What was your favourite memory of junior golf?

[MarkT]

Small world - played Sandown Park a few times as well! Main courses I played when I first started were Mitcham, Oaks Park and Addington Court.

London Scottish was the first club I was a member at! Think I was there around 86/87 to 89/90. Yes the majority of the par 3s were tough - we'll over 200+ yards and small greens. But loads of short par4s to make lots of birdies on.

And the pillar box red shirts and jumpers were quality - made by Glenmuir!

Small world - played Sandown Park a few times as well! Main courses I played when I first started were Mitcham, Oaks Park and Addington Court.

London Scottish was the first club I was a member at! Think I was there around 86/87 to 89/90. Yes the majority of the par 3s were tough - we'll over 200+ yards and small greens. But loads of short par4s to make lots of birdies on.

And the pillar box red shirts and jumpers were quality - made by Glenmuir!

Glenmuir’s finest

 

[Deleted member 21258]

Like others, didn't move in the right circles when young, for me to play golf.

Therefore the best junior memory I have, was taking my son to golf at Garons par 3 course(around 6ish years old I think) and watching him hit a couple of good drives first time out and he running off down the fairway buzzing and chasing his ball (leaving his dad to pick up two bags, thanks son! If only you could bottle that excitement and live it again.)

Great memories.

 

[Deleted member 1147]

I loved junior golf; like Pieman says, the long summer days were great.
I also played a lot of evening golf; Dropped off by a parent, played between 9 & 18 depending on sunlight, then phoned home (on the clubs payphone) and waited to be picked up.
Whilst waiting we'd go on the practice area and have chipping competitions until our ride home arrived. The ridiculous positions we'd practice from have helped my shortgame no end over the years.

 

[tomshanks]

My grandparents took me for my first ever round on a proper course. I remember sitting in the car looking over the first fairway whilst waiting for a downpour to pass over. We sat there watching a group pass by, one player is in the thick stuff about 10 yards from our car, he takes three swings & misses in a row, checks where his playing partners were before picking it up and chucking it down the fairway! The look on his face when my grandad wound down his window to say "good shot" was priceless!

 

[Deleted member 18588]

Was there any such thing in the early 1960's?

 

[Deleted member 1147]

Was there any such thing in the early 1960's?

You were all too busy working in chimneys back then, I believe

 

[Doon frae Troon]

At the age of 11 winning the primary school golf cup and then spotting that it was 30 years after my father had won it.
My nephew then won it 30 years after me.
I played three rounds and won the semi final at the 19th, so there must have been between 12 to 16 entries for a village primary school golf competition.
Cup is still played for today. I must have played in 1959.

PS..... As MM said there was no such thing as Junior sections at golf clubs in those days.
I could play in about 4 local competitions a year.

 

[Deleted member 18588]

You were all too busy working in chimneys back then, I believe

Aye but that were only 6 days a week and then only 7.00 to 7.00.

It were a grand life!

 

[SwingsitlikeHogan]

Arriving at Deaconsbank golf course in Glasgow at about 8am and not getting to tee off until about 2pm in the height of a beautiful summer.
We would take playing cards to pass the time.
The course itself is short (about par 64) and none of the tees had grass on them, just baked mud. The greens were probably rubbish and it had zero bunkers.
Did I care, no I didn't. Great memories, seems like yesterday.

Snap...the course that I played my very first 18 holes and where I learned to play - I think it was 20p a round? If you were down at Deaconsbank a Sat morning early-mid 1970s you'd have been in the same queue as me and my mate Alan And yes - you'd sometimes have hours to wait...and if we finished very late in the day and no-one was teeing off and the we'd often play the 1st - then the 2nd up the hill - back down to the 3rd green in the dark.

