Kids + Golf - Best Instructional Books and Videos? Plus a story or two

[Wisguy]

My daughter is six and two summers ago we bought her a little kids club set and she seemed to like wacking it around and knows very well that I love to play golf and that makes Mommy sometimes give Daddy a little guilt trip when he's gone half of a Saturday playing the sport.  This year, with a bit more interest in it, we enrolled her in lessons at the local community center and bought her a nice little Precise brand kids 6-8yrs set with stand bag off eBay for only $58 shipped (tried to get her interested in a sweet little kids Ping set for only $95 but she didn't want a red boys-or-girls set, she wanted the dark pink set we got her).  We found out the instructors for this kids instructional course were assistant pros from a nearby country club with an excellent youth program, she got terrific instruction, and did really well.

I bought a kids golf book by Tiger Woods' first instructor, Rudy Duran, called In Every Kid There Lurks a Tiger, but it wasn't great - it had a few good motivational points, including "There's no such thing as a bad shot:  instead, think of it as an opportunity to make an awesome shot on your next swing."  But it also boasted on both the front and back covers and in the introduction, the author's legendary!/amazing!/outstanding! etc.... FIVE STEP program to learning golf.  And once you got inside the book, it never had a paragraph with an indented, numbered list of those 5 steps, nor did it have any chapters that were entitled "Step One:...  Step Two......" It was kind of bizarre, I read most of the book but skimmed some pages, and I never really figured out what the five steps were - it wasn't the best written and edited book, that's for sure.

Anyone have any suggestions on which are the best golf instructional books or videos for kids?

[Wisguy]

OK, I promised a story or two.

We've got a backyard that borders on a field and this spring my daughter and I were hitting balls out of the back yard.  I looked away for a moment while she was hitting her little 3W/Driver and she exclaimed "Daddy, did you see that one!  How far did it go?"  I paced it out and it actually went about 70 yards, a great shot for a first grader.  We had a little party that evening and I think she went up to almost every adult there and told them "I played golf with my daddy today and I hit my driver SEVENTY-FIVE YARDS!!"

A week or two later, I took her out to a par-3 course for her first full round on a "real" golf course (we had let her play portions of a few holes on a real course the summer before). The first hole was 148 yards and she wacked it about 6 or 8 times and gets her ball up around 35 yards from the green.  She hits a nice little 7-iron onto the green and proceeds to sink her 25-foot putt.  Next hole, she strings together a few nice 30-40 yard shots and she's about 10 yards off the green.  She takes a medium swing with her pitching wedge, and holes her chip.  Two holes, one putt total.  She turns to me and says with a smile after giving me a high-five, but completely seriously, "Daddy, I don't think this is a very hard sport."

[LuciusWooding]

I have a suggestion that you should keep in mind regardless of what you end up doing:

You know your daughter better than anyone else, especially the people selling books. You can take technical advice and drills and stuff, but be careful how you try and motivate her because different kids react differently to different coaching methods. And with a child that young, remember you can have a really big impact on her future. I would stay away from using psychology on her, those teaching and parenting methods don't result in well adjusted kids. (She'll think being manipulated is normal)

I've worked with kids of that age, including both boys and girls. Some react to a bit of good natured teasing with good humor, others could easily get upset. Some get upset when they fail no matter what you do to try to cheer them up. Most will not dwell on the issue either way and have a bit of a short attention span which makes them resilient. Having dealt with groups of kids, I can tell you that the kids with athletic talent will be obvious and the ones without it at a young age can't usually be taught until puberty. But at that age there's only so much that coaching will help. An athletic youngster who gets put on travel teams and gets private lessons can get beaten by a similarly talented youngster who is casually acquainted with a sport. This is unlikely in older kids, where coaching begins to separate the different ability levels. If you want her to get to a high level, it's only important to get her serious coaching and practice time when she's at least in junior high, probably fine if you wait until high school. Don't worry too much about the LPGA until she can do multiplication, you know? I probably don't need to say it, but some parents do think that way.

In golf, being able to hit the ball solidly at all on more than half the swings at her age puts her way ahead of the curve, especially for girls. When my high school class got taught golf, most of the kids couldn't hit the ball worth dick, even the ones on the baseball team and the like. Most 6 year olds not only lack the physical strength to make a swing with good form, they also are uncoordinated and don't focus much, and most aren't that smart in the common sense department to be honest.

