I DM’d Jordan Spieth. Most say, fire the caddie or coach. I say, train the nervous system
Jordan Spieth captured our hearts when he won the Masters in style at age 21, in 2015.
And when I say style, I really mean it. It’s his Texas handsomeness. It’s a certain calm confidence and poise, juxtaposed against him always talking to his ball. It’s his putting. The cross handed grip, the swaggy forward press with his hands to start the stroke, the understated brown Scotty Cameron putter with only a small top sightline, and a tendency to be a rain-maker from 20 and 30 feet. It all smelled like feel to me. Like power coming from the ground, from within. It’s not mechanical, it’s magical. He is a wizard. And we love him.
I DM’d Spieth last week on a whim. This thought had popped into my mind multiple times, I’m not quite sure why. I said he should train nervous system, and give that some focus. He didn’t respond. Not surprising.
I suppose what I’m doing here is wading into the “what should Spieth do” conversation. Also though, I’m simultaneously wading into the golf training discourse.
The latter has become a leading theme since Bryson Deschambeau definitely became a top-5 player in the world after dominating at the US Open last month at Winged Foot. We all know what happened.
DeRose Method and the Importance of the Nervous System
I’m a golfer, and can identify as a feel player. I’m a scratch, but not a pro. Feel remains important for me, but lucking into the right coach, Marco Rios, in Lisbon, Portugal, was huge for my ball striking as well. He taught me some swing fundamentals that allowed me to compress the ball better, and I was able to go from a 3 handicap to 0 as a result.
My golf doesn’t necessarily qualify me to tell Jordan what he should do. I’m not claiming that. This is just my opinion, and yes, feel. I believe in the incredible power of human intuition.
I do have another element, or vantage point, from which to talk about this nervous system training though. That is, my experience with DeRose Method for a number of years now.
Most won’t know DeRose Method. It’s from Brazil, is about 50 years old, and now has schools all over South America and Europe. The only DeRose schools in the USA, to my knowledge, are in NYC.
It markets itself as a high performance school. It is “yoga,” but in a very broad sense, much broader than say a vinyasa-style class you will often find in the USA. It encompasses breath work, meditation, strength, flexibility, community, and lifestyle. On the lifestyle side, for example, it espouses no alcohol or drugs, and no meat or fish. On the community side, I can say from personal experience that it is very tight knit, and special. The relationships at these schools become very strong. In my experience, in this community sense, it’s the complete other end of the spectrum from transitory US-style yoga classes.
My point about DeRose is that it has been extremely helpful for me. It helps build and train so many worthwhile positive human attributes. For me, the big thing is helping with emotional stability. In turn, it positively affects everything I do in life.
One of my major learnings in DeRose is around one’s nervous system. I realized how hyperactive my nervous system was, how stressed, tight, glands overworked, pain, fatigued…when in that state, you’re simply going to get less ideas, have less stamina, be less creative, and be more vulnerable emotionally. Also, by allowing the nervous system to become and stay calm, internal growth and development is possible. If you do this consistently, the internal development seems to compound. Easier said than done, but I’ve seen it. Huge, huge differences.
The Subtle Signs You Pick Up On — Body Language, Overthinking, Confidence, Stamina
The reason Spieth comes to mind in connection to this subject, I think, is he seems to get exhausted emotionally. It certainly seems like a cycle of sorts: grind your ass off to practice, train, prepare, play, and travel, not get the results you want, and then turn around and do it again week after week.
To me, the ways he talks to the ball and to himself on the course seem a lot more brooding than it used to be.
Others have said, and probably many agree, you can kind of see the wheels turning in his head on the course. He’s thinking a little too much.
His press conferences have become less positive-spinny than they used to be in the last 2 years as well. He used to always say, “I can feel I’m really close and heading in the right direction.” At the US Open at Winged Foot last month, he just conceded he wasn’t that confident and wasn’t quite sure what the problems even were. He shot +14 in 2 rounds and missed the cut.
While on the subject of press conferences, he is a little too eloquent and loquacious for my taste these days. I think the same about Rory. This one is hard to defend and write about in a way. It really just boils down to my Spidey senses. All I can say is they fall a little on the side of too honest and too nice sometimes. Sometimes you just want to see the ferocity, the thing in them that makes them dangerous.
