Professional Tournaments Research Articles

Abandoning The Performance Narrative: Two Women's Stories of Transition from Professional Sport

Despite its potential to illuminate psychological processes within socio-cultural contexts, examples of narrative research are rare in sport psychology. In this study, we employed an analysis of narrative to explore two women's stories of living in, and withdrawing from, professional tournament golf gathered through life history interviews conducted over 6 years. Our findings suggest that immersion in elite sport culture shaped these women's identities around performance values of single-minded dedication to sport and prioritization of winning above all other areas of life. When the performance narrative ceased to “fit” their changing lives, both women, having no alternative narrative to guide their personal life stories, experienced narrative wreckage and considerable personal trauma. They required asylum—a place of refuge where performance values were no longer paramount—to story their lives around a relational narrative that reinstated a coherent identity while providing meaning and worth to life after golf.

A history of Cuban baseball, 1864-2006

This work, from noted expert Peter Bjarkman, is the complete history of Cuban baseball from its earliest beginnings through over 50 years of post-revolution play. Included are portraits of a century's top Cuban ballplayers, including recent stars like Omar Linares and Osmani Urrutia. The book also features year-by-year summaries of every Cuban professional and amateur league season, details on every Cuban national team appearance (1926-2006) in amateur and professional international tournaments, and Cuban legends, like the often misrepresented tale of Fidel Castro's amateur pitching career.

Tournament structure and nations' success in women's professional tennis

The relationship between domestic professional tournament structure in women's tennis and the subsequent professional ranking success of a nation's female players is examined. The 2003 women's professional tennis tournament calendar provided the distribution of events in 33 countries. Criteria used to classify nations' success in women's professional tennis were as follows: number of players with Women's Tennis Association (WTA) points, number of players with Top 200 rankings, and the combined WTA ranking of a nation's Top 5 female players. Pearson product – moment correlations were performed between the number of tournaments and the three criteria. Considerable variation was observed in the number of events organized between nations (USA, n = 56; Thailand, n = 3). All countries had internationally ranked female players, and 24 nations had players ranked in the Top 200. Results revealed relationships between a nation's number of women's professional events and both that nation's number of professionally ranked players (r = 0.60; P < 0.01) and Top 200 players (r = 0.60; P < 0.01), as well as the combined ranking of their Top 5 players (r = −0.52; P < 0.01). While a similar association was found between the number of professional events and players ranked in the men's game, there was no significant correlation between events held and the combined standing of nations' best five ranked players. Governing bodies and national associations in tennis should consider the provision of professional, domestic competition as key to the development of female tennis players.

Performance, Discovery, and Relational Narratives among Women Professional Tournament Golfers

The dominant narrative within the literature on elite sport is characterised by a total focus on performance. Scholars in other areas have noted how although alternatives to the dominant narrative exist they are often silenced and fail to reach the public domain. Drawing on interviews with seven women professional tournament golfers, we explored the narratives women use to make sense of their experiences in elite sport. We present three narratives which illustrate the existence of alternatives to the dominant performance narrative among Europe’s most outstanding women golfers. Two alternatives are identified: a discovery narrative and a relational narrative. These findings suggest that diverse routes to success are possible in women’s professional sport. We discuss the educational and social implications of the alternative narratives in an effort to encourage discussion and debate among athletes, administrators, coaches, sports psychologists, and educators.

Win a Trip To Heaven (Details Inside)

