Q & A 11.0

In this episode, Chase and Raymond delve into the evolution of golf equipment, the impact of technology, and the psychological aspects of performance. They explore how changes in equipment affect the game, industry, and player psychology, offering insights for enthusiasts and professionals alike.

Transcript

Raymond Prior (00:01.218)
Welcome everyone to the Golf Beneath the Surface podcast. I'm your co-host Raymond Pryor with me, my co-host Chase Cooper, choose Cooper, choose caper, choose caper. Yeah, there we go. We have had a series of guests, a lot of really cool conversations, which needless to say have sparked some questions from the audience. So we're gonna dig into some of those today. As always, we appreciate people sending them to us.

Chase Cooper (00:09.865)
Juice, juice, I go by, I go by whatever you want to call me, doc.

Raymond Prior (00:28.366)
Main aim of this podcast is to try to provide value to the audience that listens to us and the things that they find important and interesting and or Would like to know more about so here we go. You ready? Overall, let's just start here. This is kind of a bigger topic for golf as a Industry more than it is necessarily game. But like what are your thoughts on? The question is more like are you pro or against?

Chase Cooper (00:41.758)
Let's do it.

Raymond Prior (00:56.254)
bifurcation, but I'll make it a little bit broader. What are your thoughts on bifurcation? Which for those listening, that means there's a movement right now in certain areas to roll back the golf ball, meaning it will not go as far instead of what the golf ball has been evolving to, which is something that goes much faster and much farther. And obviously we know that there's been a big push for speed. Why? Because the farther your golf ball goes, if you can keep it in play, the more of an advantage you have to be able to try to score. we know just empirically that

hitting it farther means you faster golf ball, faster golf clubs, so on and so forth. So if roll back to golf ball, the theory is that pros would play a slower spinnier golf ball and then therefore probably different golf clubs to be able to use that. then amateurs would do it differently. example, an example of this would be like in baseball, pros typically play a wooden bat where amateurs, high school, college all play an aluminum bat where there's

bifurcation with at least one piece of equipment in that sport. So for you, Chase, especially as an instructor, what are your thoughts on this?

Chase Cooper (02:01.607)
I understand the push for it from the old school awesome golf courses that are landlocked that can't make their courses longer and we lose out on the ability to play some of the old iconic nostalgic golf courses that we grew up talking about and knowing. Outside of that, I'm not a big fan of it.

One, think it's so difficult. think the cool part about golf is this is one of the only sports that we can always compare ourselves to. mean, I guess bowling would be another one where you can kind of compare to the best in the world. like, you know, yes, the course conditions for PJ Torvins are different, but like the ability to go play Pebble Beach and play a week or two after they had the AT &T out there and compare yourselves against some of the best players in the world and, and, you know, see if, you know,

your 80 that felt really good and they're shooting 64s and fives and threes and just understanding how good they are, think is what makes this sport really cool. And I'm concerned about how we differentiate. when you've got these players, these young kids that played with the same equipment all their lives and then they get to the PGA tour level or they get to whatever that level is and then they have to completely change. think, I mean, there's so many stories of players ruining their career by changing equipment because they couldn't get used to.

used to the other equipment based off contracts and whatever. So I think golf's hard enough. And I think the problem is, you know, with all the technology and, and, you know, all the gains in fitness and everything that we've learned, like there's just so many more athletes playing the game now. And they're, they're, you know, specializing their training for this sport. And back in the day, people didn't do that. You know, they drink a few cold ones and it was more of a recreational activity. And now it's more of a

more of a full time job in there. You know, we've got athletes that are training hard to be great at this sport. And so I think that's why you're seeing the ball go so far and all the things. And so I personally am not a not a huge fan of it. Again, I understand protecting the golf courses, but I think there's a lot more. There's a lot more challenges in it. And I don't think it's we're not getting to the point where golf or professional golf is too easy. And I think I think that

Chase Cooper (04:22.035)
Having those two sets of roles, I just think takes away a lot of the coolness and what makes this game so awesome.

Raymond Prior (04:29.822)
I feel similar to you for similar reasons, but also like I think rolling back the golf ball is a terrible idea because if you if we're just thinking about golf as an industry or even a business model, devolving is not a good business strategy. Right. So.

Chase Cooper (04:44.585)
Yeah, right.

Raymond Prior (04:46.766)
Nobody goes to golf tournaments hoping to see a guy or a girl hit it as far as they do Want to see him hit it farther. They want to see him spin it They want to do like all this stuff, right? And so like devolving the sport and the equipment I think it's just a terrible business decision like look I go to a lot of the PJ tour and LPGA tour events and by the way I also do mean the LPGA tour events and what people marvel at is how far these guys and girls can hit it and what they can do with the golf ball that they can't do

And so if you kind of make close that gap, I think you make your product less enticing and therefore less market. It's not, it's not as fun. Okay. The, a competitive standpoint, I would also argue, okay, so let's say we're playing the 13th hole at Augusta, which is a very different hole now that dudes can hit it as far as they can. And the golf ball goes as far like you still have to play it better than other people.

Chase Cooper (05:22.397)
Interesting.

That's right.

Raymond Prior (05:39.874)
Okay, in the NBA, there's a three point line now, which has generally changed the game. If you're gonna shoot three pointers, you still have to do it better than somebody else. In baseball, like the game is all about hitting home runs up. You still have to do it. So even if it's a different way of playing the same courses that might be landlocked, someone still has to go actually execute, perform and do that better. So, okay, I can hit it 350 yards. I still have to keep it in play.

And then I still have to wedge it and I still have to putt and I have to do all these other things. So for me, like, why would I even if I want to see the game played as I would before, you can't take away from the fact that like dudes are playing it differently now based on a variety of things, you still have to go perform. yes, way back when the winning score might've been five under and now it's 25 under. Well, that's just different than it was before because things are evolving, but you still have to play well to win regardless of what the competitive.

evolution has been over time. So I would argue it kind of undermines the fundamental part of competition, which is I'm going to try to figure out how to do this better than you. And you're going to have to try to keep up with me or vice versa instead. let's level the playing field or let's make it level with previous generations of sport. Like, again, I don't see de-evolutionizing something or regression as a ways to make progress. Like they're just kind of fundamentally opposed to me.

The second or the another layer to that is like as consumers you need to be really careful about whether you're a pro or con this so Chase who are the only people in the world who get golf clubs and golf balls and all that equipment for free Pro golfers, which means if there's two different sets of equipment Who are all the costs gonna get moved to the pros or the consumer?

Chase Cooper (07:05.983)
percent.

Chase Cooper (07:16.778)
players.

Chase Cooper (07:26.089)
That's a point.

Raymond Prior (07:26.732)
Right, so if you think golf clubs are getting, golf balls are getting expensive now, bifurcation means they're gonna get even more expensive because club companies are gonna be happy to creating two different types of products, one for amateurs and one for pros. And since they don't charge pro golfers for golf clubs and they're paying them all those costs for their development of their product and the amateur products are all gonna get passed down to the amateur consumer. So golf clubs and golf balls are gonna get.

crazy more expensive than they are right now. So people need to consider that before they are, before they are pro or con, something like that.

Chase Cooper (08:02.367)
And they, and to your point there, they've done that. They're doing that already. There's, tour prototypes that are out there, but not to the level of that bifurcation is going to bring. Yep.

Raymond Prior (08:10.37)
Yup. Not for a different golf ball, right? So every tour player is trying to hit the ball as far as they can and control it with spin to varying degrees. If I tell you, have a golf ball that is markedly different in how far it can go and spin, that means it needs a different golf club in order to control it. And if I need a different golf club, means I need like, so those are the two main pieces of equipment golf ball and golf clubs are what they are now.

because the golf ball has continued to evolve in a way where now I need a golf club to be able to keep up with that golf ball and vice versa. So if we start changing though, so the difference in baseball with golf is the baseball is the same. So I just have a different bat, but the bottom line is that's still the same, which again in golf, you could go play with a wooden golf club if you wanted to, like there's no rule against it.

But if I had a golf ball that spins twice as much as the one I have now, I need a golf club that can handle that type of a spin and therefore control the distance or maximize what distance I can get out. They're going to look very, very different than, perhaps not very different, but markedly different. And those costs are going to get for the R and D for the marketing, the, whatever it's going to cost to create that and then actually produce it are all going to get passed down to the consumer because they don't charge pro golfers money for their equipment.

