You hear it a lot from even the world’s best golfers.
One shot at a time.
While literally true — it’s all you’re allowed to hit at one time, after all — it’s not entirely true, because those with the skill to do such things, this shot should be played in a manner to make the next shot easier.
Also, the shot at hand must factor in many variables, including where not to end up.
At the highest levels, it can be something of a chess match.
And at this particular summer camp, golf includes an actual chess match. And basic tutorials.
“Both golf and chess are strategic games. You have to think about each shot and you have to think about each move,” says Brian Ashley, a longtime chess instructor who has become a summertime regular at junior golf camps at Venetian Bay in New Smyrna Beach.
Ashley, who moved here from California after retiring from home design, started his first chess school in Sausalito in 2004. Several years ago, after settling in at Venetian Bay and joining the golf club, he saw a poster touting an upcoming junior camp.
“I thought chess could be a great complement to junior golf,” he says.
“We started the summer camp in 2019, and Brian was bugging me about adding chess to the camp,” says Ben Herring, Venetian Bay’s general manager. “I just didn’t think the kids would be engaged enough to listen and understand chess, but Brian kept saying, ‘there’s a good application here.’
“I realized there’s a correlation that makes a lot of sense, but we have 5-to-11 year old kids at this camp, and I didn’t know if they’d be engaged.”
In order to “get him off my back,” Herring laughs, he gave Ashley one hour on the first day of camp three years ago. A few days later, when that week’s camp was coming to a close, the kids were asked to review all phases of the week.
“The highest-reviewed part of the entire camp was chess,” Ben says. “Every kid loved it. So after that I told Brian, ‘you now have one hour, every day, of every camp we ever do.’ ”
Ashley makes the most of his hour each day.
“The kids who know how to play start playing. The kids who don’t, they listen to a presentation,” he says. “With chess strategy, there are so many alternatives. It helps kids decide what’s best, and they try it. If it doesn’t work, they can try something else.
“It also teaches them it’s just a game. If you lose, there’s always another game.”
Venetian Bay scheduled two golf/chess camps this summer. The first was June 11-13, with the next one slated for July 16-18 (Tuesday through Thursday, 9 a.m. to 1:30 p.m.). It’s for kids 5-15 at a cost of $150.
Herring learned quickly about attention spans, particularly during the heat of summer, so he breaks up the mornings into short segments of golf instruction — chipping, putting, full swings — with breakout groups getting in games of kickball, cornhole or Wiffle ball.
And there’s a popsicle break in the middle.
“Popsicle breaks were incorporated first,” Herring says. “When it’s 90 degrees in the summer, if you’re only doing golf, they’re not associating golf with fun, they’re associating golf with hot.”
After that, it’s into the AC for lunch and chess, then back outside where the final 45 minutes are spent on the slip-n-slide. It’s not just a great way to make the most of a summer day, but it’s also a psychological endeavor.
“It ends their day with a great time,” Herring says. “We finish their day with them thinking, ‘I had a blast.’ We send them back to their parents smiling.
“That’s the first step to getting kids hooked on anything. If they go back home to mom and dad say, ‘I loved golf camp,’ even if it means they played some kickball, played some cornhole, some Wiffle ball, some chess … as long as they had fun at something called golf, that’s the key to getting them hooked.”
