107 The Parallels of Surfing and Golf: Tiffany Joh’s Insights on Golf, Surfing, and Finding Flow

Podcast - SURF MASTERY

What can surfing teach us about golf? - What can golf teach us about surfing? How does a former LPGA pro balance technique with pure joy in both sports?

Whether you're chasing consistency in golf, mastering the perfect wave, or just trying to stay calm under pressure, Tiffany Joh’s story offers a fresh perspective on finding balance between intensity and flow. As a retired LPGA pro-turned-surfing enthusiast and national golf coach, Tiffany reveals surprising connections between the worlds of golf, surfing, and music, along with how mindset and play can fuel long-term success.

In this episode, you'll discover:

• The surprising parallels between surfing and golf and how these lessons can improve performance in both.

• Mindset secrets for managing pressure and staying in the zone during competition.

• Why consistency trumps intensity—and how 20-minute sessions might be the key to progress in any skill.

Listen now to learn how Tiffany Joh’s journey from pro golf to surfing can inspire you to embrace consistency, mindset mastery, and the joy of lifelong learning.

Notable Quotes:

• "The best way to improve is to be really consistent. I'd take 20 minutes every day over six hours on the weekend."

• "Golf and surfing both require a balance between technique and feel—you work on your craft like it’s the most important thing, but compete like it doesn’t matter."

• "Surfers and golfers attract the same personalities. Both can be super personal or really social, depending on what you’re looking for."

• "In golf, you never wait for perfection before stepping into competition—just go with what you have and make it work."

• "Pressure is good. You’ve practiced it. You’ve been here before. Now just swing."

Key Points

• Tiffany grew up in San Diego and started playing golf at age 12 after being inspired by Sari Pak's iconic win at the 1998 US Women's Open.

• Tiffany started surfing at age 24 or 25 during her off-season from professional golf.

• Tiffany sees parallels between surfing and golf in terms of the balance between technique and feel, and the pursuit of something difficult.

• Tiffany's musical background initially hindered her golf development due to the perfectionist mindset in music.

• Tiffany emphasizes the importance of consistency over intensity in both surfing and golf for improvement.

• Tiffany uses visualization techniques and focuses on her target to improve her putting in golf.

• Tiffany prefers to have a limited number of surfboards (3) and golf clubs, replacing them selectively based on needs.

• Tiffany has not been to a wave pool yet but is open to trying it despite potential pressure.

Outline

Tiffany's Golf Career

• Tiffany grew up in San Diego and began playing golf at age 12 after being inspired by Sari Pak's win at the 1998 US Women's Open.

• Their father, a professor at San Diego State University, enrolled them in a free junior golf program where they became increasingly competitive.

• They played for UCLA during college and qualified for the professional tour after graduating, spending 11 years on the LPGA.

• After retiring in July 2021, they transitioned to coaching, starting with a Division 2 program in San Diego before moving to USC, and recently took a position as a coach for the US national team.

Introduction to Surfing

• Tiffany started surfing relatively late, around age 24-25, during a surf trip to Nicaragua with Holly Beck, leaving their golf clubs behind.

• Upon returning from the trip, they got a board and began surfing consistently, often doing dawn patrol sessions before afternoon golf practice.

• This routine of combining surfing and golf became part of their yearly schedule, frequently taking surf trips after the golf season ended.

Similarities Between Golf and Surfing

• Both sports can be frustrating due to the effort required versus the results achieved.

• Consistency is key in both sports, with frequent short sessions being more beneficial than occasional long ones.

• Both require a balance between technique and feel, with the ability to adapt to changing conditions.

• Golf and surfing can be either introspective and personal or highly social, depending on the individual's mood and goals.

• Both involve a lot of waiting or downtime between moments of action.

• Trying too hard often leads to worse performance in both sports, emphasizing the importance of relaxation and flow.

Coaching Philosophy

• As a golf coach, Tiffany focuses less on technique and more on mental aspects, course management, and helping players handle tournament-day emotions.

• They emphasize the importance of practicing under pressure to prepare for real competition scenarios.

• Drills that push players to the edge of frustration are used to help them learn to manage emotions and make adjustments under pressure.

Impact of Surfing on Golf Approach

• Learning to surf helped Tiffany develop a more relaxed approach to golf.

• Being a beginner in surfing and enjoying it despite poor performance helped maintain perspective in their professional golf career.

• The casual approach to surfing positively influenced their golf game, reminding them to enjoy the process even when not performing at their best.

Staying Connected to the Target

• In both golf and surfing, staying connected to the target is emphasized.

• In golf, focusing beyond the ball and looking at a spot slightly in front while putting helps maintain awareness of the overall goal rather than getting too focused on technique.

• Similarly, in surfing, looking ahead at the wave rather than down at the board is important.

Equipment Preferences

• Throughout their golf career, Tiffany has owned numerous sets of clubs, often replacing individual clubs based on course conditions or new technology.

