WHY MY SON PLAYS GOLF O


ne early sign of my son’s deep passion for golf


came in the middle of a long-ago round at Grayson Woods, a short, kid-friendly, par-3 course in Pleasant Hill, not far from our East Bay home. Trevin was probably 7 or 8 at


the time, and he had just hit an- other maddening ground ball. His frustration teetered on the brink of boiling over, or so I thought. Then he looked at me in exasperation and asked earnestly, “Dad, what am I doing wrong? I want to fix it.” That counted as a landmark moment in my mind, because it showed he cared (abundantly)


Golf doesn’t have to be your child’s favorite sport, but it has a valuable role in family life


BY RON KROICHICK


San Francisco golf writer Ron Kroichick and son Trevin


and offered a valuable life lesson (focus on the solution). A few years later, on a family weekend in Santa Cruz, we spent a wonderful, sun-splashed afternoon playing Pasatiempo. Trevin was no longer hitting grounders by then, and he also took surprising interest when I began to tell him about Alister MacKenzie, the famed course architect. We talked about the cool rout-


ing, artistic bunkers and challeng- ing greens of Pasatiempo. I told him about several other courses MacKenzie designed, not only Augusta National and Cypress Point, but also Sharp Park and Meadow Club. Trevin posed for a photo in


front of MacKenzie’s old house, alongside the No. 6 fairway at


SUMMER 2015 / NCGA.ORG / 29


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