StarTalk Radio - #ICYMI - Tiger vs Phil – 18 Holes, $9 Mil

Episode Date: November 23, 2018

In case you missed this episode on the Playing with Science channel… Tiger Woods. Phil Mickelson. 18 Holes. 9 million dollars. Hosts Chuck Nice and Gary O’Reilly sit down with neuroscientist Heather Berlin and sports physicist John Eric Goff to breakdown the science, both physical and mental, behind this epic match-up of two golfing titans. Photo Credit: DIRECTV. Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ on Apple Podcasts to listen to new episodes ad-free and a whole week early.

I'm Gary O'Reilly and I'm Chuck Knives and this is Playing With Science. Today we focus our attention on two of sports biggest titans. The gloves are off as Tiger takes on Phil in a winner-takes-all, believe this, $9 million match play event from Shadow Creek Golf Course in Las Vegas. Man. Yeah, happy Thanksgiving, man, indeed. Or Black Friday, depending on who wins. Yes, if Tiger wins, it's definitely Black Friday.

All right. Okay. Hey, you know, what's interesting about this is that it'll feature various challenges along the way, such as longest drive, the nearest to the hole, longest putt, like all the stuff that you bet on in a regular golf game when you're playing with your friends. Yeah, so it's just like high-stakes crazy golf, you know? I know. And there's nothing crazier than $9 million.

Woo! Making it interesting. Oh, yeah. And helping us analyze the physics, we'll have, of course, Professor Eric Goff. But joining us first to unlock the brain science is neuroscientist and our dear friend, Dr. Heather Berlin. Heather, how are you? Heather!

Hey! Glad to be here. It's great to have you here. Thank you. So, okay. So we were talking about, like, this is really how guys, when they get together and play golf, they're like, yo man,

let's make this interesting. Yeah. You know, like, hey, why don't we put a little something on there, 10 bucks a hole. Like, you know, and so, you know, these guys are doing like on a massive scale

where guys and women do all across the nation on Saturday mornings, everywhere to every golf venue that's open. It's an event that we could, all golfers can relate to directly rather than watching a PGA Masters or something like that. With just two of the greatest players, you know, in the history of the sport. So I'm asking you this, what is driving some, is it more money that will drive like $9 million to win or is it more pride?

Like, yo, I got to beat this guy. What's getting them out of bed on this particular day? The money or the pride? It depends. It depends. People are going to be motivated by different reasons. So, you know, it depends on, number one, how much for us. I mean, for me, $9 million, that would have a big impact on my life.

But, you know, if you maybe already have $50 million, another $9 isn't going to make a huge impact. This is true. Believe me. Speaking from experience. Obviously. You would know, as you would know. But so I think the impact of the money varies depending on how much it will affect your life. But these guys, they're in the public eye.

They're putting themselves on the line, their reputations, you know, and the risk of embarrassing themselves, you know, if one of them loses, they're no longer, you know, the greatest. Now they're the second greatest against the person who wins. So you're kind of the money is almost, I think, more of a compensation for allowing to put yourself on the line like that and engage in this. So I think probably at this level with these two guys, it's more about the pride. Can the money actually do the opposite? Like for instance, I have a friend, Carlos, we used to play pool together. I am not the best pool player in the world. That sounds like a hustle immediately you say that. But I would often beat this guy,

often with no problem, right? But no, here's the guy. Often. As I said, hustle. With no problem, right? But no, here's the thing. Then he would say, yo, man. Like it was like he was hustling me, maybe. Oh. He would say, yo, let's put some money on this. However, he wasn't hustling me. I would lose to myself.

I wouldn't lose to him. I would beat myself. When the money was on. when the money was on the line you would do worse where does Chuck's brain go with that is it possible you'll see and I call them in the intro titans of sport

not just golf, of sport is it possible you'll see someone who's been so event hardened so successful could they go to the same place Chuck's mind went to? Well, the thing is that with, in Chuck's case, when you're out, you're putting money on the game, you're increasing the stakes and you're changing, it's affecting your psychology. So it was before, sometimes when there's less at stake, you're more relaxed, you do better at things, right?

