As a 39 year old bloke who is losing his hair, I often have thoughts that I could have made it as a professional in a sport that I was very average at – football, athletics, or even badminton. Sadly the dream was never realised.
As the years have crept by some thoughts often reoccur, and these lead me to reminisce about golfing rounds with friends on those long summer evenings hitting 18 on a twilight and finishing with a beer.
Those days are long gone, but the rose-tinted thoughts still remain. Now with two active children and an adventurous wife we have married both walking and a sport for our kids. We just walk and watch.
My wife and I love spending time with our kids – as much as possible. We enjoy just watching a lot of the time and particularly like walking with the kids in nature. You can put the two together and have a lot of outdoor time watching your kids develop in, you guessed it, golf!
They have been playing for 18 months and have progressed from shooting 10-12 per hole, to now hitting consistently 2-3 over par off the ladies tees getting a couple of pars or even a sneaky birdie along the way.
It is super easy to get into – a simple starter set from Amazon – SEE LINK HERE (these are £80ish). Join a local club – we joined a super friendly local club for £120 for the year – this is UNLIMITED golf. We played 3 times a week from the get-go and haven’t stopped since.
Now as some extra fun we have a kids versus adults cup every year – we bought a cup from amazon.
Some simple rules we followed:
- Be really polite when you start – the more people realise you have good etiquette the more relaxed they become. Let others go first. Always be patient and allow others to play through.
- Take lots of balls to begin with.
- Just do 3-5 holes to begin with and take lots of sweets and fun drinks.
- Possibly end at the pub for a drink and chips.
- DON’T SCORE THE ROUND – we didn’t for a year.
- ALWAYS YELL FORE – EVEN if it the ball isn’t that far gone.
- Get the right footware – we got the £15 Slazenger shoes to begin with.
- Take as many mulligans (retakes) as you like (within reason). Then just pick the ball up for the next hole if too slow.
- Feather the ball up a little so the ball is up higher. This allows for a better connection and isn’t so intimidating.
- Try to go at non-busy times.
- Don’t put too much pressure to hit the ball.
- Enjoyment over technique to begin with.
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