A lesson in fair play

Was I too hard on Thierry Henry? Maybe. Or perhaps it was thanks to the night’s sleep that he, the day after the match against Ireland, said the match should be replayed. Or was he safe knowing that it probably would never happen? Arsene Wenger of course got it right when he said that we have to understand that the pressure on Henry is enormous. Wenger also said that Henry deserves the support from the French Football Federation, meaning that they ought to ask for a replay of the match.

I remember something that affected me quite strongly a long time ago. In 1982 Mats Wilander at the age of 17 had made it to the seem final of the French Open in tennis. I was 12 and I remember watching Mats play a really exciting match, which Google tells me was against Jose Luis Clerc. Mats had Clerc right where he wanted him and when the referee deemed Clercs ball outside the line Wilander was in the final. At least I thought so. Whether the ball actually was out was unclear though and Mats asked for the ball to be replayed. Mats won the replay and went on to win the final which made him the youngest ever winner of the French Open.

With this in mind, it is incredible to me that when the request came from the Irish to replay the match, the French Football Federation said no. Isn’t it fascinating that a 17 year old boy playing tennis could have more integrity than France?

What is he thinking?

Last night football and a lot of the people connected with it lost their integrity once and for all. It was a sad night at Stade de France in Paris where Thierry Henry qualified in the same group of cheaters as Maradona entered much in the same way in 1986. Not only once but twice Henry handball his way to the pass that paved the way for France’s 1-1 goal against the Republic of Ireland. Of course it is incredible that none of the referees saw it but it is even more incredible that Henry can stand himself.

After this it will be difficult for those in the game tasked with going out to schools and youth clubs to talk about fair play and sportsmanship. The message is loud and clear – Football is not about what is right or wrong. Whatever the referee does not see is allowed. Imagine what that would be like outside the pitch – whatever the police does not see is perfectly fine?

No, if integrity is something we value and would like to teach I know another sport where this still exists. Two England players competed out in Argentina last week. The rules were slightly different from what they were used to and after the round one of them were confronted with having done wrong. He admitted and was subsequently disqualified. It could have stopped there and still be a good story. Even better was that the other player realised that he had done the same mistake. What he did? As he had signed and handed in his card already, he disqualified himself!

Imagine what a society based on such values would be like!

Working together

I have just returned after a couple of days in Spain. On the Wednesday I was invited to speak at the Professional Golfers Association of Europe’s annual Professional Golf Forum in Murcia. This year the forum was held in co-operation with the European Golf Association and the European Tour and stretched out to both PGAs and Federations/Unions across Europe. This is an initiative that is worth a big round of applause. It does make a whole lot of sense that organisations that try to develop coaches (PGAs) and those whose job it is to educate the players (Federations/Unions) get together to discuss the what, how, when and where of coaching together with the, a bit further down the road, beneficiary (the European Tour).

It was in many ways a very interesting conference. For a few years now the PGA of Europe has had a punch line – ‘Working together’. I cannot help wondering what that actually means but after this week I am guessing that it most of all means that PGA organisations across countries are working together. The idea of this conference I think was to show how PGAs work together with their respective Unions/Federations. How that went? I am not sure…

Towards the end of the first day there was an interview with Peter Dawson from the Royal & Ancient about the return of golf on the Olympic programme. One of the things Peter said was that in terms of organisation golf is not really yet ready for the Olympics. We will be, he said, in 2016 but there is a lot of work that now need to go into this. I think that could be said more than once and it will be very interesting to follow how the different countries will meet this. Interestingly enough, there is no doubt that the smaller countries without the historical backpack will have an easier job getting their house in order!

