The Financial Times reported on Friday the dramatic drop in draws (or ‘ties’ to Americans) in England’s football Premier League – and it’s thanks to the application of maths.
English clubs seem to have finally realised that draws are not much use. That in turn suggests that English football is belatedly experiencing its own version of the Enlightenment: people in it are learning to reason and count.
Nice snippet of a news item from Oxford, about using golf lessons to boost numeracy.
Kirtlington professional Andy Taylor will coach in six local schools after receiving an £800 grant from the Golf Foundation.
Taylor’s sessions will teach the sport and look to improve numeracy skills by applying a scoring system relevant to times-tables.
Practitioners and commentators have long needed maths skills to deal with the avalanche of statistics that accompany sports. Whether it’s an understanding of time and lap splits for track athletes, mental maths for darts players or batting averages for baseball players, maths is vital in sport.
We’ll be intrigued to see how Mr Taylor uses times tables to track golf scores, but wish him the best of luck in boosting his charges’ golf and maths at the same time. If golf really is a good walk, spoiled, maybe the maths will make up for it!
Phil Mickelson, a man better known for his ability to, as Winston Churchill put it:
…hit a very small ball into an even smaller hole, with weapons singularly ill-designed for the purpose.
recently made public to the USA’s Congress his enthusiasm for maths and science.
