Golfing With Adult Kids: How Much Advice Is Too Much?
By Dave at Back Nine Living
Less than you think. Wait until your son or daughter asks for it. If they never ask, you never give it, and you both drive home happy. That single rule will do more for the round than any tip you were about to offer on the fifth tee.
I know how that sounds. You have played this game for a long time; forty+ years for most of us. You can spot the flaw from across the range. Saying nothing feels close to neglect. But a round with your grown child is not a lesson, and they stopped being your student a long time ago.
Here is what the research actually says, what works on the course, and how to turn one decent round into something you both look forward to.
Why does a round with your grown kid feel harder than it should?
Because two things are happening at once, and only one of them is golf.
The other thing is the parent and child relationship, which does not switch off at the first tee. You still want to help. They still hear help as judgment, even when you did not mean it that way. Add a scorecard, four hours and nowhere to hide, and a small annoyance has plenty of room to grow.
There is also the math. If your daughter lives three hours away and you see her six times a year, one round of golf might be a tenth of the time you get to spend with her all year. Reminding her to keep her head down is a poor use of your time together.
And there is history. If you taught them the game, you are still the voice in their head over the ball, whether you speak or not. If you did not teach them, there is a quiet worry that you missed the chance. Either way you arrive at the first tee carrying more than a bag.
Full disclosure, my kids are still young enough that I see them all the time and they generally don’t want to spend their time playing golf with their old man. Nevertheless, I am writing this down now while I still have time to take my own advice.
What does the research say about parents handing out advice?
It says that advice your child didn’t ask for is one of the more corrosive things a parent can offer.
A study led by Kira Birditt at the University of Michigan, published in Psychology and Aging, asked 474 parents and adult children what they argued about. Money, housekeeping and lifestyle all came up, but those tensions could be parked. The ones that did lasting damage were personality differences and parents giving advice nobody requested. Birditt called those the deep seated conflicts you cannot escape.
A later study in The Journals of Gerontology found the same pattern playing out day by day. Researchers followed 152 adult children for a week and logged every piece of advice their parents offered. Advice from mothers lifted their mood. Advice they did not want, from either parent, pushed it the other way. The authors put it plainly: parental advice is not a case of: more is better. That group was young, aged 18 to 30, so read it as a pattern rather than a law. But anyone with a 45 year old son will still recognise it.
Golf teachers land in the same place without the footnotes. Ian Hughes, a Golf Digest ranked teacher at GolfTEC Grand Rapids, was asked how to give a playing partner a tip that helps. His answer opened with a condition: if your friend actually wants a tip, and plenty of people do not, start with how they hold the club. Note the order. Wanting it comes first. Giving it comes second.
How much coaching is the right amount?
None, unless you are asked. Then one thing, once, and only if you are sure of it.
That sounds severe, so here is the workable version. Use the 24 hour rule, which comes from Mark and Britt McKinney writing in Golf.com about raising junior golfers. Do not talk about the round for a full day. Not a word. If the thought still seems worth saying tomorrow, and your kid still wants to hear it, say it then. Most thoughts do not survive the wait, which tells you roughly what they were worth in the first place.
Bruce Brown and Rob Miller of Proactive Coaching interviewed hundreds of college athletes about playing sport at school. The worst memory, by a distance, was the drive home with a parent. The best was hearing I love to watch you play. Your forty year old is still that kid in at least one small room of their head.
Praise the shot, not the swing. That was lovely needs no follow up. That was lovely, you finally kept your head still is a lesson wearing a compliment as a coat, and they will hear the lesson.
What if they ask you a direct question?
Answer it briefly, then stop. Why do I keep hitting it right deserves one honest sentence, not a clinic between the ninth green and the tenth tee. If they want more, they will ask for more. And if the same question keeps coming back all summer, the useful answer is a lesson with a professional, which also gets you out of the job.
What if they are better than you now?
Enjoy it, and ask them something. Nothing resets the old roles faster than a parent saying show me how you hit that, and meaning it. You get a tip you can use. They get to be the competent one for an afternoon. Nobody loses.
Which tees and which game make the round work?
Move up a set of tees, and play a format where nobody is left alone with a bad hole.
In 2011 the USGA and the PGA of America ran a push called Tee It Forward, asking golfers to play from tees that matched how far they actually hit the ball. Of the golfers surveyed afterwards, 70 percent found the game more enjoyable, 90 percent played faster or at about the same pace, and 91 percent said they would recommend it and use it again. If your son is new to the game, or your daughter has not swung a club since university, the forward tees are not charity. They are the difference between a round of golf and a long walk with a rake. There is more on that in Moving Up a Tee Is Not Surrender. It Is Smarter Golf.
