Here’s a new blog post that I’m hoping to keep going. As some of you may know, I have a younger brother (he’s 14 now) who’s shown an increasing amount of interest in golf. He didn’t come to the course much with me in the summer, which I think is mainly because of the heat. He doesn’t like being in the heat for a ton of time or sweating a lot, which I tried to explain to him several times that if he ends up making the team, our coach is gonna want him playing tournaments over the summer.But now that it’s getting cooler, he’s starting to accompany me to the course more.

He just played nine with me today, and it wasn’t great, but not terrible. What I like is that he’s playing the white tees with me. He’s been doing that for a while, and he’s gotten quite used to it. The tees he plays usually depends on who he’s playing with. If our grandpa is playing, my brother will play the tees my grandpa plays, usually the gold/green tees (most of the courses I play go blue/white/gold/red or gold/blue/white/green/red). But if he’s playing with me, he’ll play whatever tees I play, usually the whites.

He wants to be on the high school team with me next semester, but he’s got a bit of work to do. We’re gonna have seven players this year, and only six are allowed to go to a match. We’ve got two guys who are shooting in the 30s consistently, and they’ve guaranteed themselves the top two spots. Then we have three (one of whom is me) who shoot in the 40s. Then there’s my bro and the coach’s daughter, who shoot in the 50s. She’s his main competition. I want to get him to the point where a 54 is an average/okay round for him, and his good (not great) days on the links are high 40s.

Right now, a high 40s score is a red-letter day for him, in the same way a 40/high 30s score is a red-letter day for me. A 55-60 is average for him, although that’s when I kept his score. He asks me to keep his score, but then he makes a seven or eight on the opening hole and tells me to stop keeping his score. Technically, he can pick up at triple bogey, because we play triple bogey maximum in every match except for regionals (and states, if we get that far).

So here’s what I’m thinking: I know my mom and dad want him on the team too. My teammates and coach want him on the team. I want him to come to the course with me once or twice a week when I go. Sometimes when he wants to go but doesn’t want to play, he’ll practice while I play. He doesn’t have to play all the time, and I don’t want him to feel that way. But when he does play, I want to keep his score just to monitor his progress. I just want him to come to the course with me and at least practice. This is his only chance to really get to know the other guys. Apart from me and the coach’s daughter, the other guys are seniors. The coach said he’d be willing to coach just the three of us in my senior year, but I’m not gonna put a lot of hope in that just yet.

So what do y’all think I should do? I think I’ve got a pretty good plan, but I want to know what y’all think. I think we could get him ready in six months.