• Driver technology changes rapidly, making it beneficial to use the latest models.

• In contrast, their approach to surfboards is much simpler, owning only three boards for different conditions, mirroring their advice to keep surfing equipment simple, especially for beginners.

Fears and Cautionary Experiences

• In golf, Tiffany's biggest fear is accidentally hitting a spectator or volunteer with a golf ball.

• In surfing, their most frightening experience was getting tangled in a lobster trap rope while surfing near a cliff in Mexico, which taught them to be more cautious about ocean conditions.

Advice for Surfers

• Key advice for surfers is to prioritize consistency over intensity.

• Frequent, short sessions (20-30 minutes) are recommended rather than infrequent long sessions, leading to steady improvement and greater enjoyment of the sport.

Transcription

Michael Frampton

Hello! How are you? Sorry, I think we just had some technical problems. I saw that you had joined the meeting, and then—anyway, we're here now. Cool. All right. Well, thank you so much for doing this. First of all, I'm super stoked! Cool, let me just get the recording going. Okay, and you've got AirPods in—awesome. All right.

Okay, so can we start? Would you be able to do a little bit of a self-introduction? I think, you know, your background as an athlete and as a coach—and then we'll get into the surfing stuff.

Tiffany Joh

Yeah, sure!

So, I grew up in San Diego, which is a great surf town. Unfortunately, I did not surf growing up. I think I lived just far enough inland—about half an hour—that I was too lazy to make it all the way to the beach.

I actually grew up playing a lot of instruments and wasn’t really much of an athlete. But in 1998, a woman named Se Ri Pak from South Korea won the U.S. Women's Open in iconic fashion. On the last hole, her ball almost went into the water, and she took off her socks and shoes, waded into the water, and ended up winning in a playoff.

Pretty much the very next week, I picked up a golf club. My parents didn’t know much about golf, and I was only 12 at the time. The only reason our family was even watching was that this was the first time we had seen a South Korean female athlete on TV. It was incredibly inspiring for us as a people.

So, the very next week, I picked up a golf club. My parents didn’t really know anything about golf, but my dad was a professor at San Diego State University. There was a free junior golf program right next to campus, and I think in his mind, he thought, "Perfect. This is free babysitting. I can just drop off my kid and not worry about it during the summer."

That’s pretty much what he did, and I ended up getting more competitive through that free program. Eventually, I got recruited by a couple of colleges and ended up playing for UCLA. After I graduated, I qualified for the pro tour and played on the LPGA for 11 years.

I retired in July of 2021, and the very next week, I started an assistant coaching position at a Division II program in North County, San Diego. Over the past couple of years, I’ve been working at USC, which is ironic since it’s a big-time rival of UCLA.

Just this past month, I took on a new role as a coach for the U.S. national team, which is my new gig now.

Michael Frampton

Oh wow that's an impressive athletic background and resume wow and coaching now that's awesome okay so so when did thanks for that what when did surfing come into the picture?

Tiffany Joh

So it's actually a really interesting story so I don't know if you're super familiar with you know the way the LPGA tour works but there's actually like a developmental tour kind of like the equivalent of the QS going into the world like the championship tour so straight out of college I actually played on it's called the Epson tour so I played on the Epson tour for like a year and then ended up kind of getting like partial status on the LPGA tour so I was kind of jumping back and forth and and in my mind it's like the best

way to mentally play your first year of professional golf because like you're just so grateful to be playing any given week, right?

So I would go play in these, you know, developmental tour events and I would play well and then it would just like translate automatically to the very next week when I played on like the big tour.

So I ended up playing really well, playing my way to better status and then my second year I had full status and I played awful like missed every single cut like did horrible and by the end of the year so there's two ways to qualify to get your LPGA tour card.

One way is to spend a year on that developmental tour and the top 10 ranked players at the very end of the year get their tour card.

The other way is to go to Q school which is this like gnarly two week long high pressure tournament and by the end of it 20 women get their cards for the following year.

So knowing that I had pretty much played my way into a position where I was going to have to go.

back to Q-School. I think I intuitively knew that I was super burnt out from the season and really discouraged.

So I actually, at the very end of the season before I had to go to Q-School, I had like two months before I had to start getting ready for it.

I actually booked this surf trip with Paul Lee Beck, who's another guest that you had on your show. And so that was down in Nicaragua.

And so I flew down there, like left the club at home. There's no golfers down there anyway. And I ended up just like learning down there.

And then I came back and right away got aboard and started going pretty consistently in the morning, like driving the half hour to the beach.

And then I got into this great routine where I would go and do dump patrol. I didn't know enough about like reading the conditions.

I just kind of paddled out no matter what. And then I would come home, like eat some lunch. And then I would go practicing the afternoon.

And then a couple of months after I went back to Q-School, ended up breathing through got second. and I think ever since then it's been kind of part of my yearly routine that after the season is over when we have some time, I just go do some epic, I call it a treat to yourself, surf trip somewhere.

