Is it possible for Mr Average to become a scratch golfer in just 12 months?

[Deleted member 15344]

The average handicap is much higher than that.
Apparently 80% of golfers will not achieve a handicap of less than 18.

I believe ( happy to be corrected ) that cat 1 golfers are in the 3-5% of all handicap golfers in the country

 

[Deleted member 15344]

I used to share your view but changed my mind after reading Bounce. Perhaps better if you read it rather than me paraphrase the arguments. That said, his views are based on his experience as an Olympic medal winning athlete combined with the investigations he made in order to write the book, including a lot of interviews with experts in this field and other top sports people.

Did he win a medal ?

Understand he spoke to a number of Olympic medal winners including Lewis but again it is small percentage of athletes he spoke to and just one view

 

[Snelly]

So what do you consider to be high standard for an amatuer golfer then

Why do you want to know? And isn't it relatively obvious anyway given that we have already established that I don't think 5 is it?

 

[londonlewis]

Ability at sport is "imprinted" on our brains like a native language if we start young. Then as we get older it appears that we find sport easy in the same way that we find speaking English easy. We appear to be able to maintain our native language skills without much effort and it looks easy. Meanwhile the foreign speaker is "practising incessantly" to try to reach our "Tiger Woods" levels of English. But they probably never will, as they didn't start young enough.

I would like to use this argument to suggest this is also nonsense.

Give or take a couple of months all children will start to talk at the same age and therefore all children begin to learn a language at the same age.

Using your analogy above this would mean that the ability of learning languages is "imprinted" on our brains because everyone starts young. Therefore as we get older we should all find learning languages easy because this ability has been imprinted on our brains.

But we know that this is not true. Some people never master their native language, that's for sure. However there are many well educated, highly erudite individuals who struggle to even learn a sentence in a foreign language. But how can this be? The ability to learn a language was "imprinted" at a young age.

But we also know that there are people who have an ability to learn languages easily and are now multi-lingual. Some of these individuals have studied hard to learn foreign languages, others have picked them up very easily. But we all started to learn our first language at the same time.

I apologise but I don't buy into your theories or your analogies.

 

[Deleted member 15344]

Why do you want to know? And isn't it relatively obvious anyway given that we have already established that I don't think 5 is it?

So what is your level for high standard ? You dismissed my idea of high standard - surely the next stage into counter it with your own opinion ?

 

[londonlewis]

I believe ( happy to be corrected ) that cat 1 golfers are in the 3-5% of all handicap golfers in the country

Not sure on the stats for this but it wouldn't come as a big surprise if this was correct.

 

[Snelly]

Did he win a medal ?

Understand he spoke to a number of Olympic medal winners including Lewis but again it is small percentage of athletes he spoke to and just one view

My mistake - Commonwealth Medals...

http://www.matthewsyed.co.uk/ - read all about him here.

 

[londonlewis]

Why do you want to know? And isn't it relatively obvious anyway given that we have already established that I don't think 5 is it?

I'm keen to know what you think is a high standard.
Also keen to know what you play off - as this will help me to understand why you think your answer to the above.

 

[Snelly]

surely the next stage into counter it with your own opinion ?

The next stage is for me to confess that you have, once again, bored me into submission with your typical pedantry and borderline OCD, must know best style of petty points scoring.

 

[duncan mackie]

I believe ( happy to be corrected ) that cat 1 golfers are in the 3-5% of all handicap golfers in the country

probably a reasonable working estimate.

will be well under 1% of golfers though (because of the % of handicap golfers to that group as well as the capabilities of that wider group)

discussed here a few years ago.......http://forums.golf-monthly.co.uk/showthread.php?22912-single-figure-golfers

 

[Snelly]

I'm keen to know what you think is a high standard.
Also keen to know what you play off - as this will help me to understand why you think your answer to the above.

OK then, for the hard of learning, I think better than scratch is a high standard of golf for an amateur. But it doesn't really matter does it as in effect, all we are doing is having a debate about our, clearly different, interpretations of the word "high."

And I don't have a handicap but played off 3 in the last three rounds I played.

 

[Andr3w]

Do you have proof to back this up or is this your opinion?
Sounds like you are a strong believer in 'you can't teach old dogs new tricks'.
Nonsense.

It's a well-known fact in brain science. Children have more neurons actively creating new connections so they can learn things quicker.

 

[Andr3w]

I would like to use this argument to suggest this is also nonsense.

Give or take a couple of months all children will start to talk at the same age and therefore all children begin to learn a language at the same age.

Using your analogy above this would mean that the ability of learning languages is "imprinted" on our brains because everyone starts young. Therefore as we get older we should all find learning languages easy because this ability has been imprinted on our brains.

But we know that this is not true. Some people never master their native language, that's for sure. However there are many well educated, highly erudite individuals who struggle to even learn a sentence in a foreign language. But how can this be? The ability to learn a language was "imprinted" at a young age.

But we also know that there are people who have an ability to learn languages easily and are now multi-lingual. Some of these individuals have studied hard to learn foreign languages, others have picked them up very easily. But we all started to learn our first language at the same time.

I apologise but I don't buy into your theories or your analogies.

The analogy referred to learning the native language not just learning languages in general.

 

[Deleted member 15344]

Why are some footballers better than others when they do the same training ?

Why are some Rugby players , cricket players etc etc - the list is endless

Some people are just naturally better than others at certain things in life and nothing I have seen makes me think any different

 

[londonlewis]

OK then, for the hard of learning, I think better than scratch is a high standard of golf for an amateur. But it doesn't really matter does it as in effect, all we are doing is having a debate about our, clearly different, interpretations of the word "high."

And I don't have a handicap but played off 3 in the last three rounds I played.

Alright mate, calm down.

 

[Deleted member 15344]

It's a well-known fact in brain science. Children have more neurons actively creating new connections so they can learn things quicker.

Is it a fact or a theory ?

I was able to learn more academically later in life - struggled in school but was able to get a degree in my 30's

 

[Andr3w]

Why are some footballers better than others when they do the same training ?

Why are some Rugby players , cricket players etc etc - the list is endless

Some people are just naturally better than others at certain things in life and nothing I have seen makes me think any different

Again you're making blindingly simplistic comparisons. The entire development of a human being from birth until into adulthood cannot be summed up with "do the same training".

 

[londonlewis]

The analogy referred to learning the native language not just learning languages in general.

I appreciate you spoke about learning languages in your analogy, however the purpose of my analogy was to dispute what you said about sports. Not what you said about language learning.

 

[londonlewis]

It's a well-known fact in brain science. Children have more neurons actively creating new connections so they can learn things quicker.

So does this mean that a human's ability to learn will diminish at a continual rate as they get older?

I love it when people throw the word 'fact' around when discussing something they know bugger all about and something which the experts would admit they are continually learning and disproving their previous theories.

I'm also pretty sure that they prefer to call it neurology. Not 'brain science'.

 

[Jimbooo]

Question for you Andr3w...

Do you think that hand-eye coordination is innate in people, or solely a learned skill?