By Sokeina, Founder of Pitchn · April 2026 · 4 min read
There's a specific kind of quiet in the car on the way home from a bad round.
She's in the back seat. You're watching the road. Nobody's really saying anything and you're running through your options, Do I bring it up? Do I wait for her? Do I just put the radio on and leave it?
Most parents will try to fill that silence. It's not a bad instinct. It comes from wanting to help. But "you played well in patches" or "everyone has off days" even when it's true it can land completely wrong. Like you're already moving on before she's had a chance to feel it. And I'm also not one to placate my daughter as I don't see the value in this.
Golf does something to kids that team sports don't. There's nowhere to hide out there. No teammate to share the bad moments with, no coach pulling you aside, no substitution when it's falling apart. You're just alone with the round for four hours and if it goes wrong, you carry that the whole way in.
So when she comes off her round and she's not okay, she probably doesn't need a debrief. She needs a drink, her bag in the car, and ten minutes of not being asked anything.
Just let her land somewhere first.
The conversations that actually matter; I've found this, and a lot of golf parents seem to find the same thing, they don't happen in the car park. They happen later. That night, or the next morning, when the sting has worn off a bit and she's ready to look at it.
And when she is, the questions that help aren't technical. They're just human.
What was the hardest moment today?
Was there anything that felt okay, even briefly?
What do you want to do differently next time?
That last one is important. What does she want to change? Because if she owns the problem, she'll actually do something about it. If it comes from you, it's just more noise.
There's also what we show them in these moments without realising it.
Whether we can sit in the discomfort without rushing to fix it. Whether our face or our voice tells her that a bad score changes something between us.
It doesn't. Obviously. But she doesn't automatically know that. She's reading us the whole time.
We started Pitchn because young girls in golf were almost like an afterthought, we wanted to suppor with finding gear that fit, so they can start feeling like they belonged in a sport that wasn't really built for them. The last thing a nine-year-old needs after a rough round is to also feel like she's disappointed the people she cares about most.
There's no script for this. Some days she wants silence. Some days she wants to talk it to death. You'll get it wrong sometimes and that's fine, she's not keeping score on you either.
Mostly she just needs to know you'll be there at the car. Drink and a snack ready. No agenda.
Because she showed up, played a hard game, had a hard day, and walked back in anyway.
Honestly, that's the whole thing right there.