Inside the Mind of Andy Proudman: A PGA Coach

00:06
and welcome to the VK podcast. Ryan Alford, your co-host. My co-host and good friend Chris Hansen down in the VK lounge, as you like to call it, in Miami. A little rainstorm today. We're excited. We talk the gamut of wellness, coaching, fitness, and guilty pleasure sometimes, even if it's been a rare guilty pleasure for me these days, but we're pumped to have PGA Golf Professional.

00:36
entrepreneur and co-founder of me and my golf, Andy Proudman. What's up Andy? How's it going guys? Thanks for having me on. I'm excited to talk about multiple things. Yeah. I'm excited to be on here. Yeah. Andy hit my radar on social media.

00:56
Not into as much golf anymore, but I still, it catches my eye. It's still in my algorithm, let's say, because it'll be in my explore page or whatever on Instagram. And Andy's active on social media and Instagram and I'm sure other channels, which we'll talk about, but doing some fun, fun, unique things on social, but wanted to have him on and talk a little bit about his background, his approaches and me and my golf. And yeah, Andy, maybe we just set the table with giving the audience.

01:26
We obviously, I'm sure with any guests, we could always talk two hours about someone's background and everything else. But we'll let you give the, at least the Cliff notes version of who is Andy Proudman. Well, that's a, that's a big, that is a big question. Um, so I think we'll start really golf has been a passion of mine since I was like 13, I'm now 42 years old and, um, it's just something that I got. I did sports all my life.

01:56
football, tennis, table tennis, everything that you can think of. And then I got to 13 and found golf and it just totally grabbed me. I got the bug and just went all in. Soon as I get into something, I'm all in. So I did that for a while and wanted to, I actually got early into coaching. So I had a mentor, a coach that really helped me with my golf. And at a very early age, probably around 16, 15, 16, I was like, wow, this guy who's coaching me,

02:25
is having such a profound impact on me as a golfer and a person, I'd love to be able to do that for somebody else at some point. So that was like an ignition for me to go, this is what I want to do with my life. I want to be able to coach and do what this coach is doing for me in their lives. So I turned professional around about when I was probably 19 years old with a view to going into the coaching route, set up an academy with my best friend.

02:54
in 2006, after working in the golf industry for a long time, ran a golfing academy for six years where we were coaching individuals for six days a week, one-to-one. And then thought to ourselves, this is great, but this isn't it. Like we want to impact more people and we also want to grow a great business that we can make more money while we sleep and things were out there that we wanted to do.

03:19
that was bigger really. So we actually quit that academy and then went traveling around the world for three and a half months. No plan, no plan of what we were gonna do. We'd already gone into some YouTube stuff. This was back in 2011. And we didn't have an idea of what we were gonna do, but this YouTube thing was floating around. So we traveled literally all the way around the world, having some time out, seeing some different coaches, learning off some different people. And then we got back to the UK in July, 2012.

03:49
And we were like, this is the future. YouTube, social media, this is what we're going to do. We're going to commit to this for the next however long. We're just going to commit to putting out some value out into the world and see what we get back. This is when nobody really was doing it to any certain level. So we just made that commitment. This is what we're going to do. We had no money. We didn't have any income coming in. But we made that commitment to this is what we're going to do. And then fast forward to now, we've got.

04:17
Just around two million followers on social media. We've got a membership platform that's helping golfers all over the world. And we never saw that coming until we got into it. And that led me on a whole path of yes, coaching golfers, but at the same time, needed to develop the skills in order to run a successful business. Being a golf coach and having the knowledge how to help somebody with the game is very different to building a multi-seven figure business.

04:46
So that sparked on a whole journey of self discovery and personal growth in order for me to go, how do I build something great here that's gonna allow me to create more impact, but also create the life that I want? And that's led me to now where we've got a whole team of people back in the UK and me and my business partner, Pierce, are out here building the brand and doing our coaching and yeah, a whole world of other things as well. I love it. And I think Andy, what really attracted me

05:16
to what you're doing was obviously the golf aspect and the interest there. But I think the wellness aspect, because of the mental side, the full experience of the coaching that you're doing, and a lot of what you just said, the impact that coaches, positive coaches, can have and the influence, really impressed me with what you've done and that meaning so much to you and how you're translating that to your students and clients and things like that.

