Q & A 12.0

In this episode, Raymond and Chase answer listener questions on sleep, learning, memory, intrusive thoughts, the yips, target focus, lowering handicaps, and why tying your identity to outcomes makes golf feel so threatening.

They discuss why sleep before and after practice helps learning stick, why “don’t three-putt” usually makes three-putting more likely, and why stepping off a shot is sometimes the best decision you can make.

They also dig into the gap between holding a target in your mind and actually being free enough to execute, especially when anxiety, fear, or avoidance are running in the background.

Other topics include:
 – How naps help learning
 – Why cramming is not the same as long-term learning
 – Why most people are not built to perform on 4–5 hours of sleep
 – How to deal with distracting thoughts over the ball
 – Why yips are usually rooted in anxiety
 – The fastest ways higher handicaps can lower scores
 – Why identity and outcomes create threat responses

If you have a question for a future Q&A, send it to us on Instagram.

Follow us:
 @gobtspodcast
 @chasecoopergolf
 btspmindset.com

Transcript

Raymond Prior (00:01.197)
Welcome everyone to the Gulf Beneath the Surface podcast. I'm your co host, Raymond Pryor. With me is my co host, Chase Cooper, the man, the myth, and the legend. How are we doing, Chase?

Chase Cooper (00:10.52)
Doc, I'm doing great. How about yourself? It's busy season, so we're both talking off air about how it's getting getting kinda crazy.

Raymond Prior (00:13.209)
It's busy season.

Raymond Prior (00:19.253)
It is. It's a busy summer of golf, which hopefully for the people listening they're getting a lot of golf in. And some of the questions that we can answer today might help them make that a little bit better, a little bit more enjoyable. So let's let's go.

Chase Cooper (00:31.446)
been it's been a minute since we've done a Q and A and the questions keep on coming, so let's let's get to

Raymond Prior (00:35.961)
Let's do it. Okay, here's question one. the question is about sleep and learning. And we had talked about sleep and learning, especially around getting a golf lesson a couple many episodes ago, so people can go check that out. But just to refresh and then just to kind of clarify this question. The question is how soon after a bout of learning, for example, a golf lesson or practice, would help learning from a short-term and long-term memory standpoint?

So there's a big body of research on how sleep impacts learning and just a little bit of the neuroscience behind it. When we gather information from our day, whether we're in about of learning or just going about our lives, it's what we're experiencing and how our brain is learning, whether that's a reinforcement schedule or a skill or a motor pattern or, you know, memorizing information, for example, something academically. That information is going into a short

term storage unit first. That unit is our hippocampus, basically. Okay. and it gets put in there, but the hippocampus kind of has like one real significant flaw, hence it's short-term memory, and that is kind of limited storage. It can only hold so much. So think of it kind of like a flash drive or an external hard drive where you fill it up, but if it gets full,

What happens is as more information comes in, it kind of spills out the other side. So information gets lost. So it's not I'm full and I stop information from coming in. It's more I'm full. So new information coming in pushes out other information. All right. So this isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it is a limitation to our short-term memory. Well, what moves all the memories and information and consolidates it and sorts it and organizes it and moves that into

Long-term storage, which is more in our neocortex, is sleep itself, particularly REM sleep. I'm sorry, non-REM sleep. So that's our deep sleep, where basically short-term information gets moved from this hard drive or flash drive into like this infinite-ish memory storage in our neocortex, where we can then pull from that as a long-term

Raymond Prior (02:52.702)
Memory and what happens is that gets distributed, particularly for something, for example, like a motor pattern, into the faster, stronger-driven parts of our brain, like the cerebellum and the basal ganglia, which run all our motor patterns and all that type of stuff. So basically, those areas of the brain have better access to those.

Than in short-term memory, which is why you could get a golf lesson and it gets a little bit squirrely. You go sleep for a little bit and come back, and some of that information is consolidated and reorganized, or even some information lost gets restored in that. So sleep is wildly important for us learning stuff in terms of how information gets transferred, organized, and sorted, and even replaced when it's lost. So, all that to be said, if I was gonna get a golf lesson, the best way to

Boost the learning that you do in that lesson would be to sandwich it between sleep. So not a knock against the golf teaching industry in any point, but if you have someone who comes to a golf lesson sleep deprived, it is essentially a waste of time. Sorry. Okay. So I would want to make sure that I have slept really well the night before and try to get my lesson as close to my sleep as I can, provided I'm just awake and warmed up. So

If I was going to get a golf lesson and I had the choice, I would want to do that earlier in the morning after I have just slept really well. Because what that means is my hippocampus, my short-term storage is got a lot of space in it. And I would want to get as much from that lesson as I could in that. Then you would also want to sandwich it with sleep, meaning if I can take a nap afterward, that will then move that information sooner.

into my neocortex and into my long term memory so that it doesn't get pushed out by information later in the day. So this doesn't mean that I need to go sleep eight hours before and eight hours after everything. But even like you could s take a nap before you would go to a lesson or to practice. For example, if you're a college athlete and you're having a hard time sleeping, like if you can do tw if you're gonna practice for four hours, you'd be better off sleeping.

Raymond Prior (05:03.394)
For 20 minutes of that before you go do that, then practicing that full time because you're gonna get more information encoded in that. And then also if you can sandwich some sleep in afterwards. So a 20 or 30 minute nap after bouts of learning show that there's a 20 to 25% increase in learning, both in the short term and then accelerated learning in the long term. Not surprisingly, because now I have long-term access to that information. So for the question.

The more you can sleep beforehand, the more space you have to be able to encode information among a host of other benefits that sleep offers us to be able to learn better energy, focus, hormone levels, all kinds of stuff, better mood, better focus, all that stuff. And then also afterward, if I take a lesson and then within hopefully one ultradian rhythm, which is 90 minutes, if I can go get some sleep or at least

Some pretty significant down regulation. So I might not sleep, but I might sit with my eyes closed for 30 minutes and try to sleep. But even if I don't, there is still benefit to be gained from there. So to answer the question with some very specifics, it's like the sooner you can get sleep before, the sooner you can get sleep after, the more likely you are to be able to gather more of that information from short-term to long-term memory, not just to pull it in, but also to transfer it later. This would be ideal.

But if we're just giving some day-to-day protocols for people who have lives outside of their golf lessons and their practice, get full night of sleep as often as you can the night before. If you can do your practice or lessons or learning as close to that full sleep as you can, great. If you don't, try to get a nap or some down regulation beforehand and try to get some nap or a full night of sleep as best you can afterwards. So long and the short of it.

the better sleep you get both before and after learning, the better that learning is going to encode into your brain. So those would be some basic protocols for that. So yeah.

Chase Cooper (07:07.531)
It's it's funny. I'm I'm thinking about all my all my high school and college players that love taking naps all the time are like nodding, like, Yep, I love it. I love the advice, Doc. couple couple of questions. Like when sometimes this is just from personal experience. Like I'll take a quick nap. I don't I don't take many naps anymore, but quick nap and I'll wake up like super tired. Like what's the science behind that? Is there something to keep that 'cause like my dad would call him power naps, he'd go take a ten minute nap and wake up refreshed. And I wake up and I'm like, Man, I feel like I've been I've been in a daze for a long time.

Raymond Prior (07:24.311)
Yeah.

Raymond Prior (07:31.821)
Yeah.

Raymond Prior (07:35.149)
Yeah, the length of the nap matters. So you want to keep your naps under one ultra radian rhythm, especially it's probably more likely to be for adults, like thirty minutes. Anything after that, and what happens is your brain starts to think, we're taking a full night of sleep. So it starts it starts to really get in you start to get into deeper sleep, which is harder to come out of. You're just gonna feel more groggy, more tired coming out of it because your brain has shifted into sleep mode.

Chase Cooper (07:51.169)
This is legit.

