First Tee Nerves: Why Golfers Play Scared (And How to Play Freely) | Dr Raymond Prior (Part 2)

Most golfers aren’t trying to hit the shot they want — they’re trying to avoid the one they fear. 

In Part 2 of our conversation with performance psychologist Dr Raymond Prior, we go deeper into the mental side of golf — and why so many golfers struggle when it matters most.

Why does the first tee feel so terrifying?
Why do golfers start protecting a good score instead of chasing a great one?
And what’s the crucial difference between being nervous… and being anxious?

Raymond explains why many golfers unknowingly play with an avoidance mindset — trying not to hit the bad shot — instead of pursuing the shot they actually want to hit. That shift alone can completely change how you perform under pressure.

In this episode we explore:

Why first-tee nerves feel so intense
The difference between nerves and anxiety in performance
Why golfers often protect a good score instead of going low
How to step away and reset when your mind starts racing
Why “choking” in sport is often misunderstood
How identity and ego can interfere with your golf

This episode is packed with practical insights for any golfer who wants to play more freely, handle pressure better, and finally understand the psychology behind their best — and worst — rounds.

Dr Raymond Prior is a leading performance psychologist and author of Golf Beneath the Surface, working with elite players and performers across multiple sports.

If you’ve ever stood on the first tee hoping you don’t embarrass yourself… this episode is for you.

🎧 Listen now.

📺 YouTube → https://www.youtube.com/@HowLowCanYouGoPodcast

📸 Instagram → https://www.instagram.com/howlowcanyougopodcast/

💌 Contact → howlowcanyougopodcast@gmail.com

📊 Explore Golf Beneath The Surface → https://btsmindset.com/  https://www.instagram.com/gbtspodcast/

🏨 Big shout out to The Leddie Hotel on Scotland’s Golf Coast.

If you’re enjoying the podcast, leaving a review really helps us grow — and keeps us chasing better golf, faster. ⛳

Transcript

Section A

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Being nervous is oftentimes a performance enhancer for us. Being anxious is the great performance destroyer.

SPEAKER_00 0:10

Welcome back to How Low Can You Go, the golf improvement podcast born in Scotland. In part one of our conversation with performance psychologist Dr. Raymond Pryor, we explored why golfers so often get caught trying to avoid mistakes and how the anxiety can completely change the way we perform. In this second part, the conversation turns much more practical. We talk about how mindfulness can help golfers perform more freely, the difference between being mode and a doing mode of mind, and why sometimes the real barrier to going low is the way we think about success and failure. So let's get back to our conversation with Dr. Raymond Pryor. This is how low can you go. How low can you go? If you have 20 minutes before a round that you say like a competition and you feel very nervous about, what would you say? How would you use those 20 minutes best? Like to get yourself in the mode?

SPEAKER_02 1:14

Yeah, if you've got 20 minutes before a round, a couple things. So what I would recommend to people with any, if you're trying to interact more mindfully, that is at a distance from your own thoughts and feelings and sensations, making that a daily practice. So the general protocols are five minutes a day of just sitting with your thoughts and feelings or sitting with your breath and returning to your breath when you notice there's a shift in your thoughts and feelings, or a body scan mindfulness practice. Five minutes a day, the minimum protocol or the minimum diagon um the minimum, oh we might say um prescribed dosage, so to speak, starts to train us to be able to interact, pay attention on purpose to our internal state without doing anything with it. That if you do that over time, it's kind of like exercising. Well, then I don't need to necessarily do all of that right before I go perform. However, what I would recommend to anybody who's looking to go play in a very pursuit-based way and take on the risk that is involved with that would be before you even start physically doing the things you do to prepare to do that. Have you created a space where you are actually present in what you're doing and not doing anything with your internal space? Right. So can I actually just sit before I actually start focusing and acting in ways that lead to action and execution and actually clear some psychological space where that's actually what I'm gonna do and not anything else? Right. So that might be sitting in the parking lot, doing that for a couple of minutes before you get out of the car and go play in the locker room, before you leave your house, something of that nature. And then I usually recommend people what does a physical warmup need to actually look like for you to be kind of more-ish prepared to play. But if you go do a whole physical warm-up and it's awesome, but in the background, what's running is I can't feel this way, I don't want to feel this way. You better avoid being judged by other people, etc. Your physical warm-up is great, but you're still multitasking your whole way through your round of golf.

SPEAKER_01 3:09

Would you would you say, just on that, because that's really interesting, physical warm-up, say you do the best physical warm-up, and then you've got this almost like, I don't know, we're gonna call it psychological warm-up or whatever. What you described there, it sounds to me very much almost like you're describing meditation is what uh like where you're like thinking thoughts and not judging those thoughts.

