The best advice I can give to parents who wonder if they have a budding golf star

Pray to God, or hope--whichever suits your belief system--that your child develops a true passion for the game.

Without this, it is hard to imagine a kid will put in the effort needed to succeed at a really high level.

Ever since Sean shot a 72 last year to win his junior club championship, I've somehow earned a nebulous status at the club as the father of a golf prodigy. Even though this was only his first sub-80 round of that tournament season, it seemed to change everything, and I sense there is a perception that I have some sort of expertise, even though I feel as if we are making this up as we go along.

I would quit my day job if I could get several thousand dollars each month for conversations at the club with those who congratulate his success while lamenting their own childrens' failure to launch into golf, or looking for insights into how to spark similar success in their younger kids.

Whatever success Sean is enjoying at this point, or how good he looks out there playing the game right now even though it may not be really successful, is attributable to pretty much one thing: the foundation is his drive and internal motivation to succeed.

His mother and I don't need to poke or prod him. If anything, I can foresee more a need to dial him back a notch and pace himself, than to push him to get out there to work on his game.

If we are blessed with anything, as parents of a budding golf star, it is with a child who has an incredible drive to see the fulfillment of his own dreams. Everything else we do for him to facilitate this process is only window dressing, and would likely prove for naught should he ever lose his passion for golf.

Our plan, if you could call it that, is to give him as much line as he needs. We'll support him as best we can, all the while making sure he knows that whatever comes his way will have been privileges that he has earned.

He is definitely better this year

Over the weekend I had a chance to find a bunch of Sean's numbers from last year and compare them to this year's performance.

Last year, as a 13 year old, his stroke average was 86.3, playing 24 rounds in 15 tournaments. He shot only one round below 80, and five rounds 90 and above.

This year, as a 14 year old, his stroke average is 75.2 over 4 rounds in two tournaments. He even managed to stay under 80 for his worse two rounds so far (79 and 77).

On a per round basis, Sean has reduced his bogeys and increased his pars. Compared to last year, he has cut his double bogeys in half, and (knock on wood) hasn't had a worse than double, yet. He has also more than doubled his birdies per round. Despite the latter, the big improvement in scoring is coming from eliminating all those mistakes that caused the bogeys, the doubles and worse.

When he gets to the point where the mistakes are even more rare, and while continuing to get a few birdies per round, he is going to become a heck of a golfer.

I don't think this improvement, though based on a limited number of rounds is an aberration. No doubt, tournament rounds in the 80's are an inevitable part of his future. But my suspicion is that those rounds, for him, will be like one of those days in baseball where he failed to get a hit over 3 or 4 at bats, or made some bone-headed plays in the field. Pretty rare.

I also think this year on year improvement is real because at home he is shooting under 80 for almost all of his practice rounds, which is evidence that his skills are improving at an accelerated pace. In fact, I can't remember when was the last time he told me he shot over 80 at home, but it has been several weeks now. He's just doing what we figured was going to eventually happen, and that is learning how to golf the ball.

Why is he so much better this year? The simple answer is because he has been working hard to get better. The motivation to improve comes from entirely within himself, and he really puts in the effort. His self-image is not just wrapped up, but completely cloaked, into becoming one of the better golfers out there. He wants to be at the club all day every day, where he practices and plays rounds from morning to evening.

I also really like how he puts more time into playing rounds than into banging balls on the range. I also like how he is putting more effort--though I think he can do a lot more-- into practicing his short game, when he practices.

And of course, he has a truly great swing coach in Bobby, who turns out to be more than just a swing guru, but offers Sean the whole package, particularly his encouragement and thoughts on how to play competitively. I will never understate the importance, for a junior, in getting not just any swing coach, but the right one.

Every stroke matters

On his 17th hole yesterday, Sean hit what he characterized as one of his best drives of the day. I had arrived at the course to pick him up just in time to see it, from a distance, and he was well up the middle of the fairway. I also saw his approach shot into the green, and could only tell from his pose that he had nailed it because on good shots, Sean invariably holds his pose until the ball stops. He later told me it left him a ~15 ft putt for birdie.

