After teaching kids golf for years and now teaching my own kids to play, I’ve seen plenty of approaches that work and plenty that don’t.
I’ve also realized parents tend to approach junior golf in two very different ways.
Some parents want their child to love a sport they can play for the rest of their life. Golf gives kids opportunities to handle frustration, make decisions, communicate with others, compete honestly, and keep going when things aren’t going their way. Maybe they eventually become excellent players. Maybe they remain weekend golfers. Either outcome can be perfectly fine.
Then some parents see junior golf primarily as the start of a competitive journey: tournaments, college scholarships, and perhaps even professional golf.
If you’re firmly in that second category, some of what follows probably won’t fit your approach. But if your main goal is to raise kids who become golfers and, hopefully, continue enjoying the game as they get older, these are five mistakes worth avoiding.
1. Obsessing Over the Perfect Grip
You can spend an incredible amount of time trying to put a four-year-old’s hands into a technically perfect golf grip. I’m not convinced that effort gets you very far.
For most young right-handed golfers, I’m looking for something much simpler: left hand on top, right hand underneath. If we get there, we have something we can work with.
A 10-finger grip is fine. A little gap between the hands isn’t a crisis, either.
Remember what young kids are dealing with. Their hands aren’t particularly strong and, relative to their size, that clubhead is heavy. They’re trying to control an object that can feel awkward and cumbersome.
I’d much rather see a child using a slightly imperfect grip who can move the club, hit some shots, and wants to keep playing than a kid with a beautiful overlapping grip who can barely control the clubhead.
There will be time for adjustments. As kids grow and develop more hand strength, changing the grip becomes much easier.
You don’t have to build a finished golf swing at age five.
2. Worrying About Swing Plane Instead of Stance
Young kids can produce some unusual-looking golf swings.
That doesn’t automatically mean something is wrong.
Again, the club is relatively heavy. They’re standing farther away from the ball than they typically stand in other sports, and they don’t have the strength or coordination required to put the club into all the positions we expect from an experienced adult golfer.
Early on, I’m much more interested in giving them a reliable starting point.
“Set your feet.”
That simple reminder can accomplish a lot.
If a kid can establish a reasonable stance, maintain some balance, and begin each swing from roughly the same position, you’ve given them something repeatable.
Start discussing swing plane, hand positions, shaft angles, and exactly where the club needs to be halfway through the backswing, and you can make something relatively simple become complicated very quickly.
Give them time.
As kids become stronger and gain more control over the club, many of those awkward movements naturally begin to disappear.
3. Trying to Fix Three Things at Once
Adult golfers struggle when they have several swing thoughts bouncing around their heads. Kids have even less reason to deal with that.
Keep things simple.
Find one problem. Work on that problem. Give the child enough time to recognize that something actually improved before introducing another correction.
Video can be particularly useful here. Take a quick clip before making the change and another afterward. Kids can see what happened rather than relying entirely on an explanation of what their arms, hands, or body supposedly did.
That also gives them a small victory.
They changed something. They can see it. They got better.
Then you can move forward.
If you aren’t a particularly accomplished golfer yourself, or you aren’t sure what your child needs to change, there’s nothing wrong with getting professional help instead of guessing.
Take them for a lesson. Watch what the instructor works on and, afterward, ask a straightforward question:
“What should I remind them of when you aren’t here?”
Now you have one clear instruction coming from someone who knows what the child needs.
That’s much better than throwing three swing thoughts at your kid because you’re not entirely sure which one matters.
4. Turning Every Shot Into a Lesson
This might be the most difficult habit for parents to break.
You watch your kid hit a bad shot and immediately know what went wrong. Maybe they lifted their head. Maybe they lost their balance. Maybe their stance changed.
You want to fix it.
Sometimes you shouldn’t.
If an explanation and every missed putt follow every topped iron becomes a putting lesson, golf can stop feeling like a game pretty quickly.
Eventually, teaching has to end, and playing has to begin.
Let them choose the club.
Let them hit the bad shot.
Let them discover why trying to punch a ball through three tree trunks might not have been the greatest strategic decision.
And when they roll in a 15-footer, let them enjoy watching the ball disappear into the hole without immediately explaining everything they supposedly did correctly.
Kids need room to experience golf rather than constantly being instructed through it.
Not every shot requires feedback.
5. Making Golf Serious Too Soon
This one can sneak up on parents.
Your child learns the basics. Then they start hitting the ball better. Maybe they play their first tournament and enjoy it.
Before long, practice schedules, scoring targets, tournaments, and expectations follow.
Some kids absolutely love that progression. They want to compete. They want to practice. They want to see how good they can become.
Other kids want to play golf.
Pay attention to which kid you have.
Some of the best days on a golf course don’t involve a tournament or even a scorecard. It might be nine holes at twilight, a scramble with friends, playing from a different tee box, or spending an hour on a short par-3 course where nobody cares very much about the final number.
Kids deserve those days, too.
They don’t have to post a score every time they play. They don’t have to use the same tees every round. They certainly don’t need every visit to the golf course to include a technical objective.
Once every round becomes preparation for the next tournament, the game can start feeling like work.
If your kid wants to compete, let them compete. If they want to practice hard and find out how good they can become, give them that opportunity.
But there’s no prize for making golf serious as quickly as possible.
Sometimes the best thing you can do for a young golfer is give them a club, point them toward the first tee, and let them play.
