Argentine Golf Prodigy Dylan Reales Learned to Play With Broken Broomstick

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From Golf.com

Read more: http://www.golf.com/tour-and-news/argentine-golf-prodigy-dylan-reales-learned-play-broken-broomstick#ixzz3GyVetllC

The very first thing I would like to do with any money I get through playing golf is to get my family out of the shantytown," he said. "More than anything else, that is what I want. It is my first goal."

I have seen these shantytowns in BA.  Very noble goal for him. I hope he succeeds.

Quote:

Argentine Golf Prodigy Dylan Reales Learned to Play With Broken Broomstick

Associated Press | Published: Wednesday, October 22, 2014 | 04:38:53 PM | Comments (5)

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AP PHOTO

Dylan Reales poses on the terrace of his home in Buenos Aires with his first club, fashioned from a broken broomstick.

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) --- Dylan Reales started learning to play golf by swinging a broken broomstick at fruit and vegetables discarded at a temporary market in front of his house in one of the poorest neighborhoods in Buenos Aires.

Tomatoes, onions and even crushed cigarette packages were his first make-believe golf balls.

"I began hitting everything I came across on the street," he said.

He's only 11, but's he's progressed in giant steps in just a few years, establishing himself as a regular on the local junior golf circuit.

Dylan still lives in a shantytown known as Villa 31, where the game is unheard of and often confused with polo -- another sport largely restricted to the wealthy in Argentina.

He draws attention when he pushes his three-wheeled golf cart through the tough neighborhood, where it's not unusual to see young men being handcuffed and taken away by police. Then he heads to the subway and a round at Campo de Golf de La Ciudad, where he often plays.

"The very first thing I would like to do with any money I get through playing golf is to get my family out of the shantytown," he said. "More than anything else, that is what I want. It is my first goal."

This week he is playing a pro-am event with Angel Cabrera, Argentina's top player. Cabrera has won two of golf's most important tournaments, the Masters and the U.S. Open .

Dylan says his idol is Rory McIlroy of Northern Ireland, the world's top-ranked player and winner of the U.S. Open , British Open and twice the PGA Championship .

He said watching McIlroy play on television drew him to the game.

"I really liked it," Dylan said. "How they strike the ball, the landscape, the peace. Everything about it."

Read more: http://www.golf.com/tour-and-news/argentine-golf-prodigy-dylan-reales-learned-play-broken-broomstick#ixzz3GyVr9840

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Good luck to him!

BTW I used to save all of my mom's broomsticks and spent hours and hours, and hours in the yard hitting pebbles down across the field with them. When I got a little yard mowing money I usually bought packs of BBs and would toss them up and hit them instead of the pebbles. The object of my solitary game was to hit every BB in the pack without a swing and a miss.

Unfortunately (now in hindsight) I was hitting them like a baseball instead of like a golf ball.