Raymond Prior (08:04.716)
Where again, so a nap, it's kind of like a refresher, it's a recharge without it being clicked into, this is a full-blown recharge. Also, if you're taking naps and you are regularly tired after even if it's a 30-minute nap, it's probably an indication that there's some level of sleep deprivation, either acute or long term, going on, where your brain is going, I'm really craving this sleep and pushing me more in toward that rather than it just being a recharge. So

A lot of college athletes, high school kids, even adults who aren't sleeping well enough would benefit greatly from a nap. But if that nap gets too long, it's trying to replace lost sleep or gain sleep deprivation by or trying to get rid of sleep deprivation through a nap. It's a a pretty good indicator for us as humans that if I'm doing stuff during the day where I'm kind of like falling asleep or having a really time being awake, usually the primary indicator there is that you are not sleeping.

Chase Cooper (08:59.789)
Okay. And that thirty minutes is kind of the window for the quick naps, twenty five, thirty minutes.

Raymond Prior (09:03.116)
Yeah, quick at twenty to twenty to thirty minutes. If you're an adult biologically, meaning over the age of eighteen, you definitely don't want to go past 30 too often because again, what's happening is now you're cutting into your sleep. Your brain is either in sleep mode or it's also now cutting into your bedtime. And nighttime sleep, that full eight hours, hopefully nine for most people, if you're really trying to optimize your waking hours, getting enough sleep, is like you got to treat it as sacred.

If you're really trying to be a happy, healthy, high-performing human being, that nighttime sleep where we get the full dose of sleep and all its benefits is like that is so much more important than we give it credit for. Naps are certainly helpful. Things we can do to promote waking are certainly helpful, but we really want to protect and leave sacred that nighttime sleep. That is where we get the most juice out of our sleep, which is again vital for.

Everything we do when we're waking.

Chase Cooper (10:01.303)
And then going back to your comment about like if if if I'm one that has a hard time taking a nap and actually going to sleep, just eyes closed for twenty five, thirty minutes has benefits.

Raymond Prior (10:08.533)
Eyes closed for twenty, thirty minutes, like a deep down regulation, whether that's through a meditative practice, a mindfulness practice, or just sitting with your eyes closed, there's a ton of benefits to that. They might not be the full benefits of actually falling asleep, but you're gonna get a partial dose of it. And when it comes to sleep, some is always better than none for us. Where okay, some benefit of just sitting and resting is still better than me just plowing through and then having a bunch of caffeine or something of that nature. Right.

Chase Cooper (10:37.709)
Okay. Perfect. And then I've got two more follow up questions. Can we train our brain to have a better memory? Like some people have idetic memories and like is that a w could I even call it a skill?

Raymond Prior (10:46.231)
Yeah, for sure. Memory is something that we can improve there. Basically, if we were talking about how the basic training of memory works, it's not just learning it, but recalling it. So for example, if you went and learned something from this podcast today, if you wanted to train your memory on it, you would go talk about it with somebody else and then go talk about it with somebody. So memory is enhanced not by just having it, but how often I recall it over time. Right. So if you think about like

Adding a word to your vocabulary, not just learning it and what it means gets us into our vocabulary. What gets us into our vocabulary in kind of a voluntary, non like I have to consciously add it to my vocabulary is using it repeatedly. Right. So by the way, not that dissimilar than training a golf swing. Like learning emotion is one thing, repeating that in a variety of settings and with a variety of different contexts is what starts to ingrain that over time.

And then the other added later to that, Chase, is like adding more senses to it. So if I learn something, can I then go write it down and write it out? Can I then go speak it with somebody? So I'm using a variety of different sensations, but different, we call this multimodal learning. The more types of senses and ways that you can engage with that information or that memory, the stronger it becomes because now you have more areas of the brain and more neuropathways that it can that it can pull from.

Chase Cooper (12:10.797)
Okay. So if I going back to my high school college days, like if I was cramming for a test, if I th there some of these things could have been ways in which I could have retained the information a little bit better was by writing it down, was by, you know, going through and talking to it with with colleagues and classmates and all that stuff and just

Raymond Prior (12:28.131)
Right. So if you think about there's a big difference between learning and just recall or memorization. So cramming for a test is like, let me just smash a bunch of information in my head to be able to pull out in the next couple of hours. There's some value in that. It's not long term learning though. Long term learning is I'm studying the information, I'm reading it, I'm writing it, I'm talking about it. There's probably me appl applying it, meaning doing some homework. Like there's a variety of different ways where I'm encoding that in some

Chase Cooper (12:43.425)
Yeah.

Chase Cooper (12:48.055)
But owning it. Good.

Raymond Prior (12:57.217)
ways that are far more long term oriented than just memorize it and recall it. So again, not that cramming for a test can't help you get an A or get a better grade or pass a test, but it is not learning information in a way where your brain is designed to be able to have access to that. And the a significant layer of learning is can I ad apply and adapt this information? Right. So if we're taking it out of academics and putting into a golf swing, like, okay, I know how to hit a draw, but can I

Chase Cooper (13:25.983)
Off a flat off a flat lie or

Raymond Prior (13:27.329)
Of a flat lie, but can I do that off of a different lie or a different stance or with a different club or with a lower trajectory versus a higher trajectory? Like you don't memorize that on a golf range and then be able to pull that out three months later. That is a long-term process of application, multimodal learning and recall again and again rather than just I smash it in there and then I'm good to go, which a major misconception about something like a golf lesson is if I go golf lesson, I do it in there.

Chase Cooper (13:32.077)
One hundred percent.

Raymond Prior (13:56.11)
That'll just tran like we've talked about transfer. Like short-term memorization is not long-term transfer. Right. So there's a si significant flaw with that. But what takes short-term information and puts it into long-term information for our brain, long-term memory, that's that procedural memory that we've talked about, or procedural processing versus more declarative, which is short-term conscious thinking through what moves it to where we can get the most out of it is sleep itself.

The sooner before, the sooner after is basically the rules for this.

Chase Cooper (14:29.389)
And then final follow-up on that, perfect segue is like you hear famous guys like an Elon Musk or even I remember Steve Jobs talking about this a little bit where famously Elon said he needs three or four hours of sleep and then he's, you know, super smart and, you know, genius level and can can do all this stuff. What what do you say? What's the research say on some of that?

Raymond Prior (14:49.667)
The research is very clear on people who claim that they need less than full dose of sleep, and that is that they are full of shit. Pardon my language. Yeah. there are certain people who can operate unimpaired with less than I think it's seven hours of sleep. But if you took the number of people in the world who can do that, by the way, it's a genetic mutation that allows them to do this.

Chase Cooper (14:57.197)
I saw I I f I figured that was coming. I saw your smirk when I asked the question.

Raymond Prior (15:17.931)
If you took that number of people and expressed it as a percent of the population and rounded that percent to the nearest, closest number, the number would be zero. So if you think you are that person, the only way to actually confirm that is if you actually got a genetic test that would that would bear that out. Most people think they can get by on that, but what they've actually done is move toward what we call baseline resetting, which is I just get used to being sleep deprived all the time. And I think this is my best operating.

And it's not in the same way that many golfers settle for a golf swing that I think this is the best I can do. No, it's not. You can do better, but you'd have to do something different to be able to do better. But for those who are like, no, I'm really good. My best amount of sleep is five hours. No, it's not.

Chase Cooper (16:05.023)
And and nine is the go would you say nine in general is the goal?

Raymond Prior (16:08.799)
Eight hours devoted towards sleep is what we need for our brain to get all five ultradian rhythms worth of sleep. But most people need to devote nine hours to sleep to actually get those because very few people in our modern world now sleep through the night without disruptions, either because they're not really taking care of their sleep during the waking hours, as we get older it gets harder to sleep. We spend a lot of time on screens. There are a lot of things that keep us from sleeping well at night.

