Angie's and TeeOne Golf

Angela is my 7-year old second daughter. And she, much to my pleasant surprise, loves golf. I cannot tell yet which aspect of golf she loves most, but as long as she is having fun and I get the chance to spend more time with her, it's just fine with me. She finished her initial intro lessons at a driving range here as I told in an earlier posting , and I thought she needed something more. I've tried to get her to come out and play with me a couple of times just for practice but I quickly realized that parents cannot teach their kids properly unless your name is Earl and your kid's name is Tiger. Her swing started to deteriorate, and she's reverting back to flailing randomly at the ball, ocassionally making contact and giggling endlessly. After a comical episode at the Royal Tanglin where she spent more time running away from lizards than playing actual golf and I had to stand behind her with my 7-iron just to "guard against the lizards" before she will take a swing, I decided to look for the next step.

Luckily enough, there is a kids' golf school called TeeOneLabs at the Laguna country club near where I live and I decided to sign her up there. This particular golf school is quite interesting as it's got the widest variety of golf gadgets that I've ever seen in my life, and the emphasis is on fun. It also helps that Angie's classmate is another girl around her age so she started to really enjoy herself again. Her swing returned and after a while her new coach rebuilt her swing such that now she has a wraparound follow through ala Michelle Wie. Ah, to have the flexibility of youth again. The coach, Freddie Chiang, is an excellent teacher who really enjoys working with the kids and after a few lessons Angie's game really took off. And by watching the lessons Iactually picked up some pointers for my own swing, so that it looks more fluid now and less like a dead squid falling out of a tree. Don't get me wrong, they are not the cheapest golf school around, but I do think their approach works.

 The course also includes a session once a month at the Par 3 course at the SAFRA course in Changi, and yesterday we went for the one of these rounds. Angela was playing with her classmates and her coach in one flight, and me and the other student's dad trailed along in behind them in the next flight. Needless to say as proud daddies we took endless snaps of the girls. Angela had a good swing and she hit a few good shots, but the thing that struck me watching them is that how joyful the game is for them. Your ball went to the bunker ? Yaay, I get to rake afterwards ! Your ball went in the long grass ? Dad, come quick with your club I wanna poke around in the bush ! Admittedly, the fact that no money changes hands might have something to do with it, but we as adults don't seem to be able to just enjoy the game for what it is without self-flagellation and being overly critical of ourselves. That being said, I had a great time playing with my new friend Matt (the other dad) in the trailing flight. He is a good player and gave me some tips, and I managed to hold my own except for one hole where I topped the ball twice into the water... and Angela drove the ball 50m. It has happened officially now, I have been outdriven by my 7-year old, even after a mulligan. I'll never live this down :(

After around 6 holes, the coach ran out of time so we took the girls and carried on with the rest of the round. It was getting late, so after we exited a hole the automatic sprinklers turned on and of course both girls instantly abandoned the tee box and their clubs to just gawk at the water. No teacher around now, so we reverted back to Daddy mode and had to herd the girls around the course to get them to stay focused. But as we left the 9th and final hole, the girls trailing behind with their little bags chatting away, we all agreed that it has been a wonderful day. Golf is a wonderful game, but it's even better with the people you love.