Outliers

I picked up a new book today. One that I have had my eyes on for some time but not yet come around to reading. Outliers, by Malcolm Gladwell.  An “Outlier”, according to Gladwell, is a scientific term to describe things or phenomena that lie outside normal experience. This can for example be people who perform tasks or roles that lie way outside what most of us can comprehend, such as a World Class athlete in a sport. In the first chapter Gladwell hits me with what I kind of already know, but never really would like to admit. He has looked into the background of the most successful players on high performing teams, in the league as well as nationally in a few different sports and a number of different countries. Without a shadow of a doubt he manages to show that what we believe is somebody that has made it to where he or she is thanks to talent, hard work and ambition is actually something completely different. Why would there otherwise be such a huge over representation of people born early in the year in these teams? Gladwell argues that in fact what we see is a classic example of a self-fulfilling prophecy. We pick athletes at an early age because they are better than their peers. More often than not though the reason to why they are better is simple that they are older (=born nearer the cut off date for the applicable age) and therefore more developed. Once these youngsters are picked they are given more opportunities, better coaching and more resources and guess what happens? They leave their peers behind and what we thought was going to be the case is now a reality.

That is some pretty serious stuff to chew. Facts are though that in most sports, as well as in education, we disqualify people because of the time of the year in which they are born. What a waste of talent that is!

An old man in a hat

Yesterday was probably quite a unique day. 17 England Coaches spent a full day with John Jacobs down at Bramshaw Golf Club. I had organised the day to give everybody the chance to spend some time with one of golf’s true legends, one whose knowledge and experience is more or less uncomparable.

John Jacobs with the England coaches

A few hours in the company of John go by quickly and his enthusiasm cannot be mistaken for. At 84 he is still as eager as ever before to see a new pupil in order to give a new diagnosis. In a way I guess he could be the father of all distance learning and coaching methods. He just did it in a slightly different way;
‘If you ever get into trouble again, give me a ring. But don’t tell me what you think you might be doing. I do not want to hear that. Tell me what the ball does. That is all I want to know.’
John’s forte of fixing people quickly, as opposed to providing quick fixes, is amasing and towards the end of the day when John’s back is starting to give way, it is us and not him that have to say that maybe we have had enough for today.

For those interested – there is a new Peter’s Monthly under that section. The October edition is out!

Golf entering a new era

I guess it had to happen. Golf has had its first case of violation of its doping policy. It feels a bit like the early stages of the swine flu.

“Is it a confirmed case?”

“We do not know yet sir?”

“Please analyse the tests a.s.a.p and let me know!”.

When Doug Barron became the first golfer to cross this line it was not a case of a podium athlete being stopped on the way to the medal ceremony. Barron has not exactly featured on the leaderboards over the last few years. It makes you wonder what he has taken. I was one of the people who could not really understand why it had to take golf so long to adopt a doping policy. To me it seemed a bit like the ostrich burying its head in the sand to just say that doping is not an issue in golf. Now we have a policy but yet it seems like the powers have chosen to do the head burying again. The PGA Tour say they will not let anybody know what Barron had taken. One cannot help to wonder why.

Behind the scenes

A couple of days ago I spent some time with a very successful coach from another sport whose job is now to support a variety of different sports. It was no surprise that we came to talk about the process of reviewing performance and how we find out what to work on in order to improve this performance. Everytime I speak to anybody from another sport about this I get this feeling that we golfers just have not thought this through. It is not that we do not try. Lessons with coaches, scorecards and statistical analysis software are all valuable tools in finding the key to improvement. But when you see things like the combination of video and computer analysis (http://www.prozonesports.com/index.html) used in team sports and the kind of information that can come out of that you go – oh, maybe we are not that advanced after all.

One big issue in golf is how to capture performance. Stats in golf is often thought to be the ‘be all and end all’ when it comes to recording performance. Some methods certainly are a lot better than others but the problem for all of them is that they are only descriptive – they will only tell what happened and not why and under which conditions. That is what the video does in football.

When we video in golf we tend to do it of the golf swing, a tiny little part of the performance. What we should be spending a lot more time on is capturing the whole performance, i.e. I) what were the tactics (course management) like? II) what made you make the decisions you made? III) would you make the same decision again, and if not what would be a better one? IV) did you execute your decision in the way you wanted, and if not how would you change? V) were there any correct decisions that you could not execute, i.e. are there technical limitations that you could do with working on?