Chase Cooper (09:24.415)
That's exactly right. That was something I hadn't really thought about like the trickle down effect from the business side of things. I mean, I had thought about making it, you they're gonna have to make multiple golf balls, but I didn't really think about, now, because really a lot of people think, and I've heard this argument before, a lot of people think that the new driver spends less than the old stuff does, but it's really more the golf ball. And a lot of these drivers probably spend more than some of the old drivers did because the golf ball spends so much less than it used to. And so there's...

Raymond Prior (09:50.254)
That's right. Right. So you're, and you're getting golf clubs that are trying to adapt to the golf ball. Cause that is the only piece of equipment everybody uses. Right. And there's different golf balls with varying different spins, but you're talking about the, the spinniest of golf ball can get to keep dudes who can hit it three 20 off the tee to try to keep them under 300 yards is going to have a massive effect on what kind of golf clubs that they start to play. And that will take a lot of money because again,

These people are at the top of their performance and they're trying to figure out how can I get the smallest gains that can compound over time? It's gonna get different.

Chase Cooper (10:27.657)
I also think going back to like just after COVID when, when Bryson came out and was hitting it so far and, and made the comment about how, you know, somebody asked him how many drinks, how many greens he could drive at Augusta. And he was at one point, you know, he's flying at three 50, three 60. And he's like, yeah, there's five or six or seven greens. And they're like, my gosh, he's going to, he's got 59 and play out here. And it didn't really happen, you know? And then in fact, he doesn't hit it as far as he was. He's toned down a little bit because he needed to keep the dang thing in play.

Raymond Prior (10:47.979)
Mm-mm, mm-mm, that's not how...

Chase Cooper (10:55.615)
And so, you know, I just, think we're quick to overreact. And I also, I think some of it is, know, you've got your, your, your, your old time, your, your older generation of golfers that again, want to protect the game and want to protect, protect the game that they knew. And they don't know this game and it scares them. And they're worried about again, protecting the sanctity of the sport when to your point, like let them, let us keep getting better. Let us keep helping our, I mean, we

We can pick up a lot of club head speed because we have force plates that, that help us understand how to maximize our forces. We learned that from Scotland and I teach from it every day. Like we're, not going to get less technology. So we're going to keep maximizing. The other thing that I, that we haven't mentioned yet is if you take the ball away or you make the ball spinnier, you add different, the long guys are still going to be the long guys. Like it's, it's, it's, it's, may protect the golf courses. It may protect the fields a little bit based off of not shooting 35 under par, but.

Raymond Prior (11:33.614)
you

Raymond Prior (11:45.549)
Yeah.

Chase Cooper (11:52.255)
you're still at the long guys are still gonna hit at the furthest and the short guys are just gonna hit it shorter. That's all you're really doing.

Raymond Prior (11:56.494)
Yeah. I, you know, and for those, you said, we kind of get this thing for whatever generation we grew up in and whatever generation we grew up idolizing, we tend to try to protect that, right? This quote unquote, the sanctity of it. And I would still say like, what is the purpose of trying to protect par? Par is just a number, right? So, and it's a different number per generation. Like the fastest pitch is the longest home runs, the

Chase Cooper (12:15.839)
All

Raymond Prior (12:22.67)
Number of three-pointers the biggest dunks like everything is evolving in every sport like we just watched the Olympics like the things that people are doing now Far exceed what they were doing however long ago only things like that's how it goes like that's the purpose of like being able to try to test human I don't know capacities so I mean I do think we need some regulations over equipment so that when we are deciding who is the highest performer here It's not just who has the best equipment

But me trying to just level the playing field by saying you need to take something that removes a certain skill or capacity or minimizes it because I don't like how that plays out against previous generations is a really insecure argument.

Chase Cooper (13:06.311)
Yeah, 100%. I think back to baseball, like when I grew up, it was rare for a pitcher to throw a hundred miles an hour. It was like that guy throws a hundred. my gosh. And now you watch every

Raymond Prior (13:12.286)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, Nolan Ryan was basically the only dude throwing gas at that level for a really long time.

Chase Cooper (13:17.651)
That's that's right. Yeah. Randy Johnson comes along and is sending him, but he's also six eight and has long wingspan and all that stuff. And now every middle reliever is chucking it at one one one two. Like it's crazy.

Raymond Prior (13:28.878)
That's right. And spinning the baseball as hard as you can spin it. Now again, you can argue whether that's good or not for people's arms and their joints and tendons, but that is the highest performing method of trying to get people to swing and miss, which is what they're trying to do.

Chase Cooper (13:36.542)
Yeah, right.

Chase Cooper (13:43.423)
What you work with good you work with a bunch of college players too. And, and, obviously tour levels at different, different level players at different levels. What are your thoughts? Like my first concern is just, it's kind of why, you know, a lot of people don't know this, but a lot of reasons why the USDA banned belly putters is because they did a bunch of research and found all these AJJ kids that were winning all these tournaments and they were all putting with belly putters. And so one of the reasons that they saw what was coming like, the tour is going to be full of belly putters. Cause all of these coaches were

teaching cross-handed belly potters and they were making everything. And so what are your thoughts on like my concern of having this, you train most of your life and then you get to the PGA Tour and now you've got a whole different set of equipment.

Raymond Prior (14:25.28)
If it's a whole different set of equipment, then basically you're asking people to adapt to that. So. Adapt in one way to progress at one level and then adapt again at the next. So again, this isn't unheard of. Like in the, I'll use baseball. An example, you play in college, you're going to have an aluminum bat. You're going to play a wooden bat, but the baseball's the same, right? The fields are the same in terms of like what the rules are and stuff. So if you said like, I'm going to have to adjust my swing based on different clubs and a different golf ball, like

That's a real thing. And for some people, they're going to be able to make that adjustment. And for others aren't in the same way that if I told you, you are no longer allowed to anchor your putter, some people are going to figure that out. And what we've seen in golf is some people were not able to do that. So to me, again, that's not the issue. Like, do I create a barrier where you need to adapt to something at in a different way or a more competitive way? It's the like, why would I ask you to do that? Right. because I don't want to see people breaking par in the way that they do. Okay. Well,

That's a you problem not a game problem and what I would say again that still hurts the industry of golf being a marketable enjoyable exciting product and The industry for amateurs who are gonna have to then basically like assume all of those costs Because a bunch of old dudes don't want to see dudes now outperforming dudes from the past like Come on. What are we doing?

Chase Cooper (15:46.686)
Yeah. Right.

Right. I still make the argument. If you want to make golf harder, don't cut the grass so short and leave the greens nice and slow and, and bumpy and, you know, go, go make and play on some, some, some beat up munis.

Raymond Prior (16:01.838)
There are a lot of ways you can make landlocked courses more difficult. Again, and most courses are doing this. What we would say is if I can hit it far enough to take out a lot of that, that's certainly helpful. But yeah, you can do courses like keep the rough up, bunkering all over the place, make green complexes more difficult, all those things. Making golf courses longer is not the only way to make them more difficult.

You can say for here in Chicago, most courses are landlocked and the most difficult ones are not the longest. They're the narrowest, they're the ones with the most tree line and they're greens that are like really, really challenging to putt on and bunkering in places where like you hit a good shot, it still might end up in a bunker. So there's ways to do that without rolling back the equipment. But I would also, again, argue like you also don't have to do that. Maybe you play the same golf course and dudes are just playing it differently or girls are playing it differently.

And on average, they score better. What's wrong with that?

Chase Cooper (17:00.989)
Yep. Yep. I like your comparison to par. I mean, why do we have to, why do we have to keep par the Holy grail?

Raymond Prior (17:06.568)
It's just, right? Yeah. Like imagine in basketball, they were like, yeah, we got to protect 85 because, because before the three point line, people couldn't really, there wasn't enough time to score enough or before a shot clock. Like for what? Nobody wants to see that. Right. Again, then also what's now a premium for any NBA team to be able to win is you got to play better defense. So again, there's an adaption. I still have to perform better to be able to win.

Chase Cooper (17:12.287)
190,

Raymond Prior (17:34.76)
Or I got to figure out how I'm going to score 140 points every night, which again is another way you can do it. It's just, but why would I protect a certain score?

Chase Cooper (17:44.073)
Well, in one comparison to look at the kickers in NFL now, look at what a 60 yard kick is or 50 yard. That was a 50 yard kick 10 years ago. Yeah. They're crazy good. mean, they're Aubrey's trying from 70 now. It's not.