SPEAKER_02 3:31

Yeah, there's a little bit of difference between meditation and mindfulness on a super technical level, but they are very similar. There's a lot of overlap between those Venn diagrams. Some of the overlap is tuning into your experience, whatever that might be, without judgment and without trying to escape it or change it. Just be in it. Right. One of the cool things about when we feel scratchy thoughts and feelings to certain degrees, is that oftentimes we learn, like, okay, I can just tolerate this, right? It's not actually something that I need to escape or do anything with just because it exists, right? With the younger kids I work with, I'm like, treat your thoughts and feelings like a fart. Yeah, it stinks right now, but it's gonna pass. And so if you don't feel the need to actually do anything about it, it'll come and go. And when it comes, and that doesn't mean yet you can't do something while you smell this fart, right? And eventually it will change. But most of the time what we do is we feel something and think something we don't like. We try to do something about that because that's something we're not supposed to do. And all the while I'm doing that while I'm trying to perform. Again, it's super distracting. And eventually it's going to kick to anxiety because I'll be thinking and feeling in something that I should be avoiding to avoid the outcomes and the experiences I don't want. And then we'll also white says it's really difficult to get better over time because I'm never actually doing something freely enough because I'm always doing something distracted with my internal experience that when I'm done with a round of golf, I can't even tell you why you missed in a certain way or why you executed well in a certain way, because there's always a layer of you doing something else in between them. Right. Like, really difficult to get better over time if you're always doing something while also doing something else. So I can't tell you how much interference the other thing else had in it. Right. So if a player tells me I missed every every drive to the right, I'm like, okay, well, how many of those shots did you actually play freely and being present with them? None of them. Okay, well, then we actually don't know whether this is a technical issue or an equipment issue or a conditions issue or whatever. It's usually us like, dear God, don't let this thing go left all day, which we wouldn't be surprised why it ends up a mile right. All that being said, if I have the thought or feeling on the T-Box, can't let this thing go left, and I play a drive, using that thought as a fact or a precursor to my future or whatever feelings come with it, we won't be surprised why my technique then becomes altered because it's now not trying to hit a ball where I want. It's trying to be used to avoid where I don't want it to go.

SPEAKER_00 5:55

And would you say step off of the ball there then? Like, say, for example, if you're if you're standing over that, like, say, Dave, we've spoken about this a thousand times on this podcast. It's happened to me today. Yeah, it's the first T nerves that everybody gets, and you have that kind of oh, you don't make oh, people are behind me look at watching me play and now I'm tense. Yes. But then obviously you've done your practice when you've done your routine, that comes into your head. Would you say step off the ball? Well, like, how would you approach that?

SPEAKER_02 6:25

Yeah, so two layers to this. First of all, you would want to make sure you've done some front loading work before you go play. So a question I would ask every player before I go is what are all the avoidance-based tasks you could attach to this performance that you would need to check, take, like remove right now before you even go out there. So if I've gone to play and I go, oh, but in the back of my mind, like I haven't really addressed the fact that one of the things I really try to avoid is screwing up the first t-shot in front of a bunch of other people. Of course, I'm gonna get that thought over the golf ball.

SPEAKER_03 6:53

Right?

SPEAKER_02 6:54

So that would almost be like you haven't warmed up physically, and then you get over the golf ball and you go, I don't really know that I can make a full turn. You probably can't. Yeah. Right. So there's some front loading of going, hold on, what are the things that I usually attach to this round of golf that I would need to let go of that when I get to that shot, I can actually play it freely without any avoidance-based tasks attached to it. Then the second thing is if I'm ever over a golf ball and I'm not actually focused on what I'm doing and how I want to do it with this golf shot, and I'm it's whether it's, oh shoot, don't screw this up or don't get judged, or I wonder what's for lunch today. So essentially just anything that is distracting, I want to get off of that golf ball because what that my brain is just telling me is we're doing this thing, but I'm not actually focused on that.

SPEAKER_03 7:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 7:39

Right. So the best case scenario is you get a distracted swing, which is just hit and hope. Worst case scenario is you're multitasking with avoidance, in which case then you're gonna get whatever you have told your brain cannot happen in the opposite direction. Right. So always don't get judged by other people. Well, now I've just made a golf swing trying to defend against other people's opinions. So we wouldn't be surprised if your dispersion is this wide and your ability to catch the middle of the club face goes like way down.

SPEAKER_01 8:04

Just on just on um because a moment ago, and I'm sure there's there's fine nuance to this, but I'd love it if you could explain what you were saying, is we we kind of gotta treat these thoughts as they are and not judge them and not say, oh no, I'm thinking about blasting it into the houses again. And like like and Chris is saying, Well, would you recommend stepping away? Are we if we're doing that, are we not kind of like almost contradicting a bit of what you're saying? In in in terms of like we're we're going, oh no, I just thought that thought, and I that's a terrible thought to think, let me step away from this. Or like how do we deal with that?

SPEAKER_02 8:42

It's yeah, it's not a terrible thought, it's just something else. Yes. Right? So again, I'm not judging it, but I'm also going, well, I don't want to do this thing distracted, right? So I'm noticing that my internal experience is preoccupied with something that is not the thing that I'm doing. Yes. Then I step back, go, that is just a thought and a feeling that I had at a time that was not very helpful for me. Can I now just focus on what I'm doing and how I want to do it, whatever that might be. So it's not don't have those thoughts, and if you do, you're in trouble, or just ignore them completely or just plow through them. But it is, okay, I had that thought that is not helpful for the thing that I'm doing right now if I do the thing through it. Yeah. Can I just step back, recognize that as just a thought and a feeling that I was experienced at the time? Refocus, what do I want to do and how do I want to do it here? Like you almost have the question, well, what would you do and how would you do it if you didn't have that thought? Yes. I'd have that target there and I would just rip it at it. Cool. And I think that's let's refocus and then do that.

SPEAKER_01 9:39

Yeah, no, absolutely. I think there's the there's the nuance that I'm getting at is is is you're aware. If you build up that awareness, you're aware that you've had that.

SPEAKER_02 9:47

That's exactly right.