In all of these questions feedback is needed to improve. Where can we get the feedback? Well, if your coach is not there then the only way will have to be to get somebody to carry a video camera and follow every shot. And in today’s day and age – that is actually not that difficult!

Winning – doesn’t happen in a straight line

Castellon Masters on the European Tour and an old winner is back again. Michael Jonzon last won in 1997 and was rapidly heading towards Q-school following this year after a season without much to call home about. But along came Sergio Garcia’s tournament, the last one Michael would get in to for the year and – Bam! He is a winner again.

Michael is not the first one, nor will he be the last one to go through something like this. One question that needs asking though is what happened between 1997 and 2009? Very few players that have just won would slow down or not want to go on to greater things. Quite common instead is that they try even harder and put more effort into their improvement. The big question though is whether they do the right thing.

Very often the quest for becoming a better player would involve some sort of technical intervention. Sometimes it is almost a complete re-design of the golf swing that has just won. The idea is obviously to come out on the other side, better than what you were going in. Does that happen? Sometimes perhaps. Is Michael Jonzon a better player 2009 than 1997? Quite possibly. Is he better than what he could have been with a different strategy? Well, there is the million dollar question!

Meeting with a Pro

I have been to Worksop today. In many ways this was quite an experience. A not very big town, somewhere in the middle of the country, with a golf course that is bound to surprise you because it is actually really good. Worksop is, and have always been, home to the World number 5 and newly crowned Portugal Masters Champion Lee Westwood. Today Lee’s challenge was of a different sort as he took on the England squad around the 18 holes at his home club. Lee was kind enough to spend a day with the players that are hoping to one day challenge him for real and it was a day with a true professional these guys got to experience.

He could have chosen to arrive just in time for tee off and he could have just fiddled around the 18 holes without any real effort. The England players would still have loved the opportunity to spend time with a true World Class player. But Lee did not. Over an hour before tee off Lee arrives dressed as if he was out for a day with his most important sponsor and with golf shoes shiny as a newly cleaned window. After a quick introduction with the guys he was off to the driving range for a proper warm up. On the first tee it was Lee that asked what the game was. During the round he was the one shouting “how many under are you guys?” across the fairway. He was not going to give any shots away.

When the day came to an end nine England players had had an experience that money could not have bought them. They had fired numerous questions at somebody who was more than happy to answer and share his experience and the knowledge that he has worked so hard to gain over the years. I wonder how many thousands of pounds Lee actually gave to the English Golf Union today in terms of his time? What I do know is that paying for it would have broken our budget in a heartbeat!

And who won? Well not even the World number 5 could catch Matt Nixon’s 7 under!

Tough day at the office

Imagine you are having a bit of a tough time at work. Perhaps the year has not gone as you hoped for and perhaps you have been a bit out of form. At work your boss has come up with the brilliant idea to produce a ranking of the employees and towards the bottom of this list, just where the boss thinks the number of employees in the company for next year is about right, there is a cut line. Rank below this and you will have to compete for your place in the company with a number of hopefuls that have just come out of university. If these are the facts you face then your employer is probably the European Tour or the PGA Tour (or perhaps the Ladies European or the LPGA tour).

When Ross McGowan (below) won his maiden victory on the European Tour his England team mate from the 2006 World Amateur, Oliver Fisher, made a bit of a mover back towards his old good form. Oliver has had a tough year and in his third year on tour he currently sits just below that dreaded cut line. Another good week last week, when Lee Westwood so handsomely won out in Portugal, lifted him to 125 on the ranking list and now the rest is completely up to him. One more tournament to go in Spain before the tour heads out east and Oliver may not get another start after that. One of the challenges in golf is that it is very difficult to forecast what you need to do. In a lot of other sports you would know that winning would give you three points and unless the team you are chasing don’t do the same you are catching up. In golf there are 150 players in the field, everyone is after a share of the purse and hence you more or less need to be a mathematician to understand what you need to do. Or perhaps that is a good thing. All you can focus on is what you can do yourself. Stick your head down and do it!