Raymond Prior (17:47.725)
Yeah. I mean, routine, it's routine now, right? Yeah. Yeah. Well, you can also see too, like a couple of years ago, what did they do? They moved the extra point back because it was essentially an insignificant play, meaning it was more than a 99 % success, right? So it was a great rule change because why would you do something that is essentially a guarantee of a play? And what that did is it forced an evolution for kickers to progress.

not regress, right? And then now we see kicking in the NFL and even in college now where you're like, like, like the amount of like right now in the NFL, if you're not shooting 85 % from 50 plus, like you might not have a job. Really impressive.

Chase Cooper (18:25.084)
Amen.

Chase Cooper (18:32.443)
That's exactly right. It's crazy how, it's, it's, it's gone quick. And to your point, it really started to, we started to see the big changes right around the roll change. now, yeah, 15 yard line, a 30 yard, 35 yard extra point is now a chip shot. And a 50 yarder is like, you know, kind of just a, you know, a fairly routine kick. That's right. It's crazy.

Raymond Prior (18:51.214)
Routine. Yeah, indeed. All right. Here's the one next. This one I'll let you start with. So basically the question, we had had an episode where we were talking about multitasking. And so the question is like, basically in a lesson, would it be beneficial for instructors to kind of basically present and work through a single concept rather than trying to add multiple concepts in order to try to limit multitasking?

Chase Cooper (19:20.115)
Yeah, it's a great question. yes, I think the answer is yes, but it's really hard to do because you, you do one, you make one change and other things down the line start to get, start to get affected. for me personally, I, I start with, you know, I'm okay with, I'm going to say giving a student three things and that's the, these three things will be worked on for say, let's just say a month, but the three things are usually in sequential order. Normally it's a setup thing.

it could be a backswing thing and then it could be a feel or an idea on the downswing or in the finish. And so I, I'm never going to give somebody like, you got to do two things in the backswing or three things on the downswing. Like it's always like, Hey, this setup gives us the best chance. This takeaway gives us the best chance. And then this downswing suggestion gives us the best chance. but yeah, in a perfect world, we could, we could kill three birds with one stone and just make one simple change in it. And it, it's the, the

the perfect pixie dust that's the magic pixie dust that's going to, you know, fix them forever. But it doesn't always work that way. Cause one little tweak changes, low point or changes contact or changes face angle. so, um, I like, I call it layering. Um, Hey, can we get our setup right? And then let's hit some. Okay. How does that feel? Okay. I'm more or a grip change. Okay. I'm comfortable with it. Okay. Now how's the backswing look? Okay. It's a little laid off. All right. We're going to get it. We're going to get set up, right? Check across the line. Check and let's see what happens.

Give him some time to do that. I liked what, what James Hong said about the power of seven, like kind of having 10 swings or so to let him kind of work it out. And then it's like, okay, grips good backswing is good. Now we're hitting it a little off the toe. Can you give me a little bit more of a heel strike here? And we kind of slowly start to work in sequential order. So we're not trying to do these complex tasks at the same time. got a half a second to a second to get our brain to switch directions, you know, but that's, that's how I try to do it to get it to be where it's.

I would say it's not completely overwhelming.

Raymond Prior (21:17.458)
I think there's a lot to be said about how much am I asking somebody to do at one time and what is their capacity to do that? Not just this person appeared in the sentence, but even like right now. So that can vary from skill level that can vary from a person's like ability to hold focus for a little bit.

the environment that they're in, whether they're having fun or feeling this is an obligation, et cetera. But what I would say is like, we kind of want to see if, what if the thing we're doing is the only thing that we're trying to do. But to your point, Chase, sometimes that has some layers that need to blend in it. Right. So you could take a golf swing and put it into. many tasks set up as a task, take away, beginning of the takeaway is a task. Right. So, but if we're looking at a golf swing in totality, there's a series of motions, a series of movements, all that have to start to blend.

So as a general rule of thumb, would say for people is like, hold on, how many things am I asking this person to do? And is what I'm asking them to do, whether it's the difficulty thereof or the amount of tasks we might say just outside their current capacity. Right? So you have kind of had some type of mastery over your takeaway over the last 10 or 12 swings can now I ask you to do that, but also

whatever that might be, can I do that? But also give me a more of a toe strike or a heel strike, right? So again, like how much am I putting on top of people? But I would say general rule of thumb asking question, how much am I asking this person to do and how much of that can they actually do at one time right now? We might say that oftentimes instruction, particularly we've talked about tiers of instruction where tier one is like, I kind of really don't know a ton about what I'm teaching or how to teach it. I'm just kind of.

It's just spitting like a lot of information at people is that it's like, it's very disorganized. It's a ton of multi-tasks. And ultimately, like I'm asking someone to probably do something and change something, do something and add something, do something and change and add something rather than hold on, let's work on this for a little bit. And then maybe we'll layer in a little bit more to the next thing and see how that goes. But we really want to be careful about just like pummeling people with information and tasks.

Raymond Prior (23:27.372)
Not because they can't handle it, but because their brain can only do so much at one time with any level of competency as the tasks become more complicated. Right? So the fancy way of saying, yeah, we got a multi-task in that you're going to, need to do this, but in order for me to do this whole thing in totality, I need to learn how to also do this either in sequence or perhaps at the same time. So there's some layering on top of this, but not necessarily.

Here's three things we need to do all at once or certainly five, six, seven, eight, nine,

Chase Cooper (24:00.211)
Yeah, no, 100%. I think from a coach's perspective, reading the student is so important in that regard. And you can tell a little bit, you if you've worked with them before based off of some athleticism and, you know, skill levels and that kind of stuff. you know, I think for, again, for young instructors, think like, once you pick something that you want to change, stay with that. And you may have to give them five different suggestions and different visual or a kinesthetic feel or, you know, whatever, know, other

Other cues may be internal external. I kind of try to use them all. But don't don't. There's no need to bounce around too much. There's no need to. If this doesn't, if they shank that ball, then we must have. It must not have been right. We gotta do something else because then that creates doubt for the player and that that's going to obviously create multitasking. And so you know, I think. You know, I I tend to shut down a lot of times if.

They can't, they get the setup right, but then they can't, they can't get their takeaway. So then we're done. We're going to focus on that and tell them we, give them enough, enough feedback to where they can, they can figure it out. And then if they do a good job of it, we just keep slowly layering until we kind of, it's kind of like when you're making a swing change and you're working at a slow speed and we find that at 50 % we're great with the change, but then at 75 % we're not. kind of liken it to the same kind of the same analogy of doing it, doing it with, within multitasking. Like I'll keep layering until I find the point where they're like, okay, that that's too much. And they,

they lose some of the function, I would say. And I try to find that point so that way I stress them a little bit to where we can see what they're capable of, but I don't leave them overwhelmed. Or they don't leave me overwhelmed.

Raymond Prior (25:36.401)
word.

Next question here is about, practicing. So the email was essentially I kind of have, I'm at a course where basically like, if I want to go play five golf balls at a time or throw a bunch down, like I have the time and the space and like, it's just either that time of day that I play or whatever. So basically a situation where I can practice on the course all I want, and I enjoy it more than kind of a question of like, almost should I be preparing more for tournaments by hitting more balls on the range?

and you know, kind of my things to consider with that would be like, maybe depending on what it is that you're practicing, what I would say is the range is a great place for us to practice and learn technique mechanics, experiment with shots in a very low stakes environment where I can just try again and do that either in a block kind of way or a more varied and randomized kind of way. But

I think Chase and I would probably both agree on this, that practicing on the golf course is probably something that's beneficial for more people because that is exactly where you actually play golf and you're actually getting a golf shot that is a simulation of a golf shot you would see on the golf course. I would say the question here for me is like, what is it? What is the purpose behind your practice to play golf shots and prepare for playing golf shots without necessarily being a technical or mechanical purpose?

Or is it something more technical and mechanical? And by the way, you could do technical and mechanical work on the golf course too. If you've got the freedom to do that, you might, your groundskeeper might, and superintendent might not love you for that, but you can do that kind of work if you've got the space. So I would say like the practice space. When you would choose would be based on what is the purpose of what I'm doing. And then like, what kind of conditions allow me to do that best, but.

Raymond Prior (27:27.904)
I would lean toward your preference for this chase, which is like, if you have the freedom to be on the golf course and have like carte blanche on it, like what a privilege.

