Assessing One of the Best 13-Year-Olds in Junior Golf

13-year-old Ananyaa Sood of Dubai is among the most-skilled young golfers we’ve evaluated in the last few years.  Her coordination, speed and maturity bely her age and her tournament results reflect it:

The week after visiting TPI, she finished 2nd at the US Kids Championship in the 13-year old division and the following month she won the inaugural Tommy Fleetwood International Pathway Series event.

While Ananyaa has the benefit of working with a world-class team, including her coach, Sujjan Singh, and trainer, Allister Parlane, we felt like there are several lessons that junior golf parents, coaches and trainers can take from our experience with her.

Don’t Wait to Evaluate

Our system is sport specific, not age specific.  We don’t wait until a golfer is an adult to evaluate what they can do physically.  In fact, in many cases, it makes more sense to evaluate a teenager.  Kids develop at different rates.  Chronological age is often not the same as biological age in young athletes (this concept is the foundation behind the skill and movement-based developmental criteria that we introduce in our advanced Junior courses). 

Golf is a game of skill.  The golf ball doesn’t care how much hip mobility you have, it only responds to the force applied by the club during impact.  That said, the earlier we can help a golfer develop robust movement skills or identify potential limitations, the better opportunity they will have to develop a more repeatable and powerful pattern.  

Ananyaa is already developing strength and movement skills in the weightroom under the supervision of an elite team, but, if she wants to play professionally, she still has work to do to match the physical capacity of her future competition. 

Caution around the weight room is a common - and understandble - concern of parents of young golfers, however, the vast majority of juniors we meet have waited too long to begin training. 

A golfer’s body is the 15th club in their bag.  Why would we want to wait to develop it or to determine if it is limiting their ability to express a skill?  

Don’t Let Competition Get in the Way of Development

We love to see junior golfers playing competitively.  As coaches or parents, our first goal with junior golfers should be to help them develop a passion for the game, and playing golf - including tournament golf - is much more addicting than beating balls on a range.  

That said, we believe that competition results should never take priority over a young golfer’s athletic and skill development.  

If a golfer (or their parent or coach) feels they have limited resources to practice or train (whether time, money or energy) because of a busy tournament schedule, it’s a losing strategy.  Short-term results should never supersede long-term goals.

As Greg said at the end of the video:

“When you meet someone with your golf skills who can hit it 100 yards past you, how are you going to feel?  Trouble.”

Competitive rounds are valuable tools for developing a passion and highlighting learning opportunities, but should not be prioritized at the expense of physical or technical development.  

Too Long, Too Heavy, Too Soon

In our evaluation with Ananyaa, we hypothesized that the weight of her clubs could be contributing to the compensations we saw in her swing, specifically loss of posture.  Her coach, Sujjan, mentioned her mechanics improved when she tried lighter clubs.  Though any adjustment with Ananyaa's fitting would be subtle, this feedback underscores an important potential pitfall in junior golf.

Some of the most common and egregious fitting mistakes we see are with parents setting up their young golfers.  Too long, too heavy, too soon.  

Gifting your kid your old driver can be a disaster for their game.

Junior golfer who swing clubs that are too long or too heavy can often develop poor mechanics and even increase risk of injury.

Titleist’s Lucas Bro discussing club fitting concepts & pitfalls w/ Med L3 today pic.twitter.com/wAwSWWbL7e

— TPI (@MyTPI) November 18, 2022

As Greg said, making the clubs lighter is almost like immediately making the athlete stronger.

Ananyaa has unique skillset and team, but shares similar goals as many elite young players we meet.  Hopefully this video outlined how you can help put the junior golfer in your life on a path with the highest ceiling for success and enjoyment in golf.

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