SPEAKER_01 9:48

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 9:49

And again, the front-loaded work matters very much. So if you think about our brain, it is going to spit us thoughts, both uh we have kind of two layers of thoughts. We have intentional thoughts, much like what we are speaking here, based on the topics that have been introduced and the things that we're doing, et cetera. So I'm gonna have intentional thoughts about, for example, what golf shot I actually want to hit. But our brain is also gonna spit us what we call spontaneous thoughts, which are reflections of the tasks behind the thing. Right. So if I have if the only thing that I'm asking myself to do is go play freely today, let's go see what happens, and all possible outcomes and experiences are acceptable, I'm gonna have some deliberate thoughts that are aligned with that because that would help me create the roadmap for pursuing that. But also the spontaneous thoughts that I'm gonna get are more likely to be aligned with that. Okay. However, they're not always gonna be aligned with that. Then we might also notice that if I am my front-loaded work hasn't really addressed all the things that I could bring to this and let those go, I'm gonna be more likely to get a bunch of the spontaneous thoughts that are trying to attend to those types of tasks. Which again, doesn't mean that I go, uh-oh, I'm in trouble if I have them. It's just like, okay, that would be a thought that is related to another task that doesn't exist now. Again, whether that's don't get judged by other people or what's for breakfast or what's for lunch or whatever that might be. It's just another task your brain is kind of tuning into. So if we can just kind of again see those as these are thoughts that are not bad or good, whatever they have shown up for whatever reason they have shown up, but they are not actually aligned with the thing that I'm doing when I'm doing it in the way that I want to do it. Then when I have them, I can see them just for that. And again, thoughts and feelings are temporary. They are very rarely reflections of reality, and they are not things that we must focus and act upon just because they exist. So if I have one and it draws my focus, then I can go, oh, this is a thing my focus has shifted to and allow it to come back to the thing that I'm doing, even for a small period of time, which you only need about, I don't know, maybe five to ten second window in order to play a golf shot.

SPEAKER_00 11:52

Yeah. This question I've got for you, because it's obviously it's the podcast is called How Low Can You Go? And you'd said, like, how can are you comfortable with how high you can go? But not comfortable accepting. Accepting how high you can go. Is there a fear for your like just every golfer on shooting a low score? Like, is there like a fear of going low essentially? Like you've said when you're coming down the 15th, 16th, 17th, and you're like, I'm onto a good score here. Is there fear constantly of going low and trying to meet that target, like hit that target?

SPEAKER_02 12:29

There can be. Again, it would depend on what it is that that means to you. So if I tell you going low now means that the expectation is for you to do this all the time, and if you don't, that is unacceptable. You will fear going low because now your margin for error between what is deemed a success and failure is now smaller. Right. So there's no such thing as fear of success.

SPEAKER_01 12:50

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 12:50

It's fear of being able to maintain success, which would then be deemed a failure. Right. So nobody fears success. They fear if I'm successful and I cannot repeat that in a quote unquote acceptable way, then now I am a failure or I have failed, and all the stuff that we typically add to that. So for anybody, typically what happens are kind of two layers. One is I'm starting to go lower than I normally have, and I go, oh, this is awesome, just don't screw it up. Yeah. Which is not a negative thought. It's now an avoidance-based task. Protect what you have already earned, not go pursue more of what you have. So it's a shift in low acceptance for the possibility of screwing up what you have already done. In the big picture, if me being really successful means there's a margin for error out there that I am not willing to accept, whether it's expectations or from myself or others, the conclusion that if I do that and I can't do it again, that means this this was a fluke or that I, you know, got lucky or some whatever that I again, something that I go, can't I must avoid that. That is not acceptable. Then yeah, you're gonna fear the possibility of it being successful because that would then be the gateway to more failure in your future, in which case then you will guard against it.

SPEAKER_03 14:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 14:05

Right. So, and typically the things that we guard against are not going low. It's can I repeat this? And then, well, why would I worry about me being able to repeat this? Because then I would feel like it was a fluke, or people would say that I'm a fluke, or that what if I experience this and I can't repeat it again, and then that would mean that I tried and failed at this venture, so on and so forth down the line. So it's a lot of identity, ego, um, and like self-acceptance and approval type of stuff that now we're kind of getting into, which again, if we go back to our first domino, well, why isn't that you're actually more present to begin with? Well, if there's a me being really successful now creates a future that's worth me guarding against in a threatening way, yeah, you will fear it. And by fear, it's more anxiety than it is fear. Fear is more immediate. Anxiety is more about the future.

SPEAKER_01 14:51

And would fear of choking be wrapped around a lot of that as well? So like I I like what you said about oh, there's no such thing as fear of success, because that that concept has always been a bit difficult for me to understand. Like, how could anybody be fearful of that? But is it more a case of I am currently in a successful position? I now fear that I'm going to blow this success.

SPEAKER_02 15:14

That's exactly right. So it's not a fear of success, it's a fear of losing it, which again, that's an avoidance-based approach, not a pursuit-based approach. And again, it's not negative or bad. It's an avoidance-based approach to the future. So for clarification, fear is more immediate. Like if a snake rolled over your feet right now, that would be a fear response. It is an immediate, like right now, threat response. Anxiety is all future-based. It's a stuff that is we are imagining happening. Now it could play out that way, but we are imagining it happening that way before it happens, right? So if I imagine that if I have something great, my handicap is really low, and then I play in a way where it increases, or I'm in a pressure situation and things are going really well, and then I screw it up, that that is an unacceptable experience for whatever reasons that I attach to it, then yeah, I'm gonna fear, quote unquote, fear success or be anxious about success, but it's not really the success. It's about what happens if I lose it and whatever explanation that I have wrapped around that, which usually what we wrap around it is, well, then you are worthy of shame, ridicule, embarrassment, that your efforts are in vain, that so on and so forth, and all this stuff that again are all us applying layers to something that don't really exist, but we certainly feel them in that way. And to be fair, we live in a culture, our Western culture, particularly yours and ours, that like really shames people for trying and failing. Yeah, yeah. Right. And so if you buy into that and you do that to yourself and others, you will also fear it. If you kind of push back that, like, no, actually, I think trying and failing is something that is relatively honorable, yeah, then it's not something, again, the different explanation creates a different level of threat in the future. If the threat of I tried and failed is just I tried and failed, and I'll try to figure out how to try again, regardless of how it goes, then whatever future success is just uh something I can pursue and future failure is something that I will see what happens, versus if I try at this and I fail at it, all the things I felt in the past are validated. That must mean they're true. And I am worthy of fillings, whatever blank shame, embarrassment, whatever, so on and so forth, then yes, the prospect of both success and failure are gonna be very, very threatening for your brain. And you will always be pursuing with the brakes on because that will keep you from really being successful in a way that makes you more susceptible to failure, and you will always be guarding against failure because duh.

