I can’t help but be a little proud of our young players at my workplace. This weekend we had a tournament format on, designed to get our regular members to pay and play. Play with the young golfing stars together, but also to donate money toward their training and travel expenditure. That alone reaches new highs of cost lately. As they compete internationally these days. Like Falko, who was the only German teeing up for the Junior Ryder Cup in the U.S. this year. Or won the British Boys Championship in Scotland earlier this year.

Everyone had a great day, despite the rain. And I have to say, our members were very generous for our standards. A couple of thousand Euros could be raised in one day. But after all, there were quite a few champs and some Pros present. The German Junior Champion 2014, 2015 and 2016 (three different youngsters, one  of which already turned playing Pro), the British Boys Champion 2016, The German Ladies Champion 2016,  the runners up of the European Junior Team Championsship, 50% of the German National Junior Team (they all happen to be members with us), the winner of the Jaques Leglise Trophy 2016, a Junior Ryder Cup player and so forth.

Of course I knew all this beforehand, and meet the youngsters in everyday working life on a regular base. Get annoyed, when they forget to enlist to competitions in time or book their starting times in advance. Or when they do enlist for tournaments at home, forgetting, that they are travelling elsewhere to play. After all, they are just regular teenagers. Albeit nice ones and normally on excellent behaviour.

But when I saw that accumulation of silver made into trophies presented on one table in our clubhouse this weekend, all that glitter made me proud and happy. Most impressive, of course, was the 90 year old British Boys trophy, made of pure sterling silver and just shipped from Britain, after Falko’s name had been engraved. It’s the big one in the middle, featuring big names like Jose Maria Olazabal and Sergio Garcia on it. They, too, once started out as Juniors at a regular golf club somewhere.