What are The Benefits of Pitch and Putt Golf for Children?

With golf growing in the last few years, one of the few sports that did actually see growth from 2019 to 2022, it is important for the future to try to keep hold of those players for the future of the sport. A large percentage of these new players were children, and as youth is always important to any sport, we look at how to keep them involved and to remove the intimidation that a full course round may bring with highlighting the benefits of pitch and putt golf for children below.

Pitch and Putt is a shorter and less challenging form of golf which makes it well suited to beginners and children. It provides the opportunity to learn the rules, basics, and skills of the game in a more manageable environment. It is also less expensive and the reduced space requirements make them more accessible to a wider range of communities.

With so many options and demands for children’s time golf certainly needs to up its game to attract new players, and pitch and putt is a great way to introduce and develop young players to golf.

There are significant benefits of encouraging children to play on Pitch and putt courses and we will look at these in the article below.

benefits of pitch and putt golf for children

The benefits of Pitch and Putt for Children

Physical benefits of Pitch and Putt.

All sports, literally all sports, have benefits for al participants. For children, especially in today’s technological age, getting outside even if just for a walk is going to be a great benefit. However, despite the old saying golf is a nice walk spoiled, it does offer other physical benefits for children.

Like other sports, racket, and ball sports, they are awesome for hand and eye coordination skill development, and golf with the club and the ball being much smaller than say tennis (although admittedly the ball is moving in tennis!) it helps these develop more effectively. In addition to coordination, golf develops fine motor skills, especially in young children.

Similarly with balance and endurance, hitting that ball takes balance and walking up to 2 to 4 km even on a short pitch and putt course is good exercise in anyone’s book.

Mental benefits:

As any sports person will tell you there is more to playing any sport, at least half successfully, than just the physical aspects. Mental development is equally important. Golf is a great way to develop those skills in children.

Golf requires a great deal of patience, focus, perseverance, and endurance. Traits that children often struggle to acquire (I am a teacher, and deal with this every day). It also helps children learn concepts like hard work and practice makes perfect (or at least better) and that not everything can be instant gratification.

Problem solving skills are also needed, not just with hazards and stray fairway shots, but choosing and judging the best club, direction, and power to move the ball forward are all invaluable mental skills.

It also allows them to be gracious in defeat, and deal with conflict and loss. In golf although you are often just playing yourself, you are often playing with others who will invariably be better than you.

Finally, although often played with others, golf is, at least the actual game, an individual sport. You are playing yourself, and if results don’t go your way there is no where else to look, no one else to blame than yourself. This is a difficult, but important lesson for children and golf will give many chances to learn this! That said there are competitions and a pitch and putt junior competition is a great way to see if your children are interested in playing golf competitively.

Social benefits:

As golfers we may keep our own score, and berate ourselves, but we often play as a group. For children, and adults, this develops friendships in a less pressurized environment and allows children to interact with each other in a fun and enjoyable environment.

Children’s golf clubs, which some pitch and putt offer, allow them to meet other children with similar interests and hobbies and to work as part of a team.

More of a benefit to the parents perhaps but the time spent of a golf course gives you a break as well!

Pitch and Putts – Educational Benefits:

Golf, aside from allowing children learning the skills needed to play the game, is a sport that extends its benefits to their education and the classroom. For all ages but especially younger children it introduces math concepts like distances, calculus and even equations and measurements.

It also allows children to set goals and plan their way to try achieving them. These skills are transferrable to other subjects, and of course life in general.

Confidence building:

Being able to have some success in any sport early on is the way to breed a love and a confidence in playing it. Children especially need a sense of fun and achievement early on . Playing in a full course is more difficult to achieve this, the hoes are two long and there will be constant feeling of underachievement.

Pitch and putts shorter holes, easier approaches, and smaller courses allow children to achieve the green in one or two shots and even have a chance at par once they have played for a little while. giving them some early ‘wins’ will build their confidence and hopefully encourage them to keep developing their skills so they can one day try to play on a full size course.

Accessibility benefits:

Pitch and Putt Sites are much more accessible for children and adults than regular full site courses which are usually attached to a golf club.

A pitch and putt is shorter as we mentioned above, and have more details on the site. It is cheaper to play, Averaging between 5 and 15 US dollars depending where in the world it is. (you can checkout the article on how much it costs to Play pitch and putt here. )

Suitability:

A full length golf course is a challenge for even experienced adults, beginners and children will find the extra length and technicality of the difficult, and demotivating. Pitch and putt is a great middle ground to develop the skills needed to give a full course a try. It also takes away the diving elements ( which could be introduced on a driving range in the first instance.

The shorter holes of a pitch and putt give children a real chance to treat it as their own mini sized golf course.

For those who say that children should paly the same golf course, do we start junior racing car drivers in formula 1, or NASCAR, do we make 4 years old play full size pitch soccer for 90 mins, no of course we don’t, and neither should we try to have children play a full length courses unless they have the skills and abilities needed. It sets them up for failure and will likely cause them to leave the sport and become demotivated.

Great For families:

If you have adult golfers in the family, then pitch and putt is a great half way house for the whole family to play in a more relaxed environment and can be tailored to each members ability. In fact we strongly recommend playing as a family on these shorter courses before making you way to the full length golf course. You can read more on our golfing as a family article here that offers some ideas and games to play golf as a family.

More relaxing:

When starting out in a sport or passtime it is important to make is as enjoyable as possible, and for children more so than any other group this is important.

Golf is often a game where we put pressure on ourselves to improve, keeping children away from that till they develop more skills, and have the knowledge of what to do to improve will keep them in the sport for much longer.

There are loads of ways to involve children in golf at a level that is appropriate for them and we give you a list in the next section, but also an article on it as well.

Ways to encourage Children to play golf.

This requires a larger article but, for the purposes here we hav ea few ways to encourage children they try golf to stay playing the sport.

Keep the pressure off at the beginning.
Remember to keep it fun and lighthearted, its not the Ryder Cup here.
Play Games, and change it up try scramble gold or one ball, or bingo or the host fo other games
Go to a pitch and putt
Get hold of a office putting machine to try We have an article here for that)
Play mini golf.
Street golf
Tri Golf
Group golf lessons

We have a larger how to involve children in golf article here on the site which we will link to.

Conclusion

Children whether they are beginners or developing golf players will benefit form playing on a pitch and putt course tremendously.

Pitch and Putt courses smaller size and shorter holes are great for children to practice swings and putts without losing confidence on a larger full-size course. Pitch and putt is also cheaper and takes less time so could be fitted in in less than an hour as part of an after school activity a couple of times a week.

The key thing to remember is that children do things for fun, and if playing on a full size course 10 shooting ever hole is their idea of fun then So Be It, however 99.99% of children would prefer to practice with a chance and some success on a shorter par 3 pitch and putt course.

And honestly so would most other golfers as well

What are The Benefits of Pitch and Putt Golf for Children?