Young golfer Eli Perng is going places

He may be only 11 years old but St. Davids Public School student Eli Perng has had a golf club in his hands for more than 10 years already. 

Just back from a trip to Pebble Beach, one of golf’s meccas where the youngster shot 80 from the red tees, Eli is not letting this week’s colder Niagara temperatures slow down his progress. He’ll be practicing his swing all winter in the Perng family’s St. Davids living room, where his father Richard has set up a golf simulator. 

The Local caught up with Richard and Eli, along with Eli’s proud grandmother Corinne Bosch of Grimsby, at Eagle Valley Golf Club and Academy. That’s where he trains with U.S. Kids-certified instructor Travis Glass. 

“My grandmother bought me those plastic clubs when I was 11 months old,” says Eli. “They would set up tennis balls in a line and I would whack them with my clubs.”

Richard says his son used to sleep with those plastic clubs in his hands. 

When he celebrated his third birthday it was time to replace the toys with some actual golf clubs. Eli would spend hours in the backyard hitting balls with his new sticks and his father, a radiologist with Niagara Health and an avid golfer himself, would take him along to Eagle Valley to practice. He met Travis a year later and began to take lessons from him.

“By seven years old he was taking individual lessons,” Glass tells The Local, “and slowly he started competing. Over the years he’s been gradually building his game and getting better and better and better. I wouldn’t say he does any specific part of his game any better than other juniors. He’s just very good at pretty much every part of it.”

As Eli gets older, Glass opines, that all-around aspect of his game will benefit him greatly in longer tournaments. And the fact that Eli will stop at Eagle Valley to hit balls before school and return after the school day is over for more practice and lessons bodes well for his future. 

The oldest of five children, Eli has fallen completely in love with the game. Though he also plays travel hockey with the NOTL Wolves, golf is the mature, gregarious young man’s first love. And he realizes that even if he may possess some kind of natural talent for the sport, he does indeed need to put in the effort to hone his skills. 

“I’ve been working on my swing for a very long time,” says Eli. “I feel pretty confident in it, but there are still some things I need to improve. Number one is my club head speed, and my personal trainer is helping me with that. Number two is getting my attack angle from the inside.”

That analytical approach shows through his Instagram page, @golfwitheli, where one can find evidence of his smooth, nearly flawless swing. 

That page caught the attention of Foresight Golf Canada at a tournament last year. Foresight is a manufacturer of simulator systems and launch monitors. They ended up sponsoring Eli by helping to outfit him with his own launch monitor, making it easier for him to work out the kinks   

And it was Foresight who sent him and his father, along with three other young golfers and their chaperones, to Pebble Beach to play in the 32nd annual Legends Invitational Tournament.

There he rubbed shoulders with Navy SEALs and a number of NFL legends, including Marshall Faulk, Jim McMahon, Steve Largent, Jan Stenerud and his team captain, Kenny Greene, a former safety with the St. Louis Cardinals and San Diego Chargers. They signed a football that Eli was able to take home with him.

“Words can’t describe how incredible the trip was,” says Eli. “It is one of the homes of golf. Seeing all the holes that the pros play on TV and having the chance to play those exact holes was amazing. 

“It was the first time they had a junior team play in this tournament,” adds Richard. “Foresight wanted to have four juniors, so they picked three American kids and one international, Eli. They came fourth in their flight. The entrance fee was $40,000 per team and Foresight paid for all of it.”

It was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, says Richard. But his son has already played in three world championships. The game has taken him to the Irish Open and to the Under Armour World Junior Championships in Orlando, Florida. He’s also played Pinehurst, another perennial PGA Tour stop and site of many U.S. Opens. They’ve turned down chances for Eli to play in Dubai, Australia and Brazil, as well. 

And Eli carded his first hole in one at a U.S. Kids tournament at Chedoke Golf Club in Hamilton earlier this year..

The Grade 6 student says his goal is to get a golf scholarship to an NCAA college and hopefully follow the path of his favourite golfers, Tiger Woods and Matt Fitzpatrick of the U.K. to the PGA Tour. 

According to Richard, it won’t be too long before the college scouts start paying more attention to him, too. He feels Eli is at a bit of a disadvantage living in Canada, though, where he can’t play golf year-round. 

But that simulator in the Perng living room will be busy in between hockey games and practices from now until the courses open, though he’ll have to share it with younger siblings Winnie, Coco, Harrison and Margot and maybe even his mother, Crystal. And he’ll even play in a few online golf tournaments in an attempt to keep him in the eyes of the golf world. 

As for Richard, he has had to swallow a bit of a tough pill this year. 

“He beats me on the golf course more than I beat him now,” he laughs. “Last year I was beating him seven out of ten times, this year he’s beating me six out of ten. The ball is always on the fairway, he just doesn’t miss.”