Opinion & Analysis

The biggest influence on your child’s development in sports

Published

5 years ago

Nov 21, 2018

If you had the answer to youth development, you would have a very busy calendar. But joking aside, no one holds the golden ticket. The development of children is multi-faceted, diverse, and certainly does not follow a linear pattern; but what is possibly the most important factor to consider in your junior program?

Forget the grip, length of swing, or throwing skills. Social aspects are arguably the greatest influence on youth development and actually underpin everything we do. More worryingly, they have often been dismissed and unaccounted for in widely used participant development models, such as the Long Term Athlete Development (LTAD) model.

So, what social aspects may be affecting children on your program?

Family

Parents are the bulk of this category and can often, but not always, act as role models whilst providing access and opportunity for children. On the reverse, parents can be can harmful and grouped into

the uninterested parent, who is never present
the overcritical parent, who is never satisfied
the yelling from the sideline parent, who often shouts louder than the coaches
the parent who coaches, who often contradicts the coach
the over-concerned parent, who is afraid of the dangers of sport and threatens to remove their child.

Do any of the children enrolled on your programs have parents that sound like the above? And how could this be affecting their performance and development?

It may also be worth mentioning at this point that siblings also play a huge part in development for obvious reasons related to motivation and role models. Have you ever wondered why it is so common for the youngest sibling to be the best goalkeeper? Is this luck? Another classic is children turning up late for sessions: this is obviously completely out of their control and coaches should not single out or highlight the fact that a particular child is late. The late child often wanders in with their head down, embarrassed about the fact they are turning up late.

Finally, has a recent divorce or family death affected a child in your Saturday morning class? The reason for their quietness and ‘uninterested look’ may in fact be stemming from a much deeper root. And to not pick this child for a team or to single him out for not being interested would be a disaster move at this point!

Socioeconomics

These are closely linked to parents and are quite simply financial factors. The cost of memberships, transport, equipment and time can often be a barrier for children. Can the family afford to pay for practice buckets out of sessions? And how could this be affecting a child’s development? Furthermore, should a child who hasn’t been practicing be inadvertently singled out when the reason for not practicing may often be totally out of their control? Again, how can we as coaches best handle these situations?

From a slightly different angle, how does the child in the group who has ‘hand me down’ clubs and an old scruffy bag feel? And how does the fact all the other children have brand new shiny clubs make them feel? More importantly, how can we as coaches make that child feel at ease?

Schooling/education

The guy that Henry sits next to on his first day of high school could quite possibly shape his future. The influence of peer groups is a huge factor in how attitudes, interests and ultimately behaviors are developed. Furthermore, the friendships developed at golf sessions could be pivotal in future development. What are we doing as coaches to create the best possible social environment for our players?

Additionally, the provision of sport varies across schools and can limit opportunities for different groups of children. This is totally out of a coach’s control but must be acknowledged. The popular named fundamental movement skills can heavily be influenced by the amount of school sport experienced; are children being dismissed from ‘talent ID’ programs for a lack of fundamental movement skills? And is this purely down to a lack of opportunity to develop these skills?

Finally, relative age effect has been shown to play an important role in youth sport and relates to the birth month of school children. Children born close to the start of the academic year (September in the UK) are often selected for school teams as opposed to children in the same year group that are nine months younger (born in Spring/Summer of the following year). The reason for being selected is often only because these children are bigger and stronger so therefore ‘suit’ the team better. So much for little Billy who loves the game but just gets “out muscled” by the big kids! (is this just bad luck?).

How can we tackle these issues?

Of course, we cannot hand out questionnaires to children and parents demanding fine details about their personal lives, however a big part of this puzzle does lie in TALKING to children and parents.

Talking to children/parents during a session about more than their grip or posture is invaluable for everyone involved.

For starters, these chats will help you build relationships with the children, a vital component of Self Determination Theory which is linked heavily to lifelong participation.
You will start to gather important information about the child. It is surprising what you may find out, but this is not nosey! Discovering that a child is being picked on at school may in fact be the most important thing that child has ever told you. And can for sure help you in how you behave and interact with that child.
Some of the most useful sessions are the ones spent talking for over half the time with the parents. Finding out what is going on in a child’s life could play a pivotal role in how you interact with different children.
Also, spending time with parents educating them is just as important. Let them know your plans/views. Pushy parents are the evil in youth sport but education can help them change their approach. Imagine if you could change the car journey home conversation from, “Why did you miss that putt?” to, “Did you enjoy that today? I love watching you play!”

