Short clip from Dr. Don Wood (YouTube) where he teaches professional golfers that confidence is not a prerequisite for good play but rather a byproduct of executing skill. He gives examples: being able to hit a very narrow shot (between two trees) and a 150-yard approach where unseen wind can push the ball into a bunker, which then undermines confidence and triggers a survival response.
Chapters
When I work with the professional golfer, I'll say, do you think you need to be confident to play good golf? And they'll all answer the same thing, yes, right? And I say, what if I told you that you don't need confidence to play good golf? And they say, well, I don't need confidence. And I say, no, you have a skill. Confidence is a byproduct of your skill. I says, it happens. What? It occurs. When? After you've executed your skill. I said, there's nothing you can't do on a golf course. I said, you can hit a ball in between two trees, six inches apart, right? I said, the average golfer can't do that. So when you're on a golf course, I say, say you're 150 yards out from the green. You're going to hit probably a nine iron. So after you hit your nine iron, you didn't feel the wind coming down the fairway. You couldn't feel it, yet you couldn't see it. So it knocks your ball down into the bunker in front of the green. So what just happened to your confidence? Now you start thinking, what did I do wrong? And then to your survival, part of your brain that becomes a lion.