Golf Instructor Pairs Ayahuasca Ceremonies With Swing Coaching

A veteran golf instructor is running retreats in Mexico that pair traditional swing coaching with ayahuasca, the psychedelic plant tea used for centuries in Indigenous healing ceremonies. Christopher Smith, a GOLF Top 100 Teacher with more than 35 years of instructing experience, has offered the retreats since 2023.

What Happens at Christopher Smith's Retreats?

Smith runs two or three retreats a year from a seaside home in Los Cabos, Mexico, with a practitioner on site around the clock for the five-night stay. Guests get access to Puerto Los Cabos Golf Club, and the schedule includes three shaman-led ceremonies, an 18-hole evaluation round under Smith's watch, and continued on- and off-course coaching. The next retreat runs Nov. 17-22 and costs $8,999 per person.

Ceremony effects can last six hours or more, so guests get a private indoor space with practitioners supervising throughout. Ayahuasca is illegal in the United States, which is why the retreats take place in Mexico, and Smith pre-screens candidates since the brew can interact dangerously with certain medications and health conditions.

Why Combine Ayahuasca With Golf Instruction?

Smith first tried ayahuasca in the early 2010s and later began pairing it with his coaching work, reasoning that many golfers' biggest obstacles are internal: fear, past negative experiences and subconscious patterns that lessons and sports psychology don't fully reach. Guests arrive with goals ranging from a specific swing fault to struggles that have nothing to do with golf.

Smith isn't selling a round of golf on psychedelics — he's selling what might come after one.

"Everyone gets something different out of it," Smith said. "But generally what we've seen is people coming away more fearless, kinder to themselves, more compassionate and freer."