Chris Wood

I sat down with the tour's biggest doctor, Tim Swan, who's one of the most intimidating blokes, fills you with anxiety when he walks in the room.

And it was sort of opening up to him and realising that these are the feelings I'm getting.

I was just absolutely riddled with anxiety from the moment I left home to travel to an event to, more often than not, a Friday night miscut.

And getting back to my hotel and the relief that a miscut gave me, really.

A couple of days escape back at home.

And then it started again.

So it takes over your life, really.

And then when you're trying to change and improve on a technical side of things, anxiety doesn't allow you because it affects how you move.

It paralyzes you, really.

So it's been a battle between that side of things and then trying to

rediscover my intuition in my own golf swing really I suppose and that's why it's been quite a slow process um over the last few years yeah you have people say to you try this coach try that coach I believe I could have gone and seen Butch Harmon and he wouldn't have really been able to make an impact because of the challenges I was dealing with mentally so I've had to come at it from both sides really but um

yeah sort of 2023 i stopped i i mean me and lloydy we were down in south africa we played a couple of challenge tour events and my parents rang me and i think i just shot like 76 77 or something and i just broke down on the phone to them and they were like you've got to get home and um

Yeah, and that led to, I suppose, three months without playing.

But weirdly, I watched a lot of golf in that period.

And you said, I can do that.

Exactly.

Exactly.

that's exactly what i said rob like to myself i can hit those shots i know i can hit those shots and that was why i never once contemplated i've had enough of this because i still felt and i obviously still feel now that i've got the belief that those shots are within me and um then like

he's more than like a coach now, but like a really good friend, James Martin, who's been helping me with my golf swing.

He had the brilliant idea of right.