A youth golf lesson...

…..It’s not so easy for grown-ups.

When Leela arrived on that Tuesday afternoon for her first youth golf lesson in the late summer of 2001, I was both proud and anxious. I was proud because she had meticulously prepared everything for her first lesson from clubs to what she should wear. I remember saying, “Let’s see how it goes and then perhaps I’ll get you a proper bag, clubs and stuff.”

(Four years on and I now busy myself customising clubs for her and sending her out with her own personalised logo balls and designer golf apparel.)

The anxiousness came because of the sweet and innocent way she welcomed this cruel but wonderful sport into her life. I recall the first moments when I was showing her the grip, how she listened intently and when taking her first swing, grimaced, as the club didn’t seem to do what she wanted.

What I didn’t realise at the time was that she was still young enough to remember learning ‘gross motor skills by example. Like the child taking those first steps, falling down and with relaxed concentration starting all over again. It was so enlightening to watch. I do believe this could only be completely understood by an adoring parent.

Adults play their part too, as they don’t forget how to encourage these attempts with totally convicted encouragement. We are like the encouraging parents watching these initial steps and criticism doesn’t even come into it.

But oh how quickly this changes. I’m not sure when I first started to criticise Leela but I do know that it was on that same day that something changed between us. Did this happen on one of those tormented days when I couldn’t shift my bad attitude and ended up snapping at my daughter during one of these ‘child golf lesson’ sessions?.

With every critical remark we lose another little piece of that heavenly bliss and trust that exists between parent and offspring. This line from Paul Young’s song gets me every time, “Every time you go away, you take a piece of me with you.”

This particular conflict is unfortunately a sad fact of life but there is an easy solution to improve its’ density. The truth of the matter is that the more we try to put things back to the way they were, the harder it is to achieve. So what is to be done?

Stop teaching, stop correcting and stop arguing over or discussing any problems. Link to this page to read more on this.

Yes you heard me correctly we are going to move onto the next level with our youth golf lesson. I did this with Leela and we actually skipped a level and moved onto the ‘next manifesting plane’.

youth golf lesson