05:46
Maybe talk a little bit about, we'll talk about the golf stuff, the full wellness experience and how you guys maybe built that curriculum or what that looks like.

05:59
I suppose from the wellness experience, it's more of a...

06:05
From the golf side of things, myself and Pierce, very early on, did some NLP training. And that was the spark of the whole wellness from also from the mental side. I've always been, I've always been interested in fitness from probably the 18 years old. And as I've got older, I think I've got fitter and I've got more and more into it because I've really started to learn and understand a lot of the details behind everything really, whether it's

06:34
from a psychological standpoint, or whether it's from a nutrition or a training side of things. So the whole wellness side of things for me is just something that is embodied in the golf, because you need to have a certain understanding of the physical capabilities that you can do as a golfer. But you also need to understand how human beings think. You need to be able to watch people and understand some of the...

07:01
patterns that they do, their psychology, their self-talk, their reactions, their management of their state, their emotions. So the golf is a very good parallel to life. So I think the exploration in the golf led me to an exploration in my own life to go, look, how can I grow myself from a health and fitness standpoint? And my health and fitness goals are very different to what they used to be. But also, how can I grow myself from a mindset and emotional standpoint?

07:30
which has really just pushed me down a deeper and deeper path. Like I am obsessed with getting better. I'm obsessed with creating good routines and habits. I'm obsessed with learning every single day. I'm obsessed with my energy levels. All these things for me are so important. And I'm very conscious of, I'm very aware of me now. I know what works for me. I know how much sleep I need to get. I know how much food and what types of food I need to eat because of that self discovery of

08:00
of going down that route really. So it's been a constant sort of journey, but it's been a introduction, taste a little bit more and just snowball into this is now just a real big passion and they're all linked together. My health and energy are all linked to my business and the impact I can have and my relationships and everything else really. And you mentioned NLP for everybody listening, that's neuro-linguistic programming. Can you talk, did that have much of an impact? What did you learn there?

08:30
like some specific takeaways you had there, because I'm pretty familiar with that. It's really interesting training. Is there anything you can delve into there? Yeah, I think with the NLP stuff was the first insight into understanding that we are in control, really. I think it was an awakening for me to go up until that point, I was being run by my patterns, not understanding that I can actually control some of the things that I'm doing. I can change my state.

09:00
just by changing my physiology or changing my self-talk or changing the images in my mind. I think the biggest takeaway from that for me was instead of letting the patterns run your life, it was actually taking the control to go right. I'm in control of my life. If I want to change my state, if I want to change how I feel, especially on the golf course, then I can do it by taking control of my physiology.

09:27
maybe anchoring a certain thing or having certain mental triggers that can do that for me. So I think the big thing for me there was just the awakening of going, I'm not being led by my patterns. I am creating the patterns that I want to lead me in the direction I want to go. Yeah. It's really powerful stuff. And I think it falls in line with a lot of stuff. Chris and I talked to a lot of people, like we dance around a lot of the same subject matter, even when talking with people from all different, like.

09:57
avenues, whether it's golf or wellness or healing or breathing. It's, but it still comes back to the centered thing of we can all take control. We're all like, we're all putting one foot in front of the other, but we're also. Get a deeper level controlling the, both the inputs and the outputs. And I think that's the enlightening thing for people. It's.

10:24
We're conditioned with everything else around us that we are to accept what we're given and or like we, things happen to us instead of us making things happen for us. I'm summarizing. Yeah, totally. And I'm very conscious about the inputs in my life. Like I don't, I actually don't, since I moved to California.

10:52
It was a conscious effort. I'm like, I'm not even going to get a TV. I'm not even going to get a TV in here because it was like, I don't want to control the inputs. It's so easy to just fall down a trap of just watching mindless things for no reasons. I think I'm just very conscious of what I watch, what I read, who I listen to, because we don't know the impact of all the things that are going in and how that shapes our belief systems and that shapes our actions and all the rest of it really. So it's a huge point. What are people? Chris, I'm

11:21
was like had all these questions, very pre-baked for Andy. So jump in here at any time. But I got one more and I'll let Chris ask some thoughts here. But talk a little bit about me and my golf. Like what, at its core, I think we get you in golf coaching or whatever, but maybe let's just delve into exactly what it is and what it isn't.

