caligolfer2103

Amazing. Hadn't even thought about smart watches... I walked with my son today. No cheating 🙂 But I resolved to learn from the prior week. Just watch and enjoy the game, make the occasional face at my son for a silly shot, and otherwise just soak in the good shots because it will be gone far too soon!

I appreciate this. Seriously. I walked away feeling unsettled by what had transpired. Technically, as you said, my only recourse was to call a rules official over and raise the issue immediately. Had I really wanted to, I would have had video evidence as the "incident" lasted well over a minute given how the player was trying to move the ball. But, I couldn't bring myself to do it because I know these kids are put under so much pressure by their parents and end of day, it's still supposed to be fun. Looking back, I guess the only technically correct courses of action were at the extremes... rat him out or do nothing. In that moment, I tried to find a happy medium of not potentially getting him suspended but still discouraging cheating, but in retrospect, I can see your point that it wasn't the right call. Having said that, I'm not sure what I'd do next time this happens because my head would say he should be reported bc it's not fair to every other player out there, but my heart would still feel terrible doing it.

100% to that last paragraph. He's a resilient kid. On the first two, it was such a bummer to see him miss those short putts and it definitely rattled him. Those 2-3ft near-gimmes have always been his kryptonite. But he recovered and I was so proud of that. I'm pretty sure this weekend was just one of those days where the putting clicks and he won't always hit that many of the sub 10' ones, but it was so nice to see after that brutal stretch he's had.

Another update. I know many of you have kids far better than mine so this is all "whatever" but for those of us whose kids are going through similar struggles thought this post-mortem would be helpful! Since the thread started, my son's been working on just simplifying things. We do 10 - 30 ft speed control drills for 15-20 minutes a day and then the Jon Rahm semi-circle drill for another 15-20 to practice the shorter putts. He's also started using a digital level to practice slope reading. And then this week, he worked with his coach on an abridged Aimpoint to replace his current method (which you'll laugh, some local kid showed him and involves calculating based on distance/slope the # of inches away from center to aim.) The entire goal has been to just free his mind when he putts. So yesterday's tournament got off to a rough start. On 1 and 2, he had 30 footers that he 3 putted. In both cases, he got the first putt to within 3 feet and missed the 2nd putt. Total bummer. But then he went on a great run, started off by making a 20fter on 3! 2 putted everything after with a few first putts from 30 - 35ft. And sank putts from 3, 4, 5, 8, 9 (3x). I'll caveat by saying I have no expectation that he'll putt like this consistently, but I was so happy for him and I can see it slowly starting to click for him, that he doesn't need to be perfect. A couple times, he putted 3-5ft past the hole and he commented at the end, that he felt such confidence being able to hit the comeback putt. Made 5 birdies which he hasn't done in a while!

Yep. That's why I didn't want to get involved. Confrontation is fine until the other side is a little too crazy and things escalate. So I was trying to find a fair place to be with minimal risk of going haywire.

I've never really thought about this much. Almost always, it's the kids who see the cheating and then tell their parents. The guidance there seems pretty straightforward - report it but don't get bothered by it. But, what happens when it's the parent seeing the cheating? At a tournament yesterday, I was walking behind my son's group. The far player was pinned against a tree and I saw him kick the ball away from the tree and then use his foot to roll it even further away to give himself a better lie. None of the other kids saw it. For full context, this tournament was only semi-serious (Players Tour in SoCal) so its kids who are trying to make the higher level circuits but scores can range from 1-2 under to as high as 90+. What would you have done? I decided not to formally report it; however, as I passed by, I said "Bud, I saw what you did. Don't do it again, or I'll report it." And I told my son to keep an eye on him rest of the round. I made my choice for a few reasons... 1) I have a soft spot in my heart for kids under a lot of pressure to succeed. It's not "right" but it's how I am. But that wasn't really the main reason. 2) I felt weird that this would then become a parent vs. kid "he said/he said" and that felt very odd to me versus a kid vs. kid situation. 3) While his dad wasn't following along, many of the parents do wait at the scorer's table. And I didn't want to risk a confrontation given this isn't high level golf. I even debated whether to say anything to him. But reasoned the alternative to that was me calling in a course official to make it a bigger deal so this seemed like a reasonable compromise.