Anyone with have 9 year olds playing from 5400 yards?

[RmoorePE]

It seems to me like a waste of time having kids beat a 3 wood down the fairway on anything other than the par 5s. It is a waste of time for anyone. 

 

Golf courses are designed with the approach shot in mind. So the extra shots in the fairway seem to me to be time that could be spent thinking about the approach shot. 

 

SlickT73: your argument is that there is no statistical data to support the fact that kids should play from shorter tees and I am sure you are right about the data. 

 

I haven't had that much youth golf experience, but the goal of any youth sport is to get kids to love the game. That's it. They love the game when they are good at it, or have minor successes. If your child is happy playing longer and learning that way, then that is what you have to do.

 

Kids are much different now than even 80s or 90s kids. Short attention spans, instant gratification, etc. Mike Krzyzewski used to instantly bench players who complained about playing time, sometimes even cutting them. In the last 10 years he has to call parents to explain to them why the kids are playing. If coach K is coddling the top recruits and their parents, kids have changed.

[SlickT73]

4 minutes ago, RmoorePE said:

It seems to me like a waste of time having kids beat a 3 wood down the fairway on anything other than the par 5s. It is a waste of time for anyone. 

 

Golf courses are designed with the approach shot in mind. So the extra shots in the fairway seem to me to be time that could be spent thinking about the approach shot. 

 

SlickT73: your argument is that there is no statistical data to support the fact that kids should play from shorter tees and I am sure you are right about the data. 

 

I haven't had that much youth golf experience, but the goal of any youth sport is to get kids to love the game. That's it. They love the game when they are good at it, or have minor successes. If your child is happy playing longer and learning that way, then that is what you have to do.

 

Kids are much different now than even 80s or 90s kids. Short attention spans, instant gratification, etc. Mike Krzyzewski used to instantly bench players who complained about playing time, sometimes even cutting them. In the last 10 years he has to call parents to explain to them why the kids are playing. If coach K is coddling the top recruits and their parents, kids have changed.

 

Absolutely agree with adaptation - but am hopeful people are addressing the right problems, tracking results and applying what is learned to give helpful recommendations. Many instances where that is happening and many where it is not. That's the challenge.

[golfer929]

5 hours ago, SlickT73 said:

 

Absolutely agree with adaptation - but am hopeful people are addressing the right problems, tracking results and applying what is learned to give helpful recommendations. Many instances where that is happening and many where it is not. That's the challenge.

https://operation36.golf/junior-golf-development-model/

 

This company, Operation 36, has had 10+ years of data and research into making junior golfers achieve success. They believe in starting every kid from 25 yards out from the hole no matter what age, and then progressively moving back

 

https://www.participationcoaching.com/scale/

 

This website gives more of a scale reference in juniors playing tees further up. If a similar video existed for golf, we can imagine what it would look like – Tour Players playing on a ridiculously long holes (1000 yards PAR 4’s), maybe even using long and heavy clubs. It would probably look the same as 8 year olds playing from ladies’ tees." It's actually quite comical that this quote is almost bang on with the exact discussion of this thread and title of it as well, lol

[killer21]

On 11/10/2021 at 11:34 AM, SlickT73 said:

 

So they don't hit the green...what's the issue with that? You play back into position, then hit the green if you can get there. A rather essential golf skill...

 

I really do think this comes down to a certain school of thought that holds handicap progression and setting up courses based on that as superior for some reason to score progression in terms of learning the game for kids. I don't agree with that personally and have seen neither anecdotal nor statistical data to suggest it is the case.

The issueis it's no fun.  You then have to be perfect to make par. Chip it close and make par or you will bogey or worse.  After a while that is not fun.  Also, the kid must have the discipline to lay up and this is also no fun doing that all day if the course is too long.