The Drive Home

The Youth Athlete/Parent Dynamic (through our lens as Junior Golf parents)

By: Mark McKinney, Britt McKinney

Narrated by: Virtual Voice

A portion of every book sold will go to support Youth On Course (https://youthoncourse.org/) which provides access to members to over 1,700 golf courses for $5 or less.

The parent/athlete relationship is complex, rewarding, terrifying and satisfying - all at the same time. Watching our kids compete can create amazing bonds, or it can risk damaging family relationships altogether. That line can be thin and a slippery slope if the journey is approached with mismatched goals, unrealistic expectations, and a mom or dad who ‘wants it’ more than the player does.

This book is a look at that dynamic in great detail through the lens of junior golf and our journey as a family. This is not a resource to teach you how to raise the most successful golfer - more so, it is about taking our advice as you start your journey so that you can avoid many of the mistakes that we made as parents and as a family. Golf is an amazing game that will teach us so much about life, adversity, overcoming, failing and succeeding, hurting and healing, winning and losing with grace – and we are all better off if we let it happen organically and enjoy the moments along the way.


We invite you to take to heart the advice shared herein by 38 prominent coaches, mentors, business leaders, and college and professional athletes as they provide their answers to these two questions:

• How can parents most effectively support their child(ren) as a junior athlete(s)?
• What is one piece of advice you have for a junior athlete?

The list of those sharing advice includes Clemson University Head Coach Dabo Swinney, Dr. Mark Broadie - father of the Strokes Gained metric, Scott & Susan McNealy (parents of PGA Tour pro Maverick McNealy), renowned sports psychologist Dr. Matt Krug, famed women's college golf coaches Jeanne Sutherland, Heather Brown and Angie Ridgeway, Emmy Award winning Asia Mape who founded ILoveToWatchYouPlay.com, coach and author Renee Lopez, New York Times best-selling author Don Yaeger, co-founder of Operation 36 Ryan Dailey, highly respected Mental Coach & author Tami Matheny, NFL great and 1992 Heisman finalist Garrison Hearst, and more. The heartfelt, honest, and hard-hitting advice to both parents and juniors is priceless and should help you avoid those car rides home in silence.

Our hope is that in reading this book, you will be vulnerable enough to look in the mirror and see yourself in some of the pages and to ensure that above all else, you never lose sight of your athlete's 'why'.

About the Authors
Mark and Britt have been married for 25 years and have walked the fairways of junior golf tournaments for roughly 10 of those. They are the proud parents to two children, Katie Britt and Ben, reside in the upstate of South Carolina, and are proud members of the roller-coaster community of golf parents.

Mark is a graduate of Clemson University, works in the software industry, and has a passion for storytelling, laughter, and anything golf. Mark authored his first book, Faith on a Sticky Note, in 2010.

Britt is a lifelong educator with a passion for teaching and writing. She describes herself as an avid golf mom who gladly gives up vacations to walk the grass fairways instead of sandy beaches. Britt graduated from Georgia Southern University and also holds degrees from Furman University and Augusta University.