"Act Without Expectation"
-Lau Tzu
I’ve been coaching some junior golfers pretty seriously the past few months. I’m faced with the ever important question. How do you blend good coaching to an already talented and accomplished player? The player has aspirations to be the best and so seeks out someone that can help get them there and guide them along the way. The parents want to build a team around the player so he or she has all the tools. From experience, I can tell you it is a fine line. A player learns to play the game with limited instruction and coaching. They tee it up and go play the game, a beautiful thing. There are things though that could be better, could make them smarter on the course and a more efficient player. Things that could help them make less mistakes and hence lower scores. The flip side to that is a player can start thinking too much. They can lose the innocence of playing the game.
What I have learned from observing and watching a lot of junior golf this year is that less is always more, even if you’re an adult. Good coaching doesn’t always mean coaching. Good coaching means quietly watching and making comments at the right time. Players have to play; they hit the golf shots and hole the putts. We aren’t robots. We are creative beings. There is an art to playing great golf. Hard work on short game, wedge game and putting can always be done. Persistence in these areas is always the answer. It really is a simple process. Stay patient and be creative. Always stay positive and expect good things to happen. Have great body language; pretend you are on stage performing for an audience and use the example of Michael Jordan. He used to say that he would not allow himself to take a night off. There were plenty of nights where he was tired or down and felt low on energy. You want to know what forced him to give his best effort. He said that there might be someone in the stands that had not seen him play. It might be the only time they every saw him play live and he was going to give them the best Michael Jordan. He was going to play with passion and do all the things he could do to help his team win and be Mike as the commercials used to say “Be like Mike!” As we chug along the tracks of life it is important to take a step back and reflect on what we have learned. Coaching is much the same. We can have our philosophies on what we feel is the correct way to do something. What I have learned is the best coaches are able to keep their overall philosophy but adapt it to new things learned and shape it for the uniqueness of the player. Remember that less is more especially in an already gifted athlete. Giving too much instruction can ruin the natural flow they exhibit when competing. As coaches we want to bring out their strengths and help them find a way to minimize their deficiencies. Always remembering the quote from the famous UCLA basketball coach John Wooden, “don’t let what you can’t do interfere with what you can do!”
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