Then, it seems, the wheels sort of fell off and he made a bad decision. On the drive home he said that he felt like he needed to get something going, even though it was almost the last hole, so he hit a very aggressive putt that went well past the hole. He missed his comeback putt for par, saying he just wasn't committed to the putt. The result was a bogey, on the back of two mental errors and a failure to take advantage of two solid shots that put him on the green in good shape.

From a distance, I could tell he three-putted and from seemingly good position, wasting a good drive and approach. But I didn't know the details. From what he said, it appears he decided to press the pedal to the floor in a vain and pointless attempt to salvage what he felt was a poor round.

It turns out, that final bogey left him one shot out of 10th place, and so he failed to earn any points out of all his solid effort in the event. Had this been a qualifier event where finishing in the top 10 would have given him some extra status on this tour, or one of the higher tiered tours, the mistake would have been even more costly.

I bit my tongue and didn't start a lecture, only saying quickly that in these tournaments, "Every stroke matters."

I bet he could knock off a few strokes from his scoring average if he could find a way to take that as his motto in a positive way, and keep it in the forefront of his mind during these events. But it is also a fine line, because I wouldn't want to see him develop into a super-cautious golfer. Golf offers elements of risk and reward, and often times taking some calculated risk from time to time can yield tremendous dividend.

I suppose at this stage, him being only 14, that all you can ask is that he learns from something like this. In fact, as a father, the incident reminds me that learning is the ONLY thing that really matters at this stage of his golf development. I could tell him until I'm blue in the face that he needs to make sure he pars out from that sort of situation. But he'll have to learn it on his own, one lost stroke at a time.

Another good start...and the wait

Sean is playing his 2nd round today in a two-round tournament with the regional junior golf tour. A bit over an hour ago, I dropped him off at the course after an hour-long drive down here, to somewhere in outer southern suburbia. Then I left to get some lunch and to find a wireless signal so I could get some work done.

Sean doesn't want us to follow him during his rounds. It makes him uncomfortable and I can understand why. It is hard enough to play tournament golf, he doesn't also need to worry about whether I approve of the way he is playing. He's still at that age where he can be pretty defensive about things and will imagine criticism, judgments and slights where none are intended.

The fact is, because I admire his ball striking, I'd love nothing more than to watch him play, particularly when he is playing well. His pushing me away like this is something of a bummer, but it isn't really threatening. It is just the way it is. That is our unique dynamic. And it is probably healthy for our relationship. He has to grow up and learn how to live his life and he is at an age where more and more space from his parents is bound to do him more good than harm.

Maybe down the road, when the tournaments are bigger and more important and meaningful than these junior events, I'll finally get the OK and he'll invite me to watch him compete. Besides, I'm also sort of proud not to be one of those helicopter parents who hangs on every 12 dozen or so shots in one of these events. I suppose that must work for some kids and their parents, but for Sean it is counter productive and for me it would probably be too excessive.

In all honesty, he's probably right. If I were out there, I would be making a lot of judgments, and if I saw him screw up a shot or something, he'd probably be right to read disapproval in my body language. I don't really hide my emotions well. And the ride home would probably devolve into me lecturing Sean, who is now the better golfer of the two, on how to have handled the round better. Ending a disappointing day on the course by getting into an argument seems to be counterproductive to the long term objective of him developing a steely passion for the sport, and learning how to perform under the fiery and sometimes emotional conditions of tournament golf.

So keeping me at a distance seems much better for the both of us. It is his tournament and after rounds he can tell me what he wants me to hear about it. We ride home and I ask him questions about how things played out, rather than dominating the discussion by 'sharing' my own opinions and false wisdom.

As our system works now, rather than him growing increasingly defensive to whatever I offer, he talks about the round at his own pace, bringing up things here and there, and I can see how that works to consolidate his memories and impressions of what happened that day, and how he does this to gain insight and learn from what happened.

The course he is playing is a good test. He played it last year from more forward tees, shooting two rounds in the 80's. But he likes the course and says it sets up well for him.

This year, it is rated at 72.7 and is playing at almost 6860 yards. The 14-15 year old boys are playing from the same tees as the 16 and older juniors, and intermingled with them in the pairings. The field is a strong one, with plenty of kids who will be playing at the collegiate level some day. A lot of the names we recognize as those from leaderboards at past events, and have done well in the recently finished state high school playoffs. Kids who may not yet be highly ranked nationally, but have enjoyed considerable success out on the junior circuits around here.