Michael Frampton

Cool. So how old were you when you started surfing?

Tiffany Joh

So I had to have there in my last year, I was probably 24, 25.

Michael Frampton

Yep, okay. Do you think having that background as a professional athlete and golfer helped you to learn surfing faster than others?

Tiffany Joh

I don't know if there were any like actual like direct ways that it translated, but I think there's something to be said for pursuing something that's really hard and really difficult to do.

I definitely think that I haven't played a ton of other sports, but surfing and golf both have to be quite frustrating in terms of the energy and you know the effort that

put in and what you actually get out of it. So I think it's kind of that pursuit of something really difficult.

So I do think that maybe that mindset really translated to help me maybe improve little bit faster than a normal person.

Michael Frampton

So maybe you got over some of the frustrations of surfing faster than others because it's similar in golf.

Tiffany Joh

Yeah, and I think there's something about maybe this is for for all hobbies or sports, but like, you know, I do think that the best way to improve is to be really consistent and both surfing and golf.

Like, you know, I'll take a person who's paddling out for 20, 30 minutes every day over the person that every other weekend is putting like six hours in the water.

Like, there's something, I think, I don't know if it's something with like your brain, but something important that happens in between all these sessions.

So it was interesting that the way that I approached surfing was really similar to the way that I approached

I'm a big fan of like a bunch of mini sessions, so, you know, even when I was playing professionally, I would like break up my session or my practice sessions into like three or four throughout the day and I would go do something and come back because there's something about that back and forth that helped me kind of process something.

Michael Frampton

Are you a golf nerd? Like did you really nerd out about technique and get multiple coaches and dive right into it?

Tiffany Joh

You know, I'm not and I've never been. I think one of the best, one of the funniest stories, there was one offseason where I had to get my clubs with regrets.

So I just went to just some random pro shop in the area and I brought in my clubs and the guys and they were so excited and I was what's the kick point on this?

What's, what's, you know, the shaft flex, I don't know, it was purple and I liked it, but which is funny because that's exactly how I am with surfing whenever we go to beach and people are like, oh, what's the swell direction?

Like, what's the wind? I'm like, I don't know how it looks wet.

Michael Frampton

So what's your how would you describe your role as a golf coach? Are you not focused on the technique and stuff so much?

Tiffany Joh

Is it more about the head game or? Yeah, I think, you know, at the college level, especially this new generation of golfer, I mean, they've been getting instruction, they've been doing fitness training since they were like eight, nine years old, and they are so polished by the time they get to us that a lot of what we do is kind of like helping them manage emotions on tournament day, kind of helping them with some course management, like, you know, plotting their way through the course.

Just, you know, like, you know, all of like the little things, and I think the little details that at this level actually make a bigger difference.

Michael Frampton

Okay, so just sort of eliciting them to get into the zone at the start of the round.

Tiffany Joh

Great.

Michael Frampton

And do you use those tools yourself, if the surface is particularly challenging and you're feeling the pressure or?

Tiffany Joh

No, I mean, honestly, I'm not really good enough to feel any pressure out in the water. think any time I get out there and regardless of what happens or how many times I go over the fault or whatever it's in me, I'm just so grateful to be out there.

So I think I actually do think in a lot of ways, when I started surfing, it really helped my mind set in golf at a professional level.

You're always going to take things a little bit too seriously, but it was kind of refreshing to go do this thing that I was horrible at and still enjoy doing it.

It's difficult being a retired professional golfer now because I still have these really high expectations, but I don't put in the time and the work to really meet those expectations.

So pretty much every time I go out there, I'm pretty frustrated, but I think with surfing, I'm always so happy to be out in the water that it was a really great thing to try to translate into my golf game.

Michael Frampton

Interesting. So your casual approach to surfing helped you took some of that into your golf?

Tiffany Joh

Yeah, absolutely. I think surfing in golfing there's so many parallel, but one of them is, you know, oftentimes the harder you try, like the worse it gets, you know, the more pressure you put into something, like the less, I don't know, flow you have or what have you.

So sometimes it's with golf, I, one of my coaches and those really young said the secret is to work on your craft.

Like, it's the most important thing in the world, but to compete like nothing matters.

Michael Frampton

Okay, so all of the hard work is done at the driving range, not when you're actually playing, is that what you mean by that?

Tiffany Joh

Yeah, and I think, you know, or on the putting green or the chipping green, and I think when you, a lot of the times when we're trying to figure out what thrills or tests or games we're doing in practice, a lot of it is to just push ourselves to like the very edge of the right?

Not make it so difficult that or so impossible to complete that you quit, but to really like push you to the edge of being really frustrated so that when you get onto the golf course, you're almost recreating that feeling and you know how to deal with it because you've practiced that before.

So in a lot of ways, you know, when people try to do, you know, putting drills or something and it's like a must make situation, they try to make it so there's as much pressure on themselves as possible.

