Practicing on different course types

[wildcatden]

For younger juniors (12U or 10U or 8U perhaps), do you try to get out and practice on courses that offer different topology? For example, my junior is 8YO and our home course is quite hilly with rolling fairways. You can stripe one down the middle, but you may still end up with an up/down/sidehill lie. And of course, if you miss the fairway, you end up in the rough/deep rough with the same up/down/sidehill lie possibilities (perhaps even steeper). Certainly, playing tough shots can be good practice, but this seems like too much struggle for an 8YO.

 

This board has discussed playing longer distance (learn to play from distance and fight for par) and shorter distance (learn to go low). Any thoughts on different course topology? Curious...

[BloctonGolf11]

We have three courses we frequent in my area. Our home course is very wide open without a lot of elevation change making it very accessible for the most part but the greens are typically very fast and you have to be on your game putting. When we play here my son knows he can attack and afford some mistakes. Our home course's sister course is extremely hilly with vast topographical differences and you are almost always hitting to an uphill or downhill green but still fairly open. The final course we play was built in the early 1900s and is short but extremely tight and technical. I believe rotating these three around has helped his game tremendously personally.

[TripleBogeysrbetter]

This is a great topic. Son's home course is open but a long par 71. Typical Ed Ault designed course for green protection. This course fits a faders eye.

We go to other spots that have 8 or 10 holes with water. Out in the mountains about an hour from us. There are elevated tee with a fairway that looks forever away. You can hit it 250-300 yards, but if you're offline like OP mentioned your in the deep stuff or behind pine trees. If you run out your in the same situation.

I would love to see kids from flat areas play on those types of courses.

[Pepperturbo]

IMO Pick courses with length and difficulty together they provide the best learning habits. One creates the hit it hard mentality for distance, the other develops accuracy or hit to the target mentality. At the age of ten, my son took second place in his first kid's club championship. By late-teens, he had a nearly 200yd 5 iron.