It may be too soon to start making comparisons to Tiger Woods, but 15-year-old junior golfer Luke Powell of Laguna Niguel definitely shares the traits of a PGA Tour player.

“He reminds me of Justin Leonard when we were young,” said Wade Wilson, a PGA professional at El Niguel Country Club, where Powell has grown up playing golf. “Justin was well rounded socially as a kid but he knew at an early age that golf was his thing and he was really good at it. Luke is friendly, engages with people and enjoys conversation, but he is focused on his craft. At the ripe age of 15, he gets up every day and has a plan to be successful.”
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Those attributes have been paying off for Powell in 2020. A sophomore at Capistrano Valley Christian School, Powell competed in two of the biggest amateur events in the state this year, the California Amateur Championship July 27-August 1 at Torrey Pines, and the 121st SCGA Amateur Championship at Goose Creek Golf Club August 17-20 – when he was still 14 years old.

    Long before Eric Lohman was the PGA General Manager at Monarch Beach Golf Links in Dana Point, he was an accomplished junior player in the Coachella Valley who competed on the Southern California PGA Junior Golf Tour and later on the UCLA golf team.
​    With a combination of more than 25 years in the industry and his experiences growing up in the game, who better to seek out for advice on helping kids enjoy the game? 
​    Here is what we learned from the 2017 Southern California PGA Golf Professional of the Year who now sits on the Board as the Secretary of the SCPGA​:
Success can be measured many ways
    Does your child enjoy what they are doing and does their effort pay off with some sort of quantifiable result such as a win, a high finish, making a team, happiness, exercise or friendship? The answer to that question is different for everyone.  
    There should always be a goal, and if that goal is met – whatever it may be – it should be considered success. If I took 10 kids at age 6 and worked with them weekly for 12 years, they would all be different athletically, physically and emotionally at age 18, so their definition of success (and their parents’ definition) will likely be vastly different among the group.