The Ryder Cup takes place this year in Gleneagles, Perthshire, at the end of September, with players from Europe and the US competing in 28 matches over 18 holes across three days.
Golf is often associated with business. Is it that the sport requires a mindset involving risk-taking attitudes and strategic planning – present in the everyday life of the businessman – or maybe it’s the opportunity to network and build rapport and trust with peers? It certainly seems to be a metaphor for what the business world is all about, and it’s not unknown for a few of our Jumpstarters to be out and about on the golf course when time (and weather) permits.
The game of golf has long been played across the social classes as a popular leisure activity. From blunt wooden clubs in the early days of the nineteenth century, golf has been transformed through advances in clubs, balls and course design into today’s highly competitive game.
However, has golf performance improved only because of the emergence of newly developed technology, or has it also been helped by a combination of better psychology, better strategy and better teamwork?
At Jumpstart we positively relish getting to the bottom of a conundrum. While we can’t tell you who’s going to win the Cup this year, we thought we’d be best placed to do a little investigative work, to identify areas that are likely to play an important part in the winning of the Ryder Cup at the end of the month.
POTENTIAL MINUS INTERFERENCE
First and foremost, like all competitive sportspeople, golfers need to have the right mindset to participate with a positive attitude whatever happens, and the ability to make informed choices under pressure. A golfer can have all the equipment and technology at his or her fingertips, but if they lack the commitment to take personal responsibility for making the right choices under pressure in the heat of the competition, they’ll flounder. Timothy Galway said in his seminal book ‘The Inner Game of Golf’ that performance equals potential minus interference. The interference relates to a negative inner voice the golfer may listen to, which can sow seeds of self-doubt and a lack of confidence. To this end, professional golfers at the top of their game have a huge support network in the form of coaches, psychologists, dieticians and physiotherapists to build upon the confidence, commitment and self-belief the golfer intrinsically has, to allow them to unlock the resources within themselves to perform to the best of their ability, and win.
THE POWER OF THE TEAM
Of course, the idea of creating a team has reasons other than to focus the golfers. The goal of the whole team is for the golfers to win, with everyone in the whole team aligned towards the same goal and contributing individually to its achievement through their expertise, taking the team beyond what was ever thought to have been possible. If we think for a moment on the powerful force of a team environment, consider the scenario in which an individual decides to take up some exercise. How many people understand the concept that going to the gym is a good idea? 100%? How many people go beyond that and develop a fitness plan? 40%? And how many actually turn up regularly at the gym and fully implement that plan? 10% at best? Now think if you were to form a team to encourage and motivate the individual to gain an alignment to the common vision and greater focus around the fitness plan, how much greater would the likelihood be that the plan would be implemented? Exactly – the energy of a team helps to build confidence and commitment in the individual, unlocking potential difficult to access without the support.
THE IMPORTANCE OF GOOD LEADERSHIP
And how about the importance in ensuring the Captain and Vice-Captains create an atmosphere of openness and trust so players can share their views when under pressure? A good Captain will encourage the team to develop attributes including strategy, transparency, flexibility, collaboration, informality, openness, creativity and nimbleness. This in turn will encourage the golfers, who in other competitions regularly compete against one another, to collaborate and deploy their skills to benefit the whole Ryder Cup team.
THE LUCK FACTOR
Luck is another interesting area to investigate when focusing on the Ryder Cup, or any other individual sporting event. It would appear that the greater number of external influences, the greater the role luck plays. How do you quantify the element of luck? Professor Richard Wiseman, author of “The Luck Factor”, stated that luck is not an accident but an attitude, and Gary Player, world class golfer, has often said you must work hard to become a natural golfer, quoting “the harder I practice, the luckier I get”. By this, there is an argument that if you practice you will develop your capability to produce a particular shot more often than not, and by practicing you also develop your courage to play shots that others might avoid. Its worth noting that luck could be considered within a single event such as the Ryder Cup, but across a season it would be expected that luck would average out and the impact of talent would dominate.
ADVANCES IN GOLF TECHNOLOGY
And one further point we should really consider - the advances in the equipment used by golfers, and whether these noticeably impact the winning of a game. The wound balls used by Tiger Woods gave him, on average, a 17.4 yard shorter drive than the solid-core balls developed by Titleist which have innovative dimple design and specialist casing to help deliver higher ball speed with a lower spin. Hybrid clubs have also been introduced that combine a high launch angle with high spin, producing a favourably long trajectory, and wedges, although restricted by the Rules of Golf regulators (to avoid a “drive and pitch” farce), have increased the likelihood of scoring a birdie. Equipment does make a difference to the level of play, but it’s unlikely to help one team win over the other as this only becomes apparent when your opponent does not have the same equipment advantage open to them.
Hopefully this article has helped those golfing aficionados out there not to blame their golfing mishaps solely on poor equipment or a bad day, but to take time to contemplate their strategy a little more, as it takes a lot more than a golf club with a high moment of inertia to make a world-class golfer.
All too often in business we blame the equipment when the reality is that the 17.4 yards is not significant, especially if you consistently miss the two-foot putts. All too often we wrongly reconcile failure with our opponent’s superior equipment whereas it’s more likely about the team strategy and performance and not the props.
And our prediction for the Ryder Cup? We believe the team with the greatest chance is the one that does not change their objective to suit their performance, but the one that changes their performance to suit the objective.
Author - Karen Wilson
Thanks to Mike West (Be Strategic), Mike Fitzpatrick and Fergus King
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