SPEAKER_01 17:47

Yeah. Yeah, and I think as you say, with the like in the certainly in the culture that we are part of in the West, I guess, you know, someone choking in sport, you know, it's so frowned upon. It's like, look at them, they couldn't close it out on a Sunday, or look at that guy, he completely choked in that situation. Would you like you work with some top players, would you almost I'm not gonna say recommend, but would you say to your players, you might have to go through several situations where you choke and go through that moment that you talked about earlier where you almost kind of relive it and then that might set you up for something later?

SPEAKER_02 18:27

I would even push back on the word choke. Okay. Like what does that mean? Yeah. Like if you're under pressure, you try and you just don't execute. To me, that's not a choke. You tried and you failed. Okay. Again, trying and failing. Now, where I would say choking, uh I would again, I wouldn't really use that word. I would use, you know, like I didn't succeed in large part because I did something guarding against failure. Right. So that means I per tried to perform through anxiety. Again, I still wouldn't call that choking necessarily, but we would see like, well, that's a very predictable experience and a pretty predictable outcome. Versus like just try and you might fail. And that is a part of life. If I mean, if you think about like any performance realm, the better you get on the learning curve, going from steep to flat, as you get to the top, it takes more time and more effort to make smaller and smaller increments of progress, and the margins for error between success and failure get smaller, not wider, right? So uh case in point uh Roger Federer won, I think it was like 85% of his matches. Okay. But if you actually look at the percentage of points he won, he only won about 53 or 54% of his points. So the difference between him being an all-time great and just an average player on tour was like four percent. Okay. So if we think about that in the in golf, if you're gonna be in contention over time where you actually win, you are far more likely to fail a couple of times in that and succeed, even if you're executing freely because everybody else is competent, the conditions are difficult. Oh, and by the way, like everyone else is trying for the same things that you are. Okay. So if I go, oh, I'm under I'm in the the back line of a major in contention and I'm in 10 of those and I execute great, that might mean I only win three of them. Right. You look at the history of golf, Jack Nicholas won 18 majors. He also finished second 18 times, and he also finished outside of second all the other times. So his success rate for winning, even when he was in contention, is far less than 50%. Right. But we go, well, if you're in it and you're ever and it fails, that must mean you choked. Yeah. No, maybe I per played great and somebody else just played better. Gotta keep in mind, golf is a sport where you can't play defense. The only person you can play defense against is yourself. Right? So what that means is if somebody else goes and does great, whatever, or if somebody gets the better end of a draw or a better win, like there's a thousand different things going in. So I always push back on this like, did this person choke? Because one, we don't know that they choked. Maybe they just got outperformed, or maybe they just didn't execute well enough. Like that is the risk you take when you go perform. Then the second part is, yeah, people get in their way sometimes, but I don't necessarily think that that deserves some type of label that is oftentimes shame and embarrassment and like the wagging judgmental finger at it. It's like, yeah, it kind of played out that way. I can see how that would happen for you. Then that offers you the opportunity to make some adjustments going forward to learn from the experience. But we oftentimes, well, just say this when we have, let's say it's I tried and failed, and for whatever reasons. Maybe I just didn't do well enough, maybe I got in my own way. When we throw judgment on top of that, what we learn is avoid judgment. What we don't learn is what could I do better to have a different experience next time or perform better next time, or learn from these mistakes. So if I go, oh, I ate it today, what is wrong with you? You shouldn't be doing this, et cetera, or to other people. What we're our brain is learning is, oh, I need to avoid this. This. In which case, then let's not be surprised why I get anxiety the next time I'm there. If instead I go, man, I really ate it today, and I go, okay, let me get curious. What could so instead of judging it as good or bad, right or wrong, you suck or you don't, I go, what led to the experience playing out this way? And maybe part of it is I played scared for half of it. Then I can learn playing scared is obviously a very predictable experience for me, and I don't like how that goes, which now I can pay attention to that in a way where I can see when it comes up sooner, get out in front of it, and know what to do differently instead that might give me a different experience. But again, this whole like you choked, what's wrong with you type, I could just honestly, it's uh it's it's messaging from uh a previous generation of insecure men that gets passed down to the line and I would just push against it.

SPEAKER_01 22:52

Yeah, yeah. We I think like that's my experience of that is probably having maybe inherited some of those noises from that kind of generation and that culture, that kind of fear that fear of failure.

SPEAKER_00 23:07

Before we jump back into the conversation with Dr. Raymond, just a quick one from us. If you're enjoying the podcast, the best way you can help us out is just by following the show and sharing it with a mate who's obsessed with golf improvement, just like we are. It genuinely helps us keep getting brilliant people like this on the podcast. Right. Let's get back to Dr. Raymond.

