Yesterday my son, Chaney, wrapped up his fourth and final season as a member of the Overton Golf Team. If you have a son or daughter, I highly recommend that your steer your child toward the golf team. Here's why:
- Members of the opposing team will not try to physically harm your child.
- Your child is unlikely to experience an injury while participating in a match (although mine did recently show up on the 9th green with a bleeding wound, the result of an accidental collision between his pitching wedge and his forehead).
- The coach will not yell at your child during the match (in fact, coaches and parents aren't allowed to offer advice to golfers during a match).
- Other parents will not yell at your child during the match.
- The season lasts less than two months.
- Your child will learn a sport that he/she will be able to play for a lifetime.
During the past four golf seasons, I have enjoyed watching my son mature - both as a golfer and as a young man. The first year he went to the district tournament as Overton's #5 golfer (teams can only take 5 golfers); this year he was Overton's #1 golfer at the end of the season. During his freshman season, he barely spoke to the other golfers in his foursome; by his senior year, he conversed freely. As a freshman, if he had a bad hole early in a round, he had trouble regrouping and struggled throughout the rest of the match; by the time he was a senior, he had learned not to allow one bad hole to spoil an outing. I loved hearing him encourage the new golfers on Overton's team this year, reminding them that he had struggled mightily during his first season but had slowly and steadily improved with practice.
While Chaney didn't qualify to move on to the regional tournament, he met his personal goal at the district tournament by shooting an 88 on 18 holes at McCabe Golf Course. Since studies have shown that 75-85% of all golfers fail to regularly break 100, an 88 sounds awfully impressive to his non-golfing mom.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
I would also like to recommend the tennis team. As a former member of my high school's team, I can assure you that most of these advantages do apply to tennis....except in women's tennis, there are some members of some opposing teams who will try to emotionally harm your child. Or cheat. My mom often kept score on a pad of paper during my games and would tell me how many times I got cheated after the match was over.
I would also like to say that high school tennis isn't the most competitive sport in Northeastern Alabama, making it a bit more fun.
I am intrigued about the mental nature of golf (and sometimes tennis). In golf, you are really competing against yourself and the course. And, in tennis, I won and lost many matches on a final double fault.
Are you tired of me commenting on your blog, yet? Blame the subscription option.
Post a Comment