ABSTRACT
As alluded to by Maslow’s (1954) early philosophical works as well as the contemporary views offered by Seligman (1999, 2011), human endeavours are characterised as fixing weaknesses. Arguably, deficit-based approaches to human development in all sports, including the delivery of traditional psychological skills by sport psychologists, predominate and typically focus on identifying athletes’ weaknesses and fixing them. In contrast, practitioners in the disciplines of positive psychology (PP) and applied sport psychology (ASP) are beginning to examine the optimal functioning of human beings using strengths-based interventions. In this chapter, the authors present a case for this new strengths-based approach to enhancing human performance in golf and illustrate how such an approach can be introduced to leaders and policymakers, as well as to both coaches and golfers. Specifically, four applications of strengths-based interventions in golf are provided: 1) a strengths-based debrief process, 2) a strengths-focussed golf game analysis, 3) strengths-based questions for exploring a player’s weaknesses and strengths, and 4) strengths identification profiling.