You increase that cortisol, increase the stress, it can then interfere with your performance. You increase that cortisol, increase the stress. It can then interfere with your performance. So just that bit of adding a potential loss is what can actually mess you up. Interesting. So I want to ask you this because I have here. I'm pulling this up on my phone because I want to make sure I get it right. Golf is one of the top five most mentally challenging sports that there are. For sure.

Okay. And they say that the reason is because all top five sports are individual sports. So there are no team sports that count as most mentally challenging. And here they have them. Number one is swimming. Number two, gymnastics. Number one is swimming. Number two, gymnastics. Number three is tennis. Number four is golf. And then number five, baseball, which last I checked has some teammates.

No, for me, I mean, I'm, okay, European, British, but I look at it as the 21st century gunslinger kind of shootout. Oh, you mean pitcher and catcher. Pitcher, pitcher, batter, hitter, whatever you want to call it. I mean pitcher and batter. So now that sort of, I've got to beat you, you've got to beat me. It's a one-on-one competition. Yeah, absolutely. It's still a one-on-one competition.

Which is where we are with this on the sedate greenery of Shadow Creek Golf Course in Las Vegas. So why are these sports, mainly golf, so mentally taxing? Yeah. So when it's a team sport, right, you're cooperating with your teammates. You're acting all together as one organism. There's something that we call de-individualization, or it's less of a focus on the one individual and more of how you all work together. So your focus of attention is going to be external. There's something we call the executive control network that's activated when you're externally focused on things outside of yourself.

Because you want to say, okay, where's my teammate? If it's soccer, who am I going to pass the ball to? Who's passing the ball to me? It's all about that communication between people. It's not just about you as the individual. But in these sports that you've mentioned, Chuck, it's just about you and your performance. Your biggest competition is against yourself. And so you do all the physical training to train your body to know how to respond. And if all goes smoothly, your body will react in the right way. The thing now that can mess you up is yourself, is your own psyche, is your own

sort of negative thoughts getting in the way of your performance. So if you second guess yourself, if you start stressing out about how good the other guy is doing. So what you need to do in these cases is have an internal focus of attention. What you activate, what's called the default network in the brain or default um network in the brain or default mode network in the brain where it's almost like clearing the mind it's a almost a meditation and don't let the things in the external world distract you so you almost have to block it out whereas in the team sport you want to pay attention to the external so it's two different mindsets um wow you say that there's 18 holes and these two guys are going to stroll around basically in each other's company for these 18 holes.

And it'll take however many hours it takes. Do you think there'll be trash talking? Do you think because they've never quite been the best of buds as far as I'm aware. It might be a little something said. And that's an awful long time. something said, and that's an awful long time. Even if you're able to take yourself into that state, can someone maintain it for that length of time and not crack just at the moment when, oh, you're looking a bit tired. Did you sleep well last night? Oh, is your knee bad? Anything like that. Can you sustain that kind of state of mind for that length of time? I think that's the biggest competition. That's the game, right? It's almost like a staring contest, right?

Who's going to break first? So you take these two guys. I mean, you can't, the years of practice and training they've had, you can't take that away. Their bodies know what to do in different situations. They know how to adapt to changing environmental circumstances. The wind changes or, you know, the tree is in the way and how to get around it.

All these things, they've built up systems and networks in their brain that will automatically respond to that. So their biggest challenge is going to be not to get psyched out, not to let their competitors say something that's going to get in and distract them. And so I think that's where the real game is.

I doubt they're going to interact with each other, because it's in neither of their interests to even go there. To go there. The pay-per-view audience is desperate for there to be a Barney I doubt they're going to interact with each other because it's in neither of their interests to even go there. To go there. Yeah. The pay-per-view audience is desperate for there to be a Barney halfway down the fairway. You know what you've got to see? It's like in the boxing games, like in the beginning,

the two golfers stand head-to-head and start psyching each other out before the game. Oh, man, that would be great. That's what the people are paying their money for. Exactly. To get one of those incidents happening. Tiger, your father never loved you. I know.

That's how you psych someone out in golf oh god that might just be round one yeah right so yeah all right so here's something that's really funny so this is i'm reading this article and it says tennis players suffer sabotage of their nerves uh before so it's before the match and in between play. So this is where they're most vulnerable. Golfers, very much the same. Pre-round, routine, pre-shot, routine. This is where their game collapses. Why would that be the case?

