a lion to tame the tiger

8/8/2019 A Lion to Tame the Tiger

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A Lion to tame the TigerTowards a model for the development of excellence in golf.

Stuart Armstrong

Introduction

In 1997 Eldrick Tiger Woods exploded onto the world of golf winning a majorchampionship, the US Masters, in his first full season as a professional golfer, afeat almost unheard of in professional golf. On June 15, 1997, in his 42nd week asa professional, Woods became the youngest-ever No. 1 golfer at age 21 years, 24weeks. The previous youngest was Bernhard Langer, age 29 years, 31 weeks in1986. It is fair to say that this amazing rise to dominance shocked the sportingworld in a way not previously encountered, Woods became not just a sportingsuperstar but a worldwide icon.

In his book The Chosen One (2001) David Owen cites a story told by TigerWoods father, Earl as to the moment that he knew that his son was to become agreat golfer, Owen relates, One momentous day when he was still young enoughnot to have mastered all the finer points of walking, he astonished his father byclimbing down from his high chair, picking up a baby sized plastic club andexecuting a passable imitation of Earls quite good golf swing. At that moment, Earlrealised he was the steward of an extraordinary talent.

This account of the development of talent has become the stuff of legend within theranks of the golf writer. To this extent many within the golfing media have sought to

take this narrative as a means to somehow make sense of the phenomenalsuperiority of Tiger Woods over the game of golf. In so doing, it can be argued thatthese commentators have created a popular belief that talent is evident in the veryyoung and that this can be used as a gauge for later sporting success. A study intothe development of expert performance by Ericsson et al (1993) recognises thispopular belief, they write:

There is a relatively widespread conception that if individuals are innatelytalented, they can easily and rapidly achieve an exceptional level of performanceonce they have acquired basic skills and knowledge.

(p. 366)

We have therefore seen that a popular belief has emerged within sport (andespecially within golf since the emergence of Tiger) that youngsters with a level ofability at an early age should be seen as potential future champions and a vastamount of interest and support is given to them in the pursuit of this aim.

To this extent we have seen media stories emerge with children as young as 2years old being touted as the next big thing to hit the world of golf. Golfcompetitions have emerged which cater for children as young as 5. Parents aretaking their children across the country to play in as many competitions as possibleand asking coaches for advice on how their 4 year old can take their game to thenext level. Moreover we see coaches jealously guarding their young protgs fromthe advances of other coaches who purport to be able to help them make it.

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There is a suggestion that this way of thinking has also been prevalent in the widersporting landscape for some time. A number of sports and their respectivegoverning bodies have been working under the brief that they must grab themyoung in order to develop talent to succeed on the world stage. The emergence ofMini Games such as Short Tennis and Kwik Cricket, specifically targeted atprimary school aged children and the associated competition programmes aimedat identifying talent which run alongside them demonstrates that these sports areeager to recruit players into their ranks at younger and younger ages.

However, research suggests that this popular assumption may be flawed,Davidson et al (1998) suggested that talent, while to some extent is partly innate isnot the only determinant to sporting excellence. Their contention was that earlyexperiences and the availability and opportunity of quality training and practicewere the real factors involved in the development of elite level performance. Tosupport this argument one can cite Ericsson and colleagues (1993) who conducteda study which looked at the development of expert performance in a range ofdisciplines including literature, art and music and identified the 10,000 hour rule.

They argued that this number of hours of deliberate practice was a majordetermining factor in expert performance. For both of these studies the conclusionto be drawn was that the notion that an individuals capacity at an early age shouldbe the key indicator of future ability was flawed, the studies contended that a largeamount of time devoted to specific practice activity coupled with a number of othersupporting environmental factors were key in producing excellence.

Recently, theories have been proposed within the field of sports developmentwhich have challenged this thinking. Balyi (2001) has developed the Long TermAthlete Development (LTAD) model which takes an Athlete Centred approach totalent development. The LTAD concept rejects some of the current models ofyoung athlete training and competition programmes, which are largely based on

chronological age, and instead seeks to identify the developmental stages of youngpeople and develop specific programmes of activity or training matched to thesedevelopmental stages.

Balyis further contention is that the attempts by sports to recruit young andencourage primary school aged children into sport specific activity can actually becounter productive to the development of talent as it often leaves the participantwithout some of the fundamental physical and cognitive capacities required forsuccess on the world stage. To this end Balyis work seeks to develop PhysicalLiteracy within young people as the building blocks for later sports specific skilldevelopment.

This thinking is furthered by Ct and Hay (2002a & b) who undertook studies ofyoung athletes and their development, they suggest that the early years of a childsdevelopment through sport should be characterised by sampling withspecialisation in a given sporting domain being restricted to later stages ofdevelopment. Ct and Hays suggestion was that the early years of developmentshould be focused on what they classify as deliberate play, that is, play structuredby the rules and boundaries of organised sports, coupled with a small amount ofdeliberate practice (Ericsson et al, 1993) would do more to develop and nurtureemerging talent and ensure that the potential for drop out is minimised. Thus as achild gets older and develops a broader understanding of themselves asindividuals and their ability at given activities, then more time can be devoted topractice and the true development of excellence.

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Lee et al (1995) offered further evidence against this early ability - earlyspecialisation concept when they suggested that young childrens definitions ofthemselves and their interaction with the world around them is too underdevelopedfor them to be overly focussed on a single specific sport. They contended that aschildren develop, so does their ability to accomplish tasks and they begin tounderstand their capacities in relation to others around them. The argument wasmade that if children are focussed on specific sports too early there is potential forthem to become disillusioned with their own standard of performance in relation toothers, with the further danger that they may evolve an overly restricted view oftheir own ability leading either to demotivation, an artificially limited conception oftheir ability or at worst complete drop out from the sport.

It seems then that there is a difficulty for anybody who is committed to thedevelopment of golf in that on the one hand there is a pervasive cultural mindsetwhich suggests that having children start the game young will achieve results andgenerate a new generation of champions. On the other hand there is a body ofresearch fuelled by academic study of elite sports performers which indicates that

this is precisely the opposite method for development. Instead, young peopleshould develop as young sports people through generic sports ability programmesaimed at the development of key fundamental movement skills according to theirdevelopmental capacity and that only at later stages should sports specific activitybe encouraged.

Golf is still reeling from the phenomenal emergence of Tiger Woods, his exampleof development and subsequent dominance of the sport has become a powerfulsymbol to follow by many. Furthermore the emergence of the precocious abilities ofMichelle Wie on the ladies golf scene has only served to further this thinking andprovide evidence for those who would suggest that starting young is the onlydeterminant for success. These examples coupled with the desire for companies

who are willing to pay vast sums of money to associate with young sporting talentserves to create an environment which is extremely hostile to suggestions thatyoung people should not become sport specific too early.

Whats the future for our young golfers? There should be serious concern that weare encouraging youngsters, overtly or tacitly (through our delivery system), to getserious early, compete in the ever increasing number of golf competitions as muchas possible, get their handicap as low as they can as early as they can so that theyare picked up by the talent ID systems of the respective male and female golfgoverning bodies to better enable their transition into the elite amateur ranks andultimately into a highly lucrative career as a professional golfer.

Based on the principles outlined in this article, The English Golf Union (EGU) andthe English Womens Golf Association (EWGA) are working on a series of jointlydelivered initiatives aimed at maximising the talents of young golfers throughoutthe country. The key principles behind the development of this national approach totalent development which will provide support for young people from Tri-Golf toTour or from Playground to professional will be the subject of future articles in thisseries.

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a lion to tame the tiger

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