Mastery, Just 10,000 Hours Away

Forget All the Talk of Natural Prodigies -- Being the Best Really Takes Hard, Hard, Hard Work

Golf's Grand Illusion is that, secretly, we're a lot better than our scores would indicate. All we need is a little more practice and a few more rounds under our belt to get there. But who has the time?

The illusion stems from the ease with which all of us, on rare occasions, drain long putts from the fringe, pitch to tap-in distance from 85 yards and hit drives on the sweet spot. Surely learning to pull off such shots regularly could only be a matter of making a little more effort.

Two recent business books concur, provided we drop that phrase "a little" from the supposition. The common thesis of "Outliers," by Malcolm Gladwell, and "Talent Is Overrated," by Geoff Colvin, is that super-high achievers are not fundamentally different from you and me, they just work harder and smarter.

Both books, for instance, debunk the myth that Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was a born supernatural. The musical works he composed as a child were not particularly good (and were suspiciously written in the hand of his father, Leopold, a well-known composer). Most of them, even into his late teens, were rearrangements of other composers' pieces. As for his precocious skills on stage, modern musicologists estimate that his abilities were actually only about half as advanced as those of a run-of-the-mill prodigy today.
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In explaining the development of extraordinary talent, both Mr. Gladwell and Mr. Colvin zero in on seminal research by Florida State Professor Anders Ericsson and colleagues that suggests the threshold for world-class expertise in any discipline -- music, sports, chess, science, business management -- is about 10 years, or 10,000 hours, of persistent, focused training and experience. Mr. Gladwell leaves the work component of success mostly at that, and moves on to examine how other factors, such as obscure circumstances from their early lives, contribute to the achievements of hard workers.

Mr. Colvin, on the other hand, bores into the details of all that hard work to identify the most productive components. This is where things get interesting for golfers.

The most successful performers in any area, he writes, engage in "deliberate practice." This is activity specifically designed, ideally by an expert teacher, to improve performance beyond a person's current comfort and ability level. These activities are repeatable, provide clear feedback and are highly demanding mentally, even when largely physical. The training Mozart received as a youth is a perfect example.