Summary of points

Whilst participation development models that acknowledge physical, technical, and other assets do hold great value, a model that completely disregards any social aspects of development has to be questioned. Below are the important take home points

Social aspects underpin everything we do and an acknowledgement of unique social situations is paramount in youth development
Luck can often play a huge part in youth development
Children should not be judged or selected based upon something that is out of their control.
Be aware of relative age effect/biological age…..(but, do not make it your priority as neurological age is more important than biological age!!
Talking to parents and children is the key catalyst to bridging the gap between development and social issues.
The relationships we develop with children are critical to motivations and lifelong participation.

Reference

Bailey, R; Collins, D; Ford, P; MacNamara, A; Toms, M; and Pearce, G. (2010). Participant Development in Sport: An academic review.

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Instruction

The Wedge Guy: The easiest-to-learn golf basic

Published

1 week ago

Mar 29, 2024

Terry Koehler

My golf learning began with this simple fact – if you don’t have a fundamentally sound hold on the golf club, it is practically impossible for your body to execute a fundamentally sound golf swing. I’m still a big believer that the golf swing is much easier to execute if you begin with the proper hold on the club.

As you might imagine, I come into contact with hundreds of golfers of all skill levels. And it is very rare to see a good player with a bad hold on the golf club. There are some exceptions, for sure, but they are very few and very far between, and they typically have beat so many balls with their poor grip that they’ve found a way to work around it.

The reality of biophysics is that the body moves only in certain ways – and the particulars of the way you hold the golf club can totally prevent a sound swing motion that allows the club to release properly through the impact zone. The wonderful thing is that anyone can learn how to put a fundamentally sound hold on the golf club, and you can practice it anywhere your hands are not otherwise engaged, like watching TV or just sitting and relaxing.

Whether you prefer an overlap, interlock or full-finger (not baseball!) grip on the club, the same fundamentals apply. Here are the major grip faults I see most often, in the order of the frequency:

Mis-aligned hands

By this I mean that the palms of the two hands are not parallel to each other. Too many golfers have a weak left hand and strong right, or vice versa. The easiest way to learn how to hold the club with your palms aligned properly is to grip a plain wooden ruler or yardstick. It forces the hands to align properly and shows you how that feels. If you grip and re-grip a yardstick several times, then grip a club, you’ll see that the learning curve is almost immediate.

The position of the grip in the upper/left hand

I also observe many golfers who have the butt of the grip too far into the heel pad of the upper hand (the left hand for right-handed players). It’s amazing how much easier it is to release the club through the ball if even 1/4-1/2″ of the butt is beyond the left heel pad. Try this yourself to see what I mean. Swing the club freely with just your left hand and notice the difference in its release from when you hold it at the end of the grip, versus gripping down even a half inch.

To help you really understand how this works, go to the range and hit shots with your five-iron gripped down a full inch to make the club the same length as your seven-iron. You will probably see an amazing shot shape difference, and likely not see as much distance loss as you would expect.

Too much lower (right) hand on the club

It seems like almost all golfers of 8-10 handicap or higher have the club too far into the palm of the lower hand, because that feels “good” if you are trying to control the path of the clubhead to the ball. But the golf swing is not an effort to hit at the ball – it is a swing of the club. The proper hold on the club has the grip underneath the pad at the base of the fingers. This will likely feel “weak” to you — like you cannot control the club like that. EXACTLY. You should not be trying to control the club with your lower/master hand.

Gripping too tightly

Nearly all golfers hold the club too tightly, which tenses up the forearms and prevents a proper release of the club through impact. In order for the club to move back and through properly, you must feel that the club is controlled by the last three fingers of the upper hand, and the middle two fingers of the lower hand. If you engage your thumbs and forefingers in “holding” the club, the result will almost always be a grip that is too tight. Try this for yourself. Hold the club in your upper hand only, and squeeze firmly with just the last three fingers, with the forefinger and thumb off the club entirely. You have good control, but your forearms are not tense. Then begin to squeeze down with your thumb and forefinger and observe the tensing of the entire forearm. This is the way we are made, so the key to preventing tenseness in the arms is to hold the club very lightly with the “pinchers” — the thumbs and forefingers.

So, those are what I believe are the four fundamentals of a good grip. Anyone can learn them in their home or office very quickly. There is no easier way to improve your ball striking consistency and add distance than giving more attention to the way you hold the golf club.

