With apologies to Bobby Jones
By Stephen Smith, Chief Neuroscientist at Sport Psychology Ltd.
Following his keynote at the 2025 GCAE Golf Business Conference in Madeira, Stephen Smith takes the conversation one step further.
How can golf venues use behavioural neuroscience to influence customer experience, loyalty and spend?
As everyone who has ever attempted this game will know, it is uniquely challenging to the old grey matter. Golf was the first sport that truly recognised the importance of the mental game for players and there is no tour player now that does not have their retained mind guru as part of their performance team. Where golf led the way, every other sport in the world has eventually followed. Our game truly was at the forefront of a performance revolution across the whole of sport.
Given that golf was the global leader in adopting psychology for player performance, I have always been surprised that it lags so far behind the rest of the commercial world when it comes to neuroscience for commercial success. Across all aspects of customer-facing businesses, every other sector has successfully mined this area to turn people’s behaviours into profits.
At the GCAE conference last year, I had the honour and pleasure of being the opening speaker. I think most who attended would agree that it was an eye-opener to find out that an oil and gas giant like Shell was the biggest global retailer of Coca-Cola and Mars Bars. It sells over $6 BILLION dollars’ worth of these types of high-margin goods each year and does this by using neuroscience to impact the subconscious elements of the customer’s mind.
Psychology in action
Daniel Kahneman won the Nobel Prize for demonstrating that human decision-making is rarely logical and analytical. In fact, even on big-ticket investments, most people are emotionally driven by their feelings, though we all like to rationalise what we bought afterwards.
Some decades ago, Shell realised that it could utilise this science to design elements into its retail stations that put customers into a ‘Buying’ Mode. You may not realise it, but the petrol/diesel is simply the hook to get you into the environment where the design can trigger ancient subconscious brain circuits to make you ‘Feel’ that you now need that Mars Bar, even though it might have been the last thing on your mind when you hit the indicator to turn in for fuel.
Every aspect of that petrol outlet has been purposefully designed to affect the way you ‘Feel’. When you can drive customer feelings, you can drive a whole range of other key elements such as brand loyalty and increased impulse purchasing.
It is not just the oil and gas industry that has realised the power of behavioural neuroscience. Think about the way that Duty Free Shopping has evolved at airports. Has it ever struck you that the curvature of the pathway that you must follow to get to your gate looks spookily like the design of the retail experience of our good friends from the north, IKEA?
That is no coincidence. I often have an inner laugh as I wander through that part of the airport and watch the impact it has on travellers who had little or no intention of buying that perfume just twenty minutes previously.
I guess a lot of you will be thinking, “Nonsense, I always walk briskly through and never buy anything even when I see the great deals on offer.” Well, I have news for you: the airports have a cunning plan for people like that.
They know that no one will return back to the first Duty Free once comfortable in the bar or coffee shop, so they make sure that there is another Duty Free outlet in that zone. They wait until those passengers have relaxed, as the figures show that many will make the short journey to that second outlet to get that great deal.
And here is the sneaky trick that some play: in the first zone that perfume was €49.19, but in the second it is now €49.99. You remember the €49 and hardly ever notice that 80 cents have been added in the meantime.
Psychology in action.
What does this mean for a golf venue?
The parallels to golf are that green fees/member subscriptions are a bit like fuel – they get customers into your venue. Once you have got them, you have a unique opportunity to really influence the subconscious circuits of their minds to put them into ‘Buying’ Mode and get that extra discretionary spend.
Unfortunately, unlike airports, most venues do not bring the shop to the customer. The shop at your venue is like the first Duty Free zone in the airport. Visitors move through it quickly at the beginning of their visit, but they really want to get to the gate taking them to their destination – in this case the first tee.
They may note the goodies on offer but not buy them. After their round they head to the bar/restaurant and, just like the airport customers, they will not expend unnecessary energy walking back to the pro shop to make a purchase.
So, if you really want to get that extra discretionary income, you need to bring the shop to the players!
The best way to do that is to prime their brains by putting a “Special Deal” on the bar (e.g. 50% off bag tags today) and having a QR code that links them to deals in your shop.
In this case you deliver an ‘Amazon’ model that allows your customers to order on their phone (or at the bar) and the goods are delivered to their table from the shop. It is a simple model that is easily enabled by modern technology, but it plays right into the ancient neural instincts of the human brain.
Humans will hunt for a deal, but we also balance that with energy conservation – we love it when the deal comes directly to us. Just ask Jeff Bezos.
Neuro Nugget : Serving coffee? Never use coloured cups. Humans perceive the aroma, taste and texture to be significantly better in plain white mugs and cups… we just don’t know why.
The human brain is complex, but you can tap into it to give your customers a great experience and drive their buying behaviours.
Look out for more neural insights in the next GCAE newsletter!