Chase Cooper (27:37.413)
Absolutely. I was very fortunate. grew up where we could do that and playing. I brings back lot of memories playing two or three balls on every tee shot and like just going and playing. And it was a, for me too, you could get 27 holes in and way less time than actually, you know, going and playing 27 holes. I think one, a lot of fun games you've, you've, you know,

I know you like to do worst ball with some of your players and I've used that a little bit more now with some of mine. I love playing two or three balls off of every tee hitting different tee shots, whether it's a fade attempt to draw attempt or different clubs. I'm a huge fan of that. We talk a lot about transferring on here and doing it on the golf courses. Again, not quite like, it's similar to scrimmaging.

John Donegan and Will Wu talked about. It's not quite like tournament level or playing in many games or whatever, but it's still better than, a lot of times it's better than just sitting there beating ball after ball after ball in the range. I love playing multiple shots on holes and trying to miss the greens on purpose and then go working on your short game. I just think it's a well-rounded way of working on all of your game rather than just.

You know, I think a lot of times the rain, the range, least for me and my past brought way more anxiety because I just sat there and, and rapid fire golf balls and it would, it would bring some false sense of comfort in it. And then it wouldn't transfer. And so I love, I love the idea of spending as much time on the golf course, even working on your golf swing. You made the comment that you're the superintendents may not like it. Sometimes the house is next, next to the next to the

Raymond Prior (29:04.034)
Mm.

Chase Cooper (29:17.405)
The holes may not like it either if we're working on some mechanical stuff out there, but it's just a great way to learn and grow and, and, and enjoy the game. And I would argue if, unless you're a, at a tour level, if you, if you enjoy practice in whatever, in whatever area, if it's on the golf course or on the range, if you enjoy one over the other, try to do it more. And if it's, if you're able to go get that many reps in on the golf course, man, it just brings, that brings a lot of, a lot of old nostalgic memories back. Cause that's how I grew up playing the game.

Raymond Prior (29:47.15)
Chase is in his feels about practicing on the golf course right now,

Chase Cooper (29:49.183)
and then my feelings and like the bad part is it was in windy Oklahoma. So most of the time I was by myself. It was blowing 50 out there because no one wanted to be on the golf course. I was just hanging on for dear life. Hang on. I'm like a parachute man hanging on hanging on on to your life.

Raymond Prior (29:56.8)
Yeah, and at your height, that's just dangerous, man. The tower, the tower goes down. Plus then you probably had one of those like starter jacket, wind hoodie type of things. That's just basically like wearing a parachute.

Chase Cooper (30:08.051)
Mm-hmm.

parachute baby. I had the cowboys, the cowboys pull over man. was flying away. So absolutely.

Raymond Prior (30:14.093)
Yeah, you did.

Raymond Prior (30:18.03)
Another question here from someone who says, it's been struggling with the YIPS. And then again, for clarification for our audience, the YIPS is oftentimes the jerky motion that we experienced that is behind it. is anxiety. So the YIPS is not a neurological disorder. It's not a technical issue. It's a Kameik. Be triggered by a technical issue, but it is what is essentially stage one and stage two anxiety. Stage one anxiety is don't do it.

That's the hesitation behind it. Stage two of anxiety is let's get through it as fast as possible. That's the jerky motion toward a golf ball that disrupts kind of the, we might say the sequencing and the tempo and the smoothness of any type of a stroke that comes, anxiety comes from something in whatever the experience that I'm in, I've been telling my brain, this must be avoided and it's not acceptable. Therefore it gets anxiety as a response. So many people.

dealing with this type of or experiencing this type of interaction, particularly as they get closer to the hole, but not exclusively, but this person, particularly with putting. And what he describes is what I've been doing before rounds at times is telling the people I'm playing with that I have been struggling with what he is saying, the ups, UK anxiety. And that is at times brought me a little bit of relief. And then his question is, is this a...

good strategy or a viable long-term strategy or is it just a short-term thing to try to get me out of the anxiety of people seeing me struggle with anxiety or experience anxiety and therefore missing putts? And the answer is kind of both. So in the short term, what we know for sure is that when we vocalize our struggles and admit them to ourselves and others,

there'd be, there's a layer that gets removed of, then I need to protect from either experiencing it or other people seeing me experience it. Or, well, if I kind of tell you what it is, then any judgments you might make about it are a little bit deflected because I've told you I'm already struggling with it. Therefore, if you judge me, I've already told you kind of what's going on. So in the short term, again, there might be some benefits to that. And if there's a little bit of, we might say space for you to operate more freely, that's certainly not a bad thing.

Raymond Prior (32:32.908)
The long-term part of that is in part of the YIPPSI experience is that oftentimes people are not accepting of or ultimately trying to avoid. I don't want other people seeing me struggle with this and judge me for it. Right. And then therefore what happens is now I have anxiety about that, which then contributes to what I'm feeling, whether it's over a putt or a chip or a shot. So the anxiety cycle gets added to, or we might say amplified by, I don't want others to know.

See or judge my experience with this anxiety and what comes out on the other side Which is probably some jerky putts from short distances that may or may not threaten the whole So what we can say in the short term is you will probably get some relief I wouldn't say it's a bad thing. But in the long term you would also want to recognize What is it that makes me feel like I need to protect myself from other people seeing me in this struggle judging this struggle, right? Because that is then ultimately kind of contributing to the anxiety about it, right? So again

It's not good or bad, not right or wrong in the short term. You might feel some relief. Again, not necessarily a bad thing, but in the long run, you would want to say, or try to explore why is it that I really can't have people see this? And if that was something I was willing to accept and their judgments of it, that might provide me a little bit more room to actually just go do this thing without another layer of something to avoid about the experience, which we can acknowledge is pretty straightforward, but not always easy.

because we don't like to be seen as the golfer that yips, putts, or experiences anxiety and whatever people judge that as, whether those judgments are right or wrong, good or bad, which usually they are uninformed at best. when we judge other people, typically comes from our own insecurities more than it is us trying to understand and like see other people, we might say.

So in the long run, if you're trying to decrease the overall anxiety cycle, you would want to wrap around, can I accept being judged by other people? What would that look like? Or what would the first steps into that be? In the short term though, yeah, you will probably get some relief if you remove the task of, need to not let other people know that I'm struggling with this. And when they see it, I will have already kind of clued them into what's happening. So we might say by doing so, you are removing the task of avoid others seeing me experience this.

Raymond Prior (34:51.978)
And if you can actually accept that, perhaps, then you won't necessarily have to announce it to people if that's not something you're willing to do in an ongoing loop going forward. Right. Another thing I always remind people is most people are not nearly as focused on us and what we're experiencing as we tend to think. Like we are the main character in our own life and we think everybody's paying as much attention to us as they are. Most of the time they're not. And even if they are.

Chase Cooper (35:09.715)
Yeah.

Raymond Prior (35:19.774)
not nearly for as long or as intensely as we think they are, meaning they don't go home and rap about it with people for days on end. It might be a short conversation. And yes, I'm not pretending there's none to that, but it's not nearly as much as we think it is.

Chase Cooper (35:35.259)
Yeah, I really, really well said on all that stuff. I would say, you know, I have dealt with chipping yips before I've dealt with some putting yips before. And I would say for my perspective, there'd be it's kind of kind of stages of grief or stages of addiction and stages of yips, right? Like the stage one would be I'm trying to hide it at all costs. And I don't I don't I don't want to anyone to know about it. And it's like, it's like an epidemic, right?

And then I think like at this, this, the questioners level, like you've kind of come to grips with it and now you want to get it out in the open. So it makes you.

Raymond Prior (36:15.832)
feel less vulnerable.

Chase Cooper (36:17.087)
feel less, I was gonna say feel better, but yeah, feel less vulnerable. And so then when you do it, well, you've already told them about it. So now you're not worried about that kind of feeling of like, oh, he saw me yip it and I just missed that one footer and didn't hit the hole. The part that I would say from my perspective, and you know, Doc, you've helped me a ton understand the yips, but I would say, understanding that once it becomes to this level, obviously, it's from from what what Doc said, it's the

So the psychology part has to be addressed. but then there's also, you've got to understand like what mechanically started the process a little bit. If it was a, what tendency, if it was an open face, closed face, long stroke, short stroke, like there is, there's always going to be, it's never just one thing. It's always going to be a little bit of a mechanical thing as well. And, and, and as it gets worse and worse and worse, it becomes, I think way more of a psycho psychological issue.

but there's still that mechanical thing that could bring you some relief as well as you start to address why the embarrassment, why the fear, can you accept that you may go out and miss every three footer? And once you get to that point, then we can start focusing on what's the problem with the stroke.