So when they come down to the last hole. a U.S. Open and they have to make a six footer to win or whatever.

They're like, all these emotions that I'm feeling, like I've practiced this and I've been here before and I know the appropriate adjustments to make.

Michael Frampton

So you're giving yourself confidence in the practice?

Tiffany Joh

Yeah. I think everyone under pressure has some kind of tendency, right? So for me, I'm a very fast paced energetic person.

So, if I'm feeling nervous, I'll start walking fast, I'll start talking fast, start speaking fast. And in a lot of ways, that starts to mess up my rhythm.

So in practice, if I put myself under pressure and I practice consciously trying to slow myself down just to counteract, you know, how fast I go, then when I'm under pressure in a tournament, I can be like, all right, I know what I do, I know what my tendency is, like, this is how I'm going to adjust.

Michael Frampton

You mentioned music and I actually, I saw on your Instagram a clip of you, but singing and playing guitar.

It sounded amazing by the way. sing beautifully. Do you see parallels between music and golf and surfing?

Tiffany Joh

A little bit. I think actually in a lot of ways, my music go background kind of hindered my golfing development just because...

Yeah, I think there's this aspect of music that's like... So I played like in the marching band. was a concert pianist and played the violin at the little kid and a lot of it was like, I'm gonna perfect this and then once it's perfect, I'm gonna perform, right?

But a lot of golf and I think what I see with a lot of, you know, this newer generation is...

They wait for things to be perfect before they take it to a turn of it. But like, your golf is never gonna be perfect.

Like, you know, the tiger was the best player in the world. world and he wasn't even perfect. He didn't play a perfect round of golf.

So there's kind of this attitude with I think all athletes need to have. And it's, I'm just going to go out with whatever I have.

And I'm going to make it work. And I think it's a really difficult transition when you come from a musical background.

So when I was a little kid, Yo-Yo Ma had this practice routine where, you know, within a piece of musical composition, there's all these measures.

So he used to have this, he called it like a five quarter drill. So he would play the first measure, and then he would move a quarter over.

And every time he played it perfectly, he would move a quarter over. But if he messed up once out of the five, he would move them all back.

And then he would play the first and second measure together, first and second, third measure together until he was playing through the entire composition five times in a row, perfect, which is insane.

It must have taken forever. But that's kind of the mentality you kind of, you learn to have a music, whereas sometimes

I think with like their thing and golf, it's so condition dependent and it's never going to be exactly the way that you envision it and you kind of need to learn how to make adjustments on the fly and be okay with like nexting up and recovering.

So I do think sometimes that like in a lot of ways they're different. Now I do think that all of those things, all three of those things require a lot of practice and that kind of is beneficial and anything that you end up doing.

Michael Frampton

I guess with music makes me think you were referencing a particular piece of music, not just music in general.

And whereas I guess golf and surfing in particular is more like a jam session, you're not going into it with a particular way of playing or a song to play.

You're just going in to be in tune with the way that the wind is on the course or the way that

it's conditions I was surfing.

Tiffany Joh

Yeah, I think in a lot of ways, like, I think most athletics is probably more like improvisational, right? So, um, but, and I think this was maybe another parallel, I think, um, a lot.

So I don't, I came from like a classical background. So everything was like, you just go buy the book, you go buy like whatever the composer wrote for you.

But I do remember when I was in third grade, I met this kid from Kentucky who taught himself like jazz improvisational piano and it was so impressive.

But he was telling me like, you put in all this work on the fundamentals, you learn all the scales, you learn all the like different chords.

So, and then you earn the like kind of the privilege of having fun as you get to improvise. So I thought that was like a really cool thing because I think like, I definitely see the same thing with surfing.

Like, I don't know a ton of maneuvers, but when I see someone who's really good and they, you know, have their floater that comes back and everything.

They put in a lot of work to get their fundamentals down so that when they go out, they can have a ton of fun and be like very like improvisational and water.

Michael Frampton

Yeah. Yeah, I've always thought surfing is kind of like improvisation or improvisational music, whereas, you know, if you wanted to play that way, it's still important for you to practice your scales and do your ear training and understand your instrument and etc.

But the reason you're doing that strict practice is so that you can jam and improvise not necessarily to perform a piece perfectly and that's where I sort of maybe see the analogy between music and surfing.

Tiffany Joh

Yeah, I agree.

Michael Frampton

Yeah, because most people don't approach it that way, but I think you see that in this swing and... All the different clubs at the driving range etc.

So that when they do go out and play on the course They don't have to necessarily think about it.

They just play the game right sure You just you mentioned that there were a lot of parallels between surfing and golf What what what comes to mind and why did you say that?

Tiffany Joh

I think just like the Exactly kind of along the lines of what we're talking about this like balance of like technique, but then also like feel right so in a lot of mental coaches and golf talk about like when you should be working on technical things and when you should just go completely on feel and and the consensus is that Before like you know in the week leading up to a tournament There's a certain line and everyone is maybe a little bit different where you like

work really hard on your technique, but at a certain point, once you're in the midst of competition, you kind of throw it out the window and you kind of just have to react.

