I have a 10-year-old student who I have been working with for a few years. He has great instincts for 10 but he is more interested, some of the time, in things that kids his age are into a little more than golf. It can be a challenge working with people who have great potential but haven’t quite caught the golf bug yet. Anyone who has played for a long time will understand what I mean when I say, “catching the golf bug.” Let me tell you a little story about how I helped a young student catch the bug and get excited about the game.
My goal as a golf coach is to help people get excited to work on their game on their own time. If all they get is 30 minutes or an hour with me and no practice in-between their lessons or rounds, then they aren’t going to improve a whole lot. Golf requires sharpening your skills on your own and isolated from other distractions. Well in today’s world we are all very distracted. We must find things that motivate us to practice. Well, my 10-year-old student came to the lesson a few weeks ago talking about how he was really into Pokémon. I was shocked to find out that Pokémon has made a comeback or maybe never left. When I was a kid Pokémon first came out and everyone was buying and trading cards. At one point I had all the good ones! One day I left my stack of cards on the tailgate of my dad’s truck by accident, and he drove off and scattered my cards all over Lowndes County. We tried to track them down but sadly only found a few. I was crushed and gave up Pokémon. I told this story to my student, and we went on and on about Pokémon and how I used to collect the cards in the 90’s. I have forgotten a lot about it and am re-learning through my student. I noticed that when his mind is distracted by Pokémon, he hits the ball better than ever. The reason for this is that it is something that he enjoys and is excited about. I thought to myself how can I use this to help him get as excited about golf?
So, during our lesson last I picked him up from his parents as usual and after we took off for the lesson tee, he started in about Pokémon again. When we arrived at the lesson tee, I told him we are going to play a game today. I had several targets set up on the range to help him dial in his short game. I told him I was going to need his help to name each target after a Pokémon. His wheels started to turn in his head as he tried to name each target after Pokémon that kind of resembled the different targets I had set up. It was fun to watch him get excited. Then we decided if you hit the target, you catch the Pokémon that the target was named for. His favorite Pokémon is named Lucario, and he put all his effort into trying to catch Lucario by hitting that target. He came very close to hitting the target but was unsuccessful during our lesson. On the way back he looked at me and asked, “How far was Lucario?” I told him he was 30 yards away. He said, “Ok, now I know what to work on so next time I can catch him.” He told me he was going to set up a target at home 30 yards away and practice so that he will be ready for next time! I call this a breakthrough lesson. He was now turned onto practicing golf but in his own way. I looked at him and said, “You can make anything in life into something fun like Pokémon.” All you must do is use your imagination. He was so excited about this “new game” that he was breathing hard because of how jacked he was about it. I think his parents were even a little surprised to see just how excited he was after a golf lesson. I share this because a lot of young golfers give the game up because they don’t really understand the purpose of it yet. If you are struggling getting your kids into golf, then try and make it into something totally different like trying to catch Pokémon by hitting different targets. You may just find that you will turn a switch on inside their head that will never go off!
Justin Sigmon, PGA