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.