When the Dragons came to Loughborough

The EGU Christmas Camp has just come to an end. Our U18, A and England Squads together with officials and coaches have spent three very productive days together, once again at Loughborough University. As a bit of a surprise this year, the players were given an opportunity to visit the Dragon’s Den. William Anderson from the Teamworks lead the exercise that started with a workshop on communication and presentation techniques. Players were then split into five groups with five or six in each with the brief to do a pitch do the dragons on an idea that would help the English Golf Union create the best possible environment for young players to develop into major winners. On Saturday night, the Dragons took place in the Den and the presentations begun. I have to say I was really impressed by the way the groups had taken on the challenge and both the ideas and the performances were of a very high quality. It was clear that they had taken on many of the tips delivered the night before. And the ideas? Well, having heard presentations on warm weather training, a system of creating invitations to professional events the Dragons concluded that the EGU Management no doubt was the front runner.

Even though Chris Wood got stuck due to the weather on the way home from holiday and could not make it we had some very inspiring speakers. Dave Ridley did an interview session with Walker Cupers Matt Haines and Chris Paisley and Dan Willet shared some of his experiences from the tour together with John Pates, the sports psychologist and Clare Pheasy got everybody thinking twice before indulging in anything from Pizza Hut. All in all, a great lead up to Christmas!

And now what?

The Ladies European Tour schedule for 2010 just landed in my inbox. I think it is time for many of us to eat some humble pie and take our hat off to the executive of the Ladies Tour in Europe. 27 tournaments are nicely fitted into a well balanced schedule from the end of February all the way through to early December. Ok, some events are still to be confirmed but put the schedule next to the LPGA equivalent with 24 events and it looks pretty impressive. And the LET schedule does not include the majors in the US that the top European players are likely to get into anyhow. The only area where the two schedules still differ is the prize money. Without properly doing the maths I think a good guess is that the average LPGA tournament has somewhere around $1,500,000 in the total purse while the LET equivalent would have something like €300,000 (~$440,000). Considering the on costs are likely to be the same for the players to get to the events, that means the conditions are quite different for the average member of the respective tours. The premier events om the LET are substantially bigger though and can well compete with their american counterparts. Obviously, this is why those events usually see quite an influence of LPGA players in their fields.

The two major tours on the men’s side, the PGA tour and the European Tour, have also presented their schedules. As usual there is golf just about every week for those interested in playing (and watching). In light of the recent happenings with the World no 1 obvious speculation is now taking place as to what will happen with the prize money, when Tiger is not there. Graeme McDowell said it well when he said that he and his colleagues have been lucky to play in the same era as Woods. At least when it comes to their bank accounts. I remember a few years ago when I spoke to an executive of a big sponsor in golf. He said his company had left the men’s game in favour of the women’s for two reasons: 1) The money was much smaller and therefore easier to justify and 2) the women were so much nicer to be around than the men.

The difference now is that golf is in a much more challenging position overall. But I do have a feeling that the executives thinking about putting some of their marketing budget into golf might think twice before they rule out the women’s game.

Double working

I read a note about Michelle Wie just recently. Having more or less just landed in Dubai for the Dubai Ladies Masters she came off the longest flight she had ever taken, San Fransisco – Dubai, to let everybody know that “it had all been amazing and she had loved everything so far”. Then she went on to talk about how she had only had three hours of sleep the night before due to her studies in media and communications. I would say this young woman deserves some credit. How many young boys or girls with her talent and potential would still be in school? Many with a lot lesser possibilities lined up for them leave school many years before 20. Will Michelle Wie become a better golfer because she is still in school? I have no idea. Will she have a richer life? Guaranteed!

I have just posted December’s Monthly letter so if you are interested in it, check out the Monthly section on the right!

Back again

It has been a week of being “back again”. For me it was back to Arcos Gardens and three very productive days with the coaches of England Golf. For others it was back to school, this time the Qualifying School of the European Tour. Every time I look at the starting list of the Tour Qualifying I am surprised by the number of very familiar names. This year the leaderboard looked like it was taken straight from a main tour event.

At Arcos Gardnes it was, as always when these people get together, an environment of sharing and learning. John Jacobs took us through how he uses technology and the wonderful world of the internet in his coaching and I think it is fair to say that we all now know a lot more about websites and tools that we did not know existed. Graham Walker followed that by talking about the needs for England players in terms of the skills they need to be able to compete at the highest level. In a way a very suitable topic on a week where reality is very close – have the players got the skills to get through Q-school? Paul Ashwell presented his theories on putting, David Ridley and Gary Smith shared their ideas on coaching on the golf course before it was time for the Masters Chefs to prepare the dinner for the night. The following day held a great technical debate on the driving range and an introduction to how to use the Zenio putting system. As I leave Arcos I am once again amazed bz the amount of knowledge in a group like this and the kind of environment that is created when the knowledge is shared. Great stuff!

The other thing that I cannot help wondering is what would have happened if those players that now did not make it through Tour School and perhaps not even made their Challenge Tour card would have had a chance to continue to tap into this knowledge. What if we had said that professionals are those that play for a living and have a Challenge Tour card or higher. The rest are just golfers and are welcome to compete for their county. What a different world it would be!

A sense of the Olympics

Team England in the World Cup

Two rounds have been played in this year’s World Cup of Golf out in Mission Hills, China. The Irish Team with Rory McIlroy and Graham McDowell have taken the lead in front of the defending champions, Stenson and Karlsson from Sweden. England with Ross Fisher and Ian Poulter are steady going, so far in 6th place. Team USA with Nick Watney and John Merrick are way down the list which I guess is not all that surprising considering that most of the American players would rather be at home celebrating Thanksgiving than out in China representing their country. Hat off to Watney and Merrick for at least making the journey.

I could not help smiling when I saw the logo for this year’s World Cup. A well designed player with all the flags, the trophy and then the punch line – “For the honour”. A bit of wishful thinking there I think but it would be great if that was true. Is it not time now, in light of the Olympics, to really do something with this event? Two players per country, or more if they are all top 15 in the World, will be competing in the Olympic Games in 2016. We have six years and another five World Cups to sort this out. Had it not been for the time of the year, the venue (Mission Hills every year for the foreseeable future!) and the lack of national involvement the World Cup could have been a great build up to the Olympics. For the honour – anyone?

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!