There is a junior golfer I used to work with who loved the game.
She truly loved golf the way kids love things before anyone tells them they should be better at it. She showed up early to practice and stayed late. She played until the sprinklers chased her off the course.
Then one of her parents started showing up to rounds with their own scorecard.
Every shot got tracked. Every missed putt got logged. Every decision got reviewed, and every car ride home turned into a debrief. Then one day… she had enough. She stopped wanting to play, and eventually quit the game she once loved.
I will be the first to admit, that as a parent… I have been there. Maybe not with a clipboard or my own scorecard, but with my words to my daughter.
The Loneliest Sport a Child Plays
Think about what your kid just walked through.
Four and a half hours on a course. No timeout. No substitution. No teammate to pass to when it got hard. They kept their own score. They called penalties on themselves. They managed their own nerves with nobody to lean on.
Golf is the truly a lonely sport.
And then it ends. They turn in their scorecard and walk to the car. More often than not, the first voice they hear after a round is yours.
Parent Tip: The first five minutes after a round are not coaching minutes. They are connection minutes. And most of us treat them backwards. We lead with the score or result when we should be leading with the kid and connection.
The Voice They Inherit
Dr. Kristin Neff has spent her career studying self-compassion, and her research lands hard for any parent.
How we treat ourselves after failure matters more than the failure itself. Athletes who attack themselves after a bad shot do not play better afterward. They play worse. The harsh inner voice does not sharpen you. It shrinks you.
Now here is the part that should truly make us think and reflect…
Kids do not invent their inner voice. They inherit it. The way you respond to a double bogey becomes the way they respond to a double bogey. When you go silent and tense, they learn that mistakes are shameful. You might not be saying anything, but they know… they feel it. And at the end of a round, when you lead a conversation with the score or result, they learn that their worth is tied to performance.
Research on praise says the same thing but from another angle. When parents praise the outcome, the score, or the trophy, they unintentionally increase anxiety within the child. Deep down, kids intuitively know that outcomes are not fully within their control so they feel a lack of agency around it.
When parents, however, learn to praise process, the effort, the routine, or a specific time their child recovered after a bad hole, they build something that lasts. Praising something within their control (e.g., like effort or attitude), builds the foundation of an athlete who can fail and bounce back.
If you are interested in our recent Built to Bounce Back Webinar Series, what the full episode for free here.
So for parents, I would like to offer a reframe on the questions you ask your child at the end of a round. Instead of: “Did you play well?” Try asking this instead, “What did you learn?”
Loving the Child, Not the Performance
I want to go deeper for a moment, because this is bigger than golf.
Somewhere along the way, it gets easy to love the performance instead of the child. We never mean to or intent to do it, but our kids feel the difference when it happens. They can feel your mood rise and fall with their score. They learn to read your face on the 18th green before they read their own scorecard.
Here is what I believe. Your child’s worth was settled long before they ever picked up a club. It is not earned on a leaderboard and it is not lost in a missed cut. They are fully loved and accepted even on the worst golf day of their life.
And if that is true for you, then the car ride home is not a performance review. It’s a chance to remind them who they are when the scoring stops.
Golf will hand your kid a thousand bad days. That’s the game we play. So at the end of a tough day, they don’t need a swing fix or a lecture on what they did wrong. They first need a place to land, to feel seen, loved, and validated for what they just went through. I know it can get frustrating at times when you watch your child unravel out there. Trust me… they are frustrated too.
The Playbook
Here is something to try as you prepare for your child’s next competitive round:
The pre-round trap. Before the round, resist the temptation to say “I think you’ll win today.” I know you mean it as confidence, but it lands as a weight they now have to carry. And if they don’t achieve it, they feel like a failure. Instead, aim them at what they control for the day. Say something like, “Go out there and commit to every shot,” or “I love watching you compete.”
Three things to say after a round.
“I love watching you play.” Full stop. Don’t add a “but” to this sentence. Just stop after play. The pause separates your love from their performance, regardless of what it is, and that separation is everything.
“What were you proud of out there today?” This hands the round back to them and teaches self-evaluation that does not start with self-attack. Just understand your timing on when you ask this question. Ask for permission to invite you into the conversation. And if you sense they are not ready to talk on the car ride home. Just give them a hug and move to number 3 below.
“I am here when you want to talk about it.” That is permission, not pressure. Let them choose when they want to walk through the door.
RESET when they get in the car already melting down. Recognize what they feel and help them name it out loud and move to #3. Ease the pressure by taking any sort of analysis off the table for now. Steady your breathing first, because your calm is contagious and so is your tension. Encourage the effort, not the result. And lastly, talk later…because the teaching moment is real but it is not in the parking lot or the car ride home.
These are the same principles I write about in ONE: A Spiritual Playbook for the Mental Game of Golf. The mental game does not start on the first tee. For your kid, a lot of it starts in your passenger seat on the car ride home.
Before You Pull Out of the Parking Lot
Here is your challenge this week.
Before the next round ends, decide what your kid is going to hear in the first five minutes. Don’t decide what you are going to say in the moment when it comes. Prepare for it and decide now.
Sit with this one question now as you reflect: what does your child hear from you in the first five minutes after a round?
They are listening more closely than you think. And they will carry that voice a lot longer than they carry any score.
Good luck. I’m rooting for you.
Your Mental Coach,
Dr. Mat
P.S. I went deeper on this in the latest episode of the Mind Your Game podcast, “The Car Ride Home.” If this newsletter hit home, the episode is the conversation that goes with it. Give it a listen, then share it with a parent who needs it. Access the full episode below:
Dr. Mat | Mental Performance Golf Academy | mpgagolf.com