The 1st tee 9as was back then) was by the old farm buildings - one of which acted as a very basic changing room. I reckon the little hard un-bunkered greens were what resulted in me becoming a really good chipper...you couldn't throw the ball up in the air and expect it to stop and you didn't need to as there were no bunkers to pitch over. And more often than not any ball played to the green from any distance would be on the green then off - and I'd be chipping back. And the steel rods for flag sticks - often rather bent (for some reason I'd perhaps prefer to not think too much about).

Plus the auld fellas we'd sometimes be paired up could well have been in their 60s and 70s. Which meant that if they had started playing in their teens they learned the game in the 1920s - and as it was these guys who taught us our etiquette we learnt the etiquette from Edwardian days - and what these auld lads told us to do we did.

Great wee course - still going last time I passed.

 

[spongebob59]

None, couldn't even think of affording golf as a junior.

 

[Captainron]

Friend of mine was a member at Pretoria Country Club. Used to play every Friday after school. Eventually he asked if I wanted to walk around with him and hit the odd ball. 6th hole at PCC was the first hole I ever played.

Never played properly as a junior though. Played sporadically until I was 18 and then played regularly when we lived in Durban.

 

[Maninblack4612]

I played a lot of my junior golf with Doug McClelland. He went on to turn pro & win the Dutch Open in 1973 & now runs Silvermere in Surrey. We played partners in a comp called the Jarrovian Shield at Boldon Golf Club & won it. At the presentation we discovered that the trophy was a black toilet seat with a Golden Eagle emblazoned on it, the only one you weren't allowed to take home.

 

[Maninblack4612]

Aged around 16, I played in a County competition at my home club. Off 17, I played the first 9 in 50 & came back in 1 under 34. Finished that season off 7, I think.

 

[jim8flog]

The only thing I did as a junior was putting. The local park had a full size 18 hole putting green.

Stood me in good stead when I first took up the game around the age of 25 as it was one aspect I was already good at.

 

[Deleted member 21445]

Playing at least 36 holes per day, from dawn to dusk, every day of my school summer holidays. Also remember the smaller ball and clubs with no sweet spot.

Same Here and also went round the putting green 30 times a day.

Mum said it was the best child care money could buy, knew where I was, with friends, that I was safe and had people looking out for me if needed.

 

[Blue in Munich]

Being put on the train from Orpington to Ashford, being collected by Uncle Harry, (bless him, he's long since left us), being driven down to the holiday home of one of his fellow Chislehurst members, starting on the 10th at Littlestone, stopping after the 18th to pay the green fee whilst Uncle Harry had a swift pint, playing the front 9 back to the house, lunch that Auntie Sheila (bless her) had prepared then being dropped back at Ashford for the train home. Old wooden headed Slazenger clubs, and not understanding the unfairness of uneven fairway lies on links courses. Uncle Harry is to blame for educating me in the ways of links golf, learning to accept the good & bad lies that inevitably came with it & kindling my love for it. Thank you sir.

 

[Paperboy]

I got the bug around aged 15, my local course was Enville but couldn’t afford to be a member there so I made my own bits of course in a sheep field and whacked it around with an old persimmon driver and a 6 iron through an avenue of oak trees. Was gutted when the farm ploughed it up for crops instead.

Since then nothing has changed. Always playing out the rough and can’t putt.

Are you Cam's long lost brother?

 

[Deleted member 16999]

I never took the game up til I was around 20. Growing up on a council estate in the 80's/90's golf wasn't as accessible back then as it is today.

Similar, although spent hours on the course by the pond at Royal Bootle using a shopping basket to dredge for balls.

 

[SatchFan]

Same Here and also went round the putting green 30 times a day.

Mum said it was the best child care money could buy, knew where I was, with friends, that I was safe and had people looking out for me if needed.

Forgot to mention that last part. My mum used exactly the same logic.

 

[Italian outcast]

Beating a future Scotland captain / legend in the junior four-ball final
In all fairness - he had to keep cancelling and eventually forfeited the tie because he had better things to do - playing for the county, and the Steelmen's youth teams, and probably Scottish schools at the time
Still, a wins a win innit