As an avid golfer from an early age and the father of a sports-mad son, I’ve spent more than my fair share of time thinking about how we get kids into the game. Of course, I have a vested interest, but in a world of diminishing attention spans, understanding how sports can evolve to retain their interest is critical.
One of the things that always inspires my son is seeing top level sport in the flesh. Together, we’ve watched cricket at the Oval, football at various grounds from Premier to non-league and rugby at Twickenham. The two of us have both loved every minute of those experience. However, whereas these were loud and contained with around two hours of watch time, golf is a different beast.
I’ll be honest and say that I’d held off taking him to a professional golf event because I was worried he’d find it boring, I was nervous of the potential for putting a player off and was concerned he’d find the whole experience, of something like The Open, intimidating. As a parent, knowing how and when to introduce them to this world is a challenge.
Last summer, at the age of 9, I took the plunge and we watched the leading female players competing in the Aramco Team Series at Centurion, just outside London. It was a revealing experience.
We started our day standing on the viewing platform behind the first tee. We squeezed our way in and found a perfect position, looking straight down the hole from behind the players. This gave us the ideal vantage point to see how the best players dealt with this challenging tee shot (it was blowing about 20mph on the day). To my eye, there’s a greater array of strategies used within the women’s game as the difference between the longest and shortest hitters is bigger. Almost every player hit their driver off that tee and yet the ball flights were wildly different. This wasn’t lost on my son.
What’s more, music was played in the gaps between the groups. It’s a relatively small touch and to my mind, it added to the atmosphere and alleviated any potential sense of intimidation.
Whilst I might find the story of those battling to retain their playing rights compelling, kids are much more taken by catching a view of those at the top. And so, the two of us spent a fair amount of the day following the eventual winner, Nelly Korda. The crowds were big enough to create an atmosphere without blocking our view of the action or creating any feeling of intimidation. So we were able to follow the classy American, seeing how she plotted her way through the difficult, windy conditions and marvel at the precision of her ball striking. In truth, I needn’t have worried about him making noise at the wrong moment, he was fully engaged in the spectacle.
Having said that, golf is a slow burn kinda sport. As I sensed his interest levels waning, so we made our way back up to the fan village area. We played crazy golf, hit some chip shots towards some unfeasibly small targets and ate ice cream. There were no queues to speak of and within an hour we’d had some fun competition of our own.
One surprising element that captured his imagination was the golf course itself. The venue, Centurion, was dressed for the event and looked stunning. My son was clearly impressed by how beautiful the golf course was and he asked if I’d played it and how it compares to the course we play.
In writing this article, I asked him about the event. He immediately reeled off three names of players we followed: Nelly Korda, Leona Maguire and Georgia Hall. That he could remember these players 10 months after we’d seen them compete just illustrates the impact professional sport can have on interested youngsters.
In truth, our Aramco Team Series experience didn’t have the high-octane action of the other sports we’ve seen live and, as such, didn’t create in him the same visceral reaction to what he was seeing. However, as an introduction to a different type of sport, it was a very positive experience. He learnt that golf wasn’t stuffy, that the top players are incredibly skillful athletes and that different courses pose very different challenges. More importantly, we both had fun and are looking forward to our next golf-watching experience!
