The PGA Tour is returning to Utah for the first time in 61 years, and the most famous active player from the Beehive State will not be there. Tony Finau has a good excuse.
Finau will be in Frisco, Texas, with 12-year-old son Jraice as Team Utah competes in the 13U PGA Junior League Championship. Finau said he was “under quite a bit of pressure” to play and he plans to be at the Black Desert Championship in the years to come.
“But I can’t miss my son’s tournament,” he said at the Presidents Cup.
Finau has been his only coach, except for a few lessons with Boyd Summerhays, but he said Jraice is getting to an age when Finau might need to find him a permanent teacher.
“He’s not listening as well as he did when he was younger. That’s exactly how it works. I know exactly how it was,” Finau said with a smile. “He’s right at that age now where old man doesn’t know what he’s talking about anymore.”
Being the son of a famous father is never easy in golf, mainly because the children often have more comforts to lean on when the work starts getting tedious. Finau said the most important lesson he has taught Jraice is hard work and preparation.
“He’s very natural when he plays,” Finau said. “But I told him, ‘If you’re ever going to be great, like talent takes you to the doorsteps, to ever go through, your work ethic is what’s going to get you there.’
“I had to work hard and do those things because I was in a different situation,” he said. “I felt the pressure as a kid, my parents giving up everything they had for me to perform. My kids don’t feel that pressure. So teaching grit, I don’t know if there is such a thing. But I try to apply enough pressure as a parent to keep him accountable for what he wants to accomplish.”
Finau also said social media can be an obstacle because kids tend to see video of greatness without seeing all the years of work that went into getting there. Finau, a six-time PGA Tour winner, has played in two Ryder Cups and three Presidents Cups.
“We’re working at the course and we can go eat at a steakhouse later and he sees the glamorous life that we live,” Finau said. “But he didn’t see what I went through 25 years ago.”
This week in Texas, it’s about fun and competition. Finau finished speaking and headed back out to the course at Royal Montreal. His son is passionate about golf, and Finau is passionate just talking about his children.
“I could do that all day,” Finau said.
