The Right Time

I hope the summer holidays are treating you well. Whether you're navigating the chaos of full-time childcare, squeezing in the odd round while you can, or somewhere in between, welcome back to The Scorecard.

This week on the PGA Tour, 21-year-old Jackson Koivun won the 3M Open for his first Tour victory. A rookie, barely old enough to have a full season under his belt, ready before most people, including perhaps himself, realised it.

It got me thinking about my own week. Specifically about my son, and a conversation about whether he was ready for something. And who decided.

Welcome to Issue 7 of The Scorecard.

The Fairway

The Right Time

Three months ago, my son started group coaching sessions at our local golf club. He'd shown some interest and we'd encouraged it gently. The sessions are low-key — a small group of juniors, a patient coach, ten minutes of personal coaching. Nothing too pressured. Nothing too competitive.

He’s been turning up every week getting quietly better and taking on board the advice from others.

Then last week, the junior section organiser asked him if he'd like to enter a nine-hole competition. Not a major event. Not a handicap round. Just a gentle step into something slightly more real than a coaching session.

His instinct, like most fifteen-year-olds, was to wait. Not quite yet. Maybe when he's a bit better. When he feels more ready.

The organisers didn't push. They just made it easy to say yes.

He said yes.

He ended up coming second in the non-handicap section and won nearest the pin, which, given the precise location of his ball relative to the hole, might be more accurately described as nearest the green. But it counted!!

I've been thinking about that process. Specifically about the gap between "not quite ready" and "actually ready", and how often those two things turn out to be the same moment, just seen from different angles.

We do this as parents constantly. We hold back. We wait for the right time, the right conditions, the right level of confidence before we nudge our kids toward something new. Some of that caution is right. You don't throw a child in at the deep end and call it parenting.

Some of it, more than we probably admit, is about us. Our anxiety about them struggling. Our discomfort with watching them fail. Our instinct to protect them from the feeling of not being good enough, when actually that feeling, navigated with the right support around them, is precisely how they get good enough.

The junior section organisers had been watching my son for three months. They knew something maybe I wouldn’t let myself know yet, that he was ready. They just needed to be the ones to say so.

Last week I wrote about Ryan Fox's grandfather making him his first set of golf clubs from wood. About his father showing up for the path he chose rather than the path they might have imagined. About what it looks like to give a child permission to become themselves.

This is a personal version of that same story. Not a Claret Jug, not Royal Birkdale. Just a fifteen-year-old on a golf course in Cornwall, persuaded by someone who believed in him slightly more than he believed in himself, finding out that he was further along than he thought.

Sometimes the right time is now. Sometimes it takes someone else to see it first.

Our job, when that happens, is to get out of the way and let them play.

Find the ball. Play on.

The three things most club golfers never do…and why they're costing you shots.

First: know your actual carry distances. Not your best-ever distances. Your normal ones. Most club golfers are playing every iron a club shorter than they should because they're comparing every shot to the one time they flushed it perfectly on a warm Tuesday in August. Know your real numbers. Club up. Stop coming up short.

Second: commit to the shot. Once you've picked the club, the decision is made. One look at the target, one practice swing if you need it, then hit it. The players who stand over the ball too long fill the silence with doubt, and doubt has never once improved a golf shot.

Third: have a pre-shot routine and use it every time. Not on the important shots. Every shot. The routine is what tells your brain this is a normal shot. Consistency of process leads to consistency of outcome. It sounds simple because it is, it's just not easy.

Pick your yardage. Trust your club. Pull the trigger. Repeat for eighteen holes.

A big week across the game and three stories that all sit on the same theme as this week's Fairway, whether they meant to or not.

PGA Tour — Jackson Koivun, 21 years old and only in his third start as a professional, won the 3M Open at TPC Twin Cities by three shots, setting a new tournament record of 25 under par. Scottie Scheffler threw everything at him down the stretch, firing a final round 63, but Koivun never flinched. "Sometimes I watch guys hit on the range and I don't feel like I'm the most talented out there," he said afterwards, "but if I can go out there and believe and use my brain to my advantage, then that's definitely kind of like a superpower." Twenty-four days after his first round as a PGA Tour member, he was a winner. Ready before he'd even had time to doubt it.

LPGA — Women's Scottish Open — Jenny Shin won for the first time in 3,738 days at Dundonald Links, holding on through three consecutive bogeys on the final day before finding enough to win by two. She'd told her swing coach four years ago that she needed to win at least one more time before her career ended. "My first win didn't really feel like a win," she said. "It felt very accidental. But this one definitely feels different. This one feels like I earned it. I worked hard for it." The AIG Women's Open starts at Royal Lytham on Thursday, she heads there with a trophy and her confidence restored.

PGA Tour Champions — Senior Open — Jerry Kelly, 59 years old, won the ISPS Handa Senior Open at Gleneagles, birdying the final hole from a greenside bunker to win by two shots and claim his third senior major title. "The Senior Claret Jug is the trophy I've wanted more than any other as an over-50 golfer," he said. "To do it in Scotland at the home of golf — I'm absolutely speechless." The win also earned him an exemption into the Open Championship at St Andrews next year. Not bad for a 59-year-old.

Three winners. Ages 21, 33, and 59. Ready when the moment came — each in their own time.

Front 9 Dads — This week, let your child try something before you think they're ready. Not something dangerous, something slightly beyond where they are. A harder bike route, a new sport, a conversation you've been putting off until they're older. You'll be surprised how often the thing you were waiting for them to grow into is the thing that helps them grow.

Back 9 Dads — You've been your teenager's biggest supporter their whole life. At some point this week, tell them that directly. Not in passing. Not as a footnote to a conversation about schoolwork or their phone. Just stop, look at them, and say it. Teenagers pretend they don't need to hear it. They need to hear it.

Clubhouse Dads — Think about who believed in you before you believed in yourself. A parent, a coach, a teacher, someone who saw something in you and said so at exactly the right moment. Drop them a message this week in you can. It probably cost them nothing and it's likely still with you. That's worth acknowledging.

If this week's issue resonated, the best thing you can do is forward it to one dad who'd get it. That's how this community grows.

The book that started this all, 18 Hole Dads, is available on Amazon

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See you on the fairway

Matt

18 Hole Dads

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