SPEAKER_01 23:29

Just talking again, I know we talked a lot about like first T terrors and first T fears, because it is just so common across the board, you know, for our listeners, mostly club golfers who want to get better. You know, uh the big daunting tea shot when we're on a golf trip with our friends, you know, in front of the whole crowd, that is genuinely sometimes really, really traumatic. Um, I would say where Chris and I play, we play at Murrayfield in Edinburgh, which is an absolutely beautiful uh course with some of the finest views of Edinburgh you will see. It's not a terribly difficult course, I would say, Chris, right? But what I would say is it has got a very daunting opening tea shop because it's a long age par four up a hill with houses screaming out at you down the left-hand side, all the way up the left hand side, but also directly behind you is the clubhouse, beautiful kind of 1912 built clubhouse with a gallery, and on a summer's day, there's people just out all watching everyone tee off their first t-shirt. And honestly, I find it is genuinely really, really scary. And I am I I would love to not do this, but I'm standing there just going, please, please, anything but blasting it into those houses. Anything but that. So Raymond, just to put you on the spot, like what would be a good uh training approach for Chris and I for that first T shot at our home course? You you talked about various different things that we should be sort of putting on the table and then kind of almost taking off the table. Um talk us through that. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 25:11

So we might notice that the first t shot there does a couple things. First, it is a stressful tee shot, meaning there is a duration and intensity and margin for error that requires a well-executed shot. Okay, houses down the left, a t-shot up the hill, like and perhaps a long par four. So what that means is that's a very challenging shot. Okay, so your brain knows that, it knows when score counts and it knows what's more difficult and what's not. Okay. So you're gonna get a stress response. That's nervous. But then if I also go, cannot hit it in these houses, cannot get judged by these people, cannot let my round get off to a slow start, cannot double bogey's hole, cannot let my past experiences on this hole play out again this time in my very near future, we might notice there's a ton of avoidance-based tasks. So now your brain's not really trying to do that well and be in it. It's probably trying to one, try to convince you, just don't do it, which is all the negative, quote unquote, negative thoughts and feelings. Too hard from the second. Yep. And then two, that they'll be like, just get this over with as fast as possible. And now I've just started my round with a tea shot, trying to get it done with and out of the current discomfort that I'm in, versus trying to do it as well as I can for the reasons that are important to me. Right. So, what we would I would ask is like, what are all the avoidance-based things that you have historically added to that tee shot that you typically bring to it? And then again, this is a question for you to consider on your times, like, what would it look like for you to bring more acceptance to that? Like being judged by other people and then watching it bouncing one off of someone's house, et cetera. Like essentially, what would it take for you to be more accepting of the worst case scenario potentially playing out again? In which case, then now you have the opportunity to actually be present, although perhaps uncomfortable, in the thing you're doing it and make a free swing on your first tee shot with a willingness to see how it plays out rather than a I better not go a certain way or just anything but blank. So, you know, if I tell you anything but the houses, my guess is that ball's going the opposite direction by a ton.

SPEAKER_03 27:13

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 27:14

Yeah. Right. Which again, not a negative thought or a bad swing. That is your brain doing exactly what you asked it to do. Do not hit one into the houses in front of all these people and start your round with that. Right.

SPEAKER_03 27:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 27:25

So it's not a negative thought, it's an avoidance-based task that by the way, your brain just did and went, you're welcome, but as far right or as far whatever the opposite side of that might be. Right. So there we just might notice there's a ton of avoidance-based tasks there. Then I might ask you the question before you tee off, like, what would you do and how would you do it if you didn't give a shit about the people watching or whether you're going to bounce one off of somebody's house? I'm not saying you don't. I'm saying what would you do if you didn't give a shit about bouncing it off someone's house or somebody else seeing that?

SPEAKER_03 27:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 27:57

That tells you what the pursuit-based task that's in front of you actually looks like. And if that's the only thing you're asking yourself to do, now you've got some room to do that, provided you're not adding an avoidance-based task to it and not also trying to quote unquote think and feel comfortably while you're in there.

SPEAKER_01 28:13

Yeah. Right. That's a great question. I think that's a great question. In golf in general, to ask yourself is like, yeah, how would I play this shot if I didn't give a shit about it? Or how would I swing this club if I didn't give a shit? I think that that's actually really powerful.

SPEAKER_02 28:29

Aaron Powell It's not about asking, what if I didn't give a shit about this shot? You do give a shit about the shot. The problem is you're giving more shits about what people think about it and an outcome that doesn't exist yet. Right. So if I said, what would you do and how would you do it if the only thing you gave a shit about was playing the shot in the way that you want to, is really the question. So if I didn't create tasks of needing to be not judged by others, and I didn't feel the need to protect from bouncing one off of someone's house that I don't actually know if that's going to happen yet, or if it did, how bad it would actually be. What if I actually just did that? So it's not I don't care about this shot. Okay. It's I actually don't feel the need to protect from things that aren't this golf shot.

SPEAKER_00 29:08

Yeah. That's brilliant. Honestly, I think like just to kind of wrap up, I think like reading your book and then obviously having this conversation. We've like everybody knows on the podcast, my thing is the mental side of it. And I think being able to be in a being mode rather than a doing mode and working on my breath from doing like daily body scans has already I've seen the benefits for it. Um so I like would tell everybody to go out there and get that book and obviously dial in because this season is I personally feel for myself is going to be so much better because like I've found something that's just allowing me to like relax and be more like accepting of my golf, essentially. Yeah. So thank you.

