Natural Ability

[rustyb]

I think Most of our ability is learned, you learn a huge amount as a young child and this is where the prodical children come in. Some kids do thousands of hours of practice in the first few years of their lives, the eye hand coordination honed before they are 4 and it's that ability that people mistake for a natural gift. I absolutely don't think anyone has reached their potential in anything at aged 16. No matter what you say proper practice with good coaches with proper mental attitude would make you better.

 

[Deleted member 16999]

My last word on this will be one name. Ronnie O Sullivan. Anyone else thinks he works hard as all this other? The bloke would be top 16 left handed. Hard work gets you so far. Natural talent does the rest.

For or every pouter or Pearce who's worked hard. There will be an o Sullivan or le tissier.

But Le Tiss and Ronnie have also spent hours and hours practising and harnessing their natural ability and to say they may not have worked as hard as Poults or Pearce is unfair.
The difference I would suggest is Le Tiss's and Ronnies may be focussed in diferent areas.

 

[Slab]

Thought about it on the drive to work and came down on the side that there’s no natural ability but that its good enough name to call the result/performance when an individual tackles a new game/task etc

Ones ability at anything new will be determined by the hundreds of thousands of life experiences gained to that point in their lives

So when a guy is smashing them sweet at the range and you hear it’s their first time ever you might comment that they’re a natural
You then find out they’ve spent the last 30 years playing tennis/cricket/hockey or whatever to a high standard and suddenly you’ll reassess how much natural ability you’ll credit them with

It’s only a lack of knowledge & understanding of that persons background & history that leads to the tag ‘natural ability’ being used

In saying that all these life experiences are not optional, they happen naturally to all of us and everyone has a unique set so if simply by existing/living & growing we naturally have experiences that shape our ability then the term ‘natural ability’ is a fitting way to describe someone initial performance even though some are mistaking it for some kind of inbred or inherent ability

 

[MadAdey]

Late to the thread so not read it all. This has come up before and I'll put this question out there again.

If I give up work for the next 2 years, get one the tours personal trainers, a top coach and a psychologist, will I win a major?

Why are are there professional golfers that have access to all the coaching, yet still struggle year after year to keep their tour card?

If if all it takes is dedication, time and access to the right coaching then you'll see me at Augusta..............

The point is, there is that something that the very top golfers have, that no one else does. If it could be learnt and practiced then we would all have it.

 

[MadAdey]

I think Most of our ability is learned, you learn a huge amount as a young child and this is where the prodical children come in. Some kids do thousands of hours of practice in the first few years of their lives, the eye hand coordination honed before they are 4 and it's that ability that people mistake for a natural gift. I absolutely don't think anyone has reached their potential in anything at aged 16. No matter what you say proper practice with good coaches with proper mental attitude would make you better.

I can't argue that would make someone better, but only to a certain point........... Then how do you progress from there

 

[Imurg]

On a similar but different tangent, I see "natural ability" , or lack of it, every day.
I see some kids who struggle to control the car, even after several lessons.
I also see some that get the steering and pedal work immediately having never driven before.
How can you take 2 kids who have never driven a car and within 3 hours one is driving around town and the other still working out how to stop...
Natural ability exists but it can only take you so far, coaching, commitment and effective practice takes you on.
But everyone will, eventually, get to their pinnacle. They might njotnrealise or accept it, but it will happen.
There will come a time when, regardless of what you do, you will not get any better at whatever it is you're doing.
Age, illness, injury, the possible reasons would fill a book on their own.
But everyone has a level. And a combination of natural ability, practice etc etc gets you further than one of the elements alone.
I feel I have a reasonable amount of natural ability when it comes to Golf. Never having had a lesson or been coached, I've been in single figures for 17 out of the last 20 years....could I have got better with coaching?? Almost certainly, but I doubt I'd have been at this level for this long without a large slice of NA..

 

[HomerJSimpson]

Thought about it on the drive to work and came down on the side that there’s no natural ability but that its good enough name to call the result/performance when an individual tackles a new game/task etc

Ones ability at anything new will be determined by the hundreds of thousands of life experiences gained to that point in their lives

So when a guy is smashing them sweet at the range and you hear it’s their first time ever you might comment that they’re a natural
You then find out they’ve spent the last 30 years playing tennis/cricket/hockey or whatever to a high standard and suddenly you’ll reassess how much natural ability you’ll credit them with

It’s only a lack of knowledge & understanding of that persons background & history that leads to the tag ‘natural ability’ being used

In saying that all these life experiences are not optional, they happen naturally to all of us and everyone has a unique set so if simply by existing/living & growing we naturally have experiences that shape our ability then the term ‘natural ability’ is a fitting way to describe someone initial performance even though some are mistaking it for some kind of inbred or inherent ability

Very good summary and one that describes what I feel in that with golf in particular and our own ability, it's something most took up either towards teen years or beyond and most will have developed a way of learning information through schooling and other sports and so that will be the way we processed the information to learn how to play

In my case it was then down to a lot of hard work, tuition, more hard work and I guess a degree of fortune that I did as well as I did early on. It's definitely something I think has got me to my 10-12 plateau I'm at but isn't a game stopper to get lower

 

[Slab]

Late to the thread so not read it all. This has come up before and I'll put this question out there again.

If I give up work for the next 2 years, get one the tours personal trainers, a top coach and a psychologist, will I win a major?

Why are are there professional golfers that have access to all the coaching, yet still struggle year after year to keep their tour card?

If if all it takes is dedication, time and access to the right coaching then you'll see me at Augusta..............

