At age 11, Nick Staub plays a masterful game
While 21-year-old Jordan Spieth was on his way to winning the Masters last weekend, Nick Staub was putting on a Spieth-like performance of his own at Wycliffe Golf & Country Club in Wellington.
Staub was on the winning twosome in two nine-hole matches on Wycliffe’s East course that involved three professionals and the club champion.
For 18 holes, Staub shot a 3-under-par 69 with five birdies on his own ball from the white tees, which played to about 6,100 yards.
Not bad for an amateur. Especially one who’s 11 years old.
“That was fun, playing with all those people,” said Staub, who hit every fairway and sank several clutch par putts of 6-8 feet.
For the first nine, which nearly 200 people came out to see, Staub teamed with Wycliffe’s director of golf Lynn Stebbins for a 3 and 1 victory over PGA assistant professional Robb Heering Jr. and Leo Chivers, who is in the process of becoming a PGA professional.
Staub then asked if they could keep playing. He and Heering got off to a fast start, as Staub birdied the first two holes. They went on to beat Chivers and club champ Rick Eisenberg 2 and 1.
“It’s fun to watch someone with that much talent at that age,” Eisenberg said.
It’s even more enjoyable when that someone is enthusiastic, yet pleasant and well-mannered.
“He’s a great kid,” Heering said. “His poise and his knowledge of the game are way above his age.”
Which is what PGA Tour pros are saying about Spieth.
Since taking a few golf lessons to learn the funda- mentals, Staub has taught himself to play.
His strengths are his driving — he hits the ball 240-245 yards — and his wedge play.
Staub says he tries to swing “smooth and easy and not try to rip it. If I tried to rip it I could hit it 260, 265, but then I could hit it 160.”
“He plays at an elite level for sure,” Heering said. “His short game is phenomenal.
“For his age ... if he can continue that and get better than what he already is in terms of his short game, the sky’s the limit.”
Staub was introduced to golf at 21 months by his father, Peter, director of tennis at Valencia Pointe in Boynton Beach. Dad gave his son a driver, and although Staub is right-handed, he swung the club left-handed.
He said he got serious about golf after winning his first tournament at age 4. He has won 68 junior events, including a U.S. Kids Golf World Championship at Pinehurst when he was 8 and the 10-11 division of the prestigious Doral/Publix Junior Classic in December, when he shot 72-73 to win by seven shots.
Nick also played tennis, but he was never as serious about it as he was about golf.
“He was good at tennis, he had good hand-eye, but for some reason he was laughing in the middle of the rallies, just goofing off. It was fun for him,” Peter Staub said. “When he plays golf, even when he goes to the par-3 executive course, he has his game face. It meant a lot more to him.”
Home-schooled by his mother, Sue, who said he was reading at a fifth-grade level when he was 5, Nick plays or practices at Indian Spring Country Club in Boynton Beach just about every day.
Although Nick’s goal is to play on the PGA Tour, he would like to play college golf and get an education.
Steve Hollander, a retired marketing expert who lives at Wycliffe, met the Staub family when he lived in Boynton Beach. He helped arrange some clinics that Nick conducted during winter break for youngsters who were visiting Wycliffe.
Hollander also helped set up the match, which left the Wycliffe members impressed, and which he hopes will result in Nick being allowed to take advantage of the club’s excellent practice facilities and golf courses.
In the process, said Heering, that will help grow the game by attracting other youngsters to the sport.
“You want to help them,” Heering said, “especially kids that have a burning passion for it like Nick.”