In the hands of a competitive junior golfer, the right equipment will speed up development, lower scores, and add to the overall enjoyment of the game. Poorly fitted equipment, on the other hand, will contribute to poor contact, erratic ball flight, slow progress and, ultimately, discourage younger golfers. Therefore, as parents and coaches, it’s essential to make sure juniors have equipment that works for their game.

Specific Guidelines
In recent years, the options for younger juniors has increased but it still is limited relative to the options available for older juniors and adults.

Buying the right clubs is a challenge especially for growing and developing junior golfers. The investment, physical changes, and shifting golf swings only add to the challenge. Thanks to the experience from hundreds of fittings, we know the steps to take and the mistakes to avoid to help you make a good club-buying decision. The list below is a quick summary of the recommendations we make to the parents of students. These recommendations are geared towards younger players.

 

1. Choose clubs that are shorter, lighter, and softer as opposed to clubs that are longer, heavier, and stiffer. We often remind parents that young golfers should grow out of their clubs rather than grow into their clubs. Long, heavy, stiff clubs can produce movement patterns that will need to be reversed as golfers get stronger and faster. As an added warning, don’t give your kids adult clubs that have been cut down.
2. For younger golfers with slower swing speeds, favor irons that increase launch and reduce the amount of roll after the ball hits the ground. Higher ball flight increases both carry distance and the chance of holding a green after landing on it. Driver fittings require a balance between carry distance and roll. With slower swing speeds, it’s best to maximize total distance (carry and roll).
3. Don’t buy from retail outlets but instead use a qualified fitter that has access to a TrackMan launch monitor. Retail outlets often have relatively inexperienced employees handling the fitting process and it’s not uncommon for their launch monitors to produce “amped up” numbers to sell clubs. I also recommend testing clubs on the course even if that means slowing down the fitting process.
4. It usually makes sense to refrain from buying clubs that attempt to correct for swing issues. For example, buying a club with a large offset or a closed club face would discourage a young player from learning how to properly square the club face and might make it difficult to learn how to hit a shot with an open club face. I would suggest that your child’s swing coach be involved in the fitting process to ensure that the new clubs compliment the changes that the coach is trying to make with your son or daughter’s game.
5. From a technical standpoint, there are a handful of critical parameters that should be considered to get a proper fitting. Club speed, ball speed, launch angle, carry distance, dispersion, land angle, and spin rate should be measured and evaluated. An experienced club fitter with have the best chance of blending all the information together to arrive at a good decision. A club’s aesthetic appeal and feel are also important and should be considered toward the end of the fitting process.
   

The goal of every golf parent should be to act in a way that increases the likelihood of having a positive golf experience with his or her young golfer. In last month’s blog post, we introduced the first five of 10 Keys to Being a Great Golf Parent. In this month’s article, we present the second half of the list. We encourage you to use this list as a guideline for raising your junior golfer.
 
6.       Calm the waters. Golf is an emotional sport, especially for competitive juniors who are trying to manage their own expectations and do the best they can to impress and please their parents and coaches. Parents that understand this, would be wise to react calmly to the natural peaks and valleys of competition. Steadiness from parents will enable young golfers to focus on long-term improvement, a requirement for those will high aspirations.
7.       Memorize the magic five words. After watching a round of golf for 4-6 hours, most parents can’t wait to share their advice (and sometime their criticism) as soon as the round is over. But take it from me, this is the worst time to offer feedback. Instead, I recommend memorizing and repeating the following phrase: “I love watching you play.” That means being engaged and present and looking for opportunities to catch them doing something right rather than pointing out mistakes and second guessing them.
8.       Hold your child accountable for his or her effort. In golf, coaches and players only get to spend a small fraction of time together. Therefore, it’s up parents to ensure that their child is following the directions of their coach and investing an appropriate amount of time on their game. I can tell you firsthand that our number one priority with students is to establish a supportive and trusting relationship. We can remind students of what’s required to play high level golf but we have limited control or leverage over how they actually spend their time.
9.       Make school work and family responsibilities the highest priorities. As parents and coaches, we should be most concerned with raising young man and women of high character and strong values. The best way to do that is to assign appropriate priorities to school work and family responsibilities. By their over-the-top reactions, too many parents unknowingly present golf as the #1 priority. On a related note, most young golfers are over committed and struggling to get enough sleep and recovery time. It’s up to parents to enforce appropriate bed times and impose necessary restrictions on social media.
10.       Forget about the score. That’s right, I said forget about the score. In a sport that takes years to master, your son or daughter’s record will be filled with bad rounds and poor scores. I urge you to keep your eye focused on the long run. This will help encourage your child to do the same. Improvement and good scores will be your likely reward for taking a more long-term view.