In March 2009, I was invited to be the lead speaker for two days at the Swedish PGA’s Teaching and Coaching Summit.  First let me say that I had a wonderful time in Sweden.  The people there are terrific, warm and generous hosts.  They are also enthusiastic about golf.  The professionals are very knowledgeable about both teaching and playing the sport.  They are eager to learn and are completely open to hearing new ideas.  Too often instructors become closed to thoughts that are different from their own and become very defensive.  They unfairly criticize anything that doesn’t conform to their notions and close themselves off from learning.  This is very much not the case in Sweden.  The total membership in the Swedish PGA is around 600.  There were over 400 in attendance at the Summit.  That is a statement to their earnest desire to learn and be the best.  It is easy to start to understand why such a small nation has such an impact on international sport.  They want to be the best they can be in any endeavor.

It is to this notion that I am writing.  The Swedes have a very different system of youth development than we do in the US.  I think they have the right idea and it is one that I would certainly encourage that we as golf instructors should take note of and introduce into our junior programs.  Their idea is to first develop the child/youth as an athlete and then encourage them to specialize in a particular sport.  This makes tremendous sense to me.  We do not learn great athletic ability from just one sport or endeavor.  It is a combination of different sports that teaches and develops in us such things like strength, speed, ability to plant, pivot and throw, hand/eye co-ordination, reaction, trust in ourselves, balance, footwork, and many other traits I could name.  The children/youth of Sweden are exposed to golf, hockey, soccer, skiing, running, throwing, hitting, catching, etc.  They do not weed out a player from a sport just because at that time in the youth’s development they do not seem to have a talent for that particular endeavor.  Instead they keep them in the sports and encourage and develop their skills.  In this way the child develops in all athletic areas and doesn’t drop out of the ones that he/she is not good at initially.  It develops the athlete first and then the specialist second. 

Golf is a plant, pivot, throw sport where strength, speed, quickness, hand/eye co-ordination, reaction, nerve and steadiness in the face of adversity are all necessary.  All these are athletic skills that are often better and more quickly learned from other sports.  I, without even realizing it, have followed this program with my now 12 year old daughter.  Virtually since she was three years of age she has participated in gymnastics, swimming, soccer, golf, basketball, softball, volleyball, track and field.  She is currently on a select soccer team, plays varsity basketball, volleyball, and runs track and field for her middle school.  She also shoots archery, rides horses, white water rafts, hikes and competes at golf.  I do not know what sport/sports she will eventually excel and specialize in but I do know that she is an athlete.  I made a conscious decision to do these things because of how turned off I was with the junior golf program in the US.  We get children specialized in golf way too early.  It is not an especially fun game for children as there is not a lot of running, shouting and laughing going on.  In fact I am always shocked at how funeral-like the atmosphere is at junior tournaments.  When I am there with my daughter I encourage her to laugh and have fun - even to skip down the fairway and to not take the whole thing that seriously.  I know I am in the minority of parents with this attitude.  The Swedes call early specialization the Russian method.  As that is what that country did for so many years.  In my opinion as well as the Swedes, it just doesn’t produce great athletes or, in my mind, well balanced children. 

I want my daughter to compete in big junior tournaments....when she is 16, not 12.  She, even at 16, will not be a touring junior golfer, competing every week all over the country.  There is a season in our life for such things.   If we get into the specialization too early, not only do we damage our child’s chance to develop as an athlete, we also risk seeing them face burnout from too much instruction, competition, pressure and specialization at too young an age.  This is what they found out in Sweden.  They certainly have gone the other way and have the record in international sports to prove they are right.

In closing, the Titleist Performance Institute has studied the Swedish model and agrees with it.  They have spent a good deal of time over there.  As a result of that and along with their own study, they have put together a junior golfer training program that is absolutely the best.  It is a how-to-guide to run a junior program.  It includes a large number of other sport disciplines that help train the juniors to become better athletes.  They have a kit that professional instructors can order from their website that gives all the know how to run such a program.  I could not recommend it any higher to all professionals running junior programs.  It keeps the juniors attention, it is fun, interesting, challenging, athletic building and easy to do.  Your junior programs will become a joy for you, the juniors and their parents.