Because of our waking hours among biological and physiological things, the vast majority of people should be devoting nine hours of time to trying to get a full night's worth of sleep. And in that nine hours, you might only sleep six or six and a half of them, but that's still like even eight hours of sleep, you know, as you come out of an Ultra Adian rhythm, there is some waking, which is hardly perceptible for us, depending on how well we sleep.

But that you don't just sleep for eight hours straight. There's some waking involved with that, which again, if we want to do a podcast on sleep, we can get into that. But the long and the short of it is the vast majority of people don't sleep well enough or often enough or deeply enough because they're simply not devoting enough time.

Chase Cooper (17:13.676)
Yeah, for sure.

Chase Cooper (17:23.051)
And do you ever have a client that you recommend ten or eleven hours of sleep? Does it ever get more than nine?

Raymond Prior (17:26.283)
very rarely. There is such a thing as too much sleep. but for most people I would only recommend that if you are you've moved time zones a variety of different times, whatever, but for most people you want to shoot for somewhere between eight eight and nine hours. And again, most people would benefit more from getting closer to nine.

Okay. that's a long way to say. Sandwich your bouts of learning with with make your bouts of learning a sandwich with sleep bread. Okay, this question Chase was about so I was on the podcast, how low can you go? I think you were a guest after I was there too. And I had a bit of a I guess it was a bit of a clip that went, I had to go find it, a little viral where I was talking about how your brain is not designed.

Chase Cooper (17:52.877)
Yeah.

Chase Cooper (18:05.961)
Mm-hmm. Yep. Good guys.

Raymond Prior (18:16.355)
To allow you to try to shoot a 65 if you're protecting from an 80. This is, of course, relative to your skill level, whatever those numbers might be. But just basic brain stuff on our brain is not designed to allow us to pursue freely while also trying to avoid something else. And apparently there was a bit of an online discussion, and one of the more prominent statistical people in the field, someone asked them, like, are there numbers to bear this out? And then that person had a post that.

quite frankly, was a lot of words to not say much at all. And the reason and we don't blow people up on this podcast. That's not really our thing. My point with this is there aren't any stats from the PJ Tour or the LPJ tour or Live or any other tour that would bear that out for our brain, because nobody tracks stats based on what a person is actually thinking and trying to do with a golf shot. It only tells you what happened with the golf shot really has no why.

And we've talked about this on the podcast before where the stats that we get from golf are important, but they are not very predictive because they are not filtered through enough things to tell you not just what happened, but why. They don't account, they basically only account for distance and the the perhaps the club used and then where that golf ball ended up. They don't account for the wind, they don't account for the previous shot, they don't account for a person's internal psychological state.

They don't even account for what time zone it's in, whether that person is sleep deprived or not, whether they have things like there are none. So you can go on and on about the stats say this, but they don't actually tell you why, which is why I always kind of push back on people. My stats are this, my stats are this. And I always ask, under what conditions? Right. So there is an infinite amount of data on psychological and neurological testing showing very clearly that our brain does not allow us to pursue and avoid at the same time.

And anybody's anecdotal experience will also tell them that as well. Are there stats from the tourist to bear that out? No, there is not. And the reason why is because they're not measuring that in the first place. So you can have a long post and go through a bunch of stuff, but if that's not a filter that the stats are being run through, you cannot make any conclusive evidence about that. Hence, it was a very long post that really at the end of it, if you boiled it down, said, I don't know. And they don't.

Chase Cooper (20:40.629)
Yeah, I I n I don't know the posts you're you're r referencing. I know the v the video and I got in there and made some comments on that. And I think a lot of people got locked into like, Well, if I can shoot sixty five, I don't always shoot eighty. And it was like don't don't worry about the numbers. It it that wasn't the point. The point was if you don't have the freedom to go out there and pursue your best and fail and you're protecting against shooting eighty, you're never gonna have access to sixty five, which you said that clearly, you know, and so I think the

Raymond Prior (20:55.639)
Yeah, that's that's not really yeah, yeah.

Chase Cooper (21:10.283)
The problem is it goes viral and then people see it without the context. And then it was like, it's 80 versus 65. I haven't shot in the 80s in a long time. Well, then it's like, well, PJ Tour players average dis you know difference between worst round and best round on the PJ Tour is 16, 17 shots. So they they they do do it, right? It does happen. It's 62 to 79 is typically the range, but but it's still it still comes back to it's just more, are you playing freely? Are can you accept that bad things may happen? And and you're not going to avoid those bad things happen.

Raymond Prior (21:22.283)
It's a lot, it's a lot. Yeah. Yeah.

Raymond Prior (21:37.4)
I would also point out, like in there's this viral thing, but also like the PJ Tour, I'll just use them and the LPJ tour because these are kind of our top tours, like strokes gained is kind of their primary stat that they use for a variety of different things, including gambling. It is a statistical analysis that would not fly in the vast majority of fields because it is not predictive and it is not taking into account enough filters. Like

A strokes gain stat in the military would never fly. At most corporations with that much money online, also never fly because you really wouldn't get any information from it other than what happened. Like, say you're a big insurance company and you're running these cat models of trying to predict like what kind of policies need to cost what at what risk. You would never use something that doesn't tell you why something may or may not have happened. Right. So it is probably the best stat available to them right now.

in terms of predicting like not even really predicting but relaying scores, but it wouldn't fly in the vast majority of fields. Like it's not a very s sophisticated statistical analysis.

Chase Cooper (22:45.821)
It r Doug, if you could add one thing to make it more predictable, would you say, you know, would you say portable EEGs? Like is that is is that the goal?

Raymond Prior (22:55.181)
You would yeah, if you if you were gonna actually go, did this person play this shot freely? You would neither need two things. You would need to be able to measure that in real time, which would probably be something brain activity oriented. Well essentially like, did that person actually even hit the shot that they were trying to hit is a question that you actually cannot answer with the strokes gained, right? So you'd have to either be able to r record brain activity in real time and match it to the outcome, or have people self-report that they did or didn't do that, which

I do with my I do with with my c yeah. Or even just like I was trying to hit it here, how freely did I actually do that would be massively valuable. But most people aren't really tracking that. You know, they're looking more at the golf swing or you can't hit it there for whatever reason. But if someone hits it somewhere, you don't really know why just yet. And even looking at a golf swing on a camera that someone hit on the golf course, it's not super revealing unless the angle is exactly the same.

Chase Cooper (23:24.343)
Trying to trying to hit trying to hit it here, but you hit it there.

Raymond Prior (23:51.794)
And you know the intent of the shot that they were actually trying to hit. Right.

Chase Cooper (23:56.246)
Exactly right. And even the even the shot tracers aren't perfect either. Like you you they don't always catch the ball just right and see the curves and all stuff. Hell you went viral. You gotta get on social media and defend yourself, man. Like

Raymond Prior (24:02.145)
No. So okay.

Raymond Prior (24:08.301)
Viral. Okay. Here's our next question. This one's a pretty interesting one. the long and the short of it is talking about how our brain multitasks, which we've talked about before. It can, or at least it tries to, and that often becomes pretty disruptive to us. So the question is essentially, what I would like to know is if the priority of that brain is to achieve the goal of getting us out of discomfort, why does it not simply do the task of not?

Three putting so the golfer can exit out of the situation. So essentially, if I'm like, just don't three putt get me out of here as soon as possible, why doesn't it two-putt and just get out of there as soon as possible? Or perhaps one putt. So the first reason for that is: well, that's not actually the task. So two-putting isn't really the task. The task is get me out of here and get onto something more comfortable. So

What happens with that is your skills become deeply compromised. Right. And that becomes true, like the more you want to get on to the next moment, the intensity of it, and the more tasks I add to that to try to make sure I don't three putt, like be perfect, steer this golf ball down there, don't hit it too hard, don't hit it too soft, the more compromised my physical skills become. Now what I'm doing is the process is basically called like reinvestment, which is now I'm using the slowest, weakest parts of my brain.

