Guided Discovery: The Genius of Earl Woods

Studying the development of Tiger Woods is fascinating, and provides us with a lot of insight about player development in golf. Perhaps the most significant thing we can learn about Tiger's development is the teaching style of Earl Woods.

We know that Earl was a good player - a low handicap amateur - but by no means was he a player of touring pro quality or an outstanding instructor of technique. People often have the misconception that Earl created the Tiger by "programming him for greatness" from a young age - as if he had all the answers and just had tell Tiger what to do, much in the same way that a computer programmer writes code to program a computer.

We know from research that this direct style of teaching is actually not very effective: If you simply tell a child what to do or how to do something, they will not retain what you've told them for very long. If they are just doing what you tell them to do, they don't have to cognitively process it and don't really learn it fully. On the other hand, if a child develops a skill by figuring it out on their own and "discovering" how to perform that skill by themselves they will "own" that skill forever.

What made Earl so effective is how he trained Tiger to develop his skills (especially his mental skills) not by directly telling him what to do, but instead by putting Tiger in situations where he could discover on his own what works. This technique of instruction is called "guided discovery".

Consider the comment that Earl makes at the beginning of this Nike commercial which aired last year: "You don't really instill anything into a child. You encourage the development of it."



The research is fairly conclusive: Kids learn most effectively through guided discovery, if they are put in situations where they can discover skills on their own. The genius of Earl Woods is that he was able to put Tiger in these situations over and over, so that Tiger was able to develop his skills efficiently and own them permanently.