Insight as 13yo takes the "next step..."

[caligolfer2103]

My son is 13 and has spent past year re-working his swing... he's been playing for 3-4 years but gotten serious in the past twelve months and has worked with a new coach to get his swing more consistent and efficient. I've purposely brought him along slowly to avoid burnout and to let him be a kid, so he's only started doing tournaments the past six months and quit soccer earlier this spring. As a dad, I've loved watching him develop and being his #1 fan... his tournament scores have dropped from the mid-high 80s to being consistently in the 73-75 range playing primarily Players Tour and TTC Qualifier events (SoCal circuits.) 

 

Given how serious some of your kids are, I'd love to know any lessons learned you'd be willing to share as your kids hit that inflection point into competitive golf. Were there things you'd do or not do again as your kid developed? For the first time, I think my son sees how competitive he can be and wants to go as far as he can and so I'm just here to help in anyway possible without putting too much pressure on him!

 

For example, he's generally pretty unflappable. But at his last TTC qualifier, he started out +1 through 13-14 holes before fading down the stretch. As we chatted on the way home, he mentioned that it was the first time he got nervous at a tournament because he knew he had a chance to qualify and his swing just didn't hold up and he couldn't pull himself out of the rut. So I'd love to know how your kids worked on the mental side of the game or is that just something that develops as you play more tournaments?

Thanks in advance. Broad question as I don't know what I don't know and am just trying to soak up as much knowledge as possible!

[wegobomber31]

I’d say secretly root for the setbacks to occur at this age and let him process what it means and what he can take from it. It will only make him stronger in the end. 

 

My son was in a similar boat, he was playing multiple sports and was a little late to competitive golf. I would resist the urge to compare his progress to other kids. Just control what you can control and if he has the skills and the drive he will be fine. 

[caligolfer2103]

Yeah, for sure... It was such a great learning experience for him. And I don't watch him play anymore, but when we chat afterwards, I can hear how he's evolving... like he tracks putts or can recall stroke for stroke many of his holes or explain how he played a certain shot and how he might do it differently.

 

Your last sentence hits home... the past three years, it was so hard to not make him golf only because I could see how other kids who were all-in were progressing faster. But I wanted to try to play the long game because I'd seen so many of my friends' kids who specialized early burn out and more importantly, I just wanted him to be a good all-around athlete and have fun being a kid. Soccer is such a social sport that I'm glad he got to do that. And now I can see the other benefit which is soccer gave him a thick core, and muscular lower body which is really helping him now.

 

Thanks for the thoughts. Sounds like just keep it simple stupid 🙂

[RmoorePE]

Tracking along with wegobomber31, there is no single inflection point, there are a lot of them and some of them go the wrong direction.

 

As a parent stay big picture. It is not a linear ride. When my daughter first started into tournaments she was immediately in the mix, winning, top 3, top 5 all the time. I thought she was going to be winning everything within 2 years. The past 8 months she has fallen down a lot, mostly due to swing issues. She loves lifting weights and some of her flexibility has changed and her swing is mis-timed. Just enough to keep her uncomfortable over quite a few shots. She is still getting decent results, just not where we thought she would be. It is the second part of that "not where we thought she should be" that is the killer. Expectations for results are much too stressful for everyone. 

 

Keep your expectations in check, sure let your imagination run wild, but when you look at your athlete be honest with yourself. The game gives so much to the kids when we let it happen at their speed. When I look at the past season as a whole where daughter finished a few places back of where she thought she should be in almost every event, I still see where she learned lessons about focus, and disappointment, and mostly how to grind out of bad golf situations/lies and blow up holes!