Saturday, March 26, 2011

JUNIOR GOLF DEVELOPMENT



Last night I posted a very simple question on my twitter page.



Do you think juniors would learn better scoring if they were only allowed to play golf from 100 yards and in until the age 13?



I have recently returned from a TPI junior level 2 education seminar. While there we spoke in detail about long Term Athletic Development plans for children. One of the main aspects of LTAD is to make sure that children do not early specialize.


In my junior days I was asked to have a certain handicap at a certain age to obtain regional coaching help, I was told I had to compete in various age groups events so "You will get seen by county selectors". How can this be right? I hope nothing like this is still in existence today.

I feel children being asked to compete in too many age group championships at a young development can be more harmful than good. Most of the winners of these events are the early bloomers, who are physically better adapted playing on a golf course.

Don't get me wrong I am not saying that competition is wrong, but when too much is made of the outcome of these events I have the issue.

Competing too young can have adverse effect as the winners love the winning and the losers decide to take on another sport.

Who cares what handicap you have at a certain age? I certainly don't. I would like all of the children I have coached to reach their potential. Thats it!


If all children were only allowed to play golf from 100 hundred yards and in up until the age of 13-14 would we end up with better young golfers that may have longevity in the sport?


I think it is accepted that if you want to play at an elite level of golf then you need to have a world class short game. So if the emphasis on learning was from 100 yards and in then they would learn to excel in this area. Suddenly early bloomers in terms of physicality do not have an advantage.


It was recently reported that Spanish children taking part in football are not allowed to play on full size pitches until 15 years old. Does this help and encourage them to learn to pass the ball with accuracy and have better movement and spacial awareness? Is it more important to learn to pass the ball to a fellow teammate in space than kick it as far as possible?


In golfing terms we could coach the young players to engage in speed training at a very young age. They will be able to learn rotation and explosive speed in a controlled environment of a driving range or practice tee. The young children can be taught to strike the ball with great accuracy once again on the practice tee. The players can be walked around the full length golf course to learn course management.


A lot of Spanish elite golfer are deemed to have excellent short games. Seve, Olazabal, Garcia. In my time here in Spain I have witnessed the quality of the young children's short games. Could this be down to the numbers and availability of pitch and putt courses. In most cases the pitch and putt courses are seen as inferior facilities to those with full length courses.


I think that LTAD will take a long time to be really accepted into golf, if the desire of many within the sport is to continue asking children to compete in competitions at too young an age.


Andy Gordon

8 comments:

  1. Andy, here are some of my thoughts on this subject area:

    Garcia won his senior mens club championship by the age of 12 and was the youngest ever winner of the European Amateur championship at the age of 15; McIIROY won the same tournament at 17 and at the age of 16 he had already shot 61 at Royal Portrush; Manassero won the British Amateur at 16 and the same year made a cut in a tour event; Seve turned pro at 16; Olazabal at 16/17 had won the British boys, and the Spanish and Italian men’s amateur championships. All of these examples highlight the fact that early specialisation is empirically sound. On the other hand it is unknown what contribution - if any - early diversification makes to the overall attainment of expert performance. That is to say that early diversification is not known to significantly shorten the period of specialisation needed to reach the highest level of performance.

    How many of these players gave any consideration to the ‘theoretical’ windows of trainability upon which the LTAD model is built? I doubt any of them took the ‘athlete first golfer second approach’ and yet it doesn’t seem to have limited their overall potential. Ultimately the LTAD model is incompatible with the developmental histories of these players and I suspect that further research into a wider body of players would deliver a predictable conclusion.

    All the best
    Graeme

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hi Graeme
    Many thanks for your comments. This is just the sort of comments I look for when writing my blogs. I am always trying to research and gain knowledge daily. I can certainly agree with you that the exceptions to rules or models are many. I would never say that the LTAD model is perfect and I am sure that the guys at TPI ,Dr.Ernst Zwick et al would agree. I am sure most of the players you mentioned above would not know what LTAD is. Did they all have great sporting backgrounds behind them? I am not sure.
    What I do know is that if a young child comes to a golf class with me,I will certainly help them along the way by coaching good FMS and FSS. Do you agree this is a good thing?
    It gives coaches like me a great starting point to want to go out and research more. I cannot see the harm in that.
    Like many things in golf coaching of today. Is it all right? 20 years ago we never had Trackman to tell the exact details of ball flight dynamics but the coaches of the day were still able to alter a players swing and make them hit it better. Time will tell as in most things in life
    But hey I want to be there at the front of the queue learning about it
    Thanks again Andy

    ReplyDelete
  3. I knew for sure that Graeme was going to comment on this one. =)

    I think it is a very interesting debate to be sure because as Andy said, golfers continue to reach elite status despite the information or training or lack there of they receive.

    Will the golfers of the future be able to perform better with all this information or will they just understand why things are happening.

    Great post Andy that certainly can cause one to think and the quality of the article arrives in the comments to it.

    Keep it up.