11:47
So me and my golf, we created it really for the one simple thing was that obviously to just get golfers better. Our purpose at me and my golf is to change lives through golf. Because if you're a golfer, it means a lot to you. If you're a regular golfer, you're on your plate for a little bit. When you're in that mode of playing, it means a lot. If you have a bad day in the golf course, you're going home and it often impacts the rest of your day. So for us.

12:14
We wanted to create me and my golf because A, we felt we did a great job of understanding human beings. But we just knew that so many golfers out there were doing it with wrong thoughts, wrong concepts, didn't understand what they were doing, the wrong psychology, didn't really understand the movement of their body. So what we wanted to do was create one place that basically anything to do with improving golf performance, you can go there and you can have access to some of the best.

12:43
content and information out there. Whether you want to look at psychology and how to improve your mental game, or whether you want to understand your body, whether you want to understand technique or your golf equipment, everything that's impacted in there, in fact, performance, we have that. But also doing a very simple way. Most golfers who come to me for coaching, they make it so hard, they're thinking far too many complicated things.

13:11
Our method of coaching is to understand all the science that's involved. We understand a lot more about the golf swing and science and data and the ball flight and things like that. But our job as coaches is to teach Steve, who's on the lesson T, in the most simple way to get him the biggest results. And that doesn't mean that we need to go into the science. It means we need to relay the things to him in a certain way that he understands it and he can apply it straight away. So.

13:41
I think our philosophy is really, is make it simple. With all the knowledge and the information that's about, how do we get that person better in the least amount of words in the most simple way? But we look at it from a holistic point of view. When we take somebody on the golf course, because a lot of golf lessons are done on the driving range, but we take a lot of people on the golf course and you see the person.

14:09
On the golf course, you only see the golf swing on the driving range. Most people are obsessed with technique, but when you go on the golf course, you see how they react to a bad shot. You see what they do on the next shot as a result of that. You see what the, how they manage their state, their body language, their self talk, there's so many things that I'm looking for out there, their course management, their strategy, like the human side of things, which often it doesn't get seen and most golfers are searching the internet for

14:38
How do I fix my backswing? So our philosophy is really, we coach the player, not just the golf swing. Ah, I love that. We're all about value here on the show. Just what, what cuts the handicap the most? What's like for the high handicapper? Other than get, obviously getting into the mental stuff is big, but sometimes what is it, what's like the one thing you probably cure the most that like cuts five or six strokes.

15:07
It's an iron play. It is definitely iron play. Yeah, if you can hit your iron solid and just get it close to the green. It's a mixture of things. It depends on the person because you can have a shocking short game. You can have a terrible short game. But iron play is crucial. If you want to reduce some shots, if you can strike the golf ball solid, it makes a huge difference and most golfers, that's their biggest pain point or problem. They struggle with consistent ball striking. The American golfers have come to us for a lesson and we go

15:37
what you want. I just want to be more consistent with my eyes. And what they're talking about is that making sure they get ball followed by the turf instead of turf followed by the ball, which is the worst combination. My putting just always was average or worse. I just, that was always my Achilles. Like I could get around the green, like you said, more often than not, man, I three putted a lot.

16:05
And that's a killer. That's another big part. It's another big part of the game that that most golfers struggle with, especially the high handicappers, the three puts is a three puts is definitely. That was a difference for me. Probably being a scratch golfer. Honestly, I, when I was playing every week, I probably drove it well enough and struck the ball well enough to be a one or zero, but God, my putting was just always sub average for that, for the level I can hit a mile and then.

16:35
wedge to 10 feet and make par or bogey sometimes. Not a ton of bogeys, but a lot of, I mean, just not a lot of birdies, not enough birdies. But anyway, I digress. Yeah. I'm getting back to my mom golfing now. Yeah, Ryan, it's no problem. Chris, any thoughts or questions for Andy? Yeah, I'm wondering when I heard.