It is actually, I mean, so I think I'd only been searching for maybe two or three years and I was just learning to like how the waves would go down the line, but I was super into it.

And I had a friend that played on floor with me who came down to San Diego to visit all the club manufacturers in the area and then we went and played Tory Pines and afterwards, I kind of looked, know, La Hoya is right there and I'm like, she was kind of fun.

do you mind before we get French if I just have a lot for like 20 minutes? And she's like, yeah, I'll just sit here and watch.

And I got out of water and I was like, well, you know, what'd you think? She was like, you know, you love surfing, you invest so much time and money and energy and I just, I kind of thought you'd feel a little bit better.

It was like, such a dagger to the heart, but my response was, Imagine if, you know, someone was trying to learn how to hit a golf ball for the first time, but every time they wanted to hit it, they had to sprint from 40 yards away, take six other people, and then like the ball might move somewhere else.

imagine how long it would take to like get better, because you don't have any opportunity to like in the rain, any type of muscle memory or whatever.

So in my mind, I was like, that's what surfing feels like to me. feels like I'm just paddling around, just like trying to get an opportunity to get all to get to my feet.

And you know, in a couple of years later, we played an LPG event in Hawaii, got my tape back, because we paddled out to like 10 news or something in Waikiki, she kind of got for a firsthand glimpse of how hard it was to win at a surf, but I do think that like it's similar in that respect, right?

You almost do, you have to like earn your, your, like, right? to things and I think golf at least is semi-accessible at times because you could just go to a dragon, but like to go out to a golf course and to play with other people it's pretty daunting and I think um I think for a long time I didn't really appreciate enough people who started golf late in life because I was so young that I don't remember this beginning stage of you know having to put in four or five years to get good enough to feel confident to actually go out to a golf course and play but having done that on like the surf side I'm like okay now when I go to the diving range and I see some you know 30-something year old woman learning for the first time I'm like I understand you know yeah interesting I guess golf is quite similar to surfing and in that way especially you think it might take you four hours to play 18 holes but each shot only lasts

Michael Frampton

what half a second?

Tiffany Joh

Yeah.

Michael Frampton

So there's actually not that much golf.

Tiffany Joh

It's yeah. Yeah, it's a lot of walking. It's a lot of like, hunting and drinking for some people. But I, uh, it's just, and it's a small surfing.

I'm like, how much time did I actually spend surfing? Like 40 seconds today? Like I think most of it was just sitting there and like, and I do think the other reason why it kind of attracts the same personality, though, is it's kind of whatever you want to get out of it, right?

So it can be super introspective and personal and it could also be really, really social. And I think any given time, depending on your mood or, you know, at what point in your life you are, like, it can change, right?

So I mean, there were times when, uh, I played golf only because I was trying to get better. And I was just trying to like improve my game.

I had no desire to, you know, I had no desire to like interact with other people and I was just in my own little cocoon.

And then there's other times where I don't even care about any of the technique or getting better. I just want to go and walk around a golf course for four hours with my buddies and have a good time.

I think surfing to me is really similar where sometimes I just want to power a lot of well and I want to like try to find a little shoulder to myself and not talk to anyone and I want it to be really personal.

And then there's other times where I just want to be out in the water with a bunch of my buddies or any, in my case these days like sitting in the parking lot drinking coffee and looking at the waves.

But there's something like that can be inherently really social or really personal depending on what you're looking for that day.

Michael Frampton

Yeah, that's a great golf surfing analogy. So true. Yeah. I certainly have gone through stages where I'm so focused on getting better and then other times, you know, it's Lucy Goosey and just going with the flow.

Oh, I think both of those types of sessions inform each other. Have you gone through stages like that when surfing, like have you had any surf coaching done at all?

Tiffany Joh

So I actually, well, this is another guest on your pod, Ruhill has this surf retreat called surf simply, and the second year I was surfing, that was my, you know, off season trip, and he just completely, him and his coaching staff are insanely amazing in everything they do.

They're like, absolutely unicorn, but I mean, they just blew my mind with like the technical aspect of it, and you know, they film everything, they do like lectures, and as much as I think on the surface, I maybe act like, you know, very mellow, and I don't really care about the technique.

Like, at my core, I still want to get as good as I can, regardless of what level I end up being at.

So that actually is really motivational. because I ended up making a couple friends locally and this is our big COVID activity is we would you know since no one was really working so we would go to the beach and we would trade off at a camera I would put on a tripod and so everyone would do like 20 minutes at the camera and then afterwards I mean not that we really even knew what we were looking for but we kind of had an idea of what looks good and what looks bad and so afterwards we would grab a couple of rectus burritos and we kind of laugh at each other's lifestyles and then and then also try to start to critique each other like why you know we bogged a rail here or why like this you know we didn't you know completely cut back and and doing that it was so helpful because it's kind of listening to your voice on an answering machine it's never quite what you think it is really much so it was really helpful because in golf we talk a lot about feel versus real so feel you know with everything you do if you're trying to make some kind of change in your golf swing

You have to exaggerate it because when you bring it up to full speed, it's not going to be as much because your body wants to keep doing the same thing it's been doing.