So that's something. Once they're in the motion and doing it, it's sort of set something off that goes off automatically. So it's the setup. It's the mental setup where, as I said, the real competition takes place. And so there's something called the premotor cortex, which is active when you're just imagining the move. So I think, you know, a lot of them with golf is they say, think about your swing or get into that mode or concentrate. They call it a visualization. Visualization. Exactly. And that's basically a routine that you're running in your head before your body actually enacts it. And that sets it up for what it's going to do next. Once the action takes place,

it's almost like it's too late. So the setup is the most important part of it. And that's why, that's where the most stress can come in. That's where your thoughts can mess up your performance. Because once you're doing it, it's done in a sense. So that's the key moment. Do you know what happens? And it happens not just in a one-on-one sport like tennis or golf, but it will happen in a soccer game or a football game or something.

You'll do something and it hasn't worked out the way you intended and it's caused a problem for your team, for you, everything else. You no longer are able to focus on the moment and what's coming. You're thinking about the past, the mistake. I always call it, you're on rewind. You're on a loop.

You're on a loop. You're reliving. You're reliving. The thing's going on in front of you, but you're reliving this other thing. So what's happening with the brain there? So your greatest enemy, and that's basically prefrontal cortex, which causes you anxiety, thinks about your mistakes, how I could have done it differently, what are people thinking about me, how am I hitting the ball? It just goes on and on. And so what you want to do is quiet the mind and actually you want to decrease prefrontal cortex activation. It's a great idea, but in the moment, you can imagine you've sliced one off into the trees and you know that you're about to, it's so difficult to grab that firmly and bring it back. What, what really, how much discipline do you need to be able to do that? It's about letting go.

And I think the best players are best at doing that. And that's sort of what we talk about as mindfulness. It's focusing. There are ways to refocus your mind, to be in the moment. I mean, practicing meditation and, you know, studying what happens in the brain of monks who can refocus, recenter their thoughts to just be in the moment.

It's all about the moment. And I think that's what the best athletes monks who can refocus, recenter their thoughts to just be in the moment. It's all about the moment. And I think that's what the best athletes have trained themselves to do, especially in these sports like golf and tennis. It's funny. Now, you just said that, just be in the moment. It says, the one big difference between golfers and everyone else is the struggle of how to deal with unoccupied time between holes and each ball. So you've got to walk to the next thing. You've got to think all that time. You're sitting there watching your opponent do his thing. You've got to think all that time.

So I guess that's what you're talking about when you say be in the moment. Absolutely. It's just like all of us in life, right? It's the downtime where our thoughts can escape us, and that's when all the negativity comes in, right? Call it empty space. The empty space is the most dangerous. And it's how you feel it.

Do you let the squirrels come in? Do you let all your stuff run around and get distracted? Lots of squirrels up here in this. Or do you go monk mode, which I now i'm not labeling monk i like that monk mode okay just credit me to that yeah that's right but i think also that's why a lot of these go um and swimmers as well you see michael phelps they wear headphones they listen to music before and they try to get in the zone which is about don't let your thoughts it's turning down the prefrontal cortex and we see that pattern of brain activation when people are daydreaming, when they're meditating, certain types of hypnosis.

When you let go of these self-criticism, of questioning yourselves, of thinking about the past, and you're just completely in the moment. So music can help get you there. So if I was this golfer, perhaps I'd play some kind of meditative type of music in between and just focus in on that internal world. I wonder if they have rules where you're not allowed i've never seen a golfer do that take headphones or they might have rules where like one of the rules is you have to walk to the next hole one of the rules is maybe you can't your caddy could be a rapper that'd be cool oh we're reinventing golf baby right get the rapper out there all of a sudden between that'd be kind of cool yeah just

like don't worry what you missed no whatever i'm not gonna try it i'm not gonna do it they'll take my black card that was awful and your husband's like a prolific rapper which is so funny just speaking of rap and how it relates to sports it's interesting that some of the top rappers will no longer freestyle in public because they don't want to risk messing up and embarrassing themselves. So now we have a complete relation to what we're discussing here. Yeah, because Tiger Woods, why would he be motivated to put himself on the line of this and potentially embarrass himself and lose? But that's where the money comes in and the motivation to do it.