17:00
golf trips going to be where we're going. We're going to have to go to San Diego, maybe. I don't know. Oh, it sounds like a business trip. We've got a bummer. No, I love this. And yeah, I love everything you're preaching. I've realized golf for me, if anything's been more mental, exercise than physical. Do you find, I would assume working with clients, how much of it is mindset and just change that into talk. I know I'm guilty. I.

17:27
Golf is one of the places I caught myself the most of negative self-talk. Because I don't think there's anything else I do for four hours straight in a day, where I have that many challenges where I'm like, damn it, like you suck. I'm in for it for that. Like it ain't a bad shot. And you're like, fuck you suck. But even paying attention to that where it's like that alone is work. How many guys or girls do you work with where?

17:54
The biggest hurdle is the mental, the mental self talk or just learned behaviors, learned patterns like, Oh, I've always sucked at golf. I've never been good at this. I think, I think all of them, I think every single person who I would coach, including myself need that training. And I think one of the biggest things that holds people back, and maybe this is just, this might hit home for you as well. Chris is just.

18:23
The reason that we get pissed off on the golf course is only when our expectations aren't met. But most golfers have the wrong expectations. So when you hit a bad drive and you're like, shit, that was terrible. But let's say you're an 18 handicap. So what do you expect? What are your expectations for your level of play? And that's not like a disrespectful thing. Most golfers are expectations.

18:53
like a full handicap when there are 20 handicap because what they see on TV is the best and they go, I should be doing that. And it makes me laugh sometimes that you'll see a golfer, he'll turn up to the first tee, no warmup, rushed out his car, hit a bad shot and then he'll be pissed off that he's hit a bad shot and he's had zero warmup, no preparation, but his expectations are he should hit the drive down the middle of the fairway. So there's just a

19:23
and this alignment there, and that's the biggest reason. If you're getting angry on the golf course, one of the biggest reasons is expectations, but where those expectations come from, there's layers to that as well from parenting and a few other things that influence that from childhood. I know I used to be like that a lot, but once you're aware of that, self-awareness is the biggest thing. Once you're aware of something, you can go, okay, I can change that now. Now I can change that pattern that I do and not be so hard on myself, but.

19:52
Yeah. Everybody needs that mental training and it's the same in life, isn't it? If we're our expectations aren't met in life, then then we get pissed off. And that's why it's so parallel to golf and life. It's a great character building because it's a metaphor for life. Really. It is. Is there any sport? It's so funny that has the disconnect as much as golf with what you expect's going to happen.

20:21
and like how mad you get that then golf. Cause if you go, if I went and I play basketball a lot with my kids, so let me not use it. Oh, if I went and played baseball, like with just guys that play every weekend, no, it's not gonna go great. I'm competitive. So I'll be like, come on Ryan, you could do better, but I'm not that good. I know I'm not that good. I don't play.

20:48
But in golf, baby, man, and we see professional baseball players hit the ball on the park all the time. But golf, we get out there. What you bet I don't do that shit anymore. I think I've one thing I figured out probably why I got halfway good is I've got that out of my game. But a lot of people, man, that disconnect. Why is golf such a disconnect? Or so many other things.

21:10
Everyone, you're right. Everyone who's golf just like assumes they could play at a pro, almost a pro level, if you barely ever played, but with basketball or baseball, no one's like, yo, I'm almost as good as them. Yeah. Massive disconnect. One of the reasons as well. One of the reasons as well is because we have a par, we have a score that we need to get, that we think we need to get. So you're on a par four and you think you should be getting a par four.

21:40
But if you're an 18 handicap, it's like we measured to par. And that's the thing. If we didn't have that measured to par, it would be very different. So I think we just compare ourselves to that baseline of what is the norm really. It's gonna be, it's funny you bring that up, Andy. That's, I had never heard it framed that way, but that is really smart and it makes a ton of sense. Yeah. I think you'd know this better than me. This will build to a question, an opinion, and then a question, but.

22:08
I feel like we're on the precipice of finally pushing the game into. It's not just 18 holes and it's not just these pars are the score. I feel like we're on the precipice of different ways with which golf can be played and how it's played the live golf versus PJ golf is starting to dance around that and some of the three man tournaments and two man tournaments. You're seeing some of the.