    JG

    ReplyDelete
  4. Hi Andy,

    Great post that hits at the heart of growing the game. As you know, I use the LTAD model as the core of what we do at our Junior Academy.

    I just wanted to comment on Graeme's post. He mentioned some very accomplished players and I just wanted to say that there are ALWAYS going to be acceptions to the rule of "Don't Specialize Early"...the players he mentions are clearly that. However, for every Garcia or McIlroy, there must be hundreds if not thousands that quit because of burnout or injury. And since golf is a late development sport meaning the majority of players get really good after 15-20 years of practice, I don't see the need to rush the development.

    I would also agree with Graeme about the "Theory" part behind it. I have spoken to several doctors (including Dr. Zwick) and most are not in agreement about the windows of trainability. However, they all pretty much agreed that having a model (whether a slight version of TPI or another) is better than none. I think you elunded to that.

    Lastly, whether or not they know it, most professional golfers have played other sports / activities which developed these FMS early in life. Just listen to the Parent Workshop video Dr. Rose did for the TPI program. They polled pretty much all their TOUR players and found out that the majority of them were in fact "athletes" before playing golf.

    Thanks Graeme for making "us" think and challenging our views. It only makes us better. Cheers Andy!

    Regards, Steven

    ReplyDelete
  5. Graeme,John,Steven
    Many thanks for your comments on this subject. I am pretty sure we discuss this with such knowledge and understanding because we passionatly believe in helping children improve their golf. I will do any anything to help my young players not get into a position of burnout or hating the game of golf. I beleive the LTAD/TPI model gives my players the best opportunity to love the game, become golf athletes and make friends. I am open to all ideas though. I am sure Steven will agree the TPI model is a very thourough and well laidout, but it still allows for as much individualism as you want.
    I will continue to learn everyday.
    thanks again Andy

    ReplyDelete
  6. I really must say it is very refreshing to read the classy nature of the replies to my original comment-really pleased that they were taken in the manner intended.

    Just to clarify that I don’t consider these players to be the exception to the rule at all, quite the opposite, in fact a colleague of mine through his Masters research has found that elite level players in England are also non compatible with the LTAD model, the main reason for this being that they all lived in close proximity to a golf facility and would often spend the whole day there from a young age – sounds familiar to me - you could say that they were specialising by default. Of course that is not to say that they never kicked a football or hit a tennis ball!

    So not only is there a psychological and physiological element to talent development there is also a sociological aspect as well – as such the linear nature of LTAD will always struggle to capture the complex non-linear nature of human development.

    My point on early specialisation is this; the 10 year rule begins at the point of specialisation, so regardless whether you specialise early or late a long intensive period of development is always necessary before the highest levels of performance are achieved. As such attrition and the risk of injury may well be just as high regardless of the age specialisation begins. For example I wonder how many late specialisers gave up their pursuit of playing excellence to become a coach because of ‘adult’ commitments and the need for a regular income!? I know I certainly did!

    Just some more thoughts on a really interesting subject,

    Regards
    Graeme

    ReplyDelete
  7. Thanks Graeme.

    As you and I have discussed on Twitter, I look at my own experience in relation to "Becoming an athlete before a golfer." My grandfather was a pro baseball player, so of course, I grew up playing on the Baseball field. About the age of 8, I started playing Basketball, so I played both until 15 or so. Weekly practice jumping, rotating, throwing, catching, running, sprinting, etc...gave me a good athletic foundation. I then picked up a golf club for the first time at 16. It came very easy to me at first and within the first 2 years, I was around a scratch player. I attribute that to my years in BB and BB. In comparison to my other friends, who were mostly Band Nerds with little sports background, the golf motion (combined with sporting instinct) came fairly fast.

    However, as Graeme mentioned, my progress starting slowing when I had other priorities which took more of my time. The "search" for the perfect swing or practice technique also started to consume my golfing mind. This lead me to where I am today, as Andy pointed out, my aim is to coach juniors that type of coaching (and care) that I never got (or asked for) as a youngster.

    The TPI / LTAD is not without flaws and I think we are ahead of the game by realising that fact. However, I really like the model laid out whilst incorporating biological age. Lastly, it's SUPER FUN :-)

    Regards,
    Steven

    ReplyDelete
  8. I think it is somewhere between both theoties. I know Sergio G. since he was little and i can tell you that he has play many sports during his life. If you have been at his home course you would have seen it is a multisport facility. But i can also tell you that he lived next to course and he was there EVERY DAY, and that is a kind of early specialization.

    I think you have to have the combination of both plus the secret ingridient: the love for the game, and you do not get that if you are burnout.

    And about the article, i think you should let the kids decide how they want to play the game, helping them to choose what to practice of course, but giving them the freedom to hit all types of shots, including driver. i think it is esencial to get access to all kind of shots when you are young, the key again is having fun and share it with other kids so the love for the game can grow.

    thank you for the post.

    jose v. perez (jvpgolfcoach)

    ReplyDelete