But it's the same thing with the rappers. They not going to just freestyle and and risk doing it poorly nothing for nothing right exactly you just rhyme bread with bread like you suck jay-z man words like thread and fred and dread and you went bread with bread god you're the worst okay street cred oh man it's cred there you go street cred okay that's the older white guy yeah God, you're the worst Street cred Oh man, it's cred, there you go, street cred That's the older white guy Entering into this conversation Dr. Heather Berlin, what a pleasure, as always

Thank you so much But we're going to keep you, if you don't mind We are going to take a break When we come back, the physics They're in, the swing, the course The ball, whatever you need to know, the good professor, Professor Eric Goff,

will be with us when we come back. Welcome back to Playing With Science and our Tiger versus Phil show me the money $9 million matchup. Which, by the way, you just told me a pretty interesting fact of why it's $9 million instead of $10 million. Yeah, it's something to do with both players being part of the PGA Tour, and I think the finalists get $10 million, and therefore they

didn't want to compete with that. So it's now this kind of old $9 million figure. Nice. Now, if I'm wrong, I apologize for throwing that out there as a false factoid. But if I'm right, go me. There you go. Right. Either way, it sounds good. And as far as I'm concerned, you could be president of the United States. OK.

Not today. Right. So we have Professor Eric Goff, University of Lynchburg, joining us. And but still with us is Dr. Heather Berlin, neuroscientist. So it'll be an interesting conversation. Absolutely. Professor, welcome to Playing With Science once again. Glad to be here. And I'll definitely take Gary over our current president. Okay, so let's look at Shadow Creek, Las Vegas. What can we expect from this particular course, Professor? What can we expect from this particular course, Professor?

Well, the course is 7560 yards at a par 72. And I think both golfers are going to find the third hole very challenging. Most of the holes are straight. So when you look at the third hole, you've got a par four, but it's going to clock in at 486 yards and you got water on the side of it. Now, I think when you're looking at the difficult holes for each golfer, there are going to be three holes that dog left, one, four, and seven. And you're going to have three holes that are going to dog leg to the right, which are 10, 16, and 18. So I think if you got a left-handed golfer like Phil Mickelson, who's going to want to do perhaps a little bit of a slice whenever he swings, try to angle this to

the left a little bit. He might have an advantage on the first, those first three that I mentioned. If you want to slice a little bit to the right, then Tiger's going to be on the ladder, the back nine, the 10, 16, and 18 holes. So what's the physics of slicing and hooking? Like when you're hitting the ball and the slice is to the right, right? Is that how it goes? Yeah, well, it depends if you're right-handed. It depends if you're right-handed.

If you're right-handed, you're going to hit from left to right. If you're hooking, you're right to left. Right to left, yeah. But what happens, because they don't really want to do that. I mean, sometimes they want to do that on purpose. They do. Right. Sometimes they want to do it on purpose.

But I'm saying if you're going straight down a fairway, you want the ball to go as straight and as far as possible, what causes it not to do that? Well, when you're hitting the golf ball and you hit it, you square it, and then you're going to get some backspin on that ball. And what's going to happen is the ball is going to achieve some magnus force with a lift going up. But if you slice it, if you're right-handed and you slice it and it starts to spin in this direction, then the magnus force is going to send it off to your right if you're a right-handed golfer. It's going to send it off to the left if you're a left-handed golfer.

Gotcha. right-handed golfer, it's going to send it off to the left if you're a left-handed golfer. Gotcha. So it's really all about the spin of the ball and where you put the face of the club on the surface of the ball. And if you push it one way, so it's spinning to the right, then you're going to get the slice. You've got to think multi-dimensional here, because it's not just a left, right, right, left. No, it's spinning back and right or left so for instance if i'm dropping that ball onto the green because now i'm an elite golfer by the way just in case you were wondering that's right yeah and i know that green's on an angle and the pin is towards the lower end of it i'll overheat it with some backspin right so i'm gonna roll backwards to the

i mean it's just the ability to be able to have soft hands and feel the ball. We always talk about pilots and racing drivers having an intuitive feel. The car, the aircraft is an extension of them. It must then, doctor, be an exact same replication for a golfer. That club is now just another part of their body. Yeah. I mean, after a lot of years of training, what you do is you have this premotor cortex, which is the planning out.

