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.