Last year, everyone talked about his poor Saturday scoring average, how he kept fading on Saturday after a good start. To me, that’s stamina. He grinds so hard on Thursday and Friday, then his reservoir has less on Saturday.
It smells like a cycle that wears on him under the surface. Maybe he thinks, I’m just going to work my way out of this hole. He is known as the consummate grinder who will never mail it in. But, in this case, I think a structural change would be more impactful.
Most Commentators Say Change the Caddie or Swing Coach- to Me, It Starts with Questions about Non-Golf Training
Most people I’ve heard talking about this have either said he needs a new caddie or he needs a new swing coach.
I don’t think those solve the underlying issue with him, and I think he knows it. If not, he would have already made those changes. He has won big with those pillars in place.
I think changing the caddie or the coach is akin to Manchester United or Barcelona firing one coach after another. Temporary bump with the new guy, maybe, but the underlying problems remain. In Man U’s case, it’s a lack of a Director of Football, overpaying for players, spending on the wrong positions, lacking a clear big picture vision of what kind of team you’re trying to build. But that’s a story for another day.
To me, like I said, it’s structural with him. The key words are, “with him.” It’s not his swing. And I don’t think he’s a classic “headcase” either that needs to call Dr. Bob Rotella.
The words I’ve used to get at the point are “nervous system.” This is an approximation of the place to start, in terms of training. Remember, all the systems are linked.
So to reiterate, the structural question I really have, and would focus on, is around his training regimen.
The Best Golfers are the Best Trainers
Now really, we have no idea what his personal training regimen looks like. One assumes he has a full-time trainer. We know he works out and has a nice gym- we’ve seen it on Instagram. He probably works out a lot and consistently. He’s a professional athlete after all, and he’s a diligent worker.
To the naked eye, he looks like he’s filled out a little bit relative to his 21-year old self, but honestly, not a ton. I’ve seen him hit some drives with some pop- he’s improved his distance a little. He’s not doing nothing.
But we wouldn’t say there’s been some physical transformation, right? If he took some huge leap or step with his training, it seems like we would have heard about that story from the golf intelligentsia by now.
Here are the 4 best players in the world right now, no question about it: Dustin Johnson, Bryson Deschambeau, Justin Thomas, and Rory McIlroy. Koepka is in there if he’s not injured. So that’s 5. What do we notice about this crew? Awesome talents of course, but we also know for a fact, a cold, hard, keep-it-100 fact, that they are awesome trainers. We see the footage, we hear the stories. And yeah, we can see it on their person, right?
Winning on Muscles Isn’t the Only Way to Win the Training Game within the Game
I’m not saying Spieth needs to go full Bryson.
The training conversation related to Bryson and Brooks is centered around muscles, speed, and distance. Distance is a huge practical part of the game today, there’s no denying that. But to me, what training is also about is confidence.
One thing I am constantly reminded of in my pursuits is that, confidence is a trailing indicator. Confidence is a result of work. You start with courage, you get down to the training (work), and you earn confidence. Confidence is a form of success. You leverage this cycle every day, it accumulates and compounds.
So you attack the lack of confidence (overthinking) problem with training.
So the key question again— what training are we talking about?
That’s where I come back to this umbrella term “nervous system.”
As an Under Armour athlete, no doubt Spieth’s gotten a copy of the TB12 Method book, right? Has he integrated any of the Brady toolkit into his regimen? To what degree?
Has he taken the pledge to give up coffee, alcohol, strawberries, and sunscreen?
I kid, but there’s no kidding about Brady’s results. If you take a hard study of Cristiano Ronaldo as well, you see very similar themes in how they train.
Mentalization, meditation, breathwork, yoga, pliability, strength, functional training, high intensity training, anti-inflammatory lifestyle, and rigorous recovery.
That is 10 areas. Is he doing all these things? Is he throwing the kitchen sink at it?
To win on the course, you first have to win off the course.
Level Up- I want to See THAT Spieth
Brady has Alex Guerrero as his full-time, multi-aspect trainer. Maybe Spieth needs his Alex.
I think if he did rigorous nervous system work, he could create the space, patience, and calm which would allow him better stamina, more free-flow, more confidence, and in the end, better results.
And here’s 5 bucks, put on some weight, will ya? Haha.
Spieth will be back. He’s an artist, not a robot. Get the right trainer with focus on nervous system, meditation, anti-inflammation, and build some strength. I can’t wait to see that version of Spieth.
Hook em.