Raymond Prior (37:29.59)
Indeed. Okay.

Chase Cooper (37:30.909)
And then I do have, I do have a follow-up question for you though, that you said something I've never heard you say before. You said levels of anxiety, level, level one, level two. Is there anything more than that? Or is it just those two?

Raymond Prior (37:36.493)
Yeah.

There's three, there's three levels to anxiety or three stages. want to say, think we've talked about the podcast, but if we haven't, let me quick recap. So anxiety is a defense mechanism. It, our brain deploys it to anything we tell it must be avoided or is unacceptable. Okay. So if I go, I'm going to go play, but also don't screw up this round of golf. It's not a negative thought. It's an avoidance based task. My brain, all of our brains is designed that if there's an avoidance based task or something unacceptable about an experience,

it will deploy anxiety to it. is how it is designed. Stage one of anxiety is your brain trying to convince you not to take the risk because the safest way to avoid a potential threat is to not engage with it in the first place. So all the quote unquote negative thoughts we have, the feelings we have with anxiety, the agitation, the heaviness in the chest, the worry that we feel both emotionally and physiologically.

and our eyes darting around going, there's danger there, danger there. That is your brain trying to convince you that if this is as dangerous as you say it is, the best way for me to help you through this is don't do it at all. So think about it like from a survival perspective. Well, what's the easiest way and the most cost efficient way for us to survive a potential threat, real or imagined? Just don't engage with it. So stage one is what we typically recognize as.

anxiety because we've all experienced it and stage one anxiety gets us in subtle ways all the time. I was going to go talk to that person but I didn't really want to deal with like whatever so bailed out beforehand. So it works for us a lot in a lot of areas of our lives. If you're really paying attention to how many things do I think about doing and I bail out real quick that's stage one anxiety. It's really effective. And again that's trying to make us the closer we get to the risk our brain is trying to make us think and feel worse.

Raymond Prior (39:33.132)
so that we will ultimately retreat from it.

Chase Cooper (39:36.724)
And real quick on this on the levels, is it do you actually are they weighted more? Is it more anxiety? Or is this just kind of how it's documented?

Raymond Prior (39:45.694)
It both but like it's a sequential order and the intensity can vary in each based on what your brain is trained essentially or have become habituated to right for so many people has to go has to go to one one first because again so our brain has three primary things it can do any task that we do is going to fall under two categories even if it's nuanced it for our brain is going to put it into one of two it's either going to be avoidance or it's going to be pursuit.

Chase Cooper (39:58.729)
So it's always going to one first. It's always going to avoidance first.

Raymond Prior (40:15.128)
Okay. Avoidance gets anxiety pursuit gets nerves perhaps, or not at all. But either of these tasks, our brain is also designed to try to run them in the most energy efficient, cost efficient way. Meaning what is, how do I minimize the damage and use as little energy as possible? As a reminder, our brain evolved at a time when the world was pretty dangerous and we lived in a world of scarcity. So it wasn't like, I burned up a bunch of energy. I'll just go eat something and replenish that. It's like, nah, you actually don't know when you're going to eat next.

So you can't actually use a ton of energy. Well, the most energy efficient way to avoid a threat is let me convince you to not do it. So hence why stage one comes before stage two or stage three. Stage two is our brain, well, if you're going to do this anyway, even though I couldn't convince you not to, how do I get you through it as fast as possible? So again, if you were actually being attacked by a saber two tiger, would you want it to take 15 minutes or 15 seconds?

Right. But E and there again, so there's a layer of discomfort to that because again, if I make you feel really uncomfortable now, you will try to rush through whatever it is you're doing and onto the next thing, because that might offer you some relief, maybe. Right. And so that's stage two. So stage one, Yip says, I can't take the putter back again, if we're just talking about it in the context of putting the heads, I can't get the club to go back. Right. Because your brain's going, well, you know, what's the best way to avoid missing this putt? Just don't do it.

Stage two is, well, if you're going to do it anyway, it might not work out. So let's just get through it as fast as possible. So this is where our skills start to really become compromised because now I'm doing something to get it done with and hopefully onto a safer, more comfortable moment rather than do this thing as well as I can. Hence the loss of tempo, the loss of sequencing, the loss of the ability to control application of force, which basically means distance control, et cetera.

all stemming from, how do we just get out of here and onto the next thing so that I can either avoid what I don't want to happen or if it does happen, get it over with ASAP. Stage three of anxiety is every time we do something dictated by anxiety, that's not necessarily feel anxiety, but do the thing dictated by anxiety. We are effectively reinforcing it as a habit, which basically is another way of saying my brain learns to bring stage one and stage two sooner.

Raymond Prior (42:36.846)
to more things, to things that even remotely look like the thing that we are anxious about. And like, so basically the net gets wider. So, well, if I'm worried about the first tee, but I go hit an anxious first tee shot and I survive that, I have essentially told my brain, thanks for getting me through that. Next time, try to convince me not to do it sooner and do it more intensely. So now I feel anxiety on the range, right? So if I'm bringing anxiety to a round of golf, I'm gonna feel that.

But if I then go play a round of golf through anxiety, I have actually told my brain, thank God you were here. This 77 could have been an 80. Wow, we gotta make sure you bring that next time and then bring it sooner because maybe that'll protect me from whatever. So the same thing plays out for us over and over again, which is why us feeling anxiety is not a problem. Us doing something dictated by anxiety reinforces it, which means I get stage one and stage two sooner.

more intensely and for more things. So if we're talking about the YIPS, which is not a neurological thing or a disease or some type of anomalous situation, it's very predictable. It's stage one and stage two anxiety. And the more I hit putts dictated by anxiety, that is trying to avoid certain things at all costs and making certain things unacceptable, the more I'm telling my brain, good job, bring more anxiety. And that includes

feeling uncomfortable in those moments, whatever other people might think or recognize or judge us for those in the actually missing the putts, so on and so forth. So the more the stuff that gets wrapped in anxiety and unacceptable, whatever around it, the more we get anxiety playing out that way. And then which case then the, again, the pattern becomes really, really predictable.

Chase Cooper (44:24.669)
That's good. I know we've talked about obviously the avoidance. We've talked about getting it through as fast as possible. I just don't know if you've ever gone into detail about the levels like that. And I didn't realize that it always works. It has to work in that order. And then it does make sense. Level three is just, again, it turns into the vicious cycle.

Raymond Prior (44:37.92)
It is, yeah. So it's most energy efficient avoidance, second most energy efficient avoidance and or protection. then level three is, well, how do we get it to be most efficient even sooner? Which again, if you're just thinking about what is most energy efficient and damage limiting, well, if I couldn't convince you to not engage with this threat when you actually started it, well, then I'll try to convince you even sooner, right? And I'll do so more intensely. And

this thing that kinda looks like the thing that you're doing, I'll try to convince you of that too. Again, it's all trying to, in the most energy efficient way, keep me from the threats that I am either engaging with or told myself that I cannot engage with.

Chase Cooper (45:19.709)
No, it's, it's really good. All right. Hey, real quick. Let's take a pause. your audio is, I'm, I am assuming it's going to be fine, but I can't hardly see you. And it's like, it's the worst it's probably ever been, but it keeps telling me on my end, you're actually recording this higher. So here's what I would say. Let's do like two more. And that way we don't get, we don't do another 45 minutes of this. And then we don't, we lose it all.

Raymond Prior (45:23.043)
Pause.

Raymond Prior (45:28.536)
Ugh.

Raymond Prior (45:40.44)
Yeah.

Chase Cooper (45:45.479)
So, cause the information has been fantastic. So I don't want to lose it. And I think we'll be fine, but let's not let's save. Maybe I ask you, I can follow up with the choking one. Cause it kind of goes into the yips and asks if we can, we can, distract ourselves. but in the, you've got, I don't know how many more you have, but unless

Raymond Prior (45:47.767)
Okay.

Raymond Prior (46:05.698)
to kind of like three or four more. I think a couple of them we can kind of go through pretty quickly. So let's see what we can do.