SPEAKER_02 29:53

Yeah, the accepting is the key word there. I can't guarantee you that you'll always be relaxed, but when we are not accepting, we are not only going to get nervous, we're gonna get anxious, and those two things are not the same. Uh being nervous is oftentimes a performance enhancer for us. Being anxious is the great performance destroyer. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 30:11

Yeah. And in terms of training acceptance, just last kind of question from my side on this, Raymond. Uh my son, this is a I'm asking you this selfishly, but just for my my son is getting really into golf, which I'm really pleased about. This has been a uh a multi-year project of mine to sort of gradually, I wanted my my son and hopefully my daughter to really get the bug uh for golf, and he's got that, and it's just great. Um, but like for somebody who you know is young, my son's 11, you know, who's clearly a long ways to go in terms of being uh emotionally developed, like how do you help them uh train uh acceptance? Because for me, Chris, you've seen Lochland swing. It's it's it's really it's starting to really look good. Like we're sending videos around and we're going, look at this swing, it looks like this has a lot of potential here. But however, I sometimes think whenever a child grasps the jeopardy of golf and the kind of scoring system of golf, you've almost let the genie out of the bottle. And and so he's he's now totally got that oh it's good to shoot low, it's bad to uh to hit bad shots and shoot high, and kind of can get very, very upset with bad shots. So and I'm trying to like I'm thinking to myself, well, like I don't know how to try and how to try and train this so that he can it's not that I try and say to him, it's not that uh caring about the outcome is bad, and you know, being annoyed about a bad shot is totally understandable because that's golf. But like how how would you like what would you advise to try and help me uh kind of train that for a child like Luchlan?

SPEAKER_02 31:59

With children, if we want them to do something and enjoy it and have the chance to get better at it, we need to create a couple of conditions for them, which is actually removing a couple of conditions. The first condition we need to approve is anything that is transactional about the experience. So if you play a certain way, I will show up for you a certain way. What essentially means is the kid feels that your attention from adults around them is earned through performance. This conditional relationship is just the formula for anxiety and deprivation. So now I feel like I must play a certain way to avoid the things that children need, which is attention, affection, nonconditional uh love from adults, right? So if any of those things become conditional through the kids' performance, they are gonna do all the things that come with what most adults wrap around it as well, which they typically learned when they were younger. So non-conditional. What that means is go try. If you fail, you fail. I'm gonna show up for you in the same way. I'm not gonna like the number one reason uh children quit quit sports in Western countries, including yours, is the car ride home with parents. Wow. Because it's a not not a conditional thing, or it's a it's a conditional thing that if you played a certain way, the car ride home looks like this, and if you don't, it's gonna look like that.

SPEAKER_01 33:10

Right.

SPEAKER_02 33:10

That would be the main thing. So just try and fail. Oh, I screwed up. Yeah, you did. Let's go try again. Right? So there's no and oh, I played the worst round of golf. You get the same dad you get whether you play uh if you played the the best round of golf, right? So that thing. Now again, they might not get that from everybody in their life, but children are looking to their caretakers far more than they are looking to other. And that is sensed, it's not a logical thing for them. So they know whether you're showing up for them the same or not based on what they sense and feel and what the experience gives to them.

SPEAKER_01 33:40

Would there be any value, just quickly on that, in in almost forecasting to a child, that you're going to be in situations that you will screw up here. This is guaranteed to happen. And so you just gotta be prepared for that. But you know, this is going to be a stable environment no matter what.

SPEAKER_02 33:55

Yeah. And just like, look, if you're gonna try this game, there's gonna be failures in it. Where they are and when they pop up doesn't matter, but when they do, I'll um the only thing I'm gonna ask you to do is try your best in that moment, and I'll see you wherever you are, whether I'm in it with you or alongside and I see you afterward, it's over. Like, that's it. Right. Now, again, one of the things that's important for adults to understand with children is when children grow up to adults who need the approval and the affection and the the um essentially like other people telling them everything's gonna be okay and they worry about them not being there is because there was a scarcity of that in their childhood. Right. So kids who get unconditional affection, attention, love, acceptance of who they are genuinely when they're children like for free. I don't have to work for it. It's just there. Grow up as adults who don't need it. Right. So I might want it, but I don't need it. So all the kids that are in college playing golf and they go, I need my coach to tell me how good I am. It's because when they were kids there, how good they were meant a parent showed up for them in a certain way or not. So I had to do a good job to hear I did a good job, or I had to when I did, I only heard that when I did a good job. So then now I'm pro essentially programmed my brain to need that from people as an adult. When we just get it in abundance for just being, regardless of the outcomes in our lives and how well we do, we don't now have that deficit to fill when we're adults. Okay, so that would be kind of a main thing. The second thing that adults need to really do is be very mindful of how you're praising your children, whether you're praising them for adjectives or verbs. An adjective is you're so smart, you have a lot of potential, you're really good, you're special, you're whatever. And now the kid feels the need to live up to that adjective, which are super subjective, way arbitrary, and to now become really threatening because if I'm special, then I shouldn't have to work very hard, I shouldn't get certain outcomes, in which case, then when I get them, I'm gonna get pretty upset because now I'm not what I was told I was. Versus when we praise children for effort or verbs, like, wow, you played a great round of golf today. I really liked how composed you were, or I really like how you responded to a bad shot with, okay, let me just go do the next one freely. Or, you know, I you were playing really, really free, and I liked the fact that you just kept trying to score as well as you could and you didn't protect your score or whatever. Or I really like how you treated the other players in your group for you. So you're rewarding them for decisions, focus, and the things they actually did to influence the experience rather than, well, the thing you do or do not own allowed you to do that. Right. So unconditional, all the things that children need from a psycho-emotional level, which is essentially another word for saying like they're safe regardless of how this thing goes. And do I praise you for the things you do? And by the way, I might course correct, you know, I noticed your round kind of fell apart. Tell me about how freely you were playing. Oh, not very much. Oh, okay. Well, I really like it when you play freely. How do you feel when you play really freely, right? Or I noticed you had a whole lot of fun with your friends today. I noticed you weren't really worried about the outcome. That must have been really nice. Is it then just kind of again telling them the things that they do are the things that they are essentially being reinforced for? You know, if the general rule for this is like our fixed and growth mindset type of a research, which I devote a significant section of the book to.

