Is your child the next Annika or Tiger?
That’s the question posed in the introduction of “Golf Parent for the Future,” a booklet Vision54 coaches Pia Nilsson and Lynn Marriott wrote 17 years ago.
Spoiler alert: Their answer is no.
Every family is on their own personal journey in this game, and there’s no shortage of swing coaches, YouTube videos and self-help books available to those who want to build a golf prodigy.
But who’s telling the parents what to do?
“Your support system outside of technology, equipment, coaching, and fitness – it’s the only missing link that really differentiates every player,” said Katie Rudolph, chief operating officer of the First Tee of Metropolitan New York. “Why is one player making it and the other player isn’t? It has to do with the support system.”
Since “Golf Parent for the Future” was first passed out to every family on the AJGA nearly two decades ago, the booklet has been translated into 12 languages. Golf federations across Europe, South America and Asia use it. The Swedish Sports Confederation has applied the concepts to all sports.
Last fall, former No. 1 Ai Miyazato invited her longtime coaches, Nilsson and Marriott, to her junior event in Japan to speak to parents. As the event unfolded, the overall mood of the parents changed from “Why am I here?” to “This was the best part of the tournament.”
One of the more striking anecdotes in the Vision54 booklet centers around a time Marriott spoke with an elite women’s college team. The atmosphere was tense even with the coach out of the room. Marriott eventually got one of the players to talk about how much pressure they were under. From whom?
“Our parents!” they replied unanimously.
Marriott then asked them to role-play an imaginary phone call home with their parents after a 95 that included eight three-putts. Half the team cried during the exercise.
If the first question a child gets asked is “What did you shoot?” then the implicit message is that score is most important.
Nilsson and Marriott came up with a three-question action plan to help parents navigate post-round discussions. They call it Good, Better and How.
What is good?
What can be better?
How are you going to do it?
Amy Wagner raised two children through the junior golf ranks. Daughter Samantha competes on the Symetra Tour while her son, C.J., works for a consulting firm. Amy, a marriage and family therapist, is writing a book titled “Cart Path Only,” lessons learned as a junior golf parent.
“I remember one time we were at Innisbrook (near Tampa) for an AJGA event,” Amy said. “I got on Samantha’s case about something. She looked at me – she was 14 – and said, ‘Do you think I meant to go out there and shoot 79?’”
It was a game-changing moment for Amy.
“I think there is a sense of wanting the best for them,” she continued, “and wanting them to experience their best. … I got really clear that my relationships with my children were never going to be negatively impacted by a golf score.”
Now when Samantha calls home after a rough week on the Symetra Tour, Amy picks up the phone and says “I love you, sweetheart. Tell me five things that went well.”
She then encourages her to go work on what didn’t.
The same concept can be applied to every level of the game. Marriott said to treat a Drive, Chip and Putt trip to Augusta National like a family vacation to Disney World. The success of the trip is not solely dependent on how the child performs. It can be a wonderful experience regardless.
“The best thing a parent can ever say to their child,” said Nilsson, “is ‘I love to watch you play.’”
The bigger the stage, the more important it becomes for parents to understand the impact of their words and actions. A negative experience in front of the bright lights of a television camera can leave a player scarred. Conversely, celebrating with perspective is important too.
“When you have victories at those ages in those kinds of contests,” said Nilsson, “it still doesn’t guarantee you’ll be the greatest player five to 10 years from now. That the core of it is that they have fun and love what they are doing.”
When Samantha became the second-youngest player ever to qualify for the U.S. Girls’ Junior at age 11, Amy remembers thinking, we have arrived. When qualifying came around the next year on the same course, Amy figured it was in the bag. Told her daughter the same. After all, she’d already done it age 11.
Only Samantha didn’t qualify. What’s more, when she competed in her first AJGA event, she knocked her first two tee shots out of bounds. She bounced back beautifully after several gut-check events, but the Wagner family learned a valuable lesson during that season: High points aren’t forever.
“Enjoy this moment,” Amy said of the good times. “Be present for this moment, but realize this isn’t the end. And there’s no guarantee that it’s going to come again.”
Rudolph, whose student Megha Ganne is a four-time DCP participant who qualified for this year’s Augusta National Women’s Amateur, wants parents to understand that tough days are critical in the development of an elite player. The reality most times is that it’s likely to get much worse.
She advises all parents to be prepared for the conversation on the car ride home, because winning in this game is rare and parental expectations, even if wildly off, transfer to the kids. It’s important for parents to create perspective around every competition.
“That doesn’t mean you have to give them the starving-kids-in-Africa speech,” said Rudolph. “It’s just, let’s look at the bigger picture of what we wanted to do. We got to feel pressure today. We didn’t handle it like we wanted to, but we got to feel it. The kids that were tied for last going into today, they didn’t feel any pressure. Did we gain some things today? I think we did.”
It’s not just about what parents say, either. Nilsson and Marriott point out that juniors (and college players) are sensitive to what they see from their parents outside the ropes. They encourage parents to ask what their kids think about everything from what they wear, to filming their performance with a phone, to their level of enthusiasm on the course. Are the parents standing with their arms folded and their head down? Do they look too intense? Are they too loud? Too quiet?
Kids not only take to heart what their parents say but how they behave, too.
There are times on the lesson tee, Rudolph said, when a junior becomes almost paralyzed as she looks over to dad to get the OK to make a swing. Such early dependence isn’t realistic for competition. The sooner that separation comes, she said, the better the chances of that child’s success on a bigger stage.
And college coaches aren’t just looking at the juniors when they’re recruiting. They’re also looking at parents.
“In a lot of ways, it leaves a coach wondering is this kid capable of anything on their own?” said Rudolph, who passed on multiple players while a Division I coach because of over-the-top parents.
While Nilsson coached Annika Sorenstam on the Swedish national team, Rudy Duran worked with Tiger Woods from ages 4 to 10 at Heartwell Golf Course, a lighted, 18-hole par-3 track in Long Beach, California.
The first mistake a parent can make, Duran said, is trying to create the next best player in the world. Genius can’t be taught.
“I don’t ever remember seeing Earl in the pits trying to pull out Tiger’s skills,” said Duran of those early years.
Woods’ time at Heartwell was mostly spent on the course playing to “Tiger par,” an ever-evolving number that was based on whether or not he could reach the greens. Duran remembers Woods carding 8 under against his personal par at the age of 5 while playing the ball as it lies and holing every putt.
“He could manage his game like a touring pro when he was 5,” said Duran. “How much can you teach a child from 3 to 5 about golf? Almost nothing!”
Woods’ tee shots back then weren’t particularly amazing because he couldn’t hit it anywhere. It was the short game that particularly dazzled.
“At 5 or 6 years old, I’d see him hit a sand wedge with a ball that’s on a slightly muddy, grassy lie with no green to work with and a bunker to go over,” said Duran. “He would lay that clubface open and pick it off the top of the ground, the ball goes straight up and down like it’s dropped out of your hand to 3 feet, and make the putt.”
Parents dream big and invest heavily in trying to raise the next once-in-ageneration talent. Or maybe a once-ina-lifetime trip to Augusta National or a four-year college scholarship.
The stakes are high, but at the end of the day, it’s still important for kids to empty the dishwasher when they get home. Clean their rooms. Keep it all in context.
“The littlest things that you say can mean the world to them,” said Rudolph, whether good or bad. “Just know that they’re listening to you, even though it might not feel like it.”
Adam Schupak contributed to this article.
This story originally appeared in Issue 2 – 2020 of Golfweek magazine. Click here to subscribe.