Enviroment, Enviroment, Enviroment

Well the winter is upon us and so hibernation and writing time is here!

In October I was in a privileged position of being able to host a junior forum with presentations from some of the best in the industry.
Rudy Duran, gave some fantastic insights into the development of a genius, I have written about the discussion I had about this process in my earlier blog. Being able to see the videos of Tiger in action in the videos was fascinating, many of the playing characteristics displayed from childhood into the adult we see now.

 

The presentation by Henry Brunton flowed with superbly researched information about the development of the golfer and indeed the person, into the modern elite athlete golfer. A candid moment came from the statement that "in previous years I had been leading players to the cliff edge" now with a program that takes the needs both physically, tactically and emotionally these players leave equipped for both the game and life....quite some achievement.

So where does this lead...back to the title Environment, Environment, Environment. Why, well both Rudy and Henry created a place where young people can learn to grow the skills of golf. An environment that encourages challenges and supports this path.

With much of the historical role of the coach being technically lead, now we must look more globally at the whole of our program. Not only what are the players learning, challenging ourselves constantly, as coaches, to answer the question has the player learnt (no teaching has taken place until the player has learnt! – Coach Wooden)

The inclusion of important elements such as sports science, nutrition and psychology mean that the coach must embrace a holistic role, but these elements must be coach lead.

Create the Environment that will constantly support players through all the learning phases, knowing when to put methods under pressure and push, encourage the players to fail while learning from this experience. Have the philosophy of everything being earned, nothing to be given. The work rate of all successful people is high! Even if some make it look easy. Establish a pathway where it is understood during key physical development stages that form will possibly dip, establish long term growth and constant self reflection.

It is widely understood the benefits of observing players more experienced has a profound effect on those below, the reverse has an equally positive effect, upward pressure to make players aware that they may never rest on past performances.

In his development stages Tiger never played outside of his age range as an 11 year old he was undefeated!! , was this the reason he had such a strong reaction to leading from the front, it was the norm. Success was built on success.
So I hope this article is not preaching, merely a bunch of ideas. Having already reflected on some of the content I confess I am guilty of not delivering a couple of aspects, delivery is so different to theory, I am off to change these areas now and improve the environment of the academy.

Coffee with Rudy Duran

I'm the grumpy looking one on the right.



A while ago I embarked on a journey to increase my well of coaching knowledge seeking out a number of people who have expertise in specialist sections of golf and education.



This led me to a man with an undeniable pedigree in long term junior coaching, an area of particular passion for me, Rudy Duran Tiger Woods' first coach. I need to clarify Tiger is not the only player to have benefited from this master coaches skills.

I arranged to meet at San Jose airport, California. We then made a short trip to Starbucks (a courtesy cup of coffee would be appreciated for the mention guys! )


So with a suitable cappuccino to hand, we started to discuss Rudy's philosophy and experiences. Initially the discussion moved to enabling Tiger and others to build the love of the game, the enjoyment of playing the game and encouraging games based coaching as opposed to tasks.


How regular was Tigers' coaching ? around 3 hours a week on average, this is followed by the fact that no one has burnt out doing something they enjoy! Also that he was coached, not taught, with questions how do you get they ball to go higher Tiger? Show me. An emphasis on enabling discovery of the skill by the pupil from an early age, the benefits are clear later with more self awareness - and belief. Which of course makes us question the tell method of do this do that!!


We chatted over the importance of socialisation and group environment, taking out the stress of performance, minimising doubts and building confidence with measurable success, each child has a personal par relative to current build, strength and ability.


The importance of the correct equipment. Tiger often had adjustments to his clubs within months, tracking growth.


The conversation flowed for a couple of hours just enquiring what worked also what didn't, there are many other thoughts and views I will certainly be implementing this year as my own coaching program progresses.


For more info into Rudy's coaching the must read is In Every Kid Lurks a Tiger

Thanks for your time Rudy and I look forward to exchanging many more thoughts.

Developing performance

Developing performance in anything is an art, in golf it often seems elusive!!

So how do we go about this, a number will buy books and videos and golf magazines.

