Nice swing, nice hit

These are the only two acceptable things to say when teaching your children to golf, according to a book my husband read last year.

And so today Dave repeated these two phrases many times over. I have to give him credit; teaching the pinks to golf is a great idea. He adores the game and the more they enjoy it, the more opportunities he'll have to play.

Today the four of them went to the Tahoe City Golf Course and "played" three holes. Why just three? Always leave 'em begging for more. They pinks have their own sets of clubs, really and truly pink. They drove. They putted. And Dave chanted: nice swing. Nice hit. The verdict? It was fun to hang with Dad and even more fun to drive the golf cart.

While this was a good strategy, Dave really teed up this event with a primer several months back. Start taking notes now. When the three sets of new pink clubs arrived via UPS, Dave came up with what might have been the best children's golf-teaching-strategy of the year.

In our backyard he set up three plastic plates. And on each plate he put a selection of small candies, Halloween-type treats. The kids were each positioned a few yards from their respective plates, clubs in hand, balls on the ground in front of them. If they chipped onto the plate, they got all the candy. Balls that hit the plate were rewarded with a single piece of candy. How much do you think they like this game?!