Reynolds Plantation on Lake Oconee

Golfers always have the same reaction when they see this 9-year-old boy in a Boston Red Sox cap walk onto the practice range at the Great Waters Course. “Cute kid.” Within the time it takes for three or four swings, their reaction changes to, “Who the heck is that kid?”

It never fails.  The only variation is how far their jaws drop once they see the kid stripe a few shots.  Iron shots that hit the target, over and over.  Drives rifled 240 yards, again and again.  Like a machine. But the kid is no machine.  He is, well, just a kid.

Meet Matthew Kowalewski.  Typical fourth-grader.  Enjoys video games, fishing and hanging out with his dog, Pal.  Excels at math and science.  Constantly plays sports – as a left-winger on his ice hockey team, center on his basketball team, catcher-first baseman on his baseball team.  And the Red Sox cap almost never comes off.  He has been known to sleep in it.  A good-size kid, at 5-foot-3, 120 pounds.  But pretty much the average boy.

Until he swings a golf club.  There is nothing average or typical about Matthew Kowalewski then. “He is very athletic,” says Ryan Frisch, an assistant pro at Great Waters who is Matthew’s golf instructor.  “It comes to him very naturally.”

The Kowalewskis' moved to Reynolds Plantation two years ago came almost as naturally.  When the family of three moved from New York to Charlotte, N.C. in 2003, they immediately started looking for a second home at Reynolds Plantation, where Chris and Joanna had vacationed in the past.  Within a year, they purchased a cottage at Great Waters, which has been home for most of the past three summers.

“I think we might have more friends here at Reynolds Plantation than we do in Charlotte,” said Chris, an executive with Compass Group, a large, national catering corporation.  And it doesn’t bother them that around Reynolds Plantation they are becoming better known as “Matthew’s parents.” 

Although both have athletic backgrounds – Chris as a basketball player and Joanna in track and field – Chris didn’t take up golf seriously until he was in his 20s, and Joanna learned to play after they married so she could go out on the course with Chris.  Their son, however, is another story.  He picked up a golf club not long after he could walk and loved going to the practice range and putting green with the parents.  By age 3 Matthew already had a solid, natural swing.  Now, after a few years of formal lessons, he competes in national-level tournaments.

“We’ve really taken the approach that it has to be fun for him,” Chris Kowalewski said.  “As long as it’s something he wants to do, he can be as serious as he likes.”

Nonetheless, Matthew is not, his parents insist, on the Michelle Wie fast track to golfing fame and fortune.  While they can appreciate what the 16-year-old from Hawaii has done, already competing against – and beating – players on the men’s and women’s pro tours, that does not mean it would be the best thing for Matthew.

“We try to stay in the background and not push,” Chris Kowalewski said.  “But we are also lucky.  We can give him the resources he needs – great courses to play, good equipment and instruction.  But if he said tomorrow, ‘I don’t want to do it,’ that’s fine.”

So far, playing golf tournaments all summer long is fine with Matthew.  In July, he participated in the U.S. Kids Golf World Championship and the inaugural U.S. Kids Golf World Cup at Pinehurst Resort in Charlotte.  He placed 62nd out of 94 worldwide participants.  His score qualified him for the national event, taking place at Jekyll Island, Ga., in February 2007.

While Matthew is old enough to understand that winning is important, his parents want to make sure he knows that not winning is OK, too. “I told Matthew going into the World Championships that whether he finished first, 10th or 94th, it’s no big deal,” Chris Kowalewski said.

Indeed, there are a lot more important things to a 9-year-old than winning golf tournaments.  Even if he happens to have a jaw-dropping swing.