Chase Cooper (46:13.789)
Okay. All right. So I'll, I'll, I'll kick us back off and just say, okay, so perfect. Follow up to that last question, the levels of anxiety, let's talk about choking and how, you know, okay. All right. So doc, so perfect. Follow up to the levels of anxiety is another word that I don't like is choking. a lot of times I would say choking and yep, sorry, we could talk about them in similar contexts, but, we had a question about.

had a figure skater at the Olympics that was labeled as a choker didn't didn't perform well and one of one of the last competitions and the listener sent me a video and in the video the guy talks about how you know basically the skater had automated a bunch of these simple movements that they've done all the time and then during the choking they basically got I'm gonna say de-automated it was kind of the verbiage I'm gonna I'm gonna screw this up but I want you to want you to answer this for me so

The main question was, can we prevent choking with, I'm going to call them distractions, but by occupying the prefrontal cortex, by doing things like singing, counting backwards, is there any benefit in those techniques as a way to turn the right part of our brain off and the correct part of our brain on basically, was the question.

Raymond Prior (47:30.766)
Yeah. All right. So let's kind of look at the spirit. So we're talking about what happened was there was a figure skater, probably the favorite by far to win men's gold. And what happened in what he said is like right before I went to go before my brain started spitting me all kinds of quote unquote negative thoughts, which was essentially like the trauma in his life. Okay. He used the word trauma.

Chase Cooper (47:53.951)
And he used traumatic, he used the word traumatic.

Raymond Prior (47:57.792)
Right. Which again, we've talked about on this podcast, it's a real thing. Everyone has experienced trauma and everyone is carrying trauma, unless you've done the work to actually feel that trauma and then let it go. And it's not a logical, think your way through, trauma. It's like, got to feel it again in a safe, curious, hopefully guided type of a situation. Okay. So one of the misconceptions about this that is incorrect in what the.

online post was saying is that the automated stuff became unautomated. It's not true. Okay. What's happening is he is in a trauma response according to his own recollection of the event. And in a trauma response is a full blown protection mode. Do not let whatever in your past potentially play out in your future, whatever pain that came with the event itself, the embarrassment, the conclusions you made from it, et cetera.

It's not that his skills became unautomated. What happened was his brain was trying to protect him from whatever it is it felt it needed to protect him from. So it's not that they were unautomated, they were on defense. And those are two different things. Unautomated things means I'm consciously trying to think through it. And oftentimes we do that because we feel like it provides us control. But when we are in a trauma response, the conscious part of our brain to think through skills is not online.

which means the automatic things are running, but they're running on anxiety in a full blown panic type of a way, which means you have no conscious control of really what's going on. And if you do, it's so minimal. So it's not really about that. So basically what that means is the fastest, strongest parts of our brain are on full blown defense, while the slowest, weakest parts of our brain, that's our prefrontal cortex, the rational conscious thinking part of our brain, not even online. So if I even told him,

Go consciously think through your jumps. His brain doesn't have that capacity if he's legitimately in a trauma response at that time, which he probably was based on his own description of the event. Okay, so the question is like, can doing things with our prefrontal cortex, meaning whistle, sing songs, count backwards to whatever, actually then re-automate our skills? Well, first of all, no, they weren't un-automated. They were running on automatic.

Raymond Prior (50:20.384)
automatic defense and the other part of that the part of his brain that could run that distraction technique quote-unquote is not online. So again, if I asked you you're in the Olympics, you're in a full-blown trauma response. Sing a song while you're skating or whistle up. Good luck, dude. The other thing I would point out to this again, I know a lot of the the author the book and the research the author that this thing is about is trying to get to suggesting these types of techniques and the research behind it has been debunked again and again.

Chase Cooper (50:36.147)
Nope. Nope.

Raymond Prior (50:50.208)
And again, and the reason is Chase, when we are in a stressful environment and particularly when it becomes traumatic for us, our brain is specifically designed not to be distracted from trying to protect us from trauma. Okay. So again, think about it as if you felt you were about to get hit by a car and I tell you start whistling a song or go look over there and don't think about that thing to automate your ability.

It's not happening. Your brain is designed to go. There is an immediate threat right now, real or perceived, that you are not about to avoid. So it is full blown stage two anxiety, which is what his trauma response is. In which case then, know, people, he bailed out on jumps. Of course he did. The risk of going for that jump is way too high, right? Or he missed his jumps. Yes, he did. He wasn't jumping them to jump them well. He was jumping them to avoid.

whatever and such he had attached to his thing. again, we had talked a little bit about before with Scott where he had kind of suggested this idea that we own motor patterns or swings. We don't. We only have access to them when we are also not trying to avoid something else in a pursuit based. Like we only have pursuit based access to them when there's nothing else attached to it. So if I'm in a trauma response, it doesn't matter how many, like the guy's the best in the world. You're telling me he doesn't own?

His jumps, he owns them, but he doesn't really own them. His brain only rents them to him when he's not trying to do something else with them. And we might say he's a, maybe the best skater in the world, not through anxiety, right? And there's no amount of distraction techniques. Like the distraction techniques in psychology as a means to try to deal with anxiety have been disproved again and again and again, because again, our brain is designed not to be distracted from what we deem threatening.

And two, that part of our brain, not online, which is why it can't be distracted from there. So for anyone who's, well, I try to whistle or I try to do whatever or count back. I've had one player tell me, try to count backwards and I'm always like, yo, how long did that last? And they're like, yeah, not long at all because your brain is at some point going to figure out the same thing. The same risk is here regardless of whether you're singing a song or not.

Chase Cooper (52:58.879)
It works.

Chase Cooper (53:08.179)
And I think what you said is what I've told my players too. The brain's going to figure out at some point it works until it doesn't work. And then it doesn't ever work anymore.

Raymond Prior (53:14.018)
That's right. It is designed to ask the question, how much risk is at stake here, real or perceived for us? And if the answer is passed a certain threshold, you can do whatever you want. Your brain is not going to allow you to do that freely. So think about, we talked about youth sport with Hong the other day, and it was basically like, you know, these kids, they don't have permission to go perform freely if they're going into the car ride on the way home or the kids get getting.

because their brain is recognizing there is too much at stake, so they're all on defense. And again, if I tell that kid, hey, just don't, the car ride home is gonna suck, but just whistle your way through this thing, or just count back from 100 by threes. Like their brain is recognizing there's more at stake here than is at stake. And in that moment, right, so one of the things I would ask about this Olympic experience is I'm wondering what kind of work was done before this to perhaps,

deal with the potential of this event. So here we're seeing the importance of our psychology work being more front-loaded and why psychological skills, quote unquote, I'm putting them in quotes for the people listening, they can't really actually do anything if your brain doesn't have an open door for them to be able to do so.

Chase Cooper (54:25.033)
Yep. And, we saw, you know, I think it was two summer Olympics ago was with Simone Biles having the twisties and like similar. And I kind of think like, yeah, I've, I've fought the yips with golf and it feels, you know, very traumatic, but then we add flying through the air. We're, we're, jumping on ice with razor blades. And if we fall and can not only embarrass ourselves and we're supposed to win and all the, all the stuff that comes with that, but there's also major risk of injury, major risk of injury with those, those two sports.

Raymond Prior (54:32.044)
Mobiles. Yup.

Raymond Prior (54:52.714)
Indeed think about mckayla shifrin who has traditionally struggled at the olympics to the point where her anxiety and the panic and the trauma sees her up She'll miss the first she's missed the first one or two gates in in olympics races before like not even going fast yet Well, why would that happen? I'm on full-blown defense that this event cannot and then fill in whatever traumatic past play out again in my future and your brain's doing exactly what it is designed to do and the

part of our brain that could rationally or consciously think through that or distract us from that risk, not online. And our brain is specifically designed not to be distracted from what might be perceived or real, like lethal risk. Right on. OK. Next question, perhaps a little bit less intense than that one. Is it important for students to write a summary of a lesson?

Chase Cooper (55:35.901)
Yep, 100%.

Raymond Prior (55:49.58)
perhaps after the fact. And simple answer to that is yes. There's a large body of research that shows us in one way or another, it doesn't have to be a written thing, but reflecting on an experience allows us to learn from it from a third person point of view, even if it's our own third person point of view, which is super beneficial to seeing things outside of what might be our felt experience during.

that can be written. can be a conversation with somebody who's actually just legitimately trying to listen all the way to us just kind of replaying that lesson. Okay. Well, what did I learn and how do I learn it? What can I take forward? So there's a million different ways to do that. The only thing we want to avoid is going back and judging that as it was something good or bad versus like what happened? What was I focused on? What led to this versus what led to that or what contributed to those? So it's a more curious.

observational and guided reflection towards something, then it is a judgmental or I'm just writing what happened without any type of structure to pick out what's important or what's relevant and what's not.

