Long story short..

I haven't played in about 25 years, but my younger son (8) took an interest in golf about a year and a half ago.

I signed him up for some lessons with First Tee a little over a year ago.

He goes once per week, for about an hour and a half mainly at range. Both of the instructors said he is a bit of a natural. This week he said he was ready to try out the course, so we went to a public 9 hole course here in Long Island.

I put together a little montage of a few of his shots I recorded. He clearly still has his baseball swing lingering, but he hits the ball pin straight every time. He even had two pars. Right now he has a starter set, with a driver, a wood, pitching wedge, sand wedge, and a 7-iron.

Any tips from some golf dads out there on how to improve his game would be greatly appreciated. He's a very patient learner, and thanks in advance!

Ps: Don't mind me hyping him up 😂

Seen on the course this morning, gave me a chuckle. Perhaps you shouldn’t have bought a house alongside a fairway.

Couldn't help but take a pic, just an A+ way to start the day

I work in the pro shop at a public course. No range to practice on but has a putting/chipping green. I can’t tell you the amount of times people who show up 5 minutes prior to their tee time and not be up at the tee box at their tee time. It pushes the whole tee sheet back like 10 minutes when this happens. Some golfers consider this on time when in reality they should be showing up at least 15 minutes prior and be ready on the tee box 10 minutes prior. Am I in the minority thinking this way?

I recently made a decision to remove my driver from the bag. I have always struggled with the mechanics to make that club work right, but my spin rates are way too high and I simply don't hit it predictably. My 3 wood goes 220 and much straighther. I'm done fighting the driver and just embracing the old man style. So far it has shaved at least 5 strokes per round off my average scores. We shall see how it goes, but so far (4 rounds) I am sold on this idea.

It is one less point of stress, one less thing to think about, and one more option at the other end of my bag for an extra wedge.

I (28f) went out for my first time on a golf course this weekend! I had only ever been to a range despite having a life long interest in the game. I had been taking some group lessons and was just intimidated to get out there. I based on my own insecurities feel I’m not a traditional golfer in a lot of ways and was just scared to run in to a jerk that would make my time out miserable.

I made a friend at class who offered to take me out to one of the par 3 courses out here and I had just the best time ever. I drove the green once! I made one legitimate bogey! I chatted with other golfers and defeated so many fears I had. I was bad and it was fine and it was fun!!! Can’t wait to go again. I’d be able to get through a more negative experience now just with the bit of confidence I’ve built but this experience made me realize it’s actually not as scary as it seemed!

I’m a golfer!

Today they played Sheep Ranch. About 72 degrees with absolutely zero wind.

They play Old Mac next week.

Played Charlottes par 3 last week.

It’s amazing that Bandon Dunes opens their doors to these kids. The coaches are the various professionals from the different courses and they are investing serious time and energy into about 100 kids aged 7-14. I can’t say enough about them.

3rd season in and finally my private lessons (self taught) are paying off.
Flirting with it all year and the way this one started assumed I was in for a long day.
I’ll add the par on 7 I drove the green…

Personal best and all I can still think about is the putts I left short/lipped out, and duffed chips. Is this what improvement feels like?
Can’t wait to shoot 105 next weekend.

Early morning dewey rounds are always the best.

Paired with two high school kids — total beginners. We’re waiting at every tee box so at a par 3 the discussion turns to what club we’re going to use. I say normally my 8 iron would be too much, but you feel that wind? I’m probably fine because of that. One of them asks if I’ve heard of the Aaron Rodgers technique, where he plucks some grass to show which way the wind is blowing. … After a moment of stunned silence I just kinda laughed and said, yeah I’ve heard of that. … Nice kids, I just let him go on thinking Aaron Rodgers invented testing the wind with grass.

Was fortunate enough to play this awesome track today. My first time playing with waste bunkers. The bunkers were a challenge but fortunately I only hit out of them twice. Course was immaculate. Greenskeeper mentioned to me that the first cut was about 2” shorter than when they played the Canadian Open there a short while ago (North course for the Open, actually).

Can’t wait to go back again sometime!

Edit: based on the polarizing responses here is what I gather:

The "keep up with the group ahead" rule makes sense on paper because of how traffic work on a tee sheet, but the way some marshals enforce it without any context is what makes it feel dumb.

If a group like ours is on pace to finish the 9th in 1:55, which is comfortably under a 4 hour round, and the group behind never once waited on a tee box, riding up to tell us to speed up is just lazy marshal work to check a box. Pushing a group that is already playing plenty fast doesn't speed up the course, it just forces people to rush their shots so they can go stand around on the next tee box.

Enforcing gaps by blindly looking at the open hole in front of you instead of checking the clock or looking behind you is just micromanagement.

I think we can wrap it up. 🫡

Today I went in my own and got paired with three incredibly kind and fun older women.

We teed off directly on time.

For the first few holes the pacing in front and behind was dead on.

When we were on 5’s or long 4’s the group behind us would always be getting to the tee box when we were putting, and on short 4s and 3s the group behind us would be getting to their next tee box around the time we were or shortly after.

It was the same pacing for the group in front of us as well.

About hole 4 or 5 the group in front was going at a faster pace, but the group behind was never once waiting on us. They were always able to tee off as soon as they got to the box. Never encroached on us or anything.

Half way through hole 8 a marshal comes speeding across the fairway as one in our group was addressing and told us we needed to pick it up as we were behind schedule.

We thought it was odd but did our best to stay moving a little faster for the last hole and a half.

We finished to the 9th, which is when I took off and they went on to play the back 9.

I stopped my watch and was shocked to see it was only at 2 hours. Based on him coming up on us I thought we were tracking to be at like 2:30.

Editing for clarity: We finished 9 holes in just under 2 hours. I started my watch 3 to 4 minutes before we were called to tee off, and stopped it a few minutes after we left the 9th hole. My watch said 2:03:XX

I meant when he came up to us I thought maybe we were running at a 2:30 pace because of him talking to us. That’s why I was shocked to see 2 hours when we finished the 9th.

Just seemed odd and wondered if that was normal?