For the version of this essay read by KVV, listen to the audio above.

What’s your favorite sporting event that you’ve ever been to?

To be honest, I’d have to think long and hard before choosing mine.

As someone who has worked in sports media for almost 25 years, I’ve been spoiled in ways a teenage boy who grew up in Montana never could have imagined. I’ve been to four Super Bowls and a handful of Masters, several Open Championships and half dozen National Championships, a couple Olympics and even a World Series game. As I get older, it gets harder to pick a favorite. It all blends together into a quilt of adventures.

My 12-year-old daughter, Keegan, on the other hand, has a pretty definitive answer to that question. I know because I asked her Sunday night while driving back to Baltimore from Manassas, Virginia.

The best sporting event she’s ever been to, without question, was the 2024 Solheim Cup, when she watched her friend Lauren Coughlin go undefeated over three days, including a gritty Sunday performance that was essential in holding off a spirited European comeback and let the Americans capture the trophy for the first time since 2017.

It’s still a surreal thing to say out loud: Not only do I have a 12-year-old daughter who loves golf, who will jump out of bed at 6 a.m. and drive to another state with me so we can watch a tournament together, but we’re also lucky enough to know someone on the Solheim Cup team, someone who greeted us with a hug on the first tee and immediately started introducing us to her teammates.

I know the LPGA is an imperfect organization, and certainly, from a logistical standpoint, this was an imperfect week. If you were one of the parents who tried to take your kids to the Friday session and had to wait in line for a shuttle for three hours, I can’t imagine you want to hear what a wonderful week me and my kid had walking inside the ropes, fist-bumping American players.

But I will give the LPGA credit for this: I think the organization’s heart is in the right place on a lot of stuff. A year ago, they reached out and asked if I’d be interested in bringing my daughter to Solheim. She could even be a junior reporter if she wanted.

Their reasoning?

They want more dads to embrace the idea of connecting with their daughters through golf.

Personally, I think we’re a case study of how your DNA doesn’t have to determine your golf swing because while my swing looks like water buffalo in roller skates trying to hurl an ax, my daughter Keegan’s swing inspires compliments from strangers on a regular basis.

Golf has always been flush with stories about fathers and sons who bond over a lifetime of back nine strolls. You can pick up, literally, dozens of books on the subject, some of them moving and some of them maudlin. But there is significantly less literature out there about fathers imparting life lessons to their daughters on the links. There are more women picking up the game now than at any other time in the sport’s history — almost a 15 percent increase since 2020. But a significant part of that growth is being led by young professionals, women who didn’t start playing until they were in their 20s or 30s.

There has been real progress made, but golfing dads are still more likely — both statistically and anecdotally — to nudge their sons toward the game than they are their daughters.

I’ve always felt like shining a bigger spotlight on the Solheim Cup would be a way to supercharge additional growth. Let’s be honest, stroke play is often a snooze, even for those of us who love the game. Tethering your daughter to a couch and telling her to pay close attention as someone goes through a two-minute putting routine that’s bookended by two erectile dysfunction commercials sounds like a great way to have her talk about you in therapy instead of talk to you in a golf cart.

But team golf is something else entirely.

Team Golf is a party you want to be invited to.

There is music and dancing on the first tee, whether you’re into Taylor Swift, Chappell Roan or Metallica. There are celebrations after putts. There is hooting and hollering and hugging after big shots. There is an infectious joy that radiates from the players and then ripples through the crowd like an electric current.

You could see all that unfolding this week at Robert Trent Jones Golf Course, and see normally demure personalities like Rose Zhang and Nelly Korda bouncing on the balls of their feet and whipping the crowd into a frenzy. Megan Khang was flexing like a professional wrestler after every big putt. Charley Hull strutting from tee to green, a cigarette often dangling from her lips, looking like a radiant, unapologetic movie star.

I love the Solheim Cup because it asks a dozen women, all from very different backgrounds, to bond over something bigger than themselves for a week, and the reward isn’t just a trophy, it’s the satisfaction and pride of knowing you and your brethren are capable of representing more than your individual interests.

If there is a better parenting lesson, I haven’t found it.