Chase Cooper (56:57.759)
Yeah, I try to get my students to keep like golf lessons in their notes and they'll write out what their takeaways were from the notes and then we'll shoot a quick video and they'll embed it in the notes so they have something written down in the video. And then just a reminder, and I never knew this until some of these podcasts were doing these with you, but the importance of sleep after a heavier lesson where you really dove into some complex tasks, you know, just the importance of it. Yep.

Raymond Prior (57:22.936)
Really, really important. To that, there's the next layer to this question from the same person is he's got a young son who's playing golf younger and kind of fallen into some sports psych information from a fellow by the name of David Goggins, which if you haven't heard of him, David is a former Navy SEAL, very popular online. He has a couple of bestselling books and

He has a very adversarial approach to performance psychology, which we might say was kind of born in military mixed with insecurity. I don't want to necessarily say it's good or bad, or wrong. What I would say is it is a relatively dangerous approach to performance psychology because the instruction behind it is basically stop being a wimp, try harder, do better. And to do that.

basically forego a lot of things that are actually really important to us. In this case, Chase, including sleep, where his instructions, you need to get up at four o'clock in the morning, which again, biologically and physiologically getting particularly teenagers and young people up or even adults, depending on what your chronotype is way before that and your sleep depriving them would be not healthy for them at all. I would also just say like, and not to judge, cause I know it resonates with a lot of people.

particularly young men who are kind of stuck in their insecurities, his let me kick you in the ass to get you moving approach resonates with a lot of people. And I don't want to undermine that. But it is also not aligned with a lot of really good science for what really gets people moving and out of ruts and out of their insecurities and anxieties that are actually keeping them from.

doing stuff, there's like an adversarial approach to your insecurities is not what moves us past our insecurities. So again, I know that it resonates and he's a Navy SEAL and he's, mean, he's a dude. And one of the things I will say about reading psychology from military members is to keep in mind that the things that they do are not the things that are the risk that's involved with real sport. So an adversarial approach to a firefight is one thing.

Raymond Prior (59:37.526)
an adversarial approach to your insecurities or your bedtime or other people's opinions is another thing. So it is important for us to ask, where's the source of this information coming from? and what is this person actually asking me to do and what impact would that actually have on my body and my brain and so on and so forth? So again, I know it resonates with a lot of people, but there are some glaring omissions, limitations, and what I would say is like incorrect areas and that as it relates to the science of

mental health, getting stronger, getting moving and actually dealing with and moving past insecurity. So that would just be kind of the main thing there. would not recommend sleep deprivation to anyone, especially teenagers. They need as much sleep as they can get.

Chase Cooper (01:00:22.879)
Is there any?

Any benefit to that type of, I'm going to just call it motivation. Cause that seems, I mean, he's, seems like a great motivator.

Raymond Prior (01:00:31.598)
Short term, short term.

Yeah, I would say there's a difference between intense short-term motivation and actually long-term motivation. So one of the things we know for sure is that, yeah, if I yell and scream at you and run behind you with a whip, you're going to be motivated. But we also know that that kind of grinds people to their bones and it undermines intrinsic motivation, which is I want to do this for the reasons that are important to me that are available to me more often, because nobody's going to run behind you with a whip for the rest of your life. And even if they do, that will run out. You'll eventually get burnt out on it. Right. So

I would just say this, there's a lot of people that really like and follow this type of psychological model. If you also look behind it though, there are people reporting massive overuse injuries, massive health issues, all this stuff because I followed such and such protocols after reading a book that was not rooted in good science and just someone's personal philosophy to improving their own life that may or may not fit for me. So again, to just encourage people to be skeptical and go get informed, not cynical.

that I don't believe you just because you say this, but skeptical, hold on, tell me more about that. How does this fit for me? What is the cost benefit to this? What other things can I consider? Because again, I'll just take one of the tenants for him is you need to get up early as hell, do everything else, and then like, you know, basically throw the middle finger at the world in a lot of different ways. And I would say, I'm not so sure that that's the best approach for a lot of people, particularly the sleep deprivation portion of that. Or not sleep deprivation, but like.

Chase Cooper (01:01:59.775)
itself.

Raymond Prior (01:02:01.376)
If you take a teenager, their chronotype is almost always evening, which means getting up really early is actually costing them a ton of very valuable sleep for their developing brain. I don't know if I would get around that. Now, is it going to be motivating? Perhaps. But then I would say for how long and then also at what cost. Okay. All right. Last one here from me, which is a really important, I'm actually going to read it because Chase, this has got some layers to this tiramisu.

Chase Cooper (01:02:20.125)
Yeah, good stuff.

Raymond Prior (01:02:30.282)
It comes from a fellow who played high school golf with Jacob Bridgman, who just won the Genesis Invitational a while ago. Kind of basically just highlighting, well, both of us basically came from similar environments, played similar level of skill, so on and so forth. I learned to play through a lot of anxiety and he learned to like just whack it and go see what happens. He would see how low he could go.

what kind of crazy shot he could pull off, et cetera, without much care for what others thought about it. And the kind of the question is, well, we were both raised in fairly similar yet environments played out two different mindsets. My question is, even at an early age, do some players naturally play more confident? And why do some golfers care so much about what others think and some care less, even though they're from similar backgrounds, does personality have any influence on this?

So a couple of layers. Similar environments does not mean the same environment. And those subtle differences, whether they're known or unknown, play a massive role in our relationship with other people's opinions, which is kind of the main thread line through this. Where, yeah.

Chase Cooper (01:03:46.057)
So, let me ask you a quick follow up on that. If these two are brothers raised by the same parents, which you see this happen a lot, and obviously parents aren't gonna raise the first child the same as the second child. There's a lot of learning. It's their first child and a lot of learning that goes through that. But let's assume for a perfect world that they were both raised the same. From a faith-based standpoint, we talk about generational sins and what's passed down and tendencies are passed down from parents and kids. From a scientific standpoint,

Raymond Prior (01:03:51.534)
Mm-hmm.

Raymond Prior (01:03:55.811)
Totally.

Chase Cooper (01:04:15.505)
Is that true? Do you see like tendencies of the father and the mother passed down to the kids in certain ways where they're just predisposed to it?

Raymond Prior (01:04:24.13)
Yeah, so let me pull on the personality thread here. So again, to a reminder to our audience here, personality is not something you are just born or not with, like these characteristics that we have, which is why personality measures do not really have any predictive value for performance or life happiness, right? So performance is far more fluid. I'm sorry. Personality is far more fluid and learned more than it is innate. Okay. So.

personality as we used to think about it, like you were born with this set of and combination of these kind of five to six types of characteristics. That's just who you are. Not true. For example, introversion and extraversion are two different endpoints of one personality characteristic. But what we know is introversion, extraversion are learned. They're not, we're not born with. So it's really important. We are born psychological blank slates.

we learn to think and believe and feel in certain ways. Some people with more capacities toward one or the other, but if I put you in a home where it is not okay to speak your mind freely without being punished, you will become introverted because you're gonna have to learn to organize your thoughts internally without necessarily speaking them and working through them verbally out loud. If I put you in a household where you have a ton of people around you,

and they all drain your energy, you're also gonna learn to be more introverted than if you're in an environment where you're allowed to work with people freely, come and go as you please, you might learn to be more extroverted with your energies, right? So, or even something like agreeableness. If I put you in a household where we're allowed to freely try and fail at things, you're gonna be more agreeable to certain things versus more conscientious or what might say disagreeable, which is I can't do that. So,

I put you in an environment where certain things are okay and certain things are not. Your personality is going to shape based on your core beliefs that you learn. To your point, Chase, beliefs are learned, which means if I have them, I learned them from my primary caretakers, which means they learn theirs from their primary caretakers. So beliefs are often generational. They get passed down, which is why trauma is also generational and passed down. If you don't deal with it, it gets inherited by our future selves.

