Logistically there need never be a “between season” for junior golfers. There are so many tours that if you have the time and money you could play a tournament every weekend. Practically this doesn’t, or at least shouldn’t, happen – it is a sure one way ticket to player burn-out and parent heart-attack.
We do not, however, take any significant amount of time off between tournaments for Bear. Possibly this is short sighted. We like to think of it as building experience, stamina and grit. As he gets older we move away from the US Kids Tour and focus now on longer distances and 2 day tournaments.
Rob has played and practiced a lot between seasons and we are all ready for the end of a particularly brutal Summer. The boys are currently playing an off season tour which is for middle and high school players in our County. Rob is neither but on the basis of his brother was accepted into the field and is holding his own just fine. I am nowhere to be found as they play these tournaments (well unless you look in the local Starbucks.) They carry/push their own bags and have no prior warm-up – it is suppose to give them the High School golf experience. As you arrive, the Organizer sets you off. As Bear and Rob are brothers (and so arrive at the same time) they have often played in the same four-ball. I have felt better about sending Rob off in these circumstances bearing in mind he is much younger, not a prodigy, and largely unfamiliar with the much older boys.
Junior golf is as much an adventure and leap of faith for the parent as it is for the child. A lot of the time more so. In as much as it looks like I’m living the dream sitting in air-conditioned solitude sipping my latte enveloped in soothing Starbucks sounds, my mind and hopes and fears follow my boys from tee to green in the late summer and early Fall evenings, shot after shot, down fairways, over hazards, and into that little tin cup in as few shots as possible. All in the name of experience, stamina and grit.