Real Live: I am my children’s cab

This is Alicia, 48 years old, a golfer with two children. She is interested in sustainability and tries to live it. But real life sometimes looks different from what advisors and experts convey. So she writes her diary of a sustainable golfer. And today she struggles with driving.

I’ll put it bluntly now. Golf moms are not environmentally friendly. Not possible. Not if the golf club is 15 kilometers away and two children play in two age groups, as in my family.

Luca 10 years, age 12 team, team training twice a week, 1 x fitness training, 1 x individual lesson.

Lotte, 15 years old, women’s team, age 16 team, national squad. It feels like training all the time.

And there are tournaments at the weekend.

I drive a car. Daily. Back and forth. School – golf club. Home – golf club. Regional training center – home. No, two children never have school at the same time, they never have training at the same time and they also have this and that. Tick vaccinations, occupational therapy, brace checks and things like that. They go to their friends in the neighbourhood by bike or scooter. This is environmentally friendly. But they do that without me. I drive a car.

I do that 400 to 500 kilometers a week. Pure training and tournament kilometres for the kids. No, I don’t have an electric car yet, but the old car with the large trunk. No sensible person with two golfing children and all the trolleys, dirty golf shoes and cookie crumbs in the car buys new cars all the time. Sorry, but after two years they are entirely scuffed. Also from the outside, by the way, because in all the driving, parking and loading and unloading I simply overlook a post from time to time. That makes a few scratches at the car. This lowers the resale value. So, I continue to drive the old station wagon.

Last year, we spent three days on vacation in St. Andrews. Home of Golf, you have to do it, my husband and I. In the evening we went for a walk past the academy, right next to the large putting green. Lots of bikes were lying on the ground, a bunch of boys and girls were hanging around the putting green. Putting, chatting – no parents in sight. The academy is five minutes by bike from the city centre.

Then I realized: this is what heaven on earth looks like for golf moms. Golf in the city. Close to home, environmentally friendly, reachable by bike, time-saving.

A distant dream.

But even golf moms can have dreams.