Golf parenting is not for the faint-hearted<\/p>\n
And that\u2019s just the work side of things.<\/p>\n
Being a golf mum, Beatrice says, is practically another full-time job.<\/p>\n
Tournament days often begin at 4am for early tee times, followed by long drives, often across unfamiliar parts of the US.<\/p>\n
\u201cAmerica is a very big country and tournaments don\u2019t happen at your doorstep,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
There were moments when she was driving in the dark, fighting sleep and hoping she could stay awake long enough to get her son safely to the course, sometimes straight after an overnight work call that ended at 4am.<\/p>\n
\u201cSometimes you have meetings and you cannot tell the minister, \u2018I cannot meet you at 3am.\u2019 You just have to show up,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
Once there, the waiting game begins. Junior tournaments can stretch anywhere from five to nine hours, especially with rain delays. And because juniors aren\u2019t allowed to use buggies, everyone walks \u2014 including parents.<\/p>\n
The physical exhaustion is real, but the emotional test can be even tougher.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne of the most difficult things is that you cannot play the game for him,\u201d Beatrice admits. \u201cAll you can do is really encourage and support.\u201d<\/p>\n
On bad days, that means watching her own child struggle on the course while running on little to no sleep herself.<\/p>\n
There have even been moments when she\u2019s \u201cfallen asleep next to squirrels and raccoons,\u201d only to wake up and find her sandwich gone.<\/p>\n
Still, whenever she can, she chooses to walk the course and watch Sol play, which she calls her “favouritest thing”.<\/p>\n
\u201cI absolutely love watching him play,\u201d she says, especially when things don\u2019t go his way. \u201cHow he recovers from that\u2026 that always makes me so proud.\u201d<\/p>\n
While she believes he has a long way to go and is \u201cextremely far from his dream,\u201d she\u2019s in no hurry to rush milestones.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Golf parenting is not for the faint-hearted And that\u2019s just the work side of things. Being a golf…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":391285,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[566],"tags":[64,63,209443,755,209446,209445,209444,85],"class_list":["post-391284","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-beatrice-chia","tag-golf","tag-golf-mum","tag-mark-richmond","tag-sol-richmond","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/391284","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=391284"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/391284\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/391285"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=391284"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=391284"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=391284"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}