Teaching your children to play

At the range I work at there is a dad and his son that come up quite often, maybe 2 times a week. The guy seems to be knowing what he talks about... His son does sometimes get quite frustrated and I've seen him have a couple of strops and at first I just thought he just wasn't patient enough yet, but then one night they were in the bay next to me and I realised it was actually the dad. He was being so hard on his kid who can't have been more than 8, every time he hit a poor shot he went over why it was all wrong and what he had been telling him to do that he wasn't doing and that he has to listen more... So the kid was being really hard on himself because of his dads attitude, which I thought was just so wrong, how can you get people into the game when from a young age they just associate it with nagging and discipline.
 
My youngest son is 11. He started swinging a club about 4 years ago, I took him to the range with me often, then the local pitch and putt. Put him into a group lesson about 3 years back, which he has been in ever since. Joined him at the club 3 years ago as it was cheaper to pay an annual membership at the club than it was for me to pay the extra to take both of us on the pay and play courses regularly - no point paying extra for myself to play elsewhere once a week in addition to him. He's now playing with my old full size clubs, has a terrific swing and has been called into the county under 12's this year. He comes and plays golf with me pretty much every week, and comes to the range a lot, but I wouldn't take on the role of being his coach/ teacher. I obviously try to help him if he asks, when we're on the course and his coach is not around, but it's too much like trying to teach your wife to drive a car - you just shouldn't do it, and I'm not a golf coach. Your child will get much more benefit from an independent coach, they won't feel that you are pressuring them so much and you won't get the blame on the bad days. Group lessons are a good way to start, his coach used to do an after school club so the group was made up of his school mates. Now with the county call up, he will be moving from the previous group to a new one, and will also be changing coach to our club pro who also teaches in the county set up.

The best thing I can do is give him as much opportunity as I can, and make sure I don't try and teach him how to swing and hit a golf ball. The way it's going, I'm pretty sure that he's going to be teaching me in the not too distant future......
 
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My son is a almost 3 and he loves coming to the range with me! All he has to do, is stay on the green Matt... That's the only rule, he absolutely loves it and hits it about 15 yards. As long as he enjoys it, he can keep coming, once he is old enough and if he wants to, the range do juniors lessons, will stick him in, but I am not going to push him. Same as my daughter, she is coming on 5 and has been doing ballet for about 2 years. Omg some of the parents are unreal!! It's all about enjoyment, as soon as thy stop enjoying it, they can stop.
 
started my nephews off when about 6 and one has now progressed to full member the other hasnt really taken to it his choice, just gave him them opportunity and let them decide wether to come to the range or not. Now have a 3 year old who i have just got some junior kit for in the sales starting to show a bit of putting interest at home so i will gave him the chanec of the range this summer but will be up to him how often (well maybe HID too!).
 
I was down at the range yesterday and couldn't help over hear a father teaching his son.
"Hold it this way.
Keep your eye on the ball
Straight left arm
Turn your hips
Keep your eye on the ball !!!

The kid kept looking up at his dad to see if he was doing it right.
Keep your eye on the ball !!!

He was only 4 :(
 
bobmac said:
I was down at the range yesterday and couldn't help over hear a father teaching his son.
"Hold it this way.
Keep your eye on the ball
Straight left arm
Turn your hips
Keep your eye on the ball !!!

The kid kept looking up at his dad to see if he was doing it right.
Keep your eye on the ball !!!

He was only 4 :(
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Exactly why for now I will take my son and let him just whack balls. For actual lesson, that's what pro's are for! What good is that guy doing?nhis son will simply not enjoy golf... The guy thinks if he can turn him into a new tiger woods, he can be rich. Ok that would be nice, but would rather my kids were happy and enjoyed a hobby with their dad....
 
Rooter said:
Exactly why for now I will take my son and let him just whack balls. For actual lesson, that's what pro's are for! What good is that guy doing?nhis son will simply not enjoy golf... The guy thinks if he can turn him into a new tiger woods, he can be rich. Ok that would be nice, but would rather my kids were happy and enjoyed a hobby with their dad....
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The last thing you want is to turn your son into a Tiger Woods. He's dysfunctional on all levels except the golf course and even that is going. Apparently the way he is, is down to his pushy father doing a military approach to the golf. Tiger had the talent but there are loads of parents who seem to think all you have to do is push the kids and coach them right for them to be a huge success.
For every successful footballer/golfer, there are hundreds of failures who were deluded into believing they'd make it and sacrificed everything else along the way. So you end up wioth a teenager who has failed at the one thing you've pushed them into being great at and mentally wounded them along the way. Money ain't everything is it.:sbox:
 
If I was taking someone young to learn golf, I would encourage them to hit it as hard as they can and also do alot of chipping and putting. Get them to love hitting the ball in the hole, so even if its from 2ft away to start with. Plenty of time to learn technique if they get interested in the game.
 
