17.5 Tips To Help You Caddy For Your Kid

Your Buster or Buffy is interested in golf. And they’ve shown ability. Now they want to play some tournaments. Excellent! Time to sign them up!

This also very well means it’s time for you to caddy – that is, be the mule carrying the bag, as well as an advisor, protector, scapegoat, scout, and ghost. In other words, caddying = parenting, only too intensely for anyone but a superhero. Here are a few things to consider, keep in your pocket, and prepare you for what may be ahead. For parents, you may know or suspect these things already because, well, you’re a parent. If so, I beg your pardon for sounding like an employee of the Department of Redundancy Department. These are just things I should’ve suspected, known, and had at the tip of my awareness. They may be damned obvious. But I still remind myself of them.  

1. The hardest thing to do is watch your kid struggle. 
2. The best thing your kid can do for personal growth is struggle. 
3. To prepare to deal with #1 and #2, look in in the back of your refrigerator for something fuzzy, or drive the interstate to find something dead and inedible laying around. Have a few bites of it. Chew well and swallow. Wait for a few minutes. Just before you are about to wretch and drive yourself at record ground speeds to the ER, notice that feeling in your gut (it may also be accompanied by the feeling of your hair on fire and primal regret). THAT’S the feeling you’d do well to get to know, expect, and become friends with, as well as knowing it’ll pass – but that’s hard to remember in that moment.
4. Consider adopting the mantra Doing and saying the right things with the right body language isn’t enough. To kids, a cloud of cheap perfume off a Kardashian in a Kia is more subtle than the stench of fake sentiment. Kids absorb our truth. They’re more like dogs than people in that way – and that’s a good thing. (Actually, I think we all absorb truth if we strip away the layers of protection that qualify us as adults.)  
5. Alright. (This is actually tip 4.5.) Don’t actually do #3. All of a sudden I feel a legal or parental twitch to say that in our present world. But. Yeah. Just. Jeez. Don’t. 
6. Against all of our parental instincts and tendencies, caddying often shows better results by doing less, not more. That’s it. You get it. 
7. Do you have control issues in your relationships? No? Excellent. Terrific that you don’t. Still, take a moment now to reflect on the possibility that, as you begin caddying, the truth – your expectations, hopes, fears, trying not to manifest your fears, attachment to results, and all those things you may think are your own personal baggage – may hit you like an 18-wheeler filled with golf balls. This collision is your initiation into the caddy party. The majority of us still have the Peterbilt grill marks on our foreheads. But as you’re peeling yourself from the front of that truck, exercise forgiveness for yourself – don’t feel like a dolt for learning you’re perhaps a bit freaky. In the opinion of this freak, this process is normal.  
8. Be patient with yourself. This’ll be the first step to help to be patient with your player. And that can become a lovefest on a two-way street. (Forewarning: There will likely be times when your player tantrums or breaks down and you think This little shit is acting like a 7 (or whatever) year-old. That’s the time to take a breath, and see that your player is, in fact, a 7 (or whatever) year-old playing a game that makes men weep.)
9. Good news/bad news. The good news to caddying through a round: It’s an amazing teaching/learning opportunity for everyone. The bad news: It’s an amazing teaching/learning opportunity for everyone.  
10. You and your player are brave for participating, regardless of outcome. Props. Give it to yourself and your player. Often.
11. Be ready and quick to admit mistakes of your own to your player. Counter intuitive as it may seem, it’ll establish trust. (I’ve heard the suggestion that, as a caddy, you should accept blame for everything. This hasn’t worked for me. But, to restate #4, kids can smell fake sentiment and statements contrary to what they know as true. If a shot stinks, don’t spray it with Poo-Pourri. And, for me, this is still heavy lifting.)
12. Emotional agility is key. For instance, your player, at any moment during a round, may need the atmosphere to feel looser and more socially friendly. Then again, she may need focus and want you to reign in your bubbly chattiness with competitors to be Her Guy On Her Team Alone. It all depends on the player, the round, the last shot, or her mood.  
13. Incorporate and enjoy the fact that you will do anything for your player. Your frustration and joy that spring forth do so because you love your kid. Appreciate that about yourself. That’s a freaking gift. Also, be prepared to be silly, shameless, invisible, or wherever your imagination leads you. For instance, if your player is getting down on himself and the mood is darkening, conjure up a little audible flatulence. (Yep, embarrassing to admit, but I found it especially effective immediately after using a serious tone to say “Hey, will you listen to me?” Quack.) In light of that…
14. Be creative. It’s okay and automatically forgiven that, at times, you’ll resort to almost anything.  
15. Know your emotions and hold them loosely. Be friends with them, or at least contain them. (This is an addendum to #4.) Kids imitate, even with our emotional patterns. I’ve seen caddies react incredulously to a shot with a ‘Why did you do that?’ or ‘What were you thinking?’ With luck, for you it’ll be limited to your inner voice. If it does pop out in speech, apologize and move on. However, if it becomes a habit, know that it’ll be clear to everyone that you’ve never hit a golf ball in your life, and likely not sure of which end of the club to hold. If you don’t know squat about the game, grab any club you can and hit the range with your player. After about 5 swings it’ll become evident that golf is, after all, a game of mistakes and recoveries. If your belief is something more toward perfection, you may want to reconcile that shit before the next tournament you caddy. Or the next hole. Or the next shot.  
16. If you feel as if caddying is about fixing yourself instead of ‘fixing’ your player/kid, then follow that feeling and appreciate your brilliance.  And, at the same time, understand that neither you or you player need ‘fixing’.
17. There are essentially 3 roles: Caddy, parent, and coach. Use the last two sparingly, if at all. Will this require superhuman control? Yes. Oh yes, it will.
18. Your kid is the boss on the course. This is a candidate for being tip #1. This is a fantastic time for them to discover autonomy. Require your player to ask for your input when wanted. (To my mind, an undervalued trait in many of us is the comfort to ask for help and seek out advice and criticism. And this’ll encourage that habit.) You may object to a choice they make – and I have occasionally stressed my case. But in the end, I let it go – their choice, their game, no matter how wacky their decision. As a value-add – and no matter the outcome their choices – your input will rise in worth.

Hope these help in some way – it’s all a bizarre balancing act. Or you may need none of them if your kid is exceptionally developed. But then again, slight modifications of these tips are easily transferable to deal with Edwin-at-work who still hasn’t faced up to his bag of issues.