#15 Junior Golf is at a Crossroad

In this episode Richard Franklin, founder of DiscoverGolf discusses the crossroad that junior golf is at. He says there is one way points to MORE DATA, MORE COMPARISONS, LEVELS , TESTING. The other points to focus more on junior golfer’s EMOTION, EXPERIENCE, and PLAY. He also talks about the psychology of learning and what we need to understand to best support kids growing up through the game of golf.

Richard Franklin is on a mission to use technology and gameful thinking to synthesize a lifetime of playing and coaching experiences into a program design that irreversibly changes junior golf. When he is not coaching and testing new DiscoverGolf concepts at his home facility in Lake Forest, IL Richard can be found travelling the world educating fellow junior golf professionals. 

His gamified junior golf training program is built from a “play to learn“ coaching philosophy that will inspire your junior athlete to earn points, set and achieve goals, collaborate with friends on “game quests”, evaluate their coach produced swing lessons and “level up“ their golf games!

 

Discussion Timeline:

  • Richard’s journey coaching golf (3:13)
  • More data, testing, comparisons (15:25)
  • The death of gamification (15:37)
  • How to help parents understand the importance of play (26:54)
  • The emotional and experience parts of play (29:12)
  • The neurochemistry of fun (32:02)
  • How do you create the right amount of chance and randomness in your games (35:58)
  • The self determination theory (38:49)
  • Games (44:02)
  • The importance of the environment (45:50)
  • The amount of chance and randomness does two things for kids (50:02)
  • When do you “teach” Johnny the kid? (53:24)
  • Find out more about Discover Golf (57:50)
  • Final words of inspiration for raising golfers (61:44)

Show Links: 

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