To run more and more tasks and in an effort to try to get to the next moment. And the physical skills become so compromised that now the variance of my golf ball, meaning putting, gets so wide that the likelihood of me one putting or two putting massively decreases because I essentially get worse at what I'm doing. Right. So you can't eliminate risk altogether, including the discomfort that you're feeling.

And you can't eliminate variants altogether. And then both of those become massively, massively compromised the more I'm just trying to get to the next thing, because getting to the next thing doesn't include the quality of how those are being executed. And it requires us to just add more tasks that are disruptive to actually just doing the thing in front of us. So why don't we just don't three putt and get on to the next thing? Well

Raymond Prior (26:28.599)
Most people would really love to, but the way they go about that actually increases the likelihood of three putting or worse because the way I'm asking myself to go about that is massively compromising to the skill behind.

Chase Cooper (26:40.929)
Yeah, I I think back to when I struggled with driver and it was I I can't hit it right, don't hit it right, don't hit it right, don't hit it right. It was really hard for me to then lock in to actually try to hit a shot 'cause my brain went Saber tooth tiger, right, don't go over there, don't go over there at all costs, don't do it and it's really hard to do anything else.

Raymond Prior (26:51.681)
That's right. Right. Yeah. And we also might say the op the it's very difficult to focus on a singular pursuit-based task about where you actually want to go while your mind is trying to filter through every single way to try to avoid where you don't want it to go. In that case, I'm gonna guess, Chase, you missed left a lot. Right? So if I go don't three putt, by whatever means that would be, let's say it's a downhill putt, well, don't hit it too far.

Chase Cooper (26:56.811)
Or think or focus focus on anything else.

Chase Cooper (27:08.213)
Yep. Right.

Chase Cooper (27:12.769)
Most of the time. Yep. For sure.

Raymond Prior (27:20.791)
I'm probably gonna leave them very short and leave myself a lot of testy putts to not three putt. And if it's uphill or a situation where I might hit it too or hit leave it short, then don't hit it too hard. Like basically the task that would then get me to the next thing by not three putting makes it more likely for me to three putt now I have an opposite miss that I have to deal with more frequently. Right. So if it's don't miss right, I'm probably gonna miss left a lot. If it's don't hit it too short, I'm probably gonna miss long or vice versa.

In which case then again I'm getting worse at the thing in an effort to just get to the next thing. So

Chase Cooper (27:56.526)
Well and and then you you start playing better golf courses in let's say right's out of bounds, but way less usually it's like eighteen at sawgrass. Left water stinks, but the right trees aren't good either. So you then you start playing this. Well don't go left. Well don't go right either, and then you actually hit it left because you you flinch at impact.

Raymond Prior (28:09.869)
Yeah. If you think about a challenging pin location while you're putting, that typically means that there's going to be two straight putts by definition, one downhill, one uphill ish. And then the rest of them are going to be pretty challenging breaks threads. So if I'm always trying to not three putt, I'm probably gonna be more likely to put myself in a spot where I have a more challenging putt coming up next because I haven't really taken on sitting in the discomfort of the first one. Right. So

Okay, you go for a couple.

Chase Cooper (28:46.509)
How do you get yourself to step off a shot when something small grabs your attention right as you're getting ready to take the club back? Is there anything we can train in our psychology to help with this? One of the things that I'll I'll always say is, you know, and and I use your your analogy of like, you know, water crashing into the rocks on the on the seashore, like

If it completely grabs my attention, don't shank it. And I can't get my brain to go back into what my pursuit-based task is, then I will try to challenge my players to back off, back off, or even if it's in the takeaway kind of tiger style of like stopping the swing. a lot of times I I'm to the point now where like I've done all the connected breathing exercises and stuff to where like I can I can feel myself or or sense myself saying don't shank it don't hit it left, and then I'll redirect and say, Nope, what do I want?

you know, can I accept that I may shank this ball or I may hit it left? Yes. Okay. Now what do I want? And if it happens quickly, I'm okay with not backing off and just still staying in the pursuit based task. But I've I've I think I've done a good job with my players this this semester, especially this season, especially of getting them to be okay backing off. Cause a lot of players just don't want to do it. I'm like, dude, you're gonna be out there for five hours anyway. Like you can make up time. I don't want to back off every shot, but if mentally we keep getting all these distractions, sometimes sometimes that's the only that's the only option.

so my my question to you on this would be like from a psychology standpoint, like how do we how can we train our brain to be better at whether it's dealing with the distractions or kind of refocusing or re recentering back to what we're trying to do?

Raymond Prior (30:18.925)
Yep. So couple things. First is we might really pay attention to what is my overall task orientation, even when I'm just going into my round. If I go in with a this is a tough round, like just don't screw this up or don't hit this certain miss or don't three put, I'm gonna get more quote unquote intrusive spontaneous thoughts related to those tasks that might be in competition with the thing that I'm actually trying to do. So

If I'm establishing this is how I want to play today, this pursuit-based thing, I'm going to try to play this shot, and my willingness to accept variation, including very unwanted variation, is high. My brain doesn't have the task that I need more spontaneous thoughts about, particularly while I'm standing over a golf ball, which is our brain understands like, okay, we're doing it now. This is the moment of truth, right? Having said that, we still have thoughts. Spontaneous things pop up, even if we're really high acceptance and really high pursuit.

And our external environment also doesn't just stop doing things simply because we're standing over a golf ball. So that could be someone talking, cars driving by, somebody else hits a shot, like all kinds of stuff can can be disruptive to that. So to the point, like have I established a task orientation for my brain when I go play golf that would really require me to only have my brain thinking about stuff that is aligned with that. So that means high pursuit, high acceptance.

And then also to your point, I want to mindfully train myself to pay attention to my thoughts and feelings in a way where when I have them, they are just thoughts and feelings. They are not facts, they are not precursors to my future, and they are not commands that I must follow simply because they exist. It's just a thought or a feeling that my brain spit at me. And then if they are strong enough or disruptive enough, being willing to step off of a golf ball.

And just resetting to a pursuit-based task with a high level of acceptance. And what I always remind people is look, I'm not an advocate for slow play. I think the purpose of stepping into a golf shot is to try to hit it. But there are times when, quite frankly, our brain is cooked on something else. The worst thing we can do is hit that golf ball anyway, in terms of what is it that we are reinforcing for our brain. So if every time I'm over a golf shot going, uh-oh, don't hit it left, and I hit it anyway, I'm essentially reinforcing to my brain.

Raymond Prior (32:41.613)
Hit me with that thought now because that's what I did afterward. So whatever thoughts and feelings we then act upon, not have, but then act upon, get reinforced. So the more I have thoughts I don't necessarily like or aren't helpful for me, I step off and go, no, that's not how I'm gonna do it. The less frequent and the less intense those thoughts are going to become over time. And then what I always remind people is I don't love slow play either, but you know what takes a lot more time? More shots.

Chase Cooper (33:11.327)
Yeah. Good point.

Raymond Prior (33:12.065)
So if I step off and hit a better golf shot more often, that still takes less time than hitting a shot that could go anywhere because I was thinking about who knows what, and now I've got an extra shot on this hole, most likely. Right.

Chase Cooper (33:24.597)
I I've always loved what you said about, you know, being non-judgmental with your thoughts. Like they're just thoughts. I've I've always taken that to heart. The the one thing I haven't really thought about that you kind of hammered home just now is accepting, like having a high level of acceptance of the thoughts. And like it's kind of the same thing. They're just thoughts, but I'm kind of curious how you know having more acceptance.

Raymond Prior (33:38.809)
Just thoughts.

Chase Cooper (33:45.791)
allows us to redirect a little bit sooner. And I guess it's because we start to if we don't accept that we're gonna have bad thoughts, then we judge our thoughts more and then we get into the vicious cycle. Is that about right?

