Peter Williams: Relentless dedication should never be child's play

There's nothing wrong with kids playing golf at a young age. Tiger Woods was exposed to the game before he could walk. He'd sit in a swing seat and watch his dad hit balls into a net in the family garage.

But there's a time and a place for young children to play the game and a national amateur championship is neither.

Last weekend at Titirangi there was the extraordinary sight of a 7-year-old playing in the New Zealand Women's Strokeplay Championship in the same field as the best players in New Zealand and Australia.

Lydia Ko, according to the website which contains the handicaps of every club member in New Zealand, played her first round of golf on December 23 - less than three months ago.

Her best round at the relatively easy Takapuna public course is 80, in itself a remarkable number for one so young. But at Titirangi her four rounds were 100, 106, 98 and 111 - she came last. The woman marking her card for the final round told me she had a running battle with Lydia's father, her caddie, to ensure Lydia's correct score was entered on each hole.

She appeared to not know important and basic rules, such as not being allowed to ground a club in a hazard. On the 15th, which requires a tee shot over a gully to the fairway about 150m away, the poor girl had to hit a wedge short of the gully before playing her second shot over the gully just to get her ball into play.

She shouldn't have been allowed to compete and Women's Golf New Zealand now realises that. It would seem it wasn't Lydia's fault that she was entered but her parents'.

The syndrome is well known. The reputation of tennis dads like Messrs Williams, Dokic and Pierce needs no expansion here. Tiger's dad has had his moments too. But the influx of Korean youth into New Zealand golf has seen a marked increase in the number of ambitious parents offering every possible support to their child, often to a point that borders on the ridiculous.

I have left my golf club on a wet winter evening and watched in amazement as a 10-year-old practised putting in the rain, with his father overseeing him and the car headlights providing light.

A magazine article on former New Zealand women's representative Enu Chung once reported how she had to make 100 putts in her room each night before she could go to bed. Some clubs have reported instances of children being beaten if they do not play well in a particular event. A 14-year-old was pulled out of the Auckland Strokeplay last year by his father when he was eight-over par after eight holes.

The issue is important because so many future New Zealand champions and national representatives will be Korean. Golf will continue to play an important role in the ongoing assimilation of Koreans and other Asian groups into New Zealand society. I regularly see teenagers, who have been in this country for a few years, mixing with other junior golfers of other ethnic backgrounds. But the hopes of their parents' generation regularly cause tension.

A happy medium between enjoyment and relentless toil must be found. And Women's Golf New Zealand must put a minimum age limit on the national championship.

- HERALD ON SUNDAY