It's best that you keep her involved with her peers because most kids will enjoy themselves no matter the activity. Certainly spend time with her yourself, but don't worry about being a second coach if she's getting lessons. No doubt you care about your daughter and will make the best choices for her, your gut instincts will probably be better suited than someone's book, and it seems you've taken the right steps to introducing her to the game.

[adamgoodman]

It's a really tough topic to cover, because every single person reacts differently.

Personal story, my father put a club in my hands when I was 8-years-old, but he was about 90% hands-off.  He never enrolled me in any sort of instructional path, because he wanted to wait until I was old enough to make a conscious decision as to whether I wanted to pursue golf.  I spent one summer at a casual children's golf camp, and the pro who ran it suggested that my father allow him to personally instruct me and get me going in the Junior tournament circuit, but we both decided against it because at this time golf just wasn't serious.

Now my father always ENCOURAGED me to play, but it always came to the point where it was me saying "yes" or "no".  So until I was 15, golf was nothing more than a casual hobby.  Fast forward to now, and I'm 18-years-old and a scratch golfer, because I took it upon myself to make golf my passion when I got into high school.

But there's a catch...

I can't help but wonder what could have been.  If I had actually taken the opportunities I had when I was younger, and maybe given a little bit harder of a push, I wonder what kind of player I could be at this point of my life.  Yet, it's very possible the intensity at such a young age could have easily soured the sport for me.

On one hand, I can't complain with the path I took ending up scratch before I can even legally drink, but I suppose my conclusion is not to leave yourself wondering what could have been.

[onesome]

Originally Posted by adamgoodman

It's a really tough topic to cover, because every single person reacts differently.

Personal story, my father put a club in my hands when I was 8-years-old, but he was about 90% hands-off.  He never enrolled me in any sort of instructional path, because he wanted to wait until I was old enough to make a conscious decision as to whether I wanted to pursue golf.  I spent one summer at a casual children's golf camp, and the pro who ran it suggested that my father allow him to personally instruct me and get me going in the Junior tournament circuit, but we both decided against it because at this time golf just wasn't serious.

Now my father always ENCOURAGED me to play, but it always came to the point where it was me saying "yes" or "no".  So until I was 15, golf was nothing more than a casual hobby.  Fast forward to now, and I'm 18-years-old and a scratch golfer, because I took it upon myself to make golf my passion when I got into high school.

But there's a catch...

I can't help but wonder what could have been.  If I had actually taken the opportunities I had when I was younger, and maybe given a little bit harder of a push, I wonder what kind of player I could be at this point of my life.  Yet, it's very possible the intensity at such a young age could have easily soured the sport for me.

On one hand, I can't complain with the path I took ending up scratch before I can even legally drink, but I suppose my conclusion is not to leave yourself wondering what could have been.

Your only 18 and your scratch....congratulations you have a wonderful future of playing great golf for a very long time, and if you have further aspirations of taking your game into more serious levels I would say time is still on your side,played today with a young guy(21 years old) that I could see was a very good player I finally asked him if he played to a + index, he said he was +3. Anyways he wound up shooting 68 after doubling the final hole on a course rated 74.5 slope 142 and over 7000 yards. I could see you being that same player in 3 years or less.

[Wisguy]

I'm definitely not pushing her hard - I told her she could pick up and put her ball on the green on any hole where she was frustrated or skip a hole or all the rest if she wanted.  Our second time out, she decided after three shots on the 8th hole that she was done, so I lugged her bag the last hole and a half while she did cartwheels down the fairway singing a Katy Perry song.

[gwlee7]

Originally Posted by Wisguy

I'm definitely not pushing her hard - I told her she could pick up and put her ball on the green on any hole where she was frustrated or skip a hole or all the rest if she wanted.  Our second time out, she decided after three shots on the 8th hole that she was done, so I lugged her bag the last hole and a half while she did cartwheels down the fairway singing a Katy Perry song.

I love it.

[LuciusWooding]

Originally Posted by Wisguy

I'm definitely not pushing her hard - I told her she could pick up and put her ball on the green on any hole where she was frustrated or skip a hole or all the rest if she wanted.  Our second time out, she decided after three shots on the 8th hole that she was done, so I lugged her bag the last hole and a half while she did cartwheels down the fairway singing a Katy Perry song.

So she's got gymnastics and music to fall back on if golf doesn't work out.