Raymond Prior

And I think, I mean, we're, we've discussed that with a couple of different guests on the show.

I mean, Dr. Raymond Prior is a, is a massive advocate of, um, you know, playing freely and, and giving yourself permission to fail.

Um, yeah, which, which is part of that acceptance conversation.

Josh Nichols is another one.

And, and look, I, I would say in my past I have thought like that.

Uh, and, you know, I've, I've at times practiced so much to try and get that certainty to, to hit the ball well that, yeah, it, it, it rarely works to be able to get it, certainly get on the golf course and in championship conditions.

And, and I know that, you know, talking about Dr. Raymond Prior, he talks about cramming practice.

Been there, done that many, many times.

[intro music] Welcome everyone to the Golf Beneath the Surface podcast.

I'm your co-host, Raymond Pryor, with my co-host, Chase Cooper, who is still currently on the mend, who was just mentioning that he cannot throttle back his pickleball experience.

Plenty of, uh, plenty to unpack there, but maybe for another time.

There's no going soft on the, uh, on the old folks on the pickleball court.

Yeah.

I got plenty of students that just w- they don't, they play five times a year, but they hit balls twice a week, and they just wanna make it pre- they want their golf swing to be prettier.

So I'm curious, like Ryan, do you have those people too? And then like Raymond, from your perspective, is there anything from a psychological standpoint that validates the reasoning why? Well, the reasoning why is like, again, everyone has different intended experiences with something, right? So if you think about your pickleball experiences versus somebody else's, like again, you said yours is full go, "I'm trying to win and be great at this," and somebody else is like, "I'm just trying to hit some really nice shots and get some rallies going, 'cause that feels really good." So, you know, part of the reason, again, there's so many influential factors on what the average handicap is.

One of them is like not everybody has a golf ex- an intended or desired golf experience that is necessarily high performing, right? Many people play golf because, "I wanna maybe hit one or two really good shots a round, beat my buddies," which would require me to manage my handicap, not lower it, "and I wanna have the cart with the music, the drinks, the cigars, the whole shebang." So like golf is kind of a means to a social end, to a pleasurable end, to so on and so forth, in a way where lowering scores is desired, but not nearly a priority.

But as I think about confidence, um, I think about another resource.

There's a guy by the name of Raymond Prior, and I think you and I have talked about him.

He wrote a really cool book called Golf Beneath the Surface.

And it's a little geeky.

Right

... kind of energy, um, and I...

And, and by the way, every- Uh, Raymond Prior talks about pursuit versus avoidance.

Right.

And you're not just...

And when you do say, "I'm just gonna freely swing at this," like Dr. Raymond Prior said, you absolutely bomb the ball.

Mm-hmm.

So maybe that's something to look at.