Padraig Harrington  
Coding a Sporting Icon.

PROLOGUE - JEANS - THE GREAT DEBATE, WRANGLER or LEVI?

I have been following the progress of Conor Purcell and was delighted to see he has just won the Australian amateur championship. Still, you would be forgiven for thinking, well, what would you expect? His father Joey was a renowned professional for many years and "sure he's just a chip off the old block." Conor would have spent many hours out in Portmarnock practicing, he had a ready-made coach in his father, and he has the life circumstances to be in Australia playing competitive golf in January. This got me thinking about my brother, Padraig, and how he has arrived at three major championships and the Ryder Cup captaincy. This leaves us with many fascinating questions such as What makes us who we are? Can we code a Sporting Icon? Is it just pure luck, or is it a combination of factors?

Part 1 - GENES.

"Genes are inherited traits encoded into a persons DNA." 

I sought out some help in this area from a client/friend of mine who just happens to be an expert in genomic technology, Professor Peter O'Gorman.He confirms my research into this very complex subject. Genes are inherited from your parents; 50 % of your DNA comes from each parent. So, it is indisputable that who you are is heavily influenced by your parents. If you don't get the right genes, you will not be a world-class basketball player. Period. There are no five-foot-tall players in the NBA. Similarly, if you don't possess many fast-twitch fibers, then your ability to compete against Usain Bolt is limited!

Golf Trait

So what percentage of who you are is down to genes? The jury is out here, golf is a complex trait, which is defined as a trait that is influenced by many different genetic and environmental factors. The "golf trait" appears to be polygenic, which means multiple genes are involved in determining the trait; there is no one golf gene. Because there are a large number of genes involved in the "making a golf trait," each playing a small role, it is impossible to isolate and identify these genes. Imagine mixing red and blue paint together to make the color purple and then try to separate them again... by hand! This brings us to heritability, which is the amount of variability that is genetic in origin. I can see things that my parents did that reflect on myself and my brothers. My mother was a wizard at counting numbers; my father was a crossword genius; he was also a sporting icon in Gaelic football and was very calm under pressure. He lost in two All Ireland finals and was always very reflective about them, it never upset him that he didn't win, his view was he had played to his best ability, and that is all you can do.

Heritability

I see a lot of my father in Padraig; there is no such thing as a problem that can't be solved. He has surrounded himself with a team that helps him improve every aspect of his golfing life. Padraig, like me, is very analytical and structured. We both got this from our parents. So heritability plays a significant part in our make up. When I reflect on my time in Tour school with Padraig, the honest truth is that it was one of the least stress-filled weeks I have ever had. Everything we did was so structured, right down to playing chess every night, we never worried about the rounds or debated what might have gone right or wrong. Looking back now, we just did the same thing every day and even had the luxury of laying up on the last hole to avoid a risky shot over water, to eventually finish 14th, and the rest is history.

Part 2 -  ENVIRONMENTAL CIRCUMSTANCES

There is no doubt that your environmental circumstances play a massive part in how you will turn out. Whatever about trying to second guess how our genes are turned on and off, Padraig's upbringing was a picture postcardof how you would imagine a sportsperson is nurtured. He had four older brothers, so he was exposed to role models. Three of them and his father plus his uncle were all very good at golf, so he always had a goal to chase, and we made sure to remind him!. My father built a golf course, so he had a ready-made environment to thrive at golf. He literally lived in that place, so from a young age, his golf gene was aroused. He could never beat us until he reached the age of 15, so he was always chasing something; this was a familiar pattern later on in his amateur career. It took him an awfully long time to become number one on the Irish amateur circuit, so yet again, he could never relax; he had peers to chase now, always another mountain to climb. 

Walker Cup

A good example of this would be the Walker Cup team of 1993 at Interlachen, Padraig had at least six or seven players ahead of him on that team. Interestingly, he is the only person to have excelled from that team of twelve superstars! He experienced a lot of losses early on (mostly self-inflicted) as he came up through the ranks of Irish golf. He had a full-time caddy who was extremely hard on him and a father who was measured and calm. These losses have stood him well over time, this goes back to Dr.Carol Dweck's "Errorful Learning" theory, we learn best through making errors, figuring out what went wrong, fix it and the cycle continues. You become bulletproof through experiential learning.

10,000 hour rule

Malcolm Gladwell has written a number of interesting books on the subject of outliers, people who have achieved extraordinary feats when circumstances suggest otherwise. But a common theme in the success of these outliers is repetition, doing small things day in and day out produces some unbelievable results. The 10,000 hour rule (which is just a phrase) came into play for Padraig growing up, when he eventually settled on playing golf full time at age 15, (he had been exposed to and enjoyed multiple team sports growing up,) he took this 10K rule and I would guess you could multiply it such was the amount of time, effort and energy he put into his golf. 

Plasticity.

The brain changes over time due to a process known as plasticity. This continual practice, day in and day out, in an environment of constant flux (things are always changing in golf), with role models and peers to be hunted down, created a snowball effect, looking back on it now, it was like putting jet fuel on a fire, which still burns brightly 30 years later.

Probably the most famous rock band ever, "The Beetles," spent years playing every night in seedy joints in Germany to perfect their style. They just didn't turn up as superstars! The "I am going to be a Rockstar" gene was turned on, they were exposed to practice and repetition, and they evolved. Same for Padraig, his golf genes were switched on, he was exposed to the perfect storm of learning, and he evolved from the 15-year-old child that cried when he lost the final of the Connaught Boys Championship, (I didn't feel great either, to be honest!) to the silent assassin he is today. Looks like a nice guy, but I wish you luck trying to beat him. This brings us again neatly to the third, and for me, the most important part of the equation, what's in your soul?