The point is, there is that something that the very top golfers have, that no one else does. If it could be learnt and practiced then we would all have it.

Because its not just practiced ability V 'natural' ability, there's still thousands of other variables that'll determine placing in a Major from the conditions on the day to a players diet right down to whether player cut his toenails a bit too short the night before and its rubbing just a tiny amount in his shoe!

It could be that one guys rain hat gives a little drip at the wrong time during a putt. At the highest level of golf tour cards are won & lost on such minor variables

Point is if you can stand with Rory on the range matching him shot for shot you'll have the basic shot tools to win a major but there's no point entering if you cant nail the other 9,999 things as well.
You could out-drive, out-putt and out-chip Rory but if you don't like crowds you wont win a major. It could be something as simple as how relaxed someone is in front of spectators on a given day that determines who'll win

Unless we're now saying there's a natural ability to how well you can cut toenails or a natural ability to cook a chicken curry so it doesn't give you a dicky belly

If the top guys have 'something' extra why don't they win more majors?

Nicklaus has a major win ratio of just 12% So what we're saying is that 9/10 times that little something he had didn't even work!

 

[AmandaJR]

So why don't all those aspiring golf pros who put in the hours constantly practising don't reach the tour levels then ?

They practise day in day out yet don't get the scores ?

Even at the top levels the gulf is pretty vast between someone like McIlroy and the guy in last place on the ET - I have no doubt the guy in last place practices as much - but doesn't play as well as McIlroy - the reason why ? Because Rory is naturally better than 99.9% of them.

For me the difference at the top level is what's between the ears and not whether they can play excellent golf and shoot low scores. It's doing it under pressure and that's more an emotional than physical thing.

 

[Jimaroid]

For me the difference at the top level is what's between the ears and not whether they can play excellent golf and shoot low scores. It's doing it under pressure and that's more an emotional than physical thing.

Controlling emotions is a natural and learnable skill too, some people are naturally capable (and some are incapable!) of controlling their emotional state of being. But it's a skill that can be learned to different qualities, some people succeed and some people don't.

Some people are just better at certain things than other people. Not everyone is the same. This discussion is yet again going around in circles because humans, and all living beings, are all slightly different and what is true for one person is not true for every person.

And! The process of learning is a skill in itself. Some people are better at learning than others. The way people respond to learning (coaching or training or however you want to classify it) isn't a fixed constant and what works for one doesn't work for another. A good teacher finds how their student will best respond and exercises them accordingly.

It's amazing that some people don't, won't or can't see that everything is different. But there's a logical magic in that statement, because everyone is different, that also means some people are better or worse at comprehending how other people differ. Think about that...

Here ends my philosophical rant.

 

[Slab]

Can you learn/be taught, natural ability?

 

[Deleted member 15344]

Can you learn/be taught, natural ability?

Believe it can be enhanced but not taught.

 

[351DRIVER]

Is that serious?
Can you be taught natural ability?
Er no, because its natural

Can you be taught how to maximise your own natural ability, yes you can.
I have the natural ability to hit hard, in all sports, its just the way i am put together, putting and chipping not so great but not awful, so i have some natural ability to hit far.

 

[Slab]

Is that serious?
Can you be taught natural ability?
Er no, because its natural

Can you be taught how to maximise your own natural ability, yes you can.
I have the natural ability to hit hard, in all sports, its just the way i am put together, putting and chipping not so great but not awful, so i have some natural ability to hit far.

And what does 'natural' mean to you (in the context of this thread)

 

[351DRIVER]

I obviously did not read 12 pages

Natural ability is being better than most at something when you first try a sport

It cannot be taught, you either have it or you do not

You may have a propensity to learn, practise and improve and that is nearly always going to be better in the long run

Natural ability is just that natural

 

[garyinderry]

I love flipping from one side to the other on this one...



No such thing as natural ability. Tall that to the football teams who are picking up kids younger and younger these days. Some of them are still in nappies. :rofl:

 

[turkish]

I love flipping from one side to the other on this one...



No such thing as natural ability. Tall that to the football teams who are picking up kids younger and younger these days. Some of them are still in nappies. :rofl:

AND I think they are wrong.... too many kids that could end up being late developers are cast aside IMO- they put so much emphasis (and with it pressure) on these young kids instead of nurturing them to both love the game they are playing and develop at the same time- whether they are to make it or not as pro's!!!

For every Vardy out there I would bet there are hundreds of kids that give up their dream and potential because they are told they are not good enough... you get the odd one like Vardy who have that mental grit to not listen to that though!

 

[Snelly]

Natural ability? No such thing. Just a term given to kids who have developed their co-ordination at a better rate than others through circumstance, enthusiasm and attitude / personality.

I am with Matthew Syed.


Difference between the elite and the rest is in the head. Thousands of people can hit great golf shots; booming drives, laser like irons, chip like God and hole everything from 10 feet. Only a rarified few can do it consistently though and more importantly, when they really need to. Same for just about any other sport.

 

[351DRIVER]

Can you hit a 300 yard drive? Most cannot, i can, because i have a natural ability to hit it far (I also worked on it) but many can work on it for as long as they like and never get there.

I am astonished there is even a debate, we are all different, good at some stuff and bad at other stuff

 

[turkish]

Can you hit a 300 yard drive? Most cannot, i can, because i have a natural ability to hit it far (I also worked on it) but many can work on it for as long as they like and never get there.

I am astonished there is even a debate, we are all different, good at some stuff and bad at other stuff

We get it big boy we get it- you can bomb it a mile!!!!

Often big hitters are due to physical attributes rather than "natural ability"/technique