By Rahil Gangjee
Somewhere between a 7-iron and a 7 am feeding schedule, it struck me that golf and fatherhood have a lot in common. Both demand patience, both test your temperament, and in both, you can do everything right and still end up in the bunker.
This week, the topic of golfing fathers has been on my mind a little more than usual. Not in a dramatic, announce-it-from-the-rooftops kind of way. Just in that quiet, warm, slightly sleep-deprived way that makes you smile for no apparent reason while tying your shoelaces. Life, it seems, has added a new caddie to my bag. A very tiny one. A baby boy, in fact, who doesn’t carry clubs yet, but already seems to have brought along a mysterious new accessory — hope, perspective… and maybe even a touch of luck.
Because if history is anything to go by, newborns have a funny habit of arriving with magic in their booties.
Scottie Scheffler became a father and almost immediately started collecting trophies as if nappies and night feeds had unlocked some secret swing key. Danny Willett won the Masters in the same season his little boy arrived, playing as if Augusta itself was rocking him to sleep. Rafael Campos lifted his first PGA Tour title just days after his son was born and admitted he felt like he was floating through the week. Even Xander Schauffele, after welcoming his first child, found himself winning on foreign soil, proof that dad strength travels well.
Coincidence? Possibly. Motivation? Definitely. Or maybe newborns really do arrive with a lucky charm tucked into their tiny fists
Golf has always been a jealous companion. It wants your mornings, your evenings, your weekends, your best years, and occasionally, your sanity. Now imagine mixing that with a small human who wants you at 2 a.m., 4 a.m., and every emotional moment in between. The result is a cocktail of joy, guilt, pride, fatigue, and a desperate search for coffee.
I remember watching players like Tiger Woods, Ernie Els, Vijay Singh, and closer home, guys like Jeev Milkha Singh, Jyoti Randhawa and SSP Chawrasia, juggling this exact tightrope. On one side, the responsibility of being a professional in a sport that demands relentless focus. On the other, the responsibility of being a father, which demands… well, everything else.
Tiger once spoke about how his priorities shifted after becoming a dad. Vijay, the eternal ball-striker, mellowed visibly when his son came into his life. Jeev, who has chased fairways across continents, often spoke about how the toughest stretch was being away from home when his kids were growing up. The trophies look great in the cabinet, but they don’t quite laugh, cry, or run into your arms when you return from a long trip.
Every touring pro who is also a father will tell you the same thing: the hardest part is not the travel, the pressure, or the missed cuts. It’s the departures. Walking out of the house with a golf bag when you’d much rather be holding a tiny hand. Hearing a small voice on the phone say, “When are you coming back?” and realising that no amount of birdies can quite fill that gap.
The irony is that golf teaches you so much about being a good parent. Patience when things don’t go your way. Acceptance when a perfect swing still results in a bad bounce. The ability to stay calm after a triple bogey – or a sleepless night. And most importantly, the understanding that progress is not linear. One step forward, two steps back, and then suddenly, out of nowhere, magic.
Of course, the child doesn’t care about your world ranking, your scoring average, or how pure your 5-iron is. To them, you are simply “Dad”. The man who makes funny faces, tells bad jokes, and somehow always smells of grass and sunscreen. In that moment, you’re not a professional athlete. You’re a superhero. A slightly jet-lagged, stiff-backed, putting-challenged superhero, but a superhero nonetheless.
Walking out of the house with a golf bag when your world is suddenly the size of a crib is tougher than any first tee shot. You know this is your job. You know this is what you’ve trained for all your life. Yet a part of you wonders if a birdie putt is worth missing a first smile, a first stretch, a first time he wraps his fingers around yours.
Golf has always been a jealous companion. It wants your mornings, your evenings, your weekends, your best years, and occasionally, your spine. Fatherhood wants your heart, your time, and your presence. Balancing the two is like trying to play a draw with a driver that only knows how to fade.
But something else changes too. A bad round no longer ruins your sleep — because you’re not sleeping anyway. A missed cut hurts a little less — because somewhere, a little boy thinks you’re the best in the world regardless of what the leaderboard says. Perspective, like a well-struck wedge, suddenly lands softly and close to the pin.
Every locker room has these stories. Hardened professionals showing photos of their children instead of swing videos. Conversations about shaft flex replaced by discussions on milk formula. Tough men who have stared down final-round pressure getting misty-eyed while talking about a newborn’s grip strength.
And then there’s the humour. Practising putting while rocking a cradle with your foot. Falling asleep during physio because the real workout happened at 3 a.m. Discovering that the only thing more unpredictable than your short game is a baby’s sleep pattern.
Still, if those recent champions are anything to go by, maybe babies really do bring a bit of stardust. Maybe they arrive carrying calm, clarity, and the strange ability to make a grown man swing a little freer, worry a little less, and smile a little more.
Golfing fathers also become philosophers. You start seeing life in strokes and holes. Some days are pars – steady, uneventful, good. Some are birdies – rare, beautiful, to be celebrated. And some… well, some are triple bogeys, where you just pick up, smile, and move on to the next tee, hoping tomorrow’s hole is kinder.
So to all the golfing fathers out there, past, present, and freshly initiated into the brotherhood of dark circles and deep joy — here’s to the tiny lucky charms who wait at home. They may not understand pars and putts yet, but they already understand something far more important: that their dad is a hero.
And who knows? One day, when a small boy asks, “Did you win today, Papa?” the answer might just be, “Every day, son. Every single day.”
Rahil Gangjee is a professional golfer, sharing through this column what life on a golf course is like
Disclaimer: The views expressed are the author’s own and do not reflect the official policy or position of Financial Express.