Thanks for reading, and especially for commenting!
There are a few reasons for training on golf:
Biographical. I was introduced to golf as a teenager, not chess, and I spent thousands of hours since then playing and watching it. Maybe there are stories like Rory’s in chess, grand masters who persevered through a decade of struggle to overcome the odds and themselves, in which case I’d like to read those stories too.
Social. As far as I can tell Rory is much more famous than any chess player, and therefore faced greater social pressure to perform. Stress does strange things to us, and it’s useful to study people in high-stress environments. (And I expect his fame makes his story more likely to get clicked on, which also helps if your goal is to be an on-ramp.)
Environmental. There are some “real life” environments more like chess, and there are some “real life” environments more like golf. One difference is the highly chaotic nature of golf. It isn’t amenable to being solved algorithmically, at least not with the algorithms we currently have. Imperceptible differences in stance, swing, contact, and so on and so on, can be the difference between a slice, a hook, or a peach. (And how you get from conscious thought to motor control via the nervous system is its whole own thing.) Its vagaries are one reason why in some important respects it’s a more accurate model of the hardest problems we face than chess is, and why it’s a better teacher even than other sports of the humility, patience, and self-acceptance we’ll need to solve those problems.
Why not train on cognitive problems, like chess? Seems more related.
Of course, if you find golf more fun than that, that’s a good reason.
Golf combines mind and body. Also requires a lot of patience. I think either is fine!
Thanks for reading, and especially for commenting!
There are a few reasons for training on golf:
Biographical. I was introduced to golf as a teenager, not chess, and I spent thousands of hours since then playing and watching it. Maybe there are stories like Rory’s in chess, grand masters who persevered through a decade of struggle to overcome the odds and themselves, in which case I’d like to read those stories too.
Social. As far as I can tell Rory is much more famous than any chess player, and therefore faced greater social pressure to perform. Stress does strange things to us, and it’s useful to study people in high-stress environments. (And I expect his fame makes his story more likely to get clicked on, which also helps if your goal is to be an on-ramp.)
Environmental. There are some “real life” environments more like chess, and there are some “real life” environments more like golf. One difference is the highly chaotic nature of golf. It isn’t amenable to being solved algorithmically, at least not with the algorithms we currently have. Imperceptible differences in stance, swing, contact, and so on and so on, can be the difference between a slice, a hook, or a peach. (And how you get from conscious thought to motor control via the nervous system is its whole own thing.) Its vagaries are one reason why in some important respects it’s a more accurate model of the hardest problems we face than chess is, and why it’s a better teacher even than other sports of the humility, patience, and self-acceptance we’ll need to solve those problems.