SwingStation Blog: US Kids Local Golf Tours

This past summer my son was afforded a wonderful opportunity thanks to US Kids Golf and Chris Hunt who is the Assistant Executive Director of the New Jersey PGA. Chris and his staff worked with US Kids and ran the local golf tour for kids ages 6-12. The courses the kids competed on were located around the state and ranged from upscale private courses to high end daily fee courses.

Chris and the rest of his gang did an unbelievable job running each event. Often dealing with well over 200 participants, each player was treated like a Tour player. Some of the events, thanks to the generosity of the host course Head Golf Professional (Dan Pasternack and Brent Studer), there was a delicious lunch free for all participants. After the completion of play at each event, there was a short awards ceremony.

US Kids "encourages" and "allows" parents to caddy for their children. My wife who is more of a tennis player if you get my drift did it for one tournament and she had a ball! Although the folks at US Kids are well intended, they might want to rethink that parent-caddy thing or at least tweak it a little. Don't get me wrong, many parents thoroughly enjoyed watching their son or daughter compete, learn and make new friends. However, many parents were way over the top, yelling at their children, admonishing them for a poor shot and teaching them to play slower than a tour player. I witnessed several youngsters who wouldn't take the club back until they got the approval from their dad.

So youth golf (different from junior golf) is going to thrive thanks to people like Chris Hunt and US Kids. My prediction is youth golf will go the way of Little League Baseball unfortunately (it may already have) because golf dads will want to live vicariously through their more talented and more exposed children. In any event, my son made friends from across the state that he wouldn't otherwise have met. I thank Chris and US Kids for that. I look forward to next year as does my son.