When Hugh and Caren Mackenzie decided to have kids, they promised themselves they wouldn’t let them get in the way of the things they loved to do. They included both Paige and her pro golfer brother, Brock, in their favorite activities.
“Ultimately, the thing we liked to do best was golfing,” Hugh said. “And we brought them along.”
Hugh devised a contraption similar to a jogging stroller, that attached to the pull carts he and Caren used to haul their clubs. He fixed seats for Brock and Paige so they sat comfortably at the same angle as the bags. It was pure genius.
Brock and Paige were each less than six months old when they began riding along with their parents up and down the hills of Yakima Country Club.
“The kids were so manageable,” Hugh recalled, “so well-behaved. I was proud of them even then, telling everybody, ‘Yes, those are my kids.’”
For these golfers, their home courses became their childhood playgrounds.
“It’s like the game gets ingrained in you at an early age,” Ryan Moore said. “It becomes part of your DNA.”
Ryan, 30, was between three- and four-years old when Mike began taking him to the course, handing him a cut-down Chi Chi Rodriguez 4-iron. From an early age, he had a natural feel for opening up a club face to hit flop shots, or closing the face to hit low, Lee Trevino-like runners.
Adults would gather to watch Ryan hit these shots; he had his first gallery practically before he had his first bicycle.
“Did you teach him that?” golfers would ask Mike after seeing Ryan flop a shot, Mickelson-like, landing it on the green as soft as summer rain. The answer was no.
“He just understood how to do it,” Mike said.
Matt Stanley enrolled Kyle in the junior golf program at Glendale Country Club. It was obvious early that Kyle had a game.
“You saw that something neat was going on,” Matt said.
Jeff Gove, 41, received his first clubs when he was four years old. He would play holes No. 7, 8 and 9 at Inglewood, starting 150 yards from the green.
“I fell in love with the game. I was lucky to grow up in a golfing family,” he said. “I watched my dad follow his brother Mike on tour. I think that intrigued my mind.”
There’s that love connection again, love that is often passed down through generations. From fathers who first put a club in their child’s hands, motivated them to improve during those long, lonely hours on the range, and taught them to accept the abuse that the game throws at them, and to come back for more.