they give me a swing and I say, was that as fast as you can swing? And they go, yes, I will ask them, do you feel like you're gonna get hurt?

Or did something hurt? Did something bother you? And if they say yes, then I say, that's it, we're done. We're not gonna do that anymore. We're gonna, right, I just want, like, can you show me 50 %? And a lot of times if the kid is swinging at 60 miles per hour max, and I say 50%, that drops down, it doesn't drop down to 30, it drops down to like 57. And so I was like, how does that feel? Oh, that felt so slow. Okay, but that's what we're gonna do. We're gonna swing at that speed.

And we're just gonna keep doing that. We're gonna keep doing that. While I advocate speed development, I often worry about the long-term effects. And like, you may look great now, your numbers might be phenomenal, but if you're suddenly tearing up your rib cage when at the age of 14 or 15, it's like, it wasn't worth it at the age of eight or nine. And again, lot of parents are like buying themselves, buying their kids, their eight-year-old child, the latest.

hottest driver because they see 17 other kids in the field playing with that driver. And so it's like, well, my kid is still playing a junior driver and I think I should be getting them the latest, greatest, whatever for more distance. I remember one parent telling me, it's like, well, it's for their personal benefit. It's for their self-esteem because they feel so bad. They're the shortest hitter with a junior driver. And I was very forthright. was like, that's your job too.

James hong (01:12:20.745)
It's your job as a parent is to say, is to tell them it's not about the typical, it's not about the arrow. It's about the Indian that's pulling the string back. It's like, work on this, work on this, because you know what? In five years, they're all gonna be like shocked at how good you are or how far you hit it. So don't worry about today or tomorrow or next week.

Chase Cooper (01:12:43.598)
That's really good. Run your race. I always tell my players run your race. Don't don't and parents to run, run your race, you know, cause it's don't, don't compare to the age compared to the size too. Cause like a lot of times that's, they just haven't grown yet and give them a minute and they'll, they'll catch up.

James hong (01:12:45.441)
Yeah, I like that. I'm going to use it instead. Yeah.

Raymond Prior (01:12:50.405)
Yeah.

Raymond Prior (01:12:59.877)
Yeah. And a word of warning for all adults that when we are trying to give them easy access to self-esteem, we are actually undermining their self-esteem. We are basically telling them, I don't think you can handle something hard or a disadvantage or whatever. And also instead of having for them to look internally, to try to figure out how to think and feel about themselves, we're saying, here's a golf club that will do it for you. So what we're doing is shortchanging an opportunity for them to deal with adversity or

a downward comparison or something and saying, you can't handle it. I'll just give you something to do that. And then let's not be surprised when that trend continues over time, because we robbed them of the opportunities to have to understand. Yeah, you don't have the best equipment, but you don't need that right now because it's not about blank and blank. It's actually about what and and how do you feel when someone out drives you? you feel weaker. Okay, hold on a second. Let's explore that a little bit and understand what this really means.

So a very dangerous thing for parents to be buying self-esteem for their children because you're actually buying more insecurity.

James hong (01:14:05.08)
What's the app that solves the problem?

Raymond Prior (01:14:07.181)
Yeah, that right. Yeah. So the more we use external means to try to regulate an internal space, the more insecure we become and the lower our thresholds become for whatever triggers our insecurities as well. So James, thank you so much for joining us today, my guy.

Chase Cooper (01:14:07.81)
Yeah.

James hong (01:14:25.152)
No, thank you for having me. This has been a pleasure and I was really looking forward to this one. This was great.

Raymond Prior (01:14:30.979)
Right on. Where can the people find you if they want to learn more about you, what you're doing, the programs and the movements that you're involved with, where can they get you?

James hong (01:14:39.756)
Sure, social media, it's James Hong Golf on Instagram and Facebook. And if you're looking for the golf course website, it's www.harborlinks.com. And that's O-R, not O-U-R.

Chase Cooper (01:14:54.594)
We'll, we'll put it in the description and James, even though you're a jerk and you give me fits about my height and my, my Coca-Cola addiction, you sir, are the best. You're one of the kindest people in the industry. You, you deserve all that accolades you've gotten in Europe. You're a junior golf whisperer. So appreciate you coming on and sharing your knowledge and appreciate your friendship.

James hong (01:15:02.165)
Yeah.

James hong (01:15:15.093)
Well, I appreciate the two of you. You guys have helped me so much over the last few years. I can't even thank you. I told Chase, I can't even thank you guys enough for how much better you've made me as a coach and actually as a person too.

Raymond Prior (01:15:28.079)
Well, I'll go ahead and take all the credit for that because Chase really is dead weight on this podcast. But you could pick up the Slack right now, Chase, and tell them where the people can find us if they would like to.

Chase Cooper (01:15:33.742)
Just trying to keep everybody, everybody up.

Chase Cooper (01:15:40.162)
Well, they can't find you because you're nowhere to be found on Instagram or anywhere else, any of the socials. www.btsmindset.com for doc at gbtspodcast and at chase cooper golf on Instagram. Send the DMs. We'll put all of James's information in the description below. As always, James, thanks for joining us. Thanks for listening in. Any questions, any comments, feel free to fire them away to us.

Raymond Prior (01:15:42.681)
Yeah.

Chase Cooper (01:16:10.69)
Doc, we'll see you next time.

Raymond Prior (01:16:12.741)
We'll see you guys. Be well. Thanks, James.

James hong (01:16:14.566)
Thank you.