And then when you get into competition, you're automatically going to revert back to what you're used to doing. And so if you look at some of the PGA Tor and LPG for guys and gals, when they're like doing their practice wing, it looks grotesque.

Because they're trying to exaggerate a specific movement because they know once I speed it up. And I think that's a lot of what I learned with the coaching at Sir Simply and then also building ourselves and then watching it back later.

Because if you watch it right afterwards, you kind of have an idea of like, this is what it felt like.

It felt like I cut back all the way to the white water and then you look at it and you're like, but I didn't.

So maybe the next time I have to really exaggerate that. And I think that's one of the things that Ru and his team taught me is you got to do something like too much.

You got to over. do it and then kind of find the middle ground from there. Um, and that was just like so helpful to me.

Um, as I, you know, trying to figure out to do this whole surfing thing.

Michael Frampton

Yeah, no, that's a great point. I like that. Um, do you remember Happy Gilmore?

Tiffany Joh

Yeah. Chubs? Yep.

Michael Frampton

It's all in the hips.

Tiffany Joh

Is that true? Yes. Okay. And I had no idea, but surfing is true.

Michael Frampton

Yeah. The center, the center of gravity, center of mass, I should say.

Tiffany Joh

Yeah. I think anything where you're kind of mixing up like weight shift and rotation, like hips have got to have a really big part of it.

Michael Frampton

Yeah. I see a lot of similarities between, um, good surfing technique and good golf technique. Yeah, for sure. Yeah.

Yeah. And, uh, it's certainly something notice looking at you Instagram. and the way you surf you, you don't really have a post dance, which is great.

And that might be just because you're so used to, because a golf swing stance is quite an upright stance.

Tiffany Joh

Yeah. Well, I, you know, I think like if you look at anything athletically, I kind of never understood like the really side on like, I think you call it tacoing because you're like you're bent over and folded over.

Because like in golf, you're always like the biggest thing is regardless of what's going on here, you're really engaging with your target.

And so if you're not kind of squared off looking at your target, then like I've seen, you know, two types of golfers, the ones that maybe everything looks messed up from here, but they're always like looking out towards like the flag or the fairway or whatever they're hitting to.

And I'm like, that guy's got a chance, you know? but the one who has like complete blinders on and he's just looking at the golf ball and isn't really even connected to his target at all.

mean that guy, have no idea when that golf ball is going. Regardless of what's happening technique-wise with his golf swing, I actually have a funny story, another golfster parallel.

So I was playing the Scottish Open and this was maybe, I think this was maybe like the best round I ever had when I was playing on tour, but at the time I was kind of struggling with my putting and so my putting coach who's this Canadian guy came out to the Scottish Open and he's looking at my stroke and looking at the way I was reading everything and he was like, you know, everything looks really solid.

You just look really disconnected from the target and so he was kind of giving me all these like metaphors and sports of people like being really engaged with their targets, free car drivers and all that stuff and I was like none of these are landing and he's like, okay, sir, for a girl.

He's like, who's your favorite surfer in the world? And I was like, ah! It's got to be step he'll more like she's amazing and he's like okay Give me a second and he goes on Google images and he pulled up this image of her doing like a backside backside bottom turn And she's looking up at the lip and everything is like looking up at that lip And he's like it doesn't if you're like so focused on what's going on right in front of you And you forget about the target you're going to like he's like you don't stand a chance And so we ended up doing a lot of like visualization stuff where we took you know like a chalk pen and we you know drew out all these dots on the green and then I would basically just like roll balls over them and Didn't hit a ton of cuts I was just kind of doing a lot of visualization stuff and then went out the next day and just putted out of my mind Like had one of the best putting grounds in my life And that's like I don't know if it was like you know a direct result of that, but I do think it made a really big impact on me to like To like regardless of what I'm doing to like never forget where the target

Michael Frampton

good is and where I'm going. Yeah. So when you actually hit the ball, are you looking at the ball in that moment?

Tiffany Joh

So yeah, I think like when you take it away, like you are kind of looking at it, but you're not really focused on it.

You're just trying to swing. But there are a lot of professional golfers who when they putt don't look at the ball and they look at the whole because like the stroke is so short.

Like surely you're not going to miss the ball with the stroke. That's like a foot long. So there's a lot of people who when they really start to struggle with like gauging the speed or how hard they have to hit it or something like that, then they try to get themselves as target oriented as possible.

Michael Frampton

Interesting. So as part of that, do you sort of open up your peripheral vision?