Keegan and I talked about all of that over the course of three days. We talked about whether Chappell Roan’s “Hot To Go” would make a good first tee walkup song, but we also talked about when to give putts in match play and when to get aggressive on approach shots and whether you’d rather hit a draw or a fade off the tee on certain holes. We followed our favorite players, but also players we barely knew, studying their games with the intensity of a religious scholar. At one point I couldn’t resist teasing her: If you got to meet Nelly Korda, do you think you'd tell her you dressed up as her for Halloween when you were eight? She turned a beautiful shade of fuschia.

Along the way, something fun happened: Roughly two dozen dads tracked us down to say hello. Maybe read something I’d written about Keegan, or seen pictures of us golfing together, but it was the nudge they needed to start going on similar adventures with their own daughters. Some of them, granted, were still in the early stages, the days where you ride in a cart at dusk and barely hit putts, but returns were promising.

“Make sure you bring lots of snacks,” was Keegan’s stock answer when those dads joked if she had any additional golfing advice.

Personally, it seemed like good life advice to me.

But if nothing else, it was a good laugh line, delivered by a girl who has, through golf, seen her self-confidence soar in recent years. She also wanted to tell them not to make the mistake I often do of wearing three different shades of blue in public, but we’re not quite there yet when it comes to zingers and strangers.

We’ve all heard that cliche that 90 percent of parenting is just showing up, but in my experience, that simplifies it a bit too much. A lot of parenting is also sharing the things you love with your kids, and watching their own love blossom in whatever direction they choose to take it, like branches of a tree stretching toward sunlight that’s entirely their own.

One of the best things you can do as a dad is introduce your kids to people you respect and admire, because no parent, no matter how wise or funny or rich or good with a wedge they are, is going to have all the answers. You’re better off if you put your faith in the collective strength of teammates, which is a roundabout way of telling you that Lauren Coughlin gave my daughter two gifts this week, each of which I would never have been capable of.

The first came on Saturday afternoon, when we met her on the first tee, and peppered her with questions about her first three matches, all victories. She filled in the details, then uttered a question I suspect Keegan will never, ever forget: Do you want to meet Nelly?

The LPGA captured the interaction and shared it on social media. Maybe you already saw it. But even if they had not, I think it would still be imprinted in my brain, and in my heart, for the rest of my days.

Nelly Korda leaned over and asked my little Keegan if she was a golfer.

“Yeah,” my daughter answered with a mixture of wonder and trepidation.

“She has a great swing too,” Lauren quickly chimed in.

Nelly Korda, owner of one of the most elegant golf swings in history, nodded with approval.

“Well, keep hitting them straight.”

The following day, things were looking dicey for the United States. They’d built a big lead the first two days behind Nelly and Lauren and Rose, but now Europe was surging, and every match felt vitally important. Lauren was down three to Maja Stark at one point, but we’d watched her claw back to even. If the United States was going to hang on, Lauren couldn’t lose her match.

When Lauren hit her approach on the 17th hole to 15 feet, and Maja hit hers to four feet, I started preparing a dad speech in my head.

It was about how loving sports often means you have to learn to absorb massive disappointment. There is no script, just like in life, and sometimes you’re going get crushed by the thing you love. I planned to remind her — probably through my own tears — that Lauren had so much to be proud of for the week, it just wasn’t her day, or the United States’ day. But I kept the speech to myself and instead posed a question.

“What do you think is gonna happen?”

“I think Lauren is going to make her putt,” Keegan said.

I said a prayer to the golfing gods as I watched the ball trickle toward the hole. Then I let out a roar when it tumbled in.

Keegan and I hugged like true believers, even though my faith had wavered, while hers apparently never did.

She made up the difference for both of us.

We didn’t even mind when Maja Stark rolled in her own birdie. We knew Lauren wasn’t going to lose, not after being tested like that. And on 18, she earned a crucial half a point, setting the stage for Lillia Vu to win the Cup with a tie in the very next match.

I can’t get you inside the ropes at an LPGA event, but if you’re listening to this, and you’re lucky enough to have a daughter, take her out on the golf course this fall.

Bring a speaker. Learn the words to Taylor Swift or Chappell Roan songs. Put a club in her hand. Bring lots of snacks.

You’ll be blown away by the gifts you might get in return.

Kevin Van Valkenburg is the Editorial Director of No Laying Up

Email him at kvv@nolayingup.com