Jazz up your putting

Golf is a bizarre form of self-torture that is usually attributed as originating in Scotland although the Romans did play a game called “paganica”, in which participants used a bent stick to hit a stuffed leather ball. It says a lot about golf that the first written record of it was when it was banned in 1457. Apparently it was not Scots wives who were behind this but rather James II who wanted the men of Scotland to be spending their time on archery to help in the wars against the English rather than wandering about the highlands trying to hit a ball into a hole with a club. The ban was lifted in 1502 and so today, on continents around the world you can find people wandering around patches of greenery, carrying bags full of clubs, and trying to hit a small white ball into an equally small hole. Any golf aficionado will tell you how frustrating the game can be as they become obsessed with finding ways to better intimidate and corral that small white ball. For all those desperate golfers then a new study is of interest because it shows that music, and one particular type of music, can improve your putting.

The study involved young golfers with an average age of 20 years who had been playing golf for at least eight years. Each of them were put through a series of six trials. On each occasion they were asked to putt a ball into the hole from varying points on the green. In randomised order (ie. a different order for each subject) while they were putting they listened to either no music, classical music, country music, rock, jazz, or hip-hop/rap.

The results showed that all forms of music led to improvements in putting, jazz music led to by far the greatest improvements.

This is not the first study to show that music enhances sporting performance. It has been shown that country music improves batting, rap music improves basketball jump-shots, and any up-tempo music improves running. As far as the fine motor skill of putting goes though, it seems that jazz is the way to go.

Who would have thought that Dizzy Gillespie could help you keep your balance on the putting green?