Golf Forums - Starting Them Young

My daughter, Samantha, is seven years old.

She goes once a week to a group golf lesson.  Seven kids in the group and the coaching last one hour.  She enjoys it.

Now they do go through a couple of different types of shots, but most seem to be the mid irons.

I remember many years ago reading in a golf magazine about how the scandinavian countries teach their youngster.

From what I can remember it stated that they would start teaching young children putting and chipping.  The reason being that they were probably not strong enough to swing a golf club properly.

As the child grew and got stronger then they would move them onto pitch shots and then half shot, etc.

Now looking at this I can see the logic in it.

Imagine if you walked onto the golf course and you were already a good putter and chipper of the ball!

Now do you think we teach kids the wrong way around in this country?

Russ

Could be argued either way I think. Yes, I appreciate the theory of chipping and putting first, although I'm not sure that strength should be the deciding factor. This area is something that can be improved on fairly easily, no matter what the age, build, strength or starting ability. (I think most adult beginners would benefit from starting out on a small par 3 course).
On the other hand, kids get bored easily and when they start golf, one of their objectives is to whack the ball and see how far they can get - my own son was exactly the same - I paid for a course of lessons for him, and the highlight was when they were allowed to go on the driving range! I suspect a few kids would lose interest if this wasn't an integral part of the early learning process, and that would be a shame.