Tiffany Joh

Yeah, so I think for me when I putt like my eyes are kind of

Michael Frampton

going towards the ball but I'm actually looking at a spot a little bit in front and I'm just trying to roll the ball over that spot because you know like when you're putting you're reading a lot of break so you're kind of trying to figure out like is this gonna break right is we gonna break left another thing that's kind of like surfing and then I like to kind of like take a spot and roll it over that spot but also kind of keeping in mind like where the hole is as well um so I'm I look like I'm looking at the ball but I'm actually not really focusing there interesting hmm so I guess it's kind of like um have you ever learned to juggle uh not really but I think I know you don't look you don't look at your hands right you kind of look up and you're you should see where the ball is coming and you should sort of know where your hand is and where the ball is going to be it makes me think that's sort of that sort of principle so you you have quite a

You have a sharp awareness of where the ball is and where the club is without necessarily looking directly at it.

Tiffany Joh

Right.

Michael Frampton

And that's, is that something that's purposely developed or does that just sort of happen over time with hours on the course?

Tiffany Joh

I think just intuitively with time, and I think a lot of it is just, you know, you say a lot something and then you try to grasp that straw to figure out what else I'm going to work.

I'm sure at some point people spiral will not be like, where am I looking? Maybe I should try looking somewhere else.

So I do think, and I don't think, you know, everyone is like that. I'm sure there are some people that do you like to look at a spot on the ball and then everything else is secondary, but that's just kind of where I felt like I've had it the most effectively.

Just because I think if I just focus on the ball, I get too wrapped up in what my stroke is doing.

And especially in putting like the stroke is so overrated. like anyone with a little bit of athleticism should be able to hit a ball like six inches on mine.

that's all you really need to do with a pot.

Michael Frampton

So that makes it makes a lot of sense. It really does. Even just the fact of it just purposely opening up your peripheral vision is actually a very calming thing to do.

So it calms your nervous system down. Did you do any specific visual training like eye exercises?

Tiffany Joh

No, a lot of it was like we'd use the chalk pen to like put out dots and then we would take like a straight one and do some dots along the line.

And then we would do like a big right to left your and a left to right because I mean 99% of putting is just matching up your line in your speed because it can be different.

mean you can make a 8-foot put on like five different lines depending on how hard it you hit it, like you can kind of drip and dye something in or you can kind of hammer it and like not put as much break.

So a lot of it was kind of that like some green reading exercises. So but yeah.

Michael Frampton

If what's your biggest fear and golf?

Tiffany Joh

My biggest fear and golf. That's a good question. think maybe like this is slightly irrational but I was playing in the British Open one year and a girl I was playing with hit a volunteer with a drive like in the head and we heard it from like 250 yards away and there was blood everywhere and he ended up being fine and he was actually like oh yeah I like my head bumped it over there and like his head was bleeding and he had a towel to it and he apparently I checked on him that night and he came back the next day to volunteer again but like that I think

think that scares me so much. you know, professional golf, when there's a lot of spectators, they kind of line the fairways.

So it looks very narrow. And it looks like if you hit it off line, that you could kill someone.

And I think that's definitely my biggest fear involved.

Michael Frampton

What's your biggest fear in surfing?

Tiffany Joh

I don't know. I mean, I'm not like a fearless surfer by any like I don't like going out in big or tough condition.

I do think there was one. So we live really close to the Mexican border. So my friend and I, my friend, Kat and I like to drive down and surf like Rosarito and stuff.

it's not like super safe. Like there's no life guards or anything. And there was one day and this was when I was early on in my surfing career and like didn't have any ocean knowledge at all where it was kind of

thing you know next to this cliff and it was like super high tide and it was a ton of swell and like some of the fishermen had put out all these lobster tracks and I wiped out on a wave and I got my foot like tangled in the rope around the lobster trap and I think that's maybe the most scared I've ever been in the water but um since then I've learned I've learned not to go out at super high tide with a ton of swell if the waves are breaking right against the cliffs yeah huh if you could only play golf with one club what is that club one club am I like just for enjoyment or am I trying to shoot a good score if there's a different answer to both those versions that I'm interested to hear both well I love putting it's my favorite part of the game like I love you know all the intricacies of it and stuff so

If there was only one part of the game I could do, I would just cut. But I think if I was trying to shoot a good score, I would probably take like a seven iron because I feel like I could hit pretty much any shot I need to with that.

And you can always put with it too.

Michael Frampton

Yep. Okay. What's your favorite surfboard?

Tiffany Joh

So, um, much like golf, I'm not someone that owns like a ton of boards. Um, have three, I have like a nine four nose writer, I have like a eight to egg and I just got like a like a seven to egg.

Right now it's the eight to egg. Um, it's like a, it's a jock haul who's like a local shaper in San Diego.

Um, when I actually bought the longboard on Craigslist when I first got into surfing and that was a Josh haul and I loved it so much and I contacted Josh to get the egg shape.

And he was asking me all these questions, like, you know, do you want to type in, do you like speed egg and.

