Female golfers’ uncertainty management during their transition into professional golf

Abstract

One means of understanding athletes’ careers is via the transitions they endure, including that from collegiate to professional athletics. To date, scholars have overlooked this important, capstone transition, as well as the roles of uncertainty management and human interaction in athletes’ adjustment. This study considers the uncertainties and management strategies of fifteen women’s professional golfers on an entry-level tour (Eggland’s Best Golf Tour). Results indicate athletes have uncertainties about their future successes, financial stability, and newfound autonomy. Although athletes expressed concerns for impression management, they ultimately sought to reduce their uncertainties because of the deemed utility of missing information. They mostly relied on covert (e.g., observation of peers) and cognitive strategies during their transitions; although, family and friends were directly sought for generic advice and financial support. These findings add complexity to sport transition literature by placing uncertainty management at the center of career transitions and highlighting the indirect and intracommunicative means of managing uncertainty. Such results may guide the strategic socialization of student-athletes by collegiate and professional associations to prepare them for the transition by addressing future sources of uncertainty and means of addressing said uncertainty.