There are two types of junior golf parents: the ones who think a tournament bag needs water, sunscreen, and a granola bar, and the ones who’ve been doing this for a few years.
Junior golf tournaments are basically outdoor expeditions that happen to keep score. You’re often miles from the clubhouse, the weather changes every twenty minutes, someone always gets a blister, and golf shoes seem to wait until the walk to the first tee to fall apart. After enough tournaments, your trunk stops looking like a car and starts looking like a mobile urgent care clinic crossed with a hardware store. Here’s what’s earned permanent residency in ours.
First aid, and “well, that’s new”
These are the things you hope you never need — and the things that make you everyone’s favorite parent the moment someone else does.
- Band-aids, assorted sizes
- Liquid skin
- Blister bandages
- Neosporin
- Alcohol wipes
- Anti-itch cream or After Bite
- Nail clippers
- Nail file
- Mini scissors
- Thermometer
Put all of it in one small zippered pouch. You don’t want to be digging through the trunk while someone’s bleeding on the practice green.
The medicine cabinet
Always check tournament rules before giving medication to anyone other than your own child. For our own family, we never leave home without:
- Children’s or chewable ibuprofen, for kids who can’t swallow pills
- Benadryl
- Tums
- Pepcid
- Sudafed, for the surprise allergy or sinus mornings
You’d be amazed how many rounds get saved by a couple of antacids.
Prevention beats treatment
An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of emergency improvisation.
- Sunscreen
- Bug spray
- Lip balm
- A dryer sheet — seriously, plenty of parents swear it keeps gnats away
- Wet wipes
- Dude Wipes
- Mini deodorant
Nothing says “long tournament day” like realizing at hole 14 that you’ve been sweating in 95-degree humidity since 7am.
The golf stuff that somehow disappears
Some items evaporate during tournaments. Always have extras.
- Golf gloves
- A rain glove
- Rangefinder battery
- Tees
- Golf balls
- Shoe laces — don’t ask why, junior golf has apparently declared war on shoe laces specifically
We’ve seen kids borrow a whole club before they’d borrow a spare shoelace. But you’ll be the hero the day someone’s lace snaps during warmups.
The “I didn’t think we’d need this” pile
Random items that solve surprisingly large problems.
- Portable phone charger
- Rubber bands
- Safety pins
- Carabiner
- Eyeglass wipes
- Cash — because the snack shack’s card machine will absolutely go down the moment your kid wants lunch
- Travel toilet paper
That last one sounds excessive until it isn’t.
The golden rule
Keep everything in one plastic tote in the back of the car. When you get home from a tournament, replace whatever got used before you forget. It takes five minutes, and it means you’re never scrambling the night before the next event — tournament mornings are stressful enough without discovering at 6:15am that your last band-aid, glove, battery, and tube of sunscreen all disappeared three tournaments ago.
Final thought
Junior golf has a way of humbling even the most prepared families. You’ll forget something. Your kid will forget something. Another family will forget something. That’s part of it. But with this kit in the trunk, you’ll spend a lot less time putting out fires and a lot more time actually enjoying the day. You might even become that parent — the one everyone quietly turns to when somebody says, “does anyone happen to have…”
See also: Preparing for Rain, Preparing for Cold Weather, and Planning for Heat for what else belongs in the car beyond this kit.