He sat in the cart and said he wasn’t losing

We were coming off a regional the oldest crushed. Way under par. Mid-60s. Big field. That card locked priority status for next year. Pressure off. I could care less if they qualify for Worlds. It saves me five grand on the trip and a week of lost work. The kids care. They ask about it all the time, for better or worse.

We qualified for U.S. Kids Worlds there. Worlds is hosted in Pinehurst. That’s not a local with a bigger tent. It’s billed as the world’s largest junior golf tournament: 1,600 kids, fifty-plus countries, ages five to twelve, three rounds on real championship turf — Pinehurst No. 1, No. 6, No. 8, Mid Pines, Longleaf, Talamore. Parade of Nations down the village. Parent-child the day before. Closing ceremony. The Van Horn Cup on No. 4 for the oldest flight. Official pool party and cookout at the Members Complex. A lake party the same night. New friends from states you’ll never drive to and countries you can’t point to on a map without the phone.

Take a kid once and they care. You can tell them it doesn’t matter. The kids just want that tournament. The rest is bonus points.

Locals have always been hard for us because of the other sports. Hockey, football, lacrosse — same weekends as the families who always show up for the local tour events.

You skip a week, those kids are still there, and you can’t catch up in points. That’s why we genuinely need regionals or states — the multi-day ones — to guarantee status. Our locals have tough setups and tough courses for the kids. You don’t make it up on a Sunday you missed because of a lacrosse game.

Status means we can dodge tournaments now. Not so we sit home. So we get to choose where we play and where the money goes — a place the whole family actually wants, out-of-town friends, the other sports — instead of lighting weekends on fire for events we don’t need, or that aren’t a good vacation for the whole family if it isn’t a solo father-son trip. Most of these tournaments are so lame we scratch our heads and wonder why we aren’t doing family golf nights at home, playing against me. I’m a golfer guy. That’s better golf than most of the tournaments we actually travel to. He has friends he actually wants to beat. That’s the golf that makes him. The résumé chase is not.

Then this local. Two tee times. Two boys. Oldest teed off first. Youngest teed off second. I had the oldest. My wife had the youngest. She’s earning the stripes on his bag. Dad has already lived in the muck of little tiny kids learning golf.

The local is still not a rec day. The kids who live on this tour are very good. You skip a week and they’re still there.

We showed up with a slice. In the morning on the simulator at our house (more on that in later posts): driver leaking, distance gone. You can rebuild it in a parking lot or you can play the swing you have. We picked the swing we had that day. He can still beat a very good local player with a bad driver. He’s done worse with less.

The range had broken-down cars for the kids to hit. Kinda great, actually. Grass that needed a scythe. A chipping green that had given up. A putting green with no holes — practice pins to putt at, because the thing is too small to cut cups. He whined about how he was hitting it. We agreed we play the swing we have.

Side note: a friend who was at one of their first tournaments — and doesn’t understand time, or when a tee time is, ever — almost missed his son’s tee time. Accidentally took our cart, water bottle, and a drink that looked like water and was not water. It was Tito’s and Fresca. You can pretend you didn’t read that.

Being late to a tee time is unacceptable unless you are literally running from another sport. You should not be sitting on the range and late for your time. It is not fair to the tournament, not fair to your kid, and it is a terrible way to teach etiquette.

Meanwhile the youngest is on the other side of the property. Mom earning the stripes. Different tee. Different round. I’ll end up watching the last hole.

First tee with the oldest: he bombed it. Then a three-tier green, left it short, chunked the next one, walked off with a double. I was nowhere near the putting surface. I don’t do greens. That’s the other dads.

This day we were allowed carts, for what felt like the first time ever, because the walks are long. When I say long I mean you could lose a child between greens.

He walked to the cart holding back tears in front of the kid he plays with and his daddy caddy. Sat. Not much to say. As we’re driving to the par-3 second hole: “There is no chance I’m losing today.”

He spent the next holes getting back what the opening double had cost him.

Nine holes at this age should be an hour forty-five to two hours twenty, max. It isn’t. Half the groups, dads are giving on-course lessons. Reading a twelve-footer like it’s the U.S. Open for a kid who’s going to post a number that does not require a swing thought. Scores don’t matter at this age. Time with no phone does.

Then late in his round he teed off on a par 4 — relatively speaking a long hole — and he almost knocked it on the green. They put the kids on tees that actually fit based on age. U.S. Kids is purely age-based. The Longleaf system is distance-based — how far you hit your driver. Either way the point is the same: a tee that fits so it’s still a golf hole and not a hike. That’s how the kids have fun. Missile down the center. Almost into the bags of the group on the putting surface. We’re walking up and the guy in front has a face on. “Can you wait to hit next time.” He was almost looking for a fight.

We were thirty yards from the flag. Not on the green.

It was a wild interaction. His kid shot 71 on nine. That’s a crazy number. Everyone starts somewhere. Do not be the dad yelling about a ball that went far when your own son’s card looks like that. Yikes.

My son hit it to five feet. He made the birdie. First time he had the lead back on the only kid who was actually in the hunt that day.

Funnier: while we’re on that green, the daddy caddy in our group leaves the pushcart in the landing zone in front of the putting surface. Pushcarts are for the weak. Carry the bag. Grow a real golfer. A different age group — closer tee — tags the bag. Everybody laughed. Especially me, after I told them a guy had just been yelling at us for the same thing. No one cares. It wasn’t going to hurt anyone.

Last hole: bomb. Two-putt par. Oldest finished in first.

This day, though, was for the little one with mom. He secured a spot in the World Championship via score.

The oldest and I walked over with his friends to watch the last hole of the youngest. Mom on the bag the whole time. Last hole. A par when it mattered. Youngest finished first.

A W for both of them. The oldest watching his brother, in front of his friends.

Dinner with the brothers’ friends. One is in the little one’s group. The other is a tad older, in the older age group. Age cutoffs get weird. Three beers. $45 a kid. Four hundred at dinner. We picked up the tab. They’ll get us later. No point splitting bills.

The regional — mid-60s, way under par — took the pressure off. Worlds is in Pinehurst. You take them once and they don’t un-care. The slice in the morning didn’t get a vote. Neither did I when the oldest was on the course picking shots or reading putts — but man was it great watching the wife caddie the little one to a W in front of his brother and friends.