The eight-time PGA tour winner – who is now a successful coach and commentator – believes those who go on to enjoy successful careers in the game have not grown up completely dedicated to their clubs because they can learn different things from other sports.

Asked if he thinks young golfers pigeonhole themselves too quickly, he told Golf Monthly magazine: “No bout about it. I think kids need to be playing lots of different sports as long as they can.

“I learned a lot from the guys who started the Titleist Performance Institute, Greg Rose and Dave Phillips.

“They started really learning the biomechanics of the game, testing PGA Tour players and asking them questions like what sport did you play as a kid.

“As they did more and more research, they found that so man of them played other sports as children and didn’t commit themselves to only playing golf at, say, eight years old.”

Brad went on to detail how players can benefit from trying other sports.

He said: “The things you might learn by playing a sport like basketball, for example – running fast, stopping fast, jumping high – these come back to benefit you in golf without you necessarily knowing those things were going to help you further down the line.

“You think about today’s power players and you see the lift they get from the ground as their legs extend, their hips extend up and their body rotates and turns.

“You build all of that at a young age and you get that from playing other sports.

“And all the while, at the same time, the children are also having fun doing it.”

And Brad hit out at parents who push their kids to be single-minded about golf.

He said: “I almost tear up when I see parents who think their kid is going to be the next Tiger Woods or Jack Niklaus at nine years old and they make them play just golf. I blame the culture, because society has got to a point where if you want to be good at something, people think you’ve got to only do that.”