Do Kids Know What Hard Work Is? Golf Pro Tip

Hard Golf Work was Vital, But Video has replaced the Need for Work

May 27, 2009

Has video replaced a need for hard work? Good technique was found through blood sweat and tears, hard work was synomynous with success. Now the cameara gives a quick fix.

In the past professional sportsmen spent hours practicing to find a technique that would work under pressure. The famous golfer Ben Hogan, when asked where he found his power fade, famously answered “I dug it out of the dirt”, a reference to his unquenchable thirst for hard work. The riposte from Gary Player, to a fan that claimed he was lucky to hole out from a bunker was, “It’s funny, the harder I practice, the luckier I get”.

Hard work in the past was synonymous with success, and all young sportsmen wanting to copy their heroes would spend hour after hour practicing their skills. The key to success in sport was directly related to hard work. In life you got nothing without graft and commitment.

Video Camera

When the video camera started to be used by professional sportsmen needing to hone their skills, hard work became less of an importance in attaining success. Quick diagnosis of faults became number one, and while the top pros would still practice endlessly, hard graft became less of a focus for the media.

Instead of finding junior sportsmen emulating their heroes on the practice ground till dusk, they would be found sitting inside watching videos. Nowadays, you can learn about technique from the comfort of an armchair, rather than spending time on the practice ground. The fact that Tiger Woods has the most incredible work ethos is of little importance to the golf media in general.

Do Kids Know What Hard Work Is?

Sport plays a very important roll in helping to educate our children. But the fact that hard work no longer seems important, makes it difficult to impress upon our children the ethos of ‘you get out of life what you put in’. It was easy when Gary Player showed his bleeding blisters to the cameras.

Imagine if John Wayne was thrown from his horse in modern times. In the past it was one of the great disciplines, if you fell off you would get back on and try again. Nowadays it would be ‘lets have a look on the video and see how it happened’. How many of our children have looked up ‘cheats’ to computer games on the Internet rather than grafting to find the answer?

Determination to Succeed

Whilst our top sportsmen get better and better through a combination of accurate diagnosis and hard work, our children seem to think there is always a quick fix. As adults we know life is different and our job is to somehow impress that upon our loved ones. We get out of life what we put in, whether it be work, sport or marriage.

Somehow we must impress upon our children the ethos of ‘try, try and try again’.

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