As we know, the players in a golf tournament keep score, and they take a part in keeping the rules as well.

This is probably one of the hardest things to do: call a penalty on one of the players in your group. I know that Will really had a tough time with calling a penalty - at first he thought the other players would be mad at him and that they would think he was "mean."

I tried to teach Will to look at it from a different point of view: that he had an opportunity to demonstrate good sportsmanship.

It's entirely within another players' right to point out that one of his playing partners is about to make a mistake that would lead to a penalty stroke.

For example, when someone moves their ball out of the way on the green, it's okay to remind them to put their ball back in its original position before they putt the ball- otherwise it would be a 1-stroke penalty.

Will found that his playing partners appreciated his reminder - but he needed to wait until he was pretty sure that the other player was about to make a mistake - but not wait so long that he had to yell at them during their back-swing!

From a "sportsmanship" standpoint, don't watch a player in your group commit a penalty that you aware of without saying something.

At times Will thought that he might go ahead and let them make a rules violation because what if that player ended up beating him by 1-stroke for the tournament win? We talked about it and Will decided that he never wanted to win just because someone else made a mistake - if he were to win the tournament he wanted it to be because he was the better player that day.

Think of the rules in golf as a way to demonstrate your good sportsmanship.

As a parent watching the players, we have to keep in mind that we are not part of the score keeping or rules process. So while it might be difficult to keep quite, we have to let the players learn competitive golf without our "help."

While I never got so excited that I "called a penalty" during a tournament - I sure am glad I kept quite because in almost every instance when I asked Will after the round it turned out that I was I wrong about the rule!

Will was about 12 years old when I realized that he knew a lot more about the rules of golf than I did. I have kept quiet ever since.