Okay, you have a plan of how you're going to do the shot. Okay. And then there's the actually carrying that out. So that's going to involve the motor cortex. Also the cerebellum, which is these fine motor movements and smooth and balance and these sort of more refined aspects of motor movement. Then you have other parts of the brain that are involved in proprioception,

your awareness of your body and space and how it's moving. And then you have also something called the entorhinal cortex, which is like your GPS system. Say that again now. The entorhinal cortex. The entorhinal cortex. No, GPS. GPS.

The GPS part of the brain. Entorhinal. Yeah. Entorhinal cortex. No, GPS. GPS. The GPS part of the brain. Entorhinal. Yeah. GPS. Entorhinal cortex. Entorhinal cortex. Don't sit over there. Sit in the corner.

I don't care. So that kind of is like navigating in space and remembering where things are in space. So you have to enact all of these parts of the brain, which you've trained over time, so that when you psychologically say, okay, I want to do it, you know, hit it there and then have it do a backspin. Well, in carrying it out, all these aspects of the brain have to be in coordination for the big muscle movements,

the fine muscle movements, and knowing where your body is in space, and all of that. So it's a whole sort of an orchestra of different parts in the brain like working together. It's so funny when you talk about proprioception. There's a training where, I mean, people think it's corny when you see, what is it, that movie where they blindfold the guy? Karate Kid.

And he's blindfolded and standing on a pole. Are you sure that's what you're thinking about? Yes, I am. Okay, fine. But he's blindfolded and standing on a pole. And that's actual training for balance athletes because when you close your eyes, your proprioception is completely off. That's right.

You know, you have to engage everything else. Right, exactly. So the idea is to do it without relying on your vision and it fine-tunes the other areas of your brain. Like your inner ear and all these other aspects. And that helps you with balance. Right. Wow.

Professor, you said... The brain is amazing! Well, welcome to the world. You talked about this course and the fairways being particularly straight. Who, to your mind, will have a better opportunity on the fairways off the tee in terms of which game will be stronger and better suited to this type of fairway? Well, Tiger does have about a two and a half yard driving average distance advantage over Phil. And he's actually a little bit better with driving accuracy.

And this course is designed to be somewhat difficult off the tee. So Tiger gets about 59% of his fairways this year. And Phil's only getting about 52 so there's a slight advantage to tiger uh this year on the way he's been driving uh for distance and for getting accuracy on the greens now just just to give you an idea of what one of these dog leg holes is like the the fourth hole is a par 5 581 yards and it's going to dog leg right to the or to the left it's a monster and you're going to have to hit this thing about 280 yards just to get it to that first turn left but if you're hitting it too far you're going to go right into the trees if you're

a little you know short or if you try to hit this thing too far to the left you're going to be right in the water or a sand trap so they're going to be very careful with when they play these dog legs to make sure they're not in the trees or in the water. Is there a hole particularly that is most challenging for one golfer or the other, depending upon the game that they play? Well, I definitely think that if you're going to try to, you know, play these dog legs a little bit to the advantage of the course, where you're going to try to maybe play a slice to get it to hook a little bit where that turn is, then, as I was saying, the dog leg lefts are going to happen on the front nine, and the dog leg rights are going to be on the back nine.

So if you're trying to get this thing to angle left, let's say, if you're going to be Phil trying to slice this thing and get it to curl around the dog leg, he's going to have the advantage on those holes one, four, and seven. Tiger would be more on 10, 16, and 18 coming up toward the finish. It's interesting because at no point is anyone going to gamble on this. Right. Right. Oh, sure.

Yeah. So now you've outlined that. You can bet those that do are analyzing along the lines of the professor. Yeah. And they'll load up to get money on fill on those particular holes and possibly to be in the lead on the first nine. And then they'll jump and go on to Tiger to go that and then maybe have a decision on who they think will win. So the physics behind it now is going to enable people's thinking.

You should put out some betting lines, Dr. Adolf. Open up a stall in Vegas. Fly the professor down to Vegas. We'll get a little boost. Is that legal? I mean, Tiger's had a great comeback year after his back surgery. I mean, around the greens, he's number one this year in strokes gained for approach shots. And Phil is about a half stroke behind him. So when you start getting near the greens, Tiger's going to have about a half stroke advantage

during the entire course. Selling the Tiger. Phil's been putting slightly better this year. So if Phil can get it on the green, he might have a slight advantage on the putting. Well, drive for show, putt for dough. I was going to say, I find it really interesting, the analysis in terms of the statistics of human behavior. It reminds me of the Moneyball guy who was doing all those stats. But human behavior is notoriously very difficult to predict. So although we have these, you know, statistics and who tends to do better on what, in the moment, you know, I think anything and a mental change can affect all these statistics in terms of their previous behavior.

