That’s a great swing!
OK, you tried to hit that a little hard. Try it again.
Stay up on the follow through, you’re falling off!
You don’t have many balls left, you need to get that driver out so you’re confident off the tee!
Rob : OK mom. I’ve got it. Stop!
Yet next to us is a dad practically wrapped around his son, both their hands on a 5 iron, trying to completely rework the boy’s swing.
That was on the practice range and that’s why he was looking forward to, once again, going off into the quiet autumn stillness to test himself against the course without undue interference by mom on the bag.
I watched him drive it left off the first tee (the only instruction Max – who was traveling again with Bear – gave him was “on this particular course you’ve got to err right on basically every hole“) – it rolled down an embankment and as it settled in the rough at the bottom a lot of chatter bubbled up in my brain. Rob was no doubt grateful to be well out of range.
At the turn I walked down to help him push his cart up a steep hill to the elevated green where his approach shot was already sitting pretty. He was in good spirits and sitting 4 over. He then 3 putted! I walked down with him to Hole 10 and he drove the ball straight into a fairway bunker. I turned around, took my unwelome mojo (or juju I suppose at this point) and went back to my scorer’s table.
He finished 2 off his personal best, like last time, and walked off the course comfortable and confident.
In the wait before the groups started coming in I chatted to the parents of a 13 year old whose played a lot with Bear. They have realized, reluctantly, that their son is capable of shooting scores in the low 70s and winning tournaments – if they are not around watching him! Consequently they don’t watch at all these days which is difficult for them. On one hand, we as parents, like to watch our kids but even more than that we feel the need to be close by for guidance and comfort and to pick up the pieces when everything goes bad. It is difficult for us to let them forge their own path in their own time and in their own rhythm.
You see this constantly in junior golf. Parents imposing their own ideas on how the game should be played. Parents lining them up, telling them to ‘focus’, ‘take your time’ ….. Constant instruction, chatter, pressure, hovering taking them out of the natural rhythm and flow that may spring from their own bodies.
We watched a 7 year old girl practicing chipping on the green in front of the scorer’s table. The tournament director said : “I don’t say this about many kids, but that girl has potential to be very good. Her stroke and timing at her age is extraordinary.” Hours later, as dark fell and the last scores went up on the board we listened to her dad blasting her for messing up the last 3 holes with a string of bogeys. The tournament director turned to me and confided that he would be surprised if she is still playing by the end of next season. He feels she is just too scared of disappointing her father and will probably decide not to play at all just to avoid doing that.
Our job as parents is to offer opportunity and support. Our job is to let our kids find their own pace, path, swing arc, ball striking speed, rhythm, routine and reason. We need to let them be free of our expectations so they can start developing their own.
If that all means letting them walk the golf course on their own, then as hard as it may be for you, as a parent, let them just do it.