SPEAKER_01 37:24

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 37:25

But how we are praised as children, whether it is more adjective and noun-based or whether it is more verb and effort-based, shapes our mindsets to what do I need to live up to? And if I need to live up to a subjective, arbitrary adjective, I'm good, I'm special, like the most dangerous identity in golf is I'm a good golfer because it is impossible to defend.

SPEAKER_03 37:46

Right.

SPEAKER_02 37:47

Versus my identity is built around a lot of things that I can engage with at any moment. I'm competitive, I'm kind, I'm present, I'm I operate freely, I'm curious, I'm whatever. Now that starts to be something that I can flex my identity at any minute under any circumstances. So the greatest gift that parents can give their children, other than actual physical safety and the resources they need, is emotional safety for trying and failing as kids where they are not having to earn emotional and psychological needs. And then also I am praising you in ways where you become the architect of your experiences with the things you do, the things you focus on, rather than you were either born with the silver spoon or you were. Wow. That's brilliant. Which we might notice, again, kind of trying to bring the conversation full circle. If I identify as I'm a good golfer, that means every time I go play golf, I have to defend that label, which means anything that I would do in this round of golf that would not be aligned with that label must be avoided, in which case then I'm gonna be playing through anxiety the whole time and super distracted. So anytime our identity is at stake in something, it is going to draw our focus away in an anxiety-provoking way. And then if it doesn't go well, you're gonna get all manner of what I would call adult temper tantrums. Why? Because now I'm not who I think I am or I was told I was. Duh. Right. So this is the golfer where I hit a poor shot, and not only do I need to convince myself that that's unacceptable, I need to let you know because that is just an identity preservation method. I have to get so upset that you, oh wow, that guy's a better golfer than that shot. First of all, no, you're not, because otherwise you wouldn't hit it. And second of all, being good is nothing in the adult world. Playing well is something that counts in the adult world, and those two things are not the same.

SPEAKER_01 39:34

And you've seen that, Chris. Like as a good low single-digit player close to scratch, you've turned up to events and stuff, and people go, Well, who's this guy who's playing off what, like off like a two years?

SPEAKER_00 39:45

Yeah, it's like always two, and then all of a sudden, like I hit a bad shot, and then I just unravel for the rest of the round.

SPEAKER_02 39:50

So again, if I tell you however quote unquote good you are, which by the way, all the ability you have in golf is developed. You weren't born with it. Nobody is born to play golf like right. What they are born what they are born with is m perhaps more or less capabilities to do so. But any golf swing that you have, you weren't born with, you've developed over the course of your life through focus, decisions, effort, hard work, et cetera. But if I tell you you need to go play and confirm that you are a good golfer, well then that by definition means you have to defend against being a bad golfer. So as soon as you do something that quote unquote bad golfers do, you're in identity crisis.

SPEAKER_00 40:24

Yeah. Right. That's what I'm saying. Yeah, you've you've been so helpful.

SPEAKER_02 40:29

So we might say one of the things you could let go of playing golf is trying to confirm that you are or not. Or like the idea that you need to be a good golfer. Like I always ask people, where's the line between a good golfer and a bad golfer? And of course it's well, I don't know, this or this score or that score, under what conditions or relative to who. So again, subjective and arbitrary. And then I ask people, how much does being a good golfer count? You get to go to the first T with a couple strokes lead because you're a good golfer? No? Oh, interesting. Okay. So it actually doesn't count for anything. Yeah. But if you play well, oh, that does count for something? Interesting. Right? So a little bit of cause and effect on that one, and paying attention to that matters. Also, I would ask people, when you have played your very best golf and enjoyed it most, how much are you defending your identity? And they always say, not at all.

SPEAKER_01 41:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 41:18

That tells us that tells us something as well.

SPEAKER_01 41:20

I l I love what you said about just helping me with my son. But would you say, Raymond, that some of what you described there could be applied for all of us, where like even if we took a moment. Now, this some people might not buy into this. And we talked to Carl Morris about these types of exercises recently, is if we actually wrote down what are my best attributes as a golfer, like what you were saying, it wasn't like not stuff like, hey, I can hit an amazing drive down the middle of the fairway, but just that I'm resilient, I'm a good playing partner, those types of things where that helps build up an identity and writing that down, would that be a useful exercise?

SPEAKER_02 41:59

Provided they are verb-based and effort-based and focusable. Yes. If I tell you, write down, you go, I'm a really good partner. Well, what's the difference between a good partner and a bad partner? And what happens when you do something that falls under the category of bad partner? Now I'm not what I just wrote down that I said I was. Right? So anything that we I so the important thing about human identity, we're getting into some layers today, guys. This is great. So most human beings feel the need to identify with something. It's not a bad thing. The more those things are externally measured, the more insecure I become. Okay. So if I t my identity is based on scores, people's approval, the amount of money I make, the amount of people I've slept with, whatever that might be, these are all external measures, which means they cannot fill an internal space for any extended period of time. So that by definition, I am insecure because the things I've attached my identity to to tell me who I am are by definition unsecured. Therefore, I'm gonna feel really insecure. So the more things I identify as that are things that I cannot focus on, decide, and do, the more insecure I'm gonna be. So instead of goals, outcomes, people's opinions, even my own feelings and thoughts at times, which are also not secure because they can come out of nowhere, the more things I identify with that are focusable and actionable for me in a moment means that I'm never in identity crisis. So if I identify as kind when someone's treating me well, I can be kind. If I identify as I treat people with kindness when someone's treating me like an asshole, I can be kind to that person.

