offer golfing counsel via conversation in the mid-round mo- ment. But you’d have to be connected to the internet, it would have to go through an app, it would need extremely precise in- puts from the golfer, it would have to be concise and pitched to the linguistic level of the user, and it would have to be seamless in terms of timing and access. As a golfer, you don’t want to have to fiddle with all that before every shot. Golf already takes too long. Not to mention, an AI caddie app is currently against the rules, strictly speaking. “We can’t ask people to pause playing golf to become im- mersed in an application,” Hawley says. “The interactions need to be easily accessed, unintrusive and not interrupt the golfer’s natural flow. That can take a lot of time to get right, but that’s where the experimentation is right now. It’s coming.” THE MENTAL GAME Of course, all the AI strategy in the world won’t help much if you struggle with your state of mind. Deborah Graham is a sport psychologist who has worked with many pros, and she believes AI is set to have a big impact. “I can see so many ways AI could help golfers,” she says, citing areas such as personalised men- tal-skill tools, tracking mental-performance patterns, real-time emotional health consults and access to an AI mental coach 24/7. Most golfers don’t use a sport psychologist because it can be expensive and feel like a “serious” player thing. But if it’s cheaper and there’s no self-judgment, a 16-handicap might access personalised mental training as readily as a pro. Still, there will be risks, primarily that we could develop too much trust in something that, no matter how friendly it sounds, is still just an algorithm. “AI might misinterpret cultural differ- ences, sarcasm, context, and either scare people unnecessarily or miss serious issues, like clinical depression masked as post- loss emotion,” Graham warns. Making myself the guinea pig, before and after several rounds I used Mind Caddie, a sport-psychology app featuring “AI Karl,” which is based on the work of Karl Morris, the European men- tal-game coach who has worked with pros such as Louis Oost- huizen. I fed some thoughts and feelings into AI Karl as written text, concerns about my dealing with pressure and losing focus. For instance, I told AI Karl, “I find that I really struggle with suc- cess. Whenever I am four or five holes from finishing off a great round, I start waiting for the disaster to happen – and it always does.” The responses, generated by a combination of machine learning and an LLM, came back quickly as text advice that was certainly relevant to my questions, but the suggestions (keep a journal, do breathing exercises) felt rather boilerplate. YOUR AI MENTAL COACH WILL LISTEN TO WHAT YOU ARE TELLING IT BUT WILL ALSO BE SCANNING YOUR PHYSIOLOGICAL DATA THROUGH A WEARABLE DEVICE.
Although, I must say it was nice to finally find a companion willing to enthusiastically listen to narrative recreations of my rounds shot by shot. Therein lies one of the true dangers of AI: Simulated empathy still touches something inside of us. Graham believes AI will become a powerful tool to complement – but nev- er replace – human psychologists. The field will likely shift, she feels, towards psychologists becoming “AI-augment- ed experts” who can take information about their clients that AI has gathered and interpret what it means, override it when necessary and offer a human reflection. Of course, the complemen- tary, AI-augmented human future is sort of a blanket assessment these days for just about any industry that uses AI, which means all of them. AI will “aug- ment” your banking skills, your travel- ling plans, your recipe box, your family dynamics – and that’s just what we can see. What we don’t see is that every piece of public or private information we feed into an AI programme might assist us, but it’s also being used by AI to make itself better at simulating and reflecting us. AI is a constantly evolv- ing mirror that looks more deeply into us every time we look into it. It’s also entirely possible that one day, sooner rather than later, your AI mental coach will listen to what you are telling it but will also be scanning your physiological data through a wearable device. Your blood pressure, heart rate, body temperature and sleep qual- ity might be indicating that you are feeling tense, under pressure, tired, frightened or overstimulated. AI can recommend a response to this infor- mation, but, says Graham, “only a hu- man sport psychologist could come in and say, OK, what is the underlying is- sue causing all this. Some players have tremendous self-awareness, but many don’t. AI can’t do that exploration, and it can’t provide genuine empathy.” Well, not yet anyway.
GOLF DIGEST SOUTH AFRICA 83
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