Vincenzi’s 2024 Texas Children’s Houston Open betting preview

Published

2 weeks ago

Mar 26, 2024

Matt Vincenzi

As the Florida swing comes to an end, the PGA Tour makes its way to Houston to play the Texas Children’s Houston Open at Memorial Park Golf Course.

This will be the fourth year that Memorial Park Golf Course will serve as the tournament host. The event did not take place in 2023, but the course hosted the event in 2020, 2021 and 2022.

Memorial Park is a par-70 layout measuring 7,432 yards and features Bermudagrass greens. Historically, the main defense for the course has been thick rough along the fairways and tightly mown runoff areas around the greens. Memorial Park has a unique setup that features three Par 5’s and five Par 3’s.

The field will consist of 132 players, with the top 65 and ties making the cut. There are some big names making the trip to Houston, including Scottie Scheffler, Wyndham Clark, Tony Finau, Will Zalatoris and Sahith Theegala.

Past Winners at Memorial Park

2022: Tony Finau (-16)
2021: Jason Kokrak (-10)
2020: Carlos Ortiz (-13)

In this article and going forward, I’ll be using the Rabbit Hole by Betsperts Golf data engine to develop my custom model. If you want to build your own model or check out all of the detailed stats, you can sign up using promo code: MATTVIN for 25% off any subscription package (yearly is best value).

Key Stats For Memorial Park

Let’s take a look at several metrics for Memorial Park to determine which golfers boast top marks in each category over their last 24 rounds:

Strokes Gained: Approach

Memorial Park is a pretty tough golf course. Golfers are penalized for missing greens and face some difficult up and downs to save par. Approach will be key.

Total Strokes Gained: Approach per round in past 24 rounds:

Tom Hoge (+1.30)
Scottie Scheffler (+1.26)
Keith Mitchell (+0.97)
Tony Finau (+0.92)
Jake Knapp (+0.84)

Strokes Gained: Off the Tee

Memorial Park is a long golf course with rough that can be penal. Therefore, a combination of distance and accuracy is the best metric.

Total Strokes Gained: Off the Tee per round in past 24 rounds:

Scottie Scheffler (+0.94)
Kevin Dougherty (+0.93)
Cameron Champ (+0.86)
Rafael Campos (+0.84)
Si Woo Kim (+0.70)

Strokes Gained Putting: Bermudagrass + Fast

The Bermudagrass greens played fairly fast the past few years in Houston. Jason Kokrak gained 8.7 strokes putting on his way to victory in 2021 and Tony Finau gained in 7.8 in 2022.

Total Strokes Gained Putting (Bermudagrass) per round past 24 rounds (min. 8 rounds):

Adam Svensson (+1.27)
Harry Hall (+1.01)
Martin Trainer (+0.94)
Taylor Montgomery (+0.88)
S.H. Kim (+0.86)

Strokes Gained: Around the Green

With firm and undulating putting surfaces, holding the green on approach shots may prove to be a challenge. Memorial Park has many tightly mowed runoff areas, so golfers will have challenging up-and-down’s around the greens. Carlos Ortiz gained 5.7 strokes around the green on the way to victory in 2020.

Total Strokes Gained: Around the Green per round in past 24 rounds:

Mackenzie Hughes (+0.76)
S.H. Kim (+0.68)
Scottie Scheffler (+0.64)
Jorge Campillo (+0.62)
Jason Day (+0.60)

Strokes Gained: Long and Difficult

Memorial Park is a long and difficult golf course. This statistic will incorporate players who’ve had success on these types of tracks in the past.

Total Strokes Gained: Long and Difficult in past 24 rounds:

Scottie Scheffler (+2.45)
Ben Griffin (+1.75)
Will Zalatoris (+1.73)
Ben Taylor (+1.53)
Tony Finau (+1.42)

Course History

Here are the players who have performed the most consistently at Memorial Park.

Strokes Gained Total at Memorial Park past 12 rounds:

Tyson Alexander (+3.65)
Ben Taylor (+3.40)
Tony Finau (+2.37)
Joel Dahmen (+2.25)
Patton Kizzire (+2.16)

Statistical Model

Below, I’ve reported overall model rankings using a combination of the five key statistical categories previously discussed.