SPEAKER_03 43:36

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 43:36

Right. Versus I'm a good person. Well, where's the line between good person and bad person? Again, it's a label that we put on stuff. I'm not trying to push back on whether it's like functional or not. Only that, like the more I identify with that, as soon as I fall out of that category, I don't know how to get back into it. Or if I do, it's by an external means that I may or may not have control over. So if I go, well, I'm a good person, if people think I'm a Good person, well, what happens if I do something they don't agree with based on their subjective experience about what's good or not good, or their cultural differences, or their whatever? Well, now I'm now I'm out of sorts because of that. So if any any re there are a variety of different exercises we can do to help kind of hone in on what are the things I do to perform and live and be more freely in my life, more pursuit-based in the direction of things that would make me a happier, healthier human being. But the more they are adjective-based and noun-based, the more I am becoming insecure because I'm putting in the hands of something else. So nouns are outcomes, people's opinions, the circumstances that I'm in, the subjective labels that people put on me, abilities that you either just do or do not have, or you own or you do not own, all the way to the scores I shoot on the golf course, what my handicap is. The more my identity is wrapped around those things, the more I have to defend them. But the terms are wildly unclear to my brain, other than it knows there's a lot of risk involved.

SPEAKER_01 44:58

Yes. Because you used the term unconditional earlier with regard to an environment for kids. What you were talking there is like if your identity has lots of conditions to it and these certain circumstances have to be present for me to be a kind person or something like that, for example, then uh then it's not really that useful. Whereas I think what you're saying is if you can be someone who's you know, if you're if you're someone who's kind regardless of what the person you're speaking to is saying to you, then that's where the value is, right?

SPEAKER_02 45:33

Right. So there we would just want anything to have a verb in front of it. I treat people with kindness. Period end of sentence. Now, any condition, I can treat people with kindness. Or if I'm a golfer, I play really freely. Play is a verb. The freely is the adjective or the adverb behind it, right? So there's a verb in front of it, or I'm on the first T. I play golf on my terms, not the people behind me watching not whatever, right? So again, it's a verb-based thing that when I'm in a situation, whether it's easy or not, I do have access to it. Now, sometimes they're easier than others, or perhaps more comfortable or less. But if my identity is I am these verbs or these focusable, actionable things, I have access to them. It might be easier or less or more comfortable or not, but I have them. If it's you're this, this, this, and it's a noun or a verb, you're a good golfer or not a good golfer, then yeah, you better not bang one off of those houses in front of all those people. Right? So all of those things become at stake. And again, it seems like a lot, well, all we're trying to do is play golf. Like, yeah, you are, but it's really difficult to do that with all these other things behind it. And what we see traditionally with people with performance anxiety is there is some layer of identity that is adjective-based, that is attached to the thing that they're doing, and therefore there's always a layer of I've got one foot in my performance trying to do well, and the other foot way more deeper into how do you make sure this identity remains intact by the time you're out of here.

SPEAKER_00 47:00

Wow. Excellent. No, honestly, that's that's been brilliant. Thanks so much for your time. I've learned so much and reading your book and having this conversation has been excellent. And obviously, everybody that's listening, I think, are gonna learn so much from this, and they should go and read the book because it's excellent. Good to thank you. Thank you. Go play golf on our own terms here.

SPEAKER_01 47:21

Exactly. That's what we're gonna do. Yeah, that's what we're gonna do in How Low Can You Go, Chris, isn't that right? Exactly. Yeah, yeah. No, thank you so much. Um, Raymond, yeah, uh just to echo that, just a real honor and an absolute pleasure, and thank you very much once again. Uh, for our listeners, uh, do you want to just tell people where they can find you? You know, obviously we've talked about the book where they can go get the book and anything else that you've got going that people can check out.

SPEAKER_02 47:49

Yeah, you can check out uh the book. Obviously, it's wherever books are sold. It's a podcast by the same name. Golf Beneath the Surface is wherever you find podcasts, you can get that. I think there's an Instagram attached to I know there's an Instagram, but the handle escapes me at the moment. But if you Google Golf Beneath the Surface Instagram, you'll find I believe it's like uh uh GBTS underscore podcast or something like that. Yeah. Nature.

SPEAKER_01 48:13

Yeah, we follow it. And uh yeah, there you go.

SPEAKER_02 48:15

Okay, so yeah, maybe you can throw it into the notes for the outstanding, great. Uh my website is btsmindset.com. That's beneath the surface mindset.com. You can contact me, shoot me stuff there, or if you're just more interested in kind of some stuff, that's about it. Otherwise, I always encourage people to start listening to people who are having conversations more than just play better, which yeah sounds like you guys are doing, which is great.

SPEAKER_01 48:41

Oh, thank you. That means a lot. Uh good chatting, Raymond, and hopefully we'll do it again in the not too distant future.

SPEAKER_02 48:47

That'd be outstanding. Have a great one, boys. Cheers, Raymond, cheers.

SPEAKER_01 48:50

Take care.

SPEAKER_02 48:51

Thank you. Bye-bye.

SPEAKER_00 48:56

That was part two of our conversation with Dr. Raymond Pryor, and honestly, one of the most insightful discussions we've had on the podcast. A huge thank you to Dr. Raymond for joining us, and if you enjoyed the episode, make sure to follow the podcast and share it with all your golf obsessed friends. And come and follow us over on Instagram, where we post clips from the podcast and keep you updated on up-and-coming guests and episodes. Until next time, this is How Low Can You Go.

SPEAKER_03 49:32

How low can you go?