And, you know, maybe something like free will or certain things. That's why. But there's no such thing as free will. I was going to say, do we believe in free will? That's why these guys are doing it. No, there is no free will. Look at us. We're all in agreement.

Look at that. Are we all just? Look at all the scientists, no matter what the discipline. Everybody jumps in. No, there is no free will. What is your problem? The thing is, what you would do as an elite athlete, someone who's at the very pinnacle of their game,

you have been so practiced that you have taken out that element or taken out but reduced it to such a small area of inconsistency people will now follow you spend money on or against you because of your consistency or lack of therein and that may fluctuate for over a course of, months or years or diminish at a certain time in your career. So let me ask you this, Heather. With respect to what we were just talking about, what Eric was talking about previously and the difficult holes. Let's say you're the first three holes you're doing super well and it's, you know, happy-go-lucky. And then, you know, in your mind, the the fourth hole you always mess up on this kryptonite

that's right right right what happens in the brain that makes that actually come true where you know you it's i look at it like self-fulfilling prophecy yeah so your thoughts can affect your behavior we know that so if you change your mindset if you think you're going to do poorly if you're told for example you're going to do poorly on this math test, people tend to do worse than if they're told, like with girls, you know, girls tend to do better on math, then they'll do better on the math test. So telling yourself, oh, this is the hole that I usually mess up on is going to really negatively affect your performance. thing in terms of the psychology is that the way it's set up in terms of the holes that Tiger will do better at and the ones that Phil would do better at the order in which that occurs could affect the game so if like you're really good holes or you know at the end that's going to have a certain effect that's going to be major pressure right right so I think that the the order in which

the difficulty is set up and it's different between the two different players is going to have a significant effect. Professor, is there one, or there may be more than one particular hole that has a particular interest to you as a physicist as to, it might be a par three that's really tricky and it might be one that drops down and you have to have a more vertical approach. Is there anything like that on this particular course? Actually, I think the hole that interests me is the third hole. I mentioned this before. It's going to be a very challenging hole. It's a par four, but it's 486 yards. And it's quite a narrow fairway.

You've got some water off to one side. You've got some traps. And, you know, you might have Tiger coming up with that stinger two iron of his trying for a real low trajectory to get a roll but if he just misses very very slightly i mean he's going to be in the in the sand or in the trees so you have to be very very careful uh going for distance on a hole like that so i'm i'm really anxious to see what that third hole provides would you call the third hole the signature hole of the course, or is there another one out there that's going to cause a lot of interest? I would definitely call the third hole the hardest. I'm really looking forward to the six

dog-legged holes, and then you got eight holes with water traps near them. So those things always make for very interesting play when the, you know, I mean, to piggyback a little bit on what Heather was saying. I mean, the interesting thing about, you know, the way the mind is work is you have these laws of physics that are guiding all these processes that are happening. And then the emergent behavior gets very unpredictable, even if you do have the statistics. But once they start hitting the ball, of course, then the laws of physics are going to govern how this ball is going to travel. So all these little perturbations to the initial conditions and how they hit it could lead to these vastly different results in how they get the ball toward the tee. So, I mean, a hole like, you know, number three is going to be one that I'm really going to be interested to see. Are there any kind of environmental effects that might come into play that, you know, if you're watching this at home and you've spent your money on pay-per-view that you're not quite aware of, but the golfers themselves, is there going to be a desert breeze?