This can certainly help you build your knowledge, but does it help you improve. Well not alone no! Why? None of these acts tell you where you are and therefore where you need to go to improve.
Have a look at the average driving range, doesn't it look more like a gym with people pumping weights than learning/practicing new skills!!!

So what do we need to do?

We need to measure where we are, the best way to achieve this is with a stats program, here we can accurately find out our start point.

This is now a simple task, use a stats scorecard as you play. The same process as keeping score.

Now we need to focus attention this area and practice (deeply!!!) Questions that need to be answered here are, is it a technical issue? or is it a judgement issue? So work through with a coach on those areas, understand exactly what needs to be changed to improve, this is achieved with initialy repetitive practice, (many repetitions!!) Asking yourself am I doing this correctly, reach, fail, reach until you are successful.

In the example below the area to be practiced would, clearly, be putting. With a closer look at the specifics of the player's stats it would be established what area of putting was weakest.

Once we have established an improvement under practice conditions we need to apply these improvements in play conditions, random and variable skills tests. Replicate your course conditions.

This process is ongoing as each part of the game improves this cycle is repeated.

The stats program I recommend is www.shotbyshot.com sure there are others available however I will only use what I believe to be the best.

Well, good morning, afternoon or evening.

With the marvels of the web, who knows where you are reading this and what time of day it is.

I would like to welcome you to my first blog, a new and interesting medium to me. Yes I know many have been at it for a few years now, I’ve always been slow to pick these things up!

In this series of blogs I will present a number of thoughts, predominantly golfing issues, feel free to feedback any views about the subject matter.

So you need a little background. Andy Taylor has been a golf professional for some twenty years. A failed player, ooops we don’t use the “f” word nowadays but hey I failed to make a decent living at it. In a way I’m glad I did, this brought me to coaching and I am so pleased, what an honour and experience to be involved in the development of other peoples’ skills and indeed leisure time.

Around 5 years ago I decided to research deeper the technical skills of coaching golf and what is needed to ensure this learning continues, with a large amount of time spent on the development of kid’s golf. What an experience this has become and the more I learn the more I need to know!! Much of this info will be presented here in future blogs.

This brings me to the first subject, Talent, long thought a gift from the gods. Well we have news… nope it is not. It can be created and developed, are you sure you ask, yes I have proof. Created by biology and key number of ingredients. It is documented in the book the Talent Code (Dan Coyle). This is a book you need to read, re-read and then refer to.

The evidence is in the statistics of a small Russian tennis camp producing more top twenty world ranked tennis players than the US, the reason for the success behind Brazilian soccer and how a small music school in Texas produced a number, not one, of highly successful recording artists including Jessica Simpson.

It introduces myelin, the broadband of talent, this marvellous discovery of our structure explains what Einstein, Tiger and Mozart have in common. The introduction of deep practice, a proper way of learning and developing, lose that soft cuddly feeling of, I have spent the time doing the skill I will get better. Remember Einstein’s theory of insanity, repeat the same action twice and expect a different result!! Also the role of a master coach is revealed.


I read this book in the spring of 2009 and found it to be thought provoking and highly useful not only in my coaching but also in a new skill I have taken up, now when there are those tough moments in the learning process, gone has the thought I haven’t got it, replaced with I need more, deeper practice!!! Then I have my own holy shit moment and joy in mastering the new element of that skill. Believe me putting it into practice is even more enjoyable than reading it.

I was fortunate to exchange emails and meet with Dan Coyle recently and a few points and questions came out of the discussions.

• Is chucking money at programmes and facilities the answer, maybe its people with knowledge and passion that are the answer.

• Reaching, failing and reaching again is successful (there you go that f word is useful and rewarding)

• Talent identification should be replaced with talent development

• And this is the one I love, Deep Practice looks like Clint Eastwood!!,You know they have it when the faces are looking like Clint. So every Saturday and Sunday morning I now spend time “looking for Clint” in my coaching sessions.

So there you have it, if you have already read the book make sure you act on it, if you have not go get a copy.

We have been scratching the surface of human talent development, I’m sure it will deepen as we learn more.

More to come soon.