The Wisdom of Age
Seek out older people
The Ryder Cup is one of the greatest events in all of sports. Every second year for four days, America's top dozen golfers face off against Europe's twelve best in a contest unique in golf for its team competition, and a particular challenge for the American headliners more accustomed to individual play.
Leading up to the 2006 Ryder Cup in Ireland, American team captain Tom Lehman reached outside his peer group-his sport, even-to consult with a ninety-five-year-old basketball coach named John Wooden (who died in 2010, one year shy of his hundredth birthday). Most people know of Wooden, the "Wizard of Westwood," as the man who guided UCLA to an unprecedented ten national championships. Still, why would a forty-seven-year-old golfer call on a basketball coach twice his age, a man who coached his last game thirty years earlier?
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