There are quite a few younger competitors for Tiger Woods these days, many of whom are in their early twenties. However, not many golf prodigies are found before kindergarten, as is the case with 5-year-old California golf prodigy Bryant Hernandez.
Currently, Hernandez is playing in the 6-and-under divisions of the Callaway Junior Tour, Future Champions Tour, and the US Kids Golf Junior Tour. Not only is he playing in highly competitive leagues, he is also the current points leader in the local US Kids Golf Junior Tour for Player of the Year honors.
“He loves it,” father Victor Hernandez says. “His mentality is to just have fun. He knows he’s going to go play with friends. Obviously he likes medals and likes trophies. But I told him it doesn’t matter where you end up, as long as he does his best.”
“From the first day I noticed him,” golf professional Steve Labarge said. “During the camp we break out into two sections. One works on short game and the other on the long game. While working on his short game and putting I noticed his touch and feel and sense of the stroke were pretty incredible for a 4-year-old.”
Larbarge was amazed at how advanced Hernandez’s motor skills and hand eye-coordination for a child at that age were. He decided to go talk to his father and put out some feelers about possibly getting Hernandez some lessons and entering him in some tournaments.
“I just observed the fact that he was more talented than the other kids. I just mentioned to his dad about his son’s ability to create feel with the swing and hand eye coordination.”
Hernandez quickly found himself taking lessons with Labarge where they worked on the basic fundamentals of the golf swing.
“At that age you can’t give a whole lot of detailed instruction. He has a natural swing. The main thing I focus on him with are primarily the fundamentals of alignment, making sure when he hits the ball his body position is the same,” Labarge said. “The swing thought I give him is to swing smoothly.”
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