Raymond Prior (01:06:37.046)
and the people that we are around and then our future generations, right? Same with beliefs, right? So if I told you whether, let's say it's something like a religious belief, the strongest, there are two of the strongest predictors of someone having a certain religious belief or affiliation is one, where were you born? And two, what did your parents have? Right, so I am inherited that by who I live with in the place that I live them with, right? So all that being said, even though you might grow up on the other side of the street,

with similar families of similar incomes, similar means, similar whatever. If I have a parent who, ooh, I'm worried a little bit about other people's opinions, or I judge people really harshly, and I'm the one who sees that day in and day out, I'm gonna learn to fear other people's opinions, versus if I have parents who speak more accepting of other people, judge less, and give me permission to go try and fail. So these subtle differences, even in the same household or across the street,

can turn into two wildly different relationships with other people's opinion. One very accepting, one very avoidant, in which case then one gets anxiety when I'm doing something that people will be judged. And the other one is, let's go whack it and see what happens because I don't need to protect against other people's opinions in that kind of case. And can you have that in the same household? Absolutely, right? Let's say you're the first born and your parents have like enough means, but then you're the second born and now things get a little bit tighter.

Chase Cooper (01:07:57.631)
Okay.

Raymond Prior (01:08:06.112)
around the belt line or around the wallet, you get two different parents based on what kid you are, can lead to two totally different mindsets.

Chase Cooper (01:08:15.817)
So how do you, so I've got three kids and my youngest at times get shy and my other two have never been that way. Like, and you would think with the third, you know, we're, don't have enough energy and time to manage him anymore. So he should just go do his thing, right? The baby. But how does, how do you explain when you have three or four different kids and they're three or four or five kids and like personality wise, let's just use, use the introvert extrovert. Three of them are super extroverted and two of them are introverted and

you know, obviously, parents were the same, hopefully throughout the same as they were growing up, but there there could be some some subtle differences. But is it always going to be the subtle differences in how they were raised?

Raymond Prior (01:08:56.728)
subtle differences compound, plus no children have the same experiences as somebody else, even with the same parents. Even though parents might love their children equally, they do not show up for all of them in the same way. Parents a little bit more protective of this kid, a little more. Also, whatever has that kid dealt with in their life, maybe they had a traumatic experience at school, a medical event, a something that then my parents respond to that an older child or a different child did not, right? So I learn.

Chase Cooper (01:09:23.931)
or the experiences with their brother and sister and like that kind of stuff too.

Raymond Prior (01:09:26.862)
That's exactly right. So it's the events of our lives plus the interaction with our primary caretakers plus whatever I interpret from that, that then starts to add, again, it's not a massive difference, but little things compound over time. If I learn just every now and then, ooh, mom was really judgmental about that person. That encodes as a kid just like a little bit more of like, ugh, it's not okay to do things that are worthy of judgment.

versus another kid where you don't really see that version of mom because she was at work while you were younger or you were at school, whatever that might be. You don't learn that because you weren't exposed to it in the same way, right? So subtle differences add up. again, it's similar is not the same as same and nobody has the same experience. Every single human being has had a unique experience coming from other human beings that also had their unique experiences. A lot of overlaps.

Chase Cooper (01:10:04.895)
I'm it makes sense.

Raymond Prior (01:10:21.794)
But those subtle differences can change a ton.

Chase Cooper (01:10:24.893)
No, makes total sense.

Raymond Prior (01:10:27.138)
So, okay, that's all I got. Go ahead.

Chase Cooper (01:10:28.445)
And then, obviously, and obviously going back to his, specific question, now we add in two different parents, two different, two different environments growing up and the things can get exponentially be exponentially different.

Raymond Prior (01:10:37.422)
Two different, different birth order. Plus like what are your early experiences with failure? If you had a situation where I failed and, or Jacob had an experience where he failed and like there was no punishment from it whatsoever by being judged by other people or whatever. And he just learned that as his default setting, you had one, even if it wasn't yours and you observed it in somebody else and you went, I don't want that. And then you start playing or.

operating from what do got to do to not be judged in the way I just saw that other person get judged and you add that up over time, you're going to get that. Hence we kind of kind of bringing together a couple of podcasts we've had in the last couple of weeks, like how we interact with other people is not just teaching them golf. It's also teaching them, do I need to be on offense or do I need to be on defense here? So, yeah.

Chase Cooper (01:11:27.487)
Yep, no, it's good. All right, I got I got one last one. Well, we can cover this or you can cover this one quickly. The question was about it basically emotional agility. Reading reading your book and one of the sections about we give our emotions space, it mentions emotional agility. How can we work to develop it?

Raymond Prior (01:11:45.986)
You can work to develop it first and foremost. So emotional agility by definition is the ability to feel an emotion or emotions without being dragged around by them. Okay. So how can we one start to train that is one to learn to pay attention without judgment to our thoughts and feelings. So just have emotions and then also learn to have them, but without doing something necessarily dictated by them. So what that means is I can experience

Emotions that I do or do not want without it telling me what to focus on and what ultimately to do and why Okay, so be like if I told you hey go play golf, but like just don't be uncomfortable Well, I have just made you emotionally In flexible because you're not allowed to feel a certain way and you're only allowed to feel this way Versus I tell you all right, we're gonna tune into what you're feeling but whatever you're feeling is allowed

However, whatever you're feeling, the focus is gonna be on whatever shot you want to play right now and how you wanna play it for the reasons that are important to you. So we learn emotional inflexibility by trying to deny emotions, labeling them as good or bad, right or wrong, or trying to smother them with you shouldn't be thinking or feeling this way, so on and so forth, basically making them not allowed. So if they are allowed, but they don't have to be in charge,

I learned to be able to just have emotions. They're allowed to come and go, whether I like them or not, without dictating what I do. So first and foremost is learn to pay attention to them without judging them or trying to change them and smother them. And then also going, well, what do I want to do right now? And how do I want to do it? That is emotional agility. So I can basically navigate a series of emotions by doing nothing with them or very little with them.

and doing something with the thing that I'm actually doing in a way that is aligned and consistent with what is authentic to me. So it's a summarized answer in a way where we're kind of running out of time, but that's what emotional agility comes down to, is at the bare bones.

Chase Cooper (01:13:51.133)
Yeah. Non-judgmental. That seems to be a theme.

Raymond Prior (01:13:56.076)
Yeah, we as humans learn to fear things that we judge and being judged by. Nobody likes it. And I'm not saying that certain things don't need judgment, but other human beings being judged or ourselves being judged for experiencing things that are totally normal and common for human beings, we might say, only tries to create anxiety for us. So people...

Chase Cooper (01:14:17.759)
Our brain tends to exaggerate and make it worse.

Raymond Prior (01:14:22.26)
It does, but also sometimes it's pretty bad. Like if I tell you you're going to go out, you're going to try and you fail and you get crushed by the people around you, like that's sometimes kind of worthy of trying to be avoided, but it's not that you should or shouldn't, but like the tribe that you're around doesn't allow for trying and failing. I'm going to learn to fear that. Right. And that's going to probably also transfer into other places. So

Chase Cooper (01:14:42.089)
percent.

Raymond Prior (01:14:46.274)
Do we tend to overblow it? Yes. Is it also a real thing that we probably really don't need to do as much as we do? Yeah. All right. So.

Chase Cooper (01:14:53.833)
Yep, good stuff. Awesome, that was good. There's a lot of good stuff in there.

Raymond Prior (01:14:59.064)
That was a chunk. Chase, work in the people, find us, send us questions more if they have some.

Chase Cooper (01:15:00.413)
Yeah, there's some heavy.

Chase Cooper (01:15:05.796)
at chasegrippergolf, Instagram at gbtspodcast on Instagram and at btsmindset.com.

Raymond Prior (01:15:16.32)
Once again, thanks to everyone for sending us questions. It's always nice when we can get straight to the audience. We've got more guests lined up. We've got some other podcasts going on. So we're looking forward to the next couple of weeks, my guy.

Chase Cooper (01:15:27.943)
Yes, we are. Keep the questions coming. It's been fun to get a few of these on the books and keep sending them out. And we will do our best. We both promised to do our best this summer when we're both crazy busy. And we'll find some time where we don't go three months without a pod. We'll do our best. We promise, pinky swear, friends forever.

Raymond Prior (01:15:50.066)
Best friends forever. All right. Thank you to everyone. Thank you to you, Chase. And we'll see everyone next time. Company surface. Take care, guys.

Chase Cooper (01:15:51.711)
Thank you. Thanks doc. Everybody be good. Thank you.