Raymond Prior (33:54.638)
And then they become something I have to do something with. Right. So if I'm not accepting, accepting means you're allowed to just have it without judgment. So it's not a good thought, a bad thought. It's not something I should or shouldn't be having. It just is. It's not a fact. It's not a precursor to the future. It's not a command I must follow. It's also not something I have to do something with. It's just an idea. The more I build that kind of flexible relationship with those thoughts, then I can have them.

Chase Cooper (34:05.707)
Just as yeah.

Raymond Prior (34:22.829)
But they don't have to occupy any of my effort, my focus, or my energy, right? So we used to think a long time ago that high performers never had certain thoughts and feelings. It turns out they have them all the time. They just don't give them any like value, basically. So it's this is just an idea. Who gives a crap what it is, right? And so the more I learn to go, that's just a thought that I don't about what I don't want to happen, or this is just a feeling I'm having right now.

But I don't treat it as if it, if it's says this, it must be true. That if I'm having this, that must mean a certain thing for my future. And that if I have this, I must follow it as if it's a command. Like if I have the thought, don't hit it left, then I better not hit it left. It's just, yeah, it's just a thought about not hitting it left. Then what happens is I don't have to do something with my thoughts and feelings, which means I can focus on doing something with the actual task at hand.

Chase Cooper (35:17.835)
Going back to A versus V, I have to get off to a good start because if I don't, I'm not gonna shoot I'm not gonna play well today. And if I don't do that, then the college coaches aren't gonna want me or I'm not gonna make the team or all that stuff, and it just layers upon layers upon layers.

Raymond Prior (35:25.761)
That's right. All that.

And then if you also go, I cannot have these cer or I must not have these certain thoughts, because if I do, that means I'm in trouble. Then I have to do something with my thoughts. I either have to avoid them, suppress them, change them, fix them, get more positive, whatever that might mean, in which case then now the priority is not my performance and executing golf shots. The priority is doing something with my thoughts and feelings.

Chase Cooper (35:54.146)
Yeah, it's really really, really good. More it's more work is not always is not always the answer. Sometimes just letting it let living in it.

Raymond Prior (35:59.522)
No. Look, you're we don't we don't get extra points in our performance for thinking a certain way. Right. Performance happens in a did I execute this shot in a way that is consistent with how I want to do it? Now we might say thinking in certain ways is more conducive to that, but if I have thoughts that are not conducive to that, I don't need to go fix them and do something with them. If I almost just treat them as if they're just

some a passing mental event or passing emotional event and do nothing with them, then what that allows me to ask the question is what do I want to do and how do I want to do it with this actual physical golf shot in front of me. That's the priority. Our internal experience is not the priority when we're playing golf. It's the first domino that if it's in a certain space, it's hard for us to actually prioritize the thing that's that's the actual priority. So the more we learn to just

Have thoughts and feelings and do nothing with them, which, if you're going back to my book, I have a contemplative mindfulness practice where you learn to just think and feel freely with doing nothing with them. That cognitive diffusion, we call it, which means having thoughts and feelings without having to almost see them at a distance, then allows space between our thoughts and feelings for us to go, well, what do I want to do and how do I want to do it? And do I even want to do anything with this thought or this feeling?

And the less we do stuff with our thoughts and feelings when the time is for us to actually be doing something physical, the better off we are with that physical thing.

Chase Cooper (37:30.433)
And do you feel like the more likely the brain is gonna, like you said, kind of stay on the task based approach, like this is what we're gonna do, we're doing the thing and we don't need the random spontaneous thoughts as much?

Raymond Prior (37:39.727)
The more you have thoughts and do nothing with them, the less reinforced having thoughts becomes. So if I want to have fewer intrusive thoughts, it's not about turning them off. It's about having them and doing nothing with them. And then eventually your brain kind of like, well, I guess we don't really need that. And it starts to become soft. Now that happens over time, gradually, but that one of the primary

Chase Cooper (37:46.538)
Okay.

Raymond Prior (38:04.795)
symptom or not symptoms, like byproducts of people who practice mindfulness regularly is they get fewer intrusive thoughts. And when they do, they're less intense.

Chase Cooper (38:14.081)
Yep. No, it's good. All right. This next one's a little long. him the the questioner, the the person that sent the question lists a couple of names that I'm gonna I'm gonna kind of kind of weed them out. all right. another coach teaches that his whole thing is centered around how the only thing that really matters is the ability to take in and hold your target when you're over the golf ball.

Which will help help lower brain activ brainwave activity. the person asked the question is wondering how this relates to the yips, something that they've struggled with with short even putting. But for the purpose, we'll just say putting. Is it enough to be able to hold the target in your mind really well to get rid of the yips? The coach seems to insinuate that when there's an interruption, the signal between the brain and the muscles, it be i it's because the brain is distracted, thus elevating bra

brainwave activity and increasing the probabil probability of a yip. And the questionnaire's experience, there are times where I he they feel like they're holding the target really well, but but they'll still ha yep putts. So he's wondering if there are any gaps that we could close between the coach's model and then the acceptance model.

Raymond Prior (39:29.082)
Totally. So that coach, whatever they're talking about, from a neurological standpoint is technically correct. If I'm only holding the task of go toward that target, and that's the only thing, what that means is my brain activity is b decreased in intensity and frequency, meaning alpha and theta waves. So lower brain activity, which means the neural pathways, the connection between those and my muscles is as streamlined as

It can get. So it's going to be more efficient. Okay, so that is technically correct. We might say when the task, which golf is a target sport, is the target, and that's the only task, then what happens is I have a very clear connection between my brain and body for a pursuit-based task toward that target. That is 100% correct. The caveat to this is our psychology is in front of our neurology in the order of operations.

So, what that instruction is assuming is that you don't have any other tasks attached to that that would impede that and supersede it, which by the way, the source of the YIPS is anxiety. And anxiety supersedes, it's an avoidance-based task, which our brain neurologically supersedes over pursuit-based tasks, the survival mechanism. So if I have the yips, the source of the yips is anxiety. And I don't address the anxiety behind it, and the opposite of anxious, which is

avoidant of the future is accepting of the future or an open-ended future, then I can hold that target in my brain all I want. What my brain's really running is don't do this, don't let this happen. What if this happens, so on and so forth. So again, the assumption is that there's nothing, no other task that would supersede just holding a target in your head. So I would push back on any neuroscience that is saying the only thing that matters is holding a target in your head. No, it's not.

What the you're asking the question, what would keep you from just holding that target in your head? And what we know from the science on both the psychological science and the neuroscience on flow state is that flow state is this is the only task. It's immersion in the task at hand. You can train being present more often, but you can train your focus to be on the target as much as you want. If in the background it's don't get judged by other people, don't duff this chip, don't have the yips anymore, don't do this.

Chase Cooper (41:31.989)
It is fear.

Raymond Prior (41:54.457)
You can hold that target in your brain as much as you can. There's always going to be something in the background running behind it. So anything that falls under the category of non-acceptance gets an avoidance-based task, which will go in the pro up the priority list relative to a pursuit-based task. So while it is absolutely correct that if you were just holding that target in your head, you would have the most streamlined approach to your physical skills that is running on the assumption that there's not any other task that is competing with that.

Or not just competing, but oppositional to that, meaning an avoidance-based task at the same time. Another caveat to this is perhaps you were holding the target in your head without any other task competing, but your technique is not very good. In which case, did you yip, meaning anxiety drove the physical motion by either hesitation or jerking? Or does your technique bottom out the club too soon or not soon enough, or so on and so forth? So there are some layers to this.

To be able to kind of assess and diagnose. But if your technique is relatively sound and your low point is functional or at least semi-consistent, and you're holding a target in your head, now the question is what else is in there? Right. And without, again, a level of acceptance, anything on the unacceptable list goes on the avoidance-based task list and it will supersede whatever target you're holding in.

Chase Cooper (43:14.845)
One of the things that's tricky with this type of training. So let's say, you know, we're training that to quiet our brain waves in whatever way possible. in practice when no one's watching and the gun, you know, the the lights aren't bright, you can get to that point where acceptance goes up and it's there's nothing that really matters. But when we and we're solely solely focused on the the hole or or the right edge of the target or whatever it is on the putt.

