Chi town wrote:DuckIII wrote:Jello Biafra wrote:
Cool. I'm self employed so I can make my schedule somewhat flexible. Hit me up any time. Maybe Duck can get us into Bellerive or one of the other great STL courses too!
I wish. I’ve only been able to worm my way onto Bellerive twice in my whole life. Plenty of solid public courses down here though.
Duck how’d you get your boys into golf? I’ve got a 12 and 10 year old. We play together and hit the range but neither of them are asking me to play. I asked my Dad all the time when I was a kid.
So, I have three sons ages 17, 13 and 10. I introduced all of them to golf at about the age 7-8. From there three paths branch out that are all very different. This is not surprising to me as in my experience with kids and golf they fall into extremes. I coach middle school golf and give lessons to kids (introductory lessons, beyond a certain point I refer them to "real" golf instructors). They either love it, or don't find it very interesting.
Oldest Son: I got him started at age 7. He liked it okay and we played and practiced some, nothing real serious, until he was 10. One day on the range he told me liked golf okay, preferred his other sports, and just wanted to play for fun. Didn't want me to really "coach" him on how to play. So that was that. His life, his interests, so he focused on basketball, football and baseball.
Fast forward to 2020 and the year of COVID. In May he anticipated there would be no football in the fall, so he decided he would try out for the golf team. He was a pretty lousy golfer at the time, played maybe twice a year, and was only going to go out for the team to socialize and scratch his competitive itch. But he took it seriously and started playing 3-4 days a week with friends and when they didn't want to play that much he started playing on his own. He ended up finding out that he loves it, and now plays regularly. He made the team, and over the course of about 5 months went from shooting 120-something to low 90s/high 80s (our home course is par 72 but pretty easy).
Youngest Son: Introduced him to golf at age 7, and he could not have cared less. He goes out with me and his brothers sometimes and will hit a few shots, but otherwise just likes goofing around and being in the golf cart. This year he told me wants to try to practice it for real to get better, but that he has no interest in doing it competitively. He's all about football.
Middle Son: Introduced him to it at age 6 and from the minute he started hitting balls he could not get enough of it. Played in his first tournament at age 7, by age 8 was playing 5-6 tournaments and now plays in a dozen or so a year plus IESA school golf as a 7th grader. Its his favorite sport, he plays all the time, and he's very good. I think he'll be better than me by the time he's 15 or even before.
3 boys, same father, introduced to the sport at the same age, in the same circumstances, and three completely different reactions and degrees of interest. They all know I'm an avid golfer and love golf. They all know I would love them to love golf as well. But I never forced it on any of them or expressed disappointment in the two that had lesser interest. I see the same thing with other junior golfers as well.
I'm sure there are ways to more coercively get a kid to like a particular sport (start them much younger so they don't know anything else, use a heavier reward/inducement style, etc.), but ultimately they are going to like it or they won't. And that is especially true with golf because unlike so many other youth sports, its not really a "I get to hang out with all my friends" type of deal. Its much more solitary. So if they don't really just love something about the game itself, there aren't many collateral things that will bind them to it.