22:36
I feel like we're on the precipice of different games within the game. Does it feel that way? I think so. Golf has changed for me. How I play the game now is very different. I can't remember the last time I went out and scored 18 holes. Haven't done that for years, but golf for me is fun. I love the game, but I also love playing nine holes, nine holes, fun match. I don't care about, I said, I don't care about the score.

23:05
I care about the result at the end, if I've won the match or not. But I'm not going out there going, I want to score my best today. I want to shoot 69 or whatever it might be. So goal for me now is the best goal for me is when we go out with, when I go out with three other guys, we have a two on two match and it's just fun. There's a bit of competitiveness there. Obviously I want to play well. If I hit a bad shot, doesn't matter.

23:33
So it's not as intense and it's not as pressured, but golf has changed a lot in my life from when I used to compete at a younger age and I'd be in a tournament and I wanna shoot the best score, it's high pressure. Now it's like I love the game and it's just very different for me now. Couldn't really care less about the score. I just care about the results at the end and...

23:57
It's just about having fun. And don't let it get to me anymore because my expectations have gone from where they were here. My expectations are actually in check. So I know before I go out, and I'll say, I'm in some terrible shots today. Like I know that's gonna happen. So why get annoyed when you know it's gonna happen? But I'm in some great shots as well. So I'm balanced in where I need to be. So therefore I can manage my state and my emotions in a much better place because I'm in check.

24:26
a PGA professional, I don't know if you still carry a card or whatever, do you have to play and shoot a certain score every year still or are you still, are you carrying that level? I guess, maybe that's just how... We did at the start, at the start of it to get into it you needed to go and do a playing ability test and things like that. But now, once you're a pro, you're a pro. It doesn't mean that you can still, I'm still a decent player, I can go there and still shoot under par and I love the game.

24:53
Yeah, you don't need to maintain a certain level of playing really. Okay. I remember that. I bet. I don't know if that's like to be at a pro at a core or at a course or I feel like there was still something at like golf courses, golf course pros. I don't know. Maybe not. Maybe that's old school shit they used to talk about. Yeah. I got to go play and shoot something. I wouldn't think once you got your card, you got your card, right? What's been your approach? You hit my radar because of the social media videos and things like that.

25:20
Where does that style come from? How would you describe your style on social media and where did those approaches and where have you seen the most growth?

25:32
from the me and my golf standpoint. Yeah, yeah. Just seeing your stuff on social media, your videos and things like that.

25:38
Yeah, so we've been doing this now for probably 10 years. So it's been a, it's just been a constant learning process from eva, just a lot of evaluations. Again, the most important thing that we always want to deliver when it comes to social media is like, how are we going to, how are we going to actually help somebody here? How is this piece of content really going to help somebody? If it doesn't start at that point, then it's not really worth doing. So we have to have the.

26:04
one of our values, which is deliver massive value, that has to be the nucleus of the thing. And then it's like, okay, how do we capture their attention? What's the first thing that we can say when it comes to the video? What's a practical thing that we can give them to take away? How can we help educate them in the way that we want to as well? So everything's wrapped up in delivering the value, making sure we can capture their attention. How can we give them something practical? And how can we educate the people as well to make sure that they're knowledgeable? And it's all tied into

26:34
to our philosophy really, and as social media is just constantly changing, the platforms are changing, the algorithms are changing all the time. So it's just keeping up with the different trends and understanding what's working and what's not working. And we've got a team of 12. There's 12 of us at Me and My Golfs. We've got a lot of different people in different departments who we meet with on a weekly basis to understand the numbers and make changes and look at ways to improve really. How much of yours is like online coaching versus in-person?

27:05
I do it one day a week in person. And then the rest is all the online stuff. I also coach a guy on the PGA tour. So we do have do a little bit of traveling with him throughout the year as well. Is that a name you can share? Or yeah, that's the answer. His name's Aaron Rye. And I've coached him, me and my business partner have coached him since he was 11 years old. So we've coached him from a junior all the way up to where he is now on the PGA tour, which is, I think he's.

27:34
I think he's about 70 in the world at the moment. So he's done pretty solid, good season last year.