These rankings are comprised of SG: App (24%) SG: OTT (24%); SG: Putting Bermudagrass/Fast (13%); SG: Long and Difficult (13%); SG: ARG (13%) and Course History (13%)

Scottie Scheffler
Wyndham Clark
Tony Finau
Joel Dahmen
Stephan Jaeger
Aaron Rai
Sahith Theegala
Keith Mitchell
Jhonnatan Vegas
Jason Day
Kurt Kitayama
Alex Noren
Will Zalatoris
Si Woo Kim
Adam Long

2024 Texas Children’s Houston Open Picks

Will Zalatoris +2000 (Caesars)

Scottie Scheffler will undoubtedly be difficult to beat this week, so I’m starting my card with someone who I believe has the talent to beat him if he doesn’t have his best stuff.

Will Zalatoris missed the cut at the PLAYERS, but still managed to gain strokes on approach while doing so. In an unpredictable event with extreme variance, I don’t believe it would be wise to discount Zalatoris based on that performance. Prior to The PLAYERS, the 27-year-old finished T13, T2 and T4 in his previous three starts.

Zalatoris plays his best golf on long and difficult golf courses. In his past 24 rounds, he ranks 3rd in the category, but the eye test also tells a similar story. He’s contended at major championships and elevated events in the best of fields with tough scoring conditions. The Texas resident should be a perfect fit at Memorial Park Golf Club.

Alex Noren +4500 (FanDuel)

Alex Noren has been quietly playing some of his best golf of the last half decade this season. The 41-year-old is coming off back-to-back top-20 finishes in Florida including a T9 at The PLAYERS in his most recent start.

In his past 24 rounds, Noren ranks 21st in the field in Strokes Gained: Off the Tee, 30th in Strokes Gained: Around the Green, 25th in Strokes Gained: Total on long and difficult courses and 21st in Strokes Gained: Putting on fast Bermudagrass greens.

In addition to his strong recent play, the Swede also has played well at Memorial Park. In 2022, Noren finished T4 at the event, gaining 2.2 strokes off the tee and 7.0 strokes on approach for the week. In his two starts at the course, he’s gained an average of .6 strokes per round on the field, indicating he is comfortable on these greens.

Noren has been due for a win for what feels like an eternity, but Memorial Park may be the course that suits him well enough for him to finally get his elusive first PGA Tour victory.

Mackenzie Hughes +8000 (FanDuel)

Mackenzie Hughes found himself deep into contention at last week’s Valspar Championship before faltering late and finishing in a tie for 3rd place. While he would have loved to win the event, it’s hard to see the performance as anything other than an overwhelming positive sign for the Canadian.

Hughes has played great golf at Memorial Park in the past. He finished T7 in 2020, T29 in 2021 and T16 in 2022. The course fit seems to be quite strong for Hughes. He’s added distance off the tee in the past year or and ranks 8th in the field for apex height, which will be a key factor when hitting into Memorial Park’s elevated greens with steep run-off areas.

In his past 24 rounds, Hughes is the best player in the field in Strokes Gained: Around the Greens. The ability to scramble at this course will be extremely important. I believe Hughes can build off of his strong finish last week and contend once again to cement himself as a President’s Cup consideration.

Akshay Bhatia +8000 (FanDuel)

Akshay Bhatia played well last week at the Valspar and seemed to be in total control of his golf ball. He finished in a tie for 17th and shot an impressive -3 on a difficult Sunday. After struggling Thursday, Akshay shot 68-70-68 in his next three rounds.

Thus far, Bhatia has played better at easier courses, but his success at Copperhead may be due to his game maturing. The 22-year-old has enormous potential and the raw talent to be one of the best players in the world when he figures it all out.

Bhatia is a high upside play with superstar qualities and may just take the leap forward to the next stage of his career in the coming months.

Cameron Champ +12000 (FanDuel)

Cameron Champ is a player I often target in the outright betting market due to his “boom-or-bust” nature. It’s hard to think of a player in recent history with three PGA Tour wins who’s been as inconsistent as Champ has over the course of his career.

Despite the erratic play, Cam Champ simply knows how to win. He’s won in 2018, 2019 and 2021, so I feel he’s due for a win at some point this season. The former Texas A&M product should be comfortable in Texas and last week he showed us that his game is in a pretty decent spot.

Over his past 24 rounds, Champ ranks 3rd in Strokes Gained: Off the Tee and 30th in Strokes Gained: Total on long and difficult courses. Given his ability to spike at any given time, Memorial Park is a good golf course to target Champ on at triple digit odds.