I think dads need to be careful when teaching their kids to play golf. People want to do best by their kids but are they really in a position to teach someone the game. My dad got me into golf at 13 and although he had a cat 1 handicap he never tried to teach me to play. I had lessons straight away and my dad came to the lessons, watched what the pro was showing me then made sure I did it when on the course. He did though give me a lot of help with course management which helped no end in the early days of playing. I benefitted no end from this and got my first handicap of 22 from the mens tees after only playing for 3 months. Just be careful as you could be teaching htem bad habits. Let the pros do the teaching and your kid will benefit in the long run.
 
my da just gave me the basic pointers to play the game. taught me etiquette and made me watch his arnold palmer tape a few times for the fundamentals which for the main part i ignored and did my own thing. the bit on course strategy and bailing out still sticks in my mind though.
 
Reminded my of something from last weekend sorry it's a little of topic. I went to my grandmother inlaws farm to collect some balls as two holes from the local course run along the fence. As I'm looking for balls I was also watching people play as you do. I saw a lad of early teens tee off and must have hit a bad one because he had a huge hissy fit on the tee box. Slammed the driver into the ground sledgehammer style stamped another ball into the ground before hitting another ball and walking down the fairway! All this while the adult with him just looked on!! Said to my daughter if you ever act like that your clubs will be given away and you'll never play again! Glad I didn't join this club now if that's how they encourage the juniors to play!!
 
In truth parenting skills are alot like teaching golf !

Its a real shame we have many kids looked after by complete muppets who were dragged up themselves

Makes my blood boil when i see evidence of horrific parenting which is far to common nowadays
 
i have liked golf from an early age where my dad would take me to pitch and put but for a 13yr old from my experience i would look into group lessons/ summer camps I have very fond memories of a camp i used to do once a year where we would practice in the morning then play 9 holes and one day a trip to a pro event. the ryder cup when it was in the K club. certainly consider a camp if you have the money spare. and also any tips for trying to get a 53 year old man more interested in golf he is retiring next week and trying to get him a hobby
 
I took my son to the range for the first time when he was about 2 1/2, he still comes with me once in a while (now aged almost 4) and loves giving the ball a smack. We had an open day at the golf club last summer with loads of activities, one of which was a junior group lesson with our pro so he attended that and loved it, so much so that for weeks and weeks afterwards all I heard was "Can we go and see Craig and play golf".

After sitting in on the session, a) to make sure my boy didn't run off and b) to try and get some basic tips for myself I realised actually how much the kids must learn at his summer camp, not just about golf but general life skills such as concentration, discipline and good manners, then basic stuff such as counting, alphabet, vocabulary and shapes. For example:

Craig would set out targets marked 1-5 and have bays A-E on the range, he'd get them all to sit down with legs crossed in front of him while he was talking to the group, made sure they knew where to stand when it wasn't there go to hit balls and when teaching basic posture and stance he told them to create a triangle with their legs.

Originally I thought that maybe a summer golf camp would be a bit too much for my 4 year old but after seeing all that I'm sold. FJ will be going every saturday for the 6 weeks of the summer holidays and it's only £5 a session. Everyone wins, I get to go down the club and play a few holes knowing he is safe, my wife gets the troublesome kid out of the way for a couple of hours, FJ learns about all those things listed above which no doubt will help him in life but gets to do something he enjoys at the same time.....hopefully he'll then become a really good golfer, turn pro and I can live off him for the rest of my life.....or maybe I'll just have the best playing partner a man could ask for.....hopefully two of them should his younger brother take any interest in the sport, although imagine that along with that it'll probably make me a very poor person indeed.
 
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My son actually started golfing before me, knocking around in a fairly random fashion until he finally got bored.
I started playing two years ago, and my son renewed his interst about eight months ago. He has lessons every other week at Hazelwood in Sunbury and has massivley improved. The Pro there suggested getting bigger clubs (got Amercian Kids Golf), and having done so he has gone from strength to strength. He'll soon be far better than me. I don't mind too much as he was told I was investing in his new clubs for a percentage of future winnings!!
Defintiely agree with the previous posts about a) start them off young, b)let the Pro do the teaching, c) support them, and d) keep it fun.
 
Here's my eldest son hitting a few in March of last year. He's not bad for 4 years old.
Better than his old man :)

[video=youtube;thCOPLJ8pA0]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=thCOPLJ8pA0&feature=plcp&context=C3878c8dU DOEgsToPDskLz9gU5wQpAhNzVsgADf-oy[/video]
 
My son is a similar age (12). He's been on a couple of junior group lessons at the local course. Great value 8 weeks I think for £75 during the summer.

I will take him out a lot more this year now that he can hit a ball a bit better. I just hope that he enjoys himself and that he takes the game up. And if he doesnt at least I've tried!!

Good Luck.
 
My twopenneth.
My lad Patrick started a year ago when he was 9. He showed an interest when coming to the range with me so £64 later he was signed up to the PGA young masters scheme.
5 levels, ideally a level every 8 weeks but no pressure if they need longer. The coach is a very personable chap who is superb with all the kids. I'm sure the course content is superb but Greg makes it for the kids.
I rated him so highly he got my Xmas lesson money!
 
Naybrains said:
Here's my eldest son hitting a few in March of last year. He's not bad for 4 years old.
Better than his old man :)

[video=youtube;thCOPLJ8pA0]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=thCOPLJ8pA0&feature=plcp&context=C3878c8dU DOEgsToPDskLz9gU5wQpAhNzVsgADf-oy[/video]
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your holding him back. get that lad a stiff shaft! :)
 
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