okansas.blogspot.com Occassional thoughts about orienteering
Thursday, March 13, 2008
Lessons from Tiger
Since golf is, as some people say, "the same sport as orienteering," I listened to NPR's radio story about Tiger Woods closely as I drove to work. A few comments caught my interest...
One of the things Tiger does better than others is catching things that are going wrong as soon as they start to go wrong.
Tiger seems to have his life in "balance."
When he was practicing, his father would yell racial epitaths at him and throw golf tees at him. The idea was that by distracting him, he'd teach him to focus.
Tiger said that he realized that even if he didn't have the physical skills, he could become tougher and out think his competitors.
Tom feels vindicated -- he has asked me to distract him while playing catching Features, and I haven't been distracting enough. Now I know what to do -- throw golf tees!
It is not clear who is substituting thinking for focusing (Tiger or Spike?), but these are quite different concepts. In competition, they are close to being opposites. EricW