27:40
Where the hell I could talk to you're awful and just the golf stuff, but the, what the hell is all this stuff going with the PGA tour? Is that you get involved with any of that or you just stay out of it? You know what? It's I've just come back from Hawaii. I had a week vacation in Hawaii and I didn't look at any social media. And then I got back and I turned social media on and I saw John shaking great hormones. Yeah. What the hell has happened in a week? And I was like, yeah, I stay out of it. Really? I'm.

28:11
I can't change any of that stuff. So somebody will tell me what's going on, but I don't want to, again, it's controlling the inputs. As you said earlier, I'm like, how is this going to benefit my life? And if it's something that I can contribute or control or change, then I want to know, but it's someone who will tell me what I need to know. So I'll just stay away from that really. Are you still involved in it? I know we had on our show notes, the live like a legend podcast. Are you still doing that? Yeah.

28:39
I actually started, I actually had a little bit of a break from it, but I started back up last week. That's more of my personal, I spoke my personal podcast where I'm sharing a lot of the growth, a lot of the mindset things on business and health and just again, my passion for getting better really. So a lot of that's more of a personal journey of sharing some of the stories and things that I'm learning along the way, as well as getting some of the guests on there that are doing some great things that I feel.

29:06
can offer some value in certain things really. I love doing that to share things, but also I love doing that for me. I love doing it for me because it's like therapy. Like me chatting to doing a podcast, even on my own, it's like I'm teaching myself things that I've already done. I'm just re, I'm deepening my learning on the things that I know. So I love it for those two reasons. It challenges me to always keep moving forward, but I love sharing stuff with the rest of the world as well.

29:36
No, you're right, man. It's just the discipline of doing it. And then there's something about it. I'm so ADD, but I get, I put my headphones on and having conversations. Like it's, I love the conversation and the learning. I learn more on the show with guys like you in being focused in on it. Cause we're so distracted with like back to some of the other things, but when you're in this moment, there's something powerful about it. So everybody go check that out. The live like a legend podcast.

30:02
Any final thoughts here, Chris, or questions for we give Andy back the rest of his day here, his morning over there on the West coast. I just thank you for joining us, Andy. I have everything you said. I think golf is an awesome game. I encourage people to get out there. I think there's parallels to life. And I, even when I was younger, I had a mentor. He always pushed me like, you got to be able to play a decent game of golf just as a business guy.

30:29
And at least just go out and don't embarrass yourself. And I, and it's true. I know a lot of guys that do a lot of business deals playing golf. Cause you can get a good read on is this guy honest is how does he handle himself under pressure? Is he cheating? Is it's just such an awesome game, dude. And honestly, you just relit my ass to, we got rain the next four days. So it's not going to happen, but I can roll out my putting green and get some purchase putts on.

30:56
I think we got to go when you're up here, we'll go, we've got to get some content on the golf course. Yeah. You guys probably have some beautiful golf courses. Oh yeah. Some nice rolly hills. Oh yes. Carolina's got it going on. Then we'll go ahead and hit the Trump Doral course when you come down. I played Trump Doral about three, four weeks ago. I heard it's amazing. I've never played it. It was good. It was actually right after the live event, a few days after the live event, all the stadium stands were still up.

31:25
We actually got challenged to play in a couple of guys challenges. The like, we want to challenge you to a 10 K match and we filmed it to go on YouTube. That's going to go live in January. It was just a brilliant match. Awesome. Yeah. Worth checking out early Jan. That's going to go live. It was great. I'd like to get Andy here. There'll be some joint content. We can get all kinds of stuff. Andy and the Carolinas and kick our ass and show us around the cores.

31:55
Andy, we really appreciate you calling on man and pleasure all the continued success and look forward to watching your journey and let's stay in touch. Perfect. Thanks guys. Appreciate your time. Hey guys, you're gonna find us the vacaypodcast.com that's V-A-Y-C-A-Y the only way to spell vacay. Search for Andy Proudman. You'll find all of the highlight clips in the full episode today and the show notes. You'll find links to his app, his podcast and everything he's got going on.

32:25
down in the Miami vacay lounge. This is Ryan Alford. We'll see you next time on the Vacay Podcast.