But when we get into the tournament or when the stakes get higher and acceptance levels aren't high enough, then that's in your point, that's where avoidance takes over and it doesn't matter what we're focused on, the brain we may go yippie all day long.

Raymond Prior (43:51.813)
We there's a a period of time in the late nineties and two thousands when there's a pretty heavy body of research on just focused training. Like the way to be focused is to just train your focus to just narrow, narrow, narrow, narrow, narrow. What we are seeing more and more now is you do not have you could train focus all you want. If there's a psychological task or a psychological framework that is pulling you towards something else, you cannot just train your way around it.

Right. So my pushback on all the neurological kind of focus band, just control your brain waves, hold the task thing is again, it is assuming there's nothing else pulling your focus away. And what we also see is that when our psychological framework is shaped in a way that pushes us toward being present, it's almost too easy for us. Like I always tell players, what you're looking for is it feels suspiciously easy for you to be task-oriented. What that means is there's nothing else competing with it. Right.

So again, can these be really valuable tools? And is the neuroscience behind that instruction technically correct? Yes. And again, focus band stuff can be a helpful tool in the same way that a launch monitor can be a really helpful tool, but you cannot take them to the course. So that means it's up to me to check my first domino in this domino effect is my psychology. What am I bringing to this task that would keep me from actually being neurologically and physically focused on?

Executing this task. And I need to be the one who can read whether I'm doing that because I can't do that. I can't bring a launch monitor or focus band on the golf course. So this would like even my pushback a little bit on like how much people are leaning on launch monitors is they're not learning where they're making contact on the club face or not learning.

Or the same thing with these focus bands or something like I'm not learning. Am I even paying attention to how I'm showing up for this golf shot and what is it that I'm actually asking myself to do? Because something else does it for me and I don't have to work to figure that out. So while they can be really helpful tools, I th the analogy I use is they're kind of like training wheels when you're learning to ride a bike. They are very helpful for getting a feel of, this is what it means to be presently focused and target focused.

Raymond Prior (46:08.388)
But at some point I gotta take the training wheels off and learn how to do this myself. Otherwise, I can only ride so fast for so long. Right. So all the like neuro and biofeedback things again can be very helpful for us getting this is what it feels like in the same way that a launch monitor can show you your path or your face. But I need to be able to orient to those while I'm playing if I wanna be high performing when it's actually happening, and those things are not available to me.

And there's no, I'll just kind of end the rant on this. There is no more finely tuned device to paying attention to what we are showing up with and what we are engaging with than us if we are actually paying attention to that and asking hard questions that we typically don't. And then also allowing ourselves the psychological space, meaning stop fighting against this, stop fighting against that. There's no more finely tuned device than our own nervous system for this. Way better than any

Chase Cooper (46:40.781)
You're good.

Raymond Prior (47:07.776)
digital device we have right now.

Chase Cooper (47:09.737)
And for you listeners at home, at least from my experience, and Doug, you've got way more experience with this, but it takes time. Like this stuff, getting getting to a point where you're aware enough of your thoughts takes time. And my my kids that have been working with this for the last couple of years, they're so much better at it now than they were when we first started. They were on time for every shot when we first started. And now they they they recognize way more of when they just weren't where they needed to be. And it's it's a it feels like an eighteenth eighteen month to tw and it's and you're always working on it, but it feels like it takes a good long bit for

Raymond Prior (47:14.948)
Does

Chase Cooper (47:38.785)
Conversations to continue to happen and then them to just be more aware of of everything going on. And it's just not something you're going to flip a switch on.

Raymond Prior (47:46.138)
No doubt. Yeah, like learning to interact with our internal experience in a more observant and curious way and intentional with that takes time and practice because we don't typically do that in many areas of our lives.

Chase Cooper (47:59.832)
So going back to the original question about how task based, we're staying task based, but we're we're not bringing acceptance into it. And so the brain defaults back. Like, give me a survival based situation where I was almost thinking like, and this isn't com complete survival based, but like bungee jumping. I want to go bungee jumping, but when I get up there, I can't I can't pull, I can't jump, I can't pull the cord. Like, what other situations could you think of where like we we kind of we're we're thinking we want to do it, but then the brain takes over and it's like not it's not gonna work.

Raymond Prior (48:26.094)
Yeah. I have a friend who's a skydive instructor and he basically says like half of the people get up there and they really do want to jump out of the plane but can't get them to do it. Right. Where it's basically your brain is like, nope, we are not doing that. So again, what that would need is there's a certain level of acceptance of falling and dying that you would need. Right. Or another one in our modern life, Chase, like, think about how many people are afraid of speaking in front of other people.

Chase Cooper (48:29.814)
Okay.

Chase Cooper (48:37.067)
Yeah. I'm out. I'm out.

Raymond Prior (48:51.31)
Like public speaking is the number one fear for human beings for like the last hundred years and it is not life threatening in any way. Well, why? The consequences are people are gonna judge us. So if there's a part of me that goes, I am absolutely unwilling or it is unacceptable to be judged in a certain way by certain people, then there's gonna be a layer of anxiety to that. And the task is not gonna be go speak and share ideas or converse with people. It's gonna be don't get judged.

Chase Cooper (49:01.428)
One hundred percent.

Chase Cooper (49:19.415)
Yeah, don't miss that.

Raymond Prior (49:19.426)
And that will supersede any pursuit-based task in that. So it happens more frequently in our lives than just golf, whether it's chipping and putting and all that stuff, where we have something that we'd really like to pursue, but there's another avoidance-based task for some experience that we are unwilling to accept that gets in the way. It's I see that person that I think is attractive. I want to go talk to them, but I don't want to get rejected or judged. And so I just don't. Or when I do, I'm some

Chase Cooper (49:27.041)
yeah.

Raymond Prior (49:48.795)
Inauthentic BS version of myself. Like that happens a lot. And if you were to say, like, well, the target is this jump out of this plane or to speak your thing, just hold that in your mind. Again, that is assuming there is not an avoidance-based, unacceptable experience that is not superseding that, which you would have to really tune into your own. What am I bringing to this to be able to do that?

Chase Cooper (49:50.977)
Blank numbling idiot. Yep. Yeah.

Chase Cooper (50:14.145)
Yeah. It's really interesting. I use the public speaking analogy a lot. I'll ask people like, hey, how do you how are you with public speaking? I'm not great. Okay. So we gotta go speak to a thousand people in Dallas at Jerry World about golf. Would you do it? No. What if I paid you a thousand bucks? Mm, interesting. I may, I may be willing to do that. Okay. What if there was 10,000 people? No chance. Well, what if I paid you 10,000 bucks? Okay, I would go.

And then I with parents, I'm always like, Okay, you guys don't like public speaking. So now imagine that whole scenario, but you're in front of ten thousand people and then you have brain fog and you go, you have a little lapse and like you're freaking out, you're on stage, everybody now there's starting to be a an eerie quiet over the over the arena and they're kind of making like where you're losing the crowd. And I come up to you and I tap you on the shoulder, I'm like, Hey, just believe in yourself. Just just be calm.

Raymond Prior (50:59.802)
Just believe in yourself. Just just hold the target in your head, right? And again.

Chase Cooper (51:03.201)
Just hold the target and they all laugh and I'm like, That's golf. That's when your kids are struggling. Like there's not just a calm down you know, an easy button we can press and get out of there. It's you gotta work your way through it.

Raymond Prior (51:14.08)
Right. And by the way, with that, we don't force shame or judge ourselves into a different nervous system. So we don't force ourselves into pursuit-based tasks. We don't judge ourselves or shame ourselves away from avoidance-based tasks. So again, is the neuroscience behind this correct? And by the way, I am almost always trying to get my clients to be more target-oriented. Okay. But again, if you don't

Clear the psychological space. There's no neurological space for that. Hence, even most of the research in neuroscience right now is still indicating that psychological interventions are still the most impactful neuroscience interventions, not some type of, you know, like neuroscience-based hack where you just kind of tap into a brain's short-term something or other to try to change your chemical or your neurological balance.

