The initial role of a parent with golf and any sport is to give your child exposure to the game or to the sport. When kids are young they should be given many choices of different sports and activities to see what they like and what they may have natural ability to do. We often hear the word talent associated with a child and a sport and some children naturally gravitate to some sports more than others. Talent is sometimes mistaken for interest. Usually if a child likes something they will tend to want to do it more often and they start to develop skill. As a parent, you should feed that interest in golf by taking the child to the range if they ask to go or start to look for a program to give them more exposure and really test their interest. Usually if a child is just beginning golf and you are a golfer, simply instruction is fine such as grip, stance, balance or maybe watching the ball (instead of saying keep your head down).

As the child ages, it’s important if they have a high interest that you as a parent find a teacher or a coach. This may be as simple as finding clinics or camps for your junior or finding a coach that fits with your junior. The role of a parent here is to provide opportunity, scheduling practice time, observing, listening, spending time playing golf and certainly not instructing or criticism.

If you junior continues to progress and starts competing, here where a parent becomes a cheerleader and has no involvement in coaching or criticizing. There should be open dialogue with your junior’s coach about tournament play, practice routines, goals, how to support your junior’s endeavors. It is very important to your juniors’ progress that results are not the main focus here. It should be about fun, sportsmanship, learning a life skill; appropriate behavior and commitment to being the best that junior can be, not comparing themselves to others.

As a parent it’s so important to be supportive, encouraging and loving as your junior faces the intense challenges of competitive golf. Also it’s important for parents to support and be supportive of the coach. If there are issues in behavior or commitment on the juniors’ part, it’s important for their to be communication between parent and junior and coach as to find out what the junior would like to accomplish with golf. Ultimately the junior is responsible for their success. Coaches and parents provide support, guidance and feedback to help the junior succeed.