Then the format. Straight stroke play punishes the weaker player on every hole and makes the stronger one wait. A scramble does the opposite. Everyone hits, you play the best of the shots, and a beginner gets the pleasure of seeing their ball chosen. For two of you, try a scramble off the tee and your own ball after that. For four, run a scramble on the front nine and best ball on the back so everyone gets a turn at both. More options in Golf Games That Keep Mixed Groups Fun After 50.
A few small choices take most of the pressure out of the day:
Book nine holes rather than eighteen the first time out
Go late in the day, when the course is quiet and nobody is pushing from behind
Leave the scorecard in the cart, or keep one score for the group instead of one each
Rent them clubs rather than handing over your spare set from 1998
Agree a pick up rule before the first tee, so nobody has to ask for mercy in front of the group
Put a coffee or a beer in the bag for the turn, because a stop is where the conversation happens
What do you actually talk about for four hours?
Whatever comes up. That is the point.
Golf hands you something rare. Several hours beside someone, both facing the same way, with regular gaps that nobody is obliged to fill. Talking is easier when you are not looking at each other and there is a ball to walk to. Grown children who will not sit across a table and discuss their lives will often tell you plenty on the way to the seventh green.
Claire Rogers wrote a lovely piece for Golf.com about walking Augusta with her father and her sister. She described golf starting as a sore point between her and her dad, then slowly becoming the way they talked, until the conversations moved from golf to life. Her line is worth borrowing. “Golf was so often a pain point in the beginning of our relationship, but I realize now that it was on the golf course that my dad became much more than my dad — he became my best friend.”
There is a larger point behind that. The Harvard Study of Adult Development has followed the same men and their families since 1938, and its clearest finding is that the quality of close relationships predicts health and happiness in later life better than money, fame, social class or IQ does. Satisfaction with relationships at 50 predicted physical health better than cholesterol did. Golf will not repair a difficult relationship on its own. But four hours of easy company, repeated a few times a year, is the raw material every good relationship is built from. We came at the same idea from a different direction in Golf as a Cure for the Quiet Problem of Later Life Loneliness.
One more thing. Leave the phone in the bag. Both of you.
How do you turn one round into a habit?
Book the next one before you leave the car park.
A single good round is a nice afternoon. A standing date is a relationship. Here are some ideas:
The regular nine. Same course, same evening, every second week if you live close enough. Cheap, quick and easy to keep.
The annual trip. Two nights somewhere neither of you has played. It becomes the thing you both count down to, and sooner or later the grandkids start asking when they get to come.
The winter version. If you live in Ontario like me, half the year is not golf. An hour in a simulator bay or under the lights at a range keeps the habit alive while the course sits under snow.
The game is finally handing you more company, too. The National Golf Foundation reported that more than 29 million Americans played on a course in 2025, (the eighth straight year of growth) and that roughly two thirds of new golfers now start indoors at a simulator or a range. Which means your kid may already be playing without mentioning it, and the invitation might be easier than you expect.
Common questions
My adult child does not play golf at all. Where do we start?
Not on a golf course. Start with an hour at a driving range or a simulator, no scorecard and no advice. If they enjoy it, book a par three course next. A full eighteen holes is the reward for wanting more, it’s not the way to begin.
Should I pay for a lesson instead of teaching them myself?
Nearly always, yes. A professional gets to be the one who corrects them and you get to be the one who claps. For the price of a lesson, that is a very good trade.
They keep apologizing for playing slowly. What do I say?
Tell them the truth. Pace comes from being ready, not from being good. Then show them what ready looks like. Pick a club while walking, keep the hunt for a lost ball short, and putt out. A beginner who is ready to play keeps up with anyone.
What if we end up arguing anyway?
It happens. Birditt (cited above) also found that families who avoid the issue afterwards end up with worse relationships than those who talk it through, so do not bury it. Raise it once, calmly, the next day. Then let it go.
Is it still worth playing if I am the one struggling now?
Very much. Your kid is not keeping score of your decline. Move up a tee, play nine holes, and let them carry the bag for once. If sore hips or a bad back are the real reason you have stopped playing regularly, take this as straight talk from a fellow golfer rather than medical advice. Pain that hangs around for more than a couple of rounds deserves a professional opinion.
Your one next step
Text your son or daughter today and offer them nine holes. Not a lesson, not a clinic, not a chance to fix the slice you have been thinking about since Easter. Nine holes.
Then say almost nothing, and see what they tell you.
See you on the back nine.
Stay in the Fairway
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Dave is the founder of Back Nine Living, a golf and lifestyle site for players over 50. A lifelong golfer, he writes about golf, fitness, gear, travel, and the second half of life from his home base in Ontario, Canada.