Letter #206: Padraig Harrington (2023)
World #3 Golfer & 3x Major Winner | Harrington offers up advice for young golfers
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Today’s letter is the transcript of an interview with Padraig Harrington where he discusses how his son fell in love with golf, but more generally, how to help children, or really anyone, fall in love with anything. It’s an absolute masterclass in terms of life lessons and incentive structuring, and worth multiple reads.
Padraig is an Irish professional golfer who at one point was ranked as one of the top three golfers in the world. He won three major championships: The Open Championship in 2007 and 2008 and the PGA Championship in 2008. He also spent over 300 weeks (~6 years) in the top-10 of the world rankings, was a member of six consecutive Ryder Cup teams, and an inductee of the World Golf Hall of Fame. Prior to becoming a professional golfer, Padraig trained in accountancy, and actually passed the exams required to become ACCA-certified.
I hope you enjoy this interview response as much as I did!
(Transcript and any errors are mine.)
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Transcript
Interviewer: How did he [Ciaran – Padraig’s son] catch the bug of playing golf?
Paidrag Harrington: I don’t necessarily know. Golf’s always been easy because I have the facilities at home. So, I would say to a lot of people, you thinking providing these for your kids is good, but not really. When it’s easy for kids, they just tend not to want to do it.
So, in hindsight, the best way, if you want to get your kid into the game of golf is bring them somewhere where you’re not stressed. That’s very important. Kids pick up on that. Let them do what they like when they’re there. Have a bit of fun. If they want to hit one shot, two shots, ten shots, play in the bunker, look at the water or whatever they want to do, let them do. And generally, bring them home before they get tired.
So the best thing you can do with a kid early on in golf is say, Hey, we have to go home. And don’t wait to get tired and hate it, wait till when they’re actually enjoying themselves, go home.
And the last thing I would say, and this has nothing to do with being a competitive player, it’s about the love of the game. When you’re finished, take 10 minutes to spend with your son or daughter, and go and have a Coke, a Pepsi this week. Go and have a Pepsi in the bar, wherever it is, and sit there, have an ice cream, and spend 10, 15 minutes. Because, if they have that 15 minutes alone time with you, just you and them, for the rest of life, every time they play golf, they’ll remember the 15 minutes they had with their father or mother. And that’s what’ll keep bringing them back to golf for the next—and remember, these kids will play golf for 90 years. There’s a good chance my kids will be playing when they’re 100. So, like, it’s a long career.
And if every time they play golf, it’s bringing that happy memory of when they were a kid and they just got a bit of alone time, a bit of quiet time, a bit of big boy time, where they’re sitting there in the clubhouse and enjoying it. So, it’s very important.
Stress-free environment. Don’t bring them to the nice country club. That’s no use, that makes them soft anyway. Bring them out there. All the player on tour, I guarantee it, we had nothing else to do in our summers. We were thrown out, go to the golf course, and we spent—played 45 holes a day, and it was something to do. Having too many options also won’t make them want to play golf. It’s nice when in the summer time, that’s—the kids all go out to cycle up to the golf course, whatever, and then they just spend the whole day there. That’s another way kids will get to love the game.
And remember, it’s unlikely if your kid gets good at the game, that doesn’t necessarily make them love the game. If your kid loves the game, it’s likely that they’ll become good. It’s the love should be first. And it’s even more important to get a love of the game, because we all know you plateau when you play golf. There’s many plateaus where it really gets frustrating. And if you don’t love it, those plateaus are going to stop you playing. You’re going to give up. Whereas if you love it, you’ll go through anything. So, try and get the love of the game for the kids first. Don’t make—they’ll figure out how to play great golf.
Kids are brilliant, they’ll figure it out. You don’t need to be teaching your kids how to play golf. You need to be ensuring that they’re in an environment that they just love the game. And then they’ll start asking questions.
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Great insights. As a former high school golf coach, I saw plenty of good golfers who had no love for the game. They just played because dad wanted them to.
After high school most , on their own, quit. Burned out! Some few that I knew came back to playing later in life.