Robert MacIntyre +12000 (FanDuel)

The challenge this week is finding players who can possibly beat Scottie Scheffler while also not dumping an enormous amount of money into an event that has a player at the top that looks extremely dangerous. Enter McIntyre, who’s another boom-or-bust type player who has the ceiling to compete with anyone when his game is clicking on all cylinders.

In his past 24 rounds, MacIntyre ranks 16th in the field in Strokes Gained: Off the Tee, 17th in Strokes Gained: Around the Green and 10th in Strokes Gained: Total on long and difficult courses.

MacIntyre’s PGA Tour season has gotten off to a slow start, but he finished T6 in Mexico, which is a course where players will hit driver on the majority of their tee shots, which is what we will see at Memorial Park. Texas can also get quite windy, which should suit MacIntyre. Last July, the Scot went toe to toe with Rory McIlroy at the Scottish Open before a narrow defeat. It would take a similar heroic effort to compete with Scheffler this year in Houston.

Ryan Moore +15000 (FanDuel)

Ryan Moore’s iron play has been absolutely unconscious over his past few starts. At The PLAYERS Championship in a loaded field, he gained 6.1 strokes on approach and last week at Copperhead, he gained 9.0 strokes on approach.

It’s been a rough handful of years on Tour for the 41-year-old, but he is still a five-time winner on the PGA Tour who’s young enough for a career resurgence. Moore has chronic deterioration in a costovertebral joint that connects the rib to the spine, but has been getting more consistent of late, which is hopefully a sign that he is getting healthy.

Veterans have been contending in 2024 and I believe taking a flier on a proven Tour play who’s shown signs of life is a wise move at Memorial Park.

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Opinion & Analysis

Ryan: Why the race to get better at golf might be doing more harm than good

Published

2 weeks ago

Mar 22, 2024

Brendan Ryan

B.F. Skinner was one of the most important psychologists of the 20th century, developing the foundation of the development of reinforcement, and in doing so, creating the concept of behaviorism. In simple terms, this means that we are conditioned by our habits. In practical terms, it explains the divide between the few and far between elite instructors and college coaches.

To understand the application, let’s quickly review one of B.F. Skinner’s most important experiments; superstitions in the formation of behavior by pigeons. In this experiment, food was dispensed to pigeons at random intervals. Soon, according to Skinner, the pigeons began to associate whatever action they were doing at the time of the food being dispensed. According to Skinner, this conditioned that response and soon, they simply haphazardly repeated the action, failing to distinguish between cause and correlation (and in the meantime, looking really funny!).

Now, this is simply the best way to describe the actions of most every women’s college golf coach and too many instructors in America. They see something work, get positive feedback and then become conditioned to give the feedback, more and more, regardless of if it works (this is also why tips from your buddies never work!).

Go to a college event, particularly a women’s one, and you will see coaches running all over the place. Like the pigeons in the experiment, they have been conditioned into a codependent relationship with their players in which they believe their words and actions, can transform a round of golf. It is simply hilarious while being equally perturbing

In junior golf, it’s everywhere. Junior golf academies make a living selling parents that a hysterical coach and over-coaching are essential ingredients in your child’s success.

Let’s be clear, no one of any intellect has any real interest in golf — because it’s not that interesting. The people left, including most coaches and instructors, carve out a small fiefdom, usually on the corner of the range, where they use the illusion of competency to pray on people. In simple terms, they baffle people with the bullshit of pseudo-science that they can make you better, after just one more lesson.

The reality is that life is an impromptu game. The world of golf, business, and school have a message that the goal is being right. This, of course, is bad advice, being right in your own mind is easy, trying to push your ideas on others is hard. As a result, it is not surprising that the divorce rate among golf professionals and their instructors is 100 percent. The transfer rate among college players continues to soar, and too many courses have a guy peddling nefarious science to good people. In fact, we do at my course!

The question is, what impact does all this have on college-age and younger kids? At this point, we honestly don’t know. However, I am going to go out on a limb and say it isn’t good.

Soren Kierkegaard once quipped “I saw it for what it is, and I laughed.” The actions of most coaches and instructors in America are laughable. The problem is that I am not laughing because they are doing damage to kids, as well as driving good people away from this game.

The fact is that golfers don’t need more tips, secrets, or lessons. They need to be presented with a better understanding of the key elements of golf. With this understanding, they can then start to frame which information makes sense and what doesn’t. This will emancipate them and allow them to take charge of their own development.

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