Kaylee Gatlin, 10, sat stewing in the passenger seat of her father Spencer Gatlin’s truck as he pulled into the parking lot of Whisper Lake Golf Club, located down the street of their house in Madison, Mississippi. Thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic that reached the U.S. that year, the sixth grader couldn’t play team sports with her classmates. She couldn’t even eat lunch or sit beside them in class, with lockdown in place. Instead, she was often holed up at the house, and when she left, she had to wear masks amid a public-health crisis that interrupted her childhood.
To top off her displeasure, her dad insisted on teaching her golf, which she had hated up to that point and considered an “old man” sport.
Grabbing their golf clubs from the trunk, the pair entered the clubhouse to check in. The clerk handed over keys to a golf cart, which Spencer passed to Kaylee, who picked out a cart and took her place in the driver’s seat like she always did on golf outings with her dad—something that made her feel responsible at such an age…