Sporting memories: Dominating a youth golf tournament

I know it probably seems as though I am tooting my own horn when I talk about my accomplishments as a teenager as far as sports are concerned but seeing as how I don't really excel at any of them anymore it kind of makes me feel good to remember these things.

Plus the Ryder Cup was a lot more interesting to watch than I thought it would be and it made me think about how entertaining golf can be to a lot of people. The USA side made a game of it on day three and it was an interesting finish that was actually a lot closer than it looked like it would be especially after day 1 of the Cup.

Anyway, this story is about me so let's get to that.

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_{Not me, we didn't have digital cameras back then}

I was a bit of a "bitch" when it came to golf. My father loved gold and because I was pretty damn good at all the other sports I played he tried his dammdest to get me involved in a prestigious sport like golf. I think I enjoyed it initially, but later soured to it for reasons that I will explain at a later date. I was around 12 years old when there was a youth tournament at the local par 3 course in our hometown. I wasn't even aware of it and my parents didn't even ask me if I wanted to enter. This was at a point in my life where it was common for my mom and dad to drop off all the kids at the country club and just tell us to do whatever with the pool, the tennis courts and the golf course. This was during summer and I think only kids have what it takes to spend that much time in the sun so it was pretty easy for us to just do whatever we wanted.

So this tournament involved nobody that I knew. The other kids that were in it were all strangers to me. I didn't really think I was very good at golf because I never really had much to compare it to. This was one of the only competitive events I had entered at this point as the other competitions were just me playing against other friends who were around the same age as me.
I don't know how many kids were in the 12 and under category, but there were a lot of them. This was only a 9-hole course so it wasn't a full tournament. We all started at various holes and just played all of them until we got to 9. Scoring was done by adults that were standing on each hole. It was quite professional.

The only hole that had observers was back at the clubhouse and as you would expect this is where all the parents were, in the shade. I have no recollection of how long hole number 1 was, but since it was a par 3 course I presume it was under 200 yards. I teed off a bit nervous because my parents and the other kids' parents were all watching. The other kid I was with teed off first and as you would expect most 11 and 12 year olds to do, he shanked it off to the side well wide of the green. The parents clapped anyway because well, it's a kid.

On my tee off I nailed it high and solid got it on the green in one, within 5 feet of the hole. The parents went wild when they saw that and some of them came over to high-5 me. I didn't realize it at the time or perhaps just didn't care, but I was better than most of them were. While that particular hole stands out in my mind my performance was similarly good on all the other holes.

I won the tournament by 4 stokes, which in a 50 person lineup on a par-3 course of only 9 holes. Is pretty damn special.

This was a long time ago so I don't even remember if I entered other tournaments or not but I do recall feeling pretty damn special when I nailed that tee shot right in front of everyone. Those parents that were oohing and ahhing were impressed and a lot of them were probably jealous. To me, it wasn't difficult, in fact, I would often complain even when doing well on a course because golf just didn't really appeal to me.

In many ways, I wish I had stuck with golf but when you are a kid you end up pursuing what you enjoy the most, not what looks like it could hold a real future for you. In the professional world, sometimes job advancement and sales are based off of what happens on the golf course and unfortunately, since I didn't embrace my talents at the time, I am pretty terrible at the sport today.

This will be one of my big regrets as far as sport, and perhaps life is concerned. But I still have the glorious memory of that one day, even though it happened nearly more than 30 years ago.