I was like, I don't know. But I want it to be the purple that the exit emoji is. And so that's what I'm to go on.

Michael Frampton

Oh, shout out to Josh. Yeah, I've got one of his boards.

Tiffany Joh

It's one of my favorite boards. Love it.

Michael Frampton

Yeah, that's a good approach, though. had just had three boards. I mean, so many surfers just own too many boards and make it too complicated.

Tiffany Joh

Yeah, and I think even with the board, I'm sure if you're really, really good, you can kind of sense all the intricacies when you go surf.

But for me, I need like a board when it's really small, like a board when it's like super fun.

And then, you know, a board where I'm like, all right, if I'm going to have to, you know, get out there and I need to get out test the light water, like this is going to help me without getting things washed up.

Like that's the only way I make my choice.

Michael Frampton

How many sets of clubs do you have?

Tiffany Joh

And so... Well, I probably have, I mean, I've given away a ton of them because I'm not, I'm not a hoarder or anything, but I think I've probably had maybe 30 sets of clubs in my lifetime.

I've probably given away like 15 to 20 of them. But I think for me, it's not like, I don't get, I don't replace full sets.

I'll have like, like 15 putters and then like, you know, 30 drivers. Like, I'm kind of replacing them one by one in the bag, depending on, um, sometimes it's, I would keep, you know, you're only allowed to use 14 clubs during a tournament, but I would keep 16 and based on what kind of golf course we're playing, I would kind of switch out clubs.

But, so I end up having like 100 wedges because, you know, a lot of that is very turf dependent.

Michael Frampton

Okay. Do, is that common? Do some people go overboard with, with clubs that have like, multiple different sets for different courses and

and this commitment at disadvantage?

Tiffany Joh

I think most people keep the iron pretty much the same. But yeah, with wedges, especially on the professional level, people are switching those out a lot.

Also with wedges because it's so skin dependent, you always want fresh grooves. wedges I was actually probably replacing at least once a month.

Then the driver pretty much any time a company came out with a new model I was asking for to try one, because driver technology is changing so quickly that it actually does make a difference if you have the latest and greatest model in your bag.

But then cutting is so intuitive and field-based. You can put with the same putter your entire life. So I think I've only put with maybe three or four different putters in my career in competition.

So wedges I probably have. I mean, we use them as like door stops and like we use them to like...

You know, what changed the bets on the air conditioner and stuff.

Michael Frampton

Funny. Have you ever been to a wave pool yet?

Tiffany Joh

I haven't. I'm not sure I would like it. I think I would feel a lot of pressure.

Michael Frampton

You'd be used to the pressure though.

Tiffany Joh

Maybe. But I would just, I think I have a feeling that I did have a friend actually who used to work first or simply and, you know, they did a wave pool kit that she was saying.

She played volleyball at the college club. So she was used to like pressure and competition and she said that hours leading up to like going to the wave pool, she was, she felt like she was out of meat.

Michael Frampton

She was like, it was just the tension was just. Yeah. suppose everyone's watching and it's your turn. Yeah. But pressure makes diamonds, they say.

Tiffany Joh

And I do kind of like the idea that if you miss it, there's someone that can pick it up.

Like it never goes wasted. Right. There's always like a second or whatever. person who could like pick up whatever you missed.

that makes me feel a little bit better.

Michael Frampton

Yeah, it's kind of like the driving range for surfers. Yeah. Yeah, and they're popping up everywhere. So yeah, I think it's going to change surfing for the, well, maybe for the bed and we'll see.

All right, well, Tif, thank you so much for taking the time to do this. It's awesome. Um, if there was one, if there was one piece of surfing advice, you could leave listeners with what would there be?

Tiffany Joh

Um, I think just going back to consistency over intensity. Um, I wish I could say, I know everyone says like the best or from the water is having the most fun, but the person having the most fun is like probably the person who's getting better and seeing improvement and being encouraged.

um, I'm going to go with consistency over intensity, like put it in 20, 30 minutes consistently, rather. then, you know, five hours every other time.

Michael Frampton

Yeah, no, I liked it. I think there's a lot of truth to that saying, you know, the best surface having the most fun.

Obviously, you know, outside of competition surfing, because that's different. I don't think surfing is even a sport.

Tiffany Joh

Sometimes I don't think so either. Yeah, more of a sport than golf, though.

Michael Frampton

Well, yeah. Yeah, if you can, if you get a sport, you can do in your pajamas with a cigarette hanging out of your mouth.

Tiffany Joh

Maybe it's not a sport and a beer in one hand.

Michael Frampton

Yeah. Exactly. I will tip.

Tiffany Joh

What's your Instagram? So people can follow along. So my Instagram is tip Joe T I F F J O H.

It's like 90% tacos, but during that, that would be interesting to follow.

Michael Frampton

All right. Cool. I will have links to that in the show notes.

Tiffany Joh

Again, thank you so much for taking the time. Awesome.

Michael Frampton

Thank you.