Yesterday, because of a work conflict I had, Sean's mom took him down to play his first round. She was also instructed not to follow him on the course, so she hung around and read and waited. She called with an update in the mid-afternoon, telling me she did manage to catch his eye when he passed at the turn, and he gave her a thumbs up. But she had no idea how the scoring was going. I told her I thought the thumbs up was probably a good sign. Sure enough, we found out later that he was 1-under at the turn....(his 2nd under par 9 holes of the short season).

He called me a few hours later to report he had opened the round with a 74! Two birdies, two bogeys and one double bogey. That score left him in a tie for 5th place within the 14-15 age group, and in a tie for 29th overall. There are ~105 boys playing in the event, 35 of whom are in his age group.

Yeah, that is a heck of a start.

Particularly given that the course favors good drivers of the ball, and how Sean had not struck the ball particularly well off the tee during a practice round the previous day, losing 3 or 4 balls. Both yesterday and today he went to our driving range to work on hitting his driver before heading off for the tournament. Obviously, he figured it out.

Only 3 players lie between Sean and the leader, who shot a 69. Last night, we talked about how there is nothing he can do about that kid, or anybody else in the field.

We also looked at some of the scores on the course from previous years and decided that if a 143 doesn't win his age group, it might be pretty close. They have morning and afternoon tee times, sending out the bottom half of Sean's age group earlier. The internet reports they are back in and that the leader in the clubhouse for Sean's age group is 149. Of the 18 players in from the morning round, 14 of them improved on their scores from yesterday and 10 of them shot below 80.

Can Sean join that trend and shoot a better score today than yesterday? In the past, he almost always does better on the 2nd round of these two day events. I've always attributed that as mostly indicative of starting out tournaments crappy before settling down. In this instance, though, he's shot his 3rd best tournament score ever in an opening round.

Although we'd be thrilled for another round in the 70's, Sean has chance to actually finish high in this event, and maybe even win it! Whichever way it comes out, it will have been a learning experience.

So I wait. In a nearby public library, glad to be out of the muggy heat, and hoping things are going well for him, and wondering desperately how it will turn out. We'll know how he fared in another couple of hours.

UPDATE:
Sean shot a 77 in his final round. From the pavilion at the course, I saw him play his last two holes and in particular, a birdie from the fringe on the par 4 9th hole, his finishing. Despite the birdie, he was dejected coming up to the pavilion to turn in his score.

"I played horrible," he said, before telling me his score.

And in all honesty, it was a bit of a let down for me, too, since he dropped back to a 13th finish place at 151. I think I had convinced myself that something better was coming. Waiting up in the pavilion over the previous 45 minutes or so, I had seen the results board slowly fill out and was in the process of calculating all sorts of hopeful scenarios. I had seen that the leader of his age shot 72-69, meaning Sean would have to come in with a lifetime best ever of 67 just to force a playoff. That seemed unreasonable, but not impossible, right?

But the next highest score on the board was seemed stuck at 146, and so I had some realistic hope that, should he have a great but not earth shattering day, Sean had a good chance to finish in the top 10, and maybe even well within the upper tier.

But it wasn't to be this time.

Still, on the bright side, which seemed to only slowly dawn upon the both of us as our disappointment faded on the ride home, it was another round in the 70's and at 7 over for the tournament, it was his best finish to par by a long shot. And to be disappointed was probably a good thing, because it means Sean recognizes that he really can do better. He didn't have his 'A' game out there, strongly off the tee again, but still managed to scrape together a decent score in the 70's. For him to be disappointed because he failed to meet the higher expectations he has suggests to me that his compass is definitely pointed in the right direction.

As for the field, although 141 won the event, Sean's finish left him only 5 shots back from second place in his age group. So considering where he was last year, bringing up the rear in these events, his effort in this latest tournament is very, very promising. He is making huge progress and it seems as if it will be only a matter of time before he tightens up his game another notch and discovers what it will take to shave those few strokes off these scores that will be necessary to climb closer to the top of the leaderboard.

Great stuff!