How to Teach Your 3 Year-Old to Golf

I find myself on a golf course. The sun gets higher, and the damp turf steams like a feminist after a Trump tweet.

A tournament.

I’m a caddy.

At this moment, my player is breaking down, stationary, in tears, finding it impossible to move to his next shot. I’m at a loss. No leverage. There’s a python going from my head to stomach, contracting, making it hard for me to breathe, swallow, or ignore my headache. That snake is an old buddy – my own wriggling fears, hopes, disasters, victories, regrets and missed opportunities served up on a plate for me to consume, before it consumes me.

I know my player can recover if I can just get him to walk to his ball.

I take a breath and clear my mind to ponder whether to fuck-all, pick up his ball, absorb the penalty and the round. But I know it may cause my player to quit the game, perhaps for good.

Instead, ‘How did I get here?’ creeps in, and I close my eyes to stifle a giggle-snort.

I should mention that my player at this point is 5 ½ years old. And that python is named Parenthood.

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It began – if there can be a true beginning – 2.5 years earlier. Not my first or last lesson in the category Kids don’t do what you say – they absorb what’s around them.

I don’t watch as much televised sports anymore, with no regrets. But 2, maybe 3 times each year I become a butt farmer by planting, feeding, and growing my keister on a fertile couch in the nourishing radiance of the tube. Such was this Saturday afternoon in 2012.

The Masters. Golf. Arguably the major event of the year. Old-school sports, uninterrupted, in almost-real time, wrapped in the antiquated production sensibilities of CBS. Silky, muttered voices underscore the reverence for the mood-impaired. Old white dudes in jackets the color of Hulk vomit. Yet, sidestepping all this packaging, the game shines through.

So I sit. Comfortable. Engrossed.

Then.

Lucky parenting moment #1: He came.

Graham, now barely 3 years-old, toddles over to me on the couch. He wants up. With my help, he climbs, sits, and leans against me. My own body-English and commentary on (or at) the action adjusts to his little shoulder against my arm. I remain full of advice and warnings for the players that, I’m certain, are receiving it on some osmotic level. (If you spy me conversing with people on the TV when I’m infirm, just nod and walk away.)

He sits there with me, quiet. For 15 minutes. 25 minutes. Studying. I check his eyes. They’re open, actually glued to the action. Now I figure what-the-hell, so I explain some of it to him – or as much of golf as can be explained to someone just a year out of diapers. I do sense some things land. Time moves. Or stands still. An hour. An hour-twenty or more goes by.

A day later, we assume the same positions of gluteus horticulture, like two old factory workers at the tavern for their 5:30 beer. It crosses my mind that he’s just transfixed by the images since we limit his screen time. As I talk, he looks up at me. I again wonder, Is some of this is sticking? The televised drama climaxes with Bubba Watson finally hooking a shot out of the woods that defies multiple laws of physics for the sudden-death win.

How sweet, I think. A couple days of sedentary bonding with the boy.

Lucky parenting moment #2. I saw it.

Two days later, Graham’s swinging an former tree branch at a grounded Wiffle baseball. I watch. Instead of flailing, there’s intent. And persistence.

Lucky parenting moment #3: Recognition.

When we retreated into the house, I hopped on Craigslist, found a set of three kids clubs, and had them shortened and re-gripped. (I guy named Michael Clark saw this tiny swing and did the job for nothing.) Graham barely put the clubs down for 2 years.

I’d been forewarned. Back when he was still crawling, I’d noticed that when he’d roll a ball, he wouldn’t chase it – he’d wait and study it to the point of inertia, then retrieve. Even if it rolled out the front door, over the curb, and down the street, he’d remain fixed and still.

He learned the game the way we should learn most things, regardless of age. He mainlined it. Or, to use a mantra we still use on the course, ‘See it, feel it, do it.’ He didn’t get a download of information to gradually assimilate and apply, even if by chance it’s delivered coherently and resonates. From TV and my swing, he just saw it, felt it, did it, and adjusted as he went.

Lucky parenting (sustained) moment #4: Against all drives and urges, I try to be less of an influence.

So there it went. Two years. Every day. Hours of him with club in hand. After a while of whacking practice balls to an ad hoc hole and small flag in the front lawn, we journey to the Tilden Park course in Berkeley for the driving range and putting green. He went at it with joy and focus, a dog working diligently on his favorite bone. Club pros would see us still out there after 3 hours, shake their heads, and laugh. He’d be hypnotized by the sight and sound of the ball dropping in the hole – the same kid who would follow the ball down the front steps and down the street.

For me, the idea that parenting is primarily observation wasn’t exactly new. Yet practicing it didn’t feel innate. Just being present, removing myself from emotional attachment to the outcome didn’t feel like I was doing enough. Still, I gave input 3 or 4 times in that 2 years – mostly on alignment – but that’s it. I figured he’s figuring it out. And gaining ownership.

I still use that not-doing-enough feeling as a touchstone. And this I’ve put to the acid test in caddying: Stepping back and letting him make the decision, hit the shot, read and make the putt or not, requiring him to ask when he wants my input. I grind inside to stay a passive, loving observer. Everything is and happens as it should. I still forget, then re-learn. Yet what’s most fascinating to me is that the results, whether his emotional reaction or even his score, reacts in favorable opposite proportion to my wishing, hoping, or clenching. Something is at work I don’t understand.

So there it is. My prescription for teaching a 3 year-old how to golf is:

1. If you love it, he/she may come.
2. Wait. Something may spark.
3. Watch for signs.
4. Feed the spark.
5. Otherwise, stay out of the way.

Yes. Quite the nebulous, if not useless prescription. And only applicable to Graham. You may still hold out hope that parenting, somewhere at its core, holds something solid. We all do. Our hope is an eternal exercise in futility – but don’t worry, none of us admit to it.