Are we going to suffer an awful high temperature? It's unlikely to get a lot of humidity. But will there be those sort of factors that come into effect, some of the physics? Well, you got to, I don't know if you haven't looked at this course from Google Earth, it's worth doing because it sits, it's this rectangular shaped course that sits in a bunch of neighborhoods and you have all this sand and you don't have these, you know, large parking lots because I don't think they're even going to have a gallery there. And, you know, you don't have the kind of traditional looking large golf course spectacle. There's some private residences. You got a clubhouse. But when you're watching the

play on the on the pay-per-view, I mean, you got this Bermuda grass that they're going to be using, which is good for the desert. And this bent grass near the greens, which has to be watered a lot. You know, you're out there in this arid climate. So the holes are going to be pretty fast on the greens, but a lot of this is going to be due to how the groundskeeping is done ahead of time. Because if they don't cut it too low, if they're not, you know, if they're really going to try to make sure that the scores aren't going to be too high, you know, they're not going to cut the course in such a way that it's going to be too difficult. So, you know, a lot of this is going to be coming down to how the groundskeepers are going to do it. Oh, groundskeeper Willie, once again, determining.

You are so predictable with that. So the devil's going to be in the detail, particularly on the greens. I mean, so much as the varietal of grass, it's going to be, and this comes down to the friction, how short they want to cut them. And then, obviously, the pin changes that they'll make on the greens themselves. Yeah, that's right. I mean, you're going to have holes that are going to have, you know, some of the par threes are going to have to be hit. The ball is going to have to be hit over the trees. So, you know, there are going to be some really interesting holes. And, you know, obviously, I mean, Heather can speak to more of

this than I could. But I mean, if one of them starts getting a lead early on, then, you know, is the other one going to want to start taking more chances, trying to, you know, play for that long distance? I mean, you got a hole. Desperation. I mean, like hole 11 is a par four. It's 324 yards. I mean, if Tiger's about, say, two strokes down by hole 11, is he going to try to go for it on that one hole? let's say you are now, you're losing, right? And you make an act of desperation and it works out. What happens in the brain then? Do you now just feel like more relaxed? I'm going balls out.

I'm just going to do whatever because things are going my way, baby. Or do you say, all right, I'm back to even now. Let me get back on track. What kind of normally happens in the brain? Well, I think there's a difference between what would normally happen in a person's brain and between a trained athlete, right? Okay. So what's interesting with Tiger Woods is if—I always thought he's an interesting case because if you look at his personal life, you know, he got in a lot of trouble with sort of reckless, impulsive behavior. Yes.

You know, cheating on his wife and lots of sexual escapades. A lot of bad prefrontal cortex actions happening. Which would not do well for his prefrontal cortex. But I always use him as a case example because although he was impulsive in these other aspects of his life, when it comes to golf, he's the opposite. He's extremely focused. You're really using your prefrontal cortex when you're at that level of focus and concentration. So I think when it comes to golf, we call it dissociation. I think there's a sort of dissociation of behavior.

And the best players are able to just focus on the game and not be affected or try to be affected as little as possible by what has just happened before. or try to be affected as little as possible by what has just happened before. So in the regular human brain, I would say yes, you know, you do something reckless, you're like, oh, now I'm on a roll, I'm going to keep going with this or whatever. But with these kinds of golfers at this level of play,

I'm going to say that they're going to not be as affected by these fluctuations in the game throughout. Awesome! Who knew dissociative behavior had a good role to play in your life? It can be adaptive. Let's go back to that. They get out of their own head.

I'll remember that the next time I bury a, never mind, a body in my bed. I'm glad you edited that. So getting out of your own head. It doesn't bother me at all. Hey, what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. Oh! Dr. Goff, drop in. Bring him home in Vegas. Oh! Dr. Goff! Drop in.

Bring him home, baby! Oh, yeah. I think that's a great line to end on. Yeah, it is. Thank you to Dr. Heather Berlin. Thank you to Professor Eric Goff from University of Lynchburg in Virginia. Get out of your head, Chuck. I sound...

Do the tiger thing. Get out of your head. Get out of my own head, baby. Yes. Get out of my head and into my car! Let me leave you with one last tiger bit. Get out of your head. Get out of my own head, baby. Yes. Get out of my head and into my car. Let me leave you with one last tiger bit. Okay. Oh.

The average force between that golf ball and the club hit when it's hit is going to be about two tons, and that's going to be twice what a tiger bite is. Oh. Nice. I see what you did there with the tiger and the tiger. Yes. Right on. I'm going to call there with the tiger and the tiger. Yes, right on. I'm going to call that a club drop.

Bang. That's been Playing With Science, a golf special. Fabulous Professor Eric Goff and Dr. Heather Berlin. I've been Gary O'Reilly. And I've been Tiger Woods. And this has been Playing With Science.