I Was The Parent Of A Junior Competitive Golfer

     Don't be alarmed, I have good news.  She is still alive and living in Las Vegas. We survived! My daughter learned to play golf when she was thirteen and is still playing golf. Watching her develop in the game was very rewarding to me as a parent. Unlike many juniors who played in tournaments growing up, she has kept at it. She is not playing competitively because other priorities have gotten in the way. Life and growing up have a tendency to do that. She and I survived together, and we have a strong bond as fellow golfers because of the experience.
     Rebekah always has been athletic and competitive.  She is the youngest of five children and her older siblings played softball and soccer.  After playing soccer and softball discovered that she liked softball.  In fact, she was a pretty good catcher and could hit.  There was one big problem in this. The teams she played on never stayed together and each year she had to go into the draft which was more like a personality contest.  She had the skills and the bat, but always wound up on a weak team. The leagues around where we lived were run more like popularity contests instead of competitive leagues. She wanted to play, but was losing interest quickly because the coach's daughter also played catcher. "Riding the pine" was not her idea of fun and did not soothe her competitive juices.
     I was an assistant coach of a high school golf team and then became a head coach of a local middle school team.  Beks would always want to tag along with me to matches and practices, sometimes picking up a club and trying to hit balls for the fun of it. On one match day she volunteered to keep score for one of the groups.  Following that group was the coach of another team who just happened to be a golf professional who let Beks hit a ball. He put an eight iron in her hand and she cranked it. Beks liked how she hit the ball and at this point was hooked. Both the pro and I saw that she had potential. Not only did she like the idea that she was not dependent on a coach to put her into the game and she could play in tournaments but that she was in control.  She could play every day if she wished. Needless to say, she was hooked.
     My daughter and I have many fond memories of her golfing career and the many hours we spent together.  In my next post, I will share some of those memories which even today we talk about. These are memories not only of the tournaments that she played in, but what happened as we traveled to the tournament. Our memories are sweet even when we just played a social round together, not associated with a tournament.  Golf is a wonderful sport.

She has my putter, too. I let her borrow it and never got it back. Oh well, what we don't do for our kids.