Home›Junior Journey›Stage 1: First Swing
Stage 1 has one purpose and one purpose only: to make your child fall in love with golf. Not to produce a technically correct swing. Not to enter competitions. Not to prove they have talent. The sole measure of success at Stage 1 is whether your child wants to come back next week.
The brain of a young child is extraordinarily receptive to new movement patterns — but only when the learning is wrapped in play and enjoyment. The moment it feels like work, the moment pressure enters the room, the brain switches off. Junior golfers who fall in love with the game at Stage 1 are the ones who are still playing at eighteen. Those who are pushed too hard, too technically, too soon, are the ones who quietly stop going to lessons and find a reason not to go to the club.
At Stage 1, the coach's entire job is to make the child fall in love with the game. Technique follows passion — it never precedes it. A coach who spends 45 minutes correcting a six-year-old's grip is a coach who is killing the game in that child.
The best golf fitness at this age is every other sport. Children who run, throw, catch, swim, climb and balance build the movement skills a golf swing is made from. Golf needs rotation, balance on one leg and hand-eye timing, and all three develop faster through play than through golf lessons.
Progress at Stage 1 is rarely linear and almost never looks impressive from the outside. Your child will swing and miss repeatedly. They will show flashes of genuine contact followed by complete regression the following week. They will get bored and wander off. All of this is entirely normal.
What you are looking for is not technical improvement. You are looking for a growing enthusiasm for being at the golf course. You are looking for your child asking when they can go again. You are looking for them practising in the garden or asking questions about golf on the way home. These are the signs that Stage 1 is working.
Stage 1 practice is play with a target. Keep it short, varied and full of scoring.
| How often | 1–3 times a week, including any lesson |
| How long | 20–45 minutes |
| Shape of a session | 10 minutes putting games, 10 minutes chipping to targets, 10 minutes swinging at something (a flag, a bucket, a hoop) |
| Rule of thumb | Change the game every 10 minutes, before boredom sets in |
Three games that work:
No technical corrections from parents. If your child asks "how do I...", say "let's ask the coach next time".
A skilled Stage 1 coach builds every session around games and targets rather than technical instruction. They hit at coloured cones, chip into hula hoops, score points in small competitions, play games that make the child laugh. The technical learning is embedded invisibly in the fun.
Sessions should be short — 30 to 45 minutes at most. A young child's concentration window is brief. Three enthusiastic 30-minute sessions are worth more than one exhausting two-hour lesson. If your child's coach is spending large portions of each lesson in technical correction and your child is showing boredom or reluctance — that is a warning sign.
It feels strange to talk about "sports psychology" for a five-year-old — and it should. At Stage 1, the whole job is emotional, not technical: making sure your child's very first experiences of golf get filed away in their brain as fun, safe and something they chose to keep doing. Every child who goes on to love this game for life had a Stage 1 where nobody made them feel judged for missing the ball.
The single biggest psychological risk at this stage isn't a bad swing — it's a child quietly deciding "I'm not good at this" before they've even had a fair run at it. Children this age take everything literally and personally. A throwaway "no, not like that" lands very differently coming from a parent than it would land on an adult. The good news is that the fix is simple and entirely in your hands: catch effort, not outcome.
The goal of Stage 1 isn't to build a good golfer. It's to build a child who thinks golf is one of the best things in their week. Everything else follows from that — but nothing good follows if you get this part wrong.
If you take one thing from this section, take this: at Stage 1, your child cannot yet tell the difference between "you hit that badly" and "you are bad at this." Keep the language, the tone and the whole experience wrapped in warmth, and you are doing the most important psychological job of the entire junior journey — before a single lesson on the mental game is even needed.
Stage 1 children don't need a competition calendar. Fun events are fine; results aren't the point.
| Competitive rounds a year | None needed |
| Fun events a year | 0–6 (club fun days, parent-and-child events, taster sessions) |
| Format | A few holes, often from forward tees or a short course |
| Time off | Long breaks are healthy. A winter away from golf does no harm |
Ask one question after every session: "Did you enjoy it?" Not "Did you hit it well?" Not "What did the coach say?" Just: did you enjoy it. If the answer is yes, the session was a success, regardless of what happened technically.
Never repeat the coach's technical instructions on the drive home. This is the most common mistake golf parents make. The coach has a plan. Adding to it, contradicting it, or repeating it creates confusion and pressure. The drive home should be about what they enjoyed, not what they need to improve.
Resist comparing your child to others. Junior golf development is completely non-linear. A child who appears to make no progress at five may suddenly flourish at seven. The only meaningful measure at Stage 1 is enthusiasm.
Three clubs at most — a driver or fairway wood, a mid-iron, and a putter. Always size by height, never by age. US Kids Golf's height-based sizing is the most reliable guide.
Buy second-hand without hesitation. A quality pre-loved starter set serves a Stage 1 child just as well as anything new — and when they outgrow it in 12 months, you sell it on for close to what you paid.
A short checklist to judge a coach against.
The non-negotiables
Signs of a good junior coach
Warning signs
What's right at each stage
| 1 | Group sessions, games, lots of laughing. Technique almost invisible |
| 2 | Groups plus the occasional individual lesson. Fundamentals hidden inside games |
| 3 | A regular coach who comes to watch the occasional round and knows the competition calendar |
| 4 | A coach who works with a strength and conditioning coach and plans the season with you |
| 5 | A coach who treats the player as the decision-maker and helps with pathway choices |
Take turns. Stand still and quiet when others play. Stand out of the way. Replace divots and rake bunkers with help. Shake hands at the end. Learn more from the JuniorCaddie rules card.
Coming February 2027: Community Plus
Save your child's season, get entry-deadline alerts, and keep everything in one place. Community Plus is coming in 2027, and it keeps JuniorCaddie growing — browsing stays free forever.