Chase Cooper (52:07.309)
Yeah, it's almost you can almost call distractions when you're in anxiety from an anxiety ridden standpoint. Like you you you focus more on the quiet ire, you focus more on the target. Like it can help, but if you're in avoidance based, it's still gonna you're still gonna fail it. Yeah.

Raymond Prior (52:19.684)
Going to happen. Right. And again, what we see from all of these, and I'm going to use the phrase neurohack because it's become pretty popular, not just in golf, but kind of around the world. that these neurohacks are things that naturally happen when you have space to pursue freely. Right. Like my eyes get pretty quiet on the back of a golf ball when I'm not asking myself to don't three put and don't get judged by other people. And my, you know,

Chase Cooper (52:35.233)
Yeah. Yeah, that's good.

Raymond Prior (52:46.956)
thinking about what I want to happen or the target orientation is a natural moot place for our focus to move when I'm not also asking it to avoid something else.

Chase Cooper (52:56.813)
It's just not the be all and all. It's never gonna solve all the problems.

Raymond Prior (52:58.296)
Yeah, yeah. That is all to say though, that none of that is necessarily easy, but it is relatively straightforward. So, okay.

Chase Cooper (53:02.785)
Yep. Yep. I got a a quick quick one, real quick. I think we can cover it pretty fast. guy asked on the Scott Cox episode, Doc, you mentioned a study about the quickest way to lower handicaps. they weren't sure if that study was released, but interesting you guys maybe taking a little deeper dive into it. The debate ranges on about distance, but I think this is more for elite golfers and and for the mid to high handicappers, there might be better options. Number one, the studies clearly show that the further you hit it, the more likely you are to play, shoot lower scores. It just makes everything

Raymond Prior (53:30.788)
True. Just closer to the hole.

Chase Cooper (53:32.426)
Everything easier. If and I say this too a lot to my I have a lot of students that come in and don't care what they shoot, they just want to make a golf swing, but they to hit the ball better, they want their swing to be prettier, they want to just go to the range and hit the ball better. I have a ton of students that do that, right? if our goal is to shoot the lowest score we can, if the ultimate goal of golf, which it is, is to shoot the lowest score, and I got paid based off of shooting lower scores and it was all based off of handicapped levels, I want all my players to hit it far enough.

relative as far as they can comfortably and and and inju make it you know without risk of injury. And then then it becomes no three putts, no double chips. There's a lot of scoring that happens around the greens. I'm a humongous advocate of better ball striking for for my elite players because great ball striking will will beat out world class short game on the PGA tour. You've got to hit it great to play out there. Most most of the of the greatest short gamers on tour are not the money leaders. It's it's the

Raymond Prior (54:12.388)
That's that part.

Raymond Prior (54:23.268)
Yep. That's true.

Chase Cooper (54:30.133)
the sh it's the Rory's and the Scotties that hit it better than everybody else. And so I teach more to that. But if we're gonna hit get everybody to shoot lower scores, don't three putt, hit it further, improve your short game. And then as the scores start getting better, then you bump up greens and regulation and get the ball striking to to to catch up.

Raymond Prior (54:46.776)
Yeah. So the studies that they're referring to or we were referring to are an indication of where people so here we're seeing like there is some value in strokes gained and lost and where they are being gained and lost based on your handicap. And what the research clearly shows is that higher handicapped golfers are losing a ton of strokes to three putts, multiple chips, penalty strokes, and being in places that really stress

their current skill level, which is not quite good enough to play certain shots very well, right? So if you were a really high of 20 handicapped golfer and you wanted to lower your scores the fastest, I would argue it's probably not chasing distance. It would be making sure that you're in play more often, which would probably be more about figuring out where does your dispersion

Chase Cooper (55:39.361)
Yeah, strategy and course course management.

Raymond Prior (55:39.674)
What does that include and where do you need to aim to make sure that your dispersion includes as much inbounds as possible? And playing to the middle of greens with your approach shots so that you are far more likely to have a putt. And then also if you're chipping, you're in a bunker, the objective, get it on the green. Right. So the three putting is the least influential part of their scores. It's mostly shots before you get to greens that is costing them, although putting is certainly part of it.

It's not the most disruptive to it. So here I would actually advocate very strongly for looking at what your dispersion is and some type of scoring aiming system relative to your handicap, because again, those scoring systems can be super helpful for minimizing lost strokes due to blank. But to your point, as you get better, it's more about where do I gain strokes to lower my score. So essentially for me.

Lowering my score, does that mean I need to raise my floor, or does it mean I need to push my ceiling? And the worse you are, or the by worse I mean like the higher your handicap is and the less skilled you are, the floor is where you are going to gain more strokes or not lose as many strokes and therefore gain strokes. And if you're the more skilled you become, the more you need to push your ceiling to raise your score or lower your scores. And that usually means hitting it closer.

hitting it farther so you can hit it closer and then trying to make more putts more often. So again, it's kind of understanding where you are in your skill arc and then addressing well, what would help me really raise my floor if you're higher if it's about losing strokes by the way, I would put myself more in that category too. Like I make plenty of birdies, but penalty strokes now again, I hit driver everywhere because I've never seen a hole that didn't fit driver, but it's a different

Chase Cooper (57:31.287)
Four reps, baby. Four rips.

Raymond Prior (57:32.569)
Different points. So if I was playing in a tournament and I wanted to have the best chance, it would probably me being more conservative off the T and perhaps into greens. But again, far be it for me to tell anybody how they should.

Chase Cooper (57:44.8)
And shout out, you know, a a friend of mine and and Raymond, you him well, Scott Fawcett has done a great job a decade. and I think like to get somebody from a twenty to a fifteen or a ten, sometimes it's really just decade stuff. Like you just play play the game better, you know? And and I I love what he he preaches the Tiger Five and I've created some for my own players, their own little five, like what are the things like, you know, get easy ch ge easy up and downs, get up and down, no doubles or or worse without penalty strokes.

Raymond Prior (57:50.234)
Mm-hmm.

Chase Cooper (58:13.393)
you know, sometimes no double chips or no three trying not to three pot, you know, just little little things, you know, not short sighting yourself when when it when you shouldn't, you know, and and they can be adjusted. But, you know, if if you haven't heard of decade or you haven't heard of some of Scott Fawcett's stuff, his course management stuff really gives a lot of you know, early golfers into the game a really good blueprint of how you're really supposed to play and and and shooting lower scores, as Raymond pointed out, a lot of times it's it's bogey avoidance versus making more birdies.

Once you get to a certain level, I I I you know, we would all argue it changes a little bit, but ear early on, quit making doubles and triples and you'll shoot lower scores.

Raymond Prior (58:49.721)
Yeah, and Kid, just to kind of reiterate what the stats show us is that eighteen handicaps and scratch golfers average basically the same amount of birdies around, which is one. So the difference in their score is they're very different floors, not necessarily very different ceilings, then when you're trying to go from scratch to plus to pro, you your ceiling has to be pretty high, but your f I'm sorry, your floor has to be really high, but your ceiling has to be much higher.

Chase Cooper (58:58.251)
Yeah. Yeah.

Chase Cooper (59:16.129)
Yeah, correct.

Raymond Prior (59:18.363)
Okay, one last one before we get out of here, just to try to wrap things up. Question from somebody. The long and the short of it, if you were gonna boil down, why is it that when our identity is paired to outcomes, it becomes such a threat response for us? And the long and the short of that is that the research shows us that it is so disruptive because our nervous system is designed to resist and avoid whatever is in direct proportion to how it threatens our identity.

So if I identify as a quote unquote good golfer, anything that falls under the category of bad golfer must be met with a certain level of resistance. So long and the short of it is that we resist in direct proportion to what we find is threatening to our identity. And our identity is something that as human beings, our nervous system is designed to protect. So it's very important for us to figure out like identity defined as these are the labels.

That I have attached myself to. So what those labels are, we want to be really picky with. You could make an argument that human beings really do not need to identify with anything, but it's probably not very likely. But any anything that I have attached my identity to is going to I'm gonna need a level of resistance that is again proportionate to the level of potential threat involved. So whether that's being judged by other people, shooting.

certain scores that I don't like, hitting certain shots that I don't like. I mean, the amount of pro golfers I work with who find it very threatening to just hit the type of shot that quote unquote professional golfers should never hit is really, really high. Well, why do they have such a resistance to a a miss that quite frankly, most of the time it's very unlikely that they'll hit it? And two, they have no idea how consequential it's going to be until they actually hit it and find out. Why? Because it's a bit

direct threat to the identity of I'm the type of golfer who should never hit those kinds of shots. Right. Yeah.

Chase Cooper (01:01:12.983)
That was that was me me in a nutshell. Hey, quick quick quick question on this. Does the crazy off subject, but does the rest of the an like the the the animal kingdoms brains, like mammals and stuff, do they fight the identity stuff the way ours do? Do any idea on that? Like

Raymond Prior (01:01:28.791)
The research that I'm familiar with would suggest that human beings are unique in how much they identify and how many things. So the intensity and frequency. So for example, I have a dog. It's very clear to me that she identifies in some way as that's my human, this is my house, these are my things. And she will have an appropriate threat response if someone knocks on the door or barks or so on. So like there is some level to that.

Chase Cooper (01:01:53.438)
Right.

Raymond Prior (01:01:58.224)
But my dog is not identified with what collar she wears, or whether someone down the street thinks she's cute or she's not cute or whatever it might be. So human beings we identify with more things. And this is in part because we have larger frontal lobes that can create these associations and think our way through stuff. And a nervous system that feels things very directly. So the intensity and the frequency with which and the amount of things we can pair our identity to to try to find.

Chase Cooper (01:02:04.663)
Yeah. Right.

Raymond Prior (01:02:25.485)
acceptance and approval and significance and safety within groups is really, really high because we don't typically we are more social creatures than many others. Now, there is some evidence to suggest that really highly social creatures are not quite to the degree that humans are, but similar. So elephants, dolphins, for example, both animals with like relatively large brains compared to us as humans.

also have similar identity things. And when those become at threat, they feel loss in a way. There's some evidence on like certain pods of whales also do that. So I don't know for sure, but there is some research on this. But it does seem that humans, because our brain is so so much more capable of those types of associations, that we experience them more often and more frequently and more intensely. You know, even if you think about something we've talked about

Chase Cooper (01:03:08.439)
It's more. Yeah.

Chase Cooper (01:03:18.411)
Interesting.

Raymond Prior (01:03:20.751)
Fixed and growth mindset. In a fixed mindset, I pair my identity to outcomes. So if there's any threat to those, not only does that register to me as a threat, but I feel that in a more emotional way because the parts of my brain that those are associated to are the more feeling-based centers. Versus in a growth mindset, I start to see things and feedback and error feedback more cognitively, which means I get curious about them, which means one, they're not as much of a threat to me, if at all. And two, I don't

feel that in a more sensory-based way. I f I feel it more in a huh kind of way than a kind of a way, right? So those types of things, that that response is proportionate to how fixed my identity is to this thing versus how flexible it might be in relation to that.

Chase Cooper (01:03:56.461)
Curious way. Yeah.

Chase Cooper (01:04:10.253)
All right. I'm gonna I'm gonna take you g you did you cover all that you need to cover on your side?

Raymond Prior (01:04:14.059)
I I think we got to more than enough. That's all I have on my end.

Chase Cooper (01:04:17.005)
Okay. I'm gonna I'm gonna leave us with this. And this is more to you because you read a lot more than I do. But we we got what's on the Gulf Beneath the Surface reading list. I will tease. We have a discussion coming up in the next couple of weeks about a book that's coming out that I'm currently reading. You've already read it. I'm in I'm on like chapter two of it. You're my my boy over here reads a lot a lot faster and better than I do. So it takes me my Oklahoma education takes me a minute. So

I'm I'm currently reading that one book that I read, and it asked about past books you'd recommend. One book that I loved that I read when I was younger was The Master Class by Jim Hardy. And it was back in the day, the one one plane, two plane stuff, and I was all about the Hardy stuff with EJ Pfister teaching me all that stuff. And that was a fantastic book. It's it's an older one, you may have to go find it, but that was a great book on like

Caught the pluses and minuses, a little bit of steepeners and shallowers and kind of got my my brain kind of locked into that. So for you golf nerds out there, go read the master class by Jim Hardy. Jim's a great human being and he's done a lot for the game. But it was a re and it you may not agree with everything. I wouldn't agree with everything in the book now. That's not what it's really designed for, but it's a really good kind of golf nerdy book for you, you nerds out there like me.

Raymond Prior (01:05:27.877)
Word. I would recommend we are gonna have Dr. Luc Benoit on the podcast to talk about his new book. I think it'll be a very valuable read for many people, just in terms of how do I learn how to swing the golf club better and practice in a way that is conducive to that. It's aligned with a lot of really good research, much of which we have already talked about on this podcast, but he does a great job of organizing that. for anybody who

really feels a lot of anxiety, anger, not just in golf, but in their life, or feel like you're kind of getting in your own way a lot. There's a book by a fellow named Albert Ellis, who is kind of one of the foundational members of psychology back in the 70s, 60s, that still holds up now. The book is called How to Stubbornly Refuse to Make Yourself Miserable About Anything. And it is essentially a a form book, the beginnings of what A-shaped and V-shaped thinking is.

And again, the A-shaped thinking creates extra and avoidance based tasks for us that would keep us from being just thinking about a target when we're actually that is the task in front of us. It is a great book to read about the ways we think about things that add more to them than they actually are and tend to make us feel pretty miserable, whether that's anxiety or anger or frustration or stuck or whatever that might be. So

I promise you it'll be the driest reading you've ever read, but I almost it will also likely be a very valuable read to you.

Chase Cooper (01:06:54.157)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Raymond Prior (01:06:59.747)
Okay, Chase, where can they find us?

Chase Cooper (01:06:59.853)
Good. at GBTS Podcast on Instagram, Chase Cooper Goff on Instagram at BTSmindset.com.

Raymond Prior (01:07:10.139)
Please keep sending us your questions. We will get to them when we can. We have a series of guests lined up and then maybe some shifts in the podcast in terms of its structure and frequency and all that stuff in the coming months, which we're all working out. All that to say, we are very appreciative of those who are listening and joining us here. And we hope to do some better work for you coming forward. So

Chase Cooper (01:07:11.659)
Yep. Okay.

Chase Cooper (01:07:31.563)
Yep. And we're and we're still talking about doing some golf schools. So if you're we're still we we got some suggestions. I sent out some stuff on socials and had some ideas. And then our how low can you go guys are wanting to talk about maybe doing something out there, which would be kind of fun out in the UK. So that's that's something in the works too. it will we will put it put it together at some point. We've been talking about it for a while. We will get it. We'll get it.

Raymond Prior (01:07:52.357)
We've got a lot going on under the GBTS umbrella that we are excited for and hopefully will be valuable for the people. So again, thank you to everyone who's been joining us for all this and listening along. And we will see you next time on the Gulf Beneath the Per Gulf Beneath the Surface Podcast.

Chase Cooper (01:08:04.279)
So yeah.

Chase Cooper (01:08:08.078)
Hey, if you're gonna take us home, you gotta say it right. So can't thank you guys. See y'all.

Raymond Prior (01:08:10.156)
Gulf beneath the surface.

See you guys.