The Start to a Professional Career in Golf
FIRSTLY. LETS DISCUSS PICKING A COACH
It is one of the most important parts to start off. We have many great coaches in South-Africa and are extremely lucky to have such a wide selection, especially with the amount of female PGA Professionals coming up and that have been around for some time now.
The coach you choose will most likely be the one you stick with for a good couple of years or your whole life depending on if you have a great relationship with them and whether or not you feel like you’re always progressing.
For kids, after they’ve been taught the basics and played quite a bit on course, learning some etiquette, it’s time to move on to competitive golf.
We have a good variety of places for kids to start i.e. foundation, SA Kids and US Kids. Now US Kids weren’t an actual kids tour in South-Africa when I was younger we only had SA Kids but in my opinion the more the merrier. The more tournaments there are the better and more confident the kids will become on and off course.
They’re a great starting point and give you loads of opportunities such as getting to go play on many different courses in SA and many other countries and gain some wonderful experiences like playing with international players, making new friends etc. Ages range from 5 – 18 years old, but can be younger than 5. Tee boxes are set up to their age with shorter to longer tee’s. The different distances for different ages is what helps build confidence for younger kids as they can not reach most holes and I believe that could be demoralising.
US Kids Have 3 Seasons
January – April, May – August and September – November
All 3 seasons consist of 8 events with and international event (3 days) and Co-Sanction events in between.
They have events in Cape Town and the Garden route which both have 12 events for the year. All together they have about 60 events for the whole year which is pretty impressive. A whole kids tour.
These kids watch all of their favourite players playing on tour and for them playing in the US Kids and SA Kids most likely feels like their playing on their own little tour and who wouldn’t want to watch a bunch of 6 year old’s be fearless on the golf course I for one most certainly do. All of these stepping stones teach you so many things and if you want a career in golf this is a great one. Fremember my experiences playing SA Kids and having opportunities to go play in other countries and to where I am now and where I am headed I wouldn’t change a thing.
Seeing junior golf grow not only for boys but for girls to, makes me so happy as I know we could have amazing female golfers playing on the LET and LPGA in the near future.
I can not wait to see what South-African golf becomes when all of them grow up!
