Can an athlete be taught to cope more effectively? The experiences of an international-level adolescent golfer during a training program for coping.

The purpose of this descriptive paper was to examine the experiences of an internationally ranked golfer during a training program for coping. A 16-yr.-old male English golfer maintained an audio diary for seven competitive rounds over 21 days. He answered the same five questions after each competitive round concerning his experiences of stress and coping. The training program for coping was based upon the previous research of Nicholls and colleagues with adolescent golfers at the international level. The training program reduced the number of ineffective coping strategies that the participant used.