Win a Trip To Heaven (Details Inside) Chauna Craig (bio) No one else believed in us. While I sat at my grandparents' round kitchen table fastidiously hand-printing my grandfather's name, address, and phone number in black ink on a 3x5 card, my aunt's mocking voice bleated from somewhere behind me. "And what are we going to win this time?" I studied the sheet beside me and read my answer in a rapid mumble: "With Contest News and just a few stamps you could . . . Win big cash jackpots to spend as you please! Win a fantastic cruise vacation! Win fabulous jewelry! Drive away in a brand new car, truck, or van! Get surprise packages in your mailbox all year long! And start smilin' with our THOUSANDS of winning subscribers!" Then I glanced scornfully at my aunt—she was only ten years older than me and I could get away with this—and bent low over the paper so my hair hung down in a frizzy curtain separating believers from unbelievers, wheat from chaff, sheep from ordinary, garbage-eating goats. We were going to be rich, my grandfather and I. He'd recently subscribed to Contest News, a monthly mailing that detailed all the current marketing contests and sweepstakes, their prizes, deadlines, and even the odds of winning. Sometimes, when I looked at those seemingly algebraic formulas—1:63, 452—I had my doubts. I'd look over at my grandfather seated in his lounge chair watching professional bowling tournaments those Saturday afternoons, and I'd think maybe I should just go to the mall with Betsy instead. The odds I'd turn a junior high boy's head before she did were slim to none, but surely, I thought, surely they were better than 63, 452 to 1. But Grandpa had been a salesman in his time. Textbooks, cuts of meat from his first job with a butcher, life insurance just before his retirement. [End Page 75] He was good at convincing me that somebody had to win those contests. It was illegal otherwise, he said. Somebody had to win, why not us? If we sent out enough 3x5 cards, the odds would eventually be in our favor. If we worked hard enough, we would be rewarded. Most people were too lazy to go that extra step, he insisted, flipping through channels with his new remote control. But not us. That was the selling point for me. All through elementary school and now in the eighth grade, I'd been an extra-stepper, not necessarily to gain anything or to win approval. My parents replied with an earnestly bland "good job" to anything I achieved. No, it was just part of my character. I loved the way my mental muscles felt stretching a little higher, trying to bring the stars to my level. It was like my seventh grade art teacher's classroom poster said, "If you reach for the moon, you may reach an eagle. If you reach for the stars, you may touch the moon." Or something like that. The point is I liked reaching for moons, eagles, and stars, my fingertips flailing for something to hang onto. And the fact that my grandfather was willing to split all our profits 50/50 helped too. What would I do with my half of the $10,000 Pepsi was giving away in every state? I imagined the Normandee Rose and Gloria Vanderbilt jeans I'd buy, little thread roses and swans tattooed to my backside, my modest attempts not to brag as I fingered the springs of a new spiral perm that lay so perfectly on my 50-dollar Esprit sweatshirt. My mind should have been on heavenly rewards; I knew that well enough. The rich man didn't get through the eye of the needle, the camel had a better chance at heaven. Poor odds indeed. Still, I'd been baptized in water at First Baptist Church when I was 6 and then in the spirit at age 12 when we switched congregations and joined Calvary Victory Center. I was set when it came to the afterlife. Now I wanted to win my ticket to the...

The relationship between professional tournament structure on the national level and success in men's professional tennis

This article discusses the relationship between a nation's men's professional tennis tournament structure and that nation's success in the international men's game. The 2002 men's professional tennis tournament calendar provided the distribution of events on the top thirty nations. Criteria for a nation's success in men's professional tennis were: nation's number of players with ATP points, nation's number of players in the top 200 ranking, and the combined ATP ranking of a nation's top 5 male players. Pearson correlations were performed between the number of tournaments and each criterion. Results showed a considerable variation in the number of events ranging between 67 (United States) and 4 (Sweden). On the other hand, 29 of the 30 countries had Internationally ranked male player/s and 22 had player/s ranked inside the top 200. Results also showed that: 1. nations with a high number of men's professional events are best positioned to provide for more professionally ranked players, 2. nations with more professional men's tournaments are likely to experience success in the men's international game, and 3. having a high number of tournaments is not a prerequisite to having a group of players ranked among the game's elite. It can be concluded that competition is an important factor in player development and that countries who want to be successful at the professional level should try to provide best competitive progression for their players.

The Dilemma of Ignorance: PGA Tour, Inc. v. Casey Martin

In PGA Tour, Inc. v. Casey Martin, the Supreme Court of the United States upheld the right of the professional golfer Casey Martin to use a golf cart while playing in professional golf tournaments, despite the PGA rule requiring walking. In concluding that the Americans With Disabilities Act required such an accommodation to Martin, who has a serious circulatory disorder, the Supreme Court, by the specific words of the Act, was required to determine that the accommodation did not the nature of the activity. Yet in determining that riding rather than walking did not fundamentally alter the nature of professional tournament golf, the Court was required to make determinations as to which it had little information and even less expertise. In this respect, however, the case was more typical than unusual, for increasingly the appellate courts are compelled to get their own information and expertise in a relatively unconstrained manner. Whether such dabbling well outside of any plausible domain of judicial comparative advantage is desirable, however, presents an important